In the House of Five Dragons
40. The Crown
“A great man died that night and the river of his blood would bear Carce to its destiny.”
— From Our Red History, by Avilla Sallusi
Thainna drifted up from the depths of sleep. She and Rikard had been dreaming about a garden of songs and crystal. Their thoughts remained mingled, even as the details quickly faded.
Something had woken Thainna. The sound came again, quiet but still audible. Footsteps… The slow footfalls of someone trying to be silent and very nearly succeeding. Only a lifetime in the back alleys of the Rows alerted Thainna to the danger and her stomach flipped in sudden terror. The sound had stirred Rikard, too — a campaign soldier’s ears were as good as those of any House thief’s — but without fear, he only pulled Thainna sleepily against him.
She sat up. The single lamp smoldered dimly and but for the low ember light of Dormaen below, the sky outside was still dark, smoky-starless and flat black as an assassin’s blade. Thainna stared into the shadow, tense and still. But she could see nothing strange. Maybe it had been just a breeze after all. Rikard tugged at her waist. He was strong and warm and inviting. Thainna lay back once more.
There! Something flickered against the wall, a man in a dark gray cloak.
“Rikard!” Thainna screamed.
The knight was on his feet in an instant, searching the bedroom with narrowed eyes. The cloaked figure sprang from the concealing shadows and covered the distance between them in a handful of sprinting strides. A short sword flashed from beneath his gray cape. He swung the blade in a deadly arc.
Rikard hurled himself back, narrowly avoiding the sword, and came down into a wide crouch. When the assassin pulled back to swing again, Rikard darted in. He blocked the blow at the wrist, grabbed and twisted until the sword came free. It fell and clanged on the floor. Thainna leapt from the bed, snatched up the sword and then jumped back out of reach.
The assassin slithered around and slammed his knee up into Rikard’s groin, making him and Thainna gasped in shared pain. She clutched her stomach, unaccustomed to the horrid, sick agony, but Rikard kept his head. He gritted his teeth and pulled back on the other man’s arm until it buckled. The assassin grunted and turned in toward Rikard, trying to regain mobility enough to resume his attack. Rikard hooked his right arm across the man’s throat. His metal-tipped forefinger quested for the telltale throb of his pulse and pressed. The other man writhed and struggled, but Rikard held fast. The beat faltered, weakened and then faded to a monotone buzz. Rikard let the suddenly limp body thump down to the floor.
Thainna approached warily. She felt quickly through Rikard’s senses for injury, but other than the fading cramp between his legs, found nothing. Still holding the sword as though it were a live snake, Thainna knelt beside the fallen assassin and pulled back his hood.
It was a small Nianese man, one she didn’t recognize. He was dressed in distinctly un-Carcaen tunic and leggings, all of the same unremarkable gray weave as his cloak. Thainna stared up at Rikard, who was reaching out with his strange otherworldly senses for any other attackers.
“Do you know him?” she asked.
Rikard looked down at the man and his narrow face for a long moment.
“No,” he said at last. Is he a House assassin? Has your Crest decided that he wants me dead?
Thainna carried the sword over to the lamp beside the bed and examined it closely. Curious, Rikard followed her.
Whoever this man works for, it’s not the House of Five Dragons, she decided. “I’ve known a lot of Talons and a few Flames. House assassins always use poison. Insurance, just in case the wound alone isn’t fatal.”
Rikard’s brow furrowed and he shook his head. If not the House of Five Dragons, then who?
The door banged open, making Thainna jump. With his fear still in Flickerdim’s care, Rikard looked up, wary but not scared. Another man stood silhouetted for a moment in the doorway and then stepped inside. Thainna snatched up a blanket and wrapped herself, blushing.
It was Gaius, but Thainna almost failed to recognize him. The younger Mazrem stood tall and proud. Purposeful. He wore his black VEIL armor, still dusted with colorless ash, and carried his father’s sword in his hand.
Gaius stopped at the foot of the dais and looked down at the fallen assassin. The man’s chest still rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm.
“It seems I’ve joined the party a little late,” Gaius said. “You should have killed him, Father. Still, it won’t matter much longer. This will all be over by dawn.”
“What?” Thainna brought the sword up awkwardly at Gaius, still holding the blanket with her other hand. “What are you talking about?”
Rikard put a hand on her shoulder. Don’t.
“Full of fire, as ever,” Gaius said with a smirk. “I see why you like her, Father. Put down the sword, my feisty little Fiori. I’m only here to deliver a warning, late though it seems to be. My mother sent this man. She intends to kill you, Father.”
Rikard stared. “No, she would never…! Laura… she…”
He couldn’t finish the thought. Nothing in the worlds made sense anymore. Gaius leveled a hard look at his father.
“She doesn’t love you, Rikard. She never loved you. You must know that. While you were away at war in Fiore, Mother was abed with Emperor Tychon. She’s always been an ambitious woman and now she wants you out of the way. So did I. You can’t imagine how happy I was when she told me about her plan.”
“Why?” asked Rikard. “Out of the way of what?”
“Of my ascension to the imperial throne. Mother meant to kill you and let the people blame Emperor Tychon. The Lyceum would demand his removal and with you dead, I would have been the natural choice to become emperor of Carce.”
Could that be true? Rikard reached into his son’s thoughts, but found only truth. Honest, brutal, and spoken with love.
“I think that she was relying on your all too public clashes with Tychon to damn him,” said Gaius. “Everyone would have assumed that he ordered your death. It wasn’t a bad plan, really.”
Guards poured through the door with Karl at their head. Every weapon was drawn. The young Lyncean bolted forward to stand over the fallen assassin, his sword held ready.
“Lord Mazrem, we heard a cry! What happened?”
“This man tried to kill Rikard,” Thainna answered. “Tie him!”
One of the guards ran to find rope and Karl eyed his still undressed master with an uncomfortable expression.
“Are you… are you alright, my lord?” he asked.
“Hae.” Rikard looked at Thainna. So long as I have you by my side, hae. Aloud, he said, “Do you trust these men, Karl?”
The young guardsman looked shocked. He glanced around at the others, divided between household guards and Star Court knights.
“Hae, my lord, I think so,” Karl said. “They’ve been watching the gate with me all night, most without sleep.”
“Take them with you and accompany my son to the imperial palace to speak to Emperor Tychon. We must tell him of my wife’s plan.”
Gaius smiled almost sadly and sheathed the sword. “No, Father. You do it. Go warn him in good faith and heal the breach between you.”
“But Laurael…”
“I’ll deal with Mother,” Gaius said firmly. Rikard began to protest, but Gaius raised his hand. “No, Father. You don’t even know her. You never did.”
Rikard nodded curtly, tears in his eyes. He dressed hurriedly in a saela, laid out to wear the following day. Thainna, too, found her discarded tabba and pulled it on as quickly as she could. She frowned at Gaius.
“You knew about this, but you never said anything. Why do it now?” she asked. “Why did you come to warn us?”
“It was hardly selfless, Thainna,” said Gaius. “Nothing I do ever is.”
“Why, then?”
“Mother always tried to make me like him, like my father. Act like him, look like him. I hated it.” Gaius had removed his sword belt and ran his fingers over the weapon’s worn hilt. He didn’t look up as he spoke. “Now, I actually want to be like him. Really like him, not just in looks. Even if it means Tychon executes me, too. I’d rather die like my father than live like my mother.”
Thainna nodded slowly, biting her lip. She understood. Rikard returned a moment later, fully dressed now. Gaius held the sword belt out to his father.
“Take this,” he said. “It’s yours, after all, and I don’t think that I’ll need it now. I came here expecting to stop an assassin, but… Well, as usual, you beat me to the point. Dormaen is still dangerous and I can’t have you dying before you reach Tychon.”
Rikard took his old sword and cinched the belt around his waist. After so long, the weight of it felt strange. He nodded to Gaius.
“Go safely and with my love,” he said in a thick voice.
“Thainna, keep an eye on the old man for me,” Gaius said. His mask was as hard and bright-polished as ever, but Rikard felt the deep reserve of respect and love beneath. Go quickly, Father, and under the watchful eye of your Alterra.
Rikard hugged Gaius close and kissed his son’s cheek. Gaius turned away before anyone could see tears in his eyes and strode from the room.
Thainna thrust the Nianese sword through the hastily-tied sash of her tabba. She might need it later. Her hands shook with fury, but not with the man on the floor. There was no point in being angry with the assassin. Thainna knew all too well how easy it was to take a job without thinking about the target. Maybe this man had children back home to feed.
But the one who hired him, Rikard’s own wife…
Why? How could she hate Rikard so much?
Karl stood stiffly at attention. “We’re ready, Lord Mazrem. I have ordered the fastest horses left in the stables saddled and brought to the gates.”
“We go at once,” Rikard announced.
Even under his orders, only nine men proved willing to venture out into Dormaen’s smoky, dangerous streets. Of Rikard’s house guard, only Karl and two others volunteered. Six knights and three guards reined their horses into a protective ring around their lord. Rikard pulled Thainna up into the saddle behind him. She wound her arms around his waist as the horses thundered down the hill and out the gates.
On the desolate roads, it was simple enough to avoid the noisy, roaming crowds calling for VEIL blood. A pack of men, streaked with soot and maddened by rage, prowled toward the Everstones. Rikard felt their approach and whistled sharply to Karl. As the men rounded the corner, Rikard and his guard spurred their horses into a run, scattering them like a handful of sand thrown into the wind. Angry cries chased Rikard through the night like vengeful ghosts.
They hate me, he mourned.
You’re their hero, Rikard. They’ll remember that, in time.
Dawn stained the eastern horizon with bloody red light as they rode into the city’s heart. The gates of the vast imperial palace were sealed, but ten minutes’ argument with the guards finally won them entrance.
Rikard pulled his horse to a halt beside a lion-headed fountain and leapt down from his saddle. Thainna landed behind him and together, they ran up the white marble stairs to the arched doors of Emperor Tychon’s palace. Knights in red armor stepped into their path and drew their swords.
“What’s your business in the palace at this hour?” one of them demanded.
“I have an urgent warning for the emperor,” Rikard said. “There is treachery in Dormaen tonight! Who are you? What are knights of the Sun Court doing on imperial grounds?”
The others raced in behind him, hands on hilts of swords. They were jumpy, nervous. The red-clad knights shifted uncomfortably, eyeing Rikard’s Star Court companions.
“Emperor Tychon set the Sun Court in charge of his guard, sir.”
“What? When was this?”
“Earlier this evening. He’s not to be disturbed,” the Sun knight answered.
He didn’t seem sure which man was more dangerous to upset, Emperor Tychon or Legens Mazrem.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the knight said.
“I have no time for your politics!” Rikard snarled.
He shoved past the Sun knights and through the wide doors. A pair of them broke off and trailed behind them, shouting protests. Thainna had to jog to keep up with Rikard’s longer strides. Karl and the Star Court knights marched behind in tight formation.
Do you know where we’re going? Thainna asked.
Tychon’s bed chambers.
Rikard shared the snatch of thought from one of the guardian Sun knights following them. Thainna nodded. Unwittingly guided by the men trying to stop them, they strode swiftly through the imperial palace.
Thainna struggled to keep up. Rikard moved quickly and there was so much to look at, far more than she could have taken in even if she spent the entire day making the journey. There were galleries and portrait-lined halls, sitting rooms and parlors. They passed a library filled by more books, scrolls and parchments than Thainna thought could ever have been written in the whole history of the two worlds. An audience chamber only slightly smaller than the entire Lyceum echoed with their pounding footsteps.
Turning the final corner, more knights came into view, all in identical red-dyed leather. Eleven of them, Thainna counted. Just like those outside, they started nervously and drew their broad-bladed swords. They stood forward and kept themselves between Rikard and the lavish doors they guarded.
“Out of my way! I must see Emperor Tychon at once,” Rikard said. Did every man in this place exist simply to keep him from protecting the emperor?
“His Imperial Majesty is sleeping, Legens Mazrem,” answered a knight with a deep scowl on his round, freckled face. “You can see him in the morning.”
“My business will not wait.” Rikard looked between the knights, taking in the marks of rank on their saela collars. “Where is your captain?”
“Captain Jaesun was just in to check on the emperor, and then he left on an errand.”
“Jaesun?” Rikard tore his sword from the scabbard. “I banished that man from VEIL on the first day! Get out of my way!”
“But, legens–”
The guards tried to argue, but the Star Court knights mimicked their legens and drew their weapons in a chorus of steely hisses. The Sun knights scattered and then fell away like dandelion puffs. Rikard kicked the doors open and charged through, sprinting to the emperor’s bedside.
Gods of the worlds…
Rikard fell to his knees and his gladius tumbled from suddenly numb fingers. Emperor Tychon lay still in his bed, covered in so much blood that it seemed he wore a tabba of liquid red. A gaping slit opened his throat like a sickly, monstrous smile and a naked young concubine lay contorted beside him, her body also slick with blood. The hilt of a slender dagger jutted up between her breasts, the fingers of one hand curled loosely around it and slack in death.
“Murder! The emperor’s been murdered! She’s killed Emperor Tychon!” cried one of the knights at the door. He and several of the other red-armored men fled into the palace, shouted their terrible news.
“Lord Mazrem!” Karl called from the door, where the remaining guards had reformed their line and now barricaded the door. “Lord Mazrem, what are your orders?”
Rikard stared down at the dead emperor. The whole world spun wrong, wobbly and off-axis like a great broken wheel. Rikard put his hand to Tychon’s brow, but his flesh was cold.
“Laurael, did you do this?” he breathed.
Thainna stood on the other side of the bed. She pointed to the gash under Tychon’s jaw.
No, this was a House assassination. Look.
With an effort that turned his stomach, Rikard did as Thainna asked. Barely visible under the sheet of blood, the sliced edges of the emperor’s skin were an unnatural violet color.
Poison? Rikard asked.
Hae. Just like the House always uses. I told you that the Crest wants to place a new emperor… Wincing, Thainna slid the dagger from the concubine’s chest and held it up to the nearest lamp. She turned it this way and that, making the flame’s reflection jump and twist like a dancer over the smooth steel, and then delicately sniffed it. There’s no poison on this. We’re meant to think this was what killed him, but I’d bet you a thousand laurels that Jaesun is still carrying the real murder weapon. He’s probably on his way back to the crooked tower to report to the Crest.
Rikard snatched up his sword again and slid it back into the sheath. A crowd had gathered at the door and was growing by the moment. More guards and a dozen servants, all brought running by the cries, standing on their toes or peering between bodies to catch a glimpse, to see if the terrible rumor was true. The gathered VEIL knights, both Suns and Stars, stood unified in their efforts to hold them back.
Things could easily turn ugly, Thainna worried as she followed Rikard from the royal bedroom. He pulled the doors shut behind him and turned to the nearest Sun Court knight, the freckled one he had been arguing with before.
“Did the emperor call for Jaesun when he went inside?” Rikard snarled furiously at the Sun Court knight, almost feral in his rage.
“No, legens. I don’t know how the Star Court did business here, but… but we’re attentive to His Imperial Majesty. We don’t wait to be asked to serve!”
“How long ago?”
“I… I don’t know. An hour, perhaps?”
“So you let a man that I cast out of VEIL go unasked and alone into the emperor’s chambers, before dawn?” Rikard roared at him. The knight shrank back. “And then you let him leave on some vague errand? Do you know where he went? When he will return?”
“No, Legens Mazrem.”
“Your captain killed Emperor Tychon right under your nose!”
“Rikard!” Thainna cried. She grabbed his arm. “Stop! Jaesun is the one who killed the emperor. And we know where he’s going…”
She felt his rage like the hot blaze of a bonfire, but Rikard met Thainna’s eye and nodded. He snapped his fingers at the Sun Court knights.
“You! Gather your brothers,” Rikard said. “Not those I dismissed from VEIL, only those loyal to us. Go wake the Lyceum consuls and tell them to convene an emergency session. They must know what’s happened. Go to the court generals, too, and tell them to hurry to the Lyceum. The temptation will be great, but they must not put Dormaen under martial law.”
“Why not, sir?”
“The people of Dormaen are angry and they are frightened. If we violate their trust now, we will never win it back.”
“Hae, legens!” answered several of the knights, and rushed to carry out their orders.
“You three,” Rikard said, indicating a Star knight and two of his house guard. “Stay here. Keep these doors closed and sealed until the Lyceum can make their own investigation. Men and ladies of the imperial house, remain inside. News will spread soon enough and the city is restless. Karl and you five, with me. We ride to the tower of the House of Five Dragons. There, we’ll find the emperor’s assassin and his master.”
“Hae, Legens Mazrem!”
Rikard and his remaining knights raced back the way they had come, leaping back into saddles not yet cooled from their last ride. The dark autumn morning was cold, warmed only when the wind shifted and carried the ashes from Mazrem Square. Rikard swung Thainna up to sit in front of him. She twisted around in the saddle to look back at Rikard.
But Thain… If I take you to the House, the Crest will kill Thain for my betrayal!
Rikard kissed her fiery hair. I will not let anyone hurt your brother, beloved. We will take Jaesun and the Crest to face justice, and Thain will be free. I swear it.
Thainna’s face and thoughts lit up with joy. She kissed Rikard and then stood in his stirrups and whistled to the other men.
“Ride for the temple district,” she told them. “The House of Five Dragons is there. Hae!”
Together, they wheeled their horses and galloped back out into Dormaen.
