Threads of Amarion Page 5

  Mershayn watched him with glittering eyes. He swung overhead. Sym blocked, but the blow numbed his entire arm. He felt the vibration in his teeth. With a grunt, he switched hands and made a desperate attack.

  Mershayn switched hands and parried. He cut Sym on that forearm, a perfect match to the first slice. Sym gasped, almost dropping the blade.

  Mershayn swung overhead again. Another crashing blow. Sym rocked under it, suddenly realizing with cold horror that Mershayn was playing with him. The bastard knew a blade like a hawk knew the wind. Mershayn wasn’t just a master of the sword, he was an artist.

  Sym’s heel hit the wall. He had been pushed back across the entire sitting room without realizing it. It distracted him, and Mershayn poked his wrist. Sym cried out, and his sword clattered to the ground.

  Mershayn shouted in rage and smashed the flat of his blade into Sym’s cheek. Sym crumpled. His vision swam, then he felt the sharp steel tickle his throat.

  Mershayn stepped on Sym’s stomach, reducing his breaths to short little gasps. Mershayn’s lips twitched over his teeth as he breathed heavily.

  Sym held still, watching the fury play across the bastard’s face. Sym knew if he moved, if he even whimpered, he was a dead man. He waited in anguish as his heart beat painfully.

  Finally, Mershayn removed the blade from Sym’s throat.

  Silasa snarled, but Mershayn ignored her and looked at the tall woman. She watched him calmly; Sym couldn’t read anything on her face.

  “The kingdom is in chaos,” Mershayn said, breathing hard. “A king has already been slain. Nobles have died. Adding another to the pile isn’t going to help.”

  The tall, regal woman nodded.

  “So you’re going to live,” he said to Sym in a low voice. “And you’re going to do your part. And you will serve me as your king.”

  Sym reeled with how quickly the fight was over... It was already over! He’d been utterly outclassed. He had heard of Mershayn’s prowess with a sword, of course, had even see him practice once or twice, but Sym couldn’t possibly have known the man’s true ability. And his fury... Sym had never experienced anything like it. After all he’d done to Mershayn, the bastard should have killed him. But he hadn’t. Sym was still alive. That meant there was a chance to come back from this place, to take this foolish kindness and use it.

  As a rule, Sym did not underestimate people, and tonight he had. He had not expected Mershayn’s overwhelming skill. Sym would never make that same mistake with Mershayn again. The next time Sym had Mershayn helpless, he would gut the bastard.

  “Of course...Your Majesty,” Sym said, panting. He fell back on his ingrained social graces. Speak in a calm voice, and people calm down. Tell them what they want to hear, and they trust you.

  Mershayn’s lip curled, and his hand gripped the sword tighter. He cleared his throat.

  “You’re leaving a snake at your breast.” Silasa shook her head. “He will kill you if he can.”

  “Then let’s find out who is more clever.” Mershayn crouched, getting closer to Sym. “If you can kill me, you win,” he said. His voice dropped to a sibilant whisper. “But if you try, and you fail, then I’m going to give you to Silasa.”

  Sym looked at the bloodied woman. She smiled, her lips peeling back to reveal long fangs.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Sym said. Tell them what they want to hear. At this moment, Sym couldn’t imagine what he needed to kill each of the people in this room, but the answer was out there. Given enough time, Sym was going to find it.

  Mershayn turned his back on Sym. Sym considered snatching up his sword and stabbing it into the bastard right then and there. His humiliation was large enough that it might almost be worth his life, but he glanced at Silasa. Her white gaze held him like she was a cat and he the mouse, promising all the horrors of dismemberment and bloodletting indicated by her grisly chin and neck. All she needed was for him to dash into the open, and she would pounce. She wanted him to do it. Sym licked dry lips and did nothing.

  “Silasa,” Mershayn said. “I charge you with watching this man. If he tries to escape, if he schemes, if he so much as calls me a bad name to another noble, eat one of his fingers.”

  The dead-looking woman raised an eyebrow and looked at Mershayn.

  “He is to have no contact with his previous advisors,” Mershayn continued. “I want him isolated except when we need him to communicate. Bands, I want you to find his inner circle and round them up. Silasa, you’ll be in charge of getting that list from Sym. They’ll replace anyone Sym has put in the dungeons. Be creative if you need to.”

  “It shall be done, Your Majesty,” Bands said.

  “It’s going to be hard to be near him and not want to drain him,” Silasa said.

  “Rise to the occasion,” Mershayn said. He took a deep breath, then faced Sym again. “We may need each other before this is all done, Lord Sym. And that need may be more important than our desire to kill each other.”

  Bands put an arm around Ari’cyiane and led her from Sym’s chambers. Sym watched Lady Vullieth leave, and it seemed to represent his absolute failure. But Sym had failed before. Life presented opportunities when you least expected it. All he had to do was stay alive long enough to find those opportunities.

  He swore to himself that, once he turned the tables, he wouldn’t make the mistake of mercy. Not for the bastard or any of his monsters. They would die so they could never threaten him again.

  Silasa smiled at Sym, revealing those hideous fangs. “You,” she beckoned with one long, white finger. “Come with me.”

  “Of course, my lady. I am at your disposal.” He kept his voice smooth. He kept his tone mild.

  Let them know I am beaten. Let them think they have the power. And I will wait....

  5

  Mershayn

  With the list Silasa procured from Sym as well as an incredibly intuitive list of her own, Bands rooted out Sym’s most loyal allies on the first day.

  The next day caused Mershayn’s head to swim. It only took him a few hours to realize he had been better off as a neglected bastard than as a king. Kingship was a complicated, responsibility-laden, thankless job. No one seemed happy with his decisions, not the ones who supported him nor the ones who seemed to hate him. Those who had sided with Sym wanted to oust Mershayn. The nobles arrayed against Sym didn’t want a bastard on the throne. Lord Vullieth, the one noble who might have supported Mershayn openly, was absent, recovering from wounds he had received at the hands of Sym’s torturers.

  Mershayn called upon Sym as often as he could manage. Silasa could not guard the weasel during the day, so Sym and Mershayn went everywhere together. Mershayn would have loved to spend his time seeking pleasure in the arms of a willing lass, but he was stuck with the one person he hated the most.

  Every time Mershayn looked at Sym, his blood boiled, but he suppressed it. Instead, Mershayn made certain that Sym stayed useful and, strangely, Sym seemed willing to cooperate. He seemed to sense—and rightly so—that he was only half a step away from a swift execution. The useful part was that Sym seemed to know everything about the kingdom, and Mershayn developed a grudging respect for his knowledge. Collus had not been half so informed as Sym.

  Sym tried to misdirect Mershayn once, but Bands caught him. Mershayn had asked about the origins of each group within Teni’sia’s guard, and Sym had lied about a secret group of Buir’tishree loyalists—the group that had attacked and captured Ari’cyiane. The lie would have slipped right past Mershayn, and those loyalists would have continued operating within the castle, conspirators waiting for Sym to call upon them.

  When Sym finished giving his report, Bands looked at him with those beautiful, catlike green eyes of hers and said, “This is your only warning, Lord Sym. Lie again, and I will inform Silasa.”

  Sym went deathly pale. He cleared his throat and painfully related the truth about his followers within the castle.

  Mershayn had no idea how Bands could know Sym was lying. I
t indicated that maybe she could read people’s minds. While that spooked Mershayn, it scared Sym to his core. Up until that point, despite his captivity, the Lord of Buir’tishree had carried himself with a kind of muted self-assurance. Perhaps Sym thought that, with just a little time, he could turn the tables on Mershayn. But having someone like Bands at his side—someone who might see every scheming thought in Sym’s head—caused Sym to wilt.

  In addition, on that first day, Bands caught a larger fish: Lord Baerst. Mershayn had always thought Lord Baerst a stern and humorless man, but one who despised Sym and kept his passions under tight rein. Bands discovered that it had all been a facade to keep the other nobles off balance and to win confidences among Sym’s opponents.

  Bands recommended immediately that Mershayn send Lord Baerst and his closest retainers, along with a contingent carefully chosen by Bands, north to Corialis Port as an advance lookout for anything strange. She didn’t tell Baerst that he was looking for dragons, but any evidence of them would surely bring Baerst hurrying back to report.

  After Baerst’s exile, the name, “The Bastard King,” began circulating throughout the kingdom. Though the moniker had obviously been started by the nobles who were Sym’s supporters, according to Bands, the nickname was said with a great deal of affection in the lower quarters of the city, and that encouraged him. He wasn’t doing this for the nobles, after all. Let them jump into the True Ocean, for all he cared. He was doing this for the people of Teni’sia. Bands’s words made him feel better.

  She was like that. When she told Mershayn something, he wanted to believe, and her words left him feeling larger than he had before. When she stood near him, he felt confident. He could not have held the reins of the kingdom, even a day, if not for her. Nobles blushed or quailed under her gaze. She rarely spoke, but when she did, her words were the right words, her tone took control of the room, and the conversation inevitably turned in Mershayn’s favor. He took mental notes about how she commanded respect and tried to emulate her.

  Never say three sentences when one would work. Stay calm, no matter the flurry of emotion coming at you. When you give a command, make it sound like it is the only answer.

  He wasn’t very good at it yet, but he tried.

  And Silasa was a force of nature. She showed up each night just after sundown to take Sym, giving Mershayn his respite from the man’s odious company. She, too, was a pillar for Mershayn to lean upon. Each time Silasa appeared in his rooms, he knew he had survived another day.

  Petitioners came with demands. They came with advice. They came with questions. Mershayn denied, agreed, or supplied answers, as the occasion warranted.

  He thought often of Collus. Mostly, he thought of his brother as a reminder of what not to do as king. Still, Mershayn wished Collus was here. These strange, supernatural creatures who supported him were indispensable. They stopped problems before the problems even arose. They seemed to know what Sym’s allies would do before they knew. In two days, they had completely confounded the nobles opposing Mershayn and moved to put strong supporters in positions of power. Bands seemed to be calmly checking items off a list, as though she had overthrown a dozen kingdoms before.

  But he couldn’t tip a beer with any of them. And he certainly wasn’t going to ask them to carouse along the wharf and flirt with willing wenches.

  He missed Collus fiercely—the history of common experiences, the camaraderie of someone who actually liked him. Neither Silasa’s unfaltering loyalty nor Bands’s calm wisdom could replace that.

  On the third day of Mershayn’s reign, Captain Lo’gan and his band of guards resurfaced. Mershayn breathed a sigh of relief. Lo’gan had been willing to trade his life for Collus’s, as had Deni’tri. And they were flesh-and-blood mortal humans. Their mere presence made his rule more normal, and Mershayn began to relax a little. Lo’gan was reinstated as Captain of the Royal Guard. Guards with questionable loyalty were bucked down to menial work.

  Mershayn barely slept those first four days, but by the end of them, Teni’sia had a workable monarchy in place. The wagon was bumpy, but the wheels were actually turning.

  That evening, Mershayn walked into the royal sitting room with a spring in his step.

  “You don’t seem very talkative tonight,” Mershayn said to Sym, who sat at the empty table as usual. Mershayn had removed all of Sym’s belongings from the royal rooms and moved in. He didn’t want to stay where Sym had once lived, but Bands told him appearances were important. If he was to be king, he must live where the king lived.

  “What would you like me to say?” Sym asked laconically.

  The last sliver of the sun slipped below the horizon outside the arched window. Mershayn looked at the beautiful sunset over the Inland Ocean. A dolphin surfaced near a jagged promontory of rock on the calmer side of the bay. Its shiny skin reflected the orange light for one moment, and then it was lost amongst the sparkling waves.

  Mershayn smiled into the sea breeze. “You spoke a great deal in the beginning,” he said.

  “That’s when I thought I was an advisor.”

  “You are an advisor. A damned useful one.”

  “I am a slave.”

  “Are you upset because we uprooted your greedy little fingers from the workings of the kingdom? Or is it that...” Mershayn paused for effect, “the kingdom is still working without you? That must sting. It’s almost as if Teni’sia doesn’t need you in charge.”

  Sym tried to mask his sullen look.

  Mershayn was feeling particularly jaunty because Lo’gan had also installed a proper nighttime guard for Sym, which freed Silasa for other work. A knock sounded at the door. The guard standing behind Sym glanced up, but did not move from his post. The man’s job was to ensure that Sym didn’t stick a knife or a sharp stick into Mershayn’s back when it was turned. Mershayn always had a guard when he was with Sym. The more frustrated Sym became, the more likely he’d try something desperate.

  Deni’tri spoke through the door. “Your Majesty, Silasa is here.”

  “Good,” he said.

  Deni’tri opened the door, and Silasa entered. He’d survived another day as king.

  She wore a dark burgundy dress, old of fashion as was her habit. Ladies’ fashion these days did not have lace, but Silasa preferred such dresses. The more lace at the cuffs or sown into the hem, the more she liked it. He wondered where on earth she’d found it.

  Deni’tri motioned to Sym and escorted him out, closing the door behind her.

  “Have you slept?” Silasa asked. That was always her first question.

  “I spent a leisurely moment looking at the ocean. It was absolutely decadent.”

  “Did you sleep?”

  “I had a nap.”

  “You lie. Bands says you did not.”

  “Then why ask?”

  “To see if you would lie.”

  He waved a hand and turned away from the window. “I’m not tired.”

  “You look tired.”

  “And you look sixteen.” During one of their chats, she had told him that she had been a sixteen-year-old princess in Belshra before she’d been turned into a vampire.

  Silasa wasn’t amused by that, though Mershayn thought it was terribly clever. He sat down in the nearest chair and put his feet up on the table. “See?” he said. “I’m relaxing.”

  “Relaxing is not sleeping.”

  “There is much to do.” He pointed at the stack of papers on his desk, a number of mundane decisions and decrees that needed making. Bands had suggested finding others who could review such paperwork, but he’d declined. He wanted to know everything that was happening in the kingdom before he delegated it.

  “There will always be much to do,” she said. “That is part of being king. If you let it, it will eat you alive.”

  “Eat me alive? You should show your fangs when you say such things. It heightens the tension.”

  “You’re not funny.” She frowned.

  “I’m actually very funny. Yo
u just have to have a sense of humor to get the jokes.”

  “They say that Queen Tyndiria went to bed every night exactly two hours after sunset,” Silasa said.

  “She had a gorgeous demigod waiting between the sheets. Who wouldn’t?”

  “Still not funny.”

  “Try smiling first. It leads to laughing, they say.”

  “Hmmm. Perhaps I am more serious than most. It comes from drinking blood, I imagine. You know what else comes from drinking blood?”

  “Red lips?”

  “My victims go to sleep. It happens almost immediately. So you see, there are other ways to put you to bed.”

  “Are you flirting with me?”

  This time, she did crack a smile. “You are a stubborn ass.”

  “And then some.” He paused. “Has there been any word of Medophae?” Mershayn changed the subject.

  She shook her head. “Bands has searched with her threadweaver’s sight. Medophae is not anywhere near Teni’sia. She promises as soon as you are thriving as king, she will go looking for him.”

  “Thriving as king,” he repeated. “See, that’s funny. At least Bands has a sense of humor.”

  She frowned. “One benefit to a missing Medophae is that Zilok is also missing.”

  “It’s hard to imagine Zilok Morth besting Bands. That woman exudes power. You say she’s also a threadweaver. Could she not simply do away with him?”

  “Perhaps you were not paying attention when you met Zilok Morth.”

  Mershayn recalled the horrible weight on his mind, clenching his brain like a hand. “As you say.” He suppressed a shiver, and let out a breath. “Well, this light-hearted conversation is enough to make me slit my wrists. If I was not tired before, I am exhausted now.”

  “Then perhaps my presence has rendered some small benefit.” She paused. “Now, do I bite you, or will you allow me to take you to your room?”

  “Only if you carry me like in the old days.”

  “Perhaps it would be better if Sym were on the throne,” she murmured under her breath.