Heir of Autumn Read online

  Garm gritted his teeth. He snapped upright and limped toward Brophy, who backed into the alley, stumbling over his own feet. It was a mistake, and he knew it immediately. The alley was a dead end.

  Garm snarled and his crooked teeth shone in the moon’s half-light. The rest of his face was lost in the bushy black beard and wild hair.

  “She was just a little girl!” the blacksmith shouted, his hands bunched into enormous fists.

  “I’m sorry,” Brophy said, “I just came to say I’m sorry—”

  “Shut up!”

  Brophy feinted left and sprinted right, hoping to slip out of the alley.

  With a roar, Garm lunged and body-blocked him into the wall. Brophy’s head bounced off the stone, and he fell to the ground, dazed. Garm grabbed his shirt and yanked him upright as easily as he would a sack of flour.

  “She’s my daughter!” Garm shouted, limping backward and slamming Brophy into the other wall. The impact drove the breath from his lungs, and he gasped for air.

  “My little girl!” Garm slammed him against the wall again. Brophy’s ribs flared in pain. “Did you come back for more? Ruining her once wasn’t good enough?”

  “It wasn’t…me…” Brophy gasped.

  Garm launched a thunderous blow to Brophy’s face.

  Brophy’s instincts took over. With no room to dodge, he nodded fiercely and met the fist with his forehead, just as he’d been taught. The blacksmith shouted in pain. Brophy lashed out with his foot, kicking the man in the side of the knee.

  Garm stumbled backward. His grip loosened, and Brophy grabbed his thumb with both hands. He wrenched hard, and Garm let go.

  Brophy landed on all fours, rolling toward the mouth of the alley. The blacksmith recovered his footing and charged. Brophy spun to the side and swept the man’s leg out from under him. Garm crashed to the ground.

  “Just tell her I’m so sorry!” Brophy cried.

  Even though he was down, Garm was not finished. Gritting his teeth, he levered himself to his knees, pried a cobblestone out of the street, and raised it over his head.

  “Papa, no!” Femera shouted from the doorway of the forge.

  “Back inside, Mera!”

  She ran to her father, trying to block the stone. “Don’t,” she begged him, “It wasn’t him. It was the other boy.”

  “Watching’s as bad as doing,” Garm said. His huge biceps bulged, and he hurled the stone at Brophy’s head.

  Brophy ducked just in time. The wind from the rock’s passage whispered through his hair, and the cobblestone shattered on the wall behind him. He backpedaled, trying to get farther from the alley.

  Garm pushed his daughter aside and pried up another stone.

  “Papa, no! Don’t!” She shouted again, interposing herself between the two of them. “They’ll kill you. They’ll send you out the gate and stone you from the walls.” She threw her arms around his neck. “Don’t do it.”

  He let her hug him, but his murderous glare remained fixed on Brophy. He hurled the stone, but his heart wasn’t in it. Brophy stepped lightly to the side, and it skittered across the empty street.

  “You kings and princes are all the same,” he spat, his fury giving way to bitterness.

  “I’m not a prince,” Brophy protested, wishing he had never come. “I’m nobody.”

  The enormous man held on to his daughter as if she were a little child. “Call yourself what you like, you rich little bastard. Your type is the same all over the world. You take what you like and throw it away when you’re finished. If it were just me, I’d crush your head against that wall and let them stone me. But I got my daughter to think of. You’d best get out of my sight before I forget that.”

  Brophy opened his mouth, closed it. He almost turned away, but paused, looking back at Femera.

  “I just came to say how sorry I am,” he whispered to her. “If there is anything I can do…”

  Brophy’s words trailed off. The look on Femera’s face made him realize how pathetic they were.

  The dark-haired girl helped her father to his feet. With his hulking arm wrapped around her shoulders, she finally looked at Brophy. Her blue eyes flashed.

  “You’re sorry?” She looked away from him. “Sorry isn’t enough, Brophy. Not nearly enough.” Femera and her father limped past him through the forge door. Brophy stared after them for a long time. Finally, eyes downcast, he walked home.

  14

  KRELLIS STABBED a juicy half sausage and brought it to his lips as he scanned the pages in front of him. Flipping back a few pages, he absently bit into the meat.

  A dispatch boy slipped through the half-open door of Krellis’s chambers. He padded quietly to the table and dropped off the day’s supply of letters and proposals. Never taking his eyes from the page, Krellis reached into his money pouch and flipped a brass coin to the boy.

  The boy caught it neatly in one hand. “Like father, like son,” he said.

  Marking his place with a thick finger, Krellis looked up, brows furrowed. He fixed the boy with a cold stare.

  “Drunk as an Islander and rolling around the market like a dying dog,” the boy continued with an impudent smirk. “Sounds just like his father at that age.”

  Krellis slowly drew his dagger with a theatrical scrape. He squinted, as though concentrating on something invisible, and stood up.

  The boy seemed to blur. Krellis blinked, forcing his eyes to focus. A tall, lean man in his midforties stood naked before him. The impudent smirk was all that remained of the errand boy.

  With one meaty hand, Krellis gripped the edge of the oak table and slid it aside as though it weighed nothing. It scraped loudly against the floor. A few sheets of paper slid away and floated down. Krellis set the tip of his dagger underneath the man’s chin. His visitor’s eyes narrowed, but he did not move away.

  “Your sneaky games might impress your students, but they set my teeth on edge. I’m a dangerous man when I’m on edge,” Krellis said, his arm as steady as the wall.

  “Just a gentle reminder, little brother,” Victeris said. “I can slip a knife into your bedchamber just as easily as you can order a hundred soldiers into mine.” He set an elegant finger against the edge of the knife and pushed it away. Krellis shook his head and sheathed the blade.

  The Zelani master sucked the stripe of blood from his finger, still smiling.

  “We are the shield at each other’s backs and the knife at each other’s throat,” he said, “which, from the outside, must look a great deal like an embrace.”

  Krellis slid the table back between them, sat in his chair, and picked up his fork.

  “Did you come here for a purpose? Or do you simply want to gloat over Trent making a fool of himself in public again?”

  “So you know?”

  “I know everything that happens in my city.”

  “I should remind you, dear brother, that at Trent’s age you were drinking and whoring yourself to death in the most vile fleshpots in Physendria.”

  “Was I?” Krellis said. He looked down at his ledger once more.

  “In fact, if it hadn’t been for the boy’s mother, you would be long dead or dying from the slow, suppurating rot of the Cuckold’s Revenge.”

  “Don’t bow so low, Victeris. I would have found my mettle with or without her help.”

  “Perhaps, but Maigery was my first student,” he pursed his lips reflectively. “The least you can do is give the dead woman a little credit.”

  The Brother of Autumn gave his sibling a narrow glance, then turned back to his ledger. He ran his finger down the page. “What is your point?”

  “Just trying to correct a few errors in your memory. You say you found your mettle. I say you found your mush,” Victeris suggested. “No man, woman, or lowly beast can live without love.”

  Krellis snorted. “Indeed?”

  “Absolutely. You may be a master of armies, a fierce commander, but I am master of the human heart.” He shrugged. “I don’t expect you to under
stand. Our father didn’t exactly fill our lives with much of the precious stuff. But I assure you, it was Maigery’s love, not my power, that set you upon the road you walk today.”

  “I never loved that woman. Even when she held my son to her breast, I never loved her.”

  “Do you take me for a fool?” Victeris cocked his head to the side. Krellis looked up. “Of course you didn’t love her. You saved that for later in life, didn’t you?” He gave his brother a crooked smile.

  Krellis darkened. He opened his mouth to retort, but his brother cut him off.

  “No matter.” He waved a hand. “She loved you. That’s what’s important.”

  Krellis sneered. “Talking to you is like kissing a snake. Hurry up and pour your poison into my ear, so you can leave, and I can forget you were here.”

  “I came because of your son.”

  “My son is my problem.”

  “If your son prevents you from completing your bargain with me, he is my problem as well.”

  “Stay out of my family.”

  Victeris laughed. “Too late, dear brother. I was born into your family four years before you were. Surely you can set aside your plans for conquering the world long enough to hear an older brother’s advice?”

  “Fine. Speak your advice and go back to buggering little boys.”

  “Please, your harsh words wound me, and I am so fragile.”

  Krellis sighed. “Will you ever tire of the sound of your own voice?”

  “I humbly doubt it.” Victeris’s little-boy grin returned. “My advice is this: Move your son to the front of your playing board.”

  “He is not ready.”

  “You coddle him and whip him by turns. Neither will make the boy any stronger.”

  Krellis looked up. His eyes blazed. “Tread carefully, Victeris. My family is my affair. Do not presume you are so well loved that you may overstep your boundaries carelessly.”

  “Yes, yes, I know, you are strong, you are fierce. You’d as soon spit at me as speak with me. Is that what you would have me think?” Victeris smiled. “I might almost believe it if you had not returned to Physendria to rescue me from our brother’s petty tortures.”

  “I returned for my son. You were an afterthought.”

  Victeris chuckled. “No one enters the Wet Cells as an afterthought. You risked everything to bring me here to stand by your side, albeit in shadow.”

  “I owed you,” Krellis grunted.

  “And now I owe you, and I want to clear my debt. I have plans of my own after our little adventure here. It has been over a decade, you realize. You were not so timid when you gave our father his reward.”

  “I took the throne from a man who did not deserve it. And lest you forget, I didn’t hold that throne long enough to sit in it before Phandir arrived with the royal guard in his pocket. There are very few alive who remember that I was king in Physendria, even if it was only for a few minutes. They now say it was Phandir who cut Father’s throat.” Krellis frowned and flexed his fingers. “I am sure it is a rumor that he does little to discourage.”

  Victeris nodded. “Indeed. We both underestimated the cunning of the middle brother. Who would have thought the smiling fool had it in him?”

  “Yes. A mistake I won’t make again. I took the throne once from a stronger man. I will take it again.”

  “A moment I await with great anticipation, for it will end my debt of love and my debt of hate, and sever my last tie to everything Physendrian.”

  “Then be patient, brother. Such things take time.”

  Victeris arched an eyebrow. “You still must goad Phandir into attacking soon. If that fool drags his feet, all will be lost. Use Trent. Stage a public rift between the two of you. Send him to his uncle filled with offers of an alliance.”

  “Trent? A spy?” Krellis shook his head. “Do you actually believe the boy is that clever? I thought it was our intention not to underestimate Phandir a second time.”

  Victeris considered his brother for a long moment. “Surely you see that the boy has a velvet tongue.”

  “A velvet tongue and a velvet spine.”

  Victeris found his smile again. “Spines are my specialty. The tongue I cannot duplicate, but I have just the confidence he needs. With a fully trained Zelani at his side, Trent would quickly become a very different man. You did, after all.”

  “Enough of that.” Krellis waved a warning hand. “Do not speak of Maigery again.”

  “As you wish, but consider what I have said. One of my best pupils has just graduated. I have waited years for her to come to fruition. She may be the most talented Zelani I have ever trained. The girl is spirited and strong, full of fire. Give her to Trent, and she will do for him what Maigery did for you.”

  Krellis flashed him a lethal glance, but he paused.

  “Send him to his uncle,” Victeris suggested. “Give the boy a drop of respect and he will turn it into an ocean.”

  Krellis ground his teeth. “And if he fails? Phandir has used my family against me before.”

  Victeris shrugged. “You do not expect to rule the world while cringing in fear of a little risk, do you?”

  Krellis brought a hand to stroke his beard. “No.”

  Victeris arched a thin, black eyebrow.

  “No,” Krellis continued. “Perhaps you are right on one count. It is time for the boy to prove himself, but I don’t trust him to match wits with Phandir. Trent needs a mission of a different sort. He is young. He needs a young man’s quest. We will send him to find the Four.”

  “The missing Brothers?” Victeris rolled his eyes. “It’s a fool’s errand. A myth.”

  “It is not a myth.”

  “It may as well be.”

  “That, I agree with. But I will never rule here as long as I am competing with the memory of four ghosts.”

  “Still, smarter and braver lads than Trent have tried and failed.”

  “As far as we know. But none of them had a Zelani at his side.”

  “Do you really think he will return with the Brothers?”

  For the first time, Krellis’s mustache curved in a smile. “Why would I want them to return?”

  Victeris slowly smiled in return.

  Krellis intoned dramatically, “Sadly, the Lost Brothers were found dead at the toil of a monumental task…” He resumed a normal tone of voice. “Finally, those damned torches above the Heart will be snuffed, and I shall be a whisper away from truly ruling in Ohndarien.”

  Victeris nodded. “You are cunning. You have considered all…except one thing.”

  “Indeed?”

  “What if he succeeds? What if he finds the Brothers alive?”

  Krellis eyed Victeris and his smile faded. “He may find them alive, but he will not leave them alive.”

  Victeris laughed. “Surely you don’t think you can turn that boy into a hired knife?”

  “No, of course not. Trent’s no assassin, but he will not be traveling alone. This girl of yours, do you have her in hand?”

  Victeris paused a moment before continuing. “She is in hand. All I have to do is whisper a name in her ear, and she will do the rest. But…” he murmured.

  “Yes?” Krellis asked, annoyed.

  “You need someone to rule in Ohndarien while you are retaking your throne in Physendria. The Vastness is a dangerous place. What if Trent fails, before he finds the Four? What if your son dies?”

  “If he does, then…” For the first time, Krellis seemed pensive. He shook his great, woolly head. “No. I know the boy. He will take the easy way home.”

  “There are things in the Vastness more dangerous than ten Phandirs,” Victeris pressed.

  “If the boy dies, then he dies!” Krellis snarled. “All men must be tested sometime.”

  “What will that do to our plans? If Trent does not rule in Ohndarien, then I will be forced to do it. I have no desire to waste my time running a kingdom.”

  Krellis sneered at his brother’s innocent smile. “Then
you better hope the magic in your little girl’s cunt is enough to keep my son alive.”

  15

  EVEN THE sunlight tortured him. It trickled in through the window, dappling the bedsheet as the leaves outside moved in the morning breeze. Trent shut his eyes against the glare and held his belly. It didn’t hurt if he didn’t move. It didn’t hurt if he didn’t breathe. Breathing he could minimize. Unfortunately, he had to move. If he didn’t piss soon, he’d explode.

  Which would be worse, he wondered. Pissing again or exploding?

  “All right…” he murmured. “All right!”

  He slowly pushed himself upright, keeping one hand on his stomach. He clenched his teeth so hard they squeaked. Carefully, he pulled up his shirt again. He couldn’t stop looking at it. The whole side of his chest from hip to collarbone was an ugly yellow bruise. The skin had split along the bottom of his rib cage and his pants were stained to midthigh.

  He had landed badly. He knew it from the moment he hit the water. If it weren’t for the Siren’s Blood, he never would have made it home.

  Trent lowered his salt-crusted shirt and looked across the room. On the far side, as far as possible from the bed, the lidded brass bowl stared at him.

  I’m an idiot, he thought. Why didn’t I put it next to the bed last time I got up? I could piss from here, spillage be damned. Let the chambermaid clean it up.

  Swallowing, Trent rose to his feet. It wasn’t as bad as he had expected. The pain stayed about the same, but he felt wrong inside. His gut was swollen and sore.

  He inched across the room to the chamber pot. He’d left his breeches unlaced from the last time. It hurt too much to tie them up. He tried to relax, tried to make it come slowly, but the piss burst from him like a river. His stream shot wide, splashing the wall until he could aim it into the pot.

  He didn’t want to see, but he stared at it, transfixed.

  It was red.

  He closed his eyes. His urine splashed on the floor as it slowly petered out, but he was past caring.

  He left the laces undone and walked gingerly back to the bed. Only when he sat down did he realize he’d left the chamber pot, again.