Heir of Autumn Read online

  She quickly palmed the dagger as he opened his eyes.

  Baelandra cursed the man’s instincts, his unflappable calm. Her sure victory teetered unsteadily. She had no hope of besting him physically, but Scythe said the poison was almost instantaneous. All she need do was prick him.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” she said, glancing at the covers that sprawled across the edge of the bed.

  “Did you?”

  “Yes.” She sat down as though it was the most natural thing, keeping her dagger hidden.

  He brought his massive arms up and put them behind his head. “You didn’t come for any other reason?” He raised an eyebrow and smiled.

  Her stomach turned. “Now is hardly the time,” she said, letting a genuine scowl cross her face.

  Krellis shrugged. “Perhaps not.”

  “I know about the army to the south. I know your brother is about to attack.”

  “It’s awfully difficult to hide an army.”

  “And I know what you are planning with the Ohohhim,” she lied, hoping the bluff would work.

  Krellis raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

  “I still believe the Heartstone chose you for a reason. When the attack comes, there is no one I would rather have defending our walls.”

  Krellis smiled at her. “You have no idea what I discussed with Father Lewlem, do you?”

  “I know how you feel about your brother. I know you want to retake the throne of Physendria. What I don’t understand is why you have to destroy Ohndarien to do that. Why you have to hurt Brophy.”

  “I’m not destroying Ohndarien, I’m just taking her away from you.”

  “Why? Why do you want to return to that vile and dusty country that you hate so much?”

  Krellis flexed his fingers and made a fist. “Because I choose to.”

  Baelandra shook her head. “I know it is difficult to set aside the past. But you could have so much more. Here in Ohndarien, with me. Forget Physendria; it’s not a prize worth fighting for.”

  Krellis paused. For a second she dared hope, but then he sneered. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  Baelandra moved closer on the bed. “I know how you feel about your brother, but there is no need to involve Brophy in this.”

  “I disagree. That boy is this city’s last link to the past. If I cut that link, it will be much easier for the people to look toward the future.”

  “Brophy is innocent,” she said. “You know he is.”

  “My son said he was not.”

  “But Trent was—”

  “And the girl agreed,” he interrupted her. “You would think a woman would know which man had been between her thighs. Especially if it was her first time. Women tend to remember that sort of thing.”

  Baelandra scooted next to him. The blade was inches from his skin. “You are right. I…certainly remember.”

  He sneered at her. “Enough of this game. You are a worse liar than your nephew.” Baelandra froze, trying her best to look confused by his words, but he cut through the deception. “Are you going to stab me with that toy or not?”

  She lunged at him, thrusting the dagger straight and true for his neck. Quick as thought, he grabbed her wrist, twisted her arm, and pinned her against the wall.

  “A weak attempt, Bae. I don’t know that I shall even put another carving above the door.”

  He twisted harder. She gasped and dropped the dagger onto his palm.

  He shoved her to the floor and sat back on the bed.

  The Sister of Autumn rose to her feet and stuck her chin out. “I didn’t come here to kill you,” she said. “I only brought the blade as a last resort.”

  “Ah, yes. Most people hide in my closet for hours when they want to talk to me.”

  “I wouldn’t be so smug if I were you. I’m not the only person in this city who can wield a blade.”

  “Do you think I care about your little man from Kherif?” Rage contorted Krellis’s features and he shook his head. “I’m tired of waiting for this city to quit mourning four Brothers long dead and embrace the one Brother still living. If my son’s death is to mean anything, it will herald the change that leads Ohndarien to be the capital of the world.”

  “Didn’t your father try to conquer the world?” she spat. “And his father and his father before him?”

  “I wouldn’t speak ill of another’s family, if I were you. You are related to deserters and rapists.”

  Baelandra took an involuntary step forward. There were so many nights she could have killed this man in his sleep. Why had she waited?

  She flicked a glance at the dagger in Krellis’s palm. He caught her gaze and smiled. Lifting the blade to his nose, he sniffed. With a sneer, he threw it back to her. She barely caught it by the handle.

  “Go ahead,” Krellis said. “After our long history, the least I can do is give you two chances to kill me.” He watched her steadily. “Go ahead, my dear. It will be your last act as a Sister of Autumn before I dissolve the council.”

  “The people will not stand for that.”

  He smiled at her, an ugly smile. “The people…”’ He snorted. “The people do not rule here, despite what you like to think. I have the soldiers, my dear. I have the money. I hold the walls and the Citadel. The city is mine. I have been very patient. I have waited a long time, but I am tired of it. There will be no more tests to take the stone. There will be no more torches burning for your missing Brothers. Power belongs to the man with the courage to take it. It has always been that way and will always be. Ohndarien is mine because I have the strength to hold her.”

  Baelandra smoothed her dress, fighting for control. “No matter how unfeeling and ruthless you think you are, I know better. The Heartstone chose you for a reason.” She touched the stone between her breasts. Krellis twitched, and she smiled coldly. “If I cannot make you into a servant of Ohndarien, she will.”

  Krellis chuckled. “You sound positively religious. I think I liked you better when you were trying to stab me.”

  Baelandra slid the tiny dagger back into her hair clip and left him lying on his bed, staring after her.

  book II

  A KINGDOM OF BLOOD AND GOLD

  prologue

  A HOWLING WIND RUSHED from the blue-eyed infant, drowning out Copi’s scream.

  The young woman clutched the jagged nub of the broken handle and turned the box. The halting notes grew steady. The child’s eyelids fluttered as she rolled onto her side and curled into a ball. The howling wind faded to a malicious whisper as the silver box played on and on.

  Copi trembled, crying softly as she fought to keep the music going.

  A horse screamed in the distance, its agonized whinny cutting through the night. The box slipped, the broken nub slashing into her knuckle and lodging between the bones. She gasped but kept spinning the music box as the remnants of that howling wind echoed into the distance.

  A chorus of misery joined the horse’s scream. Tormented dogs howled in the darkness. The people of Copi’s tribe shrieked in anguish in their tents far below.

  Copi rushed to the child, but she had no free hands, could not pick her up.

  The thunder of hoof beats approached, and a young man rode over the crest of Lone Hill. He was not of her tribe, but Copi recognized his broad cheeks and dark eyes from last year’s Midsummer gathering. The young hunter leapt from his horse and landed in a crouch next to the fire. His little mare reared onto her hind legs and shied away.

  “We have to get out of here!” Copi shouted.

  The mingled screams of horror and agony continued in the distance.

  “I know,” he said, unwrapping the cloth from his waist and scooping the baby up in it. The naked young man quickly twisted the cloth into a sling and tied the baby across Copi’s back. She kept turning the box, the broken handle held fast between the bones of her finger.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  The man whistled, and his mount trotted ne
rvously closer.

  “As a woman sits by the fire and watches the babe, a man stands in the darkness and watches them both.”

  The young hunter turned to his horse and placed a hand on either side of her shaggy nose. He whispered to the creature in the old language and calmed her.

  “This is Raindancer,” he said, as he grabbed Copi under the arms and threw her onto the horse’s back. “Ride her hard. Ride her fast. Far far away from here.”

  Copi hooked her heels behind the mare’s withers. “I will.”

  The horse jumped at the sound of a hideous snarl.

  A hound crept over the crest of the hill. The creature’s mangy coat was stretched to bursting over bloated muscles that slithered underneath its skin. Black spines grew all along the creature’s back and snout. Fangs thrust out of its mouth like porcupine quills, and its yellow eyes stared straight at Copi. In the shadows behind, several other twisted hounds slunk forward.

  The young man swatted Raindancer on her flank. “Haya!” he shouted, and the mare lunged into a gallop.

  Copi leaned forward, clinging to the horse’s back as they thundered down the hill.

  “Run, Raindancer,” she whispered. “Run.”

  1

  BROPHY STUMBLED NAKED down the street toward the Physendrian gate. Soldiers urged him forward with the points of their spears. His hands were bound, and he shuffled with a short length of rope between his feet. The dockside hills teemed with people, many who had been at the trial, some who had only come for the spectacle. Brophy saw a few familiar faces in the crowd as the throng pushed and shoved each other to keep up with him.

  The jeering mob had followed him all the way from the Hall of Windows. Eight soldiers armed with spears and shields protected him from the rabble, but Brophy’s guards could not protect him from the filth and insults the crowd threw at him.

  People on second-floor balconies hurled the slop from their chamber pots on him. Brophy kept his eyes and mouth closed as much as he could.

  He had heard the words “murderer,” “rapist,” “traitor,” and “coward” so many times they ceased to have meaning. They poured over him like the sewage thrown from above.

  Baelandra and the other sisters had not attended the second day of the trial, and neither had Shara. The charade lasted little more than an hour before sentence was passed. They brought Brophy to the stand, and he only had one thing to say. He looked straight at Krellis and held the man’s gaze until the entire Hall of Windows fell into silence.

  “You know I did not do this thing,” he said. “And you know what will happen when I return.”

  Brophy refused to say anything else. The Sisters were supposed to be there. Shara was supposed to be there. They were supposed to question him, to re-question Femera. It was not Ohndarien justice, and Brophy would not acknowledge it. There were a few voices in the crowd that called for his release, but the vast majority called him guilty and screamed for his exile.

  The guard behind Brophy smacked him in the small of the back with his spear. Brophy stumbled forward, his bare feet slipping on the cobblestones. He went to his knees. The crowd cheered. He had never felt so naked, so utterly exposed.

  A gang of young men from Faradan charged through the guards and attacked, hitting, kicking and spitting on him.

  “We’ll cave yer head in!”

  “You’re a dead man, little flower.”

  ”—ever touch a Farad lass again!”

  With a roar, Brophy leapt to his feet and head-butted one of the young men. He spun, taking a fist to the cheek as he slammed his elbow into the second boy’s ribs. The guards rushed forward, hauling the boys to their feet and throwing them back into the crowd.

  In the confusion, a small figure darted to Brophy’s side. He tried to kick the man, but the rope pulled him up short and he stumbled back to his knees. Looking up into the stranger’s cowled face, all he could see was a hook nose and dark, straight eyebrows.

  “Don’t turn your back on the walls,” he whispered quickly. “Watch the stones as they come. The big ones will come first.”

  “Who—” Brophy started to ask, but the guards pushed the man away and hauled Brophy to his feet once again. He searched the crowd for the stranger, but couldn’t find him in the churning mass of angry faces.

  The guards pressed onward until they reached the Water Wall. A scowling officer shouted upward as they approached. “Open the gate!”

  A man high up on top of the wall flipped a lever, diverting water from the aqueduct. Brophy could hear the seawater rushing down through the pair of pipes. Slowly, the two wheels inside the wall started turning. Metal scraped on stone as the massive Physendrian Gate opened.

  Brophy couldn’t help looking upward at the Water Wall. Far above, hundreds of people leaned over the battlements to stare at him. Many of them were tossing stones into the air and catching them.

  “This man,” the officer shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth, “is a traitor, a murderer, and a rapist.”

  A chorus of boos cascaded down on Brophy from the top of the wall.

  “He is no longer welcome in Ohndarien. He is unworthy to share in the bounty of our Free City. Once he walks through these gates, he will never come back.”

  An unbearable lump swelled in Brophy’s throat.

  The officer waited for the jeering to die down. “Any man outside this wall is no longer protected by Ohndarien justice. Do with him what you will.”

  A curly-haired guard knelt and cut the rope between Brophy’s feet. Brophy recognized the soldier. He’d played dice with him once at the Citadel. The young man stood and severed the bonds at his wrists.

  “I didn’t do it,” Brophy whispered.

  “You should have,” the man whispered back. “You’re going to pay the price. You should have lifted her skirts when you had the chance.”

  Another soldier poked Brophy in the back with his spear, herding him toward the open gate. Beyond the dark tunnel, he could see the desolate hills of Physendria.

  Brophy had passed through these doors a hundred times to go hunting with Trent. It never occurred to him that they might not let him back in.

  Four guards followed him through the tunnel and past the gate. Brophy stopped, protected by the stone archway above. Blinking against the bright, barren landscape, he wanted to throw up. He wanted to smash Krellis’s face to pulp on the jagged rocks in front of him.

  “Close the gates!” someone shouted from inside the city.

  Two gouts of water spewed from the exit tubes on either side of the tunnel, and the gate began to close.

  The guards poked him forward with their spears.

  A huge rock thumped on the ground in front of Brophy, dropped by an overanxious spectator. Several smaller stones followed before the deluge ceased.

  Don’t turn your back. The big ones will come first.

  He turned around and faced his guards.

  “Get going, or we’ll run you through,” one of them said.

  Brophy took three quick steps backward and looked up. Hundreds of stones fell like rain. He waited for them, waited for the last possible second, and then ran back toward the gate.

  The four guards blocked his way, but he swatted a spear aside and slipped between two men. A thunderous roar shook the earth as a wave of stones smashed into the ground.

  Brophy grabbed a man’s spear and spun him into his fellows as they tried to maneuver in the small area. He let go of the spear and ran back into the daylight. He immediately spun around backward, looking for any danger.

  “Run! Run! Run!” the crowd kept chanting as they threw the rest of their stones.

  Brophy’s heart thundered in his chest. Running lightly on his toes, he backed away from the wall.

  Rocks fell like hail. There was no way to dodge them all. He kept his eyes open for the big ones, bobbing and weaving as best he could. Two small ones hit him in the side and the arm, knocking him off-balance. He hit the ground and rolled back to his feet without t
hinking. A stone the size of his head thumped into the parched earth inches from his feet. Another small rock grazed his temple. The flash of pain blinded him, but he did not stop running.

  Brophy managed to keep his feet, and he continued backward, gaining speed. More rocks flew, arcing out into the sky, falling inevitably toward him. They shattered on the ground all around him, stinging his legs with broken stone. He gasped as one crashed into his knee, but he kept limping, ever backward.

  Ten more steps and he was free. Only the strongest could hurl a rock that far. A few sailed toward him as he slowed to a stop, bloody and breathing hard. He stepped to the side twice, letting the rocks tumble beyond him.

  The crowd continued to scream for his blood. One of the guards threw his spear, but it went wide. The last guard ducked through the gate just before it sealed shut with a boom that shook the ground.

  The angry voices quickly died down as Brophy backed away. He almost didn’t hear the single voice as it rose above the rest.

  “Nephew!” someone shouted, from far away. “Don’t give up, Brophy, don’t give up!”

  He turned around and scanned the battlement for the single voice amid the crowd.

  A last melon-sized rock came flying out of the sky. It landed just past the others with a wet splat.

  The “rock” was actually a cloth sack. He grabbed the bundle and pulled it to safety. Inside were a knife, sandals and some clothes, all soaked in seawater to carry farther. He looked up and saw a lone figure next to the aqueduct at the very top of the wall.

  “The Lightning Swords await your return!” the man shouted. Brophy couldn’t see his face, but the stranger’s reference to the mercenary army of J’Qulin the Sly, the first Brother of Autumn, filled him with an overwhelming joy.

  “Tell Krellis to sleep lightly!” Brophy shouted, “I will return! The Heart of Ohndarien protects her own!”

  The crowd roared, but any individual responses were lost in the swell of their shouting.