managed, not merely to defeat him, but to destroy him.
To destroy one of the eternal, beautiful children of
For that they would pay in the last full measure of pain and despair, but Savilla would not hurry either her pleasures or her vengeance.
Her own spies ranged freely and far, wherever magic and ancient land-wards did not constrain them. She had agents—both Endarkened and otherwise—in the Wild Lands—but Yethlenga had not been one of them. Her creatures knew better than to risk her displeasure by showing themselves openly, no matter what the personal cost.
“I will know what I will know,” Savilla said dangerously.
She sat upon the Shadow Throne, dressed in scarlet as red as her skin and white as pure as shattered, aged bleached bone. There was utter silence. No one dared to speak, even though their Queen had asked a question.
“Highness.” Prince Zyperis broke the silence at last, crawling forward and bending low before her, wings tightly furled in submission. “Yethlenga’s action goes so strangely against your wise counsel that perhaps it was only… childish foolishness.”
“And so you would excuse it?” Savilla hissed. She reached out with one foot and placed it on his shoulder, digging in with her talons until the blood flowed.
Zyperis raised his head to meet her gaze, though the movement opened deeper gouges in his back. “Never. Only beg that you question those who will give you proper answers, my Queen,” he said softly. “Ask those who have been his companions and servants. If they knew his plans, and did not tell you, that is treason, and must be properly punished.”
Savilla straightened, and pushed Zyperis away from her with a kick that sent him sprawling, bending his wings painfully beneath him. She waved him to his feet with a languid gesture.
“Rise, all of you. Chamberlain, bring Yethlenga’s household here to me. Now.”
Soon an odd assortment of beings were ushered into the Audience Chamber—several Lesser Endarkened, the squat misshapen cousins of their greater brethren; a collection of humans, and a blind Centaur. All knelt immediately.
“Your master, Yethlenga, is dead,” Savilla said without preamble. “Your lives and fortunes depend on what you can tell me now. I will reward truth, and punish lies.”
“Great Queen, we will tell you everything,” one of the Lesser Endarkened said. “And so will the vermin.”
The slaves knew very little, but the questioning of the servants produced the names of two of Yethlenga’s companions: Anilpon and Iroth.
And when the slaves were sent to the Pits to await new masters, and Anilpon and Iroth were sent for, they could not be found.
“Where are they?” she demanded of her chamberlain.
“We are searching for them, Queen Savilla,” Vixiren, underbutler to her household, said.
The tension in the Audience Chamber eased, just a fraction, now that Savilla’s wrath had found a new target.
“It is nearly as good as a confession,” Zyperis suggested.
Savilla glanced sharply at her son. He had been brave today, speaking out and risking her wrath. But had it merely been an attempt to divert attention from himself? Had Yethlenga been one of Zyperis’s spies? Was this a conspiracy, and Anilpon and Iroth its other members?
Perhaps.
And perhaps not.
She did not think Zyperis was ready to challenge her just yet. And the attack upon Stonehearth had been—as he’d pointed out—strange. There was nothing to gain from killing a few Centaurs and terrorizing an isolated collection of mud huts. Zyperis would never make such a foolish mistake.
But was it so foolish?
Something at Stonehearth had been capable of killing one of the Endarkened.
