history with them. What they have done against us must be answered, and answered between equals.”
“Oh, I absolutely agree,” Geder said with a rattling nod that meant he hadn’t understood at all. The priest had his eyes half closed, but seemed to be listening to him carefully all the same. A twist of anger floated up from Dawson’s heart.
“The world has an order,” Dawson said. “My men are loyal to me, and I am loyal to the throne, and the throne is loyal to the system of the world. We are who we are, Palliako, because we have been born better. When a low man crosses me, I execute him. When a highborn man, a man of
“Let me think about that. Of course, we are more or less equals, aren’t we?” Geder said. “We’re nobles, they’re nobles. And we’ve done all this because they were scheming against Aster, who’s the highest blood in the land. We did it for him.”
“I suppose so,” he said, and the priest made a small sound in his throat, like a boy who’d caught sight of a curious animal.
“You seem troubled, Lord,” the priest said, sitting forward. His gaze was on Dawson. “Is something else bothering you?”
“Nothing,” Dawson said, and the priest smiled.
Seeing Clara again was like putting a burned hand in cool water. Everyone else, from the footmen to Jorey, were made of smiles and pleasure and congratulation. Dawson felt as though he were living in a dream where he was in a burning ballroom and no one else could see the flames. Clara looked at him once and put her arms around him like a mother comforting her child.
Most of the evening they lay together in her bed, his head in her lap when she sat or sharing her pillow when she lay down. The world with its idiotic gaudiness and mindless cheers—face paint on a tainted woman—faded for a time while she told him of all the small domestic crises he had missed during the brief, decisive war. One of the maids had married and left the house. A cistern had sprung a leak and had to be drained before it could be repaired. Sabiha was settling into the household, but Elisia was being difficult. She’d had a letter from the holding at Osterling Fells that the new kennels were going nicely, and would be complete before winter.
The scent of her bed and the sound of finches at the window mixed with her familiar touch, and he found himself relaxing in a way he hadn’t in weeks.
“Canl Daskellin’s due back soon,” she said.
“Where’s he been?”
“Northcoast,” Clara said. “Apparently he went out to get allies against Asterilhold, and he’s bringing them back just in time for the victory. I don’t believe anyone expected it all to be over so quickly.”
“It isn’t over,” Dawson said. “Not really.”
“Well, of course things will be a bit thin at the harvest,” Clara said. “But next year…”
Dawson took her hand and rolled back, looking at the ceiling.
“Next year will be a different place, love,” he said.
Clara sat up, frowning. He ran his fingertips along the curve of her arm.
“Is there something I should know?” she asked.
“No. Only perhaps it would be best if you and Jorey and Sabiha went back to the holding for a bit. Now that we’ve got two baronies to look over, the boys will need to know better how to run the place. And there’s no one better to show them than you.”
Her face closed.
“There’s something more coming,” she said. “What’s happened? What are you going to do?”
“You can’t ask me that, love,” Dawson said. “I’ll be too tempted to tell you. And it’s better for now if I carry this one alone.”
“Dawson—”
“I didn’t win this war. And Palliako is a monster, but he didn’t order it. There’s rot at the heart of the empire, and I am doing what honor demands. There’s risk to it, but there’s not an alternative.”
Clara looked at him for what seemed an hour, her eyes shifting back and forth, searching for something in his expression.
“You’re moving against Palliako’s priests,” she said.
“I am doing what honor and duty demand,” Dawson said. “Don’t ask me more than that.”
She stood, her hands clasped before her.
“If Jorey and I leave, it will be remarked,” she said. “It’s a very odd time for the wife of a war hero to leave. If I stay, what will I need to be prepared for? Will this come to violence?”
“It will.”
Clara let out her breath and closed her eyes. It was something she had done as long as he’d known her. He could remember her as a girl barely come to womanhood lowering her eyelids just so, making her exhalation that was not quite a sigh. Perhaps all those previous moments had been rehearsal for this one. He rose from the bed and took her hand.
“I have no choice, dear. I’ve seen what is stalking our kingdom. If it isn’t stopped, it won’t be Antea anymore. It may keep the same forms, it may even be made up by the same people, but the kingdom will be gone, and there will be something debased where it was. I will do anything I have to in order to see the nation safe.”
“All right,” Clara said. “You do that. And I will see to the family.”
He kissed her gently on the forehead. And then on the lips. And then she pressed him back to the bed, and they forgot the world together for a time.
The last time Dawson had walked into the darkness of the ruins under Camnipol—the abandoned archways and hall-ways darker than midnight—the huntsman Vincen Coe had been at his side. Going alone now, he found himself missing the young man’s company. He’d been a quiet man, but loyal and fierce. He didn’t understand why Clara had taken her sudden dislike to him. Perhaps in the winter when he returned to Osterling Fells the two would have the chance to mend whatever breach had separated them.
Rats scurried ahead of his lantern’s light, sharp claws stirring up ancient dust. Once, all this had been the city. These stones had seen daylight and known the voices of street vendors. The rubble Dawson picked his way around had stood as a tall column celebrating some victory now long forgotten. The deeper he went, the more collapse had taken the ruins, and the fewer paths there were to follow. Still, he was fairly sure he knew the way.
The first glimmer of light, far ahead, filled him with hope and dread both. Hope, because he had found the meeting place he’d sought. Dread for the same reason.
Four men sat round a fallen slab of granite. Sir Alan Klin, but also Estin Cersillian, Odderd Mastellin, and Mirkus Shoat. A knight, a count, and two earls, pressed down in the darkness. He wondered whether Shoat, Cersillian, and Mastellin had been part of Klin’s conspiracy from the start. Maas might have had other allies Dawson had never uncovered. He sat down on a lump of stone, considering the men who had turned to Asterilhold and against Simeon. A year ago, they had been on opposite sides. Now fortune had united them.
“I’m pleased to see you were able to gather so many like-minded friends,” Dawson said.
“This helped, my lord,” Klin said, pushing the execution order across the slab to him. “Some people in court are still close with their families across the border.”
Dawson picked up the page and folded it into his wallet.
“What are we going to do?” Shoat asked, his voice high and tight.
“What needs doing,” a voice said from the shadows. Dawson rose as Lord Bannien, Duke of Estinford, stepped into the light. His face was calm and steady, sandy hair over black eyes. “I took your letters, Kalliam. And I spoke to my son. I have been forced to the same conclusions. Antea has been taken over by foreign sorcerers.”
“Your son told you, then,” Dawson said. “About what happened at the bridge.”
“He did,” Lord Bannien said. “And I am with you. But we must move quickly. If word of this comes out, it’s
