Never open the box.
Friar Glen’s chamber once again, lit by the heathen’s glow. The need to kill him fills my hands immediately.
“There was blood and muck,” Sageous says. He smiles. “Saraem Wic’s poisons will do that. But there was no child. I doubt there ever will be now. That old witch’s poisons are not gentle. They scrape a womb bare.”
I find the blade and I’m moving toward him. I try to run but it’s like wading through deep snow.
“Silly boy. You think I’m really here?” He makes no move to escape.
I try to reach him, but I’m floundering.
“I’m not even in this city,” he says.
Peace enfolds me. A honeyed dream of sunlight, fields of corn, children playing.
I wade through it, though each step feels like betrayal, like the murder of friends.
“You think I’m like you, Jorg.” He shakes his head and shadows run. “Thirst for revenge has dragged you across kingdoms, and you think me driven by your crude imperatives. I’m not here to punish you. I don’t hate you. I love all men equally. But you have to be broken. You should have died with your mother.” Sageous’s fingers stray to the lettering on his throat. “It was written.”
And as I reach him he is gone.
I stumble into the corridor. Empty. I close the door, using my metal strip to drop the latch. Friar Glen will have to pray for help. I don’t have time for him now and even through the layers of Sageous’s lies and dreams I hold the suspicion that he is guilty of something.
Katherine didn’t bring me to the Tall Castle, and certainly neither did Friar Glen. I didn’t turn right where the road forked from the Ken Marshes just to visit my dog’s grave. I came to see family. And now I need to be quick about it. Who knows what dreams Sageous might send this way?
Sim taught me about moving quietly. It’s not so much about noise. The art is to be always on the move, heading somewhere with purpose. Any hesitation invites a challenge. On the flip side, if there can be no possible reason for your presence, then utter stillness can hide you, even in plain sight. The eye may see you but if you are stone, the mind may discount you.
“You there. Hold fast.”
Eventually all tricks will fail and someone will challenge you. Even at this point they will find it hard to believe you’re an intruder. The minds of guards are especially dull, blunted by a career of tedium.
“Your pardon?” I cup a hand to my ear.
If you are challenged, pretend not to hear. Move closer, lean in. Be quick as you set your hand over their mouth, palm flat to lips so there’s no edge to bite. Press them back against a wall if there is one. Stab in the heart. Don’t miss. Hold their eyes with yours. It gives them something to think about besides making a noise, and nobody wants to die alone in any case. Let the wall help them to the ground. Leave them in shadow.
I leave the dead man behind me. A second dies at the end of the next hall.
“You!” This one rounds a corner with sword in hand. Almost knocking me down.
Sharp hands. That’s what Grumlow said to me. Sharp hands. It’s his tutorial in knife-work. A sword’s all about the swinging, the thrust, the momentum, timing your move against that of your foe—a man with a knife is a man with sharp hands, nothing more. A knife-fight is a scary thing. That’s why men jab and feint, posture, run. Grumlow says the only thing to do is go in fast, go in first, kill him quick.
I go in fast. His sword falls on the long rug and doesn’t clatter.
Around the corner is the door I’m seeking. Locked. I take the key from the guard’s belt. The door opens on oiled hinges. Silent. The hinges never squeak on a nursery door. Babies fight sleep hard enough as it is.
The wet-nurse is snoring in a bed by the window. A lantern glows on the sill, its wick trimmed low. The shadows of the cot bars reach for me.
I should kill the nurse, but it looks like Old Mary who chased after Will and me in the long ago. I should kill her, but I let her sleep. She would be ill-advised to wake.
I drag the guard into the room and close the door. For a long moment I pause, picturing my escape routes. There is a second exit from the room, leading to the nurses’ quarters. As long as I have two ways to run I feel safe enough. There are passages that lead from the castle. Secret tunnels that lead to hidden doors in the High City. I couldn’t open those doors from the outside, but I can leave by them.
I take a deep slow breath. White musk—his mother’s scent. Another. I step to the cot and look upon my brother. Degran they call him. He’s so small. I hadn’t thought he would be so tiny. I reach in and lift him, sleeping. He barely fills my hands. He gives a gentle sigh.
The assassin’s work is dirty work.
I vowed to take the empire throne, to take the hardest path, to win the Hundred War whatever the cost. And here in two hands I hold a key to the Gilden Gate. The son of the woman who replaced my mother. The son my father set me aside for. The son on whom he has settled my inheritance.
“I came to kill you, Degran.” I whisper it.
He is soft and warm, his head big, his hands tiny, his hair so very fine. My brother.
The lamp glow catches the white scars along my arms as I hold him up. I feel the briar’s hooks in me.
I should twist his neck and be gone. In the game of empire this is not a rare move, not even unusual. Fratricide. So common there is a word
