The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) (22 page)

The second guard swung at the man in white, but he only gracefully stepped away from the arcing metal with a minimum of effort, the sadistic, ever-knowing smile plastered on his sculptured features. The guard attacked again—and missed a second time. Calemore turned inside his blow, stepped close, and grabbed the soldier’s arm. He twisted. The arm snapped like a twig, with a loud, sickening crack.

Wailing, the soldier collapsed. Calemore pried the sword from the broken grip and used it just in time to parry an attack from behind. The third guard charged in a dash of short slashes. Calemore danced around him, toying with him. Then, he slashed once, twice, and the Athesian went down in a fountain of dark blood.

The first soldier was just coming to his senses. He realized the attacker was dangerous. Rather than engaging him again, he inched back toward the corridor and called for help.
Smart man
, Amalia thought, watching the brief fight with fascination. The White Witch turned to face her.

“I’m losing my patience. Give me the bloodstaff!” He panted, but the smile never went away.

Instead of surrendering, she swung the weapon like a pole. It was an awkward, desperate gesture. Calemore caught the bloodstaff with his free hand, stopping her attack as if it had no momentum, and yanked it free from her grip. She staggered forward from the impact, her arms numb.

He dropped the sword and wound his long fingers into her hair. Fast, so fast. She had no time to react. He pulled her close. Her eyes watered with pain.

“Nice smell,” he said and bit her neck playfully.

Behind him, two more soldiers had joined the remaining survivor, both armed with crossbows. They were aiming at him, but would not fire. They might accidentally hit the empress. Their faces were grim, determined, and pale with naked fear.

Calemore turned halfway toward them, keeping his eyes on Amalia. “Would you give your lives away for a petulant little girl?” he asked. “Is she worth it?”

Without waiting for any kind of reply, he shoved her away, hard, and danced into the fray. She hit one of the chairs, losing her balance and toppling over. Screams erupted in the corridor. A crossbow bolt hit the far wall, wide off mark. The three men fought bravely, briefly. They died quickly.

The White Witch stepped back into the chamber and walked toward Amalia. She tried to rise, but he kicked her in the face. Purple pain exploded in her eyes. The room spun. Colors merged into a morbid display of grays. When she regained her senses, Calemore was craning over one of the dead soldiers, the bloodstaff propped against the corpse. Blood was rising inside the hollow glass rod.

A soldier stormed into the chamber. Calemore leveled the weapon and fired. Nuggets of frozen blood tore into flesh like claws, ripping the man apart. The pellets sliced through him easily and beyond, shredding furniture and chipping the masonry. The room filled with a flurry of debris.

Then, suddenly, he was standing above her, an imposing, perfect figure of death. She felt like a little girl. She was no empress. She could not lead a nation. She was meddling in things far beyond her abilities.

He bent down. Two more soldiers rushed in, distracting him for a second. They fell down, swatted like flies. The far wall of the corridor was pockmarked with pellet holes and smeared in chunks of bloody meat.

His smile looked like a snarl now. “You are a foolish little child,” he whispered. “And you’re too stupid to appreciate the power you have been given. You’re too weak.” He slapped her hard with the book. Her lip tore.

“I should probably kill you, just to teach you a lesson, but I’m rather busy now.” And with that, he left. He stepped boldly into the corridor and plowed his way out of the Imperial Manse, a wake of death and screams following him.

Amalia lay on the floor, curled in a fetal position, sobbing. She had just lost her dignity, her pride, and her most important strategic weapon. Without the bloodstaff, how could she hope to defend Athesia against overwhelming numbers? How could she do anything right?

She wanted to sleep, to forget everything. She hoped Father was there to comfort her. But no one came. Even when soldiers finally did find her, in a pool of blood and tears, even when they administered the cuts on her cheek and lip with a salve and soft gauze, she barely felt their mechanical, dutiful touches. She was all alone.

CHAPTER 14

“T
here are several things you need to pay attention to,” Otis lectured as they walked off the practice grounds, James covered in sweat and bits of hay and bruised all over. He was angry, because Hector had humiliated him. Timothy trailed behind, struggling under the weight of padded leather armor and practice swords. Two bodyguards shadowed from some distance.

“You need to handle the other claimants before they gain too much power. They must either be persuaded to step down, join your forces, or be eliminated. Then, you must woo the council to get their full approval for your campaign. Finally, you prepare for war.”

James felt this was too much. Day after day, the pressure grew, physical, emotional, mental. More and more people came to see him and talk to him, courting him, hinting at future favors and business deals. They were a storm of empty faces and false grins, spinning until they became a sickly blur of colors. His head burst with new information he could hardly grasp. And they made him feel important, to the point any little thing he did might affect the lives of thousands of people. When the emperor farted, winds blew across the realms, it seemed.

“Slow down,” James said. “One thing at a time. You mentioned other claimants?”

Otis rolled his eyes, annoyed. “Yes. Six of them so far. Two could pose serious trouble. Some young fellow named Vere of Eybalen and Lord Martel are your biggest enemies right now. Martel is supported by the shipwrights guild, so they control all the seagoing commerce. But then, the act of force may just be a negotiation tactic. They will probably withdraw their claims if you offer them favorable deals once you take over Athesia.”

James realized the false emperors were more a threat to Otis and Melville than himself. If they could come up with the idea of sponsoring a new Athesian emperor, then any two councillors could do the same thing. It was a game of power. Some other members of the High Council were obviously displeased that James’s patrons were trying to shift the balance of power in their favor.

Sometimes, when he did think about it in more detail, he felt disgusted. He wanted to give up and just go back to his real life. For all he knew, it could all be a ruse. He might not really be Adam’s son. But his mother would not lie to him.

“It would be prudent to commission an assassination or two. You may want to start with one of the lesser threats. This will give others a reason to think through their decisions. The same goes for a number of councillors. And high councillors. I have this list here.” He handed over a paper.

They stepped around a corner, into a long corridor supported by slender columns and opening toward a large round pool. A knot of younger nobles was sitting at the edge of the pool, cooling their legs in the water. When they saw James, they waved. He ignored them and walked on.

James left smudge marks as he scanned the death warrant, every single name and title and profession a complete stranger. James paled. Otis made it sound so casual, but it was a real, brutal, deadly war between the major powers in Caytor. His claim for the Athesian throne was merely a pretext. If he were not careful, the realm could spin into a civil war. For a moment, he felt unimportant, insignificant, a sideshow.

However, in the same heartbeat, he felt he had the power to make a difference. His influence may be ethereal for now, but if he played this game carefully and cleverly, he might be able to stay in control and govern things. Watch, listen and learn, Master Neal said. Perhaps the old man had it right. But sometimes, it felt too much. He wanted to scream.

Everything his two sponsors had promised depended on his cooperation with their plans. They would help him become the emperor of a new, young, contested realm if he helped them become the most powerful councillors in Caytor. It was simple and obvious. The financing, the training, the army, they all belonged and listened to Otis and Melville. For all practical purposes, he was a hostage. He had followers, but they believed in the idea he represented, not the person he was.

Two months at the mansion had given him a perspective on things that differed from what his former life had taught him. There were moments when he thought his mother had made a poor decision. But she was not just an ordinary woman. And she had…He could not let weakness smother him. He was the son of an emperor. That was a hard truth to cling to. But it gave him strength. He may need to humiliate himself to attain what was rightfully his, but he would not give up. And he would never forget the principles he believed in.

“You may want to consider a marriage,” Otis went on, a charging bull.

“I don’t want to get married. I have a fiancée,” James protested.
Celeste
, he thought. Her face was a pale shadow, smeared by the glamour and sickly sweet opulence of lies that choked him. His own words disgusted him. He sounded empty. He sounded fake.

“No one said anything about getting married, only considering it. You see, you’re an eligible bachelor of very high status. Many a Caytorean rich lady would like to sink her teeth into a trophy like yourself. If you were to show affection toward some of them, never quite promising anything, you may sway a whole lot of power and support in your direction.”

“So, what am I supposed to do?”

Otis smiled. “We will arrange everything. Don’t worry. We will organize social gatherings where you will meet young ladies and daughters of rich councillors. You will talk to them and be nice and polite and charming. And you will hint at a union, maybe, sometime in the future. Just remember to keep your hands to yourself. You will stay lucrative as long as they can’t have you.”

They went up a long flight of stairs covered in red rugs. James noticed the fabric was paler and more worn in the center, where most people walked, with deep crimson holding to the edges. Unknown faces from wall paintings stared at him austerely, being dusted by a girl too short to reach the top of each frame, so she had to stand on her toes and stretch.

James felt like that, someone reaching too high for his own good.

The second floor of the center of the mansion was shaped like a star with eight arms, the cardinal points wider and longer. Below him, below a thick chunk of white stone, the huge reception hall stretched, above him, a flat ceiling painted with vine motifs. The chandeliers looked like grapes. It was a nice effect, he had to admit.

Otis led him into the northeastern arm, past the library, past the rows of old armor suits. They entered one of the generic-looking study rooms, where his imperial character was being built daily. It was large, comfortable, lined with books on two of the walls, set with expensive furniture.

Timothy stood near the entrance, just like one of those suits of armor, bobbing with heavy breathing.

James grabbed a pitcher of lemonade from a side table and drank from it deeply.

“Use a glass,” Otis said, pointing, annoyed.

James ignored him. “And what’s the purpose of all this…flirting?” he said after a while.

“Amalia will not give up her throne without a fight, that’s for sure. What she did at her father’s funeral ceremony is a good enough indicator she means war. One day, you may need to march toward Roalas and defeat your half sister in combat. You will need lots of troops for that. Private armies cost a lot of money. You will need lots of rich Caytoreans to finance your endeavor.”

They would not even let him entertain the illusion that he might one day meet his half sister and talk to her about their separate lives, he noticed.

“I see,” James whispered. And what would happen to a hundred thousand hired heads once he took over Roalas? Would they remain loyal to him? Most likely not. He was probably going to end a nameless, decapitated corpse in a back alley somewhere, and Athesian lands would go back to Caytor. He sighed. He needed allies. He needed friends. He needed real, genuine people he could trust and confide in.

But that did not seem possible now. He must do something revolutionary that would shift the balance of power in his favor, ultimately, irrevocably.

“Timothy, take the day off,” he told the boy.

“Thank you, sir,” the servant panted. He lowered the heavy gear to the ground, rested for a moment, hauled it all up again, and lumbered away.

James needed a strategy. He had to transform from a deputy sheriff into a powerful, cunning, and ruthless statesmen. He had to reach into a den of vipers and come out unscathed.

He would think of something. He just needed time.

Otis was leafing through a folder of documents, looking for something. James paced around the room, stretching his muscles, showering dust and straw and sweat onto the expensive carpets. A nameless servant stood in the corner of the room, polite, invisible, waiting for orders.

Melville and another councillor whose name James had long forgotten entered the chamber. Stiff greetings were exchanged. Then, the half Sirtai walked in. He nodded at James. James nodded back, even as a spark of an idea exploded in his mind. He lowered his face, hiding his expression from everyone.