The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy) (43 page)

Kansten
sank to the settee, and patted the cushion next to her. Hune seated himself
there. “Would it help, to talk about your dad? I’d love to know more about
him.”

Hune’s
eyes turned glassy, with withheld tears, and Kansten took his hand.

“He
told me, just yesterday, how proud he was of me. He’d never told me that
before.”

Hune
talked for a good hour, and Kansten let him. She listened as he reminisced, as
he told her Adage had been a gift from the king. She let Hune tell what stories
he would, and he only stopped when a knock came on the door, a summons from
Neslan. Kansten slipped into a corner, out of view, until Hune dismissed his
family’s servant. Then she said she knew the way out.

She
had directions from her uncle to return to Teena’s, and tried to enjoy her
first amble through Podrar. That life continued as normal outside the Palace
was surreal to her; the public still knew nothing of Rexson Phinnean’s death.

Near
Teena’s cottage, Kansten spied the mutt she had seen once before through the
parlor window. She found him in a dirt-packed alley between some taverns and a
haberdasher’s shop; he was rummaging through leftovers a cook had thrown out.

The
dog—a puppy, really—was a curious animal, and while dirty, showed
no signs of disease. Kansten knelt and called him to her. He stared at her for
minutes, doubting, nibbling now and then on a chicken bone, but finally her
persistence won out. He came to her. She scratched his floppy ears, and he
settled on the dirt to let her rub his belly. He was thin, but not dangerously
so, and small enough that Kansten imagined she could bathe him in Teena’s
largest bucket.

“You sweetheart! You’d adore Hune, just adore him. And he’d
take good care of you. I have to bring you to him…. You need a name, don’t you?
How about Trite? I think Hune would like that. Trite was Sir Adage’s horse,
after all, in all those stories. And he wasn’t a thoroughbred.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Laskenay

Kora
and her family returned to Traigland the day after the battle for Oakdowns.
While Zacry went home to acquaint his family with his scar, Kora and her sons
transported to Parker’s smithy. They found him at his anvil as red-faced as
usual, his thin shirt soaked and sticking to him. Two other smiths were also
working, so Parker said nothing, but he mouthed what Kora assumed was a
five-syllable prayer of gratitude.

He
left his horseshoes to wipe his face and neck with a towel, and then his arms.
He led his family outside and hugged his sons tight. Neither seemed to mind the
sweat that transferred to their clothes any more than Kora did, come her turn;
her dress was nothing special, a frock she wore to clean the house. When Parker
sent the boys to continue his work and hugged his wife a second time, he
lowered his head to kiss her before she could rise to her toes.

“I
told you I’d protect the boys,” she said. “Zacry’s scarred, but everyone’s
alive. Everyone but Rexson.”

Parker
let out a slow whistle, and his lips went thin. “Are you all right?”

“An
arrow got him. I told him to keep down, but he came to defend me, and he…. He
died, Parker. There’s only me and Hayden now.”

Parker
held an arm around her. “I know what he meant to you before you came here. And
I know what you meant to him, if the way you talked about him was anything close
to the truth. Kora, I never hated the man because of you, you know that?”

“You’ve
never been possessive.”

“I
would have been jealous, if you gave me some reason not to trust you. You never
judged me something less than him. And you’re cracked for that, you know,
seeing who he was and that I’m a smith.”

“He’d
never have judged you something less than him either. He was… surprisingly
humble.”

“He
never once tried to take you from me, and well, I could only respect him for
loving you.” Parker smiled. “Showed he had good taste.”

“He
was terrified I’d be discovered at the battle. That he’d be forced to hang me.
It doesn’t make sense he was the one who died.”

Kora
touched her bandana. She rarely played with her headwraps and knew she’d look
self-conscious, so to explain the gesture, she had to remove the fabric.
Parker’s eyes grew wide when he realized what was missing from her forehead.

“It’s
in my pack,” she said. “I slept at Oakdowns last night, and when I woke up, it
was on the pillow. I didn’t know what to think. What to do. I haven’t told
anyone, not even Zac. I put on my bandana like normal and….”

“And
came here.” Parker strengthened his hold on her waist. She was glad for the
support. She had felt unsettled all morning, ever since that “dream” had come upon
her in the dead of night.

It
appeared to be a dream, and yet was more substantial. Kora’s senses felt
strengthened, not diminished from her waking life. The acids churning in her
stomach brought a hand to her mouth as she recognized the domed space in which
she stood.

A
gold chandelier. Marble floors. An extravagant, curved staircase with two wings
that met at each landing. A wall with five sets of double doors some yards from
the spot she occupied. They led to hallways, one of which had brought Kora at
the age of eighteen to this very room. Here she’d confronted a mob determined
to kill a sorcerer.

The
vestibule of the Crystal Palace.

Kora
shrank against the wall, though she was alone. She had relived, in dreams, the
mob’s attack more times than she could count; this was different. Those dreams
began in the vestibule, but she was always with the Crimson League, surrounded
by the citizens of Podrar who had rushed upon the Palace to slay Vane’s
dictator-uncle. Finding him dead, they had turned on Kora. They would have
beaten her to death. Before Rexson intervened, a woman with a broom had nearly
broken Kora’s collarbone.

Then
Kora noticed the broom that lay at the foot of the stairs. She made herself
approach it; the wooden handle was so polished that somehow, she saw her
reflection. She had to pick up the cursed object and study herself before she
realized what was different about her.

No
crow’s feet. No laugh lines along her mouth. Her cheeks were thinner, and her
bandana gave her youthful face an urchin look. Kora was eighteen again, and
wearing the same hunter’s breeches she’d donned the day the Crimson League had
toppled Zalski Forzythe’s reign.

“Kora.”

The
broom hit marble, with a clatter that echoed through the room. Kora whirled on
her heel, because she recognized that voice. She hadn’t heard it in twenty-five
years.

A
tall, straight-backed woman with impeccable posture and a gentle smile stood
where Kora had found herself before walking to the stairs. The new arrival
looked exactly as Kora remembered her; she had not aged from her thirty years.
Her long, black hair hung loose, falling onto a plain, yet elegant, white gown.
Her complexion was pale, and her eyes a piercing shade of ice blue.

“Laskenay.”
Kora ran to the woman who had taught her magic. To Vane’s mother. “Laskenay,
what is this?”

Kora
embraced her mentor. She had watched Laskenay die, had watched Zalski kick her
corpse in the Palace courtyard, but here, the raven-haired duchess was as alive
as anyone. She squeezed Kora’s shoulder as she pried the girl off her.

“We
haven’t much time,” Laskenay warned.

“What
are you talking about? Don’t tell me this is a dream. It’s too real. Like when
Petroc used magic to pull my spirit to the Hall of Sorcery, to make me come for
his chain.” Kora paused. She would never feel comfortable mentioning that
necklace. “Why are we at the Palace?”

“You
could answer that better than I. We’re on an unstable plane, one between the
physical world and the afterlife. It takes the form you bestow upon it.”

“Me?”

“A
form significant to you, a place engraved on your soul.”

“But
why mine? Why not yours?”

“Your
spirit called me here. It’s been calling me for years, ever since I died.
That’s not unusual in itself; many of us who have moved on feel pulled by
someone or other we knew in life. My son’s longed for me as well, especially
when he was young.”

“Have
you ever met Vane this way?”

“The
Giver forbids conferences such as these, between the dead and the living, but
he bid me answer you this night. He bid me give you explanations, now that you
can hear them without endangering the future.”

“Does
that mean I…?”

“You’ve
fulfilled your destiny as the Marked One, fulfilled it to completion.
Explanations can no longer interfere. As the Giver redirected your entire life
with that gem above your nose, he wanted to grant you some understanding.”

Kora
gulped. “You have answers?”

“Death
brings a clarity, a fullness of vision that in life we could never take in.
Your ruby, for instance….”

Kora’s
mind took her back. She carried few moments from life in Herezoth with her as
clearly as the time she had first seen a ruby. Dust from a country road freshly
trodden by cart wheels and horse hooves had burned her eyes; hatred for a
mounted man, a captain in Zalski’s army who had struck her best friend, had
tensed her muscles. She’d kept calm because that friend, a young man named
Sedder, couldn’t.

They
had found Kora’s ruby together. She had touched it first. At night, she still
wondered whether that simple act had sealed her fate. She was born a sorceress,
but could the gem have marked Sedder, had he reached for it instead of her?

That
blasted gem. That horrid stone had set Zalski after her, and she had only known
it as a ruby because she’d heard that rubies were red. Kora’s childhood had
been a simple one. Her father was a carpenter; her mother had no fine necklaces
or bracelets.

Yes,
Kora remembered her first encounter with precious stones. “That crate of jewels
passed me on the road,” she said. “Sedder and I, we thought it was a coal
transport, but my ruby rose from a crack in the box’s cover as the cart rode
by. The motion was too stiff, too slow to be from a spell, and there was no one
around who knew magic. When I touched the gem and it split, and half of it flew
to my face…. I could only think it was the Giver’s work. He almost never
interferes with us like that, but what else could it have been? I….”

“I
wondered in life about your ruby, the same as you did. In every version of the
Marked One’s legend I came across, the Giver had a prominent role. Only when I
died could I see how you….”

“How
I what?”

“The
Giver acted as he did to set you on your path. Had you been born with a mole on
your cheek, that would have satisfied the legend, you know. Your face would
have been marked, but could you have accepted your role? By your ruby, the
Giver forced acceptance on you. He also…. Since so much was to fall to you, he
wanted to give you proof of his existence, so you could take strength and
comfort. He wanted to leave you no doubt of divine support in your
undertakings.”

Kora
strummed her fingers on the back of her hand. “I did pray,” she admitted. “I
prayed a lot. I can’t say I had Bendelof’s devotion, but….”

“Few
could match Bennie’s devotion. Faith was part of your ruby’s purpose, not the
whole.”

“Let’s
sit,” said Kora. “I think I should sit.”

She
led Laskenay to the staircase wing not blocked by the broom, and they took
seats on the silk-carpeted steps. Laskenay glanced upward.

“You
remember this place well.”

“I
wish I didn’t, believe me.”

“Your
memories of the vestibule are less pleasant than mine. I knew balls here.
Banquets….”

“Laskenay,
you said we wouldn’t have much time. Not to cut you off, but….”

“You’re
right. We were talking about your gem, no? How it came to you. And I was
saying….”

“The
Giver acting that day was about more than bringing me to faith.”

“I
met you a mere hour after you came across that ruby. I never saw anyone look so
desperate, Kora. So unsure of herself. As much as you came to accept a divine
hand in those events, and to trust they had a purpose beyond your
understanding, you couldn’t understand them. And that saved everything.”

“It
saved our cause?”

“Anything
more mundane than what you experienced, and you wouldn’t have felt as alarmed
or vulnerable. You wouldn’t have thrown yourself under my wing, or turned to
Rexson for the comfort of his friendship.”

Kora
remembered her first conversation with Rexson, or rather, Lanokas: in the
middle of the night it had been, her first night with the League. Fears of
being the Marked One had terrorized her sleep, and Lanokas had held guard duty,
so he was awake. She’d felt an instant connection with the prince. Weeks later,
when Zalski Forzythe killed Sedder in an ambush, her turning to Lanokas in
grief had only deepened their mutual fondness.

Laskenay
said, “I always knew how you two cared for one another. In the end, you felt an
enormous debt to me for my guidance, and Rexson to you, for your banishment at
his hand.”

“He
never did forgive himself for that. I don’t know why. He acted to save me.”

“Nonetheless,
he lived with guilt. That guilt from hurting someone he loved so deeply, it
spurred him, Kora. It was his motivation to work for Herezoth’s good. When he
considered things hopeless, he’d remind himself of what he’d done to you. How
he’d spurned you to secure the throne, in the hope of bringing peace to his
realm. The least he owed you was to do all within his power to ensure that
peace might last.”

“Really?”
Kora pulled her knees in. “What about my debt to you, then?”

“Why
did your family take in my son? Teach him mercy and fortitude along with magic?
How much good has he accomplished as a result, since his return to Herezoth?”

“More
good than I can name,” said Kora. She looked Vane’s mother in the eye. “I’m so
proud of him, he…. Laskenay, you know you have grandchildren?”

Laskenay’s
gaze had always held an appearance of strength, of cold composure, but that
faded as she said, “I know. Four of them.”

“I
could bring your son a message.”

“I’d
entrust you with words for him, but it…. It’s not the safest option. He might
deem you had dreamed them. Doubt your sanity.” Laskenay paused. “You shouldn’t
tell anyone what we’ve spoken here. This brief meeting is for you, and you
alone. To answer your questions.”

Kora
whispered, “Why me? Of all the people in the kingdom, why me?”

“We
all enter the world to meet some goal. For some unique purpose no one else can
fulfill.”

“It
could never have been Sedder, then? I didn’t doom him grabbing that stone
before he could?”

Kora’s
ruby had changed Sedder’s life as much as hers. He’d only survived a month with
Laskenay and her group of rebels after he and Kora joined them.