Emissary Read online

  The sea rolling under his feet again felt soothing, but his stomach tightened as she drew close to the anchored Monoean ships.

  “Khel Szi, what do you know of the Monoean navy?” Akhanar Ghotze asked.

  Rather more than he could admit, having served it for the better part of his military career. “I’ve studied under my father’s lectors and strategists.”

  He had endured tiresome lectures. Should it ever come to war between his old and new countries, he had to know what misinformation and prejudice he faced in leading Akrasia against his old homeland.

  “Aye, Khel Szi. That is well, then.” Ghotze didn’t sound too certain. Most seamen counted live experience as the more worthy.

  Good fortune for me I’ve got both. If he told himself he had good fortune enough times, perhaps might one day it might overcome the duplicity that ruled him now. Nevertheless, he managed to strip the dryness from his tone.

  “Maintain a steady course, and keep to their broadside as a precaution.” The wind off Blood Bay came mostly from behind the Monoean ships during Tradeseason, an advantage in attacking from the Monoean’s position. He glanced up at Thom, who hung unmoving in the rigging watching the enemy ships for any sign of pulling anchor or attack. Captain Ghotze had grudgingly admitted only a Gadye mask could see at that distance.

  Draken grabbed the rail and leapt down the steps from the quarterdeck to the main deck where a few of the crew were fine-tuning their speed to the shouted orders of Ghotze, who knew his business well enough to keep to the broadside of Monoean warships and was courteous enough not to say it to the Khel Szi.

  Draken focused on the whitecaps beyond the breakers instead of the nearing enemy ships, and he fought back the dread of being found out for a sundry fraud. Though bastards could inherit in Brîn, mixed-race bastards certainly could not.

  “Hie, Khel Szi! Parley flag!” Thom called down.

  Draken narrowed his eyes. A flag had climbed the rigging of the nearest Monoean ship. “That is well, then.”

  “Aye, Khel Szi,” Ghotze said. “And they do not fire upon us though we are within fair range.”

  “Perhaps their captain has shifted to caution since the battle and the executions.”

  Ghotze shook his head. “I think something else stays their arrows, Khel Szi.”

  “Magic.” Or the threat of it. Draken sighed and glanced back at the white peaks of Eidola poking through its interminable mists, wishing again for the Mance King’s council. But pressing duties had kept Osias in his mountain fortress for many sevennight.

  The vague thought passed that Osias might be magicking peace for the moment. No. Foolish—

  Not so foolish, that.

  Draken stilled. Bruche?

  No answer. Obviously. Gods, here was proof that wishes were madness …

  Akhanar Ghotze snorted, and it took Draken a breath to realize he was responding to his comment about the magic. Ghotze was too pragmatic to hold with such nonsense as magic, even a magical sword, as a weapon of war—they’d had this conversation before. But then, he hadn’t seen all Draken had.

  “Let them fear your magic, Khel Szi,” Ghotze said, “if it will spare Brîn.”

  “And Akrasia.”

  “Aye, Khel Szi.”

  Draken strode to the forecastle, nodding absently at the sailors’ respectful greetings. Four archers held arrows on the string at the rail. He peered over their shoulders. They were gaining enough sea on the Monoean ships to no longer need the glass. He recognized the lead ship fair well, the King’s Folly. Paint fresh, sails mended, the crew moved with precision. Yramantha had apparently done well for herself: a woman whose skin had seen too much salt air and rough wind, a woman who knew the sea and kept tight command. She’d last been running patrols and exile drops in the small schooner that had brought Draken to Akrasia, but no longer. The King’s Folly was a proper warship, if an aged one.

  Draken cast a sullen glare to the moonless morning sky. Curse the bloody gods. He hoped nightmares plagued them all during their daytime rest. If gods even got nightmares.

  He stood firm as Monoean bowmen trained their arrows on him. Each had that odd ash mark on their forehead. “What are the markings for?”

  Gotze shrugged. “A new sect? Who knows?”

  The Monoean warship outmatched them man-to-man, but the Brînian galleon Reavan was on tack, set to close in with a few gusts of wind, and her forecastle and aft bristled with archers. Fires to light the arrows burned in metal trenchers behind them.

  Waves buffeted the ship hulls. Breezes luffed the sails. Banners snapped. Draken’s heart pounded hard in his chest. He cleared his throat and shouted in Brînian, “I am Prince of Brîn and Her Majesty Queen Elena’s Night Lord. Who among you is authorized to make terms?”

  Muttering rose up on the other ship and then the duty bell rang a single, clear peal. Everyone around Draken stiffened.

  “Hold!” he shouted before an arrow could be loosed. Every bowstring on the Bane eased a finger-length with an anticipatory creak.

  On the King’s Folly, the hatch to the aft castle opened and the captain strode into view. They’d kept her safely tucked away until they’d determined the Brînians’ frame of mind, until he’d announced himself and held his fire. Draken relaxed a little more and gave the order to loose the sails and lash the ships together. Of course they couldn’t touch side by side, but bars were set between the rails for the purpose. In the easy seas of the Bay, they should be fine.

  Yramantha walked to the rail and gripped it with both hands. She looked the same: reddish hair frosted with grey, narrow-hipped, and broad-shouldered, but for the large black spot of ash. Intertwined crescent moons were embroidered onto the shoulder of her uniform. He lifted his chin and let her have a good look at his tattoos, war ink on his face and chest, his jewelry, his hand resting on Seaborn’s plain hilt, and the battered scabbard.

  He told himself she would see what she thought she was going to see. He told himself she thought she was seeing a Brînian Prince, a stranger.

  Still. They knew each other. They’d socialized and spoken, the last being right before he’d leapt into the sea at the point of her sword. His voice was more difficult to disguise. He did his best to let his carefully cultivated Brînian accent obscure it.

  “I come to inquire about a Brînian attack on Quunin in my country,” Yramantha said in passable Akrasian.

  Draken hand clenched into a fist. He knew the town Quunin. His mother resided there, cast from court in shame over having birthed the child of a Brînian slave. Had she died in the attack? He forced a breath into his tight chest. Or had she long gone to rest under her shrine? At least two Sohalias had passed since he’d had word of her, well before his wife’s death and his exile to Akrasia.

  He switched to Akrasian and let his voice drop to an ugly growl. “And it has aught to do with us?”

  “The attacking ships bore crimson snake banners,” she replied, her tone haughty. “Brînian banners, Your Highness.”

  The dried ink tugged on his skin as his brows lowered. Who had ordered ships marked with the Brînian standard to attack? And why hadn’t Kupsyr mentioned it amid all his talk of magic? He muttered a curse. Thanks to Elena’s orders, Kupsyr was too dead to ask.

  And then he cursed himself seven times a fool. Brînian mercenaries would do anything for enough Akrasian rare, or even Monoean gold. Maybe Kupsyr wasn’t privy to the attack. Maybe Yramantha wasn’t part of the rebel faction. Maybe they were just using her. Or the rebel faction had just used Kupsyr. Or there was some other mischief afoot.

  He had to restrain himself from rubbing his temples as the first threads of a headache wound through him.

  Yramantha leaned out a little further over the rail. “Curiously, the very next day after the attack on my country, Brînian trade ships arrived at Sister Bay.”

  “As I would expect, since the Akrasian Minister of Trade approved their route.” Though Draken did not know that for a fact.

  Yra
mantha glanced at Tyrolean, who stood close enough Draken could hear his breath. “Think, Your Highness, how it all looks from our side.”

  “Fair odd,” Draken admitted.

  “We questioned the incoming trade ship captains closely, but they’d received no word of attack,” she said.

  He knew well what such “close” questioning entailed. He frowned at the thought of Brînian tradeship captains on Grym’s torture racks. “I know nothing of this, but I will seek out the truth of it. My Queen has no wish to war with your country.”

  “I find that difficult to believe. Your people invaded my country once.”

  “That was in another King’s time. Another Khel Szi. Not this Queen. Not me.”

  Her tone tightened. “Quunin burned to the ground, including their vessels, destroying the fishing industry and taking hundreds of lives.”

  He’d already borne punishment for one crime he hadn’t committed. He’d be damned if he’d do it again. “As I said, I will personally investigate—”

  “Forgive my bluntness, Your Highness. The new royals on the Akrasian continent are unproved. King Aissyth has no reason to trust you.”

  Tyrolean stood still as stone next to him. A bow creaked. Wind exhaled from loose sails. Rigging rattled against a boom. Draken filled his lungs with clean salt air, willing patience.

  She went on. “Indeed, we’ve heard astoundingly little from your Queen since she ascended two Sohalias ago. My King is not certain if she is rude or frightened, or both.”

  Draken might be a new Prince, but he was not some pup to draw blade and fight over an insult or insinuation. He carried on looking at her, holding his peace.

  Yramantha raised her voice. “Will you come aboard the King’s Folly and speak terms with me in private? I swear you will be safe from harm and returned in good time.”

  The deckboards creaked behind him. His szi nêre, no doubt. He sighed. Fighting their guardship over him would just drag things out. But he had to know what she would say, if it matched Kupsyr’s talk.

  Sorting their positions once they arrived on the other ship seemed designed to drive him mad—who would stand where and such, mild corrections of bravado, and convincing Yramantha’s first mate that Draken was not trying to get her apart from the others in order to slit her throat, nor have his way with her in a violent manner. They wanted to hold his sword for him, as well, and argued the point extensively.

  “Fools all! She bloody well asked me to come, didn’t she?”

  At last he handed his sword over to Tyrolean. “Don’t cut yourself.”

  “This is a bad idea, you’re going in there alone.”

  “Everything I do is a bad idea. I’ll be fine.” He was getting as good at lying as a Reschanian fur trader passing off reedy stag pelts as fine horsehide.

  In the captain’s cabin they sat at the table, an elaborately carved thing more suited to a Wyndam city estate than a warship. Maps and battle plans scattered the top. From what Draken could see upside-down, one of them was the plan for the attack on Seakeep. He touched it. “You can toss that one in the rubbish.”

  Yramantha leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed under her breasts. This close he realized her bloodstone uniform was embroidered with a design of three intertwined crescent moons—a sigil that had nothing to do with the Royal House of Moneoa. “I assume you did not spare the prisoners.”

  Draken bit down on the defensive bile welling up in the back of his throat. “We executed them as humanely as possible. Their bodies burn yet in the tower bowl. A tithe for Khellian and an honor for them. Ma’Vanni will accept them as esteemed warriors.”

  “That is disappointing. But it is my King’s dearest wish this matter be resolved diplomatically and that our countries maintain friendly terms.” Yramantha spoke in a rote way, as if rehearsed.

  Odd way of showing it, attacking Seakeep. But diplomacy was more about what went unsaid and undone. “It is my wish, as well. I see no need for further bloodshed.”

  “And yet we have the devastation of Quunin to think of.”

  So much for diplomacy. “And the attack on Seakeep. Three of our High Houses are dead. I think we have paid our debt—one we likely did not owe.”

  She considered him for a long breath.

  He lifted his chin. “What would King Aissyth have me do in reparation, should we find this is not some ruse by outsiders or rebels to implicate my people and start a war?”

  She waited a few breaths to speak, long enough to make Draken wonder if he’d hit upon something neatly. Her answer made him abandon the thought, though. “Perhaps the rebels are yours. Rumors of a great battle between Akrasia and her principality Brîn fly on the trade winds, Your Highness.”

  “That’s why you attacked us … because you considered us weakened by civil war?”

  “Am I to assume those rumors are baseless?”

  His lips tightened into a frown before he could stop his reaction from reaching his face. “The unrest is resolved.”

  Triumph tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Since those rumors are true, so too may be the recovery of certain magicks linking you to the gods.”

  Torn between a surge of curiosity and wariness of the truth, he spoke cautiously. “That notion likely raises many questions.”

  “I rather think there is just the one: why you?”

  He was still sore from the beating he took during the battle, from fighting, from hard riding, from tension. Her words wound his aching muscles tighter. “Monoeans call magic heresy. In some quarters of Sevenfel you could be beaten just for saying the word.”

  “In some quarters of Sevenfel they used to hang people for murder.” She held his gaze. “Now we exile them.”

  Fine. She knew who he was. “State yourself plainly, Yramantha.”

  “You recall my name?”

  “We shared a dance at the Ascention Day Ball last Sohalia. Lesle was mildly jealous. I am a busy man, Captain. What do you want from me?”

  “I didn’t believe it when I heard,” she said, leaning back.

  “That I am Khel Szi? It is my blood.”

  “The Monoean royal family is also your blood.”

  “They do not claim me.”

  “Your mother would, given a chance.”

  He stilled.

  “I thought you’d like to know. She lives. She would beg clemency from the King on your behalf.”

  “The Monoean kings leave the law to the will of the gods and have done for two generations. Aissyth won’t protest the tradition of eschewing my mother, nor her bastard son.”

  “The kings severed us from the gods,” she hissed. “You, Prince, are a conduit to them.”

  He leaned back from her vehemence, staring at her, puzzling together what she said with what Krupsyr had said. The truth dawned with a chill. “You attacked Seakeep because of me.”

  “It worked, yes? Here you are.”

  The bloodshed … he could barely gather coherent thoughts to argue his point. “A diplomatic visit … an audience … you only need ask …”

  A caustic laugh burst from Yramantha. “Who in Akrasia knows who you are, Draken vae Khellian? If I spoke to you thus at the Citadel you’d be dead before nightfall.”

  His jaw tightened. “My name is Khel Szi”

  “Indeed.” She flicked her gaze over his face, up to the band on his brow. “As your many names combine to make the whole of you, so too does the blood of enemies mingle in your veins. You are supposed to be wrong. Heathen. Sundry, aye? And yet the gods gift you with their own magicks. Perhaps not in spite of your heritage, but because of it.”

  “I have a duty to Brîn. To my Queen.”

  “No, you have a duty to the gods. We cannot let you die at the hands of prejudiced heathens. You must come to Monoea. You must take your rightful place.”

  Rightful place? He was already here, in it. “Your King is sworn to kill me if I seek your shores. My Queen will never let me go, and you should not want me. I am not the godsworn you think
I am.”

  She shook her head. “Nor are the kings.”

  His heart lurched and stilled. “Monoea will fall if you touch the royal family.”

  “We’ve faith to take their place.”

  “What faith?”

  She lowered her gaze. “Things could go very badly for your Queen. But she needn’t know who you are. She needn’t know anything until things are settled at home. She can bear her child in peace.”

  “Our child. My child.”

  “There won’t be a child unless you do as we ask.”

  “Tread lightly.” His voice shook with anger. “Those who threaten my Queen tend to die.”

  “You had a King first.”

  “Who banished me!” Draken couldn’t make sense of all she was saying, pieces of a cutwork toy with no schematic to put them together. A rebellion? Faith—as if they did not all pray to the same gods? How did he play in? He was no longer Monoean. All he understood was why they’d insisted he come in here unarmed. If he had Seaborn, she’d be dead.

  He snorted, a burst of forced bravado. “Elena will not listen to you, no matter what you say, no matter what you threaten. And I will never come to Monoea. Even if I were able, I would never aid you in rebellion against my cousin-King.”

  Yramantha rose off the bench, opened a hinged box on the lipped shelf along the curving wall, and pulled out a beribboned lock of black hair. It was longer than his arm, sliding on the maps between them like a thin snake. Next to it she placed a delicate moonwrought necklace with a small blue jewel. A child’s piece. Draken recognized it well enough. The pendant had been a gift from her mother, dead since Elena was young.

  Draken couldn’t tear his gaze away from that lock of hair. Another lie, it had to be. Anyone could have cut a lock of black hair and pass it off as hers … but for the little curl next to the straight pieces.

  He reached out and closed his fist around them both. The lock of hair was silky, sickeningly familiar, against his palm.

  “May the will of the Seven become the will of all.”

  Draken twitched his gaze to her face.

  “Come home, Draken. Where you and your magic belong.”