“Why?”
Relos Var laughed in surprise as he stood. “Because its other name is Godslayer, dear boy. And we are, after all, going to kill gods.”
49: WINTER TRIALS
Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since Thurvishar pedantically corrected himself
Janel chuckled. “No, don’t be so hard on Baramon, Qown. He wasn’t the person who revealed our plans.”
Ninavis sniffed and rolled her eyes.
“He wasn’t?” Qown looked confused. “But he’s the reason I found out what you were doing.”
“Yes,” Janel agreed, “but Relos Var didn’t want you to say anything, remember? No, someone else gave up the game, I’m afraid.”
“Who?” Kihrin asked.
Janel reached for her drink. “Oh, that would be me.”
Janel’s Turn. The Ice Demesne, Yor, Quur.
Suless’s eyes turn blue when she casts spells. Not every spell, mind you. Just the enchantments, just the moments when she’s playing with someone’s mind. It is as though in those precious seconds the old woman named Wyrga cannot help but show the goddess who lives underneath. I’d learned to notice the telltale clues, but given no one else seemed to have, I found myself wondering if I could only see the signs because of what Suless had done to me.
Suless proved good at teaching, but I hated the lessons. With each one, a little more witch-queen seeped into my soul, an infection taking over my mind. So I tried, as much as possible, to learn elsewhere. I studied books, tutored with Qown, and even sat in on Thurvishar’s lessons to the Spurned, as Kaen’s rejected wives began calling themselves. They deserved their pride. Since they’d begun studying under Xivan, her relentless training had turned them from a gaggle of bored, pampered prisoners into a proper fighting force.
The Yoran men were … incredulous. Quite unable to understand or believe how these women—who had just a short few years earlier been nothing more than beautiful furniture—exceeded them for speed, strength, and ferocity. They didn’t know about the spells the women had developed to increase their physical prowess to supernatural levels.
The stories I’d told Talea about my own strength had been the inspiration. She’d gone to Bikeinoh, who had figured out how to make the spells work. Then Bikeinoh taught any other woman who could learn.
Most of them, as it happened.
However, no man suggested putting the Spurned into the field. The women became a luck charm, an accessory for the Hon to wear while receiving guests, much like myself. Women warriors both scandalized and delighted visiting royals. Duke Kaen had special armor made for the women, which accentuated their femininity: still no more practical for surviving freezing cold than the old gowns had been. Useless for protecting against sword blows too, since it showed a great deal of cleavage and leg. Still, the stories spread. Maybe it did some good, when more distant Yoran villages heard rumors of the Hon’s fighting women.
Maybe.
I learned right alongside them. Thurvishar D’Lorus turned out to be an excellent teacher, although his insight into exactly what he needed to say or do to help me comprehend a spell occasionally unnerved me. He’d turn the book in my hands, say something, point out a flaw in my approach, and it would trigger some great breakthrough in my understanding.
Azhen Kaen grew more and more impatient and temperamental. He had believed Jorat would be an easy victory, and it had turned into a quagmire. Aeyan’arric began attacking more, and more villages emptied before she arrived. “Priests” of the Black Knight—dedicated to the Nameless Lord—began spreading the air sigil, rendering the Lysian gas Senera had used against Mereina obsolete. Senera began encountering Joratese using talismans to shield against magic. Kaen’s inability—more so, Relos Var’s inability—to track down the rebel leaders causing so many problems rubbed the duke’s temper raw. He snapped and bit at everyone around him.
Kaen did not stop sending Aeyan’arric into Jorat.
For several years after I first vowed my loyalty to Duke Azhen Kaen, he tested me. I hated these trials, but he never asked me to do anything too objectionable; I never traveled into Jorat with Senera, for example. He made me a symbol of his future rule—a Joratese taking orders from a Yoran—his promise of things to come for anyone who doubted their duke. I delivered messages to the clan houses, just to be seen. I wore Kaen’s rings in my hair and Relos Var’s jewels at the neck of a red cloak far too thin to protect anyone else from the cold. The Yoran nobles and courtiers took to calling me Dyono Tomai, or the Red Knight, and I was never quite sure if they meant it as a compliment. I suspected not.
Then came the day when Duke Kaen asked me to do something a little more serious than running errands.
“I want you to clear out the prison,” the duke told me over a game of Zaibur. “Xivan doesn’t want to take the time, but it’s grown too crowded.”
I paused and cocked my head. “You want me to release the prisoners?” I hoped I had misunderstood what he was asking.
He snorted. “I want you to execute them.”
I remember the moment quite well. The scent of burning wood from the nearby fireplace mixed with the odor of spiced butter tea from the tray next to us. The mage-light lamps cast a yellow glow over us, sparkled against the diamonds in his thick white beard. I stared at him, and he smiled.
Azhen Kaen knew exactly what he was asking me to do. He was escalating his tests. Would I kill for him? Not just fight for him, but put someone to death just because he asked it?
I bowed my head as I moved a game piece. “Do you wish me to make an example?”
“No. Dead will do just fine. I’ll order some men to assist you as you require.”
Which meant he’d order some of his soldiers to make sure I went through with it and then report back to him. After all, what good was a test if he didn’t have a way to verify the score?
I pinned his god-king piece. “And that’s game.”
He scowled at the board. “So it is.”
* * *
The next day, I traveled down to the prison level—still quite a way up from the Spring Caves under the palace—and realized just how bad the test would be.
Unlike Jorat, Yor does have prisons. Or at least the Ice Demesne has a dungeon. It was as dreary and miserable as anything I’ve encountered outside the Afterlife itself. Despite Kaen’s orders, his dungeon didn’t need emptying, because he never left prisoners alive for long enough to overfill its cells. This wasn’t about executing prisoners. This was about seeing if I would execute prisoners.
I’m no stranger to death, but slaying someone in battle and killing someone who is weaponless, bound, and helpless are very different.
The condemned were political dissidents who had been too outspoken against the duke’s rule or who had moved against him in some fashion. I had no idea if they’d received a trial, but I suspected not. The dozen men and women all appeared to be Yoran, dressed in the clothing they’d been wearing when arrested. From the looks of them, none had been pulled from their beds; they all wore furs, boots, the normal Yoran cold-weather attire. Since no effort had been made to heat the palace’s dungeon, they’d been allowed to keep their clothing. Apparently, the Hon hadn’t wanted them to freeze to death before they could be executed.