Bridge of Souls (52 page)

The executioner pushed Cailech’s head down onto the block again. “Don’t make it harder for her,” he growled. “She’ll never survive it if she misses.”

Wyl knew the man spoke the truth and he stopped struggling. He did not want to become Valentyna. He did not want her to sacrifice herself for him. He could hear her shallow, terrified breathing. The courtyard was so silent he was sure he could hear her heartbeat too. It was too much for his own bleeding heart. Wyl closed his eyes and begged for a miracle that might thwart Myrren and her cursed gift.

Fynch!
he called silently

V
alentyna lifted the sword. She took a moment to pray for her own soul before she screamed her despair, pouring her sorrow, pain, and anguish into the downward sweep that severed King Cailech’s head from his neck.

She sank slowly to her knees in his blood, her heart aching, tears streaming, and waited for the change to come over her body. She had no idea what to expect or how the magic worked. All she knew was that she would accept him gladly. This would be her ultimate sacrifice, the final demonstration of her love.

Behind her, Celimus’s dark olive eyes sparked with the fire of lust for this woman and the joy of knowing his final enemy was slain. He was Emperor now—and perhaps Valentyna had just shown herself worthy of the title of Empress.

Nearby, Chancellor Jessom’s body sagged and he hung his head as he struggled slightly to breathe. He would need to gather his composure quickly.

The King of the Razors’ body was slumped forward over the block. The executioner bent to pick up the head, which had rolled to his feet. For the umpteenth time he wondered whether the brain remained alive just long enough to know its head had been removed from its body. At the King’s nod, Art Featherstone placed the head of the Mountain sovereign in a leather sack. He would take care of the body once the royal party had departed.

Valentyna felt nothing. Not even a single tear. Was she now Wyl? Had her soul left her body? She was confused. Her hands were slick with his blood, and through her wet eyes she could focus on nothing else.

“Come, Valentyna,” said the voice she hated more than any in the world, and then she felt the King of Morgravia’s touch. She turned away from the headless body to look at Celimus and knew in that instant that something had gone terribly wrong. It had all been a lie. The Quickening was not real. Cailech was dead and the story about Wyl Thirsk must have been some sort of cruel ruse. She was alive and her husband awaited her.

“Jessom,” the King said.

The Chancellor looked up and cleared his throat. “Sire?”

“Help Queen Valentyna to her chambers. I will see you both there shortly.”

“Yes, your majesty,” the Chancellor said, offering his arm to the Queen. Her pale skin was spattered with blood. “You, guard,” he called to Aremys, and beckoned. Aremys moved silently toward the Chancellor; he could not risk being recognized. “You look a burly enough fellow. Help the executioner remove the body immediately and lock it away. Bring the key to me. No one is to be permitted entry. Is that clear?” Aremys nodded.

Jessom looked directly at Crys. “And you, take an inventory of all present, including guards and the herald. I want the names brought immediately to me in the Queen’s chambers. Is that understood?”

Crys, puzzled, nodded beneath his hood, avoiding speech for the same reason Aremys had.

Jessom looked as stunned as the Queen by the afternoon’s events. Moving with uncharacteristic awkwardness but quickly, he hurried Valentyna from the scene of death, and using back corridors that only he seemed to know about, he got the silent, shivering bride to her suite of rooms.

C
HANCELLOR
J
ESSOM WAS SURPRISINGLY TENDER WITH HER
,
BUT
V
ALENTYNA WAS TOO LOST IN HER OWN DARKNESS TO NOTICE
. H
EWETA
square of linen and wiped her face and hands clean of the blood, and tried gently to get her to talk. There were important things she must understand before the King arrived.

“What can I do to help you, my queen?” he whispered, wondering how to revive her from this stricken state before he began to explain his new situation.

Valentyna was in utter turmoil. What had gone wrong? She was still herself…and Cailech was dead. She had killed him, and Wyl had not possessed her. Everyone had lied to her. Fynch, Elspyth, Cailech…but why? She groaned involuntarily. It was a sound of such anguish that she saw fear pass across the hook-nosed Chancellor’s face. Why was he showing her such concern?

“Your majesty?” Jessom whispered, trying to bring her back to the present.

“Kill me,” she whispered. “Before I have to spend a night with him.”

“I cannot do that, your highness.”

“Then I shall kill myself,” she said, color flushing her ghastly, almost yellow complexion.

She saw him flinch. “Please don’t, your majesty. Listen to me: I made a promise to King Cailech yesterday that I would offer you my protection. Rest assured, my word is true. I am now your servant, your highness.” He broke protocol by taking her hand and placing it on his heart. She tried to pull it back, repulsed, but he held it firmly in place. “You must trust me,” he begged her. “King Cailech—”

She cut across his words. “Why do you offer your allegiance to me? You are the King’s man.”

“You must trust me, please,” he repeated. He took her dull silence as agreement. “The King is on his way here, your majesty. I have important information to share with you, but let me organize some refreshment so it arrives before Celimus does. I will be only moments.” He swiftly exited the chamber.

Valentyna did not move, knowing he would not leave her alone long enough to end her life. It briefly occurred to her that the Chancellor was treating her far more kindly than she had expected. Perhaps the Mountain King had indeed managed to persuade him to watch over her. Jessom could not protect her, however, from Celimus’s attentions tonight. She felt
bile rise again, thought she might be sick. It mattered not—by tonight she planned to be dead herself. Jessom returned. He was breathing hard, as if he had been running. “Ah, here we are now, your highness. Please drink this.”

“What is it?”

“The King’s favorite wine. It has a rich and full flavor. It suits only the heaviest of foods because it tends to overpower other tastes, but then the King does not take a midday meal and thus favors the heaviness.”

Valentyna wondered why the Chancellor was giving her such an in-depth description of the wine. Perhaps he thought she needed educating on Celimus’s preferences.

The door suddenly opened and the King of Morgravia himself stood before her. His cheeks were flushed and he looked triumphant. “You were magnificent, Valentyna,” he said, laughing. “Do you still have his blood on you, you savage Briavellian?”

“I washed it away, your highness,” Jessom said softly. He was ignored by both King and Queen.

Valentyna stood and curtsied. “I don’t know what came over me, sire.”

“I do,” Celimus said, taking the proffered goblet of wine from Jessom without even looking at his chancellor. “It was a wonderful demonstration of patriotism. I am proud of you. To us,” he said, raising his glass.

“To us,” Valentyna echoed. She thought of her father’s small dagger, which she had packed and brought with her to Morgravia. It had been for the sake of sentimentality that she had wrapped it so carefully in muslin and laid it among her things. Shortly it would serve a different purpose, bringing welcome death when it opened the arteries at her wrists.

Celimus drained his glass. It was swiftly taken away and refilled by Jessom, then returned as surreptitiously.

“Are you feeling up to the feast, my love?” the King asked.

“I will change, I think,” Valentyna replied drily, looking at her stained gown.

The King sniggered at the jest. “Of course, go ahead. The
nobles can wait. I’ll hang on to the gown for posterity, though; Cailech’s dried blood will make an amusing keepsake.”

“More wine, sire?” Jessom said, stepping forward.

Valentyna watched Celimus drain his second glass of wine and knew that by tonight he would be intoxicated and even more determined to keep his promise. Jessom filled the glass for a third time and Valentyna grimaced, wishing the Chancellor would stop plying the King with so much liquor.

“I won’t be long,” she said. She was backing into her dressing chamber when she saw the King stagger slightly.

“Are you all right, sire?” Jessom asked.

“Shar, but I feel a little odd,” Celimus said.

“Well, I imagine that’s the poison I put in your glass, sire,” Jessom offered matter-of-factly.

Valentyna’s mouth fell open. “Poison?” she echoed. Her gaze moved from the King’s suddenly haggard expression to the victorious face of his chancellor.

“Yes, your majesties,” Jessom replied. “Valentyna, you don’t love the King, I most certainly don’t love the King, the nobles despise him, and Morgravia will hardly miss him—I decided we were all better off without him.”

Celimus tried to move toward the Chancellor, but succeeded only in twitching awkwardly.

“Ah yes, I think the paralysis must be setting in by now, and because you drank two…”—Jessom gave a soft chortle as he checked the glass decanter in his hand—“almost three glasses, each with a hefty dose of the poison, it will work fast. So let’s talk swiftly.”

Celimus made to speak, but nothing of sense came from his lips. He spilled the tiny amount of liquid left in his glass down his front, the glass itself rolling off his lap and hitting the edge of the chair before falling to the floor and shattering.

“No matter, sire, we can clean that up along with your corpse. This is a wonderfully lethal potion Jessom discovered just recently. It kills cleanly, without a giveaway smell and no telltale signs left behind on the body. I’m afraid it’s not a very pleasant death for the victim—no doubt quite similar to the
one Eryd Bench would have experienced,” Jessom went on. “A hideously agonizing end, which is less than you deserve, sire, if I might say so.”

Valentyna was slowly shaking her head in disbelief; Celimus bared his teeth ferociously.

“Not long now, sire, I promise. Your highness”—Jessom turned to a stunned Valentyna—“if you have anything to say to him, say it now. We have about ten minutes at most before his heart stops.”

She had never been more unnerved. “You have really poisoned him?”

The Chancellor nodded. “I had to run back to Jessom’s rooms to get the vial, which is why I was so out of breath, your majesty.”

She frowned. “Why do you speak of Jessom as though you were elsewhere?”

“Oops. How forgetful of me,” the Chancellor replied, clearly enjoying himself. He gave a sly grin that Valentyna did not understand. “Look at me, Celimus,” he demanded, his voice no longer playful as he moved to stand in front of the King. “Watch carefully.”

Chancellor Jessom closed his eyes; Valentyna could swear she heard him softly call the name Fynch. A blue shimmering light appeared around his body, burning him, dissolving him. Then her hand moved to her mouth to stifle the scream of disbelief, for beneath the shimmering, another man was emerging. As Jessom disappeared into the blue furnace, it was Cailech who lifted his proud head, Cailech’s eyes that opened to look into hers, Cailech’s beloved face that looked at her with such love.

Valentyna felt herself tremble and she began to weep, unable to understand what was happening. Could this be true?

Thank you, Fynch,
Wyl whispered across the miles. And deep in the heart of the Thicket, a boy smiled.

“It is I, Valentyna,” Wyl said gently.

She shook her head, hardly daring to trust him. “I killed you.”

“You killed Jessom.”

“How?” Her voice was a groan.

“Fynch made it possible for me to swap places with Jessom temporarily, and for the Chancellor to impersonate Cailech. He called it the Bridge of Souls.”

“Magic?” she whispered.

“That’s right, my love, a clever glamour and a transference between bodies. Fynch came to me in the dungeon and asked me to trust him. I was not of a mind to grasp what he was offering; I only believed it myself when I realized Cailech was screaming and yet it was not me making that sound. Fynch gave his last reserves for us, Valentyna. He worked out that if Myrren and her father could weave such a curse, though he could not undo it, he could reweave it to truly make it a gift.”

“A gift of life?”

Wyl nodded. “In the truest sense. I don’t plan on changing again. I hope you like me enough as Cailech.” Valentyna put her head in her hands, overwhelmed by emotion. Wyl took her in his arms and kissed her bent head. Then he looked across to Celimus; the King’s eyes were disbelieving and glassy, and spittle dribbled through lips pulled back in a rictus of anger.

“I think we just have enough time for me to tell you a story, Celimus,” Wyl said coldly. He settled Valentyna in a chair and held her hand, but stared directly at the dying King as he spoke briefly and succinctly, starting in the dungeon of Stoneheart, where a young woman named Myrren was being tortured and a boy named Wyl Thirsk offered her pity.

Valentyna felt awed at hearing the story in its entirety. Somehow it was fitting that its full telling should take place before the man who had been the source of it all. Myrren was truly avenged now.

“And Jessom?” Valentyna asked when Wyl was finished. She needed to understand how the Chancellor’s fate had become so closely linked with her future happiness.

“Jessom was a parasite, Valentyna. He might not have made the cruel decisions himself, but he saw that they were carried out. The blood of too many people was on his hands. It was fitting that he should suffer for his sins. I suspect he was ready to swap allegiances, but instead the Bridge of Souls saw to it that he swapped bodies.”

“So you knelt there and let me pretend to kill you,” she said, aghast.

“It wasn’t easy. You must know I was happy to die, and I had hoped to die by Celimus’s hand,” he said, glancing at the King. “Fynch warned me once of the power random acts had to affect the Quickening, but I could never have forseen that you might make such a sacrifice. Fynch could, and he took appropriate precautions.”

“He knew I would do such a thing?”

Wyl shook his head. “None of us did. Not even you, I imagine. Fynch just seems to see the larger picture. I think he understood that an unpremeditated action might change the pattern of life, and he put his Bridge of Souls in place so that I might be saved, come what may.”

“That child is too clever by half.”

Wyl fixed her with his green gaze, knowing he could not hide the truth from her. “I believe Fynch is dead, Valentyna.”

Her throat swelled with fresh grief. “No!”

“He used what was left of his spirit to help us. It is a long story, my love—one I shall share with you later. First I must finish my task here.”

Celimus groaned. His fingers had shaped themselves into claws and Wyl had no doubt that the King was in pain.

“It’s over, Celimus,” he said, feeling very little satisfaction at seeing the once-proud sovereign arch in death’s paralysis. “Let Shar’s Gatherers take you now, and may our god alone have the generosity to show you mercy.”

Celimus found one last spurt of energy to gurgle his fury and suddenly Wyl felt a sharp pain, like a blade of ice, cutting through Cailech’s body and forcing a cry from him.

“What is it?” Valentyna said, grabbing his arm. Wyl barely felt her touch or heard her; his vision dimmed and he could no longer see the chamber around him. But he knew where he was. He was with Celimus.

You!
Celimus whispered.

And Wyl understood: This was Myrren’s parting gift, her final vengeance. She was showing Celimus the truth.

I’m glad you can see me at last, Celimus.
It was no longer Cailech before the King, but a short, redheaded man. Wyl Thirsk, General of the Morgravian Legion.

The Legion and the nobles will not permit it,
Celimus screamed into the mind of his nemesis.

You forget, they do not see me; they see only a crowned monarch you yourself have forged a truce with. Very few know I was captured and incarcerated, and even fewer know of my death.

You will not take my throne. Morgravia will never accept a Mountain King.

I don’t have to. You gave your throne to Valentyna the moment you married her, Celimus. She is the ruler of both realms now. But I will become sovereign of Morgravia when I marry her. I have to, you see, to fulfill Myrren’s Gift and rid myself fully of the Quickening. It demands that I be sovereign.

The King of Morgravia screamed his despair into his rival’s mind as he sighted Shar’s Gatherers approaching.