Kings and Assassins

T THE SPIDER HEART OF
Murne's radiating streets, the king's palace overlooked the city, its three wings jutting away from one another in uncomfortable points. The palace had been built in stages, generations apart. Dark granite blocks comprised the oldest part, a warrior's palace with arrow slits instead of windows: the palace of Thomas Redoubt, the Cold King, who had claimed Antyre for its own country, wresting independence from Itarus with the aid of Haith, secretive god of death and victory.

When the Cold King vanished into the walls of his own palace, leaving only the bodies of his family—wife, son, an unmarried daughter—behind, the claimant to the throne built a new edifice entirely, separate in style and space, leaving a sward between the two palaces. The new king built the antithesis of the Cold King's haunted granite corridors, a sunlit series of pavilions with wide corridors and wider windows, laid nacre over every upright surface, marble over the floors, and gilt across the ceilings.

The king enjoyed the sunlit views for less than a year after its completion. The ambitious Lord Ixion from the House of Last, made good use of the windows, clambering through, sword in hand, and left the entire royal family gutted, the marble floors awash in blood.

Ixion, though aware that the country was nearly bankrupt, built his own palace, an awkward bridge between the two styles. His was constructed of sensible brick, wood, and lath and plaster; and though the windows were wide, they could be barred and shuttered. A practical man's palace, and it had served the family well. Six generations and the House of Last still held the throne.

It made it all the more galling that Janus Ixion—current Earl of Last, the king's nephew, two steps from the throne, and resident of the palace—had been consigned to living quarters in the Cold King's wing, along with the other undesirables.

Of course, it was more galling still to be waiting on the attention of another undesirable, deposited in a visitor's salon like a recalcitrant child.

Janus rose from his chair, shivering as the warmth of the leather peeled away from his back. He poked idly at the low-burning fire, and twitched when the door opened behind him, let a quick swirl of cooler air spark the flames higher.

He didn't turn around. He didn't need to. Only one man could make free of these rooms: the Itarusine prince ascendant, Ivor Sofia Grigorian.

“My pet, I asked you here to play cards, not act the housekeeper. You should have asked a servant to stoke the fire for you,” Prince Ivor said.

“And shiver while waiting for your man to do what I could do myself?” Janus jabbed at the scant pile of logs, satisfied when one of them crumbled into ash. It was absurd how cold the old wing was; it approached summer outside, but inside it was as if Ivor had brought the cold of the Itarusine Winter Court to Antyre alongside his servitors and guards.

“Ever precipitate,” Ivor said, his tone indulgent as a fond uncle's.

Janus turned to accept the glass of Itarusine brandy the prince handed him, a drink unpopular in any rooms but these, which for the duration of Ivor's tenure here, were considered to be Itarus.

Janus took a thoughtful sip and reseated himself. The leather chair was still warm, still shaped to his broad shoulders, and welcomed him back.“Cards,” he said.

“Is it so odd?” Ivor said.“We played many such games during your years in the Winter Court.”

Janus frowned into the warm amber depths of the brandy watched it wave against the clear glass like fire licking ice, and bit back comment. Many such games indeed. Prince Ivor was a true son of the Itarusine court, and nothing was ever as it seemed with him. Sit down to a game with Ivor, and rise poorer in coin; position; and, all too often, life expectancy.

Playing any game at all with Ivor was dangerous, but not playing … well, that was worse. Ivor saved his most inventive schemes for those who thought to escape them. Even now, his dark eyes lingered on Janus, daring him to make his excuses and leave. A perfect brow arched, glossy and dark against his pale skin.

Ivor looked every inch the aristocrat he was, the most-favored prince of Itarus, well dressed, elegant in his silk cravat and lace cuffs, but there was nothing of softness about him. His eyes, mouth, and hands were hard.

When Janus had first arrived in the Winter Court, a Relict rat dumped among the aristocracy, Ivor had unaccountably offered himself as a mentor, teaching Janus the best ways to survive in a court given over to bloody-bladed politics. Later, of course, once Janus had thought more on it, he realized Ivor had seen a useful pawn going to waste, and that his“training exercises” often removed those obstacles in Ivor's path.

Janus closed his eyes, sought peaceful darkness, then opened them, letting his gaze fall on a dusty frieze: an army in marching ranks with Haith at the rear of the column, His heavy hood obscuring His face.

Janus felt obscurely comforted. He might be living one level up in the old wing, surrounded by remnants of an earlier, unmourned age, but at least his rooms had been cleaned properly.

Ivor's seneschal tapped on the half-open door, ushered another man in; Janus felt his wary lassitude fail him. The blond fop, Edwin Cathcart, Lord Blythe, balked in the doorway at the sight of Janus, equally appalled; and Ivor raised a glass to them both, a wicked smile curling his lips.

Two black-clad servants, directed by the seneschal, followed Blythe in, grunting under the weight of a broad, carved table. The seneschal laid a swath of indigo velvet over it, bowed to Ivor, and ushered the servants out.

Ivor fanned the pasteboards, a gleaming run of painted feather, scale, sea, and flame, a riot of color against the inky velvet, and said,“Now that the players are here, shall we begin?”

A
SUDDEN DRAFT MADE THE
lamplight flicker, a breeze strong enough that the air coiled into the glass chimneys and battered the flames. Smoke sifted up in spidery trails, adding the sharp scent of burning wicks to a room already hazy with smoke. Janus fought down the undignified tickle in his throat that wanted to turn him red faced and spluttering. Were they not closeted in the old wing of the castle, he would demand a window be opened to let out the smoke, but the arrow slits and tight-mortared stone hadn't been designed with comfort in mind.

“By the gods, Blythe, isn't it enough we had to endure Challa-combe smoking those foul cigarillos at the table? I thought you too proud to ape a commoner.” Janus laid down his card with a decided snap. The seven of earth, a spray of blood-red roses across a stone floor. His new card was earth again but more suited to the rest of his hand, the jack of earth, a man in a coffin. He filed it beside the jacks of air and fire.

Blythe's narrow lips tightened around his pipe at being compared to King Aris's common-born spymaster, but he made no retort, instead folding his hand. Janus believed the man was constitutionally unable to think at all. It made it all the more peculiar that Ivor had invited the young fop to play with them. Unless Blythe had invited himself, the Duchess of Love's stalking horse, in an attempt to curry favor with Ivor.

Janus washed the crackle of tobacco fumes out of his throat with a swallow of brandy.

“Perhaps he merely hopes to confound us with smoke,” Ivor said.“Maze our vision, and so gain an advantage. He needs some aid at
play—surely you agree with that, my pet.” He flashed a quick, saturnine grin at Janus.

Blythe found his tongue and said stiffly, “I wonder you invited me to play at all, if it was only to treat me to insult.” His pipe stem, held between clenched teeth, cracked, and the barrel tipped, shedding sparks and dottle. He slapped quickly at his chest and cravat, leaving tiny singe marks in the fine lace and brocade of his vest.

Janus traded bad temper for a quick and silent snort of amusement. “I wonder myself, but the ways of Itarusine princes are mysterious indeed.”