Kings and Assassins (43 page)

Once the blaze had begun, seething in a dozen places, Ivor gestured to Dmitry who took up a stance near the double doors into the main palace.

“What if they don't release us?” Dmitry asked, showing a distressing lack of trust in Ivor's plan.

“They will,” Ivor said. “The difficulty lies in escaping this prison but not being shuttled into another.” He dipped another cravat into a water basin, tied it loosely about his face. The smoke twined its way down the hall, wispy but blackening, creating the start of thunderheads beneath the high ceiling.

Ivor lay back on the chaise, his cravat filtering the air, and waited. Dmitry fidgeted, his composure fleeing. Ivor supposed this was another thing he could lay to Janus's account: the revelation of Dmitry's character. He had thought the man imperturbable, as solid as icebergs in a winter sea. Now, he saw only that the man had never been pressed beyond the known, saw the man was as brittle as rime, all polished sheen and nothing of substance beneath.

When the tickle in his throat grew nearly breath stealing, Ivor said, “Now, Dmitry, if you would.”

Dmitry pounded on the double doors, shouted, “Fire!” and coughed. Ivor didn't think the coughing was deliberately added for verisimilitude but rather an involuntary reaction to the thickening smoke.

The scrape of the outer bar being raised was a sweet sound: It was the one variable Ivor hadn't been able to judge with certainty. Janus might have issued orders to prevent such an escape, ordered them to keep the bar in place for any request out of the ordinary, but Ivor gambled. If the palace was still playing the part of civil host, trotting deliveries and meals in, he thought it likely that the bar would be raised.

The first guard stuck a wary head in, got a mouthful of smoke, a cindery wash of heat, and stumbled forward. Dmitry brought his dagger into play, stabbing the man in the throat.

Too soon
, Ivor thought, crouched below the worst of the smoke. He risked the door being shut again, leaving them to their fate. But the second and third guards were committed, already partially through the door, and perhaps, in the rush of smoke and flame, they hadn't seen what happened. The door remained open.

Cooler air swept into the foyer, made twists of the smoky clouds, set them dancing through the marble hall, shattering against drawn swords.

The doors were still impassable, at least for one bent on escape instead of rescue.

Ivor picked up a second basin at his feet, the one he'd been chaperoning most carefully, though not for the reason Dmitry assumed. Not a desperate splash of water should straits grow grim. Instead, the basin held the hottest-burning oil in the palace. Without hesitation, he flung it over the guards and Dmitry alike, then snatched a burning book and tossed it after the oil.

The men ignited in shrieking unison, writhing and twisting, as if they could strip themselves of flame as easily as a man shed his clothes. They fell, rolled, beat at each other and themselves, but the carpets had been saturated in fats and oils, in pomades and perfumes—some of it made a lovely scent as it burned—sage and lilac—mixing with the stench of singed hair and leather.

Ivor slipped by, impeded briefly by Dmitry's clutch on his boot. He kicked back, then left unscathed save the print of a bloody hand on his heel.

He heard approaching footsteps: The alert had gone out. He followed his planned route. Catching up a lamp on the wall, he hastened down the stairs toward the stables and Delight's lair. He shattered the lamp at the base, urged the fire to spread. If Delight's machines caught, the blaze would burn long and hard, and likely take the palace with them.

The burning oil spilled down toward the next flight, laying a thin rivulet of flame that just kissed the base of the stairwell and the straw there. It was the stable entrance, and, no matter how often it was swept, wisps of straw remained.

He kicked the smoldering straw into the stables ahead of him, marveling as always at the sensitivity of beasts. Already horses were moving uneasily in their stalls. Ivor pulled his cravat back over his face and shouted to the stable hands, “Fire in the palace! Move out the beasts and the carriages!”

The stable men, hearing no more than the aristocratic voice and the tone of utter conviction, swore and began leading out the horses.

Ivor left with one of them, coughing, shielding himself behind a stallion's bulk. He ducked away before the guards got more than a glimpse of him—it was easy enough; the guards' attention was all for the smoke trickling through the stables and the white-eyed horses dancing in controlled panic.

Against that spectacle, one man walking briskly toward the king's gardens was nothing to worry about. Ivor quickened his pace to a steady run when he judged himself out of sight. Time was short. Soon the guards would summon Rue, summon Janus—both of whom would recognize the blaze for what it was, not only an escape, but a distraction.

The sharp scent of boxwood rose in the night, pungent, unpleasant, letting him know he was close to the maze; from there, it was only another minute's walk past the rose-studded terraces below the nobles' ballroom, past the tree-laden grotto outside the king's ballroom, and then to the lawn leading to the heart of the palace.

He'd done it quickly enough; the rapid pace his heart set told him so. Usually, there were six or more guards stationed near the wide, glass-paned entrance doors, and once Rue and Janus had their say, there'd be six again. But currently there were only two guards, looking as lathered as the horses, as if they expected smoke and flame to come rushing in on them at any moment.

They got Ivor and his blade instead. Two quick slices; he had the first guard's spine cut through before the other turned, and then he opened that man's belly. He left them lying there, and sought out the servants' stairs, allowing himself a moment to regain his breath in the quiet stillness between the dark walls.

Adiran was on the third level. His guards would still be there: Ivor doubted they'd move for anything less than total cataclysm.

He had two choices now: to take them on, by himself, or to take the time—possibly too much time—to collect his assassin from the tower.

He realized, not without a little regret, that she, too, would be guarded, and fighting off her guards would attract attention that would make collecting Adiran, even with her aid, that much more difficult.

Ivor climbed, counting steps; the servants' stairs ran half floors occasionally, to make space for linen cupboards and dumbwaiters.

He slipped through the narrow, concealed door into the hallway, and the influx of fresh air made him aware of the scent of smoke, burned flesh, and horse sweat he carried with him. He shucked off his coat, tossed it back into the stairwell, hoping to leave most of the scent behind. He would prefer not to rouse the guards sooner than he must.

Ten steps down the silent hall, heart thumping, a smile on his lips—it all came to this moment.
Janus, my pet
, he thought,
it would have been wiser to join me. Adiran will hunt you to the ends of the earth once I name you Aris's killer and Antyre will be mine
.

HERE WAS NO DOUBT THAT
Ivor had set the blaze deliberately, Janus thought, looking in at the wreckage, at the bleeding, burned men being carted away, nor that he had done it to aid his escape. The question was, had Ivor had more purpose than simply escape?

Fire was classic distraction, Janus thought. It was also a weapon. Perhaps it was meant to do only as it had, free Ivor, and burn Delight's—

Delight let down his skirts, wiped at the soot streaking his fair skin, and said, “We kept it out of the engineering wing. He failed there.”

Rough laughter came from one of the men slung between the arms of two guards. “Failed?” the man wheezed, through a face raw and pitted.

“Dmitry,” Janus said. He recognized the man only by the chain around his neck and its great silver locket that held a picture of the royal family.

“He burned me like I was of no more account than the maids,” Dmitry choked out. Janus waved a hand at the nearest guard, then when the man only gazed back in blank dismay—exhausted or shocked—Janus said, “Delight!”

Delight swayed over at once, dropped to his knees beside Dmitry and Janus. “Have you charcoal?” Janus asked.

“Rather too much of it, I think,” Delight began, and then understanding dawned. He patted at his pocketed skirts, finally pulling out a stub of charcoal and, better still, a leather-bound notebook.

“Dmitry,” Janus said, “will you have your revenge on him?”

“I will.” Dmitry coughed, left blood on his lips and teeth; his eyes rolled up in his head, his sclera yellow.

Janus reached out, pressed the stub into the man's burned hand. Dmitry stiffened, neck arcing, jaw going rictus tight, then when he eased, Janus said, “Sign your name.”

“Dying, not a fool,” Dmitry gasped. “Write first. I'll not sign a blank confession. Don't trust you, either.” His free hand clutched Janus, left hot, wet circles on his already heated skin. “In Itarusine, mind you.”

Janus took the charcoal stub back, wrote as neatly as he could, though the situation was hardly conducive to calligraphy, the book propped unsteadily against his thigh.
Ivor Sofia Grigorian sent the assassin, X, to kill King Aris of Antyre. Witnessed by Dmitry …

“Your surname?” Janus asked. Dmitry roused himself with a jerk and a groan.

“Grigorson,” he said on a breath. Grigor's son. Dmitry's mother must have been wildly ineligible for him to be denoted a bastard in a court full of children born out of wedlock.

Janus added it, wondering if Ivor had known. Or cared. He pressed the charcoal into the man's hand a second time, and Dmitry made his signature on the page before he died.

Janus folded the book closed, passed it to Delight. “Don't write over that, please. No matter how clever you are or how much paper you need.”

Delight sighed but made no other retort. Instead, he reached over Janus's shoulder and closed Dmitry's eyes. Delight leaned against Janus, rested his face against Janus's back. “It's over, then,” Delight said. “You've proof that Ivor sent the assassin. We can greet Grigor's missive with one of our own, and when Rue catches Ivor—”

“Failed,” Janus murmured. Dmitry had
laughed
. “Rue! Where's Rue?”

“The stables, my lord,” a guard answered. “Seeing if Ivor's steps can be traced through the mess the horses made.”

“Get him back to the palace,” Janus said. He felt cold and sick, all his triumph draining away. He knew now why it had felt unearned. It was. “He's after Adiran.”

Delight said, “Are you sure?”

“A boy with a god waiting to be roused inside him? A boy who's a weapon waiting direction? Ivor doesn't need Grigor's support, doesn't need anything but Adiran and Ani.”

“He'll accuse you of killing Aris,” Delight said, understanding finally what Janus feared.

“I should have understood before. Always at least two purposes,” Janus said. “Succeed at both and when you've mastered that, try for a third.” He hesitated a moment, turned back to a guard, and said, “In-crease the guards around the assassin's cell—if she's still within.”

“You think he's capable of overwhelming the guards?” Delight said. He tripped over the rough hem of his skirt, but Janus shot out a hand, and yanked. Delight stumbled but stayed upright.

“Much as it pains me,” Janus said, “I must admit him capable of nearly everything.”

They took the carpeted stairs in silence, their footfalls leaving soot stains and blood, and as they reached the landing Delight said, “Why not Grigor?”

“What?”

“Why not tell Adiran that Grigor killed his father?” Delight asked. “Why involve you?”

“Don't be stupid,” Janus snapped. “Not now. Even should Adiran, guided by Black-Winged Ani, kill Grigor, there'd be brothers and sons and ambitious women left behind. Ani, sated, would withdraw Her aid, and the god is not so biddable as to work through all those obstacles first, saving Grigor for last. I could barely hold Maledicte in check and he was ever on my side.”