Kings and Assassins (47 page)

Ivor's men swore, and they stepped forward, swords at the ready. A single, simple action, and it changed
everything
.

Janus shuddered with new understanding, how close he had come to throwing it away, and it seemed the city shuddered with him, a vast exhalation of relief.

“You
didn't wake him,” Janus said, still numb with relief. “He's not coming to aid you. He's coming
for
you. The blame apportioned correctly. Ani's sworn to kill you.”

Ivor let out a breath of his own. “I'm not certain. Are you? If I didn't set him on, and you didn't—who does he blame?”

“Too late to muddy the waters,” Janus said. “All I need do is stand aside.”

“If I die, Grigor, loathsome father though he is, will turn your streets red with blood,” Ivor said. “He's lost too many prince ascendants these last few years.”

“At your blade—”

“And yours, my pet, and yours. That alone would give him the excuse.”

Their argument broke off as the rooks darted and fell like arrows. Janus flung himself away from Ivor, rolling out of sword's reach, out of the way of the plunging birds. Adiran dropped to a crouch, watching with head-cocked interest. The birds made no distinction between Ivor and the other men. Simpson passed Janus a blade from one of the fallen soldiers, and they hunched and swung and batted while beaks tore at their clothes and talons left bloody stripes on their hands and faces. Rooks fell to their swords, but others kept coming.

Janus wondered grimly how Ivor fared, and sliced a sharp-edged wing away from a bird seemingly determined to fly directly through him if it had to carve a path with its beak.

A shriek reached his ears, a man screaming in agony, followed by a splash and more shrieking. Janus turned, shielding his face and neck, and looked out over the water. A man thrashed and flailed, pinned on the spines of the water gate, while a cluster of swarming rooks made nest material of his face and hair.

Ivor cursed, his escape cut off. The boat the man had been in drifted slowly away from the pier. Adiran moved for the first time since the rooks had begun their attack; he giggled and walked forward, the dagger held loosely before him.

If Adiran weren't possessed, the scene might have been amusing, watching Ivor's face as the untrained child came toward him. But in the midst of slashing wings, beaks, talons, with a kingdom at stake, with a man screaming and drowning… Janus thought again of Ivor's claim that if he died, Grigor would declare war. It was more than possible. Grigor wanted Antyre badly.

“Adiran,” he said, though he had to force the breath out. He felt more like a Relict rat than he had for years—at the mercy of instincts that urged run, hide, seek shelter, and wait for this to pass.

Simpson hissed warning and disapproval, and Ani's rooks swept over him in a flurry of stabbing beaks that pierced his throat. Janus watched his only ally die. Shaking, Janus raised his voice, tried to project the same confidence that Maledicte had sometimes responded to; but Maledicte had been his lover, their shared history a leash on them both. “Adiran,” Janus said again and again, until the boy slowed, turned those light-dark eyes on him.

“I know you,” he said. The voice was wrong, not the prince's, not the boy's who had giggled as men died, but something more disturbing. A voice that made Janus's head hurt and Adiran's lips gloss dark with blood. “I warned you not to think to use Me again.”

Ivor shuddered, his hands coming away from his face. In the slick shadows on Ivor's palms, Janus thought the man bled from the eyes at the sound of Her voice.

One of Ivor's remaining men—the baker, his white coat gone dark with blood, feather, and gunpowder—narrowed his gaze at the closing distance between Ivor and Adiran, between life and death, and darted forward, blade slashing.

The rooks confused the air; the baker bulled through, and Adiran threw the dagger into the air. The glittering blade disappeared mid-toss; the rooks’ wings took the shine for themselves, and the baker began screaming as the newly razor-edged wings ripped him apart.

“There's a machine for you,” She said, the words ragged in Adiran's young voice. “Do you like it?”

Janus decided not answering was probably wiser than misspeaking and drawing Her ire. Ivor looked at the dark water, considering his chances. If he could swim out far enough, would he be safe? Janus doubted it. Being out of Her chosen element would annoy Her—it had made Maledicte violent and crazy while in the underground cell at Stones—but not slow Her.

The razor-winged rooks took to the air again, the chime of their wings as dangerous a harbinger as the sound of acid bubbling in Delight's laboratory.

“I didn't kill Aris,” Ivor said.

The rooks shivered, their smooth flight stuttering a moment, as if Ani's attention had faltered, as if the unnatural thing She had done to them made them less creatures of air than they had been before.

Adiran came forward another step, his hands empty, his eyes full of hatred. “You did. I heard the guards say so.”

Ivor licked his lips, took a step back, to the very edge of the docks. “Men can be mistaken. Men are not as infallible as gods.”

Ivor was a fool, Janus thought. Only a fool argued with gods, and only a fool thought Ani capable of reason. Whether or not Adiran chose to believe, Ani would see everyone on the docks dead, just to slake Her temper.

“You did, too,” Adiran said again. His own voice this time, a child's argument. And only a fool argued with a child.

The rooks rose, circling higher, gaining speed, spreading apart until it was evident that when they stooped again, the only one left standing would be Adiran. Everyone else would be shreds of flesh and bone.

Janus clutched the sword tighter and tried to decide if it were better to go out fighting or, just this once, accept that he had been beaten. He had never expected his life to end due to an overabundance of years, but this was too soon.

The rooks descended all at once, but it was in an uncontrolled fall; limp bundles of feather, metal, air-touched bone, and eyes gone white with old death. Adiran whirled, his attention shifting.

“See to your prince,” Psyke said as she stepped out of the Relicts. A pale, luminous fog tumbled after her, like swirls of fog blown over ice. A black-clad shadow detached itself from her side, darting toward Ivor.

Adiran let the assassin pass, let her join Ivor, his attention all on Psyke. “Why do you interfere?”

“Why do You?” she countered. “You were not summoned. Adiran knows nothing of hatred.”

“It's love that engenders vengeance. I know love,” the prince said. “I know my father was taken from me by Ivor Sofia Grigorian.” The
boyish treble sank to a crow's low mutter under the weight of his grievance. He turned away from Psyke, reminded of Ivor's presence.

“You're mistaken,” Ivor said, “misled by gossip or outright slander. Do you have no care for the truth? Your father was a stickler for it… for proof of wrongdoing. Are you his son? Or Ani's?”

“I want my father avenged!” Adiran cried. “I killed my friend to give me strength to see you die.”

“Evan's alive,” Psyke said. “And fretting for you.”

The vise that had fastened itself around Janus's heart eased. They could be clear of this madness, if they could only keep Adiran from killing Ivor. They could save Antyre.

An overwhelming surge of gratitude shook him as he watched Psyke standing calm in the face of what must be an echo of all her fears—Ani, taking flesh again.

The boy shook his head, his hands flailing about his face, as if her words had unleashed an unexpected storm of wasps. Psyke took a step closer to the boy, held her hand out. “Come back to the palace, Adiran.”

“Where you'll pin me in the earth? Cage me in stone? There are bars on my windows. Wings want to fly.”

Janus shivered. Hadn't he heard that before? Maledicte, half crazed from being locked away in Stones, leaning up against him, Ani murmuring through his voice, wistful paeans to the sky.

Psyke's serenity shifted, a quick overlay of Mirabile's petulance and impatience on her face; she snatched at Adiran and he disappeared in a rush of feather swirl, as swift as flight, and hissed at her from a safer distance. Feathers snagged in the air, caught by the roiling, cold fogs surrounding Psyke, the shape of fingers surfacing and fading. Psyke wrapped her arms tight about herself; her lips moved, her brow furrowed. Containing her ghosts.

“I'll not be caged again,” Adiran declared.

“No reason you should be,” Ivor said. He shifted the blade in his hand to reflect moonlight, to catch both the boy's attention and the crow god's. Janus made an attempt to silence Ivor, lunging forward, blade in hand, and found himself blocked by the assassin.

“You won't win this time,” she breathed.

Janus pushed back, using his weight against her. She wasn't Maledicte, wasn't god touched; though she was quick and his shielding arm hampered, she was hampered herself.

The mad determination in her eye reminded him of Miranda in the Relicts. She loved Ivor beyond sense, and would die for him. Janus meant to give her the opportunity to do so. He took a step back; she danced forward, trying to keep him too close to use his saber, but he gained enough distance to knee her in the hip, sending her reeling backward. He followed her retreat with a sideways slash; she swept her skirt into his face, and retreated behind it.

“… you've been misled,” Ivor continued, his voice as calm as lake water, as smooth as cream. “Fed deliberate misinformation by the guards. I didn't kill your father. You need look closer to home for your vengeance.”

Adiran cocked his head, either listening or confused. Janus doubted many of Black-Winged Ani's targets stopped to argue with Her.

The assassin's blade ground against his own, and he lost track of Ivor's storytelling; his nape prickled, waiting for Adiran's attention to veer to him. It was, after all, where Ivor was heading, whether Adiran understood it or not. Janus gritted his teeth and hoped there was more of Adiran than Ani, more of that sweet faith and incomprehension of the world, than Ani's fury.

“Your prince is a fool,” Janus said. He elbowed the assassin in the throat, not a hard enough blow, curse it, but enough to buy him a moment's reprieve. She brought her saber around, kissed his shoulder with it, a shallow caress that added the tang of metal to the sea air already overburdened by scent.

He shook it off, ignored the shiver than ran through his bones. “Ani might listen to him, but it would only broaden Her list of enemies, not spare him. Once She has chosen Her target, She will not be swayed.”

Janus had expected to instill a tiny seed of doubt. Instead, her eye filled with the complete certainty that he spoke truth. Her free hand rose to touch her eye patch, and he moved in, blade arcing for her heart.

He would have killed her while she was lost in whatever memory he had woken, save Adiran screeched like a tortured soul; and, in her haste to ensure Ivor's safety, she ensured her own, turning as the blade chased air.

She flung herself between Adiran and Ivor, her blade wavering.

Ivor spoke more quickly, more plainly, the better to make a child understand.
“Janus
killed your father, not I. Turn Ani's gaze to him. She can tell you, if you choose to hear. Ani knows he's a kin killer.”

Adiran shook his head, instinctive denial, and Janus let out a slow breath, his heart rocketing in his chest.

“He killed his own father,” Ivor said, but his voice grew ragged. Even Ivor's iron nerve had its limits.

“He reads to me and brings me sweets.”

Janus laughed. It bubbled out of him like hysteria. All Ivor's cleverness meant nothing when faced with a child's innocence and Black-Winged Ani's obsessive focus.

Ivor closed his eyes for a bare moment, something he wouldn't have dared to do, were it not for his bodyguard. When he opened his eyes again, for the first time since Janus had met him, Ivor looked… broken. He pulled the assassin to him, kissed her brow, and then flung her into Adiran's arms.

“You want the killer? She is within your grasp. My words might have set her on, but it was
her
blade that carved out your father's heart.”

Adiran pushed her aside and she skidded away and fell, her skirts tangling about her legs, her hands clawing at the rough stone and wood of the dock as she fought to get back to Ivor. Psyke took a quick step forward, knelt, and spoke quietly in the girl's ear, restraining her with a single hand.

Adiran scooped up the assassin's fallen blade; the silver edge tarnished, then went black, feathery wisps coiling, flaring and fading.

Ivor watched Adiran approach—a rictus stretching his cheeks like some demented doll—then bolted into Janus's shadow.

Adiran paused, cocking his head, and staring sideways like a raven deciding where best to begin scavenging.

“If I die, Ixion,” Ivor warned.

“I'll give my condolences to your country,” Janus said. It was pure bravado. His throat dried, and it wasn't all for the god-touched boy watching them, as if deciding whether a blade through Janus would be the simplest way to strike Ivor dead.

Janus thought that while Adiran's blade might be long enough, his strength was unlikely to push it through two sets of rib cages. Janus would die just the same, though.

“See to your lord,” Psyke's voice rang out. “Rise and protect him!”

Janus felt a sudden sting of betrayal, that Psyke encouraged the assassin…. Then his blood chilled as if winter had come early. Psyke hadn't been speaking to the assassin. Fog streamed across the dock, given some terrible purpose, and Janus jerked as a cold tendril of fog touched him briefly, carrying a whisper, a familiar voice thinned to nearly nothing.
Trust Psyke
, Chryses murmured, and then the fog had moved on, leaving Janus shaking.

It was not fog, nothing so natural as that, Janus realized, but Antyre's dead, clustering so closely that the intangible had become physical. The fog swept over the docks, cradled the corpses left from the skirmish between the Antyrrian soldiers and the Itarusine saboteurs, and sank inward, giving Janus quick and disturbing glances of ghostly limbs struggling like those of sailors from a scuppered ship.