The Falcon Throne (The Tarnished Crown Series) (85 page)

“We be brothers, Roric. Our family’s dead. Murdered. It be just us now.”

“I’m sorry,” Roric said. “Truly. As it happens, I’m in the same boat. No pun intended.”

So now he was trying to make them feel sorry for him?
Bastard
. “Right.”

“Did you save me because you thought I might reward you with riches? If so, you’re doomed to disappointment. As you say, Willem. Clemen is lost. Balfre has won. There’s nothing but blood and death there now. At least for me. But you and Benedikt could still make a life for yourselves.”

“Weren’t ye listening? Balfre’s men know I killed Waymon. By now I reckon he wants both of us dead.”

And if that weren’t a faery-curse, he didn’t know what was.

“You could trade me for your life,” said Roric. “You’re two against one. And I’ve seen you with a sword.”

Benedikt leaned close. “We can’t risk it, Willem. Ye know Balfre loved Waymon like a brother. He’d say ye had a bargain then go back on his word and kill ye.”

And that was likely true. In his own way, Balfre was as big a bastard as Roric. What to do… what to do…

He glowered at the man who’d murdered his father. “Where can ye go, Roric? Is there any place that’ll have ye? Or do we toss ye into the water right now and wave goodbye as ye drown?”

“Yes, indeed,” Roric murmured. “A very strange young man.” Then he sighed. “Willem, in the past day I’ve lost nearly every man I ever thought of as a friend. And my people, who trusted me, are now at Balfre’s mercy. And he is not a merciful man.”

Benedikt was frowning. “Yer Grace—”

“
Don’t call me that!
” Roric said with violent revulsion. “There is not one speck of grace about me. There’s more grace in both of you, two ignorant boys from the Marches.”

“Roric, then,” Benedikt said awkwardly. “Be ye sure there b’ain’t someone ye can turn to?”

A dragging silence. Water sloshed against the wherry’s hull. At last, Roric stirred.

“There is someone,” he said, hesitant. “Perhaps. But she’s a long way from here. If we could get to Eaglerock harbour, find passage to Cassinia before Balfre’s fist closes tight around Clemen’s throat and from there make our way to Ardenn, then maybe—” He shook his head. “But it’s a fucking frail hope.”

“Frail be better than nothing,” said Benedikt. “Willem?”

He blinked. “Ye want us to row to Eaglerock? Benedikt, d’ye know how far that is?”

“Too far,” his brother said gloomily. Then he brightened. “We could row part of the way. Couldn’t we? Then leave the wherry beached somewhere and keep going on foot?”

“I s’pose,” he said, reluctant. “But—”

His brother was glaring again. “Willem, y’started this. Now y’can finish it. Or why the fuck did ye start it at all?”

He didn’t know. Fuck. He didn’t know anything. He was the rightful duke of Clemen and he didn’t know a fucking thing.

“Fine,” he muttered. “We’ll make for Eaglerock.”

Staring at the man whose life he’d just saved, who’d murdered his father and stolen his duchy, Liam picked up the wherry’s oars and started to row.

D
awn in Lepetto. Nightwings serenaded the blushing sky, greeting the new day even as they fled over countless red clay roofs to the somnolent safety of the city’s famous, fragrant lemon groves. Standing naked on the high balcony of his deceptively humble home, lips curving as a salt-scented breeze caressed his supple, olive-brown skin, Salimbene watched the familiar early flight with half-closed eyes. Obsidian feathers shone irridescent, hinting dragon-green and the azure of Lepetto’s lapping harbour, and lilting birdsong sang counterpoint with the first tollings of the great bronze bell atop the Exarch’s distant palace. A peaceful, perfect sunrise. One of thousands he’d greeted since making this city state his home. After fleeing Zeidica, and his father. Bleached bones now, a mournful skull, the man who had sired him then sought his death. His royal seed long-since blighted. His kingdom a rubble of rock and regrets. Remembering, Salimbene smiled wide. Revenge was like nectar, like honey on the tongue.

Overhead, carved jet against the blue-bowl sky, the last nightwings thrashed through the gilded air, racing to catch up with the rest of their flock. Stragglers. Weaklings. Too young or too old or merely imperfect. Wide smile became thinned lips. Thumb and forefinger pinched. One nightwing dropped stoneish to the catseye cobbles far below. Startled to silence, the remaining birds darted out of sight.

The Exarch’s bronze bell tolled on, lonely, waking marvellous, secretive Lepetto to life.

“
Salimbene… Salimbene…
”

Summoned, he stepped from his sunlit balcony into shadow and mystery, into the beating heart of sorcery. The balcony doors slammed shut behind him. Candlewicks ignited in the windowless room that kept
his secrets. Dust stirred. Eyelids fluttered. Scabbed lips murmured his sleeping name. Here he conjured the past and the future, breathed the memory of his mother, touched with ancient fingertips the moist skin of long-dead flesh.

“
Salimbene… Salimbene…
”

It was the severed head connecting him to Izusa that called. The infant heads on either side of it, sitting on their little plinths, whimpered in sympathy. He snapped his fingers and the head’s sunken blue eyes sprang open.

“What news, Izusa? Do you have Liam safe?”

“
Not yet. I must still cajole Catrain. She is wary of the regents, not yet entirely trusting. She—
”

Fury shook him, the tempest never far from his fist. “I must have him! Liam is my wellspring. If you fail me, Izusa, I will—”

The severed head shuddered, brackish blood seeping with her fear. “
I’m sorry! Forgive me!
”

Her good fortune that she was far away, in storm-gathered Cassinia. He could punish her from here, but he needed his strength.

“Without him, Izusa, your life is forfeit.”

“
Salimbene
,” the head whispered, weeping, “
I will fetch him. I won’t fail
.”

So she said. But he would pinch her out like a nightwing if she lied.

Still raging, though Izusa was banished from his presence, it was some time before he was calm enough to bend his wit towards the task that started and ended each day: his search for the Oracle of Nicosia.

Find it, my love, no matter the cost
his mother had begged him.
Find it and destroy it. Only then will you be untouchable.

And for nearly two hundred years, he’d tried. But the Oracle, his dangerous enemy, was ever elusive. Doubtless it knew he hunted it, sought to make himself the destroyer and not the destroyed. Sometimes he despaired of keeping that promise to his mother. Sometimes he even wondered if, in her dying delirium, she had been mistaken and he stood in no danger from the Oracle, or anything at all.

But then he remembered what he’d learned long after her death. That she had been no ordinary witch, but the last great witch queen of Osfahr. And that even though he was Salimbene, he ignored her warning at his peril. So every night and every morning, he searched for the one thing in all the world that could harm him.

The bowl of blood on its carved ivory stand woke at his approach.
Churned like a millpond, sensing his disquiet. He trailed his fingers across its crimson, coagulated surface, feeling the rush of power heat his bones.

“
Show me
,” he commanded. “
Reveal the Oracle of Nicosia to my eyes!
”

But again, yet again, the bowl of blood showed him nothing. He threw it stinking and scarlet across the windowless room. Cursed the Oracle. Cursed Izusa. Set the air on fire with his rage. But he was being foolish, and he knew it, so soon enough he turned the flames to ice. What matter that the Oracle continued elusive? Two hundred years. Two thousand. It was only time. And in time he would find the Oracle of Nicosia and destroy it. Then, as his mother had promised, he would be untouchable. As magnificent as the sun.

“I am Salimbene,” he whispered. “From the shadows, I rule.”

M
y agent, Ethan Ellenberg, for his stalwart support and sage advice.

The international Orbit team, who never fail. Special thanks to Tim Holman, always, for everything. To Joanna Kramer, who didn’t know what she was getting herself into. To Abigail Nathan, for not letting me look like an idiot. And Anna Gregson, who kept me sane and believed when I doubted.

My patient and meticulous beta readers: Kate Elliott, Glenda Larke, Elaine and Peter Shipp, Mark Timmony, Craig Slater and Mary GT Webber. And Larry Murphy, for the chain-mail.

Kingmaker, Kingbreaker

The Innocent Mage

The Awakened Mage

Fisherman’s Children

The Prodigal Mage

The Reluctant Mage

A Blight of Mages

Godspeaker

Empress

The Riven Kingdom

Hammer of God

The Tarnished Crown

The Falcon Throne

Rogue Agent (writing as K. E. Mills)

The Accidental Sorcerer

Witches Incorporated

Wizard Squared

Wizard Undercover

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2014 by Karen Miller

Jacket design by Kirk Benshoff

Illustration by Raphael Lacoste

Cover © 2014 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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First ebook edition: September 2014

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ISBN 978-0-316-23556-3

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