The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) (21 page)

“This is the King of Zoria?” Grimbald whispered.

“Afraid so,” Walter muttered, staring down at his boots. “Well, that doesn’t bode well for us, does it?”

Grimbald blew out his cheeks. “I hope you have good convincing skills.”

“Shit. Let’s try not to piss him off.”

Walter looked up to see Thurber slide into view, eyes bored. “Let’s make this quick.” He produced a charcoal stick in his long fingers. “Why are you here and what is it you seek?”

Walter and Grimbald shared a grave expression.

“I’m Walter Glade of Breden. This is Grimbald Landon of Shipton, now residents of Midgaard. You may remember us for foiling an assassination attempt on the King’s life.”

“Hmm.” Thurber scribbled something. “I don’t recall.”

“Killed a Skin Flayer in the halls leading to Ezra’s quarters. Remember that?”

“Ah, yes. Thought you looked familiar.” He nodded and tugged on his gilded collar. “Follow me.” He started off, beckoning them to follow.

“Don’t forget to kneel,” he hissed over his shoulder.

Intricate carvings of beasts unknown, Dragons, and Phoenixes wound around the room on its crown molding. Inlaid in the creamy marble floor was a giant Dragon circling a Phoenix of silver and gold. On either side of the dais were giant vases in an opalescent blue, spilling out with blooming white flowers as big as a plate. Bright shafts of colored light passed through the wall of gems, highlighting the dust particles lazing on the air. It all felt like a strange dream. He remembered the room. It had only been six months since he was last here, but he felt the memories of a former life.

Ezra was right about one thing, this room was in dire need of fresh air. It felt like a different part of the realm from the cool corridor where they had been waiting. It was thick and humid as if it had just rained. He thought he spied black mold lingering in the dark corners of the stone carvings, the light the only force keeping it from spreading.

“Finally, the last of the day. It has been a most taxing day.” The King put his goblet on a small table and rubbed his eyes. “This is what you have to look forward to, my dear.”

Larissa forced a smile and Walter met her eyes again, heart thumping in his chest. Grimbald kneeled beside him and Walter followed, staring at a white flower at the base of the vase. One of its petals that had remained coiled popped open, revealing pink stamens dusted with violet pollen.

Thurber introduced them to the king by name and Lajoy strode back in, wiping his hands as if they were soiled. Lajoy stood off to the side of the throne, bulky arms crossed over his chest. Walter felt his eyes on him, trying to cut a hole through him.

“I thought you looked familiar. You live in Malek’s old place now, is it?” the king asked.

“We do.”

Lajoy grunted and shifted his feet, spreading them into a wide base.

“Yes, yes. I remember now. My debt is already paid to you. What more do you want?” Ezra’s fingers reached for his goblet, almost knocking it over before snatching it.

“My king.” Walter rose up and bowed, teeth gritted. Was there anything worse than having to bow to someone you loathed? He supposed everyone had masters. “As you well know, there are Death Spawn traveling the lands.”

“Yes, yes. Get on with it.” The king flicked his wrist, waving away invisible flies.

A short man appeared in the narrow entryway at the back of the chamber. He nodded at the cupbearer and smiled crisply. He wore an untarnished apron and clutched a wooden box before his chest. His black hair was slicked back and shining with oil.

“The barber, sir.” Thurber motioned to the aproned man.

Walter sighed through his nose.

“Go on, go on.” The King’s gray eyes were netted with wrinkles. The barber placed his polished box on a table and produced a gleaming straight razor. He held it up to a narrowed eye and frowned. His hands unfurled a strop from the box and started gently running the blade up and down it.

Walter made his clenched jaw relax so he could speak. “The Tower has fallen, torn down by Death Spawn blades.” His voice sliced through the room. The barber paused mid-stroke. “They now march west, pillaging and razing the coast. I have reliable sources that say they plan to lay siege to the Great Retreat. If we do not intervene… well, I don’t need to tell you what happens next.”

“I cannot help you. We need every spear we have here,” Ezra said with cheerful indifference. He poked his head out of his billowing shirt and the barber made a few more passes on the strop. He worked a horsehair brush, lathering the king’s neck in shimmering oil.

“You can’t—” Walter felt his hand curl into a fist.

“We must not. You’re right, though. I shouldn’t have listened to you and Baylist when you first came to me.”

“Baylan,” Walter corrected. “And that’s not what I meant.”

“I sent battalions at your request to the east and the west, to give the realm support. Look at what good that did, almost a thousand men dead, cut down by beasts from the devil’s own asshole. Now we have the damned Purists flocking here, infiltrating everything and trying to purge the city of the last of the wizards.”

Walter sucked in air through his nose. “We fought alongside the Falcon at the battle of Dressna. Had they not been there—”

“Many would still be alive!” the king barked, thumping his fist on his chair arm. The barber jerked his hand back to avoid cutting him.

Walter felt Grimbald inch away from him, feet shifting from side to side. He caught the scent of roasting onions wafting from him.

“No. All the villages, small towns up and down the east coast would have been ravaged, burned to ashes had they not come to help. They gave their lives, yes, but saved many. Their deaths did not go in vain.”

The king sniffed and the princess regarded Walter with a raised chin. Her eyes studied him as if watching a curious dog.

“The Falcon stays here. Midgaard cannot fall. We’re the last bastion of safety. Will not, damn it!” The king’s neck quivered, eyes blazing.

“Grim?” Walter met his eyes, face turning ashen. Grim gave a quick shake of his head. “You’ll not give one of your best Captains, one who survived the Tower’s fall men to command?” Walter pointed at the pins on Grimbald’s collar.

The king muttered to himself, staring down into his lap. He raised his head, addressing Grimbald flatly. “What was it like? The Tower’s fall, I mean?”

Grimbald paused, his whole body going rigid. “Bloody,” he managed.

Walter waited for him to say more, but his mouth hung open without emitting sound. “So you’ll let the Great Retreat fight alone? Without the help they’ve paid taxes for over the past five-hundred years?”

King Ezra worked his lips and looked to be chewing on the insides of his cheeks. “Dirty Shamans and their damned experiments. They deserve it with their bullshit sorcery. They’re heretics. They deserve whatever fate befalls them. Maybe it’s the Dragon finally taking his glorious revenge upon their cultist hearts.” His lips peeled back to show his black molars.

Walter felt energy drain out of his body. He had forgotten that trying to convince King Ezra was as useless as hot water without elixir beans. “You’re a madman,” he whispered.

He and Grimbald shared a pained expression.

“What did you say, boy?”

“You heard me well,” he hissed.

“Why, you arrogant swine.” Ezra jerked from his chair, his shoulders pulled back with all the regal muster he could manage. Lajoy stepped forward, hands dropping to his dagger’s hilts. His eyes twitched with a murderous hunger.

Walter instinctively reached for the Dragon. Something was wrong. He started to blink and saw there was a wall of ice where the Dragon should’ve been. A single ray of its brilliance bored through, like the sun behind a dark cloud. It was trapped, unreachable for an instant before the ice shattered it into burning shards. The ice melted, hissed away in his mind as if never there. He opened his eye and everything slowed down, like the world had been submerged in invisible molasses.

“Get rid of him,” Ezra said in a eulogy’s pace.

He peered around the room, guts squirming for the source of the Dragon’s block, an Equalizer crystal. Every neck was unadorned except for… the barber’s. He had a silvery chain with something the size of a pigeon’s egg under his shirt. Walter would bet his life that it would be glowing. He thought he could even see a hint of violet light from the shape.

The barber’s arm drifted up behind Ezra, hand hidden. Lajoy took another step forward, his arms reaching out to seize Walter. Walter didn’t need to see the barber’s hand to know what was there. The barber’s eyes were black slits intent on the king’s neck.

“Walter!” Grimbald roared in his ear, seeing what he saw now. Grimbald started for the barber, teeth bared.

Walter took a sharp breath through his nose, allowing the Dragon’s rage to pour through his veins. It was a surge of floodwaters in his body, yearning to spill over the river’s edge. He ignored Lajoy, just a step or two away. The shafts of colored light cutting the room dulled in intensity, while each shaft’s beam became wholly distinct. Ezra’s wine-stained fingertip stabbed the air, wrinkles around his scowl deepening. Was this a man worth saving? He cared about his people and that was enough for Walter.

He had to be precise. He pointed with two fingers and squinted at the barber’s head. His arm came up beside Ezra’s neck, straight razor gleaming death. An arrow of flames emerged from his fingers and tore across the room, burning through dust and puffing with a trail of black smoke.

“No!” Lajoy reached for him, one hand clawing the air, the other dragging out a dagger. The rasp of steel on leather sent a shiver down his neck.

The barber’s razor was on the King’s neck. A drop of blood welled out from under his skin as the razor bit into his flesh. Ezra winced. The arrow struck the barber, burning a hole through the side of his head. For an instant, Walter could see the green drapes behind him through the hole. Blood filled it and spurted out onto Ezra’s back, spilling over his furs and splashing over his golden throne. The razor fell away from his neck.

The audience chamber filled with echoing screams. Larissa scrunched her eyes and turned away from the shimmering beads of the barber’s blood. They slapped onto her face, spattered on her dress and spoiled her image of perfection.

Thurber’s jaw dropped open, head jolting back as if he’d been assaulted. His clipboard fell, twirled through the air and clattered onto the ground. It sent a streak of liquefied candle wax across the floor. He staggered back, one hand clawing the robes on his chest.

Lajoy crashed into him, shattering his Warrior’s Focus. Time sped up, resuming its regular course. The air was expelled from his lungs. Lajoy stared into his eye, one hand crushing Walter’s throat, the other holding a dagger overhead.

“Wait, look,” Walter croaked, prying his fingers loose. Lajoy turned his head to look at the king, a dagger tip twinkling in a shaft blue light. Walter’s heart thudded in his head and Lajoy’s grip around his neck relaxed. Lajoy growled as he stood, eyebrows drawn. He darted for the barber and the king.

He lunged up the last few steps to the dais, the king madly shrieking. He was wildly pawing blood from his face as if it were searing acid melting his skin. “No! No, no. What is this? Get it off, damn it!”

Grimbald had dragged the barber behind the throne and dropped a crunching fist into his nose.

Lajoy squatted down and rammed a dagger into the barber’s chest, piercing through his heart in a single, fatal blow. He didn’t leave anything to chance. Four other Black Guards poured into the room, scanning for other threats. Their weapons were drawn, poised to strike like viper’s fangs.

“Father! Are you—?” Larissa placed a hand on his shoulder, but he swatted it away.

“Leave me alone, damn you!” he screamed at her.

The king’s wine had spilled and the bottom of his white furs were drinking up the scarlet liquid. The king stammered and Lajoy handed him a handkerchief. He wiped his face until it was raw, working the barber’s blood deep into the creases on his cheeks. His white beard was a bright red with blood on one side, the hair matted and pressed against his sharp jawline. His jeweled crown was upside down beside the throne, leaving a ringlet of depressed flesh around his liver spotted skull.

Thurber was still screaming, a high-pitched womanish squealing. He staggered back into the wall of gems, arms wide and pressing into it. His spectacles had abandoned his face a few paces back. Lajoy strode over to him.

“Warmaster!” Thurber shrieked.

Lajoy backhanded him across the face. “Shut your mouth hole,” he grunted.

Thurber sobbed and spat a bloody tooth out into his cupped hands.

Walter dragged himself to his feet, working his neck from side to side. He cleared his throat and took a shallow breath. He wanted to heave for breath, not getting enough. He forced himself to breathe deeply. It was the quickest way to recover from having the air blown out of you. His mother had said there was a muscle in there—he forgot the name—that would cease working for a bit when you were struck too hard.

“What happened? Why did this happen?” The king hurled the bloody handkerchief to the ground and it clung to his fingers. “Damn it!” He wrung his hand a few times until it finally came loose, fluttering down to the marble. He looked from the barber to Walter, Grimbald, then back at the barber, then to Lajoy. “Damn it, Lajoy. How could you have let this happen? You’re supposed to be my fucking bodyguard. The best in all the realms! Pah! I could’ve hired the damn gardener’s for all the protecting you’ve done.”

Lajoy sheathed his bloody dagger and straightened up as the king moved within an inch of his face.

“You useless bastard.” The king spat. There was a furious twitching in the corner of his lip.

Lajoy narrowed his eyes at Ezra and snorted a breath.

“You’re off the fucking job!” he shrieked in Lajoy’s face. “Pack your belongings, and leave the city immediately.”

“But it’s not his fault,” Grimbald said. “Look, it’s no ordinary man.” Grimbald pointed at the shimmering barber.