Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) (39 page)

“The dwarves will blame us if the word gets out,” Shrawn said quickly. “They will … rattle the saber, possibly declare war.”

“Because you had your agent expose them,” the Sovereign said.

“I …” Shrawn’s mouth went agape.
Bet you haven’t found yourself speechless in front of the Sovereign in a long time, Shrawn.

“Swallow your excuses, Shrawn,” the Sovereign said. “Your foolishness has cost us nothing in this instance. War with the dwarves would be a blessing.”

“I … what?” Amenon spoke at last, his tone one of quiet shock.

“We are prepared, are we not?” the Sovereign asked. “Our armies are raised? They are trained? They are ready to strike at whatever target we desire to set them toward?”

Amenon blinked, and Terian stared at him.
The dwarves?
“They were when last I knew their strength, my Sovereign.”

“Oh, yes,” the Sovereign said. “I had forgotten your fall.” There was the sound of strange, steady breathing from the Sovereign’s silhouette. “In spite of Shrawn’s efforts, I expected more from you, House Lepos. I would have thought you shrewd enough to see Shrawn’s intentions and prepared for them.”

“It’s really hard to prepare yourself for a dagger strike when you have no idea of its origination,” Terian said. “Why don’t you send Shrawn over here and I’ll show you what I mean?”

A gentle laugh came from the Sovereign, followed by a sigh. “You push the bounds, Terian of Lepos.”

“I’ll push more than that if you’ll allow me to drag Shrawn to the edge of a cliff.”
And I’d gladly do the same to you, my Sovereign, if I had any hope it could kill you.

“There must be consequences for this failure,” the Sovereign said, ignoring Terian. “Your blindness to the treachery of Shrawn is not a failing I can allow in my inner circle.”

“Great,” Terian said, shaking his head. “Let’s get back to planning the executions, then.”

“I have no need to plan executions,” the Sovereign said, his voice going higher. “But you will both leave Saekaj today.”

“My Sovereign—” Amenon said with a gasp.

“My Sovereign,” Yartraak said, mockingly, and he shifted his face into the light. Red, glowing orbs shone when his eyes hit the torchlight, and the three horns gave him a look like some demon. “Why does your son speak all the truth for your House, Amenon? Have you not the balls to speak it for yourself? Living in the soft comfort of Saekaj has made a gelding of you. The darkest knight I ever met rose from the streets of Sovar to become my right hand, and now he stands before me a shade of himself. You have forgotten how to fight. You have forgotten how to claw. Victory has defeated you, and I would send you back to the forging fires to blacken you again or burn you up, I care not which.”

Terian blinked as he watched his father’s face crumple.
The Sovereign would bind my fate to his. Seal my father to me for all our days. I will be stuck with him in Sovar, and he will drag me down
—

Unless—

“I failed,” Terian said, staring straight up at the Sovereign.

“Say that again,” the Sovereign said, looking down on him.

“I failed,” Terian said. “I trusted Xemlinan Eres as a friend, and I was a fool not to see him for what he was—a disloyal traitor to my house. I. Failed.”

“And you will accept the punishment for that failure,” the Sovereign said. “Time in Sovar will be good for both of you, I think—”

“I’m not going to Sovar,” Terian said, looking up at the red eyes. He saw a hint of surprise in them. “I mean no disrespect to you, my Sovereign—but I am going into exile.”

There was a steady quiet that settled over the throne room. “You come into my place of rule and tell me how things will be?” The Sovereign’s voice was scratchy and tinged with anger.

“Yes,” Terian said, staring into the red eyes. “I believe I just did.”

“I should execute you right here for your insolence,” the Sovereign said in a low rasp. Terian saw Shrawn’s eyes light up at that.

“Go right ahead,” Terian said with a shrug. “I can’t stop you, after all.” He looked up at the red eyes again. “That’s why I can phrase what I just did as a command—because if you dislike it, you can kill me.”

“I … do not understand,” the Sovereign said, and Terian could hear genuine perplexity in the reply.

“You are unquestionably in charge,” Terian said.
Where does this bullshit spring from?
“You can kill me—shatter my bones to dust and bloody mess—faster than I can draw my sword. Everyone else around you chatters, they wheedle, they beg, they fight for your favor by kissing your ass and offering you unwanted sacrifices like their daughters to bed. I speak to you and you can either ignore it, listen, or kill me—your choice. Because you have that power. No one else has power in this room, and I never forget it. Which is why I find no need to wheedle, to chatter or beg. You will do as you will do, and I have no need to curry favor. I have failed. Anyone else would tell you that their life is in your hands. I always remember that it is, that you are the God of Darkness, and so I feel no compulsion to remind you. Do as you will, without any of my toadying to cloud the matter.”

“Do you think some foolish speech will sway me from killing you, Terian Lepos?” The Sovereign’s voice was filled with cold fury.

“I don’t think my words will sway you one way or another,” Terian said with something nearing indifference. “I was merely suggesting you exile me for my failure. But if you mean to have my death, I’m not going to run.”
Because I don’t care.

“Do you think by offering yourself as a sacrifice, you will keep me from sending your father back to Sovar?” There was almost a glee creeping into the Sovereign’s words. “Do you think it will spare him the coarsening he needs to survive in my land?”

Terian looked to his father, who turned his head to look back at Terian in return. Amenon’s eyes were sunken, the light was out of them, and he looked nearly dead. “Do you not believe that depriving him of his heir and his legacy will not coarsen him enough? Other than your glory, what does he work for?”
He works out of sheer orneriness, out of a desire to hurt others, and the joy of immersing himself in that work.
Not that you’d know that.

A strange, rattling breath came from the throne. “Pain.”

Terian stared into the dark, trying to decipher the meaning of the Sovereign’s word. “You want to inflict it? Or you want him to feel it? You want to visit it upon all of us?”

“Pain is the fire which burns out weakness,” the Sovereign said, his head now shifted back into the shadows. “Your compromise is acceptable to me, Terian of House Lepos, because it will bring your father pain. You will leave immediately from this place, and you will not return until he has suffered enough to pay for his failures and regain his strength. Do not believe for a moment, though, Amenon,” he turned his head to Terian’s father, “that I am done with you. The Third Army is too high a post for your command. You will join the Sixth Army as a bare Captain, in among the foot soldiers, and march as one of them.”

Amenon looked up at him, and Terian saw the barest hint of embers in his eyes. “I will serve you … to the best of my ability, my Sovereign.” His voice was hollow.

“Terian, you houseless wanderer,” the Sovereign said. “When the day comes that I call you home, you will return to me, yes?”

Don’t throw it in his face.
“Sure,” Terian said, not quite suppressing his sarcasm.

The Sovereign cocked his head, as though trying to ferret out Terian’s meaning. “I dismiss you, my loyal servant.”

Fooled you
, Terian thought. He bowed, deep, deeper than he even normally would have and smiled mockingly into the dark. “Your grace is the stuff of legends.”

“It truly is,” Dagonath Shrawn said, nodding. He sent Terian a daggered look that told him everything he needed to know about the man.
He won’t stop. He will never stop, not until every one of his enemies is dead.

“He just can’t stop kissing your ass, can he?” Terian said, turning to leave. “It’s like a syndrome for him; he probably can’t even help it.”

“Curb your tongue, Terian,” the Sovereign said. “Lest it get you into trouble.”

“I’m being exiled from my home,” Terian said, feeling oddly indifferent about it, “I doubt it’ll get me into more trouble than that.”

With that, he bowed once more—and left the throne room, oddly lighter than when he had come in.

Chapter 61

Kahlee watched him as he packed, filling Terian with the disquieting sense that she was about to explode at him for some reason. As though she would start screaming at him, filling the air with some rage he did not sense from the placid look on her face.

“Where will you go?” she asked when she broke the silence at last.

“Reikonos, I expect,” Terian said. “Bowe offered to teleport me there.”

“So you’ll pick up where you left off?” Her face betrayed no emotion. “Scrabbling for menial work? Walking streets to keep those without homes of their own away from warehouses?”

He blinked and caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror on the wall in front of him as he folded a weathered shirt and stuffed it in his travel sack. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to survive on the margins, I expect. Like I did before I came here.”

“That hardly seems a task fitting for the greatest dark knight in our land,” she said, oddly cool in her pronouncement.

He froze. “Where did you get the idea that I’m the greatest dark knight in our land?”

“Everyone said it on the day of your soul sacrifice,” she said, and he met her eyes to find them unblinking as she watched him. “Do you know how many soul sacrifices I have attended in my years in Saekaj?”

“No,” Terian said, feeling his voice go hoarse. “I only ever went to the one, you see. I assumed you were the same.”

“The rest of us were not bound by your code,” she said. “I have seen countless soul sacrifices.” She cocked her head at him. “Do you know what most of them involve? Animals.” She wore a look of carefully controlled emotion. “Occasionally some undesirable from Sovar, a complete stranger to the subject of the ceremony.”

Terian felt a smoldering in his heart. “Lucky me, to get a sacrifice that truly lived up to its name.” He bowed his head, and went back to folding a tunic. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Ameli gave her life for you,” Kahlee said.

“Ameli had her life stolen by me,” Terian corrected.

“I don’t think so,” Kahlee said. “She knew. Before it happened. She could have run, but she didn’t.”

“That is the single dumbest thing I have ever heard said aloud.” Terian wheeled on her. “Because it suggests that my brilliant, vivacious sister, who was full of life and wanted to live, somehow failed to act to save herself.” He stared her down with burning eyes. “I looked at her in the moments before she died. She was afraid. She may have known just before I stabbed her that she was about to die, but she did not ask for it. She did not walk willingly to the slaughter. She wanted to live and she was deprived of life by me and my stupid refusal to buck every horrible, senseless, ridiculous tenet hammered into my skull by this gods-damned society!” Terian lashed out at the mirror in front of him and shattered it, the glass falling in a rain of shards onto the dresser.

Kahlee let the silence rest for just a moment before she spoke. “You’re right, I lied.”

“I know you lied,” Terian said, staring at his own eye reflected back in one of the shards. “Don’t try to make me feel better about the evil things I’ve done. There is no redemption for the darkness I embraced, and no excuse for my failure to stand up and call it by its name sooner.” He looked over his shoulder. “I have stood in the shadows for a very long time, letting myself think that I am a dark knight—a
true
dark knight. ‘The greatest dark knight in the land’? I’m a pale shade of dark. I failed to look my father’s evil in the face and spit in it once before. Because I … trusted him.”

“Because you wanted to be like him,” Kahlee said.

“I was a fool,” Terian said. “So, yes, I am going to go back to Reikonos. I am going to do menial things. I will scrape the dung from outhouse seats if need be. I will whack orphans with a stick to ward them away from warehouses where the owner would sooner kill them than allow them to break one of his windows. I will skirt by on the minimums of life and accept it happily as the price I pay for never having to do what my father and my Sovereign would turn me toward ever again.” He felt a shudder of discomfort. “I will grant you a divorce if you so desire; so great is my shame that I am without house, and you should not have to suffer—”

“No,” Kahlee said, shaking her head. “I don’t think so. Married to you, I need never fear I shall have to marry another.”

Terian stared at her. “Well. Glad I could serve some useful function to someone.”

Her eyes were shaded. “Will you ever return?”

“The Sovereign said he will call me back when my father has suffered enough,” Terian said. “But no, I’m not ever coming back. You can live peacefully with the knowledge that no one will ever expect you to marry again, nor deal with the impositions of heirs or anything of that sort.” He felt an air of suspicion wash over him. “You’re not … presently carrying an heir, are you?”

“No,” she said archly. “I am most definitely not, doubtless much to my father’s chagrin.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Terian said. “No need for more responsibility, you know.” He stared down at his pack, only half full, then glanced at the closet. “This is good enough, I suppose.”

“I know who you are, you know,” she said as he started to draw his pack upon his shoulder.

“Oh, really?” Terian said with a wan smile that turned up the corners of his lips. “Who am I? And please don’t say something trite like ‘a good man.’”

“I would not say anything so false,” Kahlee said, devoid of expression. “You are not summed up into words so easily. But I know this—you are my husband. You are not your father. And you are not who I thought you were when we met again after all your years of absence.” She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek, ever so gently. “Good journey, Terian.”