Elsewhere in the city, men were dragging the corpse of Valeria out of a canal. Her marks of identification had been taken and burned, but her divine sigil could still be read upon her shoulder. She was almost taken directly out of the city walls and buried a pauper beneath an unmarked stone, but the watch captain thought he might earn himself some rapport by bringing the body in for study. The new king’s interest in stigmata was well known and the mark upon her was of a curious size. He had no notion of the importance of his action, nor that it would result in him being given a sizeable raise in pay when the body was ultimately identified as no mere criminal.
While the king greeted his bride-to-be, Lucius was brought to the very same garden wherein Aisha first met the princess. No guards patrolled the perimeter and no serving staff lurked. The angel sat alone, her wings spread like a wall behind her as she watched him approach. She said nothing until he arrived at the table. “Vi changed your face, didn’t she? I didn’t realize when we first met, but she’s one of the few in the world that could do something like that.”
“Vi?” Lucius asked.
“Don’t be coy. The wizard picked you up at some point, like he picked up that barbarian you use as a house guard. Your stigmata is astounding. I’m sure he used you to kill more than a few demons. What’s more, you were right. The wizard is gone. I can’t rip his heart out and feed him his own entrails no matter how much I want to. But, that leaves a problem for the whole world.”
“And what would that be?”
“I said don’t be coy. There’s nobody here but us. I’m offering you a deal, Lucius. The same deal that abomination was given centuries ago. I am willing to overlook your crimes. I’ll even give you the things you want. Money, women, status, anything.”
Lucius sat at the table across from her and folded his hands together. “So, there’s another demon?”
The angel nodded. “There is. We haven’t been able to locate it yet, but we will soon. So long as you play the role of our hunting dog, we can get along.”
“The king made me much the same offer.”
“And you took the deal.”
“And I’ll take yours, but I don’t think you can give me the things I want.”
“Name them.”
He smirked. “What if I said I wanted Kassie?”
Acheliah had been holding a cup of tea, though she had offered none to the boy. The cup shattered in her grasp, the simmering drink getting blasted to the ground by a pulse of energy from the bristling angel. “The answer would be no. The kingdom is filled with women. You can pick another.”
“I could pick Ericka.”
“You could,” Acheliah said, brushing shards of ceramic to the ground. “The alliance to the Ashe family could be secured with either of those girls. Fredrich was merely giving Annika consideration for her recent loss. You’d become one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, so long as you’re my hunting dog.”
His eyebrows rose. “Then I want information.”
“If I have it, it is yours.”
“On how to kill souls.”
Acheliah paused, her eyes narrowing. “And why would you want that?”
“I only have a crude understanding of it right now. I know that you angels, divine beasts, emissaries, whatever title you like, are no different from the demons. I know that the reason I’m dangerous to you is subtle. Sitting here across from you, my stigmata only has the faintest affect on you. If you even notice it, you ignore it–demons try to kill me. But, then it gets stronger. It pulls them in and crushes them. That’s why you didn’t fight me at the coup. There might come a day I have to fight somebody who understands my stigmata better than I do, and how to counter it. I need a way to fight them.”
“You think Aurum will come for revenge?”
Lucius took the tea kettle and poured himself a drink as he tried to keep his temper in check. “When I was in the Misty Isles, there was a time when Amurabi thought a friend of mine had learned too much, that she was a danger. He broke her mind, and there was nothing I could do about it. If I had attacked him, he would have fled and there would have been nothing I could do to stop it.”
“You don’t have to worry about him. The moment he returns to Lumisgard, I will personally kill him.”
“And if you fail? He has been plotting to kill all of you for ages. Do you really think he would come back to Lumisgard just to get cornered and slaughtered? You will only be walking into a trap. Your only advantage will be that he told me not to kill the demons without using them to exhaust you first. He might misjudge your strength, but it’s also possible he will account for that. I might be forced to deal with the demons without you, for example. I might even choose to. What I want is for my life to not be at the mercy of somebody else, and thus I want whatever power is necessary to ensure that. So, what I want is the ability to kill anybody that threatens me. Those are my terms. If you’ll meet them, I’ll even tell you exactly where the wizard is when he returns. You can think them over until you find the demon, I suppose. If you’ll accept, then you can either give the information to me, or to Aisha. She was getting tutored in such matters by Vi, until circumstances intervened. Now, she’s gone too, so you are the only option available to me.”
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“You ask for much, Lucius.”
“So do you,” he said. “You’re asking me to kill monsters to protect your kingdom, but Vassermark is on the verge of collapse. What do you think would have happened if you hadn’t killed the rebels at the feast? If you had been forced away by Amurabi? Not just the royal family, but every noble in the kingdom would have been hanged by mobs, their coffers plundered, and a thousand low born tyrants would have risen up. You saw the same thing happen in Giordana after the fall of the Yellow King.”
She slammed her fist on the table. “That man was a monster. He fed pregnant women to animals. He raped children! Nothing like that happens in Vassermark, and I would never be appeased by blood sacrifices.”
He laughed at her. “I have to ask, did you really kill Jacque Mordare?”
“Who?”
“Middle-aged philosopher, was sleeping with Ruby Ashe. Liked to talk about social contracts and the rights of men.”
“Oh, that cretin. Yes. What of it?”
“I think you made a martyr of him. It’s no feasting on the livers of the innocent, but it might turn out to be just as dangerous. Just this morning, about a hundred men were slaughtered on the king’s orders to put down a disturbance caused by people who think the nobility are no longer good enough to rule over them. I think Charles von Arandall will be remembered in history as brilliant. We can hardly imagine the impacts that ley will have on the world, but it has already made cannons.”
She scoffed. “These are trifling matters. I’ve watched ships evolve from rafts to great sailing vessels that can carry armies. Nothing changed because people didn’t change.”
“Time will tell. I’d tell you to wait and see, but for once, you might not have all the time in the world. I’ve given my terms and now I must report to the king. You know where to find me.” Lucius finished his drink and rose from the table.
She waved him off. “Giving that kind of knowledge isn’t worth a few mere demons.”
“And if it’s more than a few?”
“Then perhaps. Time will tell,” she said, and Lucius departed from the garden.
He spoke to the first servant he found and in due course was seated in one of the palace’s studies. There was a collection of trivial books, one of which he began reading until the king arrived. A guard came in first, inspected the small room, then departed, and King Arandall joined Lucius.
“You have interesting methods, Solhart,” the king said as Lucius put the book away.
“No simple solution was available to me, my lord.”
“Where’s Valerie?”
“I have no idea. Your fiance demanded that I return to the palace with her. I wasn’t able to rejoin with my companion. I thought by now she might have returned here.”
“She hasn’t.”
“Then, I don’t know what to say. She left me during the confrontation. Her stigmata isn’t suited for close encounters. I thought nothing of it. Perhaps the watch captain knows more.”
The king frowned. “The man is indisposed, dealing with the deaths you caused.”
Lucius’ eyebrows rose. “I caused? I did nothing of the sort. Every action I took was fully legal and peaceful. I found new workers motivated to bring the port back under operation, acquired the proper legal authority to use the facilities, and connected willing workers with eager capital owners. I even helped solve the food strain in the city, and did so while safely bringing Lady Ashe to your castle. I did hear of the confrontation, but Hartley’s inability to control a riot can’t be blamed on me.”
“He had cannons, because of you.”
“And? Are you saying you would have rather your guards been thrown into a brawl? That the protectors of the peace themselves be injured and killed?”
The king stared back at him. “There will be more riots after this.”
“If you’re implying that you don’t trust your own men to handle those, I would be happy to address further matters in the future. I am your loyal servant, my lord. It does raise the question fo whether you expect me to remain in Forum or come back here, though. You’d have to uproot all the Warden Blades if you want me permanently in the city.”
“So you can continue bankrupting the nobility?”
“Bankrupting? What do you mean?”
“You seized every warehouse owned by the Montisferros.”
“The workmen did that, not me. It’s a problem easily solved now that control of the port is back to normal. I’d say I helped them. And why would I wish harm upon the Montisferros? I owe them a continual debt for failing to protect their son.”
The king pulled three letters from his pocket, both sealed with his mark. “Return to Forum. This is for Theo, and the others are for you. I’d suggest you wait to open it.”
Lucius picked both up, turning them over in the light of the window. “Can I ask what’s in it?”
King Arandall smiled. “The terms of the duel between you and Jules, as requested. I think you’ll find them to your liking. You consider yourself a master of the blade, don’t you?”
“In matters of war, but I’d be at quite a disadvantage if the duel is to first blood.”
“Death or surrender, with the clarification that death includes impalement of the heart or removal of the head. Given what my brother did to you, I understand you don’t much mind having your heart pierced.”
“Not by a man.”
The king laughed. “Well, I suppose you are human after all. You’ve made it clear you value your friends and your women more than status. Open the second letter if you win the duel.”
Lucius tucked the letters away and rose when the king rose. “Am I to return to Forum, then? Or am I to wait for Valerie?”
“Take that letter to Theo at once. I am to assume that Valerie is either dead or has run away. When I formed the Warden Blades, I assumed that at least one of them would make a run for it. Let’s hope she’s dead. In the worst scenario, she found a way to escape to Aillesterra. Those slavers have gotten bolder than ever.”
Lucius was almost too shocked to speak, his assumptions about the king faltering as he wondered what was in the letter to Theo. He at once thought of bypassing the sealing wax, but there was no reason to think the king’s intent would be writ plainly and not enciphered either cryptographically or through allusion. “You’re worried about Aillesterra?”
“They’re a concern,” the king said as he left the room. He kept speaking as Lucius followed him. “We think of them as the small kingdom, but they are actually quite large. They have a frontier to the east. My sources say it is flat fields of grass further than human eyes can see, with enormous animals dotting the horizon. It’s perfect farmland. I must assume the Aillesterrans have spread throughout it, feigning weakness as they probe our defenses. It will be the next war, Lucius… if we don’t fight one amongst ourselves first.”