Sovereign

'He is unbalanced, your Majesty,' Orkid said quickly. 'And dangerous. I would not advise—'

'I'm not asking for your advice, Chancellor,' Areava said darkly. 'I want to ask the general what he has done with my army…' Her voice faded when Dejanus appeared from Orkid's office. The first thing she noticed was the hollowness of his eyes, as if they had sunk into his skull. The second thing was the sword he carried in his right hand.

Orkid saw her gaze shift from him, and he turned quickly on his heel. 'Now, man!' he said to his secretary. 'Get Constable Arad!'

'Stop there!' Dejanus ordered, and there was enough authority in his voice to make the secretary hesitate. 'I am constable. I have returned, your Majesty, to take up my proper duties.'

'My… army…' she said hesitantly.

Dejanus shrugged. 'Badly trained, your Majesty. Badly equipped. Badly supplied.' He smiled. 'Brilliantly led. But what was that against so much?'

'There is none left of it?'

'You still have me,' he said. He absently scratched his beard with his free hand. 'Oh, and my escort. Thirty medium cavalry. Storians all; alas, not very good cavalry as it turns out.'

'I will have your head, Dejanus,' she said evenly. 'Insane or not, I will have your head.'

It was then, for the first time in his whole life, that Dejanus realised he was no longer afraid. 'If you are going to take my head, your Majesty, it should be for a greater cause than the loss of your straw army.'

'Your Majesty,' Orkid said quickly, his voice rising, 'you should leave now. Dejanus is insane. There is no telling what he might do.' Again he turned to his secretary. 'For God's sake, man, get Arad!'

The man scurried off, terrified Dejanus would try and stop him, but the general, still smiling, simply watched him go. Areava, however, stood her ground.

'Well, here we are, the three of us,' Dejanus said. 'Fitting. Will you tell her, Orkid, or will I?'

Areava looked at Orkid. 'What's he talking about?'

Orkid, keeping his gaze locked on Dejanus, said, 'I tell you, your Majesty, he is not himself. I have no idea what he is talking about—'

'I am talking about the murder of Berayma. I am talking about a plot to put you on the throne, Areava, and to blame your brother for the crime of regicide.'

'Olio?' Areava asked. 'Why Olio…' Then she realised what Dejanus meant. 'No.'

'But yes!' Dejanus said. 'And it worked so well! You hated Lynan so much you would believe anything about him so long as it was bad.'

'No, that isn't true,' she said. 'I didn't hate him—'

'Of course you hated him!' Dejanus roared. Orkid moved forward towards Dejanus, but the general raised his sword to keep him away. 'Everyone in Kendra knew how much you hated Lynan, no matter how much you protested otherwise. You detested him because his father was a commoner. He sullied your precious Rosetheme bloodline. If it hadn't been for your pride and hate, none of Orkid's plan would have been possible.'

Areava saw Orkid's shoulders slump. Her heart felt like ice. 'Orkid?'

'It is not true,' the chancellor said, but his voice was weak. 'None of this is true.'

Dejanus rolled his eyes. 'Such protestation! That will convince her!' His smile slipped away, replaced by a sneer. 'Of course it is true! He and his brother had it planned ten years before your mother died. Berayma could not be allowed to live because he was too close to the Twenty Houses, and everyone knew how much the Twenty Houses hated anyone from the provinces. How could Aman increase its influence if Berayma was king? More importantly, since Marin had only one child, and that a son, how could Aman marry into imperial power if Berayma was king?'

'Sendarus?' Areava's hands gripped the Key of the Sceptre hanging from her neck. 'He married me because of a plan?'

Orkid spun around to face her. 'No! No, never! Sendarus never knew! He wasn't a part of it…' Orkid stopped when he realised what he had said, what he had admitted. 'God, Areava, I'm sorry…'

'Too late, Amanite,' Dejanus said, his voice filled with scorn. 'Now tell her the whole truth, how you pinned down Berayma's hands while I drove my dagger straight through his royal neck.'

Orkid was still looking at Areava, but his gaze was focused on something else, on a distant point in time when everyone he cared for was still alive, when the plan had seemed to go right and his life's work had come to fruition. All gone now, all destroyed, and no hope of ever getting it back.

Yet there was one more task to perform, one more duty to fulfil. Orkid swung around, knocking aside the blade still pointing at his chest, stepped forward, grasped the dagger from Dejanus's belt and with all his strength thrust the blade into the general's neck.

Dejanus opened his mouth to scream but could only cough on the red tide pouring out of his mouth. Orkid pulled out the dagger and stepped back, and Dejanus went down like a hammered calf, his blood spurting high into the air.

Orkid looked down, and instead of seeing Dejanus's face, he saw Berayma's. All the bile and all the guilt he had been carrying since that terrible night he had slain the king welled up inside him. He gagged, vomited, could not stop it. When the retching finally passed he hung his head back and cried: 'Oh, Lord of the Mountain, what have I done?'

But it was Areava, not his god, who answered. 'You have betrayed me,' she said.

He turned to face her, wiping his mouth and beard on his sleeves. 'No, Areava, no. I love you.' He held out the bloody hand still holding the dagger. 'All of this was for Grenda Lear. For your mother. For you.''

Areava went to him quickly. At that moment he thought, crazily, she was coming into his arms, and could not resist when she took the dagger from his hand and plunged it deep into his chest. He folded over her like a broken tree, his arms flopping on her shoulders, his head resting against her cheek. 'I love you,' he repeated with his last breath, as Areava twisted the knife and screamed her hate for him.

That night she dressed in her armour and swore not to take it off until her brother Lynan was dead at her feet. She told no one what she had learned about his innocence regarding Berayma's death; that was no longer important. After all, it was Lynan who had invaded his own home with barbarians from the Oceans of Grass, Lynan who had slaughtered Grenda Lear's finest regiments, Lynan who had so cruelly slain her husband and—by that action—slain her birthing daughter. Lynan was the greatest enemy of all, and if only he could be cut down the Kingdom might yet be made whole.

That night she also ordered a huge pyre to be made in the courtyard, and on that she had thrown the bodies of Orkid and Dejanus. No priest was asked to say a prayer over them. That night she also ordered Lingdar to leave Kendra; she did not care where Lingdar went, so long as it was not to remain within the borders of her Kingdom. That night she also was among the first to see above Ebrius Ridge the long line of torches she knew was the advance troops of Lynan's invading army. Within a day, two at the most, Kendra would be under siege.

'Come, my brother,' she said into the night, tightly grasping her Key of Power. 'Come to me so we can finish this.'

Later she noticed her hands were all bloody. She stared at them, mystified, for she had bathed her whole body after killing Orkid; then she noticed the marks were in the shape of the Key. It was the amulet that was stained, but it was old blood, wine red and brittle, as if it had been on the Key for a year or more.

'It is Berayma's,' she said aloud, and found she could finally cry.

CHAPTER 35

Lynan arrived on the outskirts of Kendra at midmorning. From his vantage point on the Ebrius Ridge it seemed absurdly at peace. The city lay like a complex quilt on the gentle slope from the foot of the ridge down to the sea. The sun sparkled on the harbour and above the waters wheeled kestrels and seagulls. Then he noticed how empty the place looked. Except for one or two fishing vessels and a trader in dry dock, there were no ships, and all the streets were virtually empty. Here and there figures scurried along streets, ducking from one doorway to another. It was as if the whole city had been depopulated by some terrible plague.