“I don’t fear you or your whore of a goddess,” Dawson said.
“You don’t,” Basrahip agreed. “That is another mistake. But you cannot tell me where Prince Geder is, so you are insignificant. You have lost, Lord Kalliam. Everything you love is already gone.”
Dawson closed his eyes. He had the urge to roll to his side, pressing hands over his ears like a schoolboy refusing to hear a scolding, but he knew the priest was right. He had wagered everything that Palliako could be stopped. He’d lost. It didn’t matter that he’d be remembered as a traitor. To live for the legacy was only a way to pander to men as yet unborn. All that mattered was that his nation had been taken from its rightful rulers. Not even taken. Given away.
It was over.
The assault on Klin’s estate had been brutal. No swords rang, no arrows flew. But for two days, the priests had shouted at them. Their voices grew more annoying than flies. The same words, again and again: You have already lost. You cannot win. At first, Dawson had led the others in their refusal and mockery. As if they could be talked to death. Let them waste their breath until Bannien returned. Or if not Bannien, Skestinin. Every hour the priests spent talking was one less that they had to live.
But slowly, unmistakably, the laughter and bravado had hollowed out. Dawson had felt the growing suspicion that perhaps hope was fading. Perhaps time was allied to the enemy, and another passing day wasn’t something to welcome or hope for. He didn’t say it, nor did any of the others. It was in their eyes.
He’d been asleep when they came for him. The door of the withdrawing room had burst open in darkness, guardsmen with swords drawn pouring in. He’d leaped up. Even now, he could hear Clara screaming his name as they hauled him down the corridors, through the courtyard, and to the night-black streets. Odderd Mastellin had led them, his jutting chin making him look belligerent without seeming any less sheeplike. In the square, the siege tower was quiet. The priest stood before it. Behind him, in the light of the torches, the common men and women of Camnipol stood silently, like a collection of statues constructed at Basrahip’s whim. The sky above was black, and the torchlight drowned the stars.
“I’ve brought Kalliam,” Mastellin shouted. “I’ve brought him. Me. It’s the proof that I’m loyal. I’ve captured the enemy of the crown.”
“Congratulations,” Dawson had said loud enough to reach Mastellin’s ears. “You’re about to be the most loyal chicken in the wolf den.”
In truth, though, if Mastellin hadn’t broken, another of them would. Dawson understood that. It was the unholy power of their voices, insinuating their lies until they were indistinguishable from truth. Dawson had struggled against it. What hope was there for a weak-minded man like Mastellin? Or Klin. Or any of the others.
The enemy guard had accepted Dawson as a prisoner, and he’d been hauled away to the gaol and a day of beatings and humiliations ending here, in the same hole as his own captive and hoping that somehow Clara and Jorey had slipped the cordon. If he died, he died for his own judgment. But Clara… He’d have spared her that, if he could.
“Don’t blame yourself,” King Lechan said. “He’s more than either of us could have stood against.”
“What?”
“Palliako. Geder Palliako. He isn’t human. The dead walk with him and tell him their secrets.”
Dawson laughed, but it made his ribs ache and he stopped.
“Have you met him?” Dawson asked. “He’s a tool. He’d have been a scholar but he didn’t have the discipline for it.”
“I heard the guards talking about it. The one who brings the food? His brother saw Palliako by the fountain sitting with the dead king. He saw dead Simeon bow to him. This Palliako is a wizard, I think. Or a dragon in human skin.”
“He’s nothing like that. He’s a hobbyist. He didn’t command the death of your noblemen out of bloodthirst. He did it out of fear. The idea that if he could just cut off enough heads, he’d be safe. If he’d had to wield the axe himself, he’d have turned white and decided on clemency. He’s petty and a coward. He’s not even grand enough to be evil.”
King Lechan shook his head.
“He has defeated us.”
“No,” Dawson said. “I defeated you, and that hell-born priest defeated me. Palliako may have succeeded, but he’s never won anything. And he never will.”
They found him,” Lord Skestinin said. He sat on a small three-legged stool the guards had brought for the purpose. The prisoners were consigned to the floor, but Dawson didn’t take the slight personally. He was well beyond that now. “They said he rose up out of the ground with Prince Aster at his side. Walked back to the Kingspire dressed in robes like a commoner. He’d been on the streets the whole time, but no one knows where.”
“I’m surprised they aren’t saying he was killed in the original attack and rose up from the grave to preserve the kingdom,” Dawson said dryly.
Skestinin’s chuckle had a nervous edge.
“Odd stories do seem to find ways to attach to that man, don’t they?”
“You’ve seen him?”
“I have,” Skestinin said. “We would have been here sooner, but as soon as news of the trouble came, there were uprisings all through the north. I had to decide whether to risk losing all we’d gained in Asterilhold. And I…”
You waited plausibly and at a safe distance until you saw who won, Dawson thought, but he didn’t say it.
“Thank you for being my chaperone today.”
“Least I could do,” Skestinin said.
He wouldn’t meet Dawson’s eyes. It looked much like shame.
“How are Barriath and Jorey?”
“They’re well, considering. They’re free, for now, though Palliako’s personal guard is watching them like cats stalking pigeons. It’s a different city than the one I left after the wedding.”
“Sorry about that,” Dawson said. “The renovations I’d planned turned complicated on me.”
“Don’t joke about it,” Skestinin said. His voice was hard now. “You’ll be heard, and I’m risking enough by being here. If they hear I was cracking jokes about assassinating Prince Aster and the Lord Regent, it won’t go well for me.”
“I apologize,” Dawson said. “Gallows humor.”
The door opened and a young man—one of the group that had beaten Dawson on his arrival—looked in.
“It’s time,” he said. “You can bring him.”
The audience chamber was packed full. The summer heat still hadn’t broken, and with the press of bodies, the air felt as if it had all been breathed through twice already. Dawson had to sit on the floor behind a screen of woven iron, invisible from the court. Palliako was already on the throne on his raised dais, the crown of the Lord Regent on his brow. Aster sat at his side. Lechan, King of Asterilhold, knelt on the hard stone without so much as a cushion for his knees. From behind the screen, everything seemed in shadow, and Dawson found himself rocking from side to side trying to see the details better.
He found Clara. She was standing in the second gallery with Barriath and Jorey at her side. Good boys. Sabiha wasn’t there. He found her on the first level, standing beside her mother. Basrahip was, of course, at the side where Geder could look to the man for his orders. Dawson wasn’t sure how many of the spider priests he’d had killed in the final account, but he wished they’d managed one more at least.
“Watch the priest,” he said softly.
“What?” Skestinin said.
“When the time comes, Palliako will look to the priest for permission. If you watch you’ll see it.”
“Enough, Dawson. We aren’t supposed to be speaking.”