I feel the sunlight on my face. The wind calls to me, tracing a million pathways through my hair, caressing my wings, daring me to fly. I stretch my hands toward the vast, impossible sky. Soon. Very soon.
Tharaiyelagh scrubbed his palms against his eyes. Not even noon yet, and already the day’s paperwork had given him a headache.
Or perhaps it was that tragic dream.
He shifted his shoulders, feeling silks against his skin, sensing the subtle burn of the holy seal across his back. He would never fly again, no matter how vividly he dreamed it. He’d had plenty of time to make his peace with that reality. No sense bemoaning it now. Not when he had so much work to do. Treaties didn’t write themselves, after all, and the latest letter from the Fifth Sphere still needed answering. And someone had raided the sparse farmland south of Rustwater, leaving the Ravens and Hawks squabbling about yet one more affront—though Tharaiyelagh had his own suspicions as to where the responsibility for this attack may lie. He pressed his fingertips to his temples.
A light knock at the door yanked him out of his thoughts. It opened, and the page boy Aceaghn peered around it.
Boy? Aceaghn was within a decade of Tharaiyelagh’s own age. In another world, a better world, they would be peers. He forced a neutral smile across his tired face.
“Yes, Aceaghn?”
The page stepped inside the office, sparing a dismayed glance for Tharaiyelagh’s cluttered desktop. He drew himself upright, then executed an elegant bow. “Master Tharaiyelagh, Lord KeReyll of the Raven Clan has arrived.”
“Good.” Tharaiyelagh tucked several papers away in a drawer, which he locked. He trusted the castle staff well enough, but leaving half-finished work where anyone might read it only invited trouble. “Show him to the West Audience Hall. Let him wait.”
Let him wait. Even a year ago, such words would have shocked Tharaiyelagh. Now he himself uttered them. Now he himself made the king of one of the Fourth Sphere’s great warrior clans wait upon his convenience.
How palace life had changed him.
Aceaghn bowed again, then turned away in a swirl of blue and white silks. Tharaiyelagh smiled after him, a genuine smile this time. Lord Baleirithys had been right after all. Of course, Lord Baleirithys was always right.
Tharaiyelagh returned his attention to his papers, kept in deliberate disarray, an old habit hanging on from his previous life. Lord Baleirithys wanted that one treaty finished today, but he had it only half written. He had maps and reports regarding the movement of Hawk and Raven warriors to analyze before passing them along to the guardsmen. He had several lifetimes of work left to do before he could take a break.
Then of course there was that other matter.
Someone had stolen the Heartstone. Someone had made the crossing into the Third Sphere, had braved the wilderness there. Someone had flown through the shearing winds, had risked choking on sand, had breached the Tower of Ages. Someone had crept past the Sand Cat guards, had survived a mere forty seconds in the vault, had escaped. Someone had done the impossible.
Someone could only be Kleptomancer.
Pressing his fingertips to his temples, right up to the base of his horns, Tharaiyelagh willed the memories away. Sunny smiles and dancing blue eyes and a thousand broken promises would plague him no more. He had a new life here, a good life. He had stepped off the execution block and into the highest position in the entire Sphere. His mind still reeled at how quickly it had happened. Thieves make the best politicians, Lord Baleirithys had said to him, a bold and as-yet unproven statement to a newly released prisoner. Tharaiyelagh had worked hard to deserve the salvation offered to him, and only after his beloved prince had promoted him to Chancellor did he learn the truth: every single Seyzharel life was precious to Baleirithys, who worked tirelessly to bring his battered and scattered people home.
Tharaiyelagh had taken up his prince’s work with a religious fervor, and so Lord KeReyll waited while he opened fresh correspondence from the frontier. The silver moon seal told him what to expect, and the leader of those lawless Looties did not disappoint. Another Seyzharel demon in chains. Precise directions, names, detailed description, and a request for his usual finder’s fee. Tharaiyelagh took a form from his bottom desk drawer, the usual request to the treasury, when a detail from the letter caught his eye. He hesitated for only a moment before he doubled the request for gold.
Lord Baleirithys would be pleased.
“Tell me more about this prince.”
Ragheiyont sent a sharp glance toward his companion. “Didn’t think cats took much to politics, jo. Luccan,” he corrected hastily. The feline in question scowled anyway.
“And I didn’t think thieves much revered their rulers,” Luccan fired back, his tone as icy as the caps of the mountains in the distance.
Ragheiyont scoffed. “Ya known many thieves?”
“Chattering child, I have known the greatest of thieves.”
Ragheiyont knew better, but Luccan’s condescension needled him. How could he demand answers in one breath, then deride him for speaking in the next? He spread his hands at his sides, flaring the blue sleeves of his overcoat. “So you have,” he said with manic cheer, “for here I am!”
Luccan gave him a long, calculating look. Then he made a dismissive noise and continued on down the dusty road.
“Hey!” Ragheiyont caught up to him in a single wingbeat. “I am, you know.” He should not speak so freely. Kleptomancer was wanted for his crimes in five Spheres. “I can steal ya anything ya want. Just name it!”
Luccan stopped walking and turned to face him. “Anything?” His masked face held a challenge, one that Ragheiyont knew he should resist. The sickness in his blood rose to a simmer. He itched just beneath his skin. Planting his fists on his hips, Ragheiyont struck a pompous pose.
“Name it, jo!”
Luccan eyed him with cool regard, his words already decided. Had he a tail, it would twitch with the thrill of the sport.
“Bring me the King of Shadows.”
“What!” Ragheiyont wailed. Mustering his composure, he nonetheless allowed his wings to slump behind him. “Ya gotta stop believin’ in nesting tales,” he said with a rueful wag of his head. “Legendary destroyer? No such person exists.”
“He will,” Luccan growled through his mask. “And I will kill him.”
Ragheiyont blinked twice in surprise. It was the most Luccan had bothered to disclose about himself, and in true feline fashion, he disclosed murderous intent. “You… You think Prince Baleirithys is this great destroyer?” Ragheiyont whispered the question, though they were alone. Utterly, desolately alone. In the distance, a ruined town lay shadowed in a hollow in the fields, a relic of centuries past. Nothing stirred. When Luccan gave no reply, Ragheiyont shook his head. “Jo, he… he saved Seyzharel. Did some cunning, daring trick that stopped the sleeping king from killing us all. Look,” he added, resenting the need for sincerity, “I’m no fan of the monarchy, yeah? Hardly a true believer. But I do know I would not be here today if Prince Baleirithys had not stopped his father from killing his own people.”
Seizing Ragheiyont by the scruff, as was his tremendously irritating habit, Luccan dragged him off the road. He stomped along, his fierce glare fixed dead ahead. The moss-grass crumpled and furrowed with their passage. At what he deemed a suitable distance, Luccan settled them both beneath a stand of towering rushes. “Talk,” he said. “Start at the beginning.”
“Five hundred years ago, King Chaizhyn of Seyzharel and his younger son were tragically slain, and King Thaghecii ascended the throne. He was a king of blood and wrath, a king who would not tolerate anything that was distasteful in his sight.” KeReyll speared a rancid bit of liver on the point of his knife. “He shaped his world to his liking.”
Tharaiyelagh held his papers to his chest, as though the more mundane of his duties could protect him from the horrors falling upon his ears now. “As tyrants do,” he said, drawing a sharp, calculating gaze from the king of the Raven Clan.
“Tyrant, you say? Were you there, child?”
Tharaiyelagh kept his gaze fixed on the tabletop, just beside KeReyll’s plate of horrors. He need not have witnessed the tyranny firsthand. He saw the scars every day, scars that Enci’s best ministrations had not yet healed. Ceirithi’s face. Lord Baleirithys’ wrists. Tharaiyelagh drew slow, careful breaths and concentrated on keeping his expression neutral.
“How old are you?” KeReyll demanded of him.
“Ninety-seven.”
“Ninety-seven!” KeReyll repeated. “You’re scarcely out of the nest! What could a child like you know of greatness?”
Greatness did not slaughter well over eighty percent of his own subjects. Greatness did not lose lands to slavers. Greatness did not leave a kingdom in desolation. “I expect to learn,” Tharaiyelagh said, keeping his voice quiet and even.
“You’ll not learn it around here.” KeReyll picked up an eyeball and popped it in his mouth. “Flimsy little beasties skulking around their pretty castle have nothing to teach you.”
Tharaiyelagh refused to take the bait. KeReyll wanted him to object, to get flustered, to defend his prince. Instead, he held his tongue until his jaw ached. KeReyll chewed noisily.
“It’s a mystery how a mere wisp of a boy ever defeated King Taghecii.”
At the age of eighty-one, Tharaiyelagh thought with a swell of pride.
KeReyll leaned forward, his gaze hungry. His grip tightened on the knife in his hand. “How did he do it?”
“By cunning.” Lord Baleirithys swept into the chamber amid a swirl of blue and silver and crimson. “And unmatched audacity. Lord KeReyll, I recall asking you not to tease my Chancellor.”
Tharaiyelagh’s heart hammered against his ribs as he watched his prince glide over and take a seat at the table. How long had he listened at the door? Had he heard—
“Furthermore,” Lord Baleirithys continued, “I’ll thank you to remember not to speak my royal father’s name here in my castle. It’s quite illegal, if you recall.”
“Ah, a momentary lapse.” KeReyll offered no apology. Tharaiyelagh clutched his papers until his knuckles turned white.
Lord Baleirithys took up a crystal goblet, and in a moment one of the servingmen appeared to fill it with blood. “It must have been.” He sipped from the goblet, his obsidian gaze locked on KeReyll’s face. “You have come to discuss terms?”
KeReyll slammed his knife down on the table, causing the remains of his distasteful repast to jump and jiggle. “I have come,” he said through his teeth, “because those filthy Hawk upstarts have set up roadblocks all over the countryside.”
Tharaiyelagh had already received news of the roadblocks. He looked to his prince, who sipped his blood with an air of unperturbed thoughtfulness.
“I wonder, what is it that they want?”
He knew perfectly well what they wanted. He had just sent Chaighan to the other side of the Sphere to fetch it.
“These are your lands,” KeyReyll hissed. “Or so you claim. You promised my people free passage throughout. You will do something about this affront!”
Tharaiyelagh schooled his features into quiet attentiveness. Between Hawk and Raven there was always a new affront. The two refused to coexist peaceably. Not since the Sleeping King had sealed off the farmland in the west.
One more mess that man left behind.
“Hmm.” Lord Baleirithys swirled the blood remaining in his goblet. “I have the ear of Kiile-Kili. I shall discuss the matter with him.”
KeReyll sneered. “The third son? What good is a mere prince?”
With a graceful swipe of one hand, Lord Baleirithys cast a stray lock of his crimson plumage over his shoulder, conveniently displaying his claws as he did. “What indeed?” he purred, soaking in the insult and turning it back on his guest. “I will study your problem. You will consider terms.” His eyes narrowed to flinty slits. “Upon your return, we shall reach an agreement.”
KeReyll rose to his feet. “You would dismiss me without giving me an answer?”
Lord Baleirithys lifted his pointed chin, and his wings followed. “I gave you an answer,” he said, the guise of gracious host dropping away before a façade of alabaster and ice. “Whether or not it satisfies is not my concern. You will return in three days, and then we will both have what we want.”
Tharaiyelagh’s pulse quickened as he watched his prince stare down the king of the Raven Clan. It was a bluff, but one that KeReyll dare not challenge. The Raven Clan numbered in the thousands, and would draw many more to their cause if Lord Baleirithys unjustly flayed the flesh from his body. Lord Baleirithys would never act so rashly, but KeReyll could not risk that the son might take after the intemperate father, if only for a moment.
Only Tharaiyelagh knew that Lord Baleirithys would die a thousand deaths before ever emulating the sleeping king.
Luccan stared in undisguised horror at his companion. “What kind of a madman destroys nearly his entire kingdom?”
“See?” Satisfied with a job well done, Ragheiyont threw himself back on the soft, mossy grass. “Ya got the wrong royal. That prince, he put a stop to it all. Saved us from extinction. Ya gotta kill someone? Kill the sleeping king.”
Luccan’s gaze had fixed on the distant mountains. “Why does he still live?”
“Obviously, because it’s treason to kill the king.”
“So the king sleeps and the prince rules the kingdom.” Luccan picked at the grass, releasing its spicy scent. “And you think there’s no way he could—could go mad? Turn on his own people?”
Ragheiyont gave a halfhearted shrug. “Not sayin’ it’s impossible. But what I hear is he’s more a builder than a destroyer. Got work to do, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Luccan repeated, his voice soft, his thoughts far away. The breeze stirred the rushes, and just when Ragheiyont thought he had nothing more to say, Luccan added, “Seyzharel is where I must go.”
“Sure, I figured that.” Ragheiyont propped himself up on one elbow, and he gave a cheeky grin. “Still want me to fetch you a nesting tale?” Maybe he could steal the sleeping king. Maybe they could put an end to Seyzharel’s nightmares.
Yeah, and maybe he didn’t carry a gem of untold power hidden beneath his flesh, burning with secrets, with power, with a desire for release.
“I think not.” Luccan met his gaze at last. “I want you to get me into the castle.”
The servants cleared away KeReyll’s dishes mere moments after the door had closed behind him. Lord Baleirithys remained motionless for a count of twenty. Then he rose from his seat in a fresh swirl of silks and expertly weighted hems. His wings flared, and he paced around the table.
“The insolence. I thought he would never leave.”
Tharaiyelagh eased his grip on his papers. His prince glided toward him, circled him, studied him. Tharaiyelagh kept his head held high, but he suspected Lord Baleirithys might hear the thundering of his heart. When they were alone, the façade wavered. When they were alone, his prince was more beautiful than ever.
“Sit.”
Before Tharaiyelagh could hesitate, Lord Baleirithys placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down into the freshly vacated chair. Tharaiyelagh’s knees buckled at the touch, and he sat with rather less grace than his prince preferred. Lord Baleirithys leaned against the table.
“You handled yourself well today.”
Heat flooded Tharaiyelagh’s cheeks. “That was a test?” Lord Baleirithys had left him alone with KeReyll to see what he would do?
What had he done to earn praise?
“Oh, no.” Lord Baleirithys’ fingertips trailed along Tharaiyelagh’s horns in an absent caress. “No test there. You were on your own with a noxious man who happens to have a position of power, and you did not allow him to provoke you.”
“You waited,” Tharaiyelagh accused, and his face flamed full crimson. When had he become so bold?
Lord Baleirithys chuckled, a velvet and honey sound that always drew Tharaiyelagh in. His sense of indignation faltered.
“That’s the game we play, my little thief.” Lord Baleirithys allowed his fingers to stray from Tharaiyelagh’s horns to the fall of golden plumage spilling over them. Tharaiyelagh found himself nodding along. “You, too, will be an expert at it, and soon. Soon, you will pluck at his strings, and he will dance to your tune.”
Tharaiyelagh pictured the Raven king dancing, and immediately wished he had not. “So now we offer Kiile-Kili what he wants,” he said, trying to shake the thought. “He removes the roadblocks, and then…?”
Lord Baleirithys leaned close, impossibly close, his voice falling to a whisper just for the drama of it. “We make him king, of course.”
Of course. Then the Hawk Clan would live under two great debts to Seyzharel. Tharaiyelagh struggled for breath, struggled to think past the rushing in his ears. “Can we do that?”
Again, his prince’s laugh washed over him, warming and dizzying him in equal measure. “My dear little thief, with a deft hand we can do anything we like.” He trailed one fingertip down the bridge of Tharaiyelagh’s nose. “Only be gentle, subtle, patient.”
Before Tharaiyelagh could melt forward into the touch, Lord Baleirithys straightened. “My son should witness this.”
A hot spike of jealousy rammed down Tharaiyelagh’s spine, pushing him back in his seat. “I believe Lord Tempest is in the Mortal Sphere,” he said, his voice tight to his own ears. “With the Soul-Stealer, and…”
And the angel.
“I see.” A glimmer of playfulness flashed behind Lord Baleirithys’ dark eyes. “I shall have to call for him when the treaty is ready.”
“Of course.”
Lord Baleirithys eyed the sudden, aching separation between the two of them, and then he made it worse.
“Have you had word of your brother?”
This, then, was the test.
Tharaiyelagh lifted his chin and met his prince’s searching stare. “Nothing specific, no.” Did he tremble? Was this fear or fury that raced like fire through his veins?
“But…?”
“Who else would dare?” There. The horrible words lay out in the open now, no longer cluttering up his thoughts, no longer robbing him of sleep.
“Who else indeed,” Lord Baleirithys purred. His fingertips caressed Tharaiyelagh’s hair once more, but his thoughts ranged far away, calculating, examining this new problem from every possible angle.
For if Tharaiyelagh’s brother was anything at all, he was a problem.