Flamecaster (Shattered Realms #1)(33)
There had been just one verified student casualty. Renard Tourant, an Ardenine cadet, went missing that night and was found floating in the Tamron River a few days later, apparently drowned. Destin wished he’d been able to take a little more time dispatching that blundering fool, but he’d been in a bit of a hurry to get out of town before anyone thought to question Denis Rochefort, a visitor from Arden.
It was possible that the scheme had succeeded. It was possible that there had been more than five Darians, and that the survivors had carried the bodies of Barrowhill and sul’Han away for one of their ghastly rituals. They were blood-hungry bastards, always fighting like jackals over who got to do the deed. Destin preferred a more dispassionate approach to killing. It was sometimes necessary, but Destin didn’t enjoy it as a rule.
It was possible, but Destin didn’t believe it. He’d been promised proof of the kill that he could take back with him to Ardenscourt, but had not received it. According to his sources, the two missing students had not surfaced, alive or dead, in Arden or the Fells, in the weeks since.
Destin suspected that it was only that bit of hopeful ambiguity that had kept him alive this long. That, and the fact that the deans at Oden’s Ford had been unable to prove that Arden was behind it.
Oh, they suspected plenty. The Darian Guild was tied to the Church of Malthus, the state church of the Ardenine Empire. The king of Arden had long claimed the right to search the academy campus for saboteurs, spies, and contraband, though he’d never before tried to exercise that right. The administration at Oden’s Ford sent stern letters to the king and to the principia of the Church of Malthus, demanding to know what, if anything, they knew about the violation of the peace. Since it appeared that those responsible had fled into Arden, they further demanded that the culprits be apprehended and returned to the academy for trial.
Agents of the church and the empire denied any knowledge of the attack at the academy. They pointed out that Arden had no reason to attack students at Oden’s Ford, assuming that the school was not harboring enemies of the state. They suggested that they look to the north for the guilty parties. After all, one of the victims was a citizen of Arden. Perhaps the two missing students were responsible for the killings. The king of Arden offered to station soldiers at Oden’s Ford to protect students and faculty if the academy requested it.
The academy declined.
The king had made his displeasure known since that day. Though just eighteen, Destin had been considered a rising star and a favorite of the king’s—until Oden’s Ford. He hadn’t had an audience with Montaigne or an assignment from him since. Destin had little to do but worry that the king might show his displeasure in a more concrete way. Some nights, as he lay awake in the stifling heat of the season they called autumn in the south, he considered fleeing the country.
His father had anticipated that he might run, and issued a preemptive warning. “There’s no going back from that. The king has a long memory, and Arden has a long reach. It won’t be long before the king controls all of the Seven Realms. What are you going to do then—try your luck in Carthis?” The look in his father’s eyes was a threat and a warning and a dare all in one.
And so, finally—this meeting, after weeks of silence. Why now? Destin guessed that the king had reached a decision about his future.
So—what’s proper dress for one’s own execution? Destin wasn’t prone to elaborate attire. If he had been, his father would have beaten it out of him long ago. Still, he knew how to present himself well when the occasion demanded it. Black was always in good taste. He dressed head to toe in fine black wool with leather trim. His shirt bore lace at the collar and cuffs. His boots and swordbelt were plain, but made of the finest leather. His amulet was tucked discreetly inside his shirt, where it wouldn’t be seen, but it would absorb mana’in, the demonic energy that oozed from him, day and night, like the seepage from a sulfurous spring. Best not to fling that in the king’s face, on top of everything else.
Being gifted was a double-edged sword in the south. It made Destin and his father useful to the king, but it also made them vulnerable. The Church of Malthus had a habit of burning uncollared wizards, and the king had a habit of letting them do it. Montaigne viewed the gifted in his employ as a necessary evil.
Destin studied his image in the glass inside his wardrobe, and was satisfied. This will do to be buried in, he thought. Assuming there is enough left to be buried. With that, he went to find his father, who, for once, would be in his apartments.
Marin Karn might be general of the Ardenine armies, with quarters in the palace itself, and estates on Ardens-water and at Baston Bay, but when he was in the capital, he could often be found playing cards and drinking in the common room of the barracks, where Destin always felt out of place.
Destin saluted the brace of soldiers in front of his father’s door. “Can you let the general know I’m here?”
That word was conveyed, and Destin was duly admitted to the first waiting room—the first circle in the maze that would eventually lead to his father.
When he was finally ushered into his father’s privy chamber, he found the general half-dressed, in the process of stripping off his linen shirt. “Fetch me another,” he ordered, dropping the shirt on the floor. “I’ve sweated through two of these already. All of this traveling from the arse-puckering borderlands to the ovens of Bruinswallow will be the death of me.”