Ruler, Rival, Exile

Ceres lifted her hand from the water, staggering slightly. Thanos caught her, holding her up. After everything she’d been through, he was amazed that she’d managed to show this much strength. He wanted to be there for her then. Not just some of the time, but always.

“I’m all right,” Ceres said.

“You’re more than that,” Thanos assured her. “You’re amazing.”

More amazing than he could have believed. It wasn’t just that Ceres was beautiful and clever and strong. It wasn’t just that she was powerful, or that she seemed to put the good of others ahead of her own so consistently. It was all those things, but there was also something special beyond that.

She was the woman he loved, and after what had happened in the city, she was the only woman he loved. Thanos found himself thinking about what that meant. They could be together now. They would be together.

She looked up at him then, and she reached up to kiss him. It was a soft, gentle moment, full of tenderness. Thanos found himself wishing that it could fill the whole world, and that there was nothing else they had to deal with.

“You chose me,” Ceres said, touching his face as they pulled back.

“I will always choose you,” Thanos said. “I will always be there for you too.”

Ceres smiled at that, but Thanos could see the note of uncertainty there in her expression too. He couldn’t blame her for that, but at the same time he wished it weren’t there. He wished that he could chase that away, leaving everything all right between them. He’d been on the verge of asking her for more then, but he knew when not to press things.

“I choose you too,” Ceres assured him, but at the same time she pulled back. “I should go catch up with my brother and my father.”

She went over to where Berin stood with Sartes and Leyana. A family, all looking happy together. A part of Thanos wished that he could simply go there to be a part of it. He wanted to be a part of Ceres’s life, and he suspected that she wanted him to be too, but Thanos knew it would take time to heal things between them.

Because of that, he didn’t rush over to her. Instead, Thanos stood considering the rest of the boat’s inhabitants. For such a small boat, there were a lot. The three combatlords Ceres had saved were doing most of the rowing, although now that they were clear of the harbor, they would be able to get the boat’s small sail up. Akila lay to one side, a conscript Sartes had freed keeping pressure on the wound.

Jeva was coming toward him.

“You’re an idiot if you’re going to let her walk away,” Jeva said.

“An idiot?” Thanos countered. “Is that any way to thank someone who just saved you?”

He saw the Bone Folk woman shrug. “You’re an idiot for doing that too. Risking yourself to help another is stupid.”

Thanos cocked his head to one side. He wasn’t sure that he would ever understand her. Then again, he thought with a glance across to Ceres, that was something that applied to more than one person.

“Risking yourself is what you do for friends,” Thanos said.

Jeva shook her head. “I wouldn’t have put myself in danger for you. If it is your time to join with the spirits of your ancestors, it is your time. It is even an honor.”

Thanos wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was she serious? If so, it seemed a little ungrateful given the risk he and Ceres had taken in order to save her.

“If I’d known it was such an honor to be a figurehead for one of the First Stone’s ships, I would have left you to it,” Thanos said.

Jeva looked at him with a slight frown. It seemed to be her turn to try to work out if he was serious or not.

“You’re joking,” she said, “but you should have left me. I told you, only a fool risks his life for others.”

It was too harsh a philosophy for Thanos.

“Well,” he said. “I’m glad you’re alive, at least.”

Jeva seemed to think for a moment or two. “I’m glad too. Which is strange. The dead will be displeased with me. Perhaps I have more to do. I will follow you until I find out what.”

She said it evenly, as though it was already a settled thing in which Thanos got no say. He wondered what it must be like, walking through the world with the certainty that the dead were in charge.

“Isn’t it strange?” he asked her.

“What is strange?” Jeva replied.

“Living your life assuming that the dead make all the decisions.”

She shook her head. “Not all of them. But they know more than we do. There are more of them than us. When they speak, we should listen. Look at you.”

That made Thanos frown. He wasn’t one of the Bone Folk, to be ordered about by their speakers of the dead.

“Me?”

“Would you be in the circumstances you are if it weren’t for decisions your parents and your parents’ parents made?” Jeva asked. “You are a prince. Your whole power rests on the dead.”

She had a point, but Thanos wasn’t sure that it was the same thing.

“I’ll be deciding what to do next for the living, not the dead,” he said.

Jeva laughed as though it was a particularly fine joke, then narrowed her eyes slightly. “Oh, you’re serious. We have people who say that too. Mostly, they are madmen. But then, this is a world for the mad, so who am I to judge? Where will we go next?”

Thanos didn’t have an answer for her when it came to that.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “My father told me where I might find out about my real mother, then the former queen told me that she was somewhere else.”

“Well then,” Jeva said. “We should go. Such news from the dead should not be ignored. Or we could return to the lands of my people. They would welcome us with the news of what happened to our fleet.”

She didn’t seem daunted by the prospect of reporting so many deaths to her people. She also seemed to be looking over at Ceres every so often, glancing at her with obvious awe.

“She is everything you said she would be. Whatever stands between you, solve it.”

She made it sound so simple and direct, as if it were as simple as saying it. Thanos doubted that things were ever that easy.

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder,” she said.

Thanos wanted to. He wanted to go to Ceres and declare his love. More than that, he wanted to ask her to be his. It seemed as though they’d been waiting forever for that to happen.

She waved him away. “Go, go to her.”

Thanos wasn’t sure about being dismissed like that, but he had to admit that Jeva had the right idea when it came to going after Ceres. He went over to her and the others, finding her looking more serious than he’d expected.

Her father turned, clasping Thanos’s hand.

“It’s good to see you again, boy,” he said. “If you hadn’t come, things might have been difficult.”

“You’d have found a way,” Thanos guessed.

“Now, we need to find our way,” Berin replied. “It seems everyone here wants to go somewhere different.”

Thanos saw Ceres nod at that.

“The combatlords think we should go out to the free wastes to become mercenaries,” she said. “Sartes is talking about slipping into the countryside around the Empire. I thought about maybe going back to the Isle of Mists.”

“Jeva was talking about going back to her people,” Thanos said.

“And you?” Ceres asked.

He thought about telling her about the lands of the cloud mountains, about his missing mother, and the chance to find her. He thought of living anywhere, anywhere with Ceres. But then he looked over to Akila.

“I’ll go wherever you go,” he said, “but I don’t think Akila will survive a long journey.”

“I don’t either,” Ceres said.

Thanos knew her well enough to know that she’d already thought of somewhere to go. Thanos was surprised that she hadn’t already taken charge. He could guess why, though. The last time she’d been in charge, she’d lost Delos, first to Stephania, and then to the invaders.

“It’s all right,” Thanos said, reaching out to touch her arm. “I trust you. Wherever you decide, I’ll follow.”

He guessed that he wouldn’t be the only one. Ceres’s family would go with her, while the combatlords had sworn to follow her, whatever they were saying about running off to seek adventure elsewhere. As for Jeva… well, Thanos didn’t claim to know the woman well enough to know what she would do, but they could always drop her off somewhere, if she wanted.

“We can’t catch up to the smuggling boat that brought you to Delos,” Ceres said. “Even if we knew where it was, this small boat won’t move as fast as it can. And if we try to go too far… I think Akila won’t make it.”

Thanos nodded. He’d seen the wound that the First Stone had inflicted on their friend. Akila had survived as much through willpower as anything else, but he needed a real healer, and soon.

“Where then?” Thanos asked.

Ceres looked at him, then at the others. She still seemed almost frightened about saying what she needed to say.

“There’s only one place,” Ceres said. She raised her voice to a level where the whole ship could hear. “We need to get to Haylon.”

Her father and her brother immediately started to shake their heads. Even some of the combatlords didn’t look happy.

“Haylon won’t be safe,” Berin said. “Now that Delos has fallen, it will be a target.”

“Then we need to help them to defend,” Ceres said. “Maybe there won’t be people trying to take it out from under us while we do it this time.”

That was a good point. Delos had fallen for a lot of reasons: the sheer size of Felldust’s fleet, the people who hadn’t stayed to fight, the lack of stability as Stephania conducted her coup. Maybe things would be different on Haylon.

“It doesn’t have its fleet,” Thanos pointed out. “I persuaded most of them to help Delos.”

He felt a wave of guilt over that. If he hadn’t talked Akila into helping, a lot of good people wouldn’t be dead, and Haylon would have the means to defend itself. His friend wouldn’t be lying wounded on the deck of their boat, waiting for assistance.

“We… chose to come,” Akila managed from where he lay.

“And if they don’t have a fleet, it’s all the more reason to try to help them,” Ceres said. “All of you, think, it’s the only friendly place nearby. It held off the Empire when it was strong enough that Felldust didn’t dare to attack. It needs our help. So does Akila. We’re going to Haylon.”

Thanos couldn’t argue with any of that. More than that, he could see the others coming around to it. Ceres had always had the ability to do that. It had been her name, not his, that had brought the Bone Folk. It had been she who had been able to persuade Lord West’s men, and the rebellion. She impressed him more and more every time she did it.

It was enough that Thanos would follow wherever she wanted to go, to Haylon or beyond. He could put the attempt to find his parentage on hold for now. Ceres was what mattered; Ceres, and dealing with the damage that Felldust would do if they spread out beyond Delos. He’d heard it on the docks in Port Leyward: this wasn’t going to be a quick raid.

“There’s a problem if we want to go to Haylon,” Sartes pointed out. “To get there, we would have to go through Felldust’s fleet. That’s the direction they were coming from, right? And I don’t think they’re all sitting in Delos’s harbor.”

“They aren’t,” Thanos agreed, thinking back to what he’d seen in Felldust. There had been whole flotillas of ships that hadn’t set off for the Empire yet; the ships of the other Stones had sat waiting to see what would happen, or been there gathering supplies so that they could join in the process of raiding.

They would be a real threat if their small boat tried to sail to Haylon by the direct route. It would simply be a matter of luck whether they met with foes on the way, and Thanos wasn’t sure whether Ceres would be able to pull off her disappearing trick for them again.

“We’ll have to go around,” he said. “We skirt the coast until we’re well clear of any route they might take, then come around to Haylon from its far side.”

He could see that the others weren’t happy about that thought, and Thanos guessed that it wasn’t just because of the extra time involved. He knew what that route meant.

Jeva was the one to say it.

“Taking that route would bring us through the Passage of Monsters,” she said. “It might be better to take our chances with Felldust.”

Thanos shook his head. “They’ll hunt us down if they see us. At least this way, we have a chance of going undetected.”

“We have a chance of getting eaten too,” the Bone Folk woman pointed out.

Thanos shrugged. There were no better options that he could see. There was no time to go anywhere else, and no better way through. They could risk this, or sit there until Akila died, and Thanos wouldn’t abandon his friend like that.

Ceres seemed to feel the same way.

“The Passage of Monsters it is. Let’s get the sail up!”

CHAPTER FIVE

Ulren, the Second Stone, approached the five-sided tower with the calm determination of a man who had plotted everything that might happen next. Around him, the dust of the city swirled in its usual endless dance, making him want to cough or cover his mouth. Ulren did neither. This was a moment to appear strong.

There were guards on the doors, as there always were. Ostensibly paid by all five Stones, but Irrien’s men in truth. That was why they crossed their pikes in challenge, a small reminder to any lesser Stone of their place.

“Who goes?” one called.

Ulren smiled at that. “The new First Stone of Felldust.”

He had a moment to see the shock in their eyes before his men stepped from the dust, raising their crossbows. He did not have the sheer weight of arms that Irrien did or the cunning spies of Vexa, the wealth of Kas or the noble friends of Borion, but he had enough of each, and now, finally, he had the boldness to use them.

He enjoyed the sight of crossbow bolts feathering the guards’ chests after they’d held him back so many times. It was petty, but this was a moment to give in to pettiness. This was the moment when he got to do everything he’d ever wanted.

He opened the door with his key, stepping inside into the light of the tower. What did it say about the city that the lamp smoke–filled air inside was still better than that outdoors? Still, even that seemed sweet today.

“Be swift,” he said to the men and women who followed. “Strike quickly.”

They spread out, the gleam of their weapons dulled with lamp black. When guards came from one of the corridors, they leapt forward in silence, striking out. Ulren didn’t stop to watch the blood and the death. Right then, none of that mattered.

He set off up the seemingly endless flights of stairs that led to the top chamber. He’d done this so many times now, and each time, it had been in the expectation that he would be there as a lesser thing, second or third or less in a city where the First of Five was the one place that mattered.

That was the cruel joke of the city, in Ulren’s eyes. Everyone fighting to be on top, five working in concert, but everyone knew that the First Stone was the strongest. Ulren had been plotting to be First for so long that he couldn’t remember a time when he’d wanted anything else.

He’d been cautious, even though this should always have been his. He’d built his power, starting with the lands of his family but adding to them, tending his resources the way a gardener might have tended a plant. He’d been so patient, so very patient. He’d worked himself to the very edge of taking the First Stone’s seat.

Then Irrien had come along, and he’d had to be patient again.

Around Ulren, the killings continued as he climbed. Servants in the First Stone’s colors died, cut down by his men. No hesitation, no remorse. Felldust was a land where even an innocent-looking slave might hold a dagger, hoping to advance.

A soldier charged from the shadows, and Ulren grappled with him, looking for leverage.

The man was strong, although maybe that was simply age weighing against him. Ulren found that his body ached now when he’d been in the training ring in his home, and the slave girls who’d once come to him quite willingly now had to hide their looks of disgust and dismay. There were days when he walked into rooms and could barely remember why he’d bothered.

But he’d lost none of his cunning. He turned with the force of the other man’s rush, hooking his foot behind his attacker’s leg and pushing with what strength he had. The soldier stumbled, and then tumbled, going head over heels down the spiral stairs that led up the five-sided tower. Ulren left him for his warriors to finish. It was enough that he hadn’t seemed weak.

“Everything is in place in the rest of the city?” he asked Travlen, the priest who had given up his order to walk beside him.

“Yes, my lord. Your warriors are hitting those of Irrien’s people who remain in the city even as we speak. A number of his business enterprises have offered to come over to your side, while in those that haven’t, I’m told the slaughter has been enough to please the gods themselves.”

Ulren nodded. “That’s good. Accept any who wish to join us, then see who can replace the ones who run them. I have no time for traitors.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Gods,” Ulren said, “will these stairs never end?”

Another man might have considered moving the heart of Felldust’s power once he had control of it, but Ulren knew better than that. In a land such as this, tradition was just one more way of keeping control.

They reached the highest floor, where servants and slaves cut fruit and carried water, waiting on any whim of the other Stones. Ulren stood there, his warriors spreading out around him.

“Are any here slaves or servants of the First Stone?” he demanded.

Some moved forward. How could they do anything else? Irrien had abandoned them here. Perhaps he wanted them in place when he came back. Perhaps he simply didn’t care. Ulren surveyed the men and women who stood there. He imagined that Irrien would be savoring the fear on their faces right then. He’d spent enough time around the First Stone to know exactly what kind of man his rival was.

Ulren simply didn’t care. “From this moment, you are all my slaves. My men will determine which of you are worth keeping, and which will be given to the temples for sacrifice.”

“But I am a free man,” one of the servants there complained.

Ulren stepped in and stabbed him with a serrated blade, up through the sternum and then out of his back.

“A free man who chose the wrong side. Does anyone else wish to die?”

They knelt instead. Ulren ignored them, stepping over to the great double doors that marked the main entrance to the council chamber. There were other entrances, one for each of the Stones. It was meant to show their independence. It certainly gave them a way to run if it came to it.

He didn’t think that they would run from this, though. Not if he did it properly. Ulren signaled for his people to hang back and wait. There were ways to do these things. It was something that Irrien had never understood, being a barbarian from the dust. It was the one advantage that the Second Stone had over the First, and he intended to make the most of it.

He held out his hand, and one of his servants passed him his dark robes of office. Ulren wrapped them around himself, keeping the hood pushed back as he made his way to the doors. The bloody sword was still in his hand. It was better to be clear about what this was.

He stepped over to one of the high windows there, looking out over the city. The dust made it hard to see anything, but he could imagine what would be happening below. Warriors would be moving through the streets, hunting those Irrien had left behind. Criers would be following them, proclaiming the change. Thugs would be telling merchants whom they now owed their taxes to. The city was shifting beneath that dust, and Ulren had made certain that it would shift his way.

Even so, he was cautious. He’d been ready to take the First Stone’s seat once before. He’d prepared the strongest mercenaries, built up a stock of secrets, only to find an upstart taking the throne before he could get to it.

Who had been the First Stone then? Maxim? Thessa? It was hard to remember, the rulership of the city had shifted so often in those days. The only part that mattered was that Irrien had come in and taken what should have been his. Ulren had survived by accepting that. Now, the First Stone had overreached, and it was time to do more.

He stepped into the room where the Five Stones made their decisions. The others were there already, as he’d hoped they would be. Kas was stroking his trident beard in worry. Vexa was reading through a report. Borion had the bravado of a man who knew that there was trouble.

“What is this?” he asked.

Ulren didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “I have decided to challenge Irrien for his seat.”

He watched the others’ reactions. Kas continued to stroke his beard. Vexa raised an eyebrow. Borion was the one who reacted most, but then, Ulren had expected that. How many challengers had Irrien warned the fop about? How many times had he helped with the other man’s gambling debts?

“Irrien is not here to challenge,” Borion pointed out.

As if there was no precedent for that. Did he think that Ulren hadn’t seen every permutation of the council in his time as one of its Stones?

“Then that should make it easier, shouldn’t it?” Ulren said. He moved forward to take Irrien’s seat.

To his surprise, Borion stepped in front of him, drawing a slender blade.

“And you think you’ll make yourself First Stone?” he said. “An old man who took his position so long ago no one can even remember? Who keeps the Second Stone’s spot mostly because Irrien doesn’t want disruption?”

Ulren moved out into an open section of the floor, stripping off his formal robe and wrapping it loosely over one arm.

“Is that why you think I hold onto it?” he said. “Do you really want to try me, boy?”

“I’ve wanted it for years, but Irrien kept telling me no,” Borion said. He lifted his blade into a duelist’s posture. Ulren smiled at that.

“This is your last chance to live,” Ulren said, although in truth that had passed the moment the other man lifted a blade against him. “Note that Kas and Vexa have more sense than to try this. Put your weapon aside, and take your seat. You should even be able to move up a place.”

“Why move up one when I can kill an old man and move up three?” Borion countered.

He lunged forward, and Ulren had to admit that the boy was fast. Ulren had probably been faster in his youth, but that was a long time ago now. He’d had plenty of time to learn the skills of war, though, and a man who judged the distance right didn’t have to be fast. He swept around his balled up cloak to swirl and tangle with Borion’s sword.

“Is that all you have, old man?” the Fifth Stone demanded. “Tricks?”

Ulren laughed at that, then attacked in the middle of it. Borion was quick enough to jump back, but not without Ulren’s blade scraping across his chest.

“Don’t underestimate tricks, boy,” Ulren said. “A man survives any way he can.”

He stepped back, waiting.

Borion rushed in. Of course he rushed in. The young reacted, they moved in line with their emotions. They didn’t think. Or they didn’t think enough. Borion tried for a measure of cunning, with feints that Ulren had seen a hundred times before. That was the peril of being young: you thought you had invented things that had gotten many men killed before you.

Ulren stepped aside and threw his cloak over the younger man as he passed with his real stroke. Borion flailed at the fabric, trying to clear it, and in that moment, Ulren struck. He moved in close, gripping Borion’s arm so that he couldn’t bring his sword to bear, then started to stab.

He did it methodically, consistently, with the patience that he’d built up in years of fighting. Ulren could see the blood seeping through his cloak as it wrapped around Borion, but he didn’t stop until the other man fell. He’d seen men come back from the worst of injuries. He wasn’t going to risk anything.

He stood there, breathing hard. It had been bad enough climbing all the stairs. Killing a man felt as though his lungs might burst with the effort, but Ulren disguised it. He moved over to Irrien’s seat, positioning himself behind it first.

“Do either of you wish to object?” he asked Kas and Vexa.