Dan Chernenko: The Bastard King

“Whatever you do, don’t tell anybody else,” Grus repeated. “Do you want Avornans worshiping the Banished One, the way the Menteshe do? Some of them would.”

He was bound to be right. Lanius hadn’t thought of that. Maybe Grus’ resourcefulness hadn’t deserted him after all. Lanius said, “I haven’t even told Sosia or Anser.”

“Good,” Grus said. “Don’t. By Olor’s—” He broke off again, shaking his head like a man bedeviled by gnats. “I half wish you hadn’t told me. Maybe more than half.”

“How do you think I felt when I found out?” Lanius exclaimed. “There I was, down in the deepest level of the archives, all alone with a secret no one but the Banished One has known for… for a very long time.” His sense of chronology, usually so sharp, deserted him.

Grus set a hand on his shoulder. He seldom cared to have anyone but Sosia or his children touch him, but the warmth and solid weight of Grus’ hand felt oddly reassuring. Grus said, “We just have to go on, that’s all. We’ve always known he was stronger than we are. If he’s… even stronger than we thought, what difference does that make, really?”

We just have to go on. That was easy to say, harder to do. “If we had the Scepter of Mercy…” Lanius said.

“Yes. If,” Grus said.

“The Banished One—Milvago—wants to make sure that we don’t have it, that we can’t use it.” Lanius looked south, in the direction of Yozgat. “So we really have to get it back, don’t we?” Grus nodded.

As Kings Grus and Lanius struggle to hold their joint kingdom together against the ever-present threat of the Banished One, another danger rises over the coastline…