Brent Weeks - Beyond the Shadows

Kylar stepped in through a servants’ entrance. He had no wish to be announced; he just wanted to see the effects of his handiwork. There was, however, one problem with the servants’ entrance: it was full of servants.

“Milord? Milord?” a cheerful man asked.

“Uh, that will be all,” Kylar said. If I use you to cover these clothes, are you going to eat a hole in the crotch?

~Hard to say.~ The ka’kari seemed to smirk.

“Ah, milord? Is milord lost?” The cheerful servant didn’t wait for an answer. “Milord may follow me.” He turned and began walking, and Kylar had no choice but to follow. Some servants, he thought, were too smart for their own good.

The servant marched him to the main entrance and handed him off to the chamberlain, a humorless man who looked him up and down, cocking his head like a bird. “You’re out of order, marquess, you were to enter after your lord.”

Kylar swallowed. “I’m sorry, you’ve mistaken me. I’m Baronet Stern. You needn’t announce—”

The chamberlain double-checked his list. “Duke Gyre informed me pointedly that I was to announce you.” He promptly turned and struck the ground with his staff. “Marquess Kylar Drake, Lord of Havermere, Lockley, Vennas, and Procin.”

Feeling like he wasn’t in control of his own body, Kylar walked forward. Eyes turned toward him, and more than once he heard “Wolfhound.” Logan hadn’t only legitimized Kylar by giving him a real title, unlike the baronetcy of Lae’knaught-held lands, he’d promoted him to dizzy heights. A marquess was beneath only the dukes of Cenaria. Kylar’s chest tightened. It was a real title, with real lands and real responsibilities. Worse, Logan must have worked with Count Drake to have Kylar formally adopted. Kylar’s bogus pedigree had been wiped clean. Logan was putting his own integrity behind Kylar. It was his last attempt to save Kylar from himself.

Kylar took his place to Logan’s left in the front row. Logan smiled, and the bastard was so charismatic Kylar felt himself smiling along with him, too astonished to be pissed off.

“Well well, my friend,” Logan said. “I half expected you to be slinking around up in the rafters. So glad you decided to join us mortals on the ground.”

“Uhm, rafters, right. So overdone.” Kylar cleared his throat, flabbergasted. “You’re causing quite the scandal.”

Still facing the front, Logan said, “I won’t give up my best friend without a fight.”

Silence. “You honor me,” Kylar said.

“Yes, I do.” Logan smiled, clearly proud of himself, but charmingly so.

“Did Momma K …?”

“I came up with this all by myself, thank you, though Count Drake augmented it.”

“The adoption?”

“The adoption,” Logan confirmed. “Six rows back. Left side.”

Kylar looked, and the blood drained from his face. In a section of poorer barons, a middle-aged blond lord and lady in even more modest clothing than most stood under the Stern banner. Beside them was a young man, as dark as they were light: their son, Baronet Stern.

“That might have been …awkward,” Kylar said.

“We all need friends, Kylar,” Logan said. “Me most of all. I’ve lost almost everyone I can trust. I need you.”

Kylar said nothing. He noticed Logan’s clothing for the first time. The duke was wearing a somber tunic and trousers, finely cut, but unrelievedly black. They were mourning clothes. Logan was still mourning Jenine, his whole family, many of his retainers, and perhaps Serah Drake as well. That old sick feeling rose in Kylar’s stomach once more. Logan and Count Drake both were gambling their honor, which to each of them was his most sacred possession, on Kylar. Terah Graesin’s assassination now would be more than a tragic difference of opinion. To Logan, it would be betrayal.

There was nothing to do. Marquess Kylar Drake sat in the front row, with eyes constantly on him. Perhaps the Night Angel could invisibly drop from the rafters and scoop up the deadly crown, but Marquess Drake could only watch the consequences of his choices unfurl. Kylar stood as Terah Graesin was announced, as she strode regally to the front, as the patr and the priest lifted prayers and blessed her coronation. Finally, the two divines and Duke Wesseros together lifted the crown from its purple pillow.

Not yet. Dear God, not yet. Kylar hadn’t even thought of what would happen to those crowning Terah if she was already sweating. Symbolizing all the gods and the land itself, the three men placed the crown on Queen Graesin’s brow.

Nothing happened. She accepted a scepter from Duke Wesseros and a sword from Lord General Graesin, held each for a long moment, then handed each back. The men bowed low, then she bade them rise as she sat. The men retreated, and Kylar’s heart edged back out of his throat. Trumpets pealed and Kylar jumped. Everyone stood and applause thundered through the Great Hall.

The queen smiled as everyone cheered. She stood and gestured generously with her hands. Doors banged open on every side and a procession of servants streamed in, bearing tables and food. Musicians and jugglers mingled with the crowds as the servants rearranged the room for a feast. Kylar barely saw it. His eyes were latched on Terah Graesin.

Logan clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, that’s that, huh?” Kylar didn’t turn. “Come, Marquess Drake, tonight you sit at the high table.”

Kylar allowed Logan to usher him to a seat between a nattering forty-year-old third cousin of the Gunders, who was hoping to press a claim to the Gunder duchy, and Momma K, who was seated at Logan’s right. She smiled at Kylar’s open wonder.

“Don’t tell me he got you a title, too,” Kylar said.

“You forget, Kylar, I’ve been to more court functions than you have—although I admit, not many in the last decade. To the abiding fury of every eligible woman in the room, Duke Gyre chose to escort me this evening.”

“Really?” Kylar asked, incredulous. Belatedly, Kylar remembered that Gwinvere Kirena had been the courtesan of an age, though she’d retired by the time Kylar knew her. She had doubtless escorted many of the lords in this very room to similar functions. He knew there had been a convenient fiction early in her career that Gwinvere was a visiting Alitaeran countess, but after a time, even that had been unnecessary. A woman as beautiful, as charming, as graceful a dancer, as skilled a singer, as adept a conversationalist, and as discreet as Gwinvere Kirena was the exception to many rules.

Momma K raised an eyebrow.

“Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean …”

Logan came to his rescue, he said, “I asked her before anyone else could. I find there are so few beautiful women in this realm intelligent enough to form complete sentences.”

“Yawp,” Momma K said, in a perfect coastal Ceuran drawl. “Where’s thet spittoon?”

Kylar laughed out loud. The truth was more likely that wearing mourning clothes and showing up with an older woman were the best ways Logan could fend off unwanted advances. If Logan had shown up with a young woman as his escort—or none at all—the matchmakers would have started in on him, mourning clothes or no mourning clothes. Kylar was still chuckling when he saw Terah Graesin, a few places beyond Logan, and his laughter died.

“Kylar?” Momma K asked. “Is something wrong?”

He shook himself. “I keep waiting for her head to explode.” To his right, the nattering grasper gasped. He ignored her. He couldn’t take his eyes off the queen. She drank. She leaned close to Lantano Garuwashi on her right and shared private observations. She jested with a lord at one of the lower tables who’d spilled his wine over his wife. She chatted with her brother who sat at her left. All the while, her death was waiting.