Brent Weeks - Way of Shadows

The queen and the lord general looked at each other. Something passed between them, and the general said, “You’re right, Logan. The truth is, the kingdom’s in peril. I wish that we could be sensitive to your grief. You know that your father is one of my dearest friends and what happened to your house is more than a tragedy. It’s a monstrosity.

“But we have to ask you to put your feelings aside, for a time. We don’t know how bad the threat is, but I believe that it’s dire. When the king decided to get rid of your father one way or another ten years ago, it was I who suggested Screaming Winds. I knew that your father would make the garrison there a real stronghold, and I believed that Khalidor would invade sooner or later. Perhaps because he did such an excellent job, that invasion hasn’t come. Most people want to believe that it won’t come, because they know that if the might of Khalidor marches, we don’t stand a chance.

“I believe that the prince, your mother, and your servants were the first casualties in a war. A new kind of war that uses assassins instead of armies to gain its will. We can stop armies, we’ve been preparing for that. Assassins are a different story.”

“Begging the queen’s pardon,” Logan said, “why should I care if the king’s head rolls? He’s been no friend to the Gyres.”

“A fair question,” the queen said.

“On a personal level,” Agon said, “you should care because if the king dies, you’ll either stay in prison forever or you’ll be killed. On a national level, if the king dies, there will be civil war. Troops will be called back to the respective houses to which they are loyal, and Khalidor’s armies will pour over our borders. Even united, our country couldn’t stand against Khalidor’s might. Our only strategy has been to make it so costly to take us that the price would be too high. With our armies scattered, we’d be defenseless.”

“So you think an assassination attempt is coming?” Logan asked.

“Within days. But Khalidor’s plans rest on certain assumptions, Logan. So far, they’ve been valid assumptions. They knew that you would be arrested. No doubt they’ve already planted rumors to stir up the people against the king, suggesting that everything that’s happened has been his fault or his plan. We have to do something beyond anything Khalidor has considered.”

“And what’s that?”

The queen said, “Khalidor has hired Hu Gibbet, perhaps the best wetboy in the city. If he wants to kill Aleine, he probably can. The best way to save the king’s life is if the taking of it won’t gain Khalidor anything. Maybe it’s the only way. We have to assure the line of succession. In a time of peace or if she were older, Jenine might take the throne, or I might, but now…. That simply wouldn’t be possible. Some of the houses would refuse to follow a woman into war.”

“Well, what are you supposed to do? Have another son?”

Agon looked queasy. “Sort of.”

The queen said, “We need someone who’s popular enough to win the people’s trust back to the throne, and whose claim to the crown would be beyond dispute.”

Logan looked at him and sudden understanding washed over him. Emotions warred on his face. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yes, I do,” the queen said quietly. “Logan, has your father ever spoken of me?”

“Only in terms of highest praise, Your Majesty.”

“Your father and I were betrothed, Logan. For ten years, we knew we were going to marry. We fell in love. We named the children we would someday have. The king was dying without heirs, and our marriage was to have secured the throne for House Gyre. Then my father betrayed Regnus and broke his word to your grandfather by marrying me in secret to Aleine Gunder. There were only enough witnesses present to ensure the legality of the marriage. I wasn’t even allowed to send a message to your father beforehand. The king lived for another fourteen years, long enough for me to have children, long enough for your father to marry and have you, long enough for your father to take control of House Gyre. Long enough for House Gunder to fabricate some ridiculous history that supposedly gave Aleine the right to be called Aleine IX, as if he were a legitimate king. When King Davin died, your father could have gone to war to take the throne. He could have won it, but he didn’t, for my sake and the sake of my children.

“I was sold into a marriage I despised, Logan, to a man I never loved, and for whom I could never make love grow in my breast. I know what it is to be sold for politics. I even know my literal price in the lands and titles my family secured after the king’s death.” There was iron in her as she spoke, clearly, calmly, every inch the queen. “I still love your father, Logan. We’ve barely spoken in twenty-five years. He had to marry a Graesin after I married a Gunder, just to keep House Gyre from becoming isolated and wiped out like the Makells were. He accepted a marriage that I’ve heard had little love in it. So if you think it pleases me to do to you what was done to me, you couldn’t be more mistaken.”

Logan’s father had never spoken of such things, but his mother—it was suddenly so clear—his mother had been reminding Regnus of it for years. Her sidelong comments. Her constant suspicions that Regnus had other lovers, though Logan knew he hadn’t. His father’s angry remark once that there was only one woman she had any right to envy.

“I have hope that your marriage will not be the agony mine has been,” Queen Gunder said.

Logan put his face in his hands. “Your Majesty, words can’t express the …fury I feel toward Serah. But I gave her father my word that I would marry her.”

“The king can legally dissolve such bonds for the good of the realm,” Agon said.

“The king can’t dissolve my honor!” Logan said. “I swore! And dammit! I still love Serah. I still love her. It’s all playacting, isn’t it? What’s the plan, that the king adopt me? That I be his heir until you bear him another son?”

“This playacting gets us through a crisis, son,” Agon said. “And it keeps your family from being destroyed. You have to stay alive if you want that to happen. It also happens to save you from disgrace and prison, even if we’re wrong about the plot.”

“Logan,” the queen said, her voice again quiet. “It isn’t playacting, but we’ve convinced the king that it is. He is a despicable man, and if it’s up to him, he will never let Regnus’s son take the throne.”

“Your Majesty,” Agon interrupted. “Logan doesn’t need to—”

“No, Brant. A person ought to know what they’re being asked to give.” She looked him in the eye, and after a moment, he looked down. She turned to Logan. “My hope has been my children, Logan, and I lay Aleine’s death at my husband’s feet. If he’d not gotten involved with that Jadwin whore …” She blinked her eyes, refusing to let tears fall. “I have given the king all the sons he will have from me. I will not share his bed again. Ever. He will be told that if he seeks to force me to his bed or replace me as queen, we have retained the services of a wetboy to make sure he finds an early grave. The fact is, Logan, if you say yes, you will one day be king.”

He said nothing.

“Most men would leap at the chance for such power,” Agon said. “Of course, most men make terrible kings. We know you wouldn’t ask for this, but you aren’t only the right man for it; you’re the only man for it.”

“Logan was the name Regnus and I had decided on for our first son,” the queen said. “I know what I’m asking, Logan. And I’m asking.”

The game wasn’t going well. The pieces were spread out before Dorian like armies. Except that they weren’t like armies; they were armies, though in this game, few of the soldiers wore uniforms. Even those who did moved with reluctance. The Fool King shamed the Commander. The Reluctant King was kneeling somewhere at this moment. The Mage in Secret’s secret had split him from the King Who Might Have Been. The Shadow that Walks and the Courtesan couldn’t decide which side they were on. The Rent Boy was moving fast, but too slow, too slow. The Prince of Rats had marshaled his vermin, and they would rise from the Warrens, a tide of human filth. Even the Rogue Prince and the Blacksmith might play a part, if….