Jenna Helland: The Fanged Crown

“Have to do something to keep you conscious.”

Harp knelt down in front of the heavy wooden chest and stared at its brass lock. It didn’t look too complicated—or trapped—but Kitto was the true lock expert. Harp sat back on his heels and thought about fetching Kitto, who could open the chest much quicker than he could. But Harp wanted to get off the Marigold and onto shore as quickly as possible.

“The captain was Alon Merritt,” Boult said, reading from the log on the table. He ran his finger down the page.

“Sure,” Harp replied, his full attention on the chest.

“Not much in the way of personal information about Captain Merritt, just weather records and land sightings,” Boult continued. When Harp didn’t respond, he glowered down at Harp who was prone on the floor with his eye looking under the chest for springs or other traps.

“Did you hear me?” Boult said.

Harp grunted as he pulled his picks out of his pocket and peered into the keyhole for a better look at the locking mechanism. But the hole was too small to see the components, so he just stuck two hook picks inside and hoped for the best.

“I bet a mage could open that,” Boult said grumpily. “We need a spellcaster. I’ve told you that a hundred times.”

“We had a spellcaster. Remember Andia?”

“Of course I remember her. And the one before that. What was her name?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Harp told him.

“Etienne. You chased her away too.”

“She left of her own accord,” Harp protested.

“In tears,” Boult pointed out.

“Well, love hurts.”

“Only when you love a bastard.”

Harp twisted the picks harder than he would have thought necessary. Kitto coaxed a lock open with feather touches while Harp always relied on brute strength. However, he heard a satisfying pop, and the box sprang open. Inside the chest was a bundle of papers sealed with red wax.

“What’s on that seal?” Harp held the papers up to the light to try and decipher the waxy imprint. It was a circular mark with something lean curled around a hexagon shape that might have been a cut gemstone. But heat had smeared the wax and left it too damaged to decipher. Harp showed the seal to Boult.

“An otter?” Boult suggested. “Or a serpent?”

“Whoever Bootman got his orders from, they used the stamp to verify them.” Harp broke the seal and opened the bundle, but the pages were blank.

“Enchanted,” Boult said smugly, as if he had known they would be all along. “Promise me that you’ll keep your hands off the next spellcaster we run across.”

“I promise no such thing,” Harp said automatically.

Harp ran his fingertips along the bottom of the chest, pushing gently on the seams of the planks until he felt one bend under the pressure. Using his dagger, he pried up the wood, revealing a tiny piece of rolled parchment tied with a ribbon.

“Laghessi Cove. Second Ride, Summertide. D. Cardew.”

As Harp registered the name Cardew, the blood flowed to his head in a rush of anger. Of course it was Cardew who had sent the mercenaries after them. As Harp stood up and brushed off his knees, his anger turned to bitter amusement. Harp handed the parchment to Boult, who unrolled it.

With an uneasy chuckle, Harp began packing up the maps. But Boult crumbled the parchment violently in his fist and glared at Harp with a deadly look in his eyes. Harp had seen that look on Boult’s face a few times, but it had never been directed at him. At people trying to kill them, yes, but never at him.

“Easy, Boult,” Harp said, puzzled by the intensity and anger coming from his friend. “What’s wrong?”

“What in the Nine Hells is this?” Boult said, throwing the ball of paper at Harp.

“What do you mean?”

“Those are orders from Cardew,” Boult said, answering his own question.

“He must have hired Bootman and told him where to find us,” Harp agreed.

“It’s from Cardew,” Boult repeated again.

“Yes,” Harp replied slowly, resisting the urge to make a jest. Harp wasn’t the best at social interactions, but even he could tell that making light of the situation might be dangerous to his health.

“When you said that Avalor wanted us to come to Chult, I assumed it was to find Liel and her husband, Cardew,” Boult said with barely contained fury. “If Cardew is lost in the jungle with Liel, how is he sending mercenaries to kill us?”

“Because he isn’t lost in the jungle.”

“Well, where is the bastard?”

“The Hero Cardew is alive and well,” Harp continued. “He showed up at the Court of the Crimson Leaf—the only survivor of an unnatural attack in Chult, at least so he says. And that’s when Avalor contacted me.”

“Custard-swilling, dog-kissing, demon-loving, boil-on-a-halfling’s ass,” Boult muttered.

“I’m going to assume that’s directed at the illustrious Hero of the Realm and not me,” Harp said when Boult had finished his tirade. He considered Boult. “This isn’t about my … relationship with Cardew, is it?”

Boult snorted. “Relationship? Like you two strolled through a field of violets holding hands?”

“You know what Cardew did to me,” Harp said. “And while it makes my heart feel all tingly that his name brings out such violence in you—”

“It isn’t about you!”

“Gee, Boult, even with the intellectual capacity of a loaf of bread, I managed to work that out,” Harp said pointedly. “Normally I’d have no interest in prying in your past. But it seems like I’m not the only one in the room keeping secrets, and at the heart of the matter is a man named Cardew. You’re right. I owe you an explanation. But I think you owe me one too.”

“You should be put in a catapult and launched over a cliff,” Boult told him.

“It’s your turn to confess, Boult,” Harp said quietly.

“I hate the day you came caterwauling into the world.”

“Yes, yes, you despise me,” Harp said. “Now talk.”

“I was happier when I thought that son of a barghest was probably dead,” Boult said. He sat down on the edge of the cot and glared at the crumpled missive on the floor. “Have you ever heard of Amhar, Scourge of Tethyr?”

“Of course. Who hasn’t?”

“Who hasn’t?” he repeated sadly. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Amhar and the soldiers left the grounds of the Winter Palace and headed north up the dirt road. Each man carried a hooded lantern to ward off the gloom. During daylight hours, the pleasant track wound through the woods until it reached the foothills and climbed into the mountains beyond Windhollow. Queen Anais would have taken that road, had she not got stuck in Celleu due to the fog.

Fog wasn’t a proper name for the weather, Amhar thought. Thick, fuggy, foul—it was as if gauze had enveloped the soldiers. Amhar’s breath clogged his nostrils and throat, and the fog pressed on his ears, smothering sounds. Darkness he could have handled—his eyes were made for the gloom of deep tunnels—but the fog obscured everything past the end of his axe.

He tried to recall the name of the soldier trudging up the road beside him, but he couldn’t remember. Or maybe he’d never known in the first place. None of the men on the road with him were in his regiment or stationed with him in Darromar.

Thinking of Darromar—right, ordered, well-built Darromar—Amhar wished he hadn’t been sent to the Winter Palace. It was an honor, to be sure, to be entrusted with the safety of the realm’s finest and the children of Anais and Evonne, the Heirs of Tethyr, besides.