Peter Brett - The Skull Throne

—Darsy

“Corespawn it,” Leesha said.

Wonda looked up from polishing her bow. “Corespawn what?”

“Things are falling apart in the Hollow,” Leesha said. She rubbed her heavy belly. “And if I stay much longer, I won’t be fit to travel until the child comes.”

“How can we leave without Rojer?” Wonda asked.

“We can’t,” Leesha said. “But I’m losing patience with Janson’s endless delays. I don’t give a coreling’s piss if Jasin was his nephew. He tried to kill Rojer twice, and it’s his own fault what came of it.”

“Doubt that’s gonna sway anyone,” Wonda said.

“They’ll be swayed if Gared has to show up with a few thousand Cutters to collect us and escort us home,” Leesha said.

Wonda looked at her a moment, then went back to polishing her bow. “Think it’ll come to that?”

Leesha rubbed her temple. “Perhaps. I don’t know. I hope not.”

“Be bloody, it does,” Wonda said. “Them two might lock horns sometimes, but Gar thinks of Rojer like a little brother.”

“We all do,” Leesha agreed. “But the duke and his brothers are stubborn. If Gared shows up with an army, they might let us go, but the Hollow will be on its own.”

Wonda shrugged. “Like the count well enough, an’ the Duchess Mum, but the Hollow’d do just fine without ’em. Need us more’n we need them.”

“Perhaps,” Leesha said again, but she wasn’t so certain.

There was a knock at the door. Wonda answered it, finding one of Duchess Melny’s handmaidens.

“It’s a good sign,” Leesha told Melny, “but too early to get excited.”

“Demonshit,” Araine said. “Girl bleeds every fourth Seconday, dependable as sunrise. Now it’s Fifthday, and not a drop. Don’t need a Gatherer’s apron to know what that means.”

“Means I’ve got a babe in me,” Melny said.

“Ay, I’m not denying it,” Leesha said, and Melny’s face lit up. “But I wouldn’t go shouting it from the balcony. This early in a first pregnancy, the odds are even on it coming to term.”

“It will!” Melny insisted. “I can feel the Creator’s hand in it, giving us the child when we need it most.”

“Even so, it can’t hurt to wait a bit before telling anyone else,” Leesha said. “There’s still time.”

“Not as much as you think,” Araine said.

Leesha had to hurry to keep pace as Araine led the way through the women’s wing of the palace. She was so used to the Duchess Mum’s doddering invalid act, this seemed another woman entirely.

Something is very wrong, Leesha realized, for her to have dropped the performance out in the open hall.

She smelled him the moment she entered the chambers. Araine had opened the windows and filled the room with fresh flowers, but the stench was unmistakable, even in the outer room. She felt a twinge behind her left eye, and knew it had just triggered a headache that would have her whimpering in bed by day’s end.

Briar waited in the receiving room, looking—and smelling—even filthier than last time. There was blood on his clothes, still wet from slogging through melted snow. What she could see of his flesh was covered in scrapes and bruises.

Leesha went to him, swallowing a gag. Pain blossomed behind her eye, and she swallowed that, too, searching him for injuries.

The boy was haggard, as if he hadn’t slept in a week. His feet were bloody and blistered, but there was no infection. The rest of his injuries looked painful, but superficial.

“What happened?” she asked him.

Briar’s eyes flicked to Araine, and it was she who answered as Leesha continued to tend the boy.

“Thamos led an attack to retake Docktown,” Araine said. “A joint effort with Lakton and the Rizonan resistance.”

“Why wasn’t I told of this?” Leesha demanded.

“Because I don’t trust you where the Krasians are concerned,” Araine said, bluntly. “You would have opposed the attack.”

Leesha folded her arms. “And what has Your Grace’s brilliant military strategy accomplished?”

“We lost,” Briar said quietly, and began to weep.

Leesha reached for him instinctively, breathing through her mouth and holding the boy as he cried, tears leaving streaks in the mud and hogroot resin staining his cheeks. A thousand questions swirled about her, but at the moment only one mattered.

“Where is Thamos?” she asked.

Still weeping, Briar shook his head. He reached into his robe, pulling out a folded bit of paper, stained and filthy. “Told me to give you this.”

“Eh?” Araine asked. Briar had obviously left this out of his initial report.

Leesha took the paper in shaking hands. The words, written in haste, were smeared, but in Thamos’ unmistakable hand.

The message was short:

My Darling Leesha,

I forgive you. I love you.

Doubt anything, but do not doubt that.

Thamos

Leesha read it three times, vision clouding as her eyes filled with tears. The sob burst from her despite her best efforts, and she dropped the paper, covering her face. Briar moved to her, holding her much as she had him.

Araine bent and snatched the paper from the ground, grunting as she read it.

“Will they even give us back his body to bury?” Leesha asked.

Araine pulled her shawl tighter and moved to the window, staring at the gray winter sky. “I expect an emissary will be sent from Krasia soon. If they demand money, we’ll give it to them, no matter the cost.”

“They don’t want money,” Leesha said. “They want war.”

Araine turned and met Leesha’s eyes. “If that’s what they want, we’ll give them that, too. No matter the cost.”

The Krasian emissary came two weeks later, a single dama, escorted by two dal’Sharum. The palace guards confiscated their weapons, eyeing them with open hostility, but the Krasians exuded the infuriating confidence of their people, acting no less haughty unarmed and surrounded by enemies than in their center of power.

Leesha watched them from the royal box, a row of seats behind the throne’s dais. The sun was low in the sky, beneath the high windows of the throne room. The natural light was dim, and her warded spectacles could dimly see their smug auras.

With her were the Duchess Mum, Wonda, and Princess Lorain of Miln. Melny’s flow had still not come, and Araine had forbid her to attend.

This was the first time Leesha had seen the Milnese princess since the news of the Krasian victory. Like Araine, Lorain had known of the attack in advance. Lord Sament was to ride beside Thamos as his cavalry led the charge, and there had been no word of him since.

Lorain had vanished into her heavily guarded embassy, Mountain Spears patrolling the walls and grounds until news of the emissary came. She seemed to have aged in those days. There were dark circles around her eyes that even paint and powder could not fully conceal, but at their center, her stare was hard.

Rhinebeck and his brothers glared down from their dais, but the Krasians were uncowed. The dama strode forward boldly, followed by the Sharum carrying a large lacquered box between them.

Guards stopped the dama before he could halve the distance to the throne, and the man gave a shallow bow. “I am Dama Gorja. I bear a message from my master, and speak with his voice.”

He unrolled a large parchment, beginning to read:

“Greetings Rhinebeck the Third, Duke of Angiers, in the Year of Everam 3784—

“I testify before Everam that you have broken faith with the Creator and His children on Ala, attacking on sacred Waning in the night, when all men are brothers. In accordance with Evejan law, you must die for this.”