Page 3 of Traitor Son

Even with the sorcerers dead, that magic was still in the air, crackling and snapping like the echoes of distant screams. Forever after, he would bear jagged white scars on his fingertips where his gloves burned away, and even Remin Grimjaw screamed in agony as he wrenched his enemy’s head from his neck and flung it away, feeling as if he had grasped lightning in his hands. It hurt. It hurt, ithurt,nothing else in the world could hurt so much, but there would be Vallethi survivors to recount what they had seen this day, so Remin only kicked the huge body flat, resisting the urge to tuck his spasming hands under his arms.

“I’m fine,” he said, reeling upright as his knights hastened over to him. Black blood sluiced down the runnels of his armor and he was still half-blinded with magic, like hornets crawling over his eyes. But a short distance away, they had finally cut Ludovin down, and so Remin went at last to see his friend and covered him with his own cloak.

“Finish the city,” he said, looking at his brother knights. “Kill anyone that resists. Do not leave one stone standing atop another.”

He meant it literally. Ellingen would be wiped from the face of the earth.

“My lord,” they said, and went to execute his will.

Soon enough, he would follow. There were still a few more nightmares to acquire before the war was over, and Remin meant to make sure the lessons of Ellingen would travel all the way to Mindelind, where the King of Valleth would soon learn he had lost his last warlord.

But for a moment, Remin’s black eyes turned away to the south, back to the Empire, where his sacred bride awaited. She was the last thing he needed to forge a dynasty that would last for all time, the foundation for a noble House that could never be destroyed again. And when he was done, Kings and Emperors would kneel before him.

A thousand miles away, on the isolated estate of Aldeburke, a certain young woman felt an inexplicable shiver down her spine.

* * *

Spring was a green dream trembling at the tips of the leaves when a column of black-clad knights rode through the gates of Aldeburke.

From the window of her secret perch in the library, Princess Ophele Agnephus glanced up from her book and caught her breath. She knewthe heraldry of every major and minor House in the Empire, but she didn’t recognize these banners: black and silver, bearing the device of crossed swords over a bridge. An ominous combination of symbols.

Were Lord and Lady Hurrell expecting guests? They wouldn’t tellherif they were, but despite their exile and disgrace, Ophele’s guardians had begun hosting infrequent gatherings over the last few years. Rich merchants and lesser nobles, poor and ambitious, hoping to capitalize on Lady Hurrell’s greater ambitions. But neverknights.Two score of them, some bearing lances and all bearing swords, with shields at their backs.

No one who wanted to see the Hurrells would spare any goodwill for the daughter of Lady Rache Pavot.

Slipping one of her smaller books into her pocket, Ophele shimmied over the side of the ceiling rafter and dropped soundlessly to the floor, scurrying off to fetch her cloak.

This late in the season, it rarely dropped below freezing at night, but this was not the first time Ophele had judged it prudent to disappear. Darting through the narrow halls at the back of the house, she could already hear the clamor of the servants, hastening to receive the guests. Ophele took advantage of the chaos to duck down the stairs at the back of the kitchen and slip into the pantry.

“Azelma!” Footsteps thudded past the door, and Ophele stopped short, making a rapid rearrangement of the apples and potatoes in her pockets. Voluminous as her cloak was, it would not do to appear too lumpy.

“Yes, I heard, I heard,” came the old woman’s voice, unruffled. “Does Her Ladyship want anything in particular?”

“A full luncheon, she says, and something sweet with tea afterward.” That was the butler clattering silver together, sounding harassed. Maybe that meantno onewas expecting these guests.

There was a squeaking on the stairs as he departed, and Ophele gave it another second before pushing the door open a cautious crack, peeking out. The only other person in the kitchen was Azelma, a round little figure in a spectacular lace cap.

“Ssst,”she hissed, without turning around, and set two loaves of bread at the end of her worktable, still steaming from the oven. “Out the back door, Your Highness. Should be clear for a few minutes yet.”

Ophele snatched up the bread and scuttled away.

Maybe all this fuss had something to do withher.

That thought put wings on her feet. Ophele knew she was the Emperor’s daughter, but it was in the same distant way she knew there was an Emperor and he lived in a palace; it was probably true, but she had no firsthand evidence and it didn’t make much difference to her life either way. It wasn’t like she was hisrealdaughter. Lady Hurrell had always been very careful to explain the difference, and while Ophele’s veins might contain the divine blood of the Emperor, they were stained by her mother’s treason and irrevocably dirtied by her illegitimacy.

Somehow, the lady had always implied it was Ophele’s fault. As if she had chosen to be born, and so choosing, had willfully defiled the Emperor’s sacred lineage.

But it had been a long time since anyone had given a fig for her parentage, and no one noticed or called her back as Ophele set off into the forest. She had never ventured beyond the walls of the estate, but her mother had often taken her into the trees to forage, teaching her all the secret delights of mushroom, root, and berry. Though most of the trees were still winter-naked, there were several large stands of pine to the north that offered a good view of the road, and Ophele set up camp under the boughs of an obliging pine, plucking the book from her pocket.

It was hard to focus. Her eyes kept straying back to the road, recalling that grim column of men and imagining the many things it might portend. Try as she might, she couldn’t think of anythingnice.Armed men appearing at the prison of the sovereign’s secret bastard weren’t likely to bring good news.

Maybe they would be content with delivering it to Lady Hurrell, and would take themselves off thereafter.

It wasn’t the first time she had slept outside. Ophele set a slow blaze to burn through the night and burrowed into her cloak, to wake up early the next morning, stiff with cold. Plucking up some dry pine needles, she poked them into the coals of her fire until she built up a small blaze. The hollow under her pine tree was nicely sheltered from wind and rain, and the boughs overhead dispersed the smoke. Raking the hottest coals to one side, she wrapped an apple and a potato in a stout strip of leather and buried them to roast.

The sun had barely cleared the horizon when she saw the first sign that something odd was happening at the manor.

Through the trees she could hear distant shouts, clanking armor, the neighing of horses and the barking of dogs. Was it a hunt? Sometimes Lord Hurrell hosted hunts for stag or even boar, but usually those events were held at a hunting lodge some miles away. The estate groundskeepers were careful that no animal as dangerous as a boar was allowed near the manor. And it was far too noisy to be one of Julot Hurrell’s less official hunts. When Lord Hurrell’s son went riding with his friends this early, it was usually because they were still drunk from the night before.

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