Page 2 of Court of Treachery

“For now, I must take my allies where I find them. And it will do us good to sow fear and discord. If the king thinks I have united the goblins against him, he shall hesitate in his own machinations. Yet the common people who know we act for them will be unperturbed by it.”

“You hope.”

Saradon shrugged. “It will be what it will be. No one will know of our involvement with the goblins until such time as it befits us. All Toroth will know is that his empire is threatened from within and without.” Saradon smiled at the prospect.

“What of afterward? After Toroth is gone and Pelenor is at peace? To what end does it serve us to have such bloodthirsty, unpredictable, hostile neighbours?”

“They shall not be hostile if we are allied with them. Of that you can be sure. Besides…” Saradon smiled a wolfish grin. “Who said they had a place in my peaceful lands?”

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. “You will betray them?”

Saradon shrugged. “Whatever it takes to ensure peace—for all lands. If there are even any goblins left after the battles ahead are won.”

Dimitri paused in thought, but he could not see how Saradon could ensure, by agreement or force, the goblins kept peace. He had a sneaking suspicion Saradon meant a far worse fate for the goblins. Would they decimate themselves for his cause? He could not see it. As much as Dimitri could not deny he would gladly see them eliminated, it niggled at his conscience. This was not the vision he sought to build. He was not so naïve as to think that compromises would not need to be made—after all, nothing could be gained without sacrifice—but would it really require the alliance of such unsavoury creatures and the sacrificing of his principles to succeed?

“Do you think thepaschawill accept your proposal?” Dimitri asked eventually.

Saradon’s response was instant. “Without a doubt.”

“And if they do not?” Dimitri’s voice was brittle. So much was at stake. Too much to trust creatures such as the goblins.

Saradon’s sly smile curled up once more. “A willing subject is far more biddable, but whichever way they choose, they shall serve me.”

A prickle ran down Dimitri’s spine. Saradon would bind the goblins to him using dark magics if they did not choose to serve him. It could not be so. Dimitri had seen the visions of a green and pleasant Pelenor, prosperous and free from corruption. This did not match that.

“Surely the moral goal of our crusade will be enough,” Dimitri suggested, keeping his tone light. “We do not need to bind others to our cause through force.”

Saradon almost snorted out his fine wine. “You would trust a goblin’s conscience? Come now. Do not be a fool. I am not naïve enough to hope for such things. I was foiled once before—I shallnot see it done again. I will do anything it takes to succeed, and I shall take no risks, for there will not be a third chance.” Saradon stood, drained the crystal glass, and nodded to Dimitri as he set it upon the table. “Return to court, Lord Ellarian. We both have work to do.” With that, Saradon vanished into the ether.

For a long while, Dimitri stared at the spot where Saradon had stood, as the flames died in the fire before him and the lamps burned out, wondering at Saradon’s plans—and what he did not know of them.

That evening, King Toroth’s unceasing tirade at Raedon, master and general of the Winged Kingsguard, continued. Dimitri slunk back into the shadows, for it would not do to catch the king’s ire himself. Raedon’s hunched shoulders and bowed head said he had long given up on trying to protest his position.

Dimitri smirked. He had foisted blame upon the Kingsguard for the Dragonhearts’ disappearance. It would only appear so. The Kingsguard had faced Aedon and his companions in the vaults yet failed to stop them. To his relief and glee, Dimitri had not been connected to any of it. To the disappearance of the Dragonheart—or to Harper’s vanishing. In the king’s ire, he had quite forgotten about her. Dimitri pushed away the ache that sat in his chest at the thought of Harper. The one that told him how painfully vulnerable he was to the threat of her allure. How she had challenged and fought and excited him—and how she could have damned him. She was gone. She could not incriminate him. That was what mattered, he told himself firmly.

The king had seized the first poor fool he could punish for the loss of his greatest treasures. For Raedon, general of the Kingsguard and the most fearsome warrior in the king’s service,the failure and the punishment were his to bear—and Dimitri shouldered none of it. Dimitri did not know what the king would do to Raedon, so angry was he, nor did he care. Raedon was an even bigger ass than his brother, Aedon, the king’s former golden boy.Maybe Toroth will exile Raedon, too, he thought hopefully. Mind, there would only be another jumped-up, arrogant prick to fill his place.There always was when it came to falling in and out of the king’s fancy.

Toroth’s face reddened and spittle flew from his mouth as he stormed around the room, gesticulating wildly with vicious jabs of his fingers. “Get out!” he thundered. Raedon, after the briefest of bows, fled. Dimitri melted farther into the darkness. He did not wish to be the king’s next victim.

Only Dimitri knew what had truly happened. That Aedon had burned through the stolen pile of Dragonhearts, using up their stores of magic to save his companions until only two were left in their possession—the one they had stolen to cure the village’s sickness, and the one he had taken to raise Saradon. The rest remaining in the compromised vault had been removed and taken somewhere so secure, Toroth would tell no one of it.

Dimitri suppressed a grudging respect for Aedon and his ability to control such magics. He had tenacity, that was certain, and was resourceful, but Dimitri still resented that life had bestowed such powerful capabilities and privilege on Aedon.

No one knew Dimitri had let Aedon and his companions walk free, either. Why had he done it? If he were being honest with himself, it was because ofher. Harper. He had allowed himself to grow overly familiar until compassion stung him. Nothing would have pleased him more than to abandon Aedon to his fate, but she had stopped him. Stopped him even thinking of it.

For a moment, he saw the tall, winged Aerian warrior, Aedon’s companion, standing on the parapet before him, with Harper clutched in a burly arm. Exhausted, afraid, yet defiant.Her eyes wide, but the set of her mouth so determined as she stared him down. He still thought of her more than was good for him. Who she was in all of this. There was no chance it could be coincidence, but with the work yet to do, he could not dwell on it. All the same, he regretted not keeping a watch on her. Now she was… heavens knew where.

Dimitri pushed away all thoughts of her, Aedon, and his band of outlaws, and allowed himself to savour the moment, and the maturation of his plans and long-held wishes to topple the establishment. All the moving parts were about to align. He allowed himself a smug grin.

2

HARPER

The waterglowed. Harper drew closer to the azure pool, cocking her head this way and that. The pure, clear waters captivated her. The strange light they emitted had nothing to do with the sun far above them. She would have called glowing water impossible, yet so much had happened to defy all logic and reason that Harper had given up questioning.

Around her companions the forest loomed, a watchful protector of the secret place. The canopy created a cocoon of fire, the leaves in a symphony of colour before their impending shedding. Birds trilled and creatures rustled in the distance, along with the gentle peal of animals’ bells as they grazed on the last of autumn’s bounty in meadows far away across the valley. But, it was silent where they stood, and a strange kind of watchfulness prickled her skin.

Their horses, stolen from the Kingsguard of Tournai and now tethered to the great trees, were happy to pause in the shade and nibble the grass—and Harper was glad for the break. They had ridden hard for weeks with the threat of King Toroth’s wrathful pursuit, first for the village, where they had used the stolen Dragonheart’s magic and knowledge from the royal archives to cure the remaining villagers, and then south and east, past thelong reach of Pelenor’s capital, Tournai. The days, at first fraught and with the frisson of fear ever-present, had eased. Harper had been glad to run free—from Toroth, at least.

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