Page 32 of Vow of the Shadow King

Speaking my friend’s name sends a stab of pain to my gut. It’s not been long since Xag met her end. Poisoned. Along with the rest of her town. My engineer’s words echo hollowly in the back of my head:“Most folk never gonna see city fall. Most folk gonna die of poison long before.”

Shuddering, I drag my awareness back to the present and Dagh’s vehement protest of, “They’ll getmuckon thetapestries!Their muddy brats will climb the pillars and moldings! These people are positively barbaric. Bargmen! Fishers! Shallow-scrapers!”

“Come, man,” my chancellor interrupts, shooting him a disapproving glare. “The palace just survived the largest stirring in the last hundred turns of the Cycle. Surely, it can survive a few dozen river-children. Besides—”

Before Houg can finish, sudden commotion erupts outside the door. Upraised voices, most of them muffled, punctuated by the high, determined voice of young Guardsman Yok: “You cannot go in there, Your Highness!”

There’s a deep, rolling growl, followed by athunk.The next moment, the door opens, and a stern, terrible figure stands there. Gray skin, eyes like two white gems. Long white hair hanging across massive shoulders. Naked, save for a thin cloth across his loins, he moves as though clad in the richest royal raiment.

A shiver races down the back of my neck. I do not like this man. Targ, the so-called priest and self-proclaimed servant of the Deeper Dark. A cultist, if you ask me. He commands a loyal following of devotees who hang upon his every word and gesture. One of whom happens to be my stepmother.

Sure enough, no sooner does Targ enter the space than he steps to one side, making way for Queen Roh’s entrance. I glimpse Yok behind her, wide-eyed and desperate. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty!” he stammers from under his helmet. “I couldn’t—I wasn’t certain—I—”

“Peace, Yok.” I hold up one hand. The boy means well and is certainly determined to prove himself. But he has much to learn before he’ll be of any real use. “Back to your post. Do your best to see that no one else disturbs me, will you?”

Flushed with embarrassment, Yok ducks back outside, pulling the door shut behind him. Roh does not so much as acknowledge him. She stands there, clad in somber black glinting with flecks of broken gemstones. Her white hair, heavily streaked with strands of charcoal, is swept back from her high, proud forehead and falls to her waist in thick waves. She is a beautiful woman. But then, one would expect no less in the wife of a king. Far more impressive than her beauty, however, is her will. It shines in her eye, hard as diamonds, unyielding as the stone of ages.

She casts a cold gaze first at Chancellor Houg, then Lord Dagh. Only to Umog Zu does she offer a faint, polite nod. At last, she fixes me with the full force of her diamond stare. “May we have the room?”

I want to deny her. But I can see she has no intention of backing down, and at present, I haven’t the energy for a fight. “Go,” I say, waving an easy, dismissive hand. “Lord Dagh,” I add, as my steward skuttles from the room. “Findsomeplace in this whole vast mausoleum of a palace where we can safely house a handful of river-town families. Understood?”

Dagh bows himself out, still muttering. Houg and the low priestess follow after. When the door is shut, I turn to Roh, ignoring Targ, who looms silent against the wall. Generally, I find it best for everyone if I pretend he doesn’t exist. “Well, stepmother?” I say pleasantly. “To what do I owe the delight of your company?”

“Where have you sent my son?”

She doesn’t beat around the basalt, does she? “To Hoknath,” I answer smoothly, and lace my fingers behind my head. “Will that be all? I do have such a lot to see to thislusterling.”

“No.” Her lip curls. It somehow only makes her more beautiful. “Why are you punishing him?”

“Punishing him? There’s a thought. Do you know of a reason why I should punish him?”

Her nostrils quiver. She takes a step closer to my desk. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was trying to menace me. “Sul has only ever been loyal to you. Even when there were those in your own court who urged him to take a stand against you. Sul could not be swayed. He could not be wooed, reasoned with, cajoled, bribed, or threatened. He isrock.He isjor.You know this.”

“I do.”

She presses her fists into the stone tabletop, leaning heavily, cold eyes flashing. “Then why have you sent him from you? Sent him out into gods-know what dangers, far from your side!”

I draw a slow breath, regarding her through half-closed eyelids. “Why should you care?” I ask at length and watch the way her cheek twitches, her jaw clenches. “Is it not your wish to see us all succumb to the inevitable Dark in any case? What does it matter if Sul faces a little danger? What does it even matter if he perishes? It makes no difference to you, does it?”

Her lips curl back. Her teeth are very white against the dark purple of her gums. “If that’s what you think, you grossly misunderstand the ways of the Deeper Dark.”

“Maybe so.” I tilt an eyebrow Targ’s way. “What then? Are you and your little pocket priest here to endarken me?”

“A mind such as yours cannot understand the hope ofva-jor,”she snaps.

“A mind such as mine?”

“Ahumanmind.”

It has been many turns of the cycle since I saw my stepmother’s face so raw with feeling. Since the death of my father, she’s thrown herself into her religious studies so completely, assuming the hard, impassive, emotionless mask of a priestess. In this moment, however, she is unmasked. I see again the woman I once knew, the passionate, even volatile creature my father took as his bride and offered me as replacement for my own lost mother. A woman I knew, from the first moment I set eyes on her, I could never love.

I rise, push back my chair, and face her straight on. I’m taller than she, but not by much. I am part human, after all, whereas Roh is purely troldish, as though she were carved from rock rather than birthed from a mother’s womb. But it doesn’t matter. “Trolde blood or human,” I say, my voice cold and hard as the founding stones of this very palace, “I am Gaur’s eldest son. It was I, not my brother, whom the gods determined should rule Mythanar.”

“Thegods?”Roh spits. “Leave thegodsto the elfkin. We trolde serve only the Dark and That Which Dwells Below. We—”

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty, I’m sorry to interrupt!”

Yok’s voice outside the door jars through my senses. I yank my gaze away from Roh’s face and scowl across the shadowed antechamber. “Not now, Yok!” I snarl.

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