Land of Dragon

5

“The throne was made for you, my queen.”

“It doesn't always feel that way,” the girl blushed. She looked from side to side at her advisers.

Treylen lifted his head and glanced between them. They were dressed in the same pale finery as the rest of the circle, but no assassins loomed next to them. A man and a woman. Both were taller than the stout girl on the throne and easily thirty years her senior, although their wrinkled cheeks and downturned lips had enough fullness to bear a familial resemblance. An aunt and an uncle, maybe. Whoever they were, they were privileged enough to slouch against the sides of the tall back throne.

“My grief at the former queen’s leaving was tempered only by my joy at your ascension.” There was humor in his voice as he said it. He knew that he had crossed some line. The assassin standing nearest to them drew his blade, but a glance from the woman to the Queen's right and the blade returned to its scabbard.

“No little O-lee from you?” The queen laughed. “You used to call me that.” The assassins tightened their grip on their daggers as the advisers scowled at one another.

“Anything you wish, my queen,” he bowed low again, nearly pressing his nose to the stone.

“It is Queen Olysya Rewenis Ivera now, you should be pleased.” “Very much, My Queen Olysya—”

“Where is my gift Marz-ee?” She interrupted, then giggled and grinned, as if to try and coax him up from his supplicant posture. The guards maintained their nervous stances, daggers slowly inching from the scabbards again.

“I shall give the queen whatever she wishes.”

“You know what I want.” The queen pouted. He bowed, somehow managing to lower himself even deeper.

“Oh, put those away.” She wiggled a finger at the assassins and they jumped backward, tearing their hands from the hilts of their daggers as if burned.

“My queen…” the uncle appealed, but she interrupted.

“Every time you've returned since I was a little girl, you have brought me a kit. Have you forgotten? You were gone a long while this time.”

“Certainly not, my queen. I bring you whatever you ask. But I would not presume to give a low gift to the Queen of Iverna.”

“If you haven't brought a kit for me, I'll be very cross with you.”

Treylen shifted enough that he could see Marziel’s face, still bowing with his nose pressed close to the Stone, the man was grinning ear to ear. He was enjoying every bit of this, despite being one wrong word from having his throat cut.

“Then I would deliver as I've been asked to, though at great risk of offense to this court.” The advisers exchanged glances, rolled their eyes, and the woman groaned.

“This court submits to the will of the queen,” she drawled. “Produce your…gift…”

Marziel reached into his tool kit and plucked out the bit of knitting that he had done in the wagon. He had finished knitting the shell as they sat around the fire that evening and stuffed it with bits of rag, to fill out the doll in the shape of a small fox.

Marziel rose to his knee with his arm outstretched and the kit in the palm of his hand.

“How precious.” The queen leaned forward as if to take it herself.

“Not so quickly, my queen.” A voice—like tearing parchment—tickled Treylen’s ears as a lean figure, in loose fitting sleeves of darkest black, appeared as if from nowhere. His long, pale fingers plucked the doll from Marziel’s hand and brought it up to sniff it.

He had a long gaunt face with a delicate nose and wrinkled, almost bloodless, flesh. Despite his age he stood a head taller than the rest of the company, and his eyes were clear as a cloudless night. His ears trailed up into fine points that rose high above the top of his head. His silver hair was pulled into a tight knot. There was something strangely familiar and yet alien about him. His black silk garments, though unlike anything Treylen had ever seen, bore a distant resemblance to the cut of his own assassin’s garb. When the man raised his gaze to meet Treylen’s, Marziel’s warning came back to him. In a flash, Treylen tore his eyes away, pressing himself closer to the ground.

“Marziel always had a way with you.” The queen's shadow tossed the knitting absentmindedly into the lap of the regent, his focus shifting toward Treylen.

“It is always a pleasure to see you, Shadow.”

Slow your breathing, Rime’s voice whispered in his head.

Treylen didn't dare answer and risk making a connection to the dragon mind. Bare feet padded on stone and came to a stop in front of Treylen. They

were pale but calloused, deeply wrinkled with dark veins and a scar over the bridge, long toenails painted a dark blue.

Fingers twined through his hair and pulled his head up. Treylen forced his eyes to look away. He wouldn't make the mistake again. His gaze settled on one of the assassins beside him and he noticed that their blade was out again.

“This must be Treylen Corbel. Hero of Tabron, if word is to be believed.” Treylen did not speak. He had not yet been spoken to.

“It is,” Marziel said in a low tone.

“I had expected something more.” Treylen felt a fingernail scrape along his chin. It didn’t break the skin but the line that it drew tingled with the unnatural burn of a toxin he’d felt once before. The queen, who’d been giggling and inspecting her gift, finally looked up.

“Did you both study under Marziel?” The queen was so cheerful it was almost as if she didn’t see the strange man darkening her court.

“We did, my queen,” Aaron answered her. The shadow released Treylen’s hair and flowed over to Aaron.

“Was he as pigheaded with you as he was with me?”

Aaron laughed and Treylen risked a peek to see his friend’s cheeks color. Aaron’s grin was even wider than the queen’s, and he barely averted his eyes from hers. Even the shadow bending down to inspect the scar on Aaron’s ear didn’t seem to faze him. Was it possible that he was actually enjoying himself?

“I’d venture more so, my Queen. Unless he boxed your ears as well. We’ve had a grand time with him. How did you get him so tame?” Before he had even finished saying it, every dagger on the tall stone had been drawn. The shadow had not drawn a weapon, but he grinned, watching as the assassin nearest lashed out with a blade. It was a hair’s width from his throat when the Queen laughed.

“You are a curious one.” She giggled again. “Why do you ask so many questions of your queen?”

Aaron blinked—just one eye—and laughed back at her.

“I'm compelled to. I would ask more but,” his head tilted to the side, “I might not live to hear the answer.”

What is he doing? Rime asked. Even the dragon could see something was wrong.

The fool is smitten with her, he said, risking the dragonmind.

The queen grinned back, sinking down in her seat a little and staring

under hooded eyes.

“Nothing compels me, brave assassin, but I might just be inclined to answer if the asker pleased me.”

The woman at her side cleared her throat. “My queen, we have many petitioners to get through today.”

The queen rolled her eyes then looked Aaron up and down again, beaming.

“My aunt is always rushing me.”

“Never, my queen.” The woman bowed and backed away from the throne. “I have only ever served your best interests.”

The shadow leaned over Aaron, clutching his shoulders. “Perhaps it would please the queen if the new assassins proved their loyalty, so we might conclude this audience.”

“Must we?”

“It is customary, my queen,” her aunt answered, creeping forward again to grip the back of the throne.

“Then we must.”

The shadow left Aaron and stopped in front of Treylen. Reaching into black silks, he produced a small copper bowl and rested a dagger on it.

“You may take it. Give your offering to the queen.”

This was the ritual that Marziel had described in detail as they sat around the fire the night before.

In the old times, it was customary for assassins to have their tongues removed. To better safeguard secrets of the kingdom. But agents like Marziel had proved that assassins were better at spycraft when they had the ability to speak and the test of loyalty had become something more of a ritual.

Treylen had never seen fingers like the ones that clutched the bowl—long like the bones of a bat’s wing—soft and wrinkled, nails stained with poison.

Treylen lifted his head and was relieved to see most of the court weren’t watching. Just the two on either side of the queen, and the shadow. The queen feigned disinterest, but Treylen had the distinct impression she didn’t care for this. Aaron watched with concern. He took the blade—though long as his belt knife, it was light as a feather and wafer thin—and raised it high to show all in attendance then pressed the back of his hand to his forehead, so the blade hung down before his face. The shadow brought the bowl to rest just below his chin.

“I pledge my last upon Iverna, Olysya Rewenis Ivera, Queen.” Opening

his mouth, he pinched the tip of his tongue between thumb and forefinger then drew the blade across.

Pain lanced Treylen’s jaw. He pinched down on the tip of his tongue to staunch the blood and felt warm liquid spill down his chin, trickling into the bowl.

Bite down hard. Marziel had said. Don’t swallow the blood or you’ll be sick.

He let his fingers come apart and the chunk of flesh dropped into the bowl. More a flap than a chunk. A sliver of skin. That was all the ritual required. He rested the knife on the edge of the bowl.

The advisors looked unimpressed. The shadow grinned, waiting for the blood to slow before pulling the bowl away.

The shadow moved to Aaron. Treylen didn't care to watch. Blood dripped from his chin and mingled with the smears on the stone from the last petitioner. He kept his eyes on the queen and focused on his blinking, one eye at a time.

With Aaron she no longer averted her eyes. Her disinterest had given way to rapt attention, as Treylen heard the dagger lift from the bowl. A startled smile crossed the queen’s face, then her hand went to her mouth. Around the stone, more than one of the courtiers gasped. There was a soft clunk from the bowl, then the rattle of the knife being replaced by a shaking hand. The shadow waited, stooping over him to hold the bowl beneath his chin. Treylen flicked his eyes toward his friend, but his head was down. All he could see was the blood pouring into the bowl.

He turned his head away, back to the queen. Her surprise had morphed into something else.

Marziel hadn’t moved.

All the rest were watching now. Even the assassins were gawking openly.

The shadow raised the bowl overhead, then knelt to place it on the arm of the throne.

He could hear Aaron’s breathing, wet and ragged, then the thump of a body hitting stone. Blood puddled beside Aaron’s motionless form and ran over to flow under Treylen’s hand, into the groove in the obsidian.