He broke the seal to read while servants laid out an aromatic selection of spiced dishes on a spare table and served the rest of the sejm’s participants.
Prince of Night,
I assume, since no one has stormed out of the council chamber and there isn’t blood pooling under the doors, that things are going well. I’m certain calling a halt to proceedings to have dinner in the great hall would be a poor decision, however, no one thinks clearly when they’re hungry. As such, I’ve had the kitchens prepare and deliver a repast for everyone. There’s also water and small aleto drink but no wine. I’d be doing you no favors if I sent anything stronger, and your vicegerents rendered themselves stuporous from over-indulging. They are more than welcome to drink themselves under the table once the sejm is concluded to your satisfaction.
Come to me when it’s done. I’ll be awake, even if the sun is high above Saggara. You will always find sanctuary here.
IK
As usual, her subtle wit combined with bone-deep practicality lifted his mood and made him miss her fiercely, just as he did whenever they were parted. He smothered a chuckle at her remarks about the small ale, certain he’d already overheard a grumblings from a few vicegerents who wondered why no wine had been delivered.She was a loving wife but in ways that were rarely overt, and she knew him better than anyone—except maybe Anhuset. Her promise of sanctuary spoke more of her love for him than if she’d written“I love you,”in her note. That reassurance in these hard days of his regency had often been a lifeline for him, giving him strength when the weight of an invisible crown felt exceptionally heavy.
He resisted the temptation to bring the note to his nose and inhale the faint trace of her perfume lingering on the parchment. He’d save that for later when he was unobserved by a crowd of curious vassals. Instead, he tucked the note into a hidden pocket inside his tunic and nodded to the waiting servant who’d delivered Ildiko’s message. “Tell the hercegesé her thoughtfulness is noted and appreciated. I look forward to the haven of day.”
The messenger bowed and left but not before Brishen caught the fleeting puzzlement in the man’s expression at the last part of his reply. No Kai purposefully sought daylight. Ildiko would instantly know what he meant. His woman of day always did.
Unlike the more leisurely, social dinner hosted in the great hall, this one was merely a pause in their plannings, and Brishen discouraged any lingering over goblets of ale or chats about matters outside of the plans to turn Haradis into an island.
The meal was finished in short order and his vassals put to work providing the ways and means of transporting work crews, collaborating to supplement each other’s harvesting teams while a portion of their labor force worked at the ruined capital. By the time they had a coordinated plan in place, it was early afternoon, and everyone in the council chamber was exhausted and eager to find their beds, Brishen included.
“A servant will escort each of you to your rooms. Something to ease your hunger and quench your thirst will be delivered to you,” he told them as they waited to exit the chamber. “I bid you good day.”
None paused to talk with him, stopping only long enough to bow to or salute him as they filed through the doorway, a few hiding yawns behind their hands. A handful of servants stayed behind to clean the council chamber. Mertok stayed as well, taking a spot adjacent to his regent. The two watched as more servants herded Saggara’s esteemed visitors toward rooms reserved for them on the manor’s second floor.
“I’ve assigned a shadow to each of them,” Mertok said, his eyes narrowed against the stray bits of sunlight that managed to bleed through closed shutters and the spaces between doors and door frames. “Two to the Senemset matriarch. If any of them so much as sneeze, we’ll hear about it.”
Brishen was tempted to have his sha assign a battalion of shadows to watch Vesetshen. “The sooner she’s gone from Saggara, the better I’ll feel.”
“Just say the word, Herceges, and I’ll see to it she’s tossed onto the nearest horse and sent home in the next hour.”
Brishen chuckled at the hopeful note in Mertok’s voice. It seemed Madam Senemset had earned the dislike and distrust of more than just himself and Ildiko. “Don’t tempt me. The hercegesé said much the same thing. I’d consider it if it wouldn’t stir up questions and wrong-headed rumors among the others.” He scowled. “If, however, her shadows hear even a whisper of sedition from her, I want to know immediately.”
Eager to find his own bed and fall asleep in Ildiko’s welcoming arms, he left Mertok and hurried toward the private stairwell that led to the chambers reserved for the royal household and their most trusted retainers. The pair of sentries at the stairwell’s entrance were different from those who’d stood there when he first left for the council chamber. There had been at least one rotation of guard duty since he’d met with his vassals, maybe more. The two saluted him as he strode between them, taking the steps two at a time until he reached the third floor. Only one torch was lit in the long corridor that led to his and Ildiko’s bedchamber, and that was only for her benefit so she didn’t have to navigate the hallway in complete darkness if she chose to come downstairs for any reason.
A cold tingle suddenly danced across his nape, and Brishen paused at the topmost step. The tingle became a full-blown spike of terror when he spotted two slumped figures outside the doors leading to the royal nursery and his bedroom.
While he didn’t carry his sword, he wasn’t unarmed. The knife he pulled from the sheath at his belt caught the flicker of torch flame on the blade as he crept forward on silent feet. The doors to both rooms were closed, and he eased past the oneleading to his bedroom to bend down and check the first guard crumpled like a broken doll at its threshold.
To his surprise, the man wasn’t dead, nor was the guard adjacent to him. Neither had been disarmed. Brishen didn’t pause to question that oddity, only re-sheathed his knife and picked up one of the guard’s swords where it lay half-drawn from its scabbard. He rose, took a position between the doors with his back to the wall and reached with his free hand to push lightly on his bedroom door.
It didn’t budge. He pushed harder and still it didn’t move. If someone was on the other side with an arrow nocked in readiness, waiting to ambush him, the door would have easily opened. He didn’t breathe any easier. If Ildiko had barred the door from the other side, he had no way of getting in without breaking it down, and it would take a troop of people with axes to cleave their way through.
He used the same tactic on the nursery door, his heart racing when that one opened a finger’s width. Not barred but blocked. Brishen glanced down at the sliver of an opening between the door and frame and shoved harder, still keeping himself a hard target to hit with an arrow.
The door gave a little more, and this time he could see that another body, propped against it, blocked his way in. The awful silence on the other side pressed down on him, nearly drowning out the hammering heartbeat in his ears. He shoved harder this time, listening for the telltale twang of a bowstring. All remained quiet.
Satisfied there was no enemy waiting on the other side, Brishen pushed the door wider a third time, stepping over the body that held it closed. A quick sweep of the nursery confirmed his worst fears. Tarawin’s two nurses lay unconscious on the floor in front of the chairs on which they must have been seated. A pair of teacups and an overturned teapot lay between them.
He turned to check the guard. Dendarah, one of the royal guards who’d risked her life to bring the newly orphaned queen of Bast-Haradis safely to Saggara and ensure the continuity of the Khaskem line, lay much like the sentries outside, senseless. Whatever had reduced her to this state hadn’t worked quickly enough. He glanced at the door bar raised out of its brackets so that it listed to one side on the bracket closest to the hinge. Dendarah’s fingertips rested against it, as if she’d managed to lift it enough before collapsing. A guard, a pair of nurses, but no child queen regnant to be found in the nursery.
His heartbeat didn’t slow as he approached the door connecting the nursery to his and Ildiko’s chamber. There was no bar on either side, and no locks. Hope was a thing unconquered even in the face of grim reality. He knew what he would—or wouldn’t—find there, yet still he hoped.
Unlike the nursery, his bedchamber remained shuttered against the day, still swathed in shadows. But Night, and her sister Darkness, hid nothing from him. He saw the empty bed with its covers neatly made, and the table where he sometimes shared a private meal with Ildiko, its surface set with a teapot and two cups. The chair she always claimed as hers was shoved to one side as if she’d risen abruptly from her seat. Beyond that, the room was undisturbed, unoccupied, and Brishen drowned in the horror of it.
Someone had taken his wife and daughter.
CHAPTER TWO
Ildiko slammed back into consciousness when the side of her face smacked against an unforgiving surface. Her eyes snapped open and took in the dusty gloaming spattered with sunlight. She lay on her belly, feeling the hard lurch of the ground beneath her. As her awareness sharpened, so did her fear. Her cry was muffled behind the gag tied firmly across her mouth and behind her head, and she struggled in vain against the ropes that bound her hands behind her back, tethered by a stretch of rope to her equally bound ankles. It bent her back in a way that sent fire licking up her shoulder blades.
