Loth followed the Donmata Marosa through yet another passageway. Torchlight baked his eyes as he edged between the sweating walls.
Days after he had last heard from her, she had told him to meet her again in a darkened solar. Now they were in a warren of tunnels behind the walls, where a clever system of copper pipes conducted water from the hot springs to the bedchambers.
At the end of the passage was a spiraling stair. The Donmata began to ascend.
“Where are you taking me?” Loth said stiffly.
“We are going to meet the one who plotted the murder of Queen Rosarian.”
His hand grew clammy on the torch.
“I am sorry, incidentally,” she said, “for making you dance with Priessa. It was the only way to get you the message.”
“Could she not have given it to me in the coach?” he muttered.
“No. She was searched before she left the palace, and the coach driver was a spy, there to ensure she could not flee. No one is permitted to leave Cárscaro for long.”
The Donmata detached a key from her girdle. When Loth followed her through the door she unlocked, he coughed on the dust in the chamber beyond, where the only light stemmed from his torch. The furniture stank of sickness and decay, with a mordant edge of vinegar.
The Donmata lifted her veil and draped it over a chair. Loth followed her toward a four-poster bed, hardly breathing for fear, and held up his torch.
A blindfolded figure sat in the bed. Loth made out waxen skin, charcoal lips, and chestnut hair that straggled to the collar of a crimson bedgown. Chains bound two emaciated arms. Red lines branched down them, following the tracery of his veins.
“What is this?” Loth murmured. “This is the killer?”
The Donmata folded her arms. Her jaw was a steady line, her eyes bereft of emotion.
“Lord Arteloth,” she said, “I present to you my lord father, Sigoso the Third of the House of Vetalda, Flesh King of the Draconic Kingdom of Yscalin. Or what is left of him.”
Loth looked back at the man in disbelief.
Even before the betrayal of Yscalin, he had not seen King Sigoso, but in his portraits, he had always looked hale and handsome, if cold, with the amber eyes of the Vetalda. Sabran had invited him to court several times, but he had always preferred to send representatives.
“A flesh king rules as the puppet of a wyrm. A title Fýredel hopes to bestow on every ruler in the world.” The Donmata walked around the bed. “Father has a rare form of the Draconic plague. It allows Fýredel to . . . commune with him, somehow. To see and hear into the palace.”
“You mean at this very moment—”
“Peace. I put a sedative in his evening drink,” she said. “I cannot do it often, or Fýredel becomes suspicious, but it keeps the wyrm from using him. For a short while.”
At the sound of her voice, Sigoso stirred.
“I had no idea wyrms could do such a thing.” Loth swallowed. “Control a body.”
“When High Westerns die, the fire goes out in the wyverns who serve them, and in the progeny those wyverns sired. Perhaps this is a similar kind of connection.”
“How long has he been like this?”
“Two years.”
He had fallen ill when Yscalin had betrayed Virtudom. “How did he become this?”
“First you must hear the truth,” the Donmata said. “My father remembers enough to tell you.”
“Marosa,” Sigoso croaked. “Marossssa.”
Loth flinched at his voice. It was as if a knot of rattlesnakes were nesting in his throat.
“Where are you, daughter?” the king asked very softly. “Must I come and find you?”
Expressionless, the Donmata turned to him and set about removing the blindfold. Though she wore velvet gloves that covered her to the elbow, Loth could not breathe while she was so close to her father, fearing Sigoso might bite through the velvet or make a grab for her face. When the blindfold came away, Sigoso bared his teeth. His eyes were no longer topaz, but gray all the way through. Hollows of cold ash.
“I hope you slept well, Father,” the Donmata said in Inysh.
“I dreamed of a clock tower and a woman with a fire within her. I dreamed she was my enemy.” King Sigoso stared at Loth, flexing his arms in their chains. “Who is this?”
“This is Lord Arteloth Beck of Goldenbirch. He is our new ambassador from Inys.” The Donmata forced a smile. “I wondered if you would care to tell him how Queen Rosarian died.”
Sigoso breathed like a bellows. His gaze darted between them, a hunter sizing up two morsels.
“I ended Rosarian.”
The way he spoke that name, rolling it about on his tongue like a comfit, gave Loth a chill.
“Why?” the Donmata said.
“That venereal slut refused my hand. The hand of royalty,” Sigoso spat out. The cords in his neck strained. “She would rather whore herself for pirates and lordlings than unite with the blood of the House of Vetalda—” Spittle ran from his mouth. “Daughter, I am burning.”
With a glance at Loth, the Donmata went to his nightstand, where a cloth lay beside a bowl of water. She soaked the cloth and set it on his brow.
“I had her a gown made,” Sigoso continued. “A gown of such beauty that a vain harlot like Rosarian could never resist it. I had it laced with basilisk venom I bought from a merchant prince, and I sent it to Inys to be hid among her garments.”
Loth was shivering. “Who hid it?” he whispered. “Who hid the gown?”
“He will not speak to anyone but me,” the Donmata murmured. “Father, who hid the gown?”
“A friend in the palace.”
“In the palace,” Loth echoed. “By the Saint. Who?”
The Donmata repeated his question. Sigoso chuckled, but it splintered into a cough.
“The cupbearer,” he said.
Loth stared. The position of cupbearer had been defunct for centuries.
The gown would have been planted in the Privy Wardrobe. The Mistress of the Robes at the time had been Lady Arbella Glenn, and she would never have hurt her queen.
“I hope,” Sigoso said, “that there was some of the strumpet left to bury. Basilisk venom is so strong.” He hacked up a laugh. “Even bone yields before its bite.”
At this, Loth drew his baselard.
“Forgive my lord father.” The Donmata gazed soullessly at the Flesh King. “I would say that he is not himself, but I think he is as much himself as he has ever been.”
Disgusted, Loth took a step toward the bed. “The Knight of Courage turns his back to you, Sigoso Vetalda,” he said, voice quaking. “Her hand was hers to give to whomever she desired. Damn you to the Womb of Fire.”
Sigoso smiled. “I am there,” he said, “and it is paradise.”
The gray in his eyes flickered. Red flecks ignited inside them, like embers.
“Fýredel.” The Donmata snatched a cup from the nightstand. “Father, drink this. It will ease the pain.”
She pressed it to his lips. Never taking his gaze from Loth, Sigoso drank what was inside. Overcome by what he had heard, Loth let the Donmata usher him out.
His mother, Lady Annes Beck, had been with the Queen Mother when she died. Now he understood why neither she nor Sabran had ever been able to utter a word to him about the day Rosarian had been laced into that lovely gown. Why Lady Arbella Glenn, who had loved her like her own child, had never uttered a word again.
Loth sank onto the steps. As he shook, he became aware of the Donmata behind him.
“Why have me listen to him?” he asked. “Why not just tell me?”
“So that you could see and hear the truth,” she said, “and deliver it to Sabran. And so that you would believe it, and not leave thinking that a mystery still lies in Yscalin.”
The Donmata sat on the step behind his, so their heads were level. She placed a silk-wrapped bundle into her lap.
“Can he hear us?” Loth asked her.
“No. He sleeps again.” She sounded tired. “I pray Fýredel will not realize that I stopped him. He may think Father is dying. Which I think he is.” Her chin lifted. “I have no doubt the wyrm intends for me to replace him. His manikin to be controlled.”
“Does Fýredel not take issue with your keeping the king like this, chained in a dark room?”
“Fýredel understands that my father does not look . . . kingly in his present state, his body rotting even as it continues to draw breath,” the Donmata said dryly, “but I must lead him from his rooms when ordered. So our lord and master can see into the palace whenever he desires. So he can issue orders to the Privy Council. So he can ensure we are not mounting a rebellion. So he can stop us calling for aid.”
“If you killed your father, Fýredel would know,” Loth realized. “And punish you.”
“The last time I defied him, he had one of my ladies put on the Gate of Niunda.” Her face tightened. “I had to watch as his cockatrices pecked her to shreds.”
They were quiet and still for a time.
“Queen Rosarian died fourteen years ago,” Loth stated. “Then . . . Sigoso did not do it under Draconic control.”
“Not all evil comes from wyrms.”
The Donmata turned to face him on the stair, so her back was against the wall.
“I do not remember a great deal about my father from my childhood. Just his cold gaze,” she murmured. “When I was sixteen, my mother came to my bedchamber in the middle of the night. Their marriage had always been strained, but now she looked afraid. And angry. She said we were going to join her brother, King Jantar, in Rauca. We dressed as servants and stole through the palace.
“Of course, the guards stopped us. Confined us both to our bedchambers and forbade us from speaking. I have never cried so hard in my life. Mama bribed a guard to pass me a letter, telling me to remain strong.” She touched the pendant at her throat, set with emeralds. “A week later, Father came to inform me of her death. He told the court that she took her own life, shamed by her attempt to abandon her king . . . but I know otherwise. She would never have left me alone with him.”
“I am sorry,” Loth said.
“Not as sorry as I am.” Disgust tightened her face. “Yscalin does not deserve this, but my father does. He deserves to look as corrupt on the outside as he always was within.”
Sahar Taumargam and Rosarian Berethnet, both dead by the hand of the same king. All while Inys had considered him a friend in Virtudom.
“I wanted to tell Sabran the truth. I wanted to call for aid, for troops . . . but this palace is a dungeon. The Privy Council has fallen utterly to Fýredel, too afraid to anger him. They have families in the city who would die if we stoked his wrath.”
Loth lifted his sleeve to his face to blot the sweat.
“Sabran was my friend. Prince Aubrecht was my betrothed for a long while,” the Donmata reminded him. “I know they must think ill of me now.”
Guilt pricked at Loth. “Forgive us,” he murmured. “We should not all have assumed—”
“You could never have known Fýredel was awake. Or that we were under his wing.”
“Tell me how Cárscaro fell. Help me understand.”
The Donmata breathed out through her nose.
“Two years ago, there was a quake in the Spindles,” she said. “Fýredel had awakened in a chamber in Mount Fruma, where he had gone to sleep after the Grief of Ages. We were on his doorstep. Ripe for the seizing.
“The lavender fields burned first. Black smoke choked the evening sky.” She shook her head. “It all happened so quickly. Wyverns had surrounded Cárscaro before the city guards could reach the old defenses. Fýredel appeared for the first time in centuries. He said he would set us all afire if my father did not come to him to pay tribute.”
“And did he?”
“He sent a decoy at first, but Fýredel sensed the deception. He burned the man alive, and my father was forced to emerge,” she said. “Fýredel took him into the mountains. For the rest of that night, Cárscaro descended into chaos. People thought a second Grief of Ages had begun—which, in a way, it had.” A terrible sadness darkened her eyes. “Panic reigned. Thousands tried to flee, but the only way out is through the Gate of Niunda, and the wyverns guarded it.” Her mouth pinched. “Father returned at dawn. The people saw that their king was alive and unharmed and did not know what to think. He told them they would be the first to witness the rise of the Draconic world—if they obeyed.
“Behind the walls of this palace, Father ordered his Privy Council to announce our allegiance to the Nameless One. They sent word to every nation, too craven to challenge him. Too craven when he ordered our defenses be torn down. Too craven when he burned down the aviary, and every bird left in it. I tried to organize a counterstroke, to no avail. I could do no more without endangering my life.”
“But the rest of the country did not know the truth,” Loth said.
“Cárscaro became a fortress that night. No one could get word out.” Her head dropped back against the wall. “Wyrms are weak when they first stir. For a year, Fýredel remained under Mount Fruma, regaining his strength. I watched as he used my father to turn my country into the base of his power. I watched him destroy the Six Virtues. I watched the plague awaken and spread among my people. And my home became my prison.”
That was when Arteloth Beck did exactly what Gian Harlowe had warned him not to do.
He took Marosa Vetalda by the hand.
She wore velvet gloves. It was still a risk, and yet he did it without a second thought.
“You are the very embodiment of courage,” he told her. “And your friends in Virtudom have failed you.”
The Donmata looked at their hands with a notch in her brow. Loth wondered when it was that she had last been touched.
“Tell me how I can help you,” he said.
Slowly, she placed her other hand over his. “You can go back into that bedchamber,” she said, lifting her gaze to his, “and lay your uncovered hands upon my father.”
It took him a moment to understand. “You want me to . . . afflict myself?”
“I will explain,” she said, “but if you do it, I offer you a chance to escape Cárscaro in return.”
“You said it was a fortress.”
“My mother knew one way out.” She set a hand on the bundle in her lap. “I want you to journey across the Spindles and deliver this to Chassar uq-Ispad, the Ersyri ambassador. You must entrust it only to him.”
The man who had raised Ead, and who had presented her to court eight years ago. The Donmata unwrapped the silk. Inside was an iron box, engraved with symbols.
“In the spring, a woman was captured near Perunta, trying to find a ship that would take her on to Lasia. The torturers had her for days, but she never spoke. When my father set eyes on the red cloak she had with her, Fýredel was enraged. He ordered that she must spend her last hours in agony.”
Loth was not sure if he could stand to hear this.
“That night, I sought her out.” The Donmata skimmed her fingers over the box. “I thought they had torn her tongue out at first, but when I gave her wine, she told me her name was Jondu. She told me that if I valued human life, I would get the object she had been carrying to Chassar uq-Ispad.” She paused. “I killed Jondu myself. Told Fýredel she had died of her wounds. Better that than the gate.
The box that had been taken from Jondu was locked. No one could open it, and eventually they lost interest. It was easy for me to steal it. I am sure that it is vital in our fight, and that Ambassador uq-Ispad will know more.”
She traced the patterns on its lid.
“He is most likely in Rumelabar. To reach the Ersyr and avoid the guarded borders, you must cross the Spindles. The safest way to do that without harm from the Draconic creatures that now live there is to become afflicted, so that when they smell you, they will not attack,” she continued. “Jondu swore the ambassador knows a cure for the plague. If you reach him in time, you may live to tell the tale.”
Loth understood then. “You sent Prince Wilstan to do this,” he said. “Or tried.”
“I did everything the same. I showed him my father and had him hear from his own lips how Rosarian died. And then I gave him the box. But Fynch had been waiting for his opportunity to flee, and to return to his daughter with news of this place,” she said. “He assured me he had given himself the plague. When I realized he had not, I went after him with all haste. He had abandoned the box in the secret tunnel that leads to the mountains. He clearly never meant to honor my request . . . but I can hardly blame him for thinking he could get back to Sabran.”
“Where is he now?” Loth asked quietly.
“I found him not far from the end of the tunnel,” she said. “It was an amphiptere.”
Loth rested his brow against his clasped hands.
Amphipteres were vicious Draconic creatures without limbs. They had strong jaws, and were said to shake their prey like poppets until they were too weak to run.
“I would have retrieved his remains, but I was attacked the moment I ventured too close. I said the necessary prayers.”
“Thank you.”
“Despite appearances, I am still faithful to the Saint. And he needs us now, Lord Arteloth.” The Donmata placed a hand on his forearm. “Will you do as I ask?”
He swallowed. “What of Lord Kitston?”
“He can remain here, and I will watch over him. Or he can go with you—but he must be afflicted, too.”
Even the Knight of Fellowship would not expect Kit to do this for him. He had already done too much.
“Will Fýredel see through me?” Loth asked.
“No. You will have the usual kind of plague,” she said. “I have tested the theory.”
He elected not to ask how. “Surely there are others in the palace who are loyal to the Saint,” he said. “Why not send one of your own servants?”
“I trust only Priessa, and her disappearance would raise alarm. I would go myself, but I cannot leave my people without a sane Vetalda. Even if I am powerless to save them, I must stay and do what I can to undermine Fýredel.”
He had misjudged the Donmata Marosa. She was a true woman of Virtudom, imprisoned in the shell of a home she must once have loved.
“It is too late for me, my lord,” she said, “but not for Virtudom. What has happened here in Yscalin must not be allowed to happen elsewhere.”
Loth looked away from those fire-opal eyes, to the patron brooch on his doublet. Two hands joined in affinity. The self-same twine of fingers that graced a love-knot ring.
If the Knight of Fellowship were here, Loth knew what she would do.
“If you consent,” the Donmata said, “I will take you back to the Flesh King, and you will lay your hands on him. Then I will show you the way out of Yscalin.” She rose. “If you refuse, I advise you to prepare yourself for a long life in Cárscaro, Lord Arteloth Beck.”
