Ruler, Rival, Exile (Of Crowns and Glory—Book 7) Read online

  “The Empire will rise,” she told herself.

  It would be true. She would make it true.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  It took Stephania a frustratingly long time to reach the docks. Part of it was that she still had flashes of pain every time she stretched her scars too much, enough that she was forced to stop and sort through the pouches she’d stolen from the healer, looking for herbs to ease the agony of it.

  Part of it was the need to stick to the shadows and the side streets, pressing into every empty space that would hide her as she moved. Delos felt more dangerous now than it had been, and not just because of the way Felldust’s warriors swaggered their way along the streets, looking for trouble in a land that now ran according to Felldust’s rules, where the strongest took what they wanted.

  More of it was because Stephania no longer knew the city the way she had. She’d spent years building up webs of connections and learning the different strands of influence in Delos, but the invasion had ripped that away at a stroke. There would be new power brokers in place now at every level, even down to the meanest of informants. The people Stephania had been able to rely on, from her handmaidens down, were gone; killed, enslaved, or simply forced to flee the city.

  It made for a place where Stephania found herself jumping at every sound, looking deep into every shadow for potential threats. She had a cloak wrapped around her, but that seemed to be normal enough in the city at the moment. The invading warriors hadn’t given up on the ways of their homeland, and a steady rain meant that those out in the streets were mostly huddled against the downpour.

  Except the slaves. Stephania saw those on every corner now. She supposed that she ought to have sympathy for them, but in fact, she mostly found herself despising their weakness in not doing something about their situation. They could have fled the city, or murdered those who sought to control them. In any case, their lives weren’t really that much worse than how they’d been with Lucious wandering around enjoying himself at their expense.

  Stephania’s life had changed utterly, and she intended to do something about it.

  The light was starting to fall as Stephania approached the docks. For ordinary sailors, that would have meant tying their boats off and waiting for the dawn tide, but for the kind of people Stephania was looking for, it probably meant that they were just starting to load their vessels. Stephania might have lost her contacts in the city, but she still knew about smugglers.

  The strange thing about the docks, as far as Stephania was concerned, was how normal they looked, even if it was a very different kind of normality from the one that had prevailed before the fall of the Empire. The signs of the invasion were beginning to disappear, the ravaging and the looting had passed, leaving a city that was getting on with normal life under the control of its new masters.

  That meant traders and fishing boats, goods being loaded and unloaded, loud conversations, drunkenness, and music. The inns along the waterfront were doing a roaring trade as men started to spend whatever they’d stolen, or as sailors swept in from new lands. Stephania could see ships from the islands and the Southlands, and she doubted that they’d come with the invasion fleet.

  No, they’d seen Delos fall, shrugged their shoulders, and decided to trade with its new owners the way they had with its previous ones. Stephania could almost admire the pragmatism of that. It certainly made what she had to do a little easier.

  She picked an inn that had always been home to smugglers and thieves, fishermen who turned to piracy when the weather wasn’t in their favor and the kind of people who just liked to be around danger. Stephania suspected that there were some things that even an invasion wouldn’t change. She hoped not, at least.

  She went into the inn, bought a drink with money she couldn’t really spare, and sat in a corner, listening. It was the kind of inn where a figure sitting with her hood up, not wanting to talk, didn’t attract attention, because no one there wanted attention.

  Men from half a dozen different lands were having a loud conversation in the middle of the taproom floor. Some were obviously drunk, while some were merely working on it steadily. A couple around the edges were a little more sober, though, obviously wanting to keep their wits about them for their evening’s work, whatever it was.

  “The invasion might actually be a good thing,” one of the men said. “There were always things we couldn’t bring into the city under the Empire that we could trade openly in Felldust.”

  “Which was why we used to buy them in Felldust and smuggle them here,” a tattooed man pointed out. “Legal might be good for everyone else, but for us it just drives prices down.”

  “Well, at least the taxes will come down with it. The Empire always charged too much.”

  “And since when did any of us pay taxes?” the tattooed man demanded. “It’s the same thing. Just drives down the need for smugglers.”

  Stephania wondered if all the smugglers in the room were so keen to announce what they were, and mentally wrote off the ones talking as a possibility. She needed careful men who could keep their mouths shut, not talkative drunks.

  She kept listening. The room held plenty of people, and right then, information was the best weapon Stephania could possess. The more she knew, the more she would have at her disposal when the time came to act. At the very least, she’d been unconscious for too long without being able to keep up with the events of the city. This was a chance to catch up.

  So Stephania listened. She listened to talk of the new taxes Irrien was putting in place and the way his men took what they wanted from the poor of the city. She listened to talk of Felldust’s forces heading north, to take on Lord West’s men. She even listened to the petty tales of who was sleeping with whose mistress, and which men had lost too heavily at cards. They were the kinds of things she could use to persuade people, if nothing else.

  When talk turned to the Second Stone, Stephania listened more intently.

  “It’s a dangerous move, taking the First Stone’s seat,” one man said. “If Irrien wants it back…”

  “He won’t,” another said with a shake of his head. “And a fight between them might be closer than you think. Ulren has been storing up his forces for years.”

  A third laughed. “Decades, more like. Ulren was a power in his youth. He even looked the part. Women used to flock to his bed, and their husbands were too scared of him to argue. Now… he hasn’t aged well.”

  “Say what you mean,” the first said. “The only women who come to his bed now are bought in the market for it. He can make himself First Stone if he wants, but it won’t bring back his youth.”

  So the Second Stone was old and ugly. Stephania bit back a little disappointment at that, but the truth was that it didn’t make a difference. Thanos had been the only man she’d truly felt something for, and look how that had turned out. What mattered was that Ulren had the strength and cunning to challenge the First Stone and win, at least with Stephania’s help.

  Maybe it even provided her with an advantage. It would have been hard to stand out before a man surrounded by beautiful women, all vying for his attention, especially given the scars that now marred her abdomen. An old man, though, who believed that he could be of no true interest anymore… Stephania could work with that.

  She would go to Ulren. She would seduce him. More than that, she would offer him more power with which to defeat Irrien. She had whatever contacts were left to her here. She had the legitimacy of having been queen of the Empire, however briefly. She had the knowledge that had come from kneeling by Irrien’s side as less than nothing. It would be enough. It had to be.

  She went to the bar, where an older man was cleaning glasses. The attack on the city didn’t seem to have affected him much.

  “Are these the best smugglers the city has?” Stephania asked.

  He looked at her with obvious suspicion. “And which side are you informing for?”

  Stephania shook her head. She pushed a coin across the bar
. Every one she owned was precious now, but only for what it could do. If this one could buy her the information she needed, it was enough.

  “I don’t like people who talk too much,” Stephania said. She jerked her head at the others in the inn. “That’s why I don’t want to give work to them if I can avoid it. But I do need to go to Felldust. Quietly.”

  The innkeeper paused, then snatched up the coin with the speed of someone used to having them taken back. “Go to the seventh dock. Kang might take you, if you can persuade him.”

  Stephania smiled at the hint of doubt she heard in that. “I can be persuasive.”

  She went down along the docks, watching the smugglers and the night fishers loading their boats at the same time as drunks wandered from inn to inn. She kept away from the worst of them, and flashed a knife at those who wandered too close. Delos was a place that respected the willingness to kill now more than cleverness or subtlety.

  The boat at the seventh dock wasn’t large or spectacular. It was a Southlands barge with a single large oar on one side and a pair of triangular sails. Stephania guessed that part of its appeal to the smuggler who owned it was the fact that it didn’t look like much.

  Kang, it turned out, seemed determined to make up for it through the sheer weight of gold he wore, and the elaborate curls of his oiled beard. He was a dark-skinned southerner, but dressed more like someone from Felldust, in the robes designed to keep out the dust. The beard made him look older at first glance, but he couldn’t have been more than thirty, muscular and fast moving beneath the robes.

  “Kang?” Stephania asked.

  He nodded.

  “When a strange woman approaches my boat,” he said, “it can mean only one of five things: she wants my help, she wants to buy what I have, she wants to sell me what I do not have, or she wants to kill me.”

  “You said five things,” Stephania said. “What’s the last?”

  He looked her up and down. “That perhaps the gods have blessed me more than I thought possible.”

  Stephania decided then that she didn’t like him much even if he was handsome. Still, this wasn’t about who she liked, and she would do far worse than put up with him if it would allow her to take her revenge.

  “I want to go to Felldust,” she said.

  “And who told you I could take you there?” he countered.

  Stephania shook her head. “You’re not a man who appreciates people who give away information they shouldn’t. Which is lucky, because I’m much the same way.”

  Kang nodded. “True. But I also appreciate the truth. Why do you want to go to Felldust? Are you an escaped slave? Are you running from the conflict? I have no time for such things. They bore me.”

  Stephania considered her options for a moment. Finally, she shrugged. “I’m Stephania, the former ruler here. I want to go to Felldust to seduce the Second Stone and persuade him to help me steal back the Empire. I also want him to help me recover my son from the sorcerer Daskalos. Is that interesting enough for you?”

  Stephania found herself wondering if he would call for guards. If so, would she be able to stab him in time? Probably.

  “Interesting, yes, but probably also expensive,” Kang said. “What do you intend to do in return for your passage to Felldust?”

  Stephania moved close to him, laying a hand on his arm. “Whatever you wish. I’m sure we can work something out.”

  She saw him swallow. This might be one of the best smugglers there, but he clearly wasn’t used to such… direct offers. Stephania ignored the small thread of disgust she felt then. She would do what she had to.

  She stepped aboard while Kang continued to load his boat with the assistance of a small crew. She watched Delos with a measure of regret; her plans had been designed to give her the city, to give her Thanos, to leave her happy. Now, it seemed as though the best that she could hope for was a certain kind of satisfaction at killing the First Stone.

  She stood there while the smuggler readied his boat to leave. She stood there while the boat pulled smoothly away from its moorings, watching the city. From here, it looked the same as it always had, the damage from the invasion steadily disappearing under the hands of the slave gangs. Perhaps the city didn’t care who ruled it, or what was done to its people.

  Stephania cared. Oh, not about the wretches who inhabited the place. They got what their weakness earned them. She cared about the damage that had been done to her, and the things that had been stolen from her. She had built such plans, and they had fallen apart under the touches of more brutal hands.

  She felt the smuggler’s hand fall on her shoulder. She turned, forcing herself to smile, moving closer to the man who would take her to Felldust.

  She would do whatever it took to see Irrien dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Behind Irrien, the North burned. It became a thing of flame and smoke, screams and despair in a way that made the First Stone smile tightly. He rode with grim satisfaction toward the next of the castles for his men to assault, while behind him villages smoked in the aftermath of their capture and slave lines stretched out almost as far as the lines of his army.

  The whole conquest had been easy. Too easy, in a lot of ways, although Irrien wasn’t enough of a fool to start wishing for harder victories. The villages they’d passed through had been largely empty, the castles undefended. The peasants he’d tortured for answers had said only that Lord West’s men had come and told them to evacuate.

  Now, his armies were advancing on the stronghold of the dead nobleman, and Irrien expected a more satisfying prize. His war horde spread out around the castle like a puddle of flesh and weaponry, ready to overwhelm it in a wave of violence. His slaves set up his tent out of bowshot, while his engineers prepared stakes to defend the camp from attack from the rear and cut down trees to serve as battering rams.

  “Do you wish to offer them a chance to surrender?” one of his commanders asked.

  Irrien shook his head. “Why should a man ask for what he has the strength to take? Announce to them that from this moment, they are all slaves, and kill any who try to fight us. I want us ready to attack as soon as the men can be drawn up.”

  It took time, even so. Armies did not move quickly, even with the fear of their commander strong. The siege engines drew up into their positions, the climbing parties got out their ladders and their climbing axes, and the battering rams drew up in front of the castle gates.

  Finally, they were ready for Irrien to give the signal. That was power, being able to set so much in motion with a single wave of his hand. He did it, and the army swarmed forward.

  There was an art to sieges. The first attack was designed to catch defenders unaware. After that, there were the night attacks, the digging under walls, the pounding with catapults. If it progressed to starving those within, Irrien would return to Delos and leave his men to do the work. He had a kingdom to run.

  As it was, though, he barely had to wait minutes. The walls should have been swarming with defenders, ready to pour down hot oil and fire arrows into the oncoming horde. Instead, there barely seemed to be a smattering of them. Not enough to push away all the ladders that pressed against the walls. Certainly not enough to force back the battering rams that wheeled their way up to the gates.

  Irrien heard the rhythmic thud of them as they started their work, and he started forward to join those entering the place. He walked forward, drawing his short sword, feeling the battle lust building.

  He reached the gates just as the crack of splintering wood came, and the doors swung open. Irrien charged in with the others, ready to meet those who would try to stop them. A man in armor ran at him, and Irrien stepped aside from his blow, cutting him down. A peasant didn’t get out of the way quickly enough, and Irrien gutted him.

  It was over far too soon to be satisfying. There was no glory in slaughtering a few warriors, seizing a few peasants who had been driven there by his village burning. Irrien buried his blade in the heart of another foe,
then looked around, seeking the army of opponents he had been sure would be there.

  There was none, just a rabble too small to ever hope to fight them. Irrien snatched his weapon back, then marched in the direction of the main hall. Perhaps there would be enemies there. Perhaps there would at least be answers.

  When he got there, Irrien just found a handful of armored men and some servants. Not enough to be even truly worth fighting. He’d come there expecting some great conflict, and instead, he’d found a pitiful absence of opponents. He could have taken this land by sending a quarter of the men he’d brought.

  “Submit or die,” Irrien said.

  One of the men stepped forward. “I am Sir Hurok. I command here. I wish to offer a challenge to your leader for single combat!”

  Irrien smiled at that. “And if you win, then we are all to go home?”

  “Of course!” the puffed up warrior replied. “Honor would demand no less.”

  Irrien leaned on his sword for a moment, as if considering it. “Tell me, Sir Hurok, why are there so few people here?”

  The other man drew himself up. “They are safe from you on the island of Haylon, called by the girl with the Ancient Ones’ powers! I was a fool not to go with them, but you will not win against them. And I will stop—”

  Irrien swept up his sword and thrust in one movement, driving it through the other man’s throat. That was the problem with people like this: they thought far too much about honor and far too little about killing their enemies. Still, at least the fool had told him one useful thing. A girl with the powers of the Ancient Ones… he needed to think about this.

  Irrien turned abruptly, stalking from the hall. His men made way behind him, but several shot him questioning looks. One asked what they were presumably all thinking.