31: SAELEN

Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since Darzin D’Mon made a bad bet

Ninavis slammed her hand on the bar. “Damn it!”

Dorna rolled her eyes. “Oh, quit your whining. So you sexed up the God of Destruction. So what? At least you had fun.” She pointed a bony finger at the woman. “Seems to me you got off light compared to the rest of us.”

Ninavis’s expression turned to a scowl. “Right.” She grimaced. “Right.”

Kihrin looked at the group. “It’s about to get worse, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes,” Qown said and began to read.

Qown’s Turn. The tournament grounds, the Green, Atrine, Jorat, Yor.

Brother Qown gripped the wood railing so hard he drove splinters under his fingernails. Everything seemed to slow down. He heard Mare Dorna’s shuddering gasps and, a long way away, Arasgon’s furious screaming. The crowd booed their displeasure at the outcome, but no one stopped Relos Var from leaving. No one rushed forward to pick up the count, whose blood made a small, neat pool on the ground.

He’d won; she’d lost.

He was strong; she was weak.

Winners were right; losers were wrong.

Innocent; guilty.

Brother Qown felt hands on his shoulders as the guards stopped him from leaping down into the tournament ring.

“No,” Brother Qown said, “I can help her!”

“Patience, priest,” Senera said. “She doesn’t need your help.”

Her calm, pleasant tone stopped him. Brother Qown turned back to Senera. “She’s dying down there, but you don’t care, do you?”

“I care a great deal,” she said. “And don’t worry. Hurting you and Dorna isn’t part of the plan, no matter what that idiot Oreth thinks.”

“Why not? Why would you treat us any differently here from how you did at Mereina?”

Her gaze tightened. “Be grateful I’m treating you differently.”

“Ah, foal. How long have you known you’re on the wrong side?”

Senera whipped her head around and stared at Mare Dorna. The old woman’s expression looked grim as tears slipped down her face, but she held her chin up, defiant. She met the younger woman’s eyes without flinching.

Seconds passed.

“I’m not on the wrong side,”¹ Senera said. She motioned, and the guards pulled Mare Dorna and Brother Qown to their feet. “There’s no point waiting around.”

The guards escorted them back to the staging grounds.

---

“There has to be something—”

Mare Dorna shook her head. “Shush.”

Brother Qown shut his eyes and tried to slow his racing heart. The whole way back from the tournament grounds he’d tried to plan any kind of escape. But he couldn’t think past the numb pain. Had Janel challenged Relos Var to a duel? The reverse? Had Duke Xun forced this, to determine who was guilty?

Count Janel was dead.

Wasn’t she?

A guard nudged him as Brother Qown slowed, forcing his thoughts toward more immediate concerns. His own safety, for one thing. They needed to escape; he couldn’t imagine how they were more useful to Senera and Sir Oreth alive than dead.

Unfortunately, his own magical talents had always been subtle. He’d never had much talent for the destructive arts.²

Instead of returning to the Stavira azhock, the guards took them behind the main stands, to the “backstage” areas of the tournament not meant for the public.

Of course. Senera had said she wished to collect Janel’s body.

The guards asked a few questions. Directions were given. Brother Qown saw a pair of grooms carrying a body wrapped in tournament flags.

Senera burst into tears and began waving for the grooms to wait.

As she did, Brother Qown felt a guard pull him close, pressing a dagger against his ribs. The message seemed clear enough: Don’t make trouble. The grim expression on Mare Dorna’s face suggested a similar experience.

A groom paused. “Uh … can I help you?”

“My count!” Senera wailed.

Brother Qown couldn’t help but notice she knew enough Karo to use the correct pronouns.

“We, uh—” The two grooms looked at each other. “We’re taking the body to the Blue House.”

She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “Her fiancé, Sir Oreth, asked me to collect her. I can’t believe this has happened.” She pulled herself up, gathering her dignity around her. “We’ll take her.”

He had hoped the grooms would be suspicious. But rather than question her unorthodox request, they seemed glad to pass along responsibility. They gave each other a significant glance and then motioned for Senera’s guards to take the body. The guards assigned to Brother Qown and Mare Dorna kept them under the knife, while others collected the stretcher.

Brother Qown almost didn’t notice the archers at the sidelines. They’d all quieted as the procession passed.

One of those archers was Ninavis. She made eye contact with Brother Qown and gave him a single nod before continuing her low conversation with the other archers.

Brother Qown forced himself not to make a sign of thanks to his god.

“What are you going to do with us?” Brother Qown asked Senera. “We’re no threat to you.”

“Oh, now let’s not be liars to each other,” Senera said, looking back. “But don’t worry. I have no plans to hurt you. We’re just taking a little trip. Someplace far from here where I don’t have to worry about you talking to the wrong people.”

“And why do I get the feeling I ain’t dressed near warm enough for this little getaway?” Dorna muttered under her breath.

Senera’s smile broadened for a moment.³

Brother Qown kept an eye open for any sign of the others—Sir Baramon, Ninavis, the Red Spears. If they were near, they hid very well.

For her part, Senera didn’t try to hide. Like Janel, she’d mastered the art of being a queen in her own kingdom. Her posture screamed idorrá,⁴ suggested everyone should stay out of her way.

Mostly, they did.

Brother Qown found himself back in the Stavira compound, in the azhock where Senera had met with Sir Oreth. Guards pushed Brother Qown and Mare Dorna into chairs, while the other guards placed Count Janel’s body on a large table.

Senera removed the tournament flag covering the count’s body.

Mare Dorna made a strangled sound and looked away.

Brother Qown almost did likewise, but his professional training took over. Janel had suffered a nasty penetrating injury, running through her torso just underneath the sternum. On anyone else, Qown would have assumed the wound fatal.

But this was Janel. Qown knew her metabolism slowed when she “slept” to the point where she seemed dead to the uninitiated. Could she still be alive?

The tent flap flew back as Sir Oreth entered. He took one step inside and stopped, staring at Janel’s body with an unreadable expression.

Senera frowned at the Joratese knight. “Don’t tell me you loved her.”

“Is she dead?”

“That question doesn’t mean what you think it does,” Senera replied. “In any event, we need to leave, before the wrong people ask the right questions.”

Sir Oreth scowled. “My father will take this personally.”

“Of course he will. What happened today was an insult to his honor. What you can’t protect, you forfeit the right to rule. Isn’t that how it works here?” She smiled at Sir Oreth.

Sir Oreth’s expression turned ugly. “She wasn’t supposed to die.”

“Life is unfair.”

Another man entered the tent then, looking harried. The plump, well-dressed man looked more Kirpisari than Joratese.

“Kovinglass, what is it?”

“Your father is coming this way,” Kovinglass said. “And the duke with him.”

“That didn’t take long,” Senera said. She looked at Kovinglass with pursed lips. “I’ll need you to provide us with an exit.”

“Absolutely not. I can’t just—” Something made him gasp, and the air seemed to catch in Kovinglass’s throat. He grimaced in pain.

“Hurry, sorcerer,” Senera said. She’d her hand raised toward him, and although Brother Qown couldn’t see any obvious spellcasting, he knew magic must be involved. “We haven’t much time.”

She lowered her hand, and Kovinglass seemed to deflate. He caught himself before he fell and, gasping, nodded.

Sir Oreth’s gaze shifted to Brother Qown and then to Mare Dorna. A hateful expression settled there.

Mare Dorna winked at him.

“I’m never going to be able to explain this to my father,” Sir Oreth said.

“If we leave now, you won’t have to,” Senera said. She gave Kovinglass a significant and menacing look. “Do you not understand what hurry means?”

“You don’t tell me what to do, woman,” Kovinglass snapped. Perhaps he had convinced himself whatever spell Senera had cast, just moments before, had been a fluke. Or perhaps his pride wouldn’t let him admit he couldn’t open a gate without a Gatestone.

The soldiers stepped toward him.

As they did, Sir Oreth drew his sword. Instead of moving toward the soldiers, Oreth did something else.

He stabbed Dorna.

The old woman looked at him with dull-eyed shock before sliding off his sword in an untidy little heap on the floor. Brother Qown cried out, but no one paid attention to him, and his outrage had little impact on the outcome. He tried to run to Mare Dorna, but his guards held him back.

Senera’s expression tightened. “Why?” she asked Sir Oreth.

“She knew my father,” he spat out. “Had some leverage on him. I think blackmail, but I could never be sure. In any event, he’d believe whatever lies she fed him.”

Brother Qown tried to center his feelings, tried to slide his vision past the Veil. Impossible. He barely stopped himself from sobbing. He saw the light fade from Dorna’s stare, and unlike Janel, he had no reason to assume Mare Dorna faked her death.

Senera stared a moment at Dorna’s body, her expression unreadable, then she snapped her fingers. “Negrach, Molash, carry the count’s body. Pragaos, take the priest. Kovinglass, why isn’t that gate open?”

Even as Kovinglass attempted to open a magical portal, a quick slicing sound filled the air. A long panel of tent fabric fluttered down.

A split second later, an arrow took Kovinglass through the throat.

The soldiers spread out. Some had shields, but they didn’t know who had fired the shot.

Brother Qown, familiar with Ninavis’s archery skills, had a better idea, but he saw no reason to educate them. As a soldier grabbed him by the elbow, Qown faked a stumble and fell, using his weight to throw both himself and the guard off balance.

Arrows penetrated both azhock and Yoran bodies in equal proportions. Qown heard shouts and the sound of fighting.

“If you want to do something right…,” Senera muttered.

Brother Qown had the terrified thought Senera might have more blue smoke.

But no. She’d opened her own gate to replace Kovinglass’s failed portal. Several azhock walls had fallen by this point, so she’d also done it in full view of a great many Joratese. Whether she’d be considered Blood of Joras or not, she’d just given a lot of credence to Janel’s story.

As Brother Qown stood, a soldier saw him and swung his sword. A passing swing, much like swatting a bug. Qown heard his agolé rip; the sword edge parted skin. He fell backward, in agonizing pain, bleeding.

Another soldier grabbed him. He felt himself hoisted up onto a shoulder.

Senera ushered her men through the portal, including the ones carrying Janel’s body. “Well?” she said to Sir Oreth. “Are you coming or not?”

Sir Oreth scowled at her, but a shout from outside the tent made him leap through the portal. The soldiers followed with Brother Qown. Finally, Senera retreated with her puppy, closing the gate behind her.

By the time the Markreev, the duke, and a band that included Ninavis and Sir Baramon entered the tent, it was empty.

Or rather, it was empty, save for the corpses of several guards, one Gatekeeper, and a single old woman.⁵