82: A COUNTERFEIT OF ROYALTY, II
(Teraeth’s story)
Teraeth put his hands on Janel’s waist to keep her from running. Not that he could have stopped her, but it reminded her to stay still. Running would only draw people’s attention, and they might wonder why a vané felt the need.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” Teraeth whispered. “In fact, this makes our job much easier.”
Janel glanced up at him. “And how do you figure that’s true?”
“Look around, my love,” he said, grinning. “Look around.”
Because even more so than before, every eye was on the silver-strewn green tree throne of vané royalty. Since King Kelanis so rarely came to these events, his presence monopolized all conversation. Everyone wondered why he had chosen to attend that night’s festivities or if this had anything to do with the reappearance of Khaeriel. Or if indeed Khaeriel had resurfaced at all. How could it be, when everyone knew she had died?
What people might have saved for quiet whispers in private became open and preferred topics of conversation. And since every eye was on Kelanis, those same eyes were not on Teraeth or Janel.
“So what do we do?”
“Dance,” he said. “Eat. Enjoy ourselves. Stay in the back and wait for the right moment to slip away.” The music started up again, and he picked up her hand. “May I teach you this dance?”
Janel laughed. “Yes, thank you.”
Everything was going well. No one had recognized either Teraeth or Janel. No one had raised any alarms. And eventually, King Kelanis bade his farewells and retired for the evening. Queen Miyane wasn’t done with her dancing and didn’t join him. Which was fine by Teraeth. He wanted Kelanis alone.
When the time came, Janel threw a beautifully staged tantrum that amounted to screaming, “I cannot believe you did this to me!” before flouncing from the ballroom. Teraeth received a lot of sympathetic looks, but no one seemed to find it particularly odd when he followed her. Even if he was following her into the royal wing of the palace.
When he “finally” caught up with Janel, she was waiting by the guards at the door to the royal family’s private chambers. He started to say something and then noticed the guards were just standing there, staring out at nothing, unresponsive. He’d been prepared to use an illusion to get past them or even if necessary knock them unconscious, but they didn’t seem to even be aware that he was there.
“What?”
“Go on,” Janel said, pointing toward the door. “My spell won’t last forever. They’re in a daze right now. Just for a few minutes. When they snap out of it, they won’t realize any time has passed at all.”
Teraeth blinked. “You enchanted them? You know how to enchant? Where did you learn how to do that?”
People often meant many different things when they talked about enchantment, but when they talked about people, they were, generally speaking, talking about some form of mind control.
And controlling minds was hellishly difficult. Then again, so was splitting off parts of a god’s soul, and she’d somehow managed that too.
Janel shrugged. “Go on already. If you need help, you know the signal. I’ll come find you.”
“If I send the signal, go find my father, and you both can come find me.”
She winked at him.
Teraeth opened the door and slipped into the room beyond. If there were any wards, he either triggered them silently or didn’t trigger them at all; there was no time to check.
The royal chambers of the palace were quite large, as one might expect, and they weren’t exactly devoid of people. There were servants, there were soldiers, there were various experts who for one reason or another were expected to be easily available. Teraeth had to silently slide past all of them, unseen, while he searched for the one particular vané he most wanted to find that evening.
After looking in Kelanis’s bedroom, the dining room, and one of the sitting rooms, Teraeth finally found something interesting when he reached the library. He really should have known; King Kelanis was a man who really liked his library.
Except … whatever had been going on there had nothing to do with books.
Besides the graceful sweep of bookcases, the lovingly carved tables, the low comfortable chairs, the many plants and flowers, someone had placed a much-less-comfortable-looking iron chair in the middle of the room. The arms of the chair had been equipped with shackles, now opened. Another set of shackles, joined together by a thick length of chain, lay discarded on the floor.
Teraeth bent down and picked up the restraint. It was still locked. He heard a noise from behind one of the couches.
As he started to investigate, King Kelanis stood from whatever he’d been doing on the ground. “You startled us. We did not hear you enter.”
“Oh?” Teraeth gave himself a bit of a sway as he stood there. “Oh, Your Majesty.” He allowed himself a slow, wide smile. He’d had enough practice to fake “extremely stewed.” “I thought this was one of the bedrooms.”
“They are not here,” Kelanis said, frowning. “Go back to the ballroom. You should not be here.”
Teraeth knew something was wrong. Kelanis wasn’t an idiot. He should have been shouting for all the guards, if not outright attacking Teraeth. And what had he been doing behind the couch? So he kept the charade going for a bit longer.
“But wait—” Teraeth dropped the shackles and shambled toward the king. “I wanted to—I’m almost sure—there was something—”
“Tell us tomorrow,” the king said. “We are busy—”
“Are we? What are we doing? Is it fun?” Teraeth stepped around the side of the couch—
—to where King Kelanis’s corpse lay on the floor in a puddle of blood. A significant chunk of his skull was missing.
There was a moment of stillness. Just a split second, as Teraeth took in the sight, realized what it meant, and knew that everything had just gone terribly wrong.
Then Talon attacked.