Ravenna?”
Maximilian moved through the Land of Dreams carefully. He walked down a damp gravel path. To either side of him were mist-shrouded marshes, studded with gray-green trees draped in moss that reached twiggy fingers through the tendrils of mist to tweak at Maximilian’s hair as he passed.
“Ravenna?”
He wondered if the Lord of Dreams was about, but he couldn’t sense him. No doubt he’d want to avoid Ravenna.
“Ravenna.”
She appeared ten or so paces before him on the path, emerging slowly from the mist as if she glided on ice.
“Maxel.” She halted, and Maximilian thought she looked weary and low of spirit.
“What do you want of me, Ravenna?”
“You must know. I want you to acknowledge this baby as your heir. No, wait, please. Let me finish. This is your son, Maxel. Your heir. Elcho Falling knows it, why can’t you acknowledge it?”
He didn’t answer her.
She sighed, moving her shoulders as if trying to loosen them from tension. “Maxel, the only dispute between us is Ishbel. I have said enough to you that you know how I feel. Ishbel will murder you and this land. And know you know why. Isaiah has sent word to you that—”
“You know that?”
“Yes. Lister could overhear the communication between Axis and StarHeaven.”
Maximilian’s face tightened, and he looked away from her.
Ravenna took a half step toward him. “Ishbel will murder this land if you put that ring on her—”
“Ishbel won’t, you fool! It is the One who carries destruction at his heels!”
“I know you love her, Maxel, but you need to rid yourself of Ishbel in order to save Elcho Falling, and to save the land. You can allow neither to fall to the bleakness that approaches.”
“Ravenna, all you want is power, and you use any argument you can to seize it.”
“It is not power, my love, but you that I want. I love you, I am here, ready at your hand, for whatever you want. I have waged war for you, Maxel. All for you. Do not cast me off again.”
“I am tired of this, Ravenna. Too tired. If there is nothing else you want save but to slander Ishbel, then go.”
“Do not put the ring to her finger, Maxel. Your very life depends on that.”
“It is too late, Ravenna. I slid that ring to her finger the night before last.”
Ravenna went white, her gray eyes glistening madly. “No! Tell me you did not—”
“I have made my choice, my lady. Ishbel is my choice, and my wife. I choose her before you, and in defiance of the One.”
“No!”
“Too late,” said a new voice, and Armat stepped out of the mist at the side of the path, and, as Maximilian started back in alarm, brought down his sword in a murderous arc, slicing Maximilian open from chest to groin.
There was a sudden, horrifying spurt of blood, and then Maximilian vanished from the Land of Dreams.
Armat rested the sword on the ground, staring at the pool of blood on the pathway.
“I needed a second stroke,” he said.
“It does not matter,” Ravenna said, her voice and face wooden. “That was a death blow. If not in the first instant, within the next ten minutes.”
Then she turned and walked back down the path, leaving Armat leaning on his sword, staring at the blood soaking into the gravel.
Axis was sitting in a chair in one of the bedchambers that ran off the main command chamber. He watched Maximilian insensible in his own chair partway across the room. Ishbel sat close to him; Egalion and Garth stood further back in the chamber.
Everyone’s eyes were on Maximilian.
He’d been largely still as he traveled the Land of Dreams, although Axis had seen the muscles in Maximilian’s face tighten and clench as if he spoke, or reacted to something said to him.
Everyone was tense, no one wanting Maximilian exposed to this danger.
Then, in an instant so horrific that Axis knew he’d never forget it, Maximilian’s body exploded. Blood and tissue erupted in a great arc from the front of his body, and he jerked out of the chair and slid to the floor.
For an instant everyone looked, then, as Garth, Axis, and Egalion all made for Maximilian, Ishbel turned on them.
“Garth stays,” she snapped. “Everyone else out. Now!”
They obeyed her.
There was nothing else to be done.
Both Axis and Egalion had enough experience to know a death blow when they saw one.