Prince and the Throne (Fedosian Wars #2)

5. Book of Darkness

five

Book of Darkness

Duke Rodion called a meeting with the prince and his commanders. The negotiation hadn’t included Sofia but that was fine, Aleksei was with Niko, and she spent the day in much needed leisure.

Dominik and Ignat followed her a few paces behind, whispering amongst themselves, as she toured the immensity of the den. The hallways were decorated with the portraits and busts of dead Shields, old satin chairs lining the wall as though they had an assembly long ago and forgot to stow the seats afterward. Ignat remarked that perhaps the ghosts of the ancestors haunted the corridors, and that stayed with Sofia because she was still troubled with the stranger’s behavior last night.

For as long as she could remember, ever since she was a girl, he’d been an ever present thing, lurking in her mind when no one else was around. The Church of Murmia was the first he’d spoken, and last night was the first he’d affected another—other than the slaughter at the church. She wondered if her acknowledging him, speaking to him, was making him more… real. She shook her head, trying to shake off the unease shadowing her, because it wasn’t only the sentinels a few paces behind her.

Ignoring the stranger, she passed through the soldiers’ quarters and looked back when Ignat sniggered. The sentinels were laughing about the soldiers training in the courtyard. One of the castleguards was three times the size of a normal man, and Dominik had joked about the length of his sword, which Sofia only later understood had been a reference to the man’s privates.

They passed by the Chartorisky siblings in the garden, Daniil using alchemy to fix his aunt’s fountain. He nodded greeting her. Zoya sat on the bench braiding her beautiful gold locks—Sofia didn’t exist in her world.

By the time Sofia found the Shield gallery of weapons, the stranger had disappeared because she’d forgotten about him, and that was the key, she thought. She was calling him.

“That’s a lot of fucken steel. How did they use to live in these things?” Ignat bent to read the placard on the watchman’s full darksteel armor on display, red cape and all. “Damn, sixty pounds,” he muttered, and stood on tiptoes to open the visor and peer into the armor. Sofia recalled mistaking them, watchmen, for empty armors in the dark corridors of Raven and a shiver passed through her.

After the queen’s death, the prince had the rest of the watchmen destroyed. Sofia couldn’t say ‘killed’ because that would imply they had been living. They’d died long ago when they redlined, and it was the cruelty of the queen having them serve her still. They were at peace now, their souls finally free of the red madness.

“Being mad helps, I suppose,” Dominik said, referring to the watchmen living in their full steel armor.

“You don’t see these often,” Sofia remarked about a darksteel poleaxe. She’d seen the castleguards at the den carry them, but theirs had wooden shafts whereas this one was made wholly of darksteel.

“It looks heavier than a donkey,” Ignat said, and whistled when he read the placard. “Thirteen pounds. No one carries that much steel.”

From Aleksei, and just by being around many sentinels the past few months, Sofia knew the heaviest weapon a sentinel carried was their shield at ten pounds of darksteel, and they only carried it when they were mounted or expecting battle. Otherwise, it was their sword which was three and a half pounds. Shield alchemy was cheap and the gold a typical sentinel carried on their vambraces would last them a lifetime, because there was no cheating in the weight of the darksteel when they shifted between weapons, three and a half pound sword turned into three and a half pound spear, and they were simply performing basic alchemy—which was also why they were so fast.

A Shield crossbow was a self-depleting weapon that fired parts of itself as steel bolts, twelve shots before it spent itself. Very light, the exact weight of the Shield sword, compared to the fifteen pounds of Guard crossbows, and most sentinels carried the extra weight of the bolts as spare steel or just didn’t use the crossbow because of the self-depleting nature.

Lost in thought, Sofia had been staring at a fencing sword with an intricate guard when she heard Lev’s name and snapped out of the reverie.

Dominik and Ignat were debating Guard alchemy and the cost of it.

“It’s three ounces of pure gold,” Sofia said because they’d been guessing at the cost of Dragon’s Breath.

“Holy shit,” Ignat said. “Alchemy of the wealthy, no doubt.”

“Well, in Guard alchemy, or spells as we call it, you are creating something out of nothing,” said Sofia, “and Dragon’s Breath costs three ounces of gold each time it’s cast.”

“No wonder the archmage had been covered in gold,” Dominik said. “He’d go through it in a single day, huh?”

“Not all debt can be settled with gold,” Sofia said. “Some light master spells require… sacrifice.” The archmage’s impotency came to mind but she didn’t wish to ridicule the dead.

Nothing came free in alchemy, and speaking to the shadow had dire consequences as it appeared. It was the archmage’s death that sent Fedosia on the downward spiral of houses warring, costing thousands of lives, and it was of little consolation to the dead and their families that Sofia hadn’t done it intentionally. Lev didn’t have a father anymore and it began with her. She’d brought darkness into the church and the debt incurred was being settled with lives. No more, she decided. No matter the situation or the temptation, she’d never be courted by darkness again. She was also afraid of making him stronger because he’d scared her last night.

“Looks like the captain’s lash. ” Ignat pointed to a bullwhip. They all knew the serpent like weapon Aleksei’s sword turned into was Durnov animation, but no one ever mentioned his mother.

Sofia didn’t know if the duchess taught Aleksei puppetry or if he’d learned it on his own to spite his father—it didn’t matter. But the weapon was unique to him.

Aleksei had claimed the den was built by the Guards, and Sofia had been noticing the church like architecture of it, but once she saw the library, she didn’t doubt Aleksei anymore. Except for some Elfurian manifestos, the entirety of the two-floor library was volumes of light codices.

Most were books she’d seen in the White Palace or at various churches, but a section of mages’ writings drew her attention. Scrolls, unbound manuscripts, and centuries old parchments stacked in disarray, they were behind a steel lattice as though they’d been imprisoned, and the ‘librarian’ didn’t know where the keys were.

“It’s always been like that,” the thin man bent like a question mark said.

Everything smelled of decades of dust and the two sentinels removed the red cloth from the round table and dusted the velvet chairs before settling onto them with a cup of tea. The ‘librarian’ said nothing as Ignat struck a flint to light his pipe, confirming he wasn’t a librarian or a scribe at all. Bring an uncovered flame into a Guard library, you would lose your head for the offense.

The nostalgia hit Sofia like a punch to the gut, and she waited for the moment to pass. Papa, Auntie, the uptight and frigid servants of the Guard household, the knights who’d lost their lives defending the palace, and even the archmage, she missed. They were her family. Only Lev remained as the legacy of once a great house.

Sofia wrested with the guilt because though she still believed the archmage deserved to die, she couldn’t deny the chaos his death unleashed. He had been a central figure of Fedosia and his absence had left a power void.

“Are you all right, my lady?” Dominik asked.

“Mmm.” Sofia ran her hand along the steel lattice, her fingers turning dirty and grimy from the soot and dust. “Can you open this for me?”

“Of course, my lady.” Dominik came and pried apart the netting with his exoskeleton.

“Just take the whole thing off, Doma,” Ignat said from his seat. “I don’t feel like catching shit from the captain when she cuts her hand on that thing. It’s probably rusted too. The state of this place is a disgrace.”

Dominik pulled the frame out and left it leaning against the wall. “Anything else, my lady?”

“No, thank you.”

Sofia sat on the faded wool carpet and sorted through the documents. A lot of it was written in the language of spells, which she couldn’t read, but it was fascinating still to see the signatures of mages, some even sainted and the name familiar, who’d lived centuries ago. Dusty parchments they might be, but she was touching the history of her family.

While she did that, Ruslan came to join them. He was a sentinel of common birth but fit with the other two like the cups of the same tea set. He brought the design plan of the den and they discussed something Aleksei had tasked them with, Sofia gathered, but she was too engrossed in a scroll she found with the seal of Aleksander the Wise. Why didn’t she know the Guards built the den? How did they lose it to the Shields, and how could the church abandon such precious documents to be lost to neglect?

“Whose seal is on the plan?” Sofia asked in the passing, having tasked herself with arranging the church scrolls by the date.

“Seventh archmage,” said Ruslan. “I don’t see a name, my lady.”

“We don’t refer to an archmage by his given name,” Sofia said, and she couldn’t stop smiling. “But the seventh archmage was later sainted. I believe you heard of him. Saint Neva of White Guard.”

“The prince is in his father’s house, then,” Dominik remarked.

“Someone tell the duke to take his brats and move out,” Ignat said.

“What are you always smoking?” Sofia asked Ignat, returning her attention to the scrolls. “It smells pleasant like herbs and spices.”

“Just cloves, my lady,” Ignat said.

“Not opium?” Sofia asked.

“Ah, no. The red alchemy is already taxing on the mind. We don’t venture into things that make it worse,” Ignat answered. “The occasional glass of wine with a lady or a lord is about it for us. Sometimes potions if we’re off duty, but I’ve seen opium habit waste the mind and the body. That shit is no good.”

“I’ve seen Eugene both drink and indulge in opium on duty,” Sofia said. It’d been a casual observation, and she hadn’t meant any malice by it because she liked Eugene.

“That’s because he’s never on duty,” Ignat scoffed.

“Toothless old dog, that one,” Dominik said.

“But not harmless, though,” Ruslan said. “I bet you both of my balls it was Eugene who poisoned the prince’s ear by whispering Lady Zoya’s business. Nearly got us all killed over some bullshit yesterday.”

“You don’t like Eugene?” Sofia grasped the common theme among sentinels as she turned to the three sitting around a table like a murder of gossiping crows. “And why would he sabotage Aleksei’s plan?”

It had been Aleksei’s idea to betroth Zoya to Niko. The throne needed Chartorisky silver and Zoya wanted to be queen.

“Oh, my lady doesn’t know,” Ignat said. “The old dog has a vendetta against the Chartorisky. He used to be a forger. He ran a group of bandits robbing the Chartorisky and counterfeiting silver coins. Got caught because the House of Silver doesn’t fuck around when you forge treasury coins. Then he sold out his crew to save his skin because he’s a coward, but he now blames the Chartorisky for the deaths of his friends.”

“That may be human skin, my lady,” Dominik said.

Sofia had been holding a leather bound, or so she thought, book and tossed it and wiped her hands on her dress. She shuddered with revulsion. It had felt odd in her hand, but she’d been too invested in the gossip to notice.

Driven by curiosity, Ignat came and picked up the book, then said, “Holy shit, it is human skin.” He flipped through it. “What is this?”

“What does it say?” Ruslan asked.

“Who knows? Spell language.” Ignat held out the book to Sofia, but she shook her head, afraid to touch it.

“Give it.” Dominik gestured, and when Ignat handed him the book, he opened it and squinted at the pages. “To… This one is a symbol for dark, and that one for light… I think this means alchemy…”

“Come on, Doma, everyone can read it like that.” Ignat laughed as he settled back into his chair, lighting his silver pipe again. “Just admit it. You’re not smart enough for it. The only person alive who can read this shit is probably Lev.”

“ If he’s alive,” Ruslan said.

“Did you hear he died?” Ignat asked, to which Ruslan shrugged. “Too bad. That would save us the war, huh?” said Ignat.

“I hope Semyon is well,” Dominik said.

“Why? He pays well or something?” Ignat asked.

“He’s a friend,” was Dominik’s answer.

A servant came to announce they were being called for dinner, and Sofia rose with the sentinels. She’d be back to sort through the books, but as Dominik was putting back the human skin book Sofia asked him to keep it for her. She didn’t want to touch it but was drawn to it. Even if she couldn’t read it, she’d take it because it belonged to the Guards.

Then as they made their way to the dining hall, Ignat warned Dominik not to walk too close to Sofia, and laughed, giving him guff about approaching her in the Shield inn.

“What am I supposed to say? The prince asked,” Dominik said. “You try speaking back to royalty.”

“Eugene has the prince’s ear. He could have said numerous things, including how the captain wouldn’t find it funny,” said Ruslan. “But he speaks only when it benefits him.” He sneered in disgust. “Good thing the captain fell far, far, far from the Burkhard tree. He was one mad fucker.”

“The duke wasn’t mad. He was cruel,” Ignat said. Then the sentinels hushed as though they hadn’t been speaking at all because they’d arrived at the dining hall.