Seven Sorcerers(138)

“I already have,” she said.

They kissed then, but he did not remember moving toward her. The kiss was a tender one, but she broke it first and moved away from him.

“Come back with me,” D’zan said. “Cymetha is not fit to be Queen. You are the only one I love. Let me fix my terrible mistake.”

Sharadza shook her head again, and her black curls shuddered.

She dabbed at her eyes with a silken napkin. “Please try to understand,” she said. “I do love you. But I am waiting for Iardu.”

D’zan could not finish the fine meal. Sharadza held him in her arms for a while, and they said nothing. She knew Cymetha was unfaithful, but she chose not to tell me. She took the blame to spare me the reality of my impotency.

Theskalus is not my son.

And I will never produce an heir.

D’zan rose from the table at last and emptied his wine cup. “I came to learn the truth from Iardu, but you have given it to me. I thank you.”

“Wait,” Sharadza said. “Your voyage was long, and your men are weary. Stay here a few days at least. There is room.”

“I cannot,” D’zan said. “The longer I am near to you the more I will want you, and the more I will hate myself for what I did to you. To both of us. Yet I am grateful. You have given me a precious gift today, as you once gave me the gift of life inside this body. I may not have a son to bear my crown, but I still live to sit upon my father’s throne.”

“What will you do?” she asked, one hand on his chest. She meant about Theskalus. Yaskathan tradition did not allow for illegitimate offspring among royal bloodlines. Women and children had been put to death many times over the issue. D’zan knew now how those betrayed Kings of history must have felt. He could not imagine spending another night with Cymetha, or holding Theskalus in his arms ever again. Yet he would have long days of sailing ahead of him. Plenty of time to decide the fate of the liar and her spawn.

My father would have them both killed without another thought.

Trimesqua had been a Warrior King, with a warrior’s ruthless nature.

“I do not know,” D’zan told Sharadza. He did not want her to bear any guilt for the death of a faithless trollop and a bastard child.

I will do what must be done. As all Kings must do.

He left her standing at the top of the sea-stained stairway and rowed back to the ship with a few hours of daylight remaining. Sharadza waved as the Cointosser raised its sail and glided from the cove. Andolon and the crew had not questioned D’zan’s orders for an immediate departure. They saw the look on his face and knew that a King’s worries were not theirs to share.

There were no storms as they left the isle behind. The sorcery that kept ships away from Iardu’s domain must have been configured to assault only approaching ships. Or perhaps Sharadza spread her own magic across the sea to ensure D’zan’s safe departure. He sat in the shuttered cabin and drank Andolon’s wine until he passed out.

Over the next few days the King rarely emerged from his cabin. He refused the company of Andolon, Hammon, and the minstrel. He drank and read the pages of Lyrilan’s book until his eyes grew bleary and his head was too full of wine vapors to continue. The nightmares of marine slaughter returned, but they were distant and blurred now. He was unsure if this was the wine’s effect or the result of his new concerns. The weight of what he must do pressing on his soul before he even gave the order.

Bastards cannot be Kings.

A King must have an heir.

D’zan could not unravel the knot in his mind, and his anger grew like a sickness inside his non-human heart. He shouted visitors away from his cabin door and refused the company of anyone but the guard who brought him fresh bottles of wine. This man visited him often.

Mumbaza came and went upon its bone-bright cliffs.

D’zan was lost in a dark dream of flame and smoke when the shouts of men and clanging metal eventually roused him. The wooden deck rumbled with the thundering of booted feet. The voices of sailors and soldiers mingled into a violent cacophony. The sounds of a battle outside the cabin door were unmistakable, and the scent of burning sails filled D’zan’s nostrils.

Still drunk, his head pounding, D’zan took up his greatsword and staggered out of the door onto the middle deck. Black, ragged shapes rushed about him, driving silver sabres into the bodies of crewmen and dueling with the skilled Yaskathan guards. The main sail had been set ablaze by a half-dozen flaming arrows.

Along the starboard rail of the Cointosser sat a black Khyrein reaver flying a tattered crimson sail without insignia. The free-blood banner of pirates. The immersion into carnage sobered D’zan instantly. Before he could raise his voice to rally the ship’s defenders, a grinning pirate rushed at him with a curved blade raised high.