Patient as he was, Coriano was growing bored. Also, there was something in the air here. Maybe it was being so deep in the earth, close to the great, sleeping spirits on which the world rested, but the room felt thick with dormant energy. It made him uncomfortable, and the sooner he got out to cleaner, younger air, the better he would feel. After another minute of watching Renaud watch the pillar, Coriano decided it was time to make himself known.
He stepped forward, deliberately scraping his boots against the smooth, dusty floor. Renaud stiffened and whirled around, holding his torch aloft. When he saw Coriano, his eyes narrowed. “You.”
Coriano leaned against a heavy trunk that skirted the edge of the empty space around the pillar and gave the new king a dry smile. “Me.”
Renaud’s scowl grew more menacing. “How did you get in here? Why have you come back?”
“How I got here isn’t important, because I could do it twenty times again, each time a different way.” Coriano’s voice was dry as the air. He picked up a small gold lion from the case beside him and examined it with bored interest. “As for the why, I wasn’t aware our bargain was complete. You got what you wanted, but I seem to have come up short.”
“You must be mistaken.” Renaud smiled politely. “I paid you before we left.”
“The money is incidental,” Coriano said, putting the lion down again. “I mean our real bargain.”
“Our agreement was that you would take care of the swordsman if I prevented Eli’s interference, which I did,” Renaud said. “If anything, I should be the one complaining. I gave you Josef Liechten on a platter. You were the one who decided to run away.”
“I would hardly call a three-minute fight in a dust storm followed by the release of a mad spirit ‘on a platter,’ ” Coriano said, sneering. “But I wasn’t the only one who let his quarry escape, was I?”
Renaud stiffened. “If you’re talking about my brother—”
“Your brother?” Coriano shook his head. “No, no, I’m sure you’ve got that quite under control. I’m talking about Eli.”
“Eli?” Renaud started to laugh. “You think I’m worried about that hack thief? The one who trades favors with dirt spirits? For all his posturing, he ran at the first sign of trouble. I’m only sorry I bothered to put any gold in the chest at all.”
Coriano wasn’t laughing. “You’ve been planning this for a long time, Renaud. You watched for weakness and jumped with both feet when you saw your chance. I respect that, so let me give you some advice. Eli didn’t get to where he is now by being a fool, and he didn’t get there by letting ambitious idiots like you cheat him.”
Renaud’s face grew murderous in the torchlight. “Such praise.” He spat the words, “If I didn’t know better, I would think he was your real target, not the swordsman.”
“Eli is the one who makes Josef Liechten difficult to pin,” Coriano said, laying his hand on his sword. “Only a stupid man doesn’t respect his opponent’s strengths, and if there’s one thing Eli is good at, it’s never showing up when you want him and always showing up when you don’t.”
“Sounds like someone else I know,” Renaud said.
“Really?” Coriano’s mouth twitched. “Then consider what I’m about to say very carefully. I was able to sneak into the castle, past all your guards, right into your treasury, where I waited twenty minutes for you to notice me. Had I struck at any point, you would have been dead before you felt the blow, and all this treasure would be mine.” He slammed his hand down on the cabinet beside him and the resounding crack echoed through the cavern. “If I could do all this,” he said in the silence that followed, “Eli could do it. Only he could do it faster, quieter, and with more backup. So think very hard before you dismiss either of us, Your Majesty. Because in this entire kingdom, I’m the only one who can protect you from what you started the moment you decided to cheat Eli Monpress.”
“You,” Renaud said, scowling, “protect me? What would you do, sneak up behind him and make a speech? That seems to be your only real talent—”
The last t of “talent” had barely left his lips before something sharp and unbearably cold crushed into his neck. Renaud hadn’t even seen the swordsman move, but all at once Coriano was right on top of him, pressing the bare white blade of his sword against the king’s throat. The torch clattered to the ground as Renaud gasped for air. He flung open his spirit and desperately swung his will against the blade’s edge, trying to overpower the metal’s spirit, but the sword was like a glacier against his throat, and no matter how hard he fought, it would not move.