The King's Blood

it will be remarked,” she said. “It’s a very odd time for the wife of a war hero to leave. If I stay, what will I need to be prepared for? Will this come to violence?”
    “It will.”
    Clara let out her breath and closed her eyes. It was something she had done as long as he’d known her. He could remember her as a girl barely come to womanhood lowering her eyelids just so, making her exhalation that was not quite a sigh. Perhaps all those previous moments had been rehearsal for this one. He rose from the bed and took her hand.
    “I have no choice, dear. I’ve seen what is stalking our kingdom. If it isn’t stopped, it won’t be Antea anymore. It may keep the same forms, it may even be made up by the same people, but the kingdom will be gone, and there will be something debased where it was. I will do anything I have to in order to see the nation safe.”
    “All right,” Clara said. “You do that. And I will see to the family.”
    He kissed her gently on the forehead. And then on the lips. And then she pressed him back to the bed, and they forgot the world together for a time.
    T
    he last time Dawson had walked into the darkness of the ruins under Camnipol—the abandoned archways and hall-ways darker than midnight—the huntsman Vincen Coe had been at his side. Going alone now, he found himself missing the young man’s company. He’d been a quiet man, but loyal and fierce. He didn’t understand why Clara had taken her sudden dislike to him. Perhaps in the winter when he returned to Osterling Fells the two would have the chance to mend whatever breach had separated them.
    Rats scurried ahead of his lantern’s light, sharp claws stirring up ancient dust. Once, all this had been the city. These stones had seen daylight and known the voices of street vendors. The rubble Dawson picked his way around had stood as a tall column celebrating some victory now long forgotten. The deeper he went, the more collapse had taken the ruins, and the fewer paths there were to follow. Still, he was fairly sure he knew the way.
    The first glimmer of light, far ahead, filled him with hope and dread both. Hope, because he had found the meeting place he’d sought. Dread for the same reason.
    Four men sat round a fallen slab of granite. Sir Alan Klin, but also Estin Cersillian, Odderd Mastellin, and Mirkus Shoat. A knight, a count, and two earls, pressed down in the darkness. He wondered whether Shoat, Cersillian, and Mastellin had been part of Klin’s conspiracy from the start. Maas might have had other allies Dawson had never uncovered. He sat down on a lump of stone, considering the men who had turned to Asterilhold and against Simeon. A year ago, they had been on opposite sides. Now fortune had united them.
    “I’m pleased to see you were able to gather so many like-minded friends,” Dawson said.
    “This helped, my lord,” Klin said, pushing the execution order across the slab to him. “Some people in court are still close with their families across the border.”
    Dawson picked up the page and folded it into his wallet.
    “What are we going to do?” Shoat asked, his voice high and tight.
    “What needs doing,” a voice said from the shadows. Dawson rose as Lord Bannien, Duke of Estinford, stepped into the light. His face was calm and steady, sandy hair over black eyes. “I took your letters, Kalliam. And I spoke to my son. I have been forced to the same conclusions. Antea has been taken over by foreign sorcerers.”
    “Your son told you, then,” Dawson said. “About what happened at the bridge.”
    “He did,” Lord Bannien said. “And I am with you. But we must move quickly. If word of this comes out, it’s worth all of our lives.”
    “How many men can you bring?” Dawson asked.
    “Twenty that I trust utterly for the event itself. A hundred once the die is cast.”
    Shoat promised seven, Cersillian and Mastellin ten each, and then the full resources of their houses, for another seventy men.
    “I can give twelve for the first attack,” Klin said. “Including myself. But only if we’re agreed that Palliako dies.”
    Dawson looked around the ruined space and nodded.
    “In three days, Palliako will be staging a revel in my name,” Dawson said. “Celebrating the capture of Asteril-hold. I don’t know this, but I suspect that he means to execute King Lechan at that time. The men can gather at my house. If they arrive in my livery and announce themselves as my honor guard, they can come into