The King's Blood

the stars above them like the reflections on still water. The Kingspire, the Division, the mansions of the highborn and the hovels of the low. All of it would be his to command. To control. He would be protector of the realm, of Antea, of the boy Aster. He would be regent, and so in practice, he would be king, and Antea would answer to his will.
    He didn’t hear Basrahip come out, not because the big priest was being quiet, but because Geder’s mind was only halfway in his body. The other half pulled between euphoria and panic.
    “Prince Geder?”
    The wide face was concerned. Geder sat on the steps. The stone still held some of the day’s heat. Basrahip gathered up the hem of his robes and sat at Geder’s side. For a long moment, the two men sat silently, like children tired at the end of the day looking out into a back alley.
    “The king’s going to die,” Geder said. “And I’m going to take his place.”
    The priest’s smile was serene.
    “The goddess favors you,” he said. “This is how the world is for those who have her blessing.”
    Geder turned back. The breeze passed ripples through the dark banner, and a passing dread touched him.
    “She’s not… I mean, the goddess isn’t killing the king for me? Is she?”
    Basrahip laughed low and warm.
    “This is not her way. The world is made from little lives and little deaths because she wills it this way. No, she does not make the waves, she only puts her chosen in the place where they are borne always up by them. She is subtle and she is sure.”
    “All right. Good. I just wouldn’t want Aster to lose his father in order for things to go well for me.” Geder lay back, resting his spine against the steps. “I’m going to have to tell him. I don’t know how to do that. How do you tell a boy that his father’s dying?”
    “Gently,” Basrahip said.
    “And the ambassador from Asterilhold? The one who wanted me to talk the king into a private audience? Now it looks as if I’m going to be the one taking that audience.”
    “I will be with you,” Basrahip said.
    “The king told me what he wants, though, so at least I know what I’m supposed to do. With that one. And there’ll be people who help me. The regent has advisors just like the king. It won’t be like Vanai where everyone wanted me to fail,” Geder said. A fragment of dream slipped up from the back of his mind. The flames of Vanai danced before him again, silhouetting a single, desperate figure. The voice of the fire roared, and Geder felt the guilt and horror freshly for a moment before he locked it away again. He was the hero of Antea. What happened in Vanai was a good thing. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger. “It won’t be like Vanai.”
    “As you say.”
    Geder chuckled.
    “Alan Klin’s going to shit himself when he hears,” he said with a grin.
    “What are you supposed to do?” Basrahip asked.
    “Hmm?”
    “The ambassador.”
    “Oh. Simeon wants me to keep Aster safe and make peace with King Lechan. I told him I would.”
    “Ah,” Basrahip said. And a moment later, “And when you cannot do both, which will you choose?”

Marcus
     
    F
    rom the fall of dragons to the days still to come, all things human were made and determined by structures made by something greater and crueler. The great monuments were perhaps the least important. The unreachable tower at the center of Lake Esasmadde, the Grave of Dragons in Carse, the Empty Keep. They could inspire fear or awe, they could call forth a sense of mystery, but the greater power lay in the prosaic. The dragon’s roads crossed the nations, and where they met, cities grew, fed by the traffic and advantage that good roads brought. The thirteen races were also constrained by the will of the great masters who had first created them. The Cinnae were thin and pale, unsuited for battle, and so confined themselves to the well-defended hills and valleys of Princip C’Annaldé. Tralgu and Jasuru and Yemmu, bred for violence and formed for war, found their homes in the Keshet where the plains gave no natural barrier against invaders and whatever war won in a given season proved impossible to defend in the next. Where the landscape called for war, the races most suited to war prospered. Where it allowed shelter from violence, those in need of shelter came. The mark of the dragons had been on the world from the beginning of history, and would be until the end of all things.
    The mark was there, but it was not