Ch. 34

As soon as Roth stepped foot back inside the oppressive confines of the King's palace, he felt the ghosts wrap their hands around his throat and press their thumbs into his windpipe.

He had walked these hallways since his time as Special Commander—often summoned by Ban-Keren for some unimportant undertaking which he could have just conveyed to Roth via one of his many servants—but each time it filled him with dread. Although he was now in charge of the Library and not the Elite Guard, the King still liked to keep him on a leash he could yank every now and then to remind Roth who was his master.

Roth had carried Eva's body along this very passageway, not over his shoulder, as would have been customary for a slain enemy of the King, but in his arms, so he could hold her against his chest in the hope that her journey into the dark came with some small sense of comfort. She had deserved more than to be treated like wasted flesh and bones. Like the carcass of some ruined animal no longer fit for purpose. If the King had noticed anything, he'd never shown it, but Dageor's ever-watchful gaze missed nothing. And Roth had lived under the priest's shadow ever since.

The dread he felt this time, however, was a different beast altogether.

This dread was one of fear and of a grief that caged his heart in woe, almost as if Juda was lost to him already.

Roth wanted to remain hopeful. After all, so far, fortune appeared to have been on their side. They had placed Juda exactly where they had planned for him to be. In fact, if fortune was something in which to put their faith, he had fared far better than Roth had ever dared to imagine he would. Of course, ask Juda of this, and he would say fortune was reserved for the fucking foolish and the hopeless dreamers, and he was neither of those.

But that was Juda. Arrogant to the last. It had never been hope that had kept Juda's plan alive, but belief in himself and a belief that Aleina stood beside him always, a permanent light on the dark seas.

Roth hoped he was right about that, but then again, Roth had lived with hope before The Order, and he had lived with it after. Sometimes, on dark and desperate moontides when the bottle was always within reach, Roth wondered what Aleina thought of him now, this man who had taken the most precious beat of her heart and thrown him to the wolves. No, not thrown him—made him become one.

He'd never forced Juda to do any of this, had never commanded him to join The Order, but even Roth knew he could have deterred the boy from following him on this path to vengeance. He could have sent him away—should have sent him away—to study at the Drasany Academy in Dreynia, or even to the Salt Templars of Carraterra. He'd have had to trade half of what he owned to get the Salters to take the boy, and he'd never have seen him again, but rather that than lose Aleina's son to this madness.

"Ah, Special Commander..." came Dageor's voice, cutting through the dread and leaving Roth with something distinctly unpleasant writhing in the base of his stomach.

Roth halted abruptly, as did the two Elite Guards at his back.

Dageor appeared at his side, seemingly as if he'd just separated himself from the shadows.

Roth gave a stiff bow of his head. "By Ban-Keren, my Lord Dageor."

"By Ban-Keren..." Dageor's smile was blade-thin and just as sharp. "My sincerest apologies, my noble Vi-Garran, it seems I must once again remind myself to address you in the proper manner."

They both nodded, a polite, almost imperceptive incline of the head while their gaze never broke from the other's. Their civility was a sham. Both knew it. But Roth knew better than to be anything but civil, even when all he wished to do was push his dagger through the priest's throat and watch the blood pour from his gaping mouth.

"I must say, I am most thrilled that you would attend the trial today, despite your...misgivings."

Thrilled. Roth knew exactly what that meant. There was nothing the High Priest of Druvari enjoyed more than the torment of another. If their civility was a sham, then so too was Dageor's piety. Roth knew only too well what lay behind the dark priest's masquerade of reverence and virtue, and it was a devotion not to Druvaria's new god, but to his own lust for power and depravity, his sadistic desire for pain and suffering. Then had been none who had enjoyed the massacre of the Naiad more than he. Not even the King who would benefit from the power their blood gifted him.

"To join the King's Elite Guard is a mighty honour, my Lord," he said, repeating what he had said to Elara and believing in that no more now than he had then. "There are none who understand that more than I do. And it would be my honour to witness my ward achieve the same, just as my own father did before me."

"Ah, yes," Dageor said, steepling his fingers, his expression irritatingly beatific. "But of course, you did not undertake the Trial of Sin-Sabre yourself, my noble friend. I wonder, would you have passed such a test?"

Roth met the priest's forced smile with one of his own. Would he have passed? At the beginning, maybe, for he had accepted his love for Aleina was never to be, but at the end? The Trial would have taken all that hatred and poison his body had come to house for the King and spewed it out onto the throne room's floor for all to see. There would have been no hiding it.

No, Roth knew with absolute certainty he would not have passed the trial then, which was why he struggled to hold onto hope now, when Juda—who despised the King, and all noble-borns with a quiet ferocity that sometimes unnerved even his own guardian—was about to undertake the very same test of will and devotion.

"It is a better man than you and I who could pass, my Lord Dageor," he said.

'Indeed, it is." The glint in Dageor's eyes took on a cold edge. "Let us pray for the King's sake, that your ward is that better man."

"Of that, I have no doubt."

"I am gladdened to hear it." The priest gripped Roth's arm, and it was all Roth could do not to flinch under his touch. "Then let us begin. We have a long and gruelling tide ahead of us, my old friend."

***

The King's throne room, while at one time privy to state functions, royal betrothals, and still the place to which the nobles would come to pay homage to their King, was also the place where dissenters were condemned by the crown, and where blood had run freely more times than Roth could count.

The servants could scrub the mosaic floor until their own hands bled, but they would never fully eradicate the stain of what had happened here all those moons before. In fact, Roth was sure if he inhaled deep enough, he would smell the stench of death, as strongly as he felt the presence of the Naiad ghosts that still lingered here.

He himself had stood by the King's side, ready to protect him, if necessary, by any means necessary, and yet here he stood again, unable to protect the one thing he cared about that still lived on this accursed black rock.

There were times when he even wished he could still be that man, the one who had stood here with his hand on his scimitar and sword, the one whose heart was numb to everything. Whose eyes could witness unfathomable horror and appear unmoved.

He certainly wished he could appear unmoved now, and he knew he had to—if he and Juda were to see this through until the very end. For if he didn't, if he couldn't manage that one thing, then all would be lost, and he would lose the boy anyway, and it would be for nothing and that was something Roth could not bear to think of.

The chamber was lit all around with the black candles favoured by the Druvari. They gave off a sickly, sweet odour that cloyed the nostrils and left a bitter aftertaste on the tongue, but Roth preferred that to the tang of blood, even if he knew Dageor used them for dramatic effect, the theatrical bastard that he was. He would swear on his own mother's memory, that Dageor lived to perform, especially when the priest knew the performance would lead to somebody else's agony.

Druvari priests stood in a semi-circle in front of the throne and on all sides, the warriors of the Elite Guard itself—many of whom Roth himself had trained and elevated to the position in which they now held—bordered the chamber, alert, ready, and yet to all onlookers, like obsidian statues as unmovable as Druvarian stone.

Upon the floor, a circle had been drawn with egyis, the serpent bone powder revered by the Druvari for the heady smoke it gave off when aflame, something said to evoke religious visions in the truly devout. Today, it was merely a symbol. A sign of tradition. After all, this ancient ritual had been devised by one of their own priests, and it had only been stopped on the insistence of King Elvin, who himself had taken counsel from Alterus Vi-Garran, Roth's father. It should have come as no surprise that the likes of Dageor would reinstate the trial, but even Roth had been shaken by the priest's announcement that tide in his study.

The grand door on the far side of the throne room opened, the one through which monarchs and regal ambassadors had walked and through which now marched four more Elites, with Juda in the centre, keeping perfectly in time with their steps.

His braids had been removed, and his hair now hung loose, a look that Roth had not seen since he was but twelve moons, a wild unkempt creature with a furious face and untamed knife skills. Stripped to the waist and barefooted, he wore only his britches. No armour. No leathers. Only the slash of Batak oil across his face marked him as a novice of the Serpent Order and yet Roth still saw in Juda the Highguard he had trained so hard to become, and he was all at once bolstered and yet saddened to see it. He was glad that Juda displayed no signs of faltering now, but to see him like this, stripped back to the bare minimum and yet still looking every inch the cold, black-hearted servant warrior of the King, Roth couldn't help but wonder if hope really had perished on the tide that Eva Victori had taken her last breath.

The witch's face crept into his mind then—not the one he had known, but her daughter, the one who had looked at him with as much fierceness and pride as her mother, perhaps even more so. Dare he allow the existence of Elara to raise his hopes once more?

Tell him what you wish, if you think it will help, butcher. But tell him also that I think he's a fucking dutzal for even considering this and that it appears my initial appraisal of him was correct after all.

The girl was more like her mother than she realised. Cutting. Smart. So fucking bold.

Tell him if he triumphs, which I sorely doubt, for he really isn't as wonderful as he thinks he is, despite what Clova Dell's girls say, then I will see him again. If fortune chooses to favour him so.

Roth could only hope now that it did, but what was hope in a place like this? It seemed as pointless as the light from the candles, which only served to thicken the shadows that clustered like ghouls in every corner of the room.

Juda walked freely into the egysis circle and lay down, his arms and legs outstretched as the four Elites who had escorted him shackled his wrists and ankles to iron rings bolted to the floor. From there, the four of them stepped back, but remained close to the border of the circle and Roth knew only too well that if, by some miracle, Juda was to escape from his chains, or refuse to proceed with the trial, their justice would be swift, merciless, and bloody.

The Druvari priests in front of the throne began to move, walking in a slow and steady gait until they surrounded the circle and Juda, completely, although leaving wide enough gaps for Roth to see his ward where he lay, his chest now visibly rising and falling.

The throne room was deathly quiet. There was to be no chanting. No song. No incantation. All Roth could hear was the soft occasional crackle of candle flame and the sound of Juda's shallow breaths.

Through the grand door came another line of priests and Roth was all at once alarmed to see how many of them there were. How had he not known the Druvari had increased in number so? While he had been aware of their rise in power, particularly since Aldolus had claimed the throne, he'd had no idea just how impressive their ranks were now, and this newfound knowledge disturbed him greatly. What's more, he noticed—for he had spent enough moons training the best of Druvaria's sons to become fearsome warriors—was how much like soldiers they looked.

Just what had Dageor been doing? This was not the Druvari sect Roth had always known and despised. This was something else. Did Druvaria now have two armies? And for what reason?

He was only just digesting this when this second line of priests reached the circle, the final Druvari breaking through to place a sturdy wooden chest on the floor. There were small holes carved into the side of the box, and coming from within, Roth heard the distinct sound of movement. A rasping noise, as if something shifted and stirred against the inside of the chest.

The chest was unlocked, but it was not one, but three Druvari priests who prised open the lid with care. From inside this time, a frantic thumping, feverous beats against wood.

Using two sets of long-handled iron tongs, a priest reached inside and clamped down on something which squealed, an ear-splitting, high-pitched insectoid screech.

The priest nodded at the other, and the lid was opened fully, allowing him to lift out that which he had captured in the needle-edged jaws of the pincers.

Roth's heart juddered as the priest held the parasitic borer-worm aloft.

He'd seen illustrations of it. Heard stories of it. But he had never once seen one and it was worse than any drawing, any tale.

Half the length of a man's torso and a twice the width of a man's thumb, the borer-worm that originated from the underground mud banks in the Carraterrean salt mines was pale and hairless, its flesh slick and smooth. Somewhere between a serpent and a millipede, its body was incredibly strong, lined with layers of muscles that overlapped and interconnected, allowing its length to writhe and whip with such power that it really did need the two sets of piercing tongs to hold it, and even that was a struggle for the priest that held it. A pair of tentacles on its eyeless head, groped the air, and as it struggled against its capture, hundreds of tiny hair-like legs protruded from its body as if it was preparing itself for its escape.

Two of the Elite Guards stepped into the circle, one pressed his hand down on Juda's forehead to hold him still, the other grasping his chin and prising open his jaw. The priest moved to stand next to Juda's head, whose eyes widened in terror as the borer-worm thrashed above him, its shrieks becoming louder and more frantic.

"A remarkable creature, do you not think, my noble friend?" Dageor's awe-struck voice whispered close to his ear, making the hair on the back of his neck prickle. "It is said, that when they were first of their species was discovered by a mining crew who unwittingly stumbled upon a nest in the underground lakes of Carraterra, all thirty of the crew were found upon the next tide, dribbling, empty husks of the men they had once been. The only one left who could talk, instantly confessed to several crimes against the Templars and was beheaded. An unsurprising eventuality perhaps considering they were Carraterrean, but sadly the rest also had to be executed as those who discovered them feared the worms had birthed parasitic larvae inside their useless bodies. A pity, some would say. I would prefer to call it a marvel of creation. Such devastating power in the most unlikely of creatures."

His hand crept over Roth's shoulder and patted him there, a mocking reassurance, as the priest lowered the borer-worm into Juda's wide-open mouth, whose hands now gripped the chains, knuckles protruding, his body stiffened with the strain.

"But it is as you said, it will take a better man than either you or I to endure what a whole crew of Carraterrean miners could not."

The worm, hungry now, eagerly fed itself into the boy's throat, its slick, putrid body sliding down with ease, even as Juda gagged and choked on it, his face purpling as if he could no longer breathe. When it had disappeared inside him entirely, the Elites clamped his jaw shut and his body began to convulse with a shocking violence that sickened Roth to the core.

I am sorry, Aleina, forgive me, please, forgive me...

Roth Vi-Garran, once Special Commander of the King's Elite Guard, the man who had slain countless people in his duty to the crown, who had cut through bodies as easily as if he were cutting through the air itself, the man who had done so without feeling nor guilt, the one who had overseen the massacre of the Naiad until this palace had run crimson with their blood, had finally—finally— seen enough.

And, as he did the one thing he had never done while witnessing the many horrors that had taken place here, and closed his eyes to it all, Juda's screams rang out and rained down such torment upon Roth that he knew he would never be rid of the nightmares for the rest of his accursed life.