CHAPTER ONE

Sakkuth, Isembaard

M aximilian woke slowly, reluctantly. His night had been filled with violently colored, fragmentary dreams—partly of Ishbel, partly of the vision he’d had while on the way to meet Ishbel in Pelemere.

Maximilian did not want to wake. Once he was awake he’d need to cope with the loss of Ishbel and their child, as well as the knowledge that he would need to face what all kings of Escator before him had dreaded facing: the terrifying responsibilities of their far more ancient and frightening title…the Lord of Elcho Falling.

Intertwined through all these dreams and fears and thoughts was the knowledge that he’d drunk far too much, and that he’d need to face the coming day’s trials with a hangover of monstrous proportions.

Maximilian roused, moving a little more firmly against the body in his bed, wrapping one arm about the woman’s waist, feeling the delight of her naked back pressing against his flesh, thinking that his dreams and memories had duped him and that Ishbel had been here all along, and that she—

“Maxel?”

He leapt into wakefulness, recoiling away from Ravenna.

“I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “I woke you, I didn’t mean to. Go back to sleep, Ravenna.”

He rolled out of bed, hastily pulling on some clothing and painfully aware of Ravenna watching his every move. It was still early, barely light, and he mumbled something about getting some fresh air and fled the chamber.

Maximilian more than expected to find guards outside the main door to his apartment, but the corridor was empty. Feeling nauseated, both from the effects of the wine and the shock of discovering Ravenna in his bed, Maximilian wandered through the palace into the central courtyard where he sank down on a cask, resting his head in his hands as he allowed the rising sun to warm him.

Oh, gods, what had he done?

He liked Ravenna, but he didn’t love her, or really particularly desire her. He was grateful to her, as he was to Garth, and had once been to Vorstus, for their efforts in rescuing him from the Veins, but over the past year Maximilian was very much aware that he’d been growing distant from these three friends.

Vorstus because Maximilian now suspected him of manipulating his early life, perhaps even of causing him to be interred in the Veins in the first instance, and Garth and Ravenna because…well, they now belonged to an earlier part of his life, and while he liked them, he wanted to move on.

Ishbel had made all the difference. She had opened that massive gap between what he had once been and where he was now going.

Maximilian had been barely living before Ishbel had come into his life. She had brought great pain, and frustration, and fear when Maximilian had realized that she trailed Elcho Falling at her heels, but she also brought love.

Gods, he shouldn’t have slept with Ravenna. Maximilian would have liked to blame the wine, or even Ishbel for driving him to such desperate distraction, but in the end it had been his error of judgment, and his weakness, for not pushing her away.

Gods only knew to where it would lead.

“Maximilian? You look like you could do with some of this.”

Maximilian jerked his head out of his hands, squinting into the bright sun.

It was Axis, holding out what looked like two mugs of tea in one hand and a plate of bread and fruit preserves in the other.

“I saw you from the kitchens,” said Axis. “Thought I’d bring you some breakfast.” He paused. “You look dreadful.”

“Thank you,” Maximilian said, surprising himself by meaning it. There were few people he would like near him at the present moment, but he thought Axis might be one of them.

“It was a bad day for you yesterday,” Axis said, sitting down on a neighboring cask and handing Maximilian the tea and plate.

Maximilian answered only with a grunt, taking a tentative sip of the tea, then a longer drink. “You have seen your father?” he said after a moment.

Axis smiled. “Yes. Yes.”

“He was desperate to see you. Longing for you.”

“He means the world to me, Maximilian. Thank you for bringing him to me.”

“What did you make of Salome?”

Axis laughed, stretching his long legs into the sun. “She is a true SunSoar. I am glad my father found her first, for I think she would have been too much for me to manage.”

Maximilian almost smiled. “I have heard about the SunSoar attraction to each other.”

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, sipping their tea, sharing the bread and preserves.

Maximilian found that the tea, the food, and the company were making a surprising difference to how he felt. The tea and food soothed his stomach and head, and Axis soothed his nerves. From all he knew of Axis, Maximilian understood that he would be very unlikely to judge.

“Can you tell me what happened to my daughter?” Maximilian asked finally, very softly, looking ahead rather than at Axis.

“Yes,” Axis said and, in a low voice, told Maximilian not only about the manner of his daughter’s death, but of the relationship between Isaiah and Ishbel.

At the end of it, Maximilian put his empty mug down, lowered his face once more into his hands, and wept. Axis put a hand on his shoulder, and for ten minutes or more they sat there, two men sharing grief, companionship, and understanding.

“Isaiah keeps on about this Lord of Elcho Falling,” Axis said eventually. “Who is he, Maximilian?”

Maximilian gave a deep sigh, releasing the last of the emotion spent over the past minutes. “I am the Lord of Elcho Falling,” he said and, at Axis’ surprised look, continued. “The title of King of Escator is the far lesser of the Persimius titles. Elcho Falling is an ancient kingdom that encompassed virtually the entire continent above the FarReach Mountains. As a kingdom it broke up into many individual independent realms well over two thousand years ago. The ancient line of Persimius, which controls the hereditary titles of Elcho Falling, retains the crown and the ancient rings of office. We do not like to anticipate the day when we shall be required to wear the crown once more.”

“Why not?”

“Because it is a thing of darkness,” Maximilian said, his tone now short. He rose, handing his mug back to Axis. “I thank you for both the tea and the companionship, Axis. Perhaps we shall have time for more of both over the coming days. Now, do you know where I might find Isaiah? Without Ishbel, if you please.”

Isaiah turned from the two generals with whom he’d been consulting, saw Maximilian waiting just inside the door of the chamber, and waved the generals away.

“Well,” Isaiah said as he walked over, “it is easy to see that you did not spend a good night.”

“Don’t preach to me, Isaiah. We need to talk.”

“Indeed, but I thought I’d tried last night to—”

“That was a shitty time to approach me, Isaiah, as well you know.”

“So tell me,” Isaiah said, “to whom do I speak today? The somewhat bedraggled King of Escator…or the Lord of Elcho Falling?”

“I do not yet wear the crown, Isaiah.”

“But you are prepared to accept it.”

There was a long pause, in which Maximilian would not meet Isaiah’s eyes.

Then, finally, Maximilian shifted his gaze back to Isaiah’s. “Yes,” he said.

Isaiah’s shoulders visibly slumped in relief. “Thank the gods,” he mumbled.

“What is happening?” Maximilian said. “Can you show me?”

Isaiah led the way to a large map unrolled across a table. “The Skraelings spent the past eighteen months massing in the north. Currently they are swarming south, heading…”

“For the FarReach Mountains,” Maximilian said. He paused a moment, one finger tapping idly at the map. “This isn’t an ‘invasion’ force you command at all, is it, Isaiah?”

“No,” said Isaiah, “it is an evacuation. See…” His finger traced a path through the FarReach Mountains, then down the territory to the west of the River Lhyl. “The Skraelings will seethe down through the western parts of Isembaard toward where Kanubai waits, there to form his army. I have emptied that part of Isembaard as best I can…and encouraged families of the army to travel north with their husbands and fathers.”

“Then why not just simply call it an evacuation?”

“An ‘invasion’ was the only means I could manage an evacuation, Maximilian. If I had suddenly announced that my tyranny was to be invaded by an army of wraiths, flocking to their newly risen ghastly commander, I would have been dead within a day by the hand of one of my generals. An invasion they can understand, an evacuation not. They would have seen it as a weakness on my part.”

“And Ishbel? Why bring her here, Isaiah? Why—”

“No one planned for her to come to Isembaard, Maximilian. Believe it or not, all I and Lister have ever wanted was to see her safe with you.”

“But still you managed to seduce her.”

“Maximilian—”

Maximilian waved a hand. “Leave it.”

“She is not happy with me, Maximilian.”

“Leave it, I said!”

“Then stop bringing it up!” Isaiah snapped. He took a deep breath, and inclined his head slightly. “I apologize.”

Maximilian was not sure what it was that Isaiah apologized for—seducing Ishbel or for snarling his response—but inclined his own head in acknowledgment of the apology. He wondered if they were going to spend their entire lives alternatively snapping and inclining their heads at each other.

“I will go north with you,” Maximilian said. “It makes sense. We are, I suppose, headed for the same place.”

Elcho Falling.

“Maximilian,” Isaiah said. “Can you do it? Can you assume the mantle of the Lord of Elcho Falling?”

Maximilian thought about all the empty spaces and chambers within the Twisted Tower, all the lost knowledge. “Who cares what I answer, Isaiah? I am all that you—and Elcho Falling—have.”

On his way back to his apartments, trying to work out in his head what he could say to Ravenna, Maximilian literally walked into Ishbel as he turned a corner.

They sprang back from each other.

There was a stunningly awkward moment.

“Sorry,” Maximilian and Ishbel both said at the same time, then both reddened, looking away.

The moment had passed where they could have just walked away from each other. Now they were going to have to pass a few words, at the very least.

“I said some cruel things last night,” Maximilian finally said, taking all his courage in hand to look Ishbel in the face. “I should not have done. I apologize.”

It was the day for apologies, he thought.

“What you heard and saw would have tested anyone’s patience, Maximilian. I, ah, I just…I can’t believe you came all this way for me.”

“There was no reason for you to believe it. Not the way I’d treated you after Borchard’s death.”

There was another awkward silence.

“I suppose you’ll be leaving soon,” said Ishbel, her voice now slightly strained.

“No. I will be traveling north with Isaiah’s army.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sure there will be enough room for us to avoid each other.”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Ravenna seems a nice girl,” Ishbel said, both her color and her tone revealing her desperation to find something to say.

Ravenna seems a nice girl. If it had been under any other circumstances Maximilian would likely have smiled at Ishbel’s distracted attempts to keep conversation going. He might even have laughed.

But not after last night.

Guilt swept through him, stronger than ever before. “Yes,” he said, “Ravenna is a nice girl.”

Then he turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Ishbel staring after him.