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In a duel I could give you no worse than a paper cut. If you insist on making a challenge on the field of arms—” “You can talk to me,” growled Jakob of Thorn, “and my associates. When Her Holiness has a problem the righteous cannot solve … we’re the ones she sends. The ones who stopped Duke Marcian, and Duke Constans, and Duke Sabbas from attending this meeting. Believe me when I say—” “—you’d much rather deal with the monk,” finished Alex.
“Please, Your Highness, I worried if I told you, you might refuse—” “Oh, you think? I should have you beheaded! Can I have him beheaded?” “Now?” Lady Severa calmly considered the question. “I would advise against. After you’re crowned? Absolutely.”
“Sunny? That you?” She let out her breath and sat down on the bed with her head hanging. “How many invisible elves do you know?” “It could’ve been the Holy Spirit,” he grunted, as he slowly stood. “Why would that visit you?”
“Must be why you kept at it for a whole week,” sneered Balthazar. “To earn the big statue you have to stick your neck out.” Vigga stuck her face between theirs. “It’d be easier on everyone if you two just fucked.” “Ugh,” said Balthazar, curling a disgusted lip. “Or one o’ you murdered the other.” “Hmm,” said Baptiste, raising a thoughtful brow.
The vampire rested a gentle hand on his shoulder. “The problem with clever people is they think everything must be clever. The binding works on the soul, Balthazar.” He shrugged. “I’m a vampire. I don’t have one.” “But if the binding doesn’t affect you…” Balthazar groped for the words like a blind man for the privy. “Then … you … chose to come here?” “When one reaches my age…” The baron gave him a parting pat. “One needs something to do with one’s time.”
The nun stood gaping, hard to say if she was sticking to her vow of silence or had lost the power of speech.
Why couldn’t it have been Paris, with that sprawling pile where the rulers of Frankia laid their heads? Hardly a step in the whole place. Or Burgundy, where the lame Emperor David had built his grand suite on the ground floor, and made the servants sleep upstairs. “But nooooooo—” he growled, cut off in a gasp at a savage twinge through one knee. It had to be Troy. The most vertical city in the known world.
“I think it would be best if you surrendered.” “We can expect good treatment, can we?” asked Baptiste. “Let’s say better than if you don’t surrender.” Brother Diaz swallowed. “A quick death, then.” “It sounds a cliché, but when you’ve seen the slow deaths I have…” Severa and Vigga both puffed out their cheeks. “You really start to see the value.”
Who could be disappointed in such an opponent?” He began to come down the steps, sword in hand. “I mean to say … how many deaths are you responsible for? A thousand?” Jakob said nothing, only pushed himself from the pillar. “Two thousand?” Jakob said nothing, only squared his shoulders. “Ten thousand?” Jakob said nothing, only limped towards the throne. “And there I was…” Duke Michael sank into a ready stance. “Thinking I might be the villain.”
Vigga turned enemies into corpses, and Balthazar turned corpses into friends.
He might’ve been a few years past his prime, but Jakob had been past his decades before Michael was even born.
“She never could help doing that.” Jakob gave a long sigh and looked up to the sky. “Always thought I’d go first. But then I think that about everyone. And I’m always wrong.” He nodded at a walking stick hooked over the back of the bench. “Could I borrow that?” “By all means.” Rikard closed his eyes. “Next time I move I plan to be carried.”
“Well, there’s still a grave spare.” Alex nodded to the one beside Baptiste’s. The last one. “I’ll keep it free for you.” She leaned close to whisper. “In case you get lucky.”
Alex gave a little snort. “An elf giving an Empress lessons on virtue?” “Someone has to, and your priest fucked a werewolf.”
