The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief, #3)

by Megan Whalen Turner

“Everyone talks as if it’s a brilliant revenge,” said Aris, “but I’d rather cut my own throat than marry her, and she hasn’t chopped any pieces off me.” “I thought—”

“I was her loyal guard? I am. I would march into the mouth of hell for her. I will never forget that I would be bending over a tannin vat now and for the rest of my life if not for her. I might have been a soldier under her father

and have marched myself into the ground and died choking on my own blood in the dirt and never have been even a squad leader—not me, not the son of a leather merchan...

I worship her. But I am not blind, Costis. I feel about her the same way every member of the Gu...

“And it is a good thing she is,

because she wouldn’t be queen if she weren’t. She is brilliant and beautiful and terrifying. It’s a fine way to feel about your queen, not your wife,” he added.

“Oh, Goddess, please let the little bastard be all right,” he prayed. “Oh, please let there be nothing wrong. Let this be a mistake. Let me look like a fool, but keep him safe, ten gold cups on your altar if he is safe.” The gods above knew that the king could be laid out by a toddler with a toasting fork. What hope had he against an assassin, trained as a sword is sharpened, honed to

one purpose, to murder?

The king sat on a stone bench in an open space at the far end of the alley between tall hedges and flower beds. There was a fountain, with a shallow pool underneath. His legs were stretched out, crossed at the ankle and resting on the tiled lip of the pool. No doubt he had been contemplating reflections of the clouds in the water or watching the fish. Costis could see the amused smile he had prayed for, the lift of one eyebrow. It was for nothing, all the panic, and the running. There was no one there but the king, quietly sitting by a fountain, and Costis, standing in the gap between the hedges with a naked weapon in hand, looking like an idiot frightened by shadows. The king was safe and, as usual, laughing at Costis. Costis didn’t care. He hunched forward in relief, gasping for breath. His sword still in his hand and his hands on his knees, he smiled back at the king

as the assassins stepped into view.

and turned to see Teleus,

Teleus looked as stunned as he felt.

The king turned his head. His usually dark skin was so pale the scar on his cheek showed against the lighter skin around it. He was almost green with pallor, as Sejanus had once described him. It wasn’t fear. It was rage. Softly he said, “I thought that being king meant I didn’t have to kill people myself. I see now that was another misconception.”

“Where are my guards, Teleus?” He was still speaking softly. Three men dead and he wasn’t even breathing hard, Costis noted.

am going back to the palace . . . now that the dogs are safely out of the way . . . to make my groveling apologies to the queen.”

“Your Majesty shouldn’t be alone,” said Teleus. Eugenides turned back. “Your solicitous attention to my health is appreciated, Teleus, but it’s too late for that,” he said.

caught up with the king, who had already started back to the palace. He was walking slowly, his hand still on his hip. Costis had never seen him so dignified. His stately dignity faded a little when they got close enough to hear the curses he muttered under his breath. He was less inventive than usual, and by the time

There was no understanding him, but Costis knew he would march into hell for this fathomless king, as he would for his queen. So long, he worried, as they didn’t order him in opposite

directions at the same time. What he would do when that happened, Costis couldn’t guess.

“I’ll get them,” Costis said simply. “Costis, I am speechless.” “Not noticeably, Your Majesty.”

“Anxious to get rid of me?” “Why can’t you act like a proper king?” Costis hissed in his ear.

The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and a groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the hollow of the queen’s shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day. “I didn’t have the gardens searched,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” said Attolia softly.

“You didn’t startle me,” said Eugenides. “You scared the hell out of me.” Attolia’s lips pressed together. “You needn’t admit it out loud,” she reproved him. “Hard to deny it,” Eugenides answered.

“Are you badly hurt?” “Hideously,” said the king, without sounding injured at all. “I am disemboweled. My insides may in an instant become my outsides as I stand here before you, and no one will even notice.” He reached up again to touch her face, trying to wipe away the bloody fingerprints he had left, ...

She signaled to a guard. “Lift him.” “I think I will walk,” said the king.

as they reached the final

set of stairs, he’d let his guards carry him. He’d accused them of laziness for not offering sooner.

Even the king was quiet. Exhausted, relieved, he lay boneless and silent.

His hand, clutching the fabric of

and slipped down to his side, revealing what the careful bunching of the cloth had concealed. The tunic had been split by a knife stroke from one side to the other. As the edges of the fabric separated,

those by the bed realized how much blood had been soaking, unseen, into the waist of the king’s trousers. The wound wasn’t a simple nick in the king’s side. It began near t...

He should have said something, why hadn’t he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way

across the palace, and they’d ignored it. If he’d been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, and Eddisian soldiers on the move. He’d meant to deceive them, and he’d succeeded.

Costis watched his face. Seeing him look anxiously around the room until his eyes fixed on someone by the door, Costis knew that he hadn’t been trying to deceive the palace, or calm the Eddisians. He hardly

cared if the palace was in a panic. There was only one person he’d been hiding the extent of the injury from, the queen.

tried to look smug. “See,” he said, still playing his role, “I told you I was at death’s door,” but he wasn’t fooling them anymore, not Costis and not the queen.

“It isn’t very deep,” the Eddisian Ambassador said from the other side of the bed. He was leaning over the wound, looking critical and mildly disappointed. Eugenides didn’t miss a beat.

His head whipped around. “It is . . . too . . . deep!” he insisted, outraged. The attendants looked shocked and then amused. “Your Majesty,” Ornon said in supercilious tones, “I’ve seen you get

deeper scratches with a cloak pin.” “Damned clumsy with a cloak pin,” one of the attendants muttered. “I wasn’t using it on myself,” the king snapped. He turned back to the ambassador. “I was enjoying that little moment of horrified attention, Ornon.” “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Ornon replied. “But I...

“It hurts, you bloodsucking leech. I didn’t leave that torturing bastard Galen in the mountains so that you could take his place.”

“It doesn’t feel like a needle—it feels like you’ve spent too much time working on people who don’t pay you and you should—ow! Ow! Ow!”

Costis closed his eyes, appalled. The king couldn’t lie on a deathbed with a sense of dignity. The attendants were all on the verge of breaking into laughter, and the king, far from minding, was enjoying every minute of it.

Ornon spoke firmly from behind the doctor. “Your Majesty is upsetting his physician.” The ambassador stepped closer to the bed. He and the king locked gazes. Eugenides looked away. “Oh, very well,” he said, sulkily. “Tell him to get

but was silent. The doctor looked up momentarily in astonishment but returned to his work, eager to finish before this reprieve passed. The king lay still and made no sound.

There were three people between Costis and the queen. Costis knocked all three of them aside like pegs in a counting game and dropped to his knees in time to catch the queen as she collapsed into his outspread arms. He’d seen her, white as wax, from the corner of his eye and, seeing her waver, had known she was fainting, but too late to do anything but catch her. “The queen!” someone shouted in alarm, and the king erupted like a wild animal caught in a snare.

Ornon stepped into the space he had left by the king’s bed. He splayed his hand across the king’s face and slammed his head back hard against the pillow. Keeping his hand planted on the king’s face, he leaned over and roared into his ear, “The queen is fine!” Eugenides was still. The men around the bed froze as well. “Irene?” the king called. “She fainted. That’s all,” Ornon said more quietly.

Costis looked down at the woman in his arms. She had a name. She was Irene. He’d never thought of her having any name except Attolia, but of course she was a person as well as a queen.

“Upset at the sight of blood?” he said. “Not my wife, Ornon.”

“Your blood,” the ambassador pointed out.