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“Your Majesty?” Dimitri inclined his head. A chilling tingle crept down his spine.
“I require your help with a delicate matter—with your customary discretion, of course.”
“Anything, Your Majesty. I live to serve.” It was not a question or a request. Dimitri hated every word he uttered, but there was little choice. Even the breeze paused, as if it, too, held its breath.
“I have a list of names that I know to be committing various misdemeanours.”
Dimitri stilled. He was the source of most of the king’s intelligence, which meant one of two things. One, if Toroth had names he did not know of, then Dimitri had failed in his duties. The thought did not bear acknowledging, for the punishment would be severe, but even so, his heart thundered into life, pulse racing. Or two, they were innocents to be punished for the king’s own agenda.
“Your Majesty?” It was a struggle for him to keep the words monotone, empty, not filled with dread of one kind or another.
The king told him a list of names. Dimitri knew them all—but he could not identify any threads that connected them. The seesawing nausea within him swirled. He had missed something. He would be next upon the pyre. It was the only conclusion he could arrive at.
“What is their crime, Your Majesty?” He knew a few had committed minor infractions—at worst, embezzlement. He clutched at smoke to imagine what they might have done that had angered Toroth. What connected them all in this moment? He wanted to vomit, and clamped his mouth shut, forcing breaths through his nose. He could not afford to lose himself. Not there. Not then. Danger approached in the shadows.
“That is none of your concern.” Toroth could—or would—not tell him.
Dimitri was not sure which was worse, but relief flooded him. It’s not me. That thought was followed by horror. What was King Toroth planning?
“They will all be arrested on the morrow, at dawn’s break.”
Dread curdled in Dimitri’s belly. That would be easy. All were present in Tournai to celebrate the five-hundredth anniversary of Saradon’s defeat. It sounded as though Toroth had his plot well in hand, whatever it was. Dimitri both did and did not want to know what it was. “What do you require of me, sire?”
“You shall plant convincing evidence in all their homes to suggest they are supporters of Saradon and seek to revive his mission.”
Cold flooded Dimitri as the missing piece of the puzzle clicked into place. It seemed even the breeze stalled at his realisation, for the frigid flicker of air had ceased. “You will frame them of this for what end?”
Toroth glared at Dimitri for questioning him, but he answered. “Two birds, one stone. Criminals are punished, and national pride is restored. That is all you need to know.” But you will do the dirty work for me, was the unspoken implication that laced Toroth’s words.
Dimitri bowed smoothly, betraying nothing of his hammering heart or the dread coursing through him. He could read between the lines. This was nothing more than greed. Toroth wanted their assets. The king knew he could not bleed the country dry through more taxes and risk a revolt. In framing them, Toroth would bolster his own coffers and stoke patriotic pride. Who would question him? At the first mention of Saradon, the accused would be abandoned by all they knew and loved. Distanced, defamed, disowned. On such a critical anniversary of the fall of Saradon and the salvation of Pelenor, Toroth would be the saviour of Pelenor, keeping the kingdom safe from evil, and himself utterly beyond reproach. Toroth was no fool.
“Well?” Toroth snapped at his silence.
Dimitri wondered how long the king had planned this. He felt sick to his stomach, but the nausea had nothing to do with the drinking or the dancing. He shifted his weight, choosing his words with care. “They will be killed?”
“For such treason, yes.”
“What have they done to deserve it?”
Toroth scowled at him. “Your place is not to ask such questions. It is your duty to do my bidding. Can I count on you, or will you be alongside the traitors?” It would mean nothing to the king to have him rounded up as well.
Dimitri held back the swallow that would betray him. “Of course, Your Majesty. I am yours to command.” He executed a smooth bow and stayed, bent low, his back as straight as a rod.
“Good. You have the night.” The king did not acknowledge him further. Toroth strode away, back to the ballroom.
For a moment, the corridor became an even darker black. Once his shadow left the doorway, a column of light and warmth spilled out. But Dimitri did not wish to rejoin it. Nothing would halt the frigid claws stealing the warm aura from him. He sagged against the wall, allowing himself a moment of weakness, before pulling himself upright once more. It took all his willpower not to vomit. He softly called a name, and a figure melted out of the darkness beside him. “You heard all that?”
“Yes, sir,” his associate replied.
Dimitri paused, his heart heavy. It was already done, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. If he did his job well, perhaps this would be a swift death—and that was all the mercy he could give Toroth’s victims. “Make it so, by the king’s orders.”
There was no answer, just a rustle of movement as his informant disappeared into the night. Dimitri closed his eyes and turned his face to the cold sky as his heart quickened once more and the familiar feeling of panic tightened his chest and rushed through his veins. He took deep, deliberate breaths, but the ice in his blood raced through him until his hands shook with it. He folded his arms across his chest, but it was a frail and useless gesture. They could not protect him from what he would have to do in the name of Toroth.
Breathe.
He forced himself to continue, trying to block it all out and send away each care with the breeze, like a seed floating on the wind, but it did not work. For a wild moment, he wondered what it would be like for the accusations to be true. For Saradon’s mission to be alive, perhaps even for Saradon to return. Such an impossible thought. Or was it? Perhaps the king did fear that. Dimitri could not know what Toroth’s mind held, but it seemed to be only selfishness and greed. Hate spiked in him. The riven circle sprang to mind—the Mark of Saradon. The broken wheel. This wheel needed to be broken, just as Saradon had sought, and Dimitri wished he were not so powerless. The king was a law unto himself, and the kingdom bled for it.
Dimitri could not linger any longer. His absence would soon be noted. He returned to the festivities, each step taking all the effort he had, but he was no longer a part of the merriment. He felt cut off, as though doused in a cold blast that even the magic of this place could not penetrate. The bland indifference he schooled his expression into was only possible with his years of practice, but rage burned underneath it. It was a cold inferno that crescendoed with the music humming through them all, until all he could hear was the sound of his blood drumming in his ears.
