Page 147 of A Drop of Corruption

Between Pavitar, myself, the wardens, and the few loyal Yarrow guards who had managed to respond, the battle was over quickly. Soon the hall was silent, broken only by our labored breathing, the moans of the wounded, the trickle of blood, and the gentle crackle of the fireplaces.

Yet Sunus Pyktis had not moved at all. He slouched on the throne and stared at Ana. Much like the augurs I’d seen on the Shroud, his eyes simply sat in his skull like little wet stones, brimming with an alien intelligence.

Ana grinned, completely unperturbed. “I am guessing,” she said to Pyktis, “that you made a calculation, and decided it would be better to try to save some, than wait and lose all.”

Pyktis said nothing. He just stared at Ana with that flat, cold gaze.

“How…how has this been done to us?” whispered Pavitar.

“Well, my guess, Pavitar, is that Sunus Pyktis made the swap with the prince some time ago,” said Ana. “He likely did it when you took the prince on that hunting trip in the west. For it was after this when you returned to the High City and found all your dogs slain, of course.”

“My dogs?” murmured Pavitar.

“Yes! Killed by Pyktis, of course!” said Ana. “For if he planned to switch places with Prince Camak, your dogs would have recognized the different scents! They were a liability, and thus had to be removed. Having killed them, he then pursued you into the west and ambushed Prince Camak, perhaps sedating him—and then he applied the handful of alterations necessary to himselfbecomehim. A little extra fat, a little extra hair. I suspect he had already used the waters of your region here to stain his eyes the proper shade of green. The teeth were tricky; he had to color and stain his own to match the prince’s. And, ofcourse, he applied the gold paint upon his cheeks, and the circlet atop it all…Really, it must have been his easiest performance yet, given that he already had the prince’s face! Except, of course, he had to refrain from his obsessive finger-tapping…” She smiled at the prince. “…but a creature of iron will like yourself can resist that, eh, Sunus?”

Pyktis’s flat gaze danced around the chamber, as if checking to see if any ally survived in any state.

“Once the transformation was complete, he then killed Prince Camak,” said Ana. “A quick, simple stab to the man’s heart. But before doing this, he altered the prince’s body just as he had his own—applying grafts now toremovefat and hair, not to mention wiping the face of gold and clearing the eyes of green stain. He even gave the man better teeth—fresh, pearly, imperial teeth! And that was the giveaway, you know,” she said sweetly to Pyktis. “For why in hell would Sunus Pyktis wish to grow himself a nice set of teeth while out in the jungle?”

Again, she was met with Pyktis’s stony stare.

“He was then left with a body possessing the same bone structure,” continued Ana, “the same skin tone, similar teeth, the same slight Rathras features…In other words, he made the prince look likehimself,altered to become the jungle-dwelling creature of the canals! For he planned tousehim, you see. He intended to use his twin brother’s corpse for this very night—for Sunus Pyktis always thinks thirty steps ahead! Andhowdid he preserve the dead body, Din?”

“With ossuary moss, ma’am,” I said quietly. “For Pyktis was a master with its use, when he served with the Apoths upon the Shroud.”

“Of course!” said Ana. “He bound the dead Prince Camak up in moss and stored his brother’s body away, waiting for the perfect time to fake his deathagain.For if the trick worked once, it could certainly do so a second time! And he did just that, extracting the body from the moss at the right moment, then placing it in a chest in the royal vault. For that was when he put thesecondpiece of his plan into play—Satrap Darhi, whom he’d been preparing to be his patsy foryears.

“You fed Darhi’s greed, and his avarice,” Ana said to Pyktis. “Aneasy thing, for a snake like him! You even knew he’d eventually betray you. But then you arranged the trail justso.It was you who hid the oathcoin in your den, knowing that Darhi was so free with them! And you knew we’d eventually identify Gorthaus as the traitor, and she would name Darhi as the architect of all of this. Honestly, what fools we’d be if we thought it was anyonebutDarhi behind it all!” She stuck a finger out at him. “But it was you, of course, andnotDarhi, who killed the king.”

“Wh-what?” said Pavitar weakly.

Pyktis’s glare grew slightly icier.

“It was Pyktis, you see, now pretending to be the prince,” said Ana, “who dropped the poison in the king’s cup. He did it as he carried it back to the cauldron of tea, knowing that Kardas would soon refill it. We never suspected the prince as the killer, of course, for the true prince would never do such a thing.” She turned back to Pyktis. “All that went swimmingly for you…untilIarrived and identified Gorthaus as a traitor far faster than you’d anticipated. That made you a little desperate, but you’d already arranged things. You were alone in the reliquary, true, sitting vigil for your father as Yarrow tradition demands. None of the guards said you left that chamber while Gorthaus perished—but I am guessing theydidsee aguardexit. For you’ve become quite handy at disguising yourself, haven’t you? After all, what is a disguise but signals, and patterns, and gestures? All very easy things for an augur’s mind to unwind. You disguised yourself, slipped off into the halls, pricked Gorthaus with your poison blade before she could give too much of the game away too early, and returned swiftly, becoming the prince once more. And now that this was done, the throne was yours, and soon you would be king.”

Ana paused, tapping her chin, and grinned horribly. “But you never wanted tojustbe king. It would do you no good to inherit a realm destined to be annexed by the Empire. Yet nor would it do to destroy the Shroud and unravel the Empire itself, as Thelenai and I so feared—for what would so much chaos win you? No, no. Your thoughts were much more practical. You were dreaming of a way todestroy themarrow,and the marrow alone.”

Kardas stared at her, open-mouthed.

“If the marrow was destroyed,” said Ana, “then you knew the Empire wouldhaveto stay in Yarrow for years longer. The Empire lacked the will to fully adopt the region—you’d already put that together ages ago—but they’d be more than happy to keep paying the court to keep thingsjustas they were. And oh, you’d make sure the Empire would pay you afortune.”

My eyes fluttered in my skull, and I recalled what Kardas had said to us:Extend the deadline for a decade. Maybe two. Dump another trove of gold on the High City. Buy time, quite literally.

“Oh, fucking hell,” whispered Kardas.

“Only that could explain why you waited to attack the Shroud,” said Ana. “And, of course, it also explained your macabre campaign of terror—youwantedto terrify Thelenai into taking a desperate measure. All this business of heads and warped smugglers…all of it was a story you fed us, to make Thelenai panic and move the marrow by ship, far away from here. A most vulnerable choice, really…” She sat back, idly plucking a string of her lyres. “Because that’s where your titan’s blood weapontrulyis, isn’t it? It’s hidden in the mundane, forgettable, overlooked docks where that ship will stopfirst.”

Pyktis twitched slightly, but his dead, cold eyes never deviated from Ana’s face.

My eyes fluttered as I recalled that day when I’d sailed for the Shroud, after first meeting Ghrelin on the pier:We get so few vessels that sail abroad that this is the only place that can handle a ship of that size—yet it’s hardly ever used, Kol. No reagents have passed through those warehouses in months, and what few wardens we’ve spared to search this place have found not a whiff.

“Your weapon’s not on the Shroud,” said Ana. “It never has been! It’s hidden in thedocks of Yarrowdale,at the very pier where the hydricyst shall first make anchor. It’s probably been hidden there forweeks,perhaps before you even kidnapped Sujedo! I am guessing you crept to Darhi’s secret little estate and stole the reagents before even that.Very brilliant! Yet Thelenai went searching there this very night, and I told her to bethorough.She fired a red rocket high into the sky just minutes ago, alerting us that she’d found your waiting weapon.” She grinned lazily. “My guess is that it’s disguised as some common resource they’ll load onto the boat…never realizing they carry death with them. Tell me—am I right?”

It might have been my imagination, but I thought Pyktis’s eyes narrowed very slightly.

Anatutted.“It was a very brilliant game, I admit. And it very nearly worked! You put your brother’s body in a Yarrow treasure chest, having predicted long ago that Darhi would grab all he could, when rattled enough. You also knew we’d easily track him. You probably realized that the first time you met Malo and saw her altered senses.”

Malo gave a quiet, indignant sniff.