Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

Miro Konstantin Anton Karasek. Seventeenth duke of Taboresk. Only child of Alexje Ivanic Teodor Karasek. He had assumed the title on his father’s death in his nineteenth year. A list of military titles, honors, and medals followed, including his appointment to Leos Dzavek’s Privy Council.

Nineteen. Younger than I am now.

Orphaned young and trained to rule. They were alike in that.

She skipped back to Alexje Karasek’s entry. Miro’s father had served in the Privy Council for thirty years, including an interval in Duszranjo as a general overseeing the garrisons. She found details about his speeches to the council and laws he proposed. A paragraph spoke of Miro’s birth, but nothing about the man’s wife except her name: Pavla Maria. And then, in the year Miro turned eight, a cryptic notation said that Alexje Karasek had named his nephew Ryba Karasek as his new heir.

Valara turned the page. Nothing about this Ryba. Nothing more about Miro’s mother. Just a series of mundane observations concerning Taboresk itself. Then mysteriously, another paragraph reinstating his son as his heir. No year given, nor any explanation.

The father had nothing more to tell her. She returned to Miro’s entry.

His name meant peace, she learned. (And yet she remembered the blood on his face, from when she first saw him in Morennioù Castle.) He had studied magic in Rastov’s university, founded by the king. (Oh, yes. She had proof of his abilities.) He had joined his father in Károví’s army at the age of fifteen. Less than a year later, he had taken command. When his father died, he had spent two years running Taboresk alone before Leos Dzavek appointed him to that same Privy Council.

Odd gaps and inexplicable changes in his life. Just like his father.

A door clicked open. Valara shut the book hastily and returned it to its shelf just as Miro Karasek entered the library.

He was dressed formally, in a loose jacket and trousers of dark blue wool, trimmed with black. She found herself responding as she would to any member of her own court and started to lift her hand, palm outward, when she caught herself. He was not Morennioùen. He would not understand the subtleties of one palm touching another.

Karasek seemed oblivious to her hesitation. “My duties ended earlier than I anticipated,” he said. “We shall talk, you and your sister and I. Your sister is riding a circuit of the grounds. Until she returns, would you like a tour of the gardens?”

A clear invitation to a private conversation between the two of them. Curiosity pricked at her. “I would. Thank you.”

A short detour brought them to a side door and a small, enclosed courtyard. The skies were a clear hard blue, and the sun shone strong. Yesterday’s storm had passed, leaving the trees bowed and wet, and the grounds muddy. Karasek dispatched runners to fetch boots for him and Lady Ivana.

“The seamstress and shoemakers will arrive this evening,” he told her as they passed through the courtyard’s gate. “You will need more than the few costumes to continue your journey.”

“I am grateful for your generosity.”

His gaze swung toward her. “I would only do what is right.”

Valara could only nod. Karasek was an ambitious man. He risked his life and reputation to see her safely back to her kingdom. Are you making atonement? she had asked him at the Mantharah. Though he asked her the same, she knew he was—for the invasion he led in Dzavek’s name, of course, but also for more. For past lives, and past failings.

Redemption, she thought, for us both.

They had walked in silence along a path paved with stones. The stones, but not the path itself, ended on the verge of rough grassland, overspread with wildflowers, much like the plains she and Ilse had traversed. A short distance ahead, the ground sloped down to a stream. The northern hills were visible, standing in a dark blue mass against the sky. Downstream and east, she saw the roofs and chimneys of a small village.

Here Karasek paused. “I wrote to my agent in Lenov,” he said. “He has instructions to hire a ship and crew, and to provision it for a long journey of uncertain length.”

She recalled the city from Raul Kosenmark’s maps of the coast. Lenov. A port in the southeast corner of Károví. “Will that draw suspicion?”

He shrugged. “Everything will, these days. But I implied that House Karasek wished to engage in some private trading.”

Which brought the next question. “Does the agent know?”

“Of the king’s death?” Karasek said. “Not yet, but he will soon.”

She noticed that he kept his gaze averted.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked. “Why not wait until this afternoon?”

“Because I have yet more news.”

Ah. Her breath escaped her in a soundless exclamation.

“A courier arrived from Rastov this morning,” Karasek said quietly. “News of the king’s death has spread throughout Rastov and the outlying towns. Markov has contained the worst confusion there, but there will be more troubles until Károví names a new king. Meanwhile, various nobles, my fellow councillors among them, are maneuvering for the throne.”

“Are you saying you must return to Rastov?”