Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

It was not until midnight, however, that their patience was rewarded. Benno

broke off in the middle of a sentence. His lips parted in a smile. Emma heard a soft scratching at the door to the garden. Benno was already moving across the room to admit their visitor. Raul Kosenmark no longer wore his gaudy costume of red silks. His clothing was dark and loose-fitting, and as he clasped Benno’s hand in greeting, his sleeve fell back to reveal a wrist sheath with its knife.

“You expect danger?” Emma asked. “No, don’t answer. Of course you do. You would be a fool not to.”

“So glad to know I’m not a fool in your eyes,” he said.

She ignored that comment and motioned to the chairs, while Benno inquired whether Kosenmark preferred tea, wine, or water. Kosenmark chose water.

There was no point in meaningless politesse. Emma asked the question she had wished to ask hours before, at Lord and Lady Vieth’s affair. “You’ve decided to involve yourself in politics again. Is that true?”

“I never stopped,” Raul said. “I only made the shadows darker, if you will. However, I received news last week that compels me to take a more open role.”

Compels. Interesting. “For many years, you argued against that.”

“I was wrong.”

Her desire to vent her fury died at that flat declaration. “What has changed?”

Kosenmark shrugged. “The necessity of the times. My own beliefs. A sudden acquisition of courage or foolhardiness, most likely a combination of the two. You seem displeased. What has changed with you?”

The answer should have been obvious, she thought. Dedrick. Benno. Ilse Zhalina’s abrupt departure, and Kosenmark’s own retreat into secrecy and isolation. Dedrick had died at Markus Khandarr’s hands in a prison cell in Duenne’s palace. Khandarr had forced Benno to watch, then sent him back to Tiralien, bound by magic to report every terrifying detail to Kosenmark. Rumor said that Ilse herself died by a murderer’s hand in Osterling Keep. She realized she was gripping both hands together. With a conscious effort, she untangled her fingers and met Kosenmark’s gaze.

“I’m afraid,” she said.

“So am I,” he replied. “But I am more afraid to do nothing.”

An answer she might have offered herself, a year ago.

She was about to tell him they had nothing more to discuss, when Benno surprised her by asking, “What next? You have a plan—it’s obvious—and you want to tell us about it. Or at least selected portions.”

“Selected portions, yes. More would be dangerous.”

“A simple excuse,” Emma replied.

Benno reproved her with a gentle clasp of hand-over-hand. Lover and friend, she thought bitterly. He would be loyal to us both.

Raul made no gesture to admit or deny what she said. “I go to Duenne tomorrow,” he said. “Leos Dzavek is dead. Armand will know that soon, if he does not already. You can imagine what follows next. So I intend to demand a public audience before the entire council. It is my right as my father’s heir. There I will say all that I should have said years before.”

At first she was unable to speak. Dzavek dead. Raul Kosenmark returning to court and council. It was as though the gods had reached down and overturned all their lives. But immediately after came the thought, He dissolved his shadow court, but his spies are still at work in Károví.

She wondered what else he had kept from her and Benno.

“Will Armand listen?” Benno asked softly. “He never has before.”

Another shrug, but Emma did not mistake that gesture for indifference. “I cannot tell. I also intend to speak with my father and his factions—with any faction that will have me—so that mine is not the only voice. There are others who might dislike me, but they dislike more the idea of a senseless war. They know that Károví will not yield, if they ever do yield, without a long and bloody fight.”

More revelations. “When did your father return to court?”

Kosenmark smiled bitterly. “Another recent event. I wrote to him last month, during my absence.”

Yes, the absence that remained a mystery.

“What of Lir’s jewels?” Benno asked. “Dzavek had one. Surely—”

“I have no report about them.”

She thought he had not meant to disclose even that much, because he fell silent and stared into his water cup. Arranging his lies, she suspected.