The Crimson Vault (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (6 page)

“I’ll show it to you later,” Simon said. He didn’t want to go, but it might be an emergency. “Alin needs me.”

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Leah could barely tolerate any of her siblings, really, but her brother Talos least of all. He strode into her room without knocking, as though he was invited—he definitely was not—and dropped down into a padded chair without a word of greeting.

“Show me Adessa,” he commanded. “She’s gotten into something interesting.”

As was usual of late, Overlord Lysander followed him into the room, looking ridiculous in his scholarly spectacles and his feathered buckskin outfit. He looked like a librarian who had decided to try on a tribal costume. He stood behind Talos’ chair and stared at the wall, seeming uncomfortable. As well he should be.
 
Leah smiled, full of false cheer. “Good afternoon, Talos. I must have missed your knock. I’m afraid you caught me quite off guard.”

That wasn’t true, actually. Whenever she was in the Royal Palace in Cana, she always surrounded her room with alarms from Lirial that would alert her whenever anyone approached. She had seen flashing lights and heard warning chimes when Talos was still halfway down the hall, and had used those extra seconds to prepare traps. If she had really wanted to keep him out, she would have encased the door in solid crystal.

Talos likely knew that, which was why he hadn’t bothered knocking. She understood, but he still should have shown better manners.
Leah’s brother answered her insincere smile with one of his own.

“I know you have one of those Lirial viewing lenses,” Talos said. “Adessa’s about to try and kill Father. I thought you might want to watch.”

Talos was six years older than Leah, and he matched the common image of a Damascan royal Heir: he was tall and strong, with soft blond hair and chiseled, commanding features. He looked a bit like an older version of Alin, now that she thought of it, down to the smug self-confidence permanently plastered on his face.

Absently, he rested his hand on the sword at his belt. It was sheathed, but she caught the barest glimpse of its red blade. It was a gift from their father, and an artifact of Ragnarus, so she understood his attachment to it…but he wore the sword
everywhere.
She had seen him wear the blade to weddings, funerals, delicate negotiations, and peace talks. He had no sense of what was appropriate.

Even worse, he was obviously looking forward to watching their sister attempt to kill their father. As much as Leah hated to do anything Talos had commanded her to do, she needed to see this. Assuming, of course, that he was telling the truth.

Leah turned her wrist, so that the blue-white summoning crystal she wore there could catch the light. “She can’t succeed,” Leah said, casting her mind out to Lirial for her scrying lens. It dropped into her hand a moment later: a clear, milky white disc of crystal the size of a dinner plate.

Talos shrugged. “He has every Traveler who can so much as open a Gate running back and forth across the country, preparing for the war against Enosh. Indirial should be the only one with him now, if everything goes according to plan.”

Leah pressed the scrying lens against the wall, sealing it in place with an effort of will. “What about the guards?” she asked. Zakareth was a powerful Traveler in his own right, but there was no way he would allow himself to go totally unprotected.

“They’re all Travelers, aren’t they? They’re off on assignment. I got rid of a few of them myself.” He tossed that last bit of information out casually, as though he weren’t admitting to aiding an assassination attempt against the King.

She glanced at her brother out of the corner of her eye. Why was he telling her this? He had never hated her, like he hated some of their other siblings, but Talos was the kind of man who didn’t need to hate someone to have them murdered.

He rapped his knuckles on the arm of his chair. “Hurry up, now,” he snapped. “She’ll head into the throne room any minute.”

Leah sighed and pressed the palm of her hand against the crystal disc, calling power from Lirial and feeding it into the device. As she did, it grew, swelling until it was the size of a bathtub.

She almost winced at the amount of energy that had taken. Power in Lirial had to be stored, and soon she would exhaust her stockpile. After that, if she needed to call on Lirial’s power in an emergency before she had a chance to resupply, she would have to place herself in debt to some shifty and dangerous beings.

But she couldn’t let her brother know that. Around him, she had to spend power like it was nothing. If he sensed anything but utter confidence, she would find herself a target.

When the crystal filled most of the wall, Talos made a satisfied sound, and Leah cast her mind out to her sister Adessa.

The milky clouds in the crystal thinned and vanished, like a fog melting away before the sun. The huge lens cleared until it looked like a flawless window staring into the next room.

Leah’s older sister Adessa marched through a shadowed hallway, her dark hair standing wildly in every direction. The lens moved along with her, giving Leah the dizzying impression that the hall outside was sliding past.
 

Adessa wore a dress in red and gold—the royal colors of Damasca—but she strode forward like a soldier in boots and leather pants. Her eyes burned and the corners of her mouth twitched, as though she was just about to burst into manic laughter.

In her right hand, Adessa carried the Bleeding Wand, her own artifact of Ragnarus. The Wand was about two feet long, and one of the deadliest weapons in the physical world. It was a thumb-thick bar of ruby at its core, with a dark wooden root twisting up its entire length from one tip to the other. The deadly end of the wand trailed bright red sparks that dribbled down like tears. Hence its name, Leah supposed.

The Wand could reduce a legion of soldiers to bloody scraps, but its cost was far too high. Leah would never give up what the Wand required, not for something so crude as a brute-force weapon. Even Adessa had only used it once or twice, as far as Leah knew.
 

A chill crawled down Leah’s back. If Adessa was carrying the Bleeding Wand, that meant she was serious. She actually thought she had a chance to bring down Zakareth and take the throne for herself.
She might really do this,
Leah thought. Such a move would give Adessa great authority, of course, but it would also leave her vulnerable. Weak. Maybe susceptible to an attack from another royal Heiress…

Leah shook away those thoughts. It was too easy to fall back into her former patterns, back here in her old home, but she was determined to leave all that behind her. She knew better than to start a succession for nothing more than personal ambition. At least, not without a clear chance of victory.

In the clear crystal lens, Adessa glanced furtively around her, then turned to knock at a door. To Leah, her raps sounded quiet: the lens muffled sounds like a thick door.

“She’s in the servants’ quarters,” Talos said, leaning forward. His interest was plain on his face. “That must be where her followers are hiding.”

Followers?
Of course. Leah hadn’t thought of it before, but Adessa would never have attempted a coup without support from other Travelers.

Sure enough, a woman opened the door seconds after Adessa’s knock, following her into the hallway. The newcomer’s face was hidden behind a white mask, but she wore the traditional mist-gray robes of Asphodel.
Two more Asphodel Travelers came after the first: an old lady and a boy who looked no more than twelve years old. They both wore identical masks.

“Follow me and keep quiet,” Adessa ordered them, making no effort to keep her voice down. She gestured with the Wand as she spoke, making all three Asphodels flinch. But they bowed deeply and followed the Heiress as she continued marching down the hall.

Twice more Adessa stopped. The first time, she was followed by two leather-wrapped Endross Travelers so similar they could have been twins. Next, a small dark girl with hands covered by heavy jade bracelets—obviously an Ornheim Traveler—joined the procession. She, too, had hidden her identity behind a white mask.

“Six followers,” Talos murmured. “Will that be enough for Indirial?” His hand brushed the hilt of his sword.

Leah had the sick feeling that six Travelers and a Damascan Heiress would be more than enough. She couldn’t help but worry for Indirial—as she grew up, the Overlord had been a fixture around the royal palace. Almost part of the family.

When Leah was thirteen years old, the night her mother had died, she had decided to run away from the palace. Indirial had followed her, even through a Gate and into her Territory. He could have dragged her back. Instead, the Overlord had sat next to her on a silver cliff under the Lirial moons. They swapped stories about her mother until she could no longer keep her eyes open.

The next morning, she woke up safe in her bed. As far as she knew, her father had never learned of the incident.

Leah opened her mouth to lie to her brother, to try and convince him that they needed Indirial alive, but Overlord Lysander spoke up.

“These are plenty, if they go about it the right way,” Lysander said. His voice was thin and precise—a scribe’s voice. “Valinhall Travelers excel in open combat, but they are not versatile. The fact that your sister has no Naraka or Tartarus Travelers suggests that they do not mean to try an open battle, but instead ambush or guerilla tactics. I would imagine that such a strategy has a high chance of success.”

Lysander folded his arms and nodded sharply, almost sending his glasses flying off his face. Talos nodded along, but he seemed more thoughtful.

Neither of them asked Leah’s opinion, but unfortunately she agreed.

From the other side of the lens, Adessa hissed, “Get ready.” Her group had come to a door at the end of the hall. It looked much like the others they had passed, but Talos pointed.

“That leads to the throne room,” he said. “Servant’s entrance.”

“Are you in the habit of mapping the servants’ passages?” Leah asked. She herself had never paid much attention to the servants’ routes.

Talos leaned back in his chair, adjusting his sword belt so he could sit more comfortably. “It always helps to have secret passages around the palace,” he said. “And friends among the servants.”

So Talos wanted her to think that he had employed some of the palace servants as spies. Maybe he had, but it was more likely that one of his lackeys had summoned something to map the palace for him. Lysander, perhaps, with one of his Avernus birds.

Adessa’s Travelers were gathering power. The Ornheim girl juggled two spikes of pale blue quartz and a rune-carved ruby, muttering to herself. All three Asphodel Travelers had their hands cupped before them, colorful flowers budding from seeds in their hands. Mist rolled off them in the process. The Endross brothers had summoned their Gates—like rolling thunderstorms captured in their hands—and just held them, waiting for them to grow large enough to summon something substantial. They were already big enough to swallow large dogs.

“No mistakes,” Adessa said, glaring around her. “Now. Here we go.”

Leah expected her sister to blast the door off its hinges, or have one of the other Travelers do it. But she simply opened it and marched through, the other six following. Smart of her, to enter quietly, without alerting anyone inside.

The servant’s entrance opened behind the throne, hidden behind a tapestry hanging from the eaves above. The scrying lens remained centered on Adessa as she made her way around the tapestry, so that she had full view of the throne.

The throne room was vast, suiting its function as an audience chamber for those seeking a meeting with the King. Expensive carpet covered the floor, and tapestries hung from the ceiling, most of them bearing the symbols of the nine Territories alongside key battles in Damascan history. There was only one piece of furniture in the room.

Many Overlords had carved their own thrones over the years, all in imitation of Zakareth’s. Leah had spent most of the summer at Malachi’s estate, and his throne had been made of dark wood and amethyst—reflecting his colors, purple and brown—and carved with creatures of Naraka. Other Overlords had seats even more gaudy and ornate.

None of them matched the original.

The Damascan throne was made of precious materials, and designed to show off the royal colors of crimson and gold. But it was not made of gold and set with rubies. King Zakareth’s throne was carved from one enormous ruby, its shape outlined in gold. Even with Ornheim Travelers providing the materials, Leah could barely imagine the expense.

The throne room could hold several hundred people, if necessary, though today there were only three: Overlord Indirial, a high-ranking servant that Leah recognized, and King Zakareth.
 

Leah’s father, Zakareth, commanded immediate attention seated on his throne. He was a few years past sixty, though he still had a powerful warrior’s build, and his hair was solid gray. His right eye was bright blue, like Leah’s own, and it was fixed on a document held by the servant. The King’s other eye had been lost, a scar running from above his eye socket to below. It had been replaced by a bright red stone from the Crimson Vault, which glowed softly. He wore his tall, peaked crown, which was black-and-gold, set with one huge ruby above his forehead.

Indirial had the coloring of a man who had grown up in the villages: naturally tan skin with dark eyes and short, dark hair. As usual, he wore an easy smile and a shirt with the sleeves cut short, exposing the black chain tattoos that wove up his arms. Today, a black cloak hung around his neck, though he had thrown it carelessly back.

The servant stood before them, bowing every few seconds, holding up something that looked like a map or other official document. As they were both bowed over the paper, neither of them looked up at the sound of the opening door.