Kingdoms on Fire

1 Belik Master Belik had three reasons to burn the palace. It would demoralize the people of Brithnem, bring its soldiers to him, and split their attention as they tried to salvage treasures and lives from the castle. If he hit the right pressure points, surrender would come quickly. Belik limped down the wide, shadowed hallway of Mon Párinath, flanked by high-ranking Tanyu, and weakened from his encounter with that traitor Bard. Though his breath came labored, power ran like iron through his veins after watching the boy bend backward through the sheer force of Belik’s mind. It should have been gruesome, but all he’d felt was grim fascination. Rightness. Finding the royal bedchambers when he’d arrived had been easy. The buzz that constantly vibrated at the corners of his mind spoke of traversing these halls a thousand times. He didn’t remember consciously following Chetana in years, but as soon as he set foot in the palace, he knew the layout like a memory. The First and Third Keepers had been in their rooms, in bed with their wives. Each had a coterie of four soldiers guarding the door. One problem with royals was that they lacked imagination. All the guards were exactly where he expected them to be. When the black-clad Tanyuin warriors had arrived, striking out of the dark like vipers with their knifing teeth, the soldiers had no time to scream, much less draw their weapons. They dropped like sacks. Belik ordered the Keepers to be killed painlessly. Mercy had gripped him at random. It didn’t matter if they bled or not, if they suffered or not. The only thing that mattered was that Cúron’s and Atael’s deaths be undeniable and deliberate. After the chaos, he would escort the soldiers off the palace grounds. The Tanyu would station themselves inside the beating heart of power, with the sea behind them, giving themselves access to limitless resources. Most of the work of conquering a kingdom wasn’t physical, but mental. Once the people believed the Tanyu had won, then they had. Resistance would wane, and everyone would become more and more convinced that this was how it ought to be. All it takes is belief. Tanyuin Masters had repeated those words over and over again. Belik set his mouth hard as he took another uneven step, cursing his bad leg in frustration. Belik had believed in Firian. The moment he first saw the boy, he knew this was the one who could make the Tanyu great, could make him great. Belik’s earlier protégé, Anewa, had gone far but ultimately failed, getting irreparably Lost in the Unreal, despite Belik’s efforts to save him. Belik needed someone even stronger. And for a long time he didn’t think anyone could live up to his expectation. Firian was the exception. His intensity had been obvious from the moment he arrived at the Tanyuin Academy. He would do whatever it took to become a Master. Too many Learners started by doing what was asked of them and assuming they would rise through the ranks. Idiots. A Master was not only a master of the Tanyuin arts, but of his own fate. Firian had practiced often enough and hard enough to earn even Belik’s grudging respect. Firian might have more scars than Belik did on his own body. Scars proved his effort—that he pushed himself to the edge of what was possible. More than once, Belik had been forced to grab Firian out of the Unreal before he believed in his own death. He took a sharp breath through his nose at the memory. The air was filled with an underlying must. It had seen blood. He huffed it back out again, eyeing the shadowed corners. This hall wouldn’t be quiet for long. Even now, footsteps and shouts filtered through the hazy air. Took them long enough. He halted in the center of the elaborate corridor. Master Nedi, the leader of physical training after Jovan died a few months ago, towered on his left. Shiro, a young Tanyu about nineteen, Firian’s age, stood at his right. There had obviously been questions about Firian’s whereabouts. Most thought that they were acting on Firian’s orders. In the few seconds of peace they’d had since they entered the palace, Belik told several of them that Firian’s true plan had surfaced—using them to eliminate the other Keepers so he could rule with Kiria alone. Close enough to the truth. In a different way, Firian had betrayed the Tanyu by suddenly acting the coward. Belik included some vague nonsense about Firian’s exhaustion after using his killing ability, so the others wouldn’t be as afraid to attack him if he showed his face. When he showed his face. Belik’s chest felt hard as stone with disappointment. How could Firian fall prey to the same vice Belik had years before? The injustice of it scratched at his heart. He’d been so careful to make Firian loyal only to the Academy. He’d raised him as he would have raised his own son, if he’d gotten the chance. And still! He gritted his teeth. That girl had gotten her claws into him so deeply there was nothing Belik could do. Waiting outside the capital city of Brithnem, ready with an army, Firian had simply called off the attack. Called it off. Because some girl told him to. It didn’t matter that she was the Second Keeper. That should have made her opinion matter less. It was almost impossible to think that Firian could be so spineless. Especially when justice was this close. A group of armored Kingdom soldiers appeared around the corner. Only fifteen. Over half of them had light blue cloth across their shoulders marking them as palace guards. One of them caught Belik’s attention. He wore many insignias the others didn’t and was the first to direct the others toward the Tanyu. Belik needed to speak to Kingdom generals. He could start here. The approaching soldiers rushed forward, swords drawn. The Tanyu didn’t move. A corner of Belik’s lip curled upward. These soldiers had such fierce expressions as they came on. Despite their fervor, they would attack in a spearhead formation, probably all using their right hands to wield identical swords. At a twitch of his head, two more Masters materialized from behind him to stand by his sides. He communicated with their minds in the Unreal, out of earshot of the charging soldiers. “Everyone but the leader.” The fight was brief. The Tanyu, both in black, whirled through the crowd of soldiers like ghosts. A couple missed opportunities—Belik’s eyes narrowed—but the warriors exploited vulnerabilities in the armor and the soldiers soon dropped. The leader, who appeared to be a general, at least, stood with his arms wrenched behind his back, face to face with Belik. Shiro ripped off the man’s helmet and threw it away with a clank. The leader was middle-aged and sandy-haired, with high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes. To the soldier’s credit, he didn’t openly quail before the Tanyu, but a white rim shone around his irises. Belik resettled his glasses on his nose. The air was getting smokier. “I would like to speak to the other generals.” The man’s mouth closed in mute defiance. Belik sniffed. There was no time for this. “Tell them I’ll meet them just outside the barracks in an hour. I have an offer for them.” Confusion replaced the insolence in the man’s face, which was an improvement, at least as Belik’s plan was concerned. “Something good,” Belik clarified, as though speaking to a child. “Of course, they can refuse it.” He regarded the man meaningfully. Refusal meant death—surely he could understand that. He’d just watched all these men die. The man eyed the weapons around him warily, as though he could fight them off with mere awareness. But more than everywhere else, his eyes landed on Belik’s face, meeting his gaze. “The Keepers are dead,” Belik explained, “and I don’t want this to be bloodier than it has to be.” “Lies!” the general spat, the word ricocheting out of his mouth. Belik backhanded him casually. “You’ll see their heads in the arena square before sunset tomorrow.” The man’s pale lip twitched convulsively, though whether from sorrow or horror, it was difficult to tell. Faint crackling sounded in the distance as Belik let the moment stretch, grow heavy with significance. “It’s done,” Belik resumed. “The Tanyu have control of the city. You can take my offer and be part of restoring peace, or you can doom your soldiers to painful deaths. You know our reputation, what we can do. There’s no Keeper to stand behind. One hour.” He growled the final words one by one. The Tanyuin Master released the general and gave him back his sword. The gesture seemed to baffle the man, but he slowly sheathed his weapon and left. When the general was out of sight, the Master trailed him down the hall and out the door, silent as smoke, which was filling the space. “Outside,” Belik told the others. He had an hour before he could deal with the other generals. The Masters around him could stop anything but a fight with truly overwhelming numbers. And it took more than a few ordinary soldiers to take down a Tanyu. If he moved quickly, they wouldn’t have time to plan an attack coordinated enough to take him down, and now the military leaders had the draw of his offer. Imminently generous, and most of them would see that. What were riches for except to direct power? Shiro opened the exterior door as Belik passed through. Even the glass in the door was decorated. Were these Keepers trying to compensate for their lack of military imagination by keeping everything pretty? Apart from a couple indiscreet Torithians and border patrollers from Tánuil hauling loot from the burning palace across the gardens, it was a quiet night. Even now, with two of the three thrones standing empty. He needed to empty all three. They’d find the girl soon enough. He’d make sure of it. His mind shuffled backward a few paces, a few minutes. Bard, that deserter, had bought her enough time to get away. In the rush of the initial attack, no one could sense where she’d gone. Firian knew, but he’d already made his preference clear. He’d choose her safety over the Academy. Honestly, Belik didn’t regret the time it took to kill the boy. Another Tanyu could have done it quickly, but Bard seemed like he would make a good first victim, since there had to be victims. A little smaller than male Tanyu tended to be, and too weak for violence, he was unlikely to fight back. And he had betrayed the Academy. Run off to spill their secrets to Kiria, the girl who had her barbs in Firian. No one betrayed the Academy to that extent and lived. Belik had felt young and powerful again as he showed off his new ability for the first time. It was simultaneously horrible and thrilling to open his eyes and find Bard’s spine bent backward and blood leaking from his ears. Shiro was the only one near him at the time, but he had been suitably impressed. Impressed wasn’t the word. As Bard’s body collapsed, Shiro was terrified, awestruck. Hopefully Belik would never have to use that power against another Tanyu again, past or present. That part rankled. That, and the fact that little Bard had been a friend of Firian. The perfume of flowers softened the air around him as he moved quickly across the flagstone patio of the garden. This false peace wouldn’t last. Time was against him. Right now, he needed to get inside the one place he swore he’d never go: the Amiran Academy.