Kings and Assassins by Lane Robins Read Free Book Online Page B

away, repelled.
    The sound woke memories that bewildered him, of standing above a royal infant's cradle with a dagger in his hand. The actions he recalled perfectly, the simple thrust that ended the threat his half brother posed to him, the moment when Maledicte drifted in, all wild eyes and feathered wake, to find the deed accomplished. Janus had been decisive then, his plans crystalline, and they had played out as he intended.
    He had felt no hesitation as he struck, felt nothing more than surprise when Auron bled out, the fine lace gown sweeping blood into its traceries; the infant earl was so entrenched in his mind as a symbol of what he deserved, what stood in his path, that he had nearly forgotten it was a living thing.
    But blood was necessary, and hardly something Janus minded. Nothing of his memories explained why he woke so many nights with the sound of that child's soft gasp in his ears. It hadn't plagued him while Maledicte was his; the sound grew in the wake of his leaving. Sometimes Janus thought he had borrowed some of Ani's ferocity from Mal, cradled it as close as he had cradled his lover. Sometimes he thought Maledicte had been all his strength, and without him, he … weakened.
    Even as he shied from the thought, he made himself consider it. It would explain much; tonight he'd been more a fool than a plotter, allowed Ivor to kill Aris and reset the board too soon for Janus's players to be aligned. And instead of plotting a way to steal back the ground he'd lost, he'd reacted instead of acted, played into Ivor's scheme, and even Psyke's words had filled him with terror and rage. But how to turn the tide once begun? Ivor was a difficult opponent; Janus would need an ally.
    Fanshawe Gost
, he thought,
the Kingmaker
. Aris had called him home from his long ambassadorship in Kyrda, where the man had aided an unexpected and unqualified heir to gain the Kyrdic throne. He could do the same for Janus.
    The
Absenté
arrived, and he took it without thanks, mind working on what would please Gost most. It galled him to go courting in this fashion, but Ivor, damn the man, had left him little choice. He strained the
Absenté
through sugar and sipped. A vile drink, really, but for easing the body while keeping the mind active, there was no substitute.
    W HEN HE CAME BACK FROM airy imaginings of himself king and Antyre prosperous, the false dawn was in the air, evident even in quarters without windows by the quiet scuffling of early morning maids beginning their day, the soft murmurs of the guards changingin the hall. A new day, then, the first without Aris, and the first for him to prove his mettle to the country he would have.
    Ivor's plans be damned; Antyre was his.
    Still, he thought, it had been too bad of him to loose his temper on Psyke. Though he no longer needed to keep her happy to soothe Aris, he still required a noble wife if he was to have any hope of the throne. Currently, she loathed him, her whispered
murderer
argued that, even if the lingering scent of her on his skin suggested otherwise. She had been won once, even if it was at Aris's command; he could win her again, turn her into an ally.
    He collected the blankets, fallen from the mattress, and laid them over her. His fingers brushed her cheek, and it was cold; her lips, still parted, gave no breath to the air, and her breast, when he laid his hand over it, was as quiet as the tomb.
    Janus recoiled. He reached out once more, placed his fingers against the thin skin of her neck, and found only stillness.
    He remembered this surprise, death of a sudden. The Relicts had seen children die overnight from scratches, from whippings, from poisoned food left out as if they were nothing but rats. One night, he and Miranda had fallen prey to such—back when Miranda had still been Miranda instead of Maledicte and as such, vulnerable to poisons—and spent the dark hours in a panic, waiting for death to claim them.
    Now a similar panic stalked him, trying to stir