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“We arrived last night, well past dark. And now it’s morning.” Mattias offered a soft smile tinged with sadness. “Not so long.”
“Yes, but I slept through the entire journey.”
“You needed the rest.”
No sense arguing. It was an effort to hold his head up. When Mattias poured him a second cup of tea, he took it gladly. “Have you seen my mother?” He braced his elbows on the table, steadying his grip on the cup in preparation of her secondhand wrath.
Mattias’s expression turned careful. “We debriefed her last night, once we’d seen to your comfort. She is displeased with the length of your absence, but looks forward to moving forward with the ball.”
“Gods.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache blooming between his eyes. “The country at war, and Mother wants a ball.”
“My lord,” Mattias said, quietly.
“You only ‘my lord’ me lately when you’re about to tell me something I don’t like. No, I know.” He held up a hand. “This isn’t about a ball.” His hand shook, and he lowered it to the table. “We can’t risk the mountain erupting, especially not during a crisis.”
Mattias looked pained.
Náli glanced toward the window, and the brightening sky, its hazy silver glow. “I suppose it’s time.”
Mattias stood to help him. “Yes, my lord.”
A half-hour later, bathed, dressed in a thin, gray silk robe that brushed the floor, hair combed sleek and loose over his shoulders, he took Mattias’s arm and departed the lord’s chambers.
The rest of his Guard waited in the corridor, two by two in the narrow space, in fresh tunics and with tidy braids that showed no sign of the past few days’ travel. They pressed their fists to their hearts and bowed to him, falling into step behind the two of them once Náli had nodded his acknowledgement. Their presence at his back was a welcome one; whatever lay ahead, they guarded his back.
~*~
Naus Keep had been built three centuries ago as an alternative to the original Corpse Lords’ sad mountain cave, where they dwelled in dust and darkness, faces streaked with ash, hands pressed to the seams of diamond interlaced with the molten rock of their deadly demesne. It had started as a two-story, five-room crude manor house of sorts, built into the side of the now-dead neighbor of the much larger, more volatile fire mountain that Náli had been birthed to quell. A simple place for a lord and his Guard to live. Over the next three hundred years, lords had expanded it upward and outward, the slope of the hill forcing a disjointed, jagged shape. From a distance, it resembled waves and breakers frozen in place: cold granite spikes and rounded towers, its rooflines plentiful and topped with widow’s walks. Inside, it was a maze of narrow hallways and too-few windows, the granite walls flickering with torchlight and shadow, a seemingly endless supply of staircases, short and tall. In his seventeen years of life, Náli hadn’t yet managed to traverse all of them.
Perhaps because he’d spent much of that time traversing one in particular, the one most essential for any Corpse Lord.
Best not to think of that now. One step at a time.
The twisting, turning hallways and staircases were empty save the few servants they passed, bowing and bobbing curtsies in turn, murmuring “welcome back, my lord,” in the hushed tones of a population frightened of his magic. The fear in their eyes left Náli’s belly twisting with guilt. He might be a boastful shit half the time, but he’d always striven to treat those in his employ with dignity and fairness. He wasn’t warm by nature, and knew this well, but he wasn’t a cruel master.
It wasn’t him they feared, but what he could do. His connection with the dead. Though they feared when he was away, too: when the mountain smoked and burbled and the air tasted thick with fresh ash.
The fortunate thing about the Keep’s architecture was that there were rear and hidden entrances to almost every area of the castle; if one wanted to avoid a certain room or hall, it was a simple matter of taking a different staircase. Without having to ask, Mattias steered him down a flight of dark, cresset-lit stairs that curved round and round until Náli was dizzy and panting; a stair that would bypass his mother’s favorite series of salons and receptions halls: rooms she kept cozy with rugs, upholstered chairs, tapestries, and constantly-stoked fires. A comfortable area, to be sure, but comfort was relative when Mother was concerned.
Náli stumbled, his vision going black at the edges, and Mattias kept him from falling.
“My lord?” Klemens and Einrih asked from behind, in unison.
I’m fine, Náli tried to say, but found his jaw was clenched too tight to form words. To his shame, his knees buckled.
He didn’t hit the ground, though. Mattias scooped him up in a bridal carry with the smoothness of long practice.
Náli pressed his face into his strong shoulder and closed his eyes tight against the shame of it all.
They continued down, across a gallery, and down another twisting flight of stairs; Náli knew their path without looking. He curled his toes inside his slippers to keep them from sliding off his feet, and even that was an effort. He listened to the sound of boot soles on granite, clutched a handful of Mattias’s tunic, and resigned himself to the rest of the long, slow trip through the Keep.
Until Mattias pulled to an abrupt halt. Náli felt his heart thump against his knuckles; heard him swallow.
“My lady.”
Oh, bollocks.
Náli pried his eyelids open, turned his head, and there stood his mother at the mouth of the next hallway.
