A Knife of Oblivion Read online

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A KNIFE OF OBLIVION

  KATE AVERY ELLISON

  Copyright © Kate Avery Ellison 2019. All Rights Reserved. No part of this work, either in part or in whole, may be duplicated or reproduced without express and written permission from the author.

  Other books by Kate Avery Ellison include:

  Crimson and Sworn Series (NEW!)

  Red Rider (NEW!)

  The Kingmakers’ War Series

  A Gift of Poison (The Kingmakers’ War #1)

  A Bed of Blades (The Kingmakers’ War #2)

  A Kiss of Treason (The Kingmakers’ War #3)

  A Circle of Flames (The Kingmakers’ War #4)

  A Shield of Sorrow (The Kingmakers’ War #5)

  A Court of Lies (The Kingmakers’ War #6)

  A Reign of Thieves (The Kingmakers’ War #7)

  All Her Secrets

  The Frost Chronicles Series

  Frost (The Frost Chronicles #1)

  Thorns (The Frost Chronicles #2)

  Weavers (The Frost Chronicles #3)

  Bluewing (The Frost Chronicles #4)

  Aeralis (The Frost Chronicles #5)

  Steam and Glass (The Frost Chronicles #6)

  The Curse Girl

  Secrets of Itlantis Series

  Of Sea and Stone (Secrets of Itlantis #1)

  By Sun and Saltwater (Secrets of Itlantis #2)

  With Tide and Tempest (Secrets of Itlantis #3)

  For Wreck and Remnant (Secrets of Itlantis #4)

  In Dawn and Darkness (Secrets of Itlantis #5)

  Once Upon A Beanstalk

  For Sara Mae F. and Dani C.

  My lady—

  Remind me of your name

  My memory is sand upon a dune

  And the years are the wind.

  My recollecting is a crumbling cake,

  And my forgetting is a knife of oblivion.

  —Excerpt from The Love Poems of Sulif Sathar, Bhanian poet

  A KNIFE OF OBLIVION

  PART ONE:

  ~

  LOST

  CHAPTER ONE

  SMOKE ROSE ABOVE the capital city of Nyr like a billowing mourning shroud, forming a dark cloud over the rooftops of white and gold. The fires from the Eisean attack had all been extinguished, but charred remains marred the visage of the capital with black, sooty scars. The air smelled like fire and death.

  It was an odd time for a wedding, some said, but others countered that marriages should not wait for times of sorrow to cease. For, in times like these, they might never end, and people still managed to fall in love anyway. And what were weddings anyway, but declarations of hope for the future?

  The bride wore a gown of silver that trailed three meters behind her, brushing across the lawn and rippling across the steps as she ascended into one of the palace’s great halls. Light streamed down from windows in the roof of the chamber, and waterfalls poured in from artful slits in the stone walls and converged in a pond at the center of the room. There, the groom waited, dressed in dark green and gold, looking as regal and dangerous as a leopard.

  The audience rose at the sight of the bride, a hush falling across the room. She had lined her eyes with kohl like a Nyrian, though she was Austrisian. She wore the jewels of her family across her brow and neck, and the ring and bracelets of her betrothed’s family on her hands and wrists. Around her waist, she wore a belt of rubies, a gift from the queen of Nyr for the bride.

  The father of the bride was not living and could not be there, nor her mother, but the father of the groom stepped forward to greet her as she reached the middle of the room and the groom. He smiled at her, a tight, calculating smile that seemed out of place for a wedding.

  “Lord Halescorn,” the bride said with a lift of her chin.

  She was not cowed by her future father-in-law.

  Not in the least.

  The crowd watched as Lord Halescorn stepped back, his expression tightening before he smoothed it over with a smile. He offered the bride his hand, and she took it, allowing him to lead her the final steps to the groom.

  He whispered something in her ear before she reached her future husband, but no one in attendance knew what he said. No one except for the bride, of course.

  The ceremony was short, and according to Austrish custom. A sip of wine was consumed by both bride and groom, and then a bite of bread, to symbolize both joy and sustenance in their future life together. The couple’s hands were bound together by ribbons of gold for wealth, white for health, red for passion, and green for fertility. The couple stared at each other over their bound-together hands, the bride calm, the bridegroom appearing to be at once happy and nervous.

  It was the groom’s happiness that made the audience murmur.

  At the conclusion of the ceremony, the couple spoke their words of intent to each other, and then the priest slit the ribbons binding them. Everyone rose and craned their necks to see which strip of fabric might fall to the ground first, for tradition held that the first ribbon to fall would be the element most likely to come true in the lives of the couple.

  It was difficult to tell, really, as some of the ribbons tangled up and fell at the same time. But one of the guests closest to the couple darted forward and seized the red ribbon, holding it aloft with an air of triumph, for it was considered good luck to be the first to retrieve the winning ribbon.

  Whether the bride or the groom looked more uncertain at this, the red ribbon, it was difficult to determine.

  The bride and groom prepared to leave the assembly, planning to join the rest of the guests at a carefully prepared feast in one of the gardens that overlooked the rest of the city and the harbor below. The guest who’d procured the red ribbon for them handed it over with a flourish. “May you always have great passion toward your marriage,” he said primly.

  “Er, thank you,” Lady Valora said, accepting the ribbon from Crispin. She looked at Jacob Halescorn, her new husband, and he cleared his throat and offered to carry the ribbon himself.

  “Did you know,” Crispin continued, not moving from where he’d planted himself in front of the happy couple, “the ribbons used to be sil
ver, blue, green, and pink? They’ve almost completely changed color. Silver is for wealth, obviously, and green for fertility, and blue I guess was for health.”

  “Blue?” Valora asked, humoring him. Beside her, Jacob looked impatient.

  “It was the physician’s color,” Crispin told them. He was using his lecturing voice, the one that signaled he was about to launch into a speech that would undoubtedly lead to an argument about the difference between rabbits and hares, or some other such detail. “In the shops, on the signs. They used blue. At least in the southern regions, because that is where the shellfish used to make the dye was most abundant—”

  “Ah,” Valora said with the air of a woman making a move to stop inevitable bloodshed. Most likely Crispin’s. “But pink instead of red for passion, you say? Why pink?”

  “That I, ah, don’t know,” Crispin said with extreme reluctance. “The books did not specify the original meaning of the first color, except to reference passion, and I’m afraid I don’t know what that could—”

  A large man stepped to the place beside the lad and clapped a hand on his shoulders. Tibus, the soldier. He grinned at Valora as if to say that he would help her in her efforts to stave off a Crispin lecture, and then he said, “Perhaps it was pink to represent the parts involved.”

  Crispin’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Parts involved? In… passion? Do you mean… hearts?”

  “Lower than that,” Tibus said.

  Crispin’s face was the picture of puzzlement.

  Lady Valora looked at the dispersing crowd beyond. Her mouth twitched. “I’m afraid we should see to our guests, Crispin. Thank you for the honor of bestowing our ribbon blessing.”

  Crispin was still pondering Tibus’s words. “Parts,” he muttered.

  Tibus leaned over with another hint. “The kind of thing you might get feverbeet on.”

  “Oh!” he cried, and blushed furiously. “Parts!”

  “We really must be going,” Lady Valora said.

  She took Jacob by the hand and pulled him away from Crispin and Tibus, who was now grinning anxiously at Crispin’s expression with the humor of a man who has been needing a laugh for a week and finally has the occasion to take one. A kind of desperate amusement.

  They all needed a laugh.

  For their beloved dragonsayer was dead.

  ~

  Leaning with one shoulder against a marble column as if he needed the extra support to remain upright, Prince Jehn stood on the steps that descended to the lawn, surveying the court in exile that whispered and danced on the emerald-green lawn below, dressed in wedding finery but wearing somber expressions on their faces as they greeted one another. Beside Jehn stood his captain of the guard, Kael of Estria, dressed in a black shirt and wearing a dark gray coat that swirled around the man’s ankles with each gust of wind from the harbor. He stood with his chin straight and his hands clasped behind his back, but there were purplish bruises beneath the captain’s eyes, and a dark shadow of stubble on his jaw, which was clenched tight.

  He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a fortnight.

  Prince and captain gazed down at the wedding festivities silently. The music wafting on the breeze sounded misplaced, and as a peel of laughter rang out from a child, everyone looked up, startled. It was an odd air for a wedding—almost a funeral feeling instead. The attack from Eisea had been a week ago, and the nation of Nyr still churned with wariness, shock, and fury. Talk of war was on everyone’s lips. Half the city lay in ruin. Every day, the palace sent wagons laden with food and drink to feed those whose homes had been destroyed. Soldiers were helping the citizens rebuild their homes. Even some of the Austrisians had ventured forth from their isolation to assist in the efforts.

  The smoke that had hung over the city for days blocked some of the sunlight and cast an air of foreboding over everything. Still, the garden was festooned with colored lanterns from Nyr, along with the traditional Austrisian practice of hanging gifts for the newlywed couple from the trees in gold-colored, trumpet-shaped packages that were tied with ribbons of white and silver.

  Destruction might be all around, but the world continued to turn.

  Jehn looked at Kael out of the corner of his eye. During the wedding ceremony, he’d heard some of the court murmuring behind their fans that the captain of the guard was grieved to see his former betrothed, Lady Valora, wed to his not-so-beloved brother instead. They whispered that Kael of Estria must have truly loved her, to look so desperate and broken now at her wedding. Jehn had even heard one gossipy lord claiming that the captain of the guard had called his brother out to duel the night before, and the prince had ordered them to stand down before they killed each other.

  None of them knew the truth, of course. And if they had, Jehn thought sourly, they would have found it unbelievable, for the Austrisian court had a disappointingly small imagination. The captain of the guard had been in love with the tempestuous and wild former dragonsayer of the prince, Briand Varryda, and his heart had been severed in half at her death.

  And Jehn was concerned for him.

  “How do you fare, my friend?” Jehn asked his captain of the guard quietly, speaking in a tone no one but his captain could hear.

  “I am well, sir,” Kael answered, but his gaze was trained on the gray line where the sea met the sky as if watching for something to appear, and he seemed only to be half listening to the prince’s words. He had a kind of grim resignation to him that frightened the prince. It was the kind of thing he’d seen on men’s faces before they went into battle not intending to come out alive.

  “Are you sleeping?” Jehn persisted. “I’ve heard reports that you train in the middle of the night with the shadow guard. I believe some of the courtiers heard it last night too—there are rumors—”

  “You of all people should know better than to listen to rumors,” Kael said.

  Jehn was undeterred by this rebuke. He gave his captain an expectant look, refusing to turn his gaze away until Kael answered him.

  “I sleep enough,” Kael said flatly after a short, irritated pause. “I train at night to keep my senses strong, for we train in near-darkness and use our ears to find our enemy. The courtiers always talk. They like to make up stories about me as much as they like to invent fictions about you. Might as well give them something to talk about, so they don’t invent dangerous fictions about you and the queen of Nyr that might lead to unsavory political ramifications.”

  “Kael…” Jehn looked at his captain of the guard, sorting through his words. No, not his captain. At that moment, he saw only his oldest friend. Even the mention of the queen of Nyr was not enough to distract him from his line of questioning, and he knew that was why Kael had chosen to say it. “Kael, my dear friend, I am concerned—”

  But the captain of the guard did not appear to be interested in hearing the rest of what his prince had to say. He bowed low, a perfectly executed bow of an appropriate length and depth that somehow still conveyed an air of curtness with it. “Excuse me, sir. I have a prior engagement to keep with the queen’s shadow guard.”

  With that parting jab, Kael turned and strode away from the wedding, his dark cloak swirling behind him.

  Sir.

  As always, the word felt somewhat like a slap to Jehn. Extreme dutifulness was Kael’s way of putting distance between them. Usually, Kael used it to signal his silent displeasure at Jehn’s schemes even as he honored them. This time, it felt like a self-sabotaging effort designed to ignite Jehn’s anger, and thus distract him from probing further into Kael’s mental state.

  Jehn hissed a curse under his breath. He knew what it looked like when a man was near his breaking point, and Kael had nearly found his. And yet Jehn was unable to monitor him closely, for Kael was everywhere these days, plugging a thousand holes in the sinking ship that was their court in exile, managing armies of spies and overseeing scores of secret operations and arrangements.

  Meanwhile, Jehn was entrenched in his own battles, personal and
otherwise. He scarcely had time to eat and sleep some days since the attack from Estria, so busy was he with meetings and plans and strategizing and rebuilding what was torn apart. More than just the walls and streets of the capital had fallen to the fire of the Estrian army—the Nyrians’ disdain for the Austrisians had somehow been obliterated too. No longer were they uneasily sharing space. A strange, fierce unity gripped the two peoples. They had both been targeted with the same swipe of intolerable treachery. The Nyrians had been shelled by cannon fire, and the Austrisians had been framed to stumble into war with Bestane. They had both been victimized. They had a common enemy, and it had energized them into some measure of cooperation that had previously seemed impossible to hope for.

  But now, there were years of work to be done, and little time to accomplish it. And everyone had to keep breathing and eating and sleeping at the same time.

  The prince stalked down the steps for the party below, wanting to be anywhere else at that moment. His hand hurt—the bloody thing always hurt now, it seemed, but it was worst when he was agitated or unhappy—and he had the beginning of a headache creeping up his temples. He reached up to rub at his forehead with his fingers when something wriggly and ropelike fell onto his left shoulder from the tree above.

  “Seven hells,” he cried, knocking the snake from his arm and drawing back in alarm. The creature coiled and hissed at him, and he looked up wildly lest there be any others waiting in the wings.

  Was it an assassination attempt?

  Guards were at his side immediately, and one lifted his sword to sever the head of the unfortunate serpent from its body when Crispin shoved his way between them and threw out a hand to stop the reptile’s execution.