Kings of Ruin (Kingdoms of Sand Book 1) Read online

  And I fucked her, Seneca thought, looking back at Jerael. I fucked your daughter in a cave, and I'm going to do it again and again, and you're going to know. And you're going to be helpless to stop it.

  But then Seneca remembered. Of course. Ofeer wasn't even Jerael's daughter. She had told him on the hills—her father was a man of Aelar, perhaps a soldier who had invaded this land in the war. That explained her beauty, but it made the victory of claiming her body a hollow one.

  Seneca looked back at the brute. "I will make you a king. Your two princes have been battling for too long, rats who squabble while the cheese rots. I've brought three legions from Aelar, armed for war. You command three thousand troops of your own. You will open the gates of your city, and you will let my men through, and then you will accompany us to Beth Eloh. Together—my host and yours—we will take this city. I'll give you the throne of Zohar, Sela, and you will keep the lume flowing."

  And the throne of the empire will be mine, Seneca added silently. And my sister will kneel before me.

  For a moment, all were silent. The five Sela children glanced at one another. Jerael's wife—that graying crone—gasped and looked at her husband. The Zoharite soldiers at the back of the room narrowed their eyes.

  It was Atalia who broke the silence.

  She leaped to her feet, knocking back her chair with a clatter. She grabbed one of her guards' swords, drew the blade, and pointed it at Seneca.

  "What game are you playing, you son of a seaside whore?" Her eyes blazed, and her lips peeled back in a snarl. "I will skewer you if you're lying."

  Fear—cold and unyielding as the ice of northern Gael—flooded Seneca. If Jerael was an animal, his eldest daughter was a demon of the underworld. Sweat dampened her hair, her eyes burned with erupting flames, and her sword was dark iron, aimed at his neck.

  Seneca could not even draw his own blade. It was a struggle not to wet himself, let alone take up arms.

  His bodyguards, however, had no such problem. They were no simple legionaries but men of the Magisterian Guard, elite warriors tasked with protecting the emperor and his family. They drew their gladius swords at once, pulled Seneca back, and stepped forward to protect their prince. Across the dining room, beneath that damn painting of elephants, Jerael's own guards drew their blades. The other Sela children leaped to their feet too, weaponless but reaching for forks and knives, and it was time for blood.

  She's going to kill me, Seneca thought, staring at Atalia with dread from behind his bodyguards. Their eyes met. She's going to carve me open, her or her men, and it's over. Porcia will take Aelar's throne, and I'll be food for the dogs.

  "Enough!" Jerael roared. "Men, lower your weapons. Atalia—get out of here! Shiloh—take her away."

  Shiloh—his wife, the woman with the graying braid—pulled her daughter back, whispering soothing words. Atalia shouted and swung her sword at Seneca, but with surprising strength, her slender mother managed to pull her out of the dining room. Everyone was shouting.

  "Atalia, you lumbering beast!" Ofeer was yelling at the doorway after her sister. "You're lucky the prince didn't carve out your throat!"

  "Shut your mouth!" little Maya was shouting at Ofeer, holding a fork like a weapon. "Atalia is ten times the woman you are, you wall-pisser."

  The two Sela boys—tall and noble Epher and smirking Koren—were busy shouting at their sisters to be silent. The guards all stood with drawn weapons, confusion replacing the rage on their faces.

  "It's all right," Seneca said to his men. He waved down their blades. "The rabid bitch is gone. Sheath your swords."

  Slowly the storm eased, and the Magisterian Guard returned to stand by the walls, and the others returned to their seats. With calm restored, Seneca raised his chin and placed his hands beneath the tabletop, hiding their tremble. He stared toward the doorway Atalia had vanished through.

  I don't know if your father will accept my offer, Atalia. I don't know if this land will bend the knee or burn. But one thing I know. One day I will kill you, Atalia Sela. I swear this on the gods. I will kill you.

  With order restored, Seneca drank from his wine, a gulp too deep for wisdom perhaps, but he needed its strength. Ale for courage, wine for strength, blood for lust, went the old saying. Seneca had seen no ale in this kingdom, but he would have his share of the other two before this campaign was done.

  "Yes, a king, Sela," he said, staring at Jerael across the tabletop. "A king who'll bend the knee to Aelar. Your old queen used to bend the knee and suck my father's cock, and he let her keep her throne, let her rule over this band of desert rats. You will do the same, and once the lumers continue arriving, my fleet and I will sail away. Aelar has no wish to embroil its troops here in the backwater of the world."

  Jerael stared at him, and for just a moment—a moment that seemed to last a lifetime—there was unadulterated hatred in those dark eyes, hatred hotter and far more dangerous than anything that had burned in Atalia's eyes.

  "Often birds will fly through a window in a home," Jerael said, speaking slowly. "They are then loath to leave."

  "Aelar is no finch or lark or pipit," said Seneca, "no clumsy bird that would bang against the walls. Aelar is an eagle, and eagles fly high, having little concern for what rats scurry below." He licked his lips. "Unless they're hungry."

  And so there it was. The offer was on the table.

  If Jerael accepts, and if we take Beth Eloh together, Father will name me his heir, Seneca thought. I will return home a hero, the man who subdued the conflict in Zohar. My sister will return home in shame.

  He wondered where Porcia was now. The beast—three years his senior—reminded him a little of Atalia, a wild woman who loved the blade. But while Atalia was mindless and rabid, Porcia was intelligent, deadly, her every move calculating. Was Porcia Octavius already besieging Beth Eloh, having traversed the northern hills?

  If she beats me to the rats' temple, I'll be nothing, Seneca thought. A disgrace, the throne forever beyond my reach.

  "Well, speak!" he demanded, staring at Jerael. "Do you accept? I offered you a crown! Do you turn me down?"

  The patriarch of House Sela would not tear his eyes away. Silence filled the room. Not a piece of armor chinked. The air now seemed more dangerous than when blades had shone.

  "And once I'm on the throne of Zohar," Jerael said, still speaking slowly as if considering every word, "what makes you think I will serve as your father's puppet? That is what you seek here. A puppet king for a puppet state."

  A grin spread across Seneca's face, a grin so wide it hurt his cheeks, a grin to drown all his fear.

  "Last time our nations fought, you whored out your own wife to the legions. You let a man of Aelar fuck her, and then you raised the bastard child instead of drowning her in a bucket. A man who offered his own wife will offer us all the lumers in Zohar."

  For the first time, rage showed on Jerael's face. His eyebrows—impossibly thick, impossibly black—pushed down over blazing eyes. His muscles tensed. His fingers twitched as if aching to draw a sword. His face flushed crimson.

  I should kill him now, Seneca thought. But I need the old lion. I need his troops. I need his strength working for me.

  "Leave this house." Jerael hissed the words through a clenched jaw. "Leave now, Prince Seneca Octavius. Return to your ship. I will consider your offer. I will pray to my god. Tomorrow at dawn, look to the gates of Gefen, and you will find them opened or find them locked and guarded. That will be your answer."

  It was the best Seneca could hope for today. He nodded and rose to his feet. He snapped his fingers and walked toward the door, his guards clanking behind him.

  As he passed by Ofeer, Seneca leaned down and whispered into her ear, "Remember my words in the cave."

  Seneca raised his head, gave Jerael a look and thin smile, and left the house.

  VALENTINA

  Valentina Octavius, Princess of Aelar, lay on her bed, eyes closed, lips parted, her lumer's kisses flowing across her
body like mottles of sunlight on a spring garden.

  "Iris," she whispered, over and over, holding her lover. "Gods. Iris!"

  The dark-eyed, olive-skinned woman silenced her with a kiss. "Your father will hear us, domina."

  "Don't stop." Valentina moaned. "Please."

  She buried her milky white hands in her lumer's midnight hair. As their naked bodies moved together, the luminescence flowed across them, tingles of gold, intoxicating, making Valentina cry out louder, so loud that Iris had to place a hand over her mouth. The pleasure was too real, too intense, almost painful, rising so high Valentina could not bear it. Finally she screamed, voice muffled under her lumer's palm, then lay shuddering in the bed.

  Iris nestled against her, their bodies slick with sweat, and kissed her ear. "I love waking up like this, domina."

  Valentina lay breathing heavily, unable to speak, unable to move, too weak to even curl her fingers. Her heart beat against her ribs like a trapped bird in a cage. She gazed at her ceiling, where pastel murals of lapwings, swans, and herons flew. Finally Valentina rolled over in bed and gazed at her lumer. She stroked Iris's damp hair.

  "He'll find out," she whispered. "My father will find out."

  Iris shook her head. "Emperor Marcus Octavius is wise and strong, domina, but he knows not what happens in this chamber. Here is our domain."

  Valentina looked around her chamber. A princess of Aelar, she lived here in splendor. Giltwood furniture stood on marble floors. Statues of leopards, jackals, and stallions rose between potted plants. Here she had the wealth of an empire: chests of jewels, cabinets of priceless silks and wool, and most precious of all, her own lumer, her sweet Iris.

  She kissed Iris's forehead. "I was so scared years ago when they brought you to me." With her white fingers, she held Iris's dark, slender hand. "So sad, motherless and lonely. I cried every day, but you comforted me. You've been my comfort, my light, my love since that day. We are women now, and my father wants me to marry, but I only want to stay here with you. Forever."

  Iris nodded. "I cried so much on the ship here, leaving Zohar behind, coming to a new land, to a place called Aelar. But I'm so blessed." She brushed strands of white hair back from Valentina's damp forehead. "Here, with you, I found new light in my life."

  With sweetness still tingling through her, Valentina rose from her bed. She approached her tall bronze mirror and gazed at her reflection. She looked like one of the marble statues that rose across the city. Her body, her hair, her eyebrows, her eyelashes—all were purest white. Even her irises lacked pigment. She was an albino, a cursed one. In the dregs of the city, they doomed the colorless to burning in fire, a sacrifice to the gods, then used their ashes in medicine.

  But I'm a princess of Aelar, she thought. A trophy to be bartered off to a suitor, to forge alliances, to birth heirs . . . when all I want to do is stay here. With her.

  She spun away from the mirror, facing Iris again. The Zoharite woman still lay on the bed, her raven hair pooled around her, the sunlight shining on her copper skin.

  "Let us escape," Valentina said. "Let us sail away. Far from this place. Let us travel together to Zohar." She knelt by the bed and held Iris's hands. "You can show me all those places you've told me of—the mountains in the north, the olive groves, the ancient city of Beth Eloh with all its gold and magic." Her eyes dampened. "We can live there together, you and I, free from all this."

  Iris blinked. "Domina! You're a princess here, living in wealth. Why should you seek to escape this life, to choose the life of a refugee?"

  "A life with you!"

  Iris sat up in bed and touched Valentina's cheek. "You have me, my princess. Always. Even should you wed one of your suitors, I will always be your lumer. I will never leave your side." She frowned and cocked her head. "I hear the footsteps of slaves outside. Soon they'll come to change your linens, to dress and serve you, and they gossip more than chickadees chirp. I must leave, domina. But I'll always return to you."

  Iris rose quickly, pulled on her tunic, and parted from Valentina with a kiss, leaving her cold, empty, trapped in a gilded cage.

  Her slaves entered the chamber next, a pair of Nurians with mahogany skin, braided hair, and liquid brown eyes. They brushed Valentina's milky hair while cooing about its beauty, and they dressed her in a stola of lavender linen. Other slaves brought a basket of freshly baked breads, hot butter, fried fish, apples and grapes, and sweet tea with honey. Yet Valentina found no appetite, and just the sight of the food twisted her belly.

  "Take the food back to the kitchens," she said. "Or eat it yourselves. I'll spend my morning in the garden."

  "But my princess!" said one of the slaves. "Your father, the glorious Emperor Marcus, may the gods forever praise his name, has arranged an appointment for you. General Cyprian has returned from the Gaelian campaign, and he seeks to court you. A deer hunt has been arranged in the northern hills, and he requests your company while—"

  "General Cyprian is twice my age and twice divorced," Valentina said. "He can go hunt deer if he likes, but he will not hunt me."

  With that, Valentina left her chamber and her slaves. She walked through the palace. Marble columns rose at her sides, their gilded capitals shaped as eagles. Statues of the gods stood between them. Aelia, goddess of music and namesake of the Empire, stood holding a silent lyre. Vin, god of wine, cavorted naked on goat legs, holding a jug of wine. Valentina's favorite was Junia, goddess of wisdom, always depicted holding a scroll; it was the goddess Valentina prayed to most. As a child, Valentina had thought that she herself was a goddess, for she looked like a marble statue, her skin and hair just as pale.

  She stepped under an archway into the gardens, perhaps her favorite place in Aelar. The gardens had always been a sanctuary to Valentina, a place to escape the bustle of court, the noise and crowds of the city, and the madness she recognized in her older sister. Yet today even this haven made her shiver. Porticos of marble columns surrounded the gardens, topped with gilded cupids, arrows ready to pierce the breasts of lovers. While she had once thought them silly, today these cupids frightened Valentina. They seemed to demand that she accept a suitor, love a man. She trembled at the thought. A suitor's hands upon her seemed worse than lions devouring prey, and again Valentina wished she could sail away with Iris, travel to the mystical, eastern land of Zohar, to live in the desert far from any statue or suitor.

  She looked away from the cupids, shoving the thought of them aside. She wouldn't let them ruin her safe place. Many flowers grew from clay urns around the columns, and a small waterfall cascaded from an aqueduct into a pool. Finches splashed in a stone bath while hummingbirds fed from sage blossoms. Valentina could barely see the palace from here, barely see any buildings, only the top tier of the Amphitheatrum between the cypresses. The entire Aelarian Acropolis had become a place of fear to her. Only here, with birds and flowers, could Valentina Octavius, youngest child of Emperor Marcus, seek some peace.

  At least until the half-naked slave crept into the gardens.

  He frightened her. He frightened her more than the cupids' arrows, more than the court, almost as much as the screams that sometimes rose from the amphitheater. Valentina had never seen a man so thin. He wore only a loincloth, and his ribs poked at his skin. His toenails were long and yellow, and a scraggly beard hung down to his navel, almost as long as his hair. When he smiled at her, he revealed several missing teeth.

  Valentina knew him. She had seen him countless times, skulking in the palace, following her father around, even riding with Marcus in his golden chariot. Always there, always a shadow, always a stench even in gardens of spring flowers.

  "What do you want?" Valentina tried to sound stern like her sister Porcia, but her voice was barely a whisper; she doubted the man could even hear her. "You're not allowed in the gardens. Go away."

  She looked around her, hoping to find men of the Magisterian Guard, but she was alone here with the old slave. She knew why Father kept this creature here. Mingo
was no ordinary slave. He was a memento mori, a reminder of mortality, chosen years ago due to his features resembling the emperor's. Over the years, while Marcus Octavius remained in health, Mingo—fed scraps, living in the kennels—had withered.

  Why do you keep him here? Valentina had asked her father many times. He frightens me.

  He frightens me too, the emperor had confessed. And that is why I keep him near. He's a reminder that we, the rulers of Aelar, are but mortals too, that we age, fade away, sweat and stink. Just living beings.

  Yet Valentina needed no such reminder; she had become aware of her mortality years ago, when one of the kennel hounds had sneaked into the palace and devoured her kittens. This slave too seemed like a ravenous dog to her, likely to bite.

  "Not allowed in the gardens?" Despite her warning, Mingo hobbled toward her, chains jangling between his ankles. "I'm like a shadow, child, allowed everywhere the sun shines."

  His voice was soft. She had expected his usual cackle, which he often used in court—a jarring sound that would echo between the walls. But he seemed different today, his eyes—normally mocking—now sad.

  "Stand back!" Valentina had never liked blades—they frightened her, even from a distance—but now she wished she were brave like Porcia and Seneca, armed with a sword. "Father will hear of this."

  "Father?" Mingo raised his eyebrows. "You mean Emperor Marcus Octavius?"

  "Of course I do."

  Valentina took a step away, her stola rustling. She wanted to flee these gardens, to race back to her chamber in the palace, to seek instead solace in her scrolls. But something in Mingo's eyes shackled her here, connecting her to him as surely as chains connected his ankles.

  Mingo stood on the grass and admired the trees. "Ah, the first robins of spring! And is that a hoopoe I hear? The little eggs are hatching, and new song fills the air. And—oh! Look at that branch, there in the pine. A cuckoo."