To Kill a King

5: Fall's Keep

Black stone. Jagged edges. Seventeen gigantic towers spearing the sky. Walls higher than ten oaks stacked root to treetop, thicker than ten horses standing shoulder to shoulder. Above the battlements, giant banner tails streamed behind the roaring hyenas of Palandyre, painted silver on jewel green. The fortress faced the river from atop a nine-hundred-foot waterfall, cocooned by snow-capped mountains to the north and deep, haunted forests to the east and south.

A hulking black shadow rising sheer from the cliff face itself, Fall's Keep was a deadly kind of beautiful.

We approached it from the river, dropping anchor where the water met a steep winding path cut into the cliff. After two weeks on the rolling rhythm of the water, I stumbled on my first step on land. A mist hung over the Carmine and cooled my skin in the midsummer heat.

We started on the path, riding up the cliff to the fortress that perched above. At the wall, five creaking iron gates rose one after another as I rode through, a long procession of soldiers, servants, horses, standard bearers and dowry trunks trailing behind me. The roar of the waterfall drowned out our hoofbeats. Palandyren sentries stood motionless by every gate, eyes following me beneath lowered visors. I felt the silver circlet nestled in my new darkened hair, heavy on my head.

Five gates, iron and guarded at all times. A hundred-foot wall, thick, patrolled, and impossible to scale. An army could be seen from a mile away. No way in, no way out save smashing through stone or walking through iron. I shifted in my seat, uneasy.

We dismounted at the last gate, our horses led away by stableboys and our trunks carried into the central Keep. In the midst of shouted orders and scurrying footmen, a man dressed in a plain white servant's tunic hurried briskly in my direction.

"Princess Amaranta, please allow me to present King Onteromy's warmest greetings." There was a ruddy, kind face, then he lowered it for a brief bow. A sensitive, straightforward manner of speech. He spoke with no flourishes. "As master-of-keep I bid you welcome to Palandyre."

"Thank you, Master," I replied. "Is the King not present?"

"In the forest, hunting our dinner." He smiled and patted his belly. "I'm hoping for boar. This way, my lady." The throng of people rushing about parted to make way for us. I felt the Palandyrens' eyes on me. "The servants are preparing your chambers as we speak. Would you care for a tour of the grounds in the meantime?"

"Yes, that's very kind of you."

I followed him into the entrance hall of the central Keep, then into the King's audience chamber. Both were sparsely furnished, yet towering spaces with ceilings so high they vanished into shadow. The only adornment aside from torches lining the walls was a throne at the far end of the audience chamber, tall and carved of blood-red wood. There was none of the gilding and gold leaf, the mirrors and chandeliers that hung from every room in Aramercy's palace at Avenlake. Here, in every inch of stone, I saw that Fall's Keep was built for war.

The Master glanced over his shoulder and saw me gazing. "The ancients who built this fortress left the luxury of the palace behind at Kingseat, our capital," he explained.

"I suppose soldiers have little need for vanity," I said.

"Indeed." The Master led me through a maze of halls and staircases until we stepped out into one of the inner courtyards. I looked up at the tower from which we came. Threads of ivy clung to every brick, climbing high over the spires that thrust hyena banners into the heavens. Across the courtyard, bridges linked tower to tower, soldiers and servants hurrying from one to the next and back again, like the gears of a vast military machine. As the Master talked, I drew a map of the fortress's layout and defenses in my head. The problem was somehow getting that map to Aramercy, without having to put it in a letter that could be read by anyone.