Knight's Shadow by Sebastien De Castell

upon a place that, until the Greatcoats had come along, had survived border raids and territorial disputes for hundreds of years. The women and children had been so full of shock and fury that I’d feared they might attack us then and there. But in the end, we had the numbers and the weapons, and so they had simply taken their dead and dying and made their way back into the mountains, cursing us all the while.
    The memory of their faces had shaken my faith in my King, maybe for the first time in my life. All those years he’d spent planning and plotting, developing strategies and tactics to bring peace and justice to this broken, bitter country, and in the end, what had he left us with? None of us, even those who had been closest to him, knew his plan. Instead, in the days just before losing his throne and his head to the Dukes, Paelis had given each of us a secret and individual command and scattered us to the winds – a hundred and forty-four men and women, dispatched on a hundred and forty-four different journeys – never to know what became of the others.
    For five years I had searched for what Paelis had called the ‘King’s Charoites’, despite having no idea where they might be, nor, in fact, what a charoite was other than a kind of rare precious stone. Finally, I had found Aline: the King’s secret daughter. His blood. His heir. The rarest jewel of them all.
    And what was I supposed to do now? Put Aline on the throne?
    Was that the entirety of your plan, you gangly limbed, half-starved excuse for a King?
We had shared a dream, he and I. At first it was just the two of us, but we’d tricked others into believing it too. Every one of the original Greatcoats could recite the King’s Laws by heart; we could all sing them well enough that even a drunken farmer could remember our verdicts word for word a year later. How many of them still believed in all that talk of law and justice and an easing of sorrow? How much did Brasti and Kest and the other original Greatcoats, wherever they were, still believe?
    How much did I?
    I removed my coat and set it aside on the bench next to my swords. I would sleep reluctantly tonight, as frightened of my own guilty dreams as I was of finding out what Patriana’s poison had in store for me when I next awoke.
    A soft, tentative knock at my door interrupted my thoughts. It was strange that I immediately knew it was Aline. Maybe it was because of those days we had spent together on the run in Rijou – always quiet, always fearful that someone would hear us and raise the alarm. I opened the door and she came in, still wearing the faded green dress.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, looking outside to see if anyone was watching. ‘If the villagers—’
    ‘The villagers have all gone away,’ she said. ‘Besides, it’s done now. Trin will know her men failed.’
    ‘You should be asleep,’ I said.
    ‘I should be dead.’
    I knelt down and looked her in the eyes. She was more haggard than scared. ‘What’s happened?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘Then why—?’
    ‘Nothing, except that someone powerful sent men to kill me. Again. Like they always do. Like they always
will
.’
    I stood up and went to pour us each a cup of water from the jug in the small kitchen. ‘They failed,’ I said, handing her a cup.
    She drank, and I took that as a sign things might not be so bad and did the same.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, handing me back the cup.
    ‘Do you want some more?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘Did you want to sit and talk?’
    Aline looked towards the still open door. ‘Could we go for a walk outside? I’d like to see the stars.’
    The Tailor wouldn’t like that, nor would her Greatcoats. I was tired and not looking for another fight. But Aline was the heir, not our prisoner, and by now the Tailor’s men would have set up a proper perimeter.
    Also, as the King used to remind me on an almost daily basis, I’m belligerent.
    ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Just let me grab