Chapter Fifty-One: Threat Overlooked

If Bayram were to laugh him off now, the game would be well and truly over. Osmund might as well walk into Nadir’s dagger himself.

But Bayram did not laugh. He stared Osmund down, his expression becoming stormier and stormier. “What in the eight names of hell are you talking about?!”

Osmund chanced another fearful look at the door. “Are you sure the general isn’t just outside?” he sputtered. “H-he probably knows I’m trying to warn you! I-I think he wants to silence me!”

Bayram cursed. A moment dragged by, and then—then he actually stood, marching to the entrance of the tent before scanning their outside surroundings vigilantly. This is it, Osmund knew as he watched him. I’ve hooked a very big, very dangerous fish.

Finally the prince returned. “No one is listening,” he growled. “Tell me everything now, and I might spare you. Lie, and I’ll have you begging for the mercy of death before my men tire of you.”

It was no empty threat. Osmund knew when words carried violence and intent. “I’m not lying,” he pleaded, praying the elder prince couldn’t see through him. “General Nadir intends for you to lose today! He’s deceiving you!”

“Explain.”

“H-he’s got a special weapon he wants you to use, right?”

Emre’s instincts had been correct. Bayram’s eyes sharpened. Any doubts he had about the story, Osmund knew, were being worn away.

Scrunching up his nose trying his best to look simple and confused, and not like a man performing for his very life, he continued, “I think he mentioned something about…about creating them from the lives of magical creatures. That’s what he and Lalezar and Zeyni were doing in Kaliany, anyway. Trying to make more.” He paused as if in deep contemplation. “I don’t know how it works, exactly—”

“Just tell me what they said!” Bayram snapped.

Osmund bit his lip. “It’s not just a powerful sword. It drains the life force out of whoever wields it,” he recited. “If you use it against Cemil, it’ll immobilize you, you won’t have a chance. He’ll beat you easily. That part was important, I remember. They wanted you to lose in a really memorable way.”

Bayram cursed again. Then he rose and started pacing. The resemblance to Cemil’s own habit was unsettling.

“Anshan bitch,” he suddenly swore. Osmund stared down at the floor, fighting down his disgust. “Traitors, all! I’ll have their miserable heads!”

He was on a rampage. A deafening clatter sounded mere steps away as a displayed suit of armor—different than the bulky metal plate standard in Valcrest, but no less fearsome—toppled to the floor, and Osmund’s entire body locked up, sure that at any moment, the violence would visit him next.

Finally Bayram stopped his furious pacing. He put himself back together, breathing hard. He was really so much like Father. Then his gaze slid back to Osmund.

Please don’t touch me, the Tolmishman prayed with all his heart. If Bayram decided to take his various frustrations out on him, he had no plan except to try his best to survive with both his life and remaining dignity intact. It was the most reckless unknown of the entire operation.

But the heavens were merciful. Bayram stayed where he was. “What about his soldiers?” he pressed, still lit by fury. “Are they loyal?”

It was time to thread the needle. “Yes,” Osmund said carefully, “because they don’t know about his temper. Th-they think he’ll reward their dedication.”

“Like he did you,” Bayram noted, face glimmering with cruelty.

Perfect! “Th-that’s right, they don’t know how easily he tossed me aside,” Osmund replied, looking morosely down at the ground. “I-I wonder when everyone will find out.”

Bayram took another few steps, his wild-running thoughts crowding out the air like restless beasts. Osmund was afraid to push any more. If the elder prince was going to do what they wanted him to do, he needed to be tricked into thinking it was all his own idea. This was only possible in the first place because he didn’t see Osmund as anything other than his brother’s toy. To Bayram, he was standard and common, a mere novelty. Not someone capable of intrigues.

Not so long ago, I wouldn’t have believed it myself.

“Get up,” the prince barked. “You’re coming with me.”

In a rare twist of fortune, Bayram foisted upon him the blessed change of clothes Osmund had been longing for. He dressed himself in haste, trying to ignore the other man’s watchful stare. Thankfully he seemed more impatient than lecherous, and Osmund thanked the heavens that the elder prince found him so plain and dull.

No sooner had he made himself presentable than he was being dragged back out into the daylight. Bayram marched through the camp, and behind went Osmund, trailing at his heels like a little dog. The elder prince wasn’t one to bide his time—he was on the war path. Away from him shrank scarred and muscle-bound soldiers as if scattering before a dragon.

They encountered the three targets in inconspicuous apparel, moving through the camp in unison. “Stop,” the prince roared, his tone full of violence. Two of the figures—General Nadir and Zeyni—halted and turned. Osmund flinched. And so too, he noticed, did the third figure: Bayram’s wife.

Lalezar. Osmund really looked at her this time, at her limp black hair and huddled posture that made her already small frame even smaller. She could have been any woman on the street, and this was what made her extraordinary. Who are you? he wondered again.

“Is something the matter, my prince?” Nadir’s manner was impassive as always. He exuded an almost supernatural calm, more than age and experience alone conferred to most men. His eyes traveled to Osmund, and this time they lingered. In them was recognition—a predator acknowledging a threat they’d overlooked.

Too late, Osmund thought.

Bayram smiled, but it was an ugly, twisted expression, every part of him colored by his fury. “Wife, come to me,” he ordered.

Lalezar froze. Her frantic gaze went from her husband, to Zeyni, to Nadir. Osmund saw right away that she had no intention of complying.

“Lady Lalezar isn’t feeling well,” Nadir said at last, courteously enough, but the air was becoming charged with something dangerous. “Permit me to escort her to the healers’ tent, my prince.”

Zeyni—that is, the illusionist called Örümcek that Osmund had encountered in Kaliany—hadn’t said a word. She was standing mutely at Lalezar’s side, her wide, almost doll-like eyes downcast. If, like Emre speculated, she really was a puppet controlled by necromancy—was Lalezar the necromancer controlling her? He’d never heard of necromancers, not even Valcrest’s own usurper queen, wielding a corpse thrall’s magic for themselves!

“You’re my wife and you belong at my side,” Bayram snapped. “Your power is mine. Or have you chosen the traitor general over your own husband?”

Anxious murmurs rose from all around: more unfamiliar faces from Bayram’s camp. Nadir took a little step in front of Lalezar. “That’s a heavy charge, my prince,” he cautioned. “I don’t know what tall tales Cemil’s foreign pet has spun for you, but his intent must be to seed mistrust. He doesn’t have your best interests, nor that of the empire, in mind.”

At the general’s hip was a long dagger—no, it was a sword, a shamshir. That’s it, Osmund knew at once. That’s the cursed weapon he’s going to give to Bayram for the duel. This he would’ve known even without Emre’s intel. It must’ve been born of that wyrm they’d fought outside Şebyan, or of some other unfortunate creature.

“Draw that sword, then,” Bayram bid ominously. “Do so, and I’ll let you take your revenge against this treacherous Tolmish however you like.”

But Nadir couldn’t do that. If he drew the sword himself, of course, he’d die along with everyone else, and apparently he wasn’t keen on self-sacrifice. There was no defense he could offer against the charge.

Shing. In Bayram’s hand appeared his own weapon. “If you want to pledge yourself to my brother so badly, I’ll burn your remains on the same pyre,” he snarled.

The trio must’ve seen that it was no use trying to pick apart the lie. Lalezar trembled and grabbed Zeyni’s hand. And then, all chaos broke loose.

The world popped and moved, reality shifting. Illusions were strange that way when their casting was observed by an audience—the mind fought against what it knew to be a lie. But Zeyni was a very powerful dark mage, and the madness served its purpose. The trio flickered in and out of existence, their image appearing and re-appearing in pieces, silhouettes turning to smoke when tested by steel. The prince’s soldiers charged and swarmed, but they were only attacking their fellows. The three traitors had slipped out from right under their noses!

Bayram howled in frustration. “Find them at once!” he yelled at one of his own imperial mages. “And leave them alive! I want to punish them myself.” Then his grip closed painfully around Osmund’s wrist. “We’re not done. I’ll let you watch me put Cemil in his place.”