Chapter Twenty-Three: Selfless Act

The impact of those words hit Osmund like a barreling horse.

Die. Cemil will…

He forced himself to slow down and think. Wasn’t that claim awfully convenient, he realized, if Emre’s true aim was to steal the terrifying weapon for his own and make Osmund his accomplice? “If you’re so concerned for him,” he pointed out, voice level, “why don’t you warn him yourself?”

He saw the answer written on the other man’s face before he even spoke. The appeal to Cemil had not gone well. “You think I haven’t tried?!”

“Then—your mother. Surely she’d want to help.”

Emre’s gaze became hooded. “They’re being foolish.” The sentiment seemed genuine, and raw. “The both of them. They think the sword will recognize him as kin somehow, that it won’t exact its price. They won’t listen to me.”

“…Kin?”

It was a warm, bright midafternoon, but Osmund still felt a chill when those piercing green eyes locked onto his own. “You know how cursed artefacts are made, at least…or don’t you?” Emre asked.

A shiver passed through him. “I know the process, whatever it is, is terrible,” Osmund admitted. “They contain a person’s power after that person has…well, passed.”

“Those artefacts are the byproducts of catastrophic suffering.” The other man’s tone was dangerous. “They don’t just contain the power of the deceased, but also a piece of their soul, drawn into and bonded with a handcrafted object.”

“So…the sword.” His heart pounded in cold dread. “It’s made from a dead person?”

“That sword,” Emre ground out, letting every word drop like a stone, “is made from many, many dead people.”

Oh, heavens.

“That sword contains our people’s suffering. Not even thirty years ago, they were slaughtered en masse by the Meskato on the border.”

“But—Cemil is Meskato, isn’t he?”

“His father is.”

Osmund thought of the prince’s mother, and the unknown language she shared with her son. “But—why would the Meskato slaughter a bunch of people? And how did you and your mother end up at the royal palace with the emperor?!”

“How do you think?!” Emre berated him. “We were taken as captives!”

Overhead, the shrill cry of a bird of prey. A scream of a happy child two streets over. “An empire’s goal is to expand at any cost,” Emre concluded heavily, with a suspicious glance at their surroundings. “For that reason alone, they killed and imprisoned those who dared to resist, and demanded allegiance of whoever was left.”

The Tolmishman had found a wall to lean against.

“Does Cemil know?”

“Of course he knows.”

“He wants to be a prince of the empire that did such a thing to his family’s people?” he asked quietly.

“He’s grown up in the heart of it, being fed those lies. He still thinks the Empire, such as it is, can be reformed. That the Meskato can be ‘benevolent rulers’. That’s why he wishes to govern.”

“…Can they? Could he possibly succeed?”

To this, there was no response. Maybe even Emre, for all he hated the Empire, couldn’t help but live in awe of his younger brother.

If what Osmund had just heard was the truth, the sword was a thing born of evil. No human should ever use it. “W-what can be done with such a weapon?” he asked helplessly.

“The only humane thing to do is destroy it. Let me worry about that part.”

“W-why would you trust me with this?” Osmund asked weakly. “You don’t know me.”

Three little birds now wandered the alley beside them, hunting merrily for scraps. Emre began pacing; a habit, it seemed, he shared with his younger brother.

“At first, I had no faith in you at all,” the man confessed. “I was hoping you’d be simple-minded and easily swayed by the promise of a reward. But you care about Cemil. Don’t you?”

Osmund flinched back as Emre drew close. The mage’s eyes were sharp and knowing, and the Tolmishman looked away. His head was a frenzy. His legs might give out completely. “I-I don’t know if I can do it,” Osmund whimpered.

“To save him, you can. You must believe in your strength.”

“I can’t betray his trust!” Osmund cried. His own cowardice appalled him. Or loyalty? He didn’t know which, but it ruled him in this moment. “Even if it’s to save him. I-I have to trust him. You’re very convincing, but…but I just can’t. I can’t betray him. Please find someone else. Don’t make me do it.”

There was a long silence. It was the kind Osmund had learned, from many years’ hard experience, would carry something nasty at the end of it.

“I didn’t want to resort to this,” Emre said.

Osmund braced himself for—something. He wasn’t sure. With his legs as shaky as they were, he didn’t think he’d make it very far if he tried to run. Would Emre slit his throat so he couldn’t blab about the plan? If that was the case, he hoped it would be done with quick.

What followed was more like a bludgeoning.

“I’m sure you don’t want to find out what would happen if Lord Pravin were to learn where you were.”

In that moment, Osmund might have preferred the blade. He turned the words over in his head, trying to find some way he’d misunderstood. I told Cemil I’d gone to Pravin before, but not why, he thought desperately. It must have made it to Emre somehow. That’s what he’s referring to! There’s no way he knows that I’m—

“For weeks now, that Tolmish merchant has had the entire seedy underbelly of Şebyan looking for a man matching your description.” The hideous words didn’t stop. “He’s calling you a common thief who stole from his house to try and mask the scent, but anyone who isn’t an idiot is slowly putting the pieces together. They know you’re alive. And that you’re valuable.”

Osmund’s mouth reflexively formed the useless words. His head felt very light. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He may as well have been parrying a blade with paper. “I assure you, however you feel about me, this danger is very real. The only reason they haven’t found you yet is because no one expects the heir of Valcrest to be mucking stables for a Meskato prince. And warming his bed for him, unless I’m mistaken.”

“I won’t go back.” Osmund was barely aware of his own protests. “I-I can’t. I’d rather die than go back now.”

“If you refuse to be their pawn, then they’d prefer you safely dead and out of the picture for good,” Emre snapped dismissively. “You’d just be giving in to what they want.”

“W-what can I do?! What can possibly be done?!”

“I’m an illusionist.” Emre pushed up his glasses. “I can make your little problem disappear for you.” It was clear the kind of disappear he meant.

Osmund nodded frantically. “If he needs to die so I can stay, I don’t care,” he pleaded.

“So you want my assistance?”

“Yes! Yes! I’ll do anything!”

Emre stepped closer. He wound something around Osmund’s wrist—a bracelet of some kind. It was a simple design: patterned glass beads threaded around a loop. “You can use this to avoid detection once you’ve stolen the sword, though you’ll have to be outdoors and away from any wards,” he advised. “I hope you appreciate, by the way, what a rare privilege it is to receive an item personally enchanted by a dark mage. Lick the beads to activate its effects.”

Osmund only nodded numbly. Lick the beads. Got it. If the situation were any less serious, he’d be tempted to think it a mean-spirited practical joke (with which he was unfortunately well-acquainted). “Cemil may be enraged at your treachery at first, but once he’s fully recovered from the sword’s influence, he’ll know what you did for him,” Emre assured him. “That’s the kind of selfless act that makes you a favorite of the poets. Your names will be mentioned in the same breath together for centuries.”

It was a lovely idea. It didn’t make this decision feel any less like a betrayal. “Okay,” Osmund whispered. “I’ll do it.”

“Tell whoever asks that you bought that bracelet from a nice old lady in the bazaar,” Emre instructed, not missing a beat. “You’re getting attention from a prince, it’s not strange that you’d be invested in your appearance. Whatever you do, don’t let anyone inspect it too carefully.”

Osmund nodded again. He felt unable to do anything else.

“Once you’ve got the sword, bring it to this location in Kaliany.” And Emre whispered a strange series of words to him. A location—some kind of mental map—flashed in his head. Osmund winced; the sensation was unpleasant. “I belong to a group who wishes to see Cemil on the throne. We’ll destroy the artefact, and you can lie low with us until it’s safe to return to his side.”

Osmund just continued nodding along, his neck starting to ache from the automatic, repetitive motions, until, he realized, Emre had vanished into thin air again. He was alone.

It was horribly tempting to imagine he’d dreamt up the entire affair—except that his legs were limp noodles, his heart was racing like a pursued rabbit, and there was a foreign presence on his wrist. It had been real. And nothing could be the same again.

At some point, his feet carried him back to the market.

I have to pull myself together, some segment of his brain, not completely dulled, attempted to reason. Anyone who sees me right now will know something’s wrong. Focus! Focus!

He thought of Lord Pravin. Of his deceptively lovely daughter, Lady Selenne. They’d invited the exiled royals of their former country into their home, then killed his inconvenient father and planned to use Osmund to legitimize their planned new dynasty, like he was nothing more than a stud horse with a fancy pedigree. He thought of what they would do to him if they caught him. Of what Cemil would say if he learned the truth. No. That couldn’t happen. This was the life Osmund had chosen. He would never, ever be a prince again.

“Osmund?” he heard distantly.

Cemil had caught sight of him, and was breaking free of his friends with a bright expression. Osmund tried to quickly school his expression as the other approached. Act natural, he thought desperately. Everything is normal. Make him believe that everything is normal.

It must not have worked. “What’s wrong?” asked Cemil by his side.

Osmund lifted his arm, weakly showing off the bracelet. “I think I paid too much for this,” he mumbled. And if he sounded so pitiful over something so inconsequential, well, that was just the sort of man everyone already knew him to be.

He felt a kiss being pressed to the inside of his wrist. “Tell me the price. I’ll make up the loss. It suits you.”