Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

Kel wanted to say, I know what it is like to love someone and be sworn to protect them, someone who has so much more power than you do, but whom you cannot save from the consequences of that power.

But Vienne would simply have thought he was mad. At least Luisa seemed entirely unaware that there was a political firestorm raging around her—one that had wholly to do with the fact that her arrival was a disappointment. That she was unwanted.

Kel promised to see what he could do, and trudged upstairs to his rooms, a great weariness weighing him down.


The moon that night was blue. An unusual moon, said to augur the approach of confusing events. Kel, up in the West Tower, watched as it rose, turning the sky to a deeper indigo, the sea to moving lapis. Even the sails of the ships in the harbor appeared tinted with blue, as if seen through the lenses of Montfaucon’s blue spectacles.

The long and terrible meeting in the Gallery dragged on; Conor had not yet returned. Lilibet seemed pleased that Conor had been pulled into her world of Palace negotiations and foreign interests, tellingly happy to have him at her side. Kel could picture what was going on: Bensimon and Anessa shouting at each other about what happened, about contractual points and details. Jolivet and Senex Domizio ready for talk of war. But he was, of course, just guessing. What he did know was that the King was not in attendance. Light glowed in the window of the Star Tower, and occasional smoke rose from the chimney.

He was not sure if he ought to be surprised, or angry at himself for being surprised. What else had he expected, when the King had not even gone to Valerian Square to meet the new Princess? For so many years, the Palace had put about the story: The King was a philosopher, an astronomer, a genius. His study of the stars would result in discoveries that would be passed down through generations, adding to Castellane’s glory. They had put it about so thoroughly that Kel had believed it himself, because it was easier to believe it than question it.

He guessed now that Conor had never believed it, but had never discussed it, either. He had allowed the Palace to play a game in which the King was sensible but eccentric. But Fausten’s presence in the Trick—a spike of dark-blue steel now; Kel could see it rising against the night—belied all that. He could not help hearing Andreyen’s voice in his mind: Perhaps it is Fausten you should speak to.

But Fausten was in the Trick, and no one was allowed in the Trick, save the Arrow Squadron guards and the royal family themselves.

In the end, Kel supposed, he did it because he was tired of feeling useless, tired of imagining what was going on in a room he was barred from. Among people who, save one, would not want him there. And because he no longer trusted the King. He had already put Fausten in the Trick, and had his own son whipped. If it were not for Lin, Conor would be bedridden still, and scarred forever. What else might Markus do, and why, and when?

He was supposed to protect Conor at all costs. And if that meant protecting him from his own father, then that was the situation he found himself in. I am the Prince’s shield. I am his unbreakable armor. I suffer that he might never suffer.

As if in a dream, Kel went down the spiral steps and to the wardrobe in their room. Not to his wardrobe, but Conor’s.

He dressed in black. Linen trousers, silk tunic, fitted waistcoat. Vambraces beneath his sleeves. Low black boots and, of course, his talisman around his throat. Lastly, he lifted a simple coronet from its black velvet box. Placing it on his own head felt like a crime, something impermissible, though he had done it dozens of times before.

But not without Conor knowing. Never without Conor knowing.

He slipped out of the Castel Mitat, finding the courtyard empty, though Luisa’s red ball was floating in the fountain like a water-swollen pomegranate.

The blue moon cast a ghostly air over the Palace grounds as Kel made his way through gardens and gates, past the closed doors of the Shining Gallery, past the Little Palace, the Castel Pichon, where Luisa’s apartments had been prepared. The wind had kicked up, carrying the scent of eucalyptus and a freight of dried leaves and headless flower stems.

Long ago, he and Conor would sneak out of the Castel Mitat on nights like this. They would raid Dom Valon’s kitchen for tarts and pastries; they would swim in the reflecting pool in the Queen’s Garden. Huddle in one of the cliffside follies with a bottle of brandewine swiped from the cellars and pretend to like the taste of it. Pretend to be drunk, giggling, until they really were drunk, and had to guide each other back to their rooms before dawn, each too drunk to hold the other one up, but they tried regardless.

He remembered Merren saying, “I thought it was half a joke, this Sword Catcher thing, when I heard it. Who’d do that?” By Law, Kel knew, his loyalty was owed to House Aurelian, but in reality it was given to Conor. Conor, the only person who had ever really known what Kel’s life was like, what made up his days—and in exchange, he knew Conor the same way. In fact, no one knew that Conor but him: the boy Prince who could only have a little brandewine before it made him sick, who cried when his horse (a bay stallion who hated him) broke its leg and had to have its throat cut by Jolivet. Who fretted that the world was so big, he could never see all of it, though he had never been farther than Valderan.

The Trick rose up before Kel’s eyes then—a blue-black needle of marble, threading the sky. He slid the talisman down the chain around his neck so it lay just above the open collar of his shirt. He approached the front doors of the Trick, two wooden half-moons banded with iron. Outside them were stationed a group of three Castelguards; they sat at a folding wooden table, playing yezi ge, a Shenzan card game.

They shot to their feet at Kel’s approach, their faces paling. “Monseigneur,” said one, apparently the bravest. “We were—everything has been quiet, no sound from the prisoner—”

What were they afraid of? Kel wondered. That he—that Conor—was checking to make sure they had shown alacrity in the performance of their duties? They were guarding one weak old man in a prison no one had ever escaped from.

Kel tried to imagine a Conor who would interrupt his own evening to come down to the Trick and shout at a group of guards for lazing about on duty. He failed.

“Gentlemen.” He fought the urge to incline his head politely; Princes did not bow to soldiers. “I’ve come to see the prisoner. No”—he held a hand up—“there is no need to accompany me. I prefer to go alone.”