Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

“We take the barracks. We secure the grounds,” Prince Orin said. “From there we break into two parties: one will work from the ground floor up, the other will flank from above. Their party is too small to hold much ground. They’ll have concentrated their men at the guest rooms; it’s the only place they’ve had time to fortify. We press them from above and below. Anyone who does not surrender is forfeit: they came to this castle knowing the death they chose.

“This was a coup,” Orin said. “This was all or nothing. They have killed our king, but they have not killed me. They have lost. All we’ve left is the rat hunt.”

Cheering. Cheering was what troops did at a time like this, apparently. Aaron wondered if he was supposed to go along with them. Did the Late Wake take part in battles the same way guardsmen did? He didn’t have armor; he didn’t have a sword; he didn’t have any particular loyalty to the king, old or new. He just wanted to find Rose.

The prince selected ten men: these would stay behind to guard Connor, resealing the tower stair once the rest were through and not opening it again until all was finished. There were no Deaths among them, so Aaron didn’t much worry for the younger prince’s health this night.

Aaron hadn’t been in his rooms for Rose to find. Where would she have gone instead? If she’d still been looking for him, then maybe the castle grounds—their usual training spot would have been his own guess as to where he’d been. The kitchens, after that. Maybe even before that. At this time of night, the cooks were already making the morning’s bread; it was a good time to visit, for anyone with a friend in the kitchen and a habit of hoarding yesterday’s crusts.

When she’d heard the banshees, she would have guessed what happened. If she was smart, she would have gone to ground wherever she was, and waited for—well, maybe not for him, but waited. And she was smart. So she was waiting somewhere; he only needed to find her, and they could both sit this out together. He could go down the stairs with them, try to skirt the edges of the fighting—

Or he could go the same way she would have.

The same cold spike from earlier started twisting in his chest again. Rose had almost certainly taken the old ways. It was her favored method of slipping past her protectors. Those same guards who had not seen where the princess had gone had also been unable to find the duke, though they’d had almost immediate warning of his treachery thanks to the banshees.

Only those of royal blood could use the hidden passageways.

Blood knows blood.

The Sungs were cousins to the O’Shea line. Rose had told him herself.

Orin was watching his men go down the stairs. Lochlann had already gone, in the first wave. Aaron worked his way up next to the prince.

“The dead guard,” he said. “Where was the dead guard?”

He held himself still as the figure in full plate turned on him. Orin had lowered his visor; there was no expression to read on that polished metal face. Aaron swallowed, and tried again.

“The dead guard. Was he at his post outside the rooms, or had he gone inside?”

The steel figure regarded him a moment longer. Then it spoke, in the prince’s voice: “Inside. What of it?”

“Does the duke know of the old ways?” He remembered, as silence stretched between them again, that he wasn’t supposed to know of them. Rose should never have told him. They were a bit past that now, though.

“Is a cousin’s blood enough to open the old ways?” Aaron pressed.

The prince swore, the words echoing in the confines of his helmet. “He shouldn’t know. You shouldn’t know. But he and my father were close when they were younger.” The prince stared back down the hallway, towards his father’s suite, out of sight; he swore again. “If he knows them well enough, he could be anywhere by now. The city. The Downs.”

“No,” Aaron said, remembering the man as he’d first seen him, from the top of the walls: the duke, sitting astride his horse as he watched over the rest of his party. “He wouldn’t leave his men. Not just to save his own life.”

He could have been wrong. But he usually wasn’t, about people who didn’t like him much.

Orin was silent again, his visor still pointed off down the hall. Aaron tried to imagine what expression he wore inside: was he frowning? Outright scowling? Chewing his cheek in thought?

“There’s no way into the guest rooms from the old ways,” he finally said, his voice distanced by thought and by metal. “Almost all the side paths have withered. The closest he can come is by getting out at the grounds, and moving up from—”

Aaron waited a heartbeat, but the prince did not continue. “What is it?”

“The barracks. There’s an exit near the barracks. If he reunites with his men there…”

Then his people would have the best rallying point they could hope for.

“The stairs are still the fastest way down,” Aaron said. “Go. I’ll take the old ways. If he’s still in them, I’ll find him. If he’s rejoined his men, you’ll have your own at your back. It’s fair odds, either way.”

Two things occurred to Aaron as he ran towards his own rooms, and the quickest entrance to the old ways that he knew. He had just commanded the crown prince. The king, now. And Orin had only nodded. The second: he had no royal blood to open the doorway with. He didn’t turn around when he realized it. Something inside of him needed to know, before he confronted this man: did blood know blood?

He reached the door to his room. The handle turned easily under his palm; it wasn’t locked. He never locked it. He carried everything he owned, and besides, if he couldn’t keep his door unlocked in the royal quarters of His Majesty’s own castle, then where could he? An open door is an invitation to unwelcome guests. He stifled the thought, and entered. Shut it behind himself. And, slowly, approached the wall. He slid the table along the floor, and stood where Rose had. A breath in, then exhale; he stretched a hand out, his fingers just barely touching stone.

There was no sense getting his hopes up. If hope was even what he could call this—did he really want to be the son of a traitor duke?

The son of a man who’d killed his king.

A sudden certainty stilled Aaron’s breath. Open, he thought, and it did. He laughed softly as his hand slipped through.

Blood knew blood. He was his father’s son. Niall Sung of Three Havens didn’t listen to dead men, either.