Read Online The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy) by Victoria Grefer - Free Book Online

agreed, and Gracia handed Vane a mirror she must have taken from
her dressing chamber.
    Vane’s
auburn hair had turned a vibrant shade of red, as well as lengthened. His chin
had widened and sprouted a thin beard. His large eyes were less so, and his
ears more pointed at the bottom. He handed Gracia back her glass, and asked the
men, “We’re sure this is wise?” His voice sounded the same as before, so he
spoke the incantation he had used on Kansten, to give himself a Podrar accent
instead of the neutral tones he’d been raised to utter. His voice grew deeper.
Sharper. “Are we sure this is wise?” he repeated. “What if Linstrom decides he
won’t take chances and reverses these spells, checking for intrigue?”
    Gratton
ordered, “Don’t let him,” and Vane rolled his eyes. Easy enough to say, that
was.
    The king
said, “It’s a chance we have to take.”
    The queen
raised an eyebrow. “A chance Vane has to take,” she corrected. “The rest of us,
we won’t find ourselves surrounded by….”
    Vane
insisted, “I’ll be fine, Gracia.” His desire to prevent her describing what
awaited him lent his new voice a false confidence.
    “Rexson,”
the queen prodded, “his stone?”
    Vane asked
what in the Giver’s name she was referring to, and the king told him, “The
Lifestone. Your uncle’s Lifestone. You’re to carry it on you. It’ll keep you
alive if Linstrom tries to kill you.”
    Vane had
heard about the Lifestone, heard the legends as a child. Supposedly it was an
enchanted gem of some kind, which would keep its possessor alive despite all
injury and any degree of pain. His tyrant uncle had sought as well as found it,
to aid in torture. It currently hid as a ruby affixed to the base of a
sculpture in the Palace garden.
    “It’ll keep
me alive, you mean, until Linstrom realizes there’s something sustaining my
life and steals the thing. The last scenario you need unfolding is that man
with that stone.”
    The king’s
voice was firm. “Should Linstrom turn treacherous, the Lifestone will permit
you to feign death until you transport yourself away. To get aid.”
    “Provided I
can transport with the injuries.”
    “Vane
Unsten, you left four children at home this morning. You know damn well you’re
a son to me, and you’re taking the stone. We’re going to the garden so you can
retrieve it.”
    Rexson
pulled Vane out his antechamber, at which point the transformed duke twisted
himself free but followed. The king was his king. An order was an order. Vane
quailed at the thought of the stone, of how his uncle had wanted to use it, but
knew that he himself would be taking it to Partsvale.
    The sun had
only begun to rise. The sky was a beautiful shade of violet, the weather calm,
with not even a breeze. The gardens lay between the Palace and the stables, and
Rexson led Vane to the statue in question, one of an ancient, robed
sorcerer-lord whom a brass plate named Brenthor. Rubies lined his garment.
    “It’s one of
these,” said the king, indicating the bottom and back of the statue. “Can you
determine which?”
    “ Encanta ,” muttered Vane. That was a
spell to identify traces of magic on an object, and it made one of the stones
glow a vibrant yellow, then fade back to its normal scarlet. A common slicing
spell tore the ruby from the statue; Vane brought it into his hand with another
incantation.
    The king
told him, “I regret you have to do this. Have to go to Linstrom.”
    So did the
sorcerer. But that was neither here nor there, not what the king needed to hear
from him. “You’re not at fault. I’m doing my part to keep Linstrom’s havoc to a
minimum, the same as Gratton. The same as you. I understand that, as does
August. I’ll pass myself off as a baker, like my ally—a family trade,
since we’re to be cousins—and I’ll be back tonight to inform you of any
developments.”
    “The Giver’s
fullest blessings,” spoke the king. “And all my prayers, the most