The Broken Tower--A Novel by Kelly Braffet

Author:Kelly Braffet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2021-11-12T15:53:26+00:00

* * *

Through all of that day and the next, Korsa considered and reconsidered the strange interlude in the parlor. It had not been a dream. He was too familiar with kagirh-space to think that. But it was also not entirely like any kagirh-space he had ever experienced. He had never heard of a person dying and finding themselves there, had never encountered anyone there who claimed to be dead. And yet, Theron himself seemed utterly real. At dinner, as he sat in the dining room with the thirteen-fourteens—none of them, including Korsa, eating very much—he said, “Did Lord Elban have more than one son?”

It was the first full sentence any of them had spoken since Anna’s death. The thirteen-fourteens looked up at him, startled. Jesse said, “Yes. Lord Gavin and Lord Theron.”

“But Lord Theron was always sick,” Ida said. “Before the Seneschal took over, everyone was saying he was going to die.”

“Far as we know, he did. Far as we know, they all did.” That was Liam. The words fell heavy on the table. Three pairs of eyes looked back down at their plates of food. Only Florence seemed unconcerned.

“They all?” Korsa said. “Who is ‘they all’?”

“The Children,” Ida said, sounding depressed. “Lord Gavin, Lord Theron, Lady Eleanor, and Judah the Foundling. None of them have been seen since Lord Elban died. I heard they’re in prison.”

“I heard they’re living under fake names in the city,” Jesse said.

“They’re dead,” Liam said, with finality. “The Seneschal has no reason to keep any of them alive.”

That might have been true for Theron and Eleanor, but the Seneschal had a very good reason to keep Judah and Gavin alive. Still, the fact that Theron had existed at all, and wasn’t merely a figment of the drug Korsa had filled himself with, gave him a small measure of hope. The next morning, when he heard the girl setting up food in the next room, he asked her to take him to the Seneschal. He did not tell the thirteen-fourteens where he was going. He did not want Florence coming along. The girl led him up one staircase and down another, all dusty and unused-looking, until finally they came to a heavy, iron-bound wooden door. From down a narrow staircase to the side came the clatters and shouts of what was surely a kitchen, but the girl turned the handle on the huge door and pushed through it.

The other side was a completely different world. There were thick-woven carpets under Korsa’s feet and heavy tapestries and paintings lining the walls. Down this hall they found another staircase, which led them to a similar hall lined with doors. From behind the closed ones, Korsa heard moans and laughter and cries. Only one door stood open, and inside that one, Korsa saw an assortment of couches and gilded tables covered with wine bottles. A man lay on one of the couches, surrounded by a flock of women who seemed to be wearing more jewelry than anything else and one delicate-looking boy who reminded him horribly of Liam.

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