Of Kings and Killers (Elder Empire Sea #3) - WIll Wight Page 0,78

his sword, to take her with him, but instead his sword fell from limp fingers.

His whole body sagged, but she supported him as he fell, leaning forward to whisper into his ear.

“All hail the Emperor of the World.”

His mind filled with the image of the one who had spoken those words to him, so many years ago: Ach’magut, the Overseer.

The Great Elder had made it sound like a promise.

And now that promise was fulfilled.

Darkness closed in on Calder, and his thoughts turned to Jerri. Years of habit couldn’t be broken so easily.

But she didn’t deserve his last thoughts.

Instead, he chose to remember the sun on his face and the pitching deck beneath his feet. Petal presenting an experimental draught to him as her hands trembled with doubt. Andel adjusting his hat as he pricked at Calder’s ego. Foster shouting with his head halfway up a cannon. Urzaia’s laughter echoing over the ocean. Shuffles fluttering down to land on his shoulder.

…and, though he resisted it, even Jerri slipping her arm into his and looking with him out over a strange and magical sea.

He kept that memory in his mind until he could think of nothing any longer.

Tyria stumbled out of the fog and onto the bleeding body of the Steward.

The Gardener had vanished, but of course she had. Her mission was over. Tyria reached out and pulled the Steward’s helmet off his head; his eyes stared, glassy and empty, into the distance.

With two fingers, she tested his pulse. Nothing.

She was no Reader and no medical alchemist, but she was more than familiar with corpses. And this was a fresh one.

Still, she needed to move him. She couldn’t leave his Awakened weapon or the Emperor’s armor to the Independents, and she was sure that they were coming. They wouldn’t send their Guild Head in alone, no matter how many insane Soulbound powers she had.

“Northwest corner, Rosephus,” she called back. “He’s down.”

Chapter Fifteen

three years ago

Calder stood at the wheel mostly for show as the Lyathatan pulled them into Candle Bay.

He tilted the wheel one way or the other, but the sails were furled, and the only steering he did was to briefly nudge the Lyathatan with his Intent to show the Elder what their location looked like through human eyes. His thoughts were free to drift.

And so they did. Instead of the ocean ahead of him or the swiftly approaching skyline of the Capital, Calder saw Mister Goss’ body.

He had barely known Goss at all, and the brief impression Tommison’s crew had made was anything but good, so it wasn’t as though he was personally upset by the man’s death. He was only…disturbed.

Was Ach’magut’s prophecy really a prediction? Had the Great Elder really calculated the future?

Or did he command the Elderspawn to make it happen?

The Slithers had bitten everyone equally, and from everything Calder had ever heard or read, Othaghor’s creations were more like animals than ordinary Elderspawn. They had no cosmic designs, they operated on no twisted logic, they merely fed and reproduced like any beast.

Shuffles was himself a spawn of Othaghor, and Calder fed him fish on a daily basis.

But no one had been stung other than Lakiri and, apparently, Goss. Had a more intelligent Elder held the Slithers back to avoid harming the future Emperor?

Tommison’s death was even more suspicious. He had been in a tower alone with those munitions for weeks. What were the odds that he would blow himself to oblivion so soon after their arrival?

The others called him paranoid. They all had been bitten, after all. They had certainly been in danger. Andel had been swallowed alive, and if Calder’s cutlass had been a hair slower, Jerri would have been stung.

As for the explosives, Tommison had left them alone during his entire stay. It was only when Calder ordered him to prepare them in a hurry that he had the opportunity to fumble and blow himself up. If his alchemist had been alive, it was a tragedy that would have never happened.

Still, the thoughts plagued Calder.

Was Ach’magut manipulating events to make sure Calder survived to take the throne? Now there weren’t even any witnesses outside his crew to say that they’d recovered the crown, and no one on The Testament had any love for the Emperor. They would stay quiet.

Jerri walked up next to him, standing on his right side. The spidery text of her tattoo ran down her jawline and her neck, reemerging down her leg. She still wouldn’t tell him what it said—he suspected she