Lordover Tern, hereby proclaim, by the power granted to me by His Lordship, that the following charges are brought against Cirang Deathsblade...”
Cirang Deathsblade. The name was unfamiliar to him yet fit comfortably in his mind like well worn boots. Yes, he thought as a memory surfaced. That had been her name, the woman whose body he now owned.
“... formerly of the Viragon Sisterhood, in the name of the King of Thendylath. Charge one: murder of the man Rogan Kinshield, a husband, father and brother.”
“Wait,” Tyr said. “I’m innocent of this charge.”
“Quiet, wench,” the black-beard barked.
“You’ll have your chance to address these charges during your hearing before the lordover,” the chancellor said. He looked back down at his paper. “Charges two through eleven: kidnapping of the woman Liera Kinshield and her three sons, kidnapping of the woman Feanna Vetrin and her three daughters, and kidnapping of two Viragon Sisters, Nasharla and Dona. Charge twelve: treason against the King and the Kingdom of Thendylath.”
“Is that all?” Tyr asked. He yawned.
The chancellor huffed and blustered, rolling up the scroll hastily. “I suggest, young lady, that you more carefully consider the attitude you display in the face of such serious charges. Cockiness is unflattering in a woman. Perhaps you require extra time to consider your manner before the lordover hears your response.”
Tyr listened to the men’s footsteps fade down the hall. He had no memory of kidnapping anyone or doing anything treasonous, and had only learned there was a king earlier that day. These allegations were false, though proving his innocence might be challenging.
As soon as the door shut at the end of the corridor, his fellow prisoners broke their silence.
“Who’s the new king, Cirang?” his neighbor asked. “Tell us his name.”
If the knowledge was uncommon, then that must have meant Gavin Kinshield had only recently claimed his place on the throne. There Tyr was, in gaol, and already he had something to bargain with. “What’s that information worth to you?” he asked.
“Even if I had coins to pay for it, you’ll never be able to spend it.”
“You’ll be lucky if you don’t lose your head,” someone else said. “Tell us who the king is.”
“If I tell you, then you will each owe me a favor, payable at my request.”
“Yeh, sure.”
Other prisoners agreed to the terms, probably thinking that Tyr would never be able to collect. “All right, we owe you one favor each,” the first fellow said. “Who is he?”
“The new king of Thendylath,” Tyr said, “is the warrant knight Gavin Kinshield.”
Some of the prisoners cursed or groaned in despair. Others expressed outrage that a ’ranter could rule a country. Tyr lay back down on the bed with his hands clasped behind his head, smiling into the darkness.
Of all the predicaments Sithral Tyr had ever found himself in, the most annoying was being a woman. The first time he squatted over the piss bucket, he messed his trousers. The menses came after a few days, and it embarrassed him to have to constantly ask the guards for rags to wear between his legs. They made him rinse the bloody ones himself and drape them over the posts of his bed to dry. The cramp in his lower belly was terribly uncomfortable, and his request for pain tea went ignored. He found no relief aside from the passage of time when the menses ended their course.
Eventually, Tyr learned to remember bits of Cirang’s life as a girl, a woman and a sword fighter, yet he also remembered his own life as a Nilmarion man, husband and father. He remembered traveling to Thendylath aboard a ship pulled through the water by two huge sea snakes, committing his first murder, and feeling his soul darken with the foulness of evil. Over the following few years, he’d stolen things and murdered people and sold orphans to slavers, whose ships docked in Lavene — things he’d never have done before his descent. He had no use for remorse or sorrow. Even in this body he was unburdened by female sensibilities. Thinking back on the crimes he’d committed as the man Sithral Tyr, he regretted nothing except the clues he’d left behind that had gotten one pesky ’ranter closer to arresting him than he’d have liked.
Cirang Deathsblade was not without her own dark past. Though he felt no shame or remorse for her murder of a Viragon Sister and the framing of Daia Saberheart for it, he was clever enough not to boast. It was a crime for which