Elantris - Brandon Sanderson [254]
Control, he thought. You can deal with this. The rumor of Raoden’s return was false, of course, but Hrathen had to admit that it was a masterful stroke. He knew of the prince’s saintly reputation; the people regarded Raoden with a level of idolizing adoration that was given only to dead men. If Sarene had somehow found a look-alike, she could call him husband and continue her bid for the throne even now that Roial was dead.
She certainly works quickly, Hrathen thought with a respectful smile.
Telrii’s slaughter of Roial still bothered Hrathen. Murdering the duke without trial or incarceration would make the other nobles even more apprehensive. Hrathen rose. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to convince Telrii to at least draft a warrant of execution. It would ease the aristocratic minds if they were able to read such a document.
Telrii refused to see him. Hrathen stood in the waiting room again, staring down two of Telrii’s guards, arms folded in front of him. The two men watched at the ground sheepishly. Apparently, something had unsettled Telrii so much that he wasn’t taking any visitors at all.
Hrathen didn’t intend to let himself be ignored. Though he could not force his way into the room, he could make himself such a nuisance that Telrii eventually agreed to meet with him. So he had spent the last hour demanding a meeting every five minutes.
In fact, the time was approaching for another request. “Soldier,” he commanded. “Ask the king if he will see me.”
The soldier sighed—just as he had the last half-dozen times Hrathen had made the demand. However, the soldier opened the door and obeyed, going in to search out his commander. A few moments later, the man returned.
Hrathen’s query froze in his throat. It wasn’t the same man.
The “guard” whipped out his sword and attacked the second guard. Sounds of metal against metal exploded from the king’s audience chamber, and men began to scream—some in rage, others in agony.
Hrathen cursed—a battle on the one night he had left his armor behind. Gritting his teeth, he spun past the fighting guards and entered the room.
The tapestries were in flames, and men struggled desperately in the close confines. Several guards lay dead at the far doorway. Some wore the brown and yellow of the Elantris Guard. The others were in silver and blue—the colors of Count Eondel’s legion.
Hrathen dodged a few attacks, ducking blades or smashing them out of men’s hands. He had to find the king. Telrii was too important to—
Time froze as Hrathen saw the king through the melee, burning strips of cloth dripping from the brocades above. Telrii’s eyes were wild with fear as he dashed toward the open door at the back of the room. Eondel’s sword found Telrii’s neck before the king had taken more than a few steps.
Telrii’s headless corpse fell at Count Eondel’s feet. The count regarded it with grim eyes, then collapsed himself, holding a wound in his side.
Hrathen stood quietly in the melee, chaos forgotten for the moment, regarding the two corpses. So much for avoiding a bloody change in power, he thought with resignation.
CHAPTER 55
It seemed unnatural to look at Elantris from the outside. Raoden belonged in the city. It was as if he stood outside of his own body, looking at it from another person’s perspective. He should no more be separated from Elantris than his spirit should be separated from his body.
He stood with Sarene atop Kiin’s fortresslike house in the noonday sun. The merchant, showing both foresight and healthy paranoia following the massacre ten years before, had built his mansion more like a castle than a house. It was a compact square, with straight stone walls and narrow windows, and it even stood atop a hill. The roof had a pattern of stones running along its lip, much like the battlements atop a city wall. It was against one such stone that Raoden leaned now, Sarene pressed close to his side, her arms around his waist as they regarded the city.
Soon after Roial’s death the night before, Kiin had barred his doors and informed them that he had enough supplies stockpiled