Charles de Lotharaine had fixed his crooked spine years ago with a corset of hexed fish bones, yet the moniker had stuck, very much to Crookback’s vexation, for he was a vain man. There were rumours that he had the grey in his beard refined with powdered silver and that he was very unhappy about the furrows in his face, which, thanks to his love for tobacco and good wine, grew ever deeper into his skin.
The onyx lord kept his head bowed as he approached the King. The court of Lotharaine had shunned the old-fashioned ceremonial the onyx loved so much. No kneeling, no uniforms, except on official occasions. Crookback had put the ermine robes and brocade jackets of his ancestors in mothballs. He loved suits of black silk, tailored in the newest fashion, and he was very partial to the slender tobacco sticks the Albian ambassador had brought to the Lotharainian court. He was holding one between his fingers even now. Cigarettes. To Nerron’s ears, the name sounded like a stinging insect. Rumour had it that Crookback liked to hide behind the smoke so nobody could read his face. Charles de Lotharaine was a crowned cat pretending to be vegetarian while the tail of a mouse hung from its mouth.
The grey haze surrounding the King was so thick that the onyx lord suppressed a cough before he stopped an adequate distance from the throne.
‘Your Majesty.’ The old onyx’s voice betrayed none of the disgust he felt towards humans. His dark face hid his hatred as effortlessly as it concealed his insatiable hunger for power. Nia’sny. His name meant ‘darkness’ in their language, and it described his appearance as adequately as his heart. He’d given Nerron strict instructions to remain invisible until called upon. Nothing easier than that. A bastard was practised at being a shadow.
‘Your treasure hunter was unsuccessful, just like the men the Dwarfs hired. I am very disappointed.’ Crookback waved at a servant, who was standing behind the throne with an ashtray. ‘You were obviously exaggerating when you praised his skills.’
Nerron wanted to stub the tobacco stick out on Crook-back’s forehead. Calm, Bastard. He is a King. But he’d never been good at controlling his emotions, and he wasn’t sure whether that was a skill he ever wanted to acquire.
‘He managed to open the tomb, just as I promised. And he will find the crossbow! May I remind you that if it hadn’t been for our spies, you never would have learnt about the tomb? The Dwarfs like to think they are, like us, at home in the deep, yet the womb of the earth has no secrets a Goyl won’t discover.’
No. The old lord could not mask the arrogance in his voice. He was onyx. The most noble skin a Goyl could have – until a carnelian Goyl had declared himself King. The onyx hated Kami’en with a passion that nearly melted their stone skins. In order to depose him, they had revealed the positions of Goyl fortresses, and they had filled Crookback’s wishing sack, into which he made his enemies disappear, with so many of Kami’en’s spies that it had finally refused to take any more. It was a miracle that the King of the Goyl was still alive. Nerron knew of a dozen assassins the onyx had sent out, but Kami’en’s bodyguards were the best in their trade, even now that the Jade Goyl was gone. And he also still had the Dark Fairy on his side.
The old onyx turned around.
Finally.
The Bastard’s cue.
Nerron moved out from where he’d been standing behind the pillar, and stepped towards the throne. The arm-rest was supposedly carved from the jaw of a Giant. No matter . . . stories like that were just another attempt to prove that humans had always been the rulers of this world. The history books of the Goyl knew better. In contrast to Elves, Fairies, and Witches, humans were infants. A salamander had more history than they did.
Crookback eyed him so disparagingly that Nerron imagined ramming the bones of the Lotharainian King’s hexed corset between his ribs. Not that the Goyl wasn’t used to such looks. He did not possess what would have shielded him from them – neither beauty nor a noble heritage. When he was a child, he told himself that a Fairy had cut him from the marble of the night and that the green speckles in his skin were the traces of the leaves she’d used for it.