Chapter 46: THE ASH AND THE EMBER

The chapel at Prague Castle was cold enough to bite through wool, and Konrad had been kneeling so long that his knees had gone numb. The candles before St. Wenceslaus’s altar guttered in a draught that smelled of snow and stone, and the air carried the faint, sweet reek of incense gone stale. He had come here to think, but the silence was not his own.

Brother Anselm emerged from the sacristy with a ledger under his arm, his Franciscan habit stained at the cuffs with ink. He did not seem surprised to find Konrad at prayer.

“You have been here since Matins,” Anselm said, his voice low. “The king has asked for you twice.”

“Let him ask,” Konrad replied, without opening his eyes. “I am speaking with God.”

“God does not answer letters from Prague,” Anselm said dryly. He settled onto the stone bench beside the confessional, the ledger resting on his knees like a sleeping cat. “But I have heard that a messenger rode south last night, toward Vienna. And that the king’s mood has curdled since.”

Konrad opened his eyes. The candle flames swam before him, each one a small, bright lie.

“Ottokar’s mood curdles at the sight of his own shadow,” he said. “It is not news.”

“It is news when he orders the gates barred,” Anselm said. “And when he stations archers on the walls. The feast is over, Sir Konrad. The winter has become a siege.”

Konrad turned his head, studying the priest. Anselm’s face was a map of small sins and smaller penances, the kind of man who noticed everything and said almost nothing. He had been Konrad’s confessor for three weeks, and in that time he had heard more than any man should.

“You have a ledger,” Konrad said. “What do you record in it?”

“Sins,” Anselm said. “And the price of absolution. But I am beginning to think that the sins I hear are not the ones that matter.” He opened the ledger, revealing pages of cramped, careful script. “I have been tracking the king’s movements since Advent. The cups he drinks from, the tasters who survive, the servants who do not.”

Konrad’s blood chilled. “That is dangerous knowledge.”

“That is why I have it,” Anselm said. He closed the ledger and looked at Konrad with eyes that were older than his face. “You are not the only one who has noticed that the walls are closing in. I have been sent to you by someone who wishes to remain unnamed, with a question: what do you intend to do about the child in Vienna?”

Konrad’s hand moved instinctively to his tunic, where the parchment lay against his chest. The words were seared into his memory—*There is another. In Vienna. And he carries your father’s eyes.*

“I intend to find him,” Konrad said. “And I intend to keep him from Ottokar’s reach.”

“And from Rudolf’s?”

The question hung in the air like smoke. Konrad had no answer that would not betray him.

Anselm rose, the ledger tucked against his side. “The king has summoned you to the great hall. He is in a mood for questions, and you have been avoiding him for three days. If you do not go, he will come looking for you. And when he finds you here, on your knees, he will wonder what you are praying for.”

Konrad stood, the blood returning to his legs in a rush of pins and needles. His body ached with the cold, but his mind was sharper than it had been in weeks.

“Let him wonder,” Konrad said. “Let him wonder what I am praying for, and who I am praying to, and whether the prayer is for his soul or his death.”

Anselm’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “You are a dangerous man to confess, Sir Konrad. You have given me more material in three weeks than I have gathered in thirty years of service.”

“Then you should be grateful,” Konrad said. “God loves a busy priest.”

He walked out of the chapel, leaving the candles to burn themselves down. The corridor beyond was dark, the torches guttering in their sconces, and the sound of Ottokar’s great hall drifted toward him like the growl of a distant beast.

The doors were thrown open as he approached, and the warmth of the fire hit him like a wall. Ottokar sat at the head of the table, his golden hair catching the light, his cup raised in mock salute. Beside him stood Kunigunde of Brandenburg, her dark eyes fixed on Konrad with the intensity of a hawk.

“Ah, the poet returns,” Ottokar said, his voice carrying easily across the hall. “I was beginning to think you had frozen to death in the chapel. Or perhaps found God and renounced the world.”

“I found only the cold,” Konrad said, stepping into the light. “And the certainty that God prefers warm chambers.”

Ottokar laughed, but it did not reach his eyes. He waved a hand, and the servants who had been lingering by the sideboards withdrew, leaving the hall empty save for the king, Kunigunde, and the shadows that clung to the walls.

“You have been busy, Sir Konrad,” Ottokar said, setting down his cup. “I have heard reports of your movements. The nursery. The library. The winter garden. You have been exploring my castle with the diligence of a man who expects to return to it one day.”

“I am a guest,” Konrad said carefully. “Guests should know the shape of the house they are staying in.”

“And what shape have you found?”

Konrad met the king’s gaze. The air between them was thick with unspoken things, with the weight of letters and poison and the blood that would soon be spilled.

“I have found a house built on stone and pride,” Konrad said. “And I have found cracks in the mortar that no one is speaking of.”

Ottokar’s smile did not waver. But his hand, resting on the arm of his chair, curled into a fist.

“Cracks,” the king repeated. “And who, in your poet’s imagination, is putting pressure on them?”

Konrad said nothing. The silence stretched, and Ottokar’s gaze grew harder.

“You think you are clever,” Ottokar said. “You think that because you carry the blood of your mother’s line, you understand the Přemyslid court. But you are a Habsburg, nephew to the man who stole my crown. And I have been patient with you, for reasons that are my own. But patience is a river that runs out.”

Kunigunde stepped forward, her voice soft as silk. “The king asks a simple question, Sir Konrad. Who is the child in Vienna?”

The words struck Konrad like a dagger between the ribs. He kept his face still, but his heart was hammering.

“I do not know what you mean,” he said.

“I think you do,” Kunigunde said. “I saw the messenger leave. I saw the seal on his saddlebag. And I know that you have been asking questions about your father’s death—questions that lead to Vienna, and to a child who should not exist.”

Ottokar rose from his chair, the full weight of his height bearing down on the hall. He walked toward Konrad slowly, his boots echoing on the stone.

“I have been generous,” Ottokar said, stopping a pace away. “I have fed you, sheltered you, treated you as a guest rather than the enemy you are. But the winter is ending, Sir Konrad. The ice is breaking. And I want to know what you intend to do when the river finally runs free.”

Konrad looked up at the king, the golden lion of Bohemia, and felt the weight of all the choices that had led him here. The letter in his tunic. The ring on his finger. The child in Vienna who carried his father’s eyes.

He thought of Hedwig’s words, of the river remembering, of the serpent coiled in his blood.

“I intend to survive,” Konrad said. “And I intend to find out whose fang I truly am.”

Ottokar’s smile returned, but it was colder now, a blade drawn in the dark.

“Then you will have your answer,” the king said. “Before the snow melts, you will have your answer.”

He turned and walked back to his chair, leaving Konrad standing alone in the firelight, the shadows closing in around him like the jaws of a trap.