The Guns of Empire (18 page)

The smile, Winter reflected, transformed her face, wide and bright and as uninhibited as she usually was self-controlled. Then again, Cyte had changed a lot in the time Winter had known her. She remembered a thin, sallow girl, eyes bruised from too many late nights studying and overfond of dark makeup. In spite of the notoriously inconsistent army diet, the regular exercise had helped her fill out to good effect.

Winter blinked, hesitated for a moment, and took another drink to cover it.
This stuff is stronger than it tastes.

“I grew up in an orphanage,” she said. “We all called it Mrs. Wilmore's Prison for Young Ladies.”

“You don't remember your family?”

Winter shook her head. “Not more than snatches. They told me I arrived when I was about four, which was young. Most girls don't wind up there until they're ten or eleven.” Jane had arrived about that age. They'd locked eyes, that first night, as the new arrivals were introduced—

She coughed. “In any event . . . My point was that we were brought up pretty strictly in the Free Church. Lots of lessons from the
Wisdoms
, lots of study of the saints, lots of prayer. And I guess I believed it, for the most part.” She remembered
wanting
to believe, anyway, looking at the faces of the girls around
her, lowered in prayer, and wanting to get the same comfort they got. Then, after she'd spent enough time with Jane, wondering if they were just faking it like she was. “But I can't imagine doing something like those villagers did, just because a priest said it was the will of God.”

“Father may be pretty strict,” Cyte said, “but if our priest ever told him to murder his children, I'm pretty sure he'd have gone home with the
Wisdoms
crammed up his ass.”

“Why would
anyone
listen?” Winter leaned back, cup dangling from her fingers. “In Khandar, the Redeemers were bad, I'll grant you. But I felt like I understood them, at least a little. They were poor, starving people who wanted to turn out the prince and the fat temple priests and burn them in the streets. That's not so strange. Hell, we did that in Vordan, only Dr. Sarton invented a special machine for it.”

“The Redeemers wanted to burn you, too,” Cyte said.

“Nothing mysterious about that,” Winter said. “Everyone can always get behind hating foreigners. But these people . . . I don't know.”

“You're asking me?” Cyte said.

“You're the history student, aren't you?”

“My official historical judgment is that people have done a lot of fucked-up things over the years,” Cyte said. “Sometimes it's priests telling them what to do, sometimes it's kings, and sometimes it's bankers or secret societies or . . .” She brightened. “Did you know that the Montrauk Tyranny was once ruled for an entire year by a chicken?”

“You're making that up.”

“I swear by Karis.” Cyte pressed one hand to her heart. “They had this board, and they'd write the various decisions on it and then scatter some seeds over it and see which the chicken ate first. Apparently the previous tyrant had decreed that the chicken was sacred.”

“What happened?”

“The priests who were really running things fixed it so the chicken would decree the execution of one of the rebellious generals. He found out about it beforehand, and there was a bit of a bloodbath, although history does not record the ultimate fate of the chicken.”

Winter stared. “You are
definitely
making that up.”

“When we get back to Vordan, I'll take you to the University library. There's all sorts of strange things in the stacks.”

When we get back to Vordan.
Winter envied Cyte her casual confidence.
We're finally getting to the heart of things, Janus says. The Priests of the Black. If we win this time, maybe it really will be over.
She wished she could believe that.

“Are you all right?” Cyte said.

“Fine. I think.” Winter set her cup down, swaying slightly. “Maybe a little drunk. It's been a very long day.”

“I'd better go.” Cyte gulped the last of her own drink, got to her feet, and stretched. Winter found herself staring and turned away before the other woman noticed. “What about your prisoner?”

“I'm not sure she's a prisoner,” Winter said. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Is she going to live?”

“Hanna thinks so.” Hanna Courvier, the Girls' Own regimental cutter, had turned her acid tongue on the unconscious girl, who had apparently been traveling for a considerable time with a serious wound in her side. “She cut out some diseased flesh and said it hadn't festered too deep. There's a fever, but unless the poison's reached her blood, she should recover.”

“Are you sure having her in the camp is a good idea?”

“No,” Winter said. “But she's well guarded, and I'm having Bobby sleep in her tent, just in case.”

Cyte nodded. She'd been there when Bobby had fought the ogrelike Penitent Twist to a standstill, saving all their lives in the process. “What about Janus?”

“I sent a report. We'll see what he says in the morning.”

“In the morning, then.” Cyte lifted the tent flap.

“Not too early, please,” Winter said. “For any of us. Abby especially.”

“I'll do what I can.” Cyte slipped out, the flap falling closed behind her.

The lamp flickered slightly in the breeze. Winter sat still for a moment, then reached for her cup and tipped it back, letting the last of the drink trickle onto her lips.

What am I doing?

It wasn't as if she'd never
noticed
anyone before. There were some striking women in the Girls' Own—Anne-Marie came to mind, with her angelic face and soft, golden curls. And there had, of course, been times on the march—they bathed in shifts, after all, in whatever running water was handy, and Winter had now and again found her eyes lingering for longer than was strictly professional.

But more than that—more than an impersonal
appreciation
—never. It had been Jane who'd woken those feelings in Winter, and she'd assumed they would
always belong to Jane alone. Before, when the girls at the Prison had discussed boys—almost as though they were mythical creatures, like unicorns—Winter had dismissed it as a silly, useless pursuit. After she and Jane had begun their clandestine relationship, she still felt apart from the others. She had a secret, deep down in the warm depths of her heart, that they couldn't share. And then Jane had been sent away with Ganhide, and Winter had fled the Prison for Khandar, and she'd assumed that part of her life was closed forever.

Be honest.
There had been one night, with Bobby, when they huddled under a single blanket beneath the endless starry sky of the Great Desol. She'd thought—
what?
Nothing particularly coherent, anyway. And nothing had come of it. When Bobby returned from Khandar, she'd had then-Lieutenant Marsh in tow, and in retrospect Winter had been a little harder on the man than he'd really deserved. But that was all.

So what am I
doing
?
Cyte was utterly unlike Jane. Dark hair instead of red, lithe and thin against Jane's ample curves. Calm, collected, and ever so rational against Jane's fire, the passion and violence that lurked just below the surface all the time. But part of Winter wanted to see if that rationality could be teased apart, if there was something more primal lurking underneath it.
I want to see her—

Damn. Brass Balls of the fucking Beast. I am way too fucking drunk.
Winter staggered to her feet just long enough to make it to the bedroll.
The world will make more fucking sense in the morning.

—

In the morning the world was fuzzy around the edges and the sun was far too bright. Winter crawled out of her tent in search of coffee and found a ranker waiting at attention. She squinted.

“What is it?”

“From Captain Forester, sir,” the woman said. “She said that you wanted to be told when the prisoner was awake.”

“She's up already?” Hanna had thought the girl might sleep for days. “Damn. I'd better go.” Winter hesitated, smelling the brew over a nearby fire.
Hell, what's the point of being a general if you can't boss the rankers around?
“When that coffee's done, bring a mug or two along for me, will you?”

The ranker grinned. “Of course, sir.”

Winter made her way through the camp to the cutter's tent they'd cleared out for the mystery girl. Six armed men from Sevran's Second Regiment guarded it, having replaced the detail that had been there all night. If Winter's orders had been obeyed, a dozen more were waiting within easy earshot, ready
to raise the alarm if the patient tried anything strange.
Like cutting men in half with a wave of pure magic, say.

Bobby waited at the tent flap, holding it open with one hand and saluting with the other. “Morning, sir.”

“Morning. When did she wake up?”

“Just a few minutes ago, sir, while I was in here checking on her.” Bobby lowered her voice. “I can feel her, too. I think her demon's a strong one.”

Bobby's situation was unusual, as far as Winter understood it. Feor, who bore the demon, had granted her the use of its power, which meant that she had the ability to sense demons to a certain degree but barely registered as one herself. Even when Winter was standing next to her, Infernivore didn't so much as twitch. Or so Winter had gathered—Bobby had spent time with Feor learning the basics on the long trip back from Khandar, while Winter had rushed ahead with Janus to get herself involved in the revolution.

“Let me talk to her alone, so she won't feel threatened,” Winter said. “But stay just outside. If I need you, I'll scream.”

“I'll be waiting, sir.”

Winter stepped inside the tent. It was large, for a single patient, with three poles and several unoccupied bedrolls. The girl had been given army-issue trousers and a shirt closer to her size. To Winter's surprise, she was sitting up, shirt pulled up a few inches to examine the bandages wound around her midsection. She looked up as Winter entered. Hollow cheeks and dark circles under her eyes made her exhaustion clear, though she seemed alert.

“I made a bet with myself,” the girl said, without preamble. “About where I'd be when I woke up. Assuming I woke up at all.” She looked around the cutter's tent and hugged her shoulders. “I guess I won.”

“We're back at my camp,” Winter said. “This is the Second Division of the Grand Army of Vordan. I'm Winter Ihernglass.”

“You're in charge?”

“Of this division. First Consul Vhalnich is in command of the army. Queen Raesinia is here, too.”

“Quite the assembly,” the girl said. “I'm Alex. You saved my life, I guess.”

“I may have,” Winter said. “Our cutter Hanna did most of the saving, though. Are you feeling better?”

“Still a little light-headed,” Alex said. “And there's a chunk missing from my side. But better than I have for days, which tells you something.”

Winter sat down, cross-legged, beside the bedroll. “I don't even know
where to start. Who
are
you? Everyone I've met who is . . . like us, you understand?” She glanced around at the tent walls, which were not far away and not terribly thick. “They all worked for the Church.” Winter lowered her voice. “The Penitent Damned. I assume you're not one of them, because you're not trying to kill me.”

“I'm not,” Alex said. “Of course, that's exactly what I
would
say if I
were
one of them, to gain your trust. Right?” She raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “I saw the guards. You're not stupid. I don't blame you. But I'm not with the Church. They'd like to have me locked up, in fact. For a long time I thought I was the only one, until I ran into the Penitent Damned.”

Winter winced. “They caught you?”

“You might say that,” Alex said. There was pain in her voice, and Winter let it lie for now.
Time for that later.

“Hanna tells me you're lucky to be alive.”

“I had a run-in with a Murnskai patrol on the way here.” Alex shifted, wincing. “Remind me to thank her.”

“You said you were looking for us. For Janus.”

Alex nodded.

“Why?”

“Because the priests are telling everyone he's sworn to destroy the Church.” She shrugged. “And I won't pretend that the chance to get back at them doesn't come into it, either. I owe them quite a bit of that.”

There was a long pause. Alex cocked her head.

“You don't trust me,” she said.

“Would you, in my situation?” Winter said.

“I suppose not.” She spread her hands. “All I can give you is my word.”

“So when Janus asks me what you're doing here, what should I tell him?”

“Tell him I want to help.” She raised a hand, then winced. “A demonstration may have to wait until I've had a little more rest. But trust me when I say I can be useful. And all I want in return is the chance to take Elysium down.”

“That's all?” Winter said, with a slight smile.

“Well, a cushy government job with a nice salary wouldn't go amiss, either. But mostly revenge.”

There was something disarming about her honesty. Winter smiled back and got to her feet. “All right. For now concentrate on getting well. I hope you won't be offended if I keep some guards around. We can discuss where you go next when you're healed.”

“Do what you need to.” Alex lay back carefully and put her head on her pillow.

“Bobby—Captain Forester—and my staff officer Captain Cytomandiclea know about . . . all of this, but none of the others do. I'd appreciate it if you kept it that way.”

“Of course. I don't know about you, but I've spent my whole life hiding what I am.” Alex smiled weakly. “Honestly, talking about it to anyone feels strange. Like taking off my clothes in public.”