The Providence of Fire (59 page)

“Crushed,” Talal said, joining him.

“Maybe not,” Valyn replied.

“It's crushed,” the leach said again, quietly but firmly.

“Someone could treat it. Remember Vellik back on the Islands? He busted his throat in a botched barrel drop, and it healed up all right.”

“They got Vellik into the infirmary in less than an hour, and even still, he can barely talk now. I know how to patch up a lot of things, but this…” He spread his hands. “It's just a question of fast or slow.”

The man finally turned his head at the sound of their voices. He was young, maybe a year or two older than Valyn. He raised a weak hand in a gesture that might have been pleading or accusation, his jaw working around the mangled wreckage of his words.

Valyn blew out a long, uneven breath. Talal was right. The only kindness now was the knife's kindness, and yet Valyn hesitated, feeling for the first time what it meant to command the Wing. With all the swimming and language study, flight training and demolitions work back on the Islands, it was easy sometimes to forget that
this
was what he had trained his whole life to do.
Kettral
was just a polite word for
killer
. Of course, he wasn't supposed to be killing Annurian soldiers, but then, killing was killing. No one wanted to die.

Valyn forced himself to look at the wounded soldier; the least he could do was meet his eyes. The legionary held the stare. What did he see, looking into the darkness of Valyn's vacant irises? Valyn read fear and pain, smelled the hot burn of terror on the air. Maybe the messenger had been following their conversation, maybe not, but one way or another, he knew that his death had arrived.

Which makes every heartbeat a cruelty,
Valyn thought bleakly.

Then, before he could think further, he buried his knife in the soldier's neck, ripping furiously through the windpipe and arteries, then tearing up through the muscle until the blade snagged on bone. Hot blood soaked his blacks, and Valyn's own breath came hot and ragged in his throat. The soldier sagged against him, head canting off at an obscene angle, eyes blank, mouth hanging open.

“Holy Hull, Val,” Laith muttered. “You didn't need to take his whole head off.”

Valyn stared at the body for a moment, then jerked his knife free. The corpse collapsed.

“He's fucking dead, isn't he?” he demanded, knuckles white with clutching the blade. “Let's see what the other two have to say. Let's see if all this was worth anything.”

 

30

Morjeta's personal chambers comprised a suite of breezy, high-ceilinged marble rooms with tall narrow windows three times Kaden's height, where gossamer curtains fluttered with the breeze. After gesturing them in, the
leina
shut the heavy wooden door behind her, turned a key in the lock, then crossed to the windows, brushing aside the curtains, leaning far enough out to see the stonework on either side.

“Can we—” Triste began, but her mother cut her off with a tense shake of the head, waving them ahead into yet another room, this one away from the windows. A wide bed draped with fine silk stood against one wall. A pair of long, upholstered divans faced it across a rich, thickly piled rug. The
leina
shut the door behind them, slid a pair of locks into place, put her ear to the wood for several heartbeats, then finally turned.

“Please,” she said, gesturing to the divans, “be seated. I apologize for my haste in leading you here, but sometimes it seems Ciena loves secrets as much as she loves pleasure.”

“Can we talk in this room?” Triste asked.

Morjeta nodded. “There are listening holes in the other chambers, but I've found them here. Plugged them.”

She turned from her daughter to Kaden and Kiel, her gaze more forthright than it had been in the garden pavilion. If that look were calibrated to put Kaden at his ease, it failed. He felt like a goat sized up before the slaughter, and had to keep himself from tugging his hood even farther over his head.

“Of course,” Morjeta continued, “there are already at least a dozen people who know you're here.” She ticked them off on a manicured finger. “The guards outside Relli's shop, Relli herself, Yamara, who greeted you, and any of the other women or men we passed on the way here. How crucial is your secrecy? Like the scent of lilac on the spring air, word is already wafting through the temple halls.”

Kaden hesitated, then pushed back his hood. “Important,” he said.

The
leina
's eyes widened as she saw his burning irises, and her lips pursed. “Oh,” she said, staring for a moment before rising from her seat and dropping into a low curtsy. “Be welcome in Ciena's innermost heart, Your Radiance.”

“Rise,” Kaden replied, gesturing, “rise.” Again he felt the weight of that single syllable, one he'd be forced to utter the rest of his life.
Provided,
he amended silently,
that I
have
a life ahead of me
. “I hope, someday, to sit the throne of my ancestors, but I expect someone else has beaten me to it. For now, please call me Kaden. Any further ceremony is only likely to get us all killed.”

Morjeta paused, then nodded as she rose. “As you say, Kaden.” She hesitated. “If I may ask, how—”

“It was a trap,” Triste burst out. “Tarik Adiv took me to Ashk'lan.…”

“As a gift,” her mother said, grief clouding her eyes. “I have not forgiven myself.”

Triste waved aside the objection. “Please, Mother. Anything you could have done would have ended in more misery for us both. The point is not that Adiv took me, but
why
he took me. He was laying a trap for Kaden.”

“Why?” Morjeta demanded. “Why did he need you?”

“He needed me,” Triste replied grimly, “for bait.”

Kaden watched the girl, studying her face for some hint that she was lying, for an echo of the fierceness she had shown in the dark chambers of the Dead Heart. There was nothing. Just a young woman, frightened and angry.

Morjeta let out a long, slow whistle, then turned to a silver tray and the ewer perched upon it, poured out four crystal goblets of chilled wine. She passed them to the men first, then to Triste. Kaden noticed the trembling of her hand when she raised her own, the depth of her first sip.

“What is happening?” she asked, shaking her head, then tipping the cup to her lips once more.

“We had hoped,” Kaden replied, “that you might be able to tell us.”

“I explained to Kaden,” Triste said, “how the
leinas
hear everything, everything to do with Annur's powerful and wealthy.”

Morjeta grimaced slightly, though the expression looked like something she had practiced in a mirror, calculated to express coquettish displeasure rather than genuine irritation. “Not everything,” she said, “but it's true enough. Lust is a great loosener of tongues, and men and women both tend to spill their secrets in the strong grip of the goddess.” She blew out a breath and spread her hands. “Tarik Adiv returned to the Dawn Palace weeks ago.”

Kaden stared. The timing suggested that the leach could also use the
kenta,
although that would mean … He stopped himself, Tan's voice in his mind:
Speculation
.

“How?” he asked.

“The Kettral,” Morjeta replied. “He arrived at night, and landed atop the Spear, but people saw the bird.” She looked down, smoothing the fabric of her gown against her legs as she turned to Triste, bright tears pricking the corners of her eyes. “I've tried to see him,” she said. “Tried to find out where you were. I've gone in person half a dozen times, humbling myself in the Jasmine Court. I've sent letters.…” She shook her head. “Nothing. From what the other
leinas
tell me, he's been cloistered almost constantly with the
kenarang
.”

“Ran il Tornja,” Kaden said. He'd suspected as much. Micijah Ut had praised the general to the stars, and if anyone was in a position to suborn Kettral and Aedolians both, to murder an emperor in his own capital, it would be Annur's military commander.

Morjeta nodded. “He's been serving as regent since your father's death.”

“It fits,” Kiel said, nodding. “He can act as regent for a while, then move onto the throne itself.”

“Why not just seize the throne right away?” Triste asked.

“He couldn't,” Kaden said. “Not until news of my death or disappearance had time to make it back to the capital. He doesn't want it to look like a power grab.”

“And it doesn't,” Morjeta said. “At least, it didn't until your sister disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Kaden asked, stomach tightening. If il Tornja had attacked Sanlitun, Kaden, and Valyn, it only made sense that he'd go after Adare as well. “When? Does anyone know where she is?”

Morjeta raised her eyebrows. “Everyone knows where she is—marching north to join forces with the
kenarang
.”

Kiel frowned. “We have been, all three of us … removed from society for quite some time. It might be helpful if you could begin with Sanlitun's death.”

It didn't take long for the
leina
to outline the main points in the story, a story that, to Kaden's surprise and dismay, implicated Adare nearly as much as it did il Tornja. Morjeta explained how his sister had worked hand in hand with il Tornja to bring down Uinian, the Chief Priest of Intarra, how the two of them had crafted Accords that crippled the Church, how the princess had begun sharing the
kenarang
's bed.

Kaden stopped her there, demanding to know if she was sure.

Morjeta just smiled. “Regarding political gossip, my fellow priestesses and priests are well informed. Regarding romantic follies, the quality of our information approaches perfection. Besides, your sister made no effort to hide the liaison.”

Kaden shook his head. “Maybe il Tornja lied to her, manipulated her.”

“Maybe,” Morjeta agreed. “We weren't certain
what
happened, because not long after, the princess … disappeared. For weeks no one seemed to know where she was, not even il Tornja, who was trying to keep the whole matter quiet while simultaneously sending out scores of soldiers to search for her. The next anyone heard, your sister was in Olon. The reports were confusing, but it sounded as though she'd had some sort of religious conversion, fully embraced the worship of Intarra, and, most shockingly, declared the regent a traitor and raised her own army.”

“That makes sense,” Kaden said, hope like a soft green seed sprouting inside him. “She learned the truth, raised an army, and fought back.”

Morjeta shook her head. There was something in her eyes Kaden didn't recognize. Sorrow, perhaps? Pity?

“She didn't fight back,” the
leina
said. “She marched her army all the way to Annur, but then she was welcomed into the city, into the Dawn Palace itself, by Adiv. It was not a long meeting, but it appears whatever differences they have were plastered over.” She shook her head. “When your sister marched north, her men were calling her a saint, and his men…” She hesitated, then spread her hands. “She's claimed the Unhewn Throne, Kaden. Or all but claimed it. She intends to be Emperor.”

The words landed like a blow. Not that he felt any particular attachment to a massive chunk of rock he hadn't seen since his childhood. If the Shin had taught him one lesson, it was the futility of coveting such things. Adare, though, had been his one connection to his family, to his father. While Kaden and Valyn had been struggling through their training at the ends of the earth, Adare had stayed, had lived inside the red walls, had made Annur her home. She was his link to the city, to the father and mother he'd lost, and now, it seemed, that link was severed.

“
All but
claimed the throne?” Kiel asked.

“There wasn't time,” Morjeta said. “They're marching north now, the princess and the
kenarang,
to meet some sort of Urghul threat in the north.”

Ut and Adiv had mentioned the Urghul back in Ashk'lan. Kaden pulled the memory to the forefront of his mind. Some shaman had united the tribes for the first time, using his collected force to test the Annurian border.

“Il Tornja won victories against the Urghul,” Kaden said. “Before my father died.”

“It was those victories,” Morjeta replied, “at least in part, that won him the role of
kenarang
.”

Kiel nodded. “A familiar strategy in military insurrections.”

“What strategy?” Kaden asked, trying to keep pace with the leaps in the conversation.

“Provoke a foe, then use the newfound threat to convince your own people they need a military rather than a civilian ruler.”

“It doesn't sound like he's trying to convince anyone,” Triste said. “He murdered Kaden's father in secret. He covered it up!”

“But the Urghul threat helps his cause.”

“Except,” Kaden said, “it's not his cause anymore. Adare's claimed the throne, not il Tornja.”

“And,” Morjeta said, “all reports are that he's supporting her claim.”

Kaden met Morjeta's eyes a moment, then turned away. The
leina
's bedchamber was not small—back at Ashk'lan, half a dozen monks could have shared the room with space to spare, and yet back at Ashk'lan he could have stepped through the door into open air, into a world of sky and snow and stone bordered only by high cliffs and the horizon. Here, one room led to another. He could leave Morjeta's bedchamber, leave her suite of rooms altogether, only to find himself in another room, hemmed in by other walls. Suddenly it seemed he had returned not to a city but to a labyrinth, one he had faint hope of escaping.