Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) (27 page)

“To protect the people of Arkaria from impending threats and doom and forgive me if I just go to sleep right now,” Terian said, blowing air between his lips. “You always acted like there was some great evil hanging over our heads at all times, waiting to strike down and smite us.” Terian threw his arms wide. “It gave you this larger than life presence, as if you were working toward anything other than building a bigger guild so you could increase your purse and your influence, just like everyone else in Arkaria.”

“You think I was false in my profession of threats existing outside our walls?” Alaric asked. He did not look offended. Just calm.

“I think you overstated it in order to get your officers to fall in line,” Terian said. “I think you either played overly grandiose or you actually believed it, and I don’t really care which. Your intentions don’t mean shit to me. You intended to run a happy household, but when it got unruly and pruning became necessary, you didn’t want to do what had to be done, and you landed on me like a rock giant on a gnome for letting the wildfires burn out the rot. You lectured me about laws keeping us in check.” Terian sniffed. “Well, there’s one of us in this room that’s violating a law right now, and it isn’t me, and it’s probably not Xem.” He hesitated. “This time, anyway.”

“Terian,” Alaric said, “when last we spoke I talked to you of the importance of keeping intentions restrained so that moral drift doesn’t carry you away down the river to an unrecognizable place.”

“Yeah, and I told you I don’t care,” Terian said. “You know what’s changed? Now I’m in a place where the rules are a little more flexible surrounding things that need to be done. See a problem, solve it. Whatever it takes.”

“And you feel good about this?” Alaric asked. There was disappointment in the way he said it, and it prickled at Terian.

“I feel like I know where I fit in,” Terian said. “And that counts for a lot. I have a wife. I have a life. I have power at my fingertips to help shape things in the ways they need to be shaped.”

“Does your father dictate the way things need to be shaped?” Alaric asked. “Or do you?”

“My father, you,” Terian said airily, “what does it matter who shapes them? At least now when I’m being told what to do I’m being well compensated for it. I’m not scraping along. I’m doing just fine without you.”

“Perhaps we’re not doing as well without you,” Alaric said.

“I figured you’d have promoted Cyrus Davidon to officer by now,” Terian said, shaking his head. “He’s capable. Earnest. Annoyingly earnest, but capable. He could be your new golden boy. He seems like he’d be easily convinced to buy into your bullshit for a while.”

“Cyrus is on a recruiting mission to grow our strength even now,” Alaric said, “and he’s doing well at it. But that’s beside the point. He is not you, Terian.”

“I’m not me anymore,” Terian said, a little flip and a little resigned. “I’m not the same person I was when I left, Alaric. I’ve grown. I’ve faced new challenges, walked a different path.”

“And do you find this path to your liking?” Alaric asked, watching him.

“I’m good at it,” Terian said. “Better than I was at the one you’d set me upon.”

Alaric stared at him, watching carefully, keeping that sole eye on his as though he were reading through to Terian’s mind. Terian tried to keep his face immovable. “I suppose that’s what matters, then,” Alaric said and stood slowly. His armor clanked as he did so.

“It matters to me,” Terian said.

“And that counts for more than anything else,” Alaric said, seemingly agreeing. Terian caught a hint of something else, though, a sort of disagreement too subtle to even protest. “I wish you well in your new path. In your new life.”

Terian set his jaw. “Thank you.” He hesitated as Alaric turned to leave, the whiskey bottle left behind on the table. “Good luck with your … rebuilding.” He felt a twinge of guilt that he shoved away.

Alaric paused at the door to the Unnamed and rested a hand on it before pushing through. “If ever a day comes when you lose your way … I hope you will find the road back to our door.” Without waiting for a response, Alaric pushed through and left.

Terian stared behind him, trying to drum up a response. He found none.

Chapter 39

Terian felt the cool sheets against his skin, the smells of the night and the body pressed against his. The alcohol still gave his head a gentle, swimming sensation as he laid his head against the pillow.

“You had a bit to drink,” she said.

“I’m not drunk,” he said, running a hand over his forehead, which was slick with the sweat of his exertions. He tilted his head to watch as she got out of bed, putting on a vek’tag silken dressing robe and knotting the belt.

“I wouldn’t care if you were,” Sareea said, tilting her head to look back at him with a half-smile. “This is not about sobriety, it’s about release. It’s about what you need.” She ran a hand over his bare chest. It tickled.

Terian let out a slow breath. “I need a damned clue.”

“Oh?” Sareea asked, retreating toward the corner where a chamber pot waited. “Are you still mulling the origin of that sea monster?”

“It didn’t just swim into the Great Sea,” Terian said, staring at the ceiling. “Someone put it there. And it wouldn’t have been easy to do, either.”

“No, nor does it seem likely it were possible when it was as fully grown as the thing we encountered.” She was squatted down, but he could feel her eyes still on him. “So it would have to have been brought in when it was small, yes?”

“Yes.” Terian ran a finger over his lips idly. “But why?”

“There was a time that someone spread wildroot dye over the gates of the greatest manors in Saekaj,” Sareea said, standing up and gathering her robe about her. “When they caught the responsible party, it turned out to be a teenager from near the gate. He had no reason for doing it but that he hated those who had what he did not.”

“So you’d chalk it up to resentment?” Terian said, and looked over at her. She stood, standing aloof as she spoke. “I wish I could. I’m in the midst of looking for deeper connections, darker reasons.”

“You mean to suggest someone intended the thing to eat those fishermen?” Sareea asked, eyes narrowed. “To what purpose?”

“Start insurrections in Sovar?” Terian spoke aloud, letting his thoughts fall out. “Starve the people out a little at a time? I don’t know.”

“Both of those would be an end of some sort,” Sareea said.

“Pretty horrible ends,” Terian said, “for lots of people.”

“Yet some would profit by it.”

“That’s a fairly ghastly way to look at things,” Terian said.

“But true,” she said, thin smile still turning up the corner of her mouth. “Do you not see it?”

“Maybe I don’t want to see it.” He yawned. “It’s pretty horrible way to look at the world, to think someone would put a beast like that in the Great Sea just to starve out the poor.”

“Saekaj is filled with men and women base enough to do something of that sort if the advantage was apparent,” Sareea said. “Would you not do it yourself if you had to?”

“No.” Terian sat up in bed, his disgust outweighing his fatigue. “I have to go home.”

“Very well,” Sareea’s arms crossed in front of her chest.

Terian slid over to the edge of the bed and fished on the floor for his underclothes. “I thought I had a dark mind, but you coming up with this—”

“Don’t play the innocent,” Sareea said, and he heard a ripple of laughter from her. “As though you can’t see the profit in it yourself for someone who might want to stir animosities in Sovar.”

“Rioting in Sovar benefits no one,” Terian said as he grabbed his rough cloth pants off the floor and struggled into them.

“It benefits someone,” Sareea said. “You just have to be—as you put it—ghoulish enough to see it.”

Terian paused, tightening the cord of his belt. “I don’t think I want to be that ghoulish.”

“Then you’re missing the point. There are dozens who would benefit from upheaval in terms of power consolidation. The army alone has grown by leaps and bounds since the fish supply has dwindled.” She spoke and a thin satisfaction fell off her words. “There’s an advantage right there for your father—he has more soldiers and more power because they’re guaranteed to eat and their families get a larger stipend than if they were aimless poor.”

Terian paused in bed, his hand over the edge and clutching his undershirt. “You’re not accusing him, I hope.”

“I would support him if he’d done it,” Sareea said, though she sounded hollow. “He has my loyalty, remember? I’m just pointing out that you’re not thinking it through because somehow it offends your sensibilities.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Terian said, shaking his head. “Even he’s not that much of a—” He stopped speaking, and closed his eyes.
He’s that much of a monster and more.

So much more.

“I doubt he would have sent us to kill the beast if he’d gone to the trouble of unleashing it,” she said. Her voice was hovering somewhere in the darkness that surrounded him now that his eyes were closed. “But I am impressed at your naiveté. It’s almost as if you have enough optimism to want to blindly believe no one would do such things. A peculiar trait in a man who’s made a soul sacrifice as dark as the one that was required of you—”

“Don’t…mention that in my presence again.” His eyes were open now, and he stared straight up at the dark ceiling. He looked right, and knew the danger was radiating off of him. He caught her gaze and saw whatever emotion she was sporting—amusement again, he thought—slip beneath a stony facade.

She bowed her head slightly. “As you wish, my lord.”

“I have to go,” Terian said, rolling out of bed and finding the heavy plate of his greaves with his toe. He cursed.

“Would you like me to help you put your armor back on?” she asked coolly.

He stopped short of telling her to go to hell and held his tongue. “Yes,” he said after a minute, and he heard her dutifully fishing around below him.

He stood there, still and silent, as she helped him re-dress, one piece of armor at a time. When he was finished, she gave him a perfunctory peck on the cheek. “Come see me again whenever you wish,” she said with her customary coolness.

He started to snap a reply, the rawness still burning from their conversation. A sense of unease settled over him, and he kissed her cheek in return, tasting the faint hint of sweat as he did so. “You know I will,” he said, speaking the truth, because no other words he could summon to mind seemed to matter.

Chapter 40

The door to his house was opened for him, and Terian stepped inside without waiting for the servant’s greeting. The air seemed especially damp in Saekaj today, and he shuddered under his coat as the chill crept over him.

“My son,” Olia said, greeting him from where she sat in a chair in a recessed alcove under the curve of the stairwell.

“Mother,” Terian said tightly.

“Your bride was inquiring about you earlier,” Olia said, somewhat brightly for her. He studied her lined face; it had seemed less worn of late, and she occasionally even smiled.

“Is my father still here?” Terian asked, glossing right over her words.
Kahlee can wait.

“In his study,” Olia said, and her brow slumped into a frown. “What is it?”

“Just need to discuss some matters of state with him,” Terian said, heading for the steps and climbing past her. “Typical things, nothing urgent.”

“Of course, dear,” Olia said, and turned her head back to whatever she was doing. “Shall I have Guturan send you up some lunch? You missed eating with the rest of us.”

“I’m not hungry right now,” Terian called back, already halfway up the third floor stairs. “Maybe later.”

Terian halted in front of the study doors. He hesitated then knocked boldly.
No point in holding back now.

“Come in,” his father said.

Terian entered, taking care to shut the door behind him. Amenon looked up from behind his desk, which was curiously bare of parchment. “You’re back earlier than I would have expected,” Amenon said.

“Concluded all my other business,” Terian said. He saw a hint of tension in Amenon’s jaw as he spoke, but it faded. “I had a thought.”

Amenon stared at him, lips slightly puckered in distaste. “Is it one I even want to hear?”

Terian faltered. “It’s about the monster.”

Amenon sighed in resignation, then waved a hand as if to shoo Terian away. “It is done, let us put it behind us—”

“Someone put that thing in the water,” Terian said, taking a step forward. “I know you don’t want to talk about this, but it killed Verret, so we should at least discuss it—”

“It happened months ago,” Amenon said, looking at the cold surface of his desk.

“Two months,” Terian said. “Two months in which we’ve yet to discuss it.”

“There have been more important matters to attend to.”

“Verret died killing that thing,” Terian said, feeling the fury rising within.

“He died doing his duty,” Amenon said with a quiet sigh. “If it hadn’t been this, it might have been something else. People die in our line of work, Terian. Don’t be a child about it.”

Terian resisted the urge to chew his lip the way he had when he’d addressed his father as a child. “Did you put it there?”

Amenon’s eyebrows arched downward and the souring effect on his expression was immediate. “No.” His answer didn’t come out quite as a growl, but it was obvious that there was anger behind it.

“Do you know who did?” Terian asked. He stood resolute, in the middle of the room.
I won’t retreat on this, even though I can see how much he wants me to just leave.

“I have my suspicions,” Amenon said, standing without warning, armor clanking as he did so. “But this is a foolish path to go down. We take what gain from it we can and we are thankful. It is not our place to probe deeply into the realms of unfounded speculation—”

“Unfounded speculation about who turned loose a monster to starve Sovar?” Terian asked, and the hints of fury started to break loose. “That killed countless fishermen? That killed Verret? Why wouldn’t we want to know who did this thing? This foul thing—”