Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) (34 page)

Terian felt his back straighten. “I wish I had your lack of care.”

“Come, Terian, you have a wonderful wit,” she said, running a hand along his sleeve in encouragement. “You have shared it with me, when you knew no one was listening. Now your stifle yourself, and it saddens me so to know that such choice comments go by the wayside, unappreciated by anyone …” She laughed. “I’m sorry, I can’t even keep up the pretense of seriousness. Terian, Saekaj and Sovar are ripe for mockery. Saekaj, especially, with its elite ‘No one may enter’ policy.”

“That’s not true,” Terian said, and he felt a burning in his cheeks. “Father did.”

“And no one else,” she said, shaking her head at him. “You need more than one example in two million to prove a point, brother mine. Otherwise you’re talking exceptions, not rules.”

“And you’re breaking rules,” Terian said, feeling the anger cloud his face, “and hoping that being a part of this family will allow an exception if ever you get caught.”

“Smooth change of subject,” Ameli said, unruffled. “But we both know I don’t say anything bad enough to get me into trouble.”

Terian started to respond but didn’t.
No, we don’t know that.

“I see that look on your face, the one that screams doubt,” she said impishly. “Do not fear for me. I’ll be fine. Father will protect me, after all. He can’t have his daughter sent to the Depths for treasonous talk. Especially not for the extremely minor crime of saying inconvenient things.”

“It’s only minor until it lands you in the composting heaps,” Terian said. “Then it’s—”

“Major,” she said. “And smelly!”

He flinched from her statement, closing his eyes and bowing his head. “I hope you’re right,” he said finally, looking up to see her still wearing that same impish smile. “I wouldn’t care to—”

“I wouldn’t care to hear whatever blasé sentiment you’re about to throw my way, brother,” she said. The smile stayed firmly in place. “Now, let’s not get weighed down by your unhappy thoughts. What can we do to while away the evening? Skulk in the markets and laugh at the dandies?”

Terian gave a slow nod. “If that is what you wish.” He forced a smile.
I do hope you’re right, Ameli. For running up against the dark side of the Tribunal’s anger is not a fate I’d wish on anyone, let alone my own sister
…

Chapter 50

“There were no bodies,” Grinnd said to Terian in a hushed voice. They stood together in a small room in the new manor house with Dahveed. There was little light, but that mattered hardly at all. Terian strained his eyes to keep watch on Grinnd’s expression as the large warrior delivered the news. “The commandant of the Depths—a friend, I might add—said they sent no bodies for composting save the insurrectionists that we killed.”

“No soldiers?” Terian asked, blinking in the dark. He looked over at Dahveed, whose red hair looked near black in the darkness. Dahveed shook his head, almost as though he were anticipating the answer.

“None,” Grinnd said. “Not a one. I saw the bodies of the ones we sent—the wizard and the others. But no sign of the soldiers that rebelled against their Lieutenant. Nor of the Lieutenant himself—”

“He was resurrected,” Dahveed said pensively. “I cast the spell myself rather than wait for them to bring a Union mage down from Saekaj or summon an army one away from other duties. Came back to life rather shocked at what had happened.”

Terian wanted to reach for his sword, pull it and bury it in the wall nearby. “Shrawn. He planted traitors in the Third Army and forced this whole insurrection scare. Then he tattled to the Sovereign and took my father out at the knees.”

“Perhaps you can bring it up to him?” Grinnd asked, voice hushed but urgent. “Help restore your father to grace?”

Terian felt a bitter sigh creep in. “I don’t know that it’ll do any good, but I’ll mention it the next time I get a meeting with him. Probably in about twenty years, based on my house’s current level of disfavor.”

“You could knock upon his gate,” Dahveed said. “He might receive you favorably.”

“And I might tell him what I think of his and Shrawn’s depopulation scheme,” Terian said and felt the seething rage bubble up in him again. “I came within inches of getting my head separated from my neck in there. I can’t see how the Sovereign could possible think that my brand of ‘honesty’ would be any good for him if he actually heard it in its unfiltered state.”

The door opened abruptly, and Kahlee breezed in, a proper black and white dress of a fashionable cut layered around her. “I can’t see it doing you or your house much good either,” she said, “getting yourself killed.”

“And there’s the voice of reason that tells me to save my own skin,” Terian said. “It’s odd to me to have to look outside my own skull for that perspective.”

“M’lady,” Grinnd said, bowing low, his armor squeaking as he did so. “I did not realize you were listening or I would have kept my traitorous musings to myself—”

“I heard no traitorous musings,” Kahlee said with an eyebrow raised. “I heard only the talking of men loyal to both their Sovereign and their general. Men of such quality as these are hard to find and impossible to replace.”

“Kind of you to say, Lady Lepos,” Dahveed said. “Yet still, we should be careful to confine such conversations to only the quietest, most out of the way places.”

“Terian!” Amenon’s voice echoed through the house. Terian looked up, as though he could see through the ceiling that separated him, on the ground floor, from his father somewhere above. The new manor was considerably smaller, only two floors and a basement.
The grandeur is lacking
, Terian thought.

“If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” Terian said, giving Dahveed and Grinnd a nod each. “And my lady wife.”

“I excuse much from you,” Kahlee replied with feigned disinterest and a roll of her eyes.

“Don’t expect that to change anytime soon.” Terian opened the door and stepped into the dim foyer. It was smaller in scale by an order of magnitude than the last manor, and wood was replaced by plaster on many of the surfaces. The floor was a quarried stone tile, with only aged wood kept for the upper floor and one choice room. The whole place had a sense of being drafty, the dank cave air not kept nearly as at bay as in their old house.

Terian made his way up the stairs and into the office that his father had claimed. It backed into the cave wall and was dimmer and smaller than his previous study. Not even the faint light of the phosphorescent ceiling shining from outside was there to break the monotony, and the fireplace was miniscule compared to his old one. A lone piece of parchment sat upon his father’s desk. Terian pulled up the chair across from him and sat, staring at Amenon.

The older man looked … old, Terian had to concede.
His defeat at the hands of Shrawn has sucked the very life from him.
The lines were set around his eyes, and he had the look of a man who needed sleep.

“What is it, Father?” Terian asked.

“I find myself completely ill at ease without Guturan here to manage my affairs,” Amenon said, blinking, head turning to take in the empty surface of his desk. The only thing on it save for the lone parchment was the red gem that had graced his previous desk.

“Guturan was a traitor who was reporting everything you said and did back to Shrawn,” Terian said. He had a vision of the butler in his head, and imagined him skewered on the tip of his sword.
Now that’s a fun thought.

“Yes, I know,” Amenon said, nodding, “but he was very efficient.”

“At betraying you.”

Amenon sighed. “Forgive me, my son.”

Terian’s ears perked up.
He’s never said he was sorry to me for anything, ever.
“For what, Father?”

“Everything I have done in my life I have done for my house, for my family,” Amenon said, the weariness upon him. “I raised my star so high so that I would be able to shine all down upon you and your mother. Once you left, I was left with only her. Now you have returned as my star wanes and done what you can to save us from the fall.”

“Father,” Terian said. “Grinnd investigated in the Depths. There were no bodies sent to the composting pile for the traitors who rebelled. Shrawn planted them. He created the incident that resulted in your fall.”

Amenon stared straight ahead. “Yes. Of course. Shrawn.”

Terian watched him carefully, but there was little life in his father’s motions. “What do we do, Father? How do we bring this before the Sovereign?”

Amenon blinked. “Bring it before the Sovereign? Why would we?”

“So that he can know the truth of the matter—that the army is still loyal!” Terian said.

“The Sovereign will commend Shrawn on his excellent scheming,” Amenon said, staring into the distance. “In the Sovereign’s view, I will have failed by allowing Shrawn to find purchase in the army at all, let alone to perpetrate such a scheme.”

Terian felt his jaw drop slightly open. “What madness is this?”

Amenon blinked once more and looked straight at him, and a muted, whisper of a chuckle came out. “It is the Sovereignty. All blame lands on the responsible. I should have seen Shrawn’s scheme coming. Since I did not, it makes me weak, and deserving of being ‘reshuffled.’ Do you not see?”

“I see cowardice and treachery rewarded,” Terian said, setting his jaw. “I see the worst virtues being held up above strength and honor—the things that will win wars.”

“Cunning and treachery can win wars,” Amenon said, settling his gaze to look at the wall past Terian’s shoulder. “Ambushes, sneak attacks, these are all weapons in the arsenal of war—and politics. I see now that I was unready to fight in that arena. My ascension to the number two house came too close to the end of the Shuffle and the Sovereign’s exodus; I was ill prepared for the resumption. I became complacent, thinking that merely serving was enough to maintain my house in its position. Oh, to be sure, I spoke the words about being steps ahead of others, but I did not understand how deep it went until Shrawn’s scheme closed its fearful jaws upon me. Clever, Shrawn. Very clever.” Amenon’s words echoed, as though he were talking to Shrawn himself, there in the room.

“Father,” Terian said, trying to catch his father’s gaze and failing, “what do we do? How do we … regain our position?”

Amenon blinked, and looked at him. “Regain our position? I built my reputation on flawless service, and now that reputation is sullied forever. Whatever you do to rebuild that reputation, Shrawn will always act to sully it again. Should he strike now, we would, I think, be finished.” Amenon made a clucking noise, drawing his lips together. “He will act soon, I suspect.”

“What do we do?” Terian asked and thumped his hand on the desk. It was an old wood, and it made a cracking noise even from Terian’s minimal strike.

“We wait,” Amenon said after a moment’s pause. Terian stared at his father, at his lifeless eyes, as they stared into the distance. “We wait for an opportunity to serve the Sovereign, to prove our worth.”

“But you said Shrawn will be acting against us even now!” Terian exploded. “What do we do about him?”

“There is nothing we can do,” Amenon said, and his voice was so gentle Terian wondered for a moment if this was the same man he’d known all his life.
No … he’s not
, he realized after a moment.
This man is broken. His strength is broken. He’s not the same man who ordered Sareea to kill me, he’s not the same man who struck me down in our first meeting after my return
. Terian clenched his teeth together.
This is a man who has seen his better days pass him by and is now ready for death
.

He stared into the face of his father, and Amenon stared into the distance, at the wall behind Terian. Terian felt a chill as the realization slowly crept up his spine.
And he will wait here—helpless, hopeless—until Shrawn brings it to him
.

Chapter 51

The sound of his gauntlet slamming hard against the iron door of Sareea’s apartment made Terian self-conscious, as though it were loud enough for them to hear it in Reikonos. He waited, nearly holding his breath, until the screech of the metal bar that fastened it shut unlatched and the heavy thing swung open. The smell of sweat hit him in the face like a punch, and he blinked as he stared at Sareea in her nightclothes, eyes slitted as she looked out at him.

“Thought you were going to keep me standing out here all night,” Terian said, making to move past her. She did not budge from the doorway, though, and stood there giving him the full weight of her dead gaze. “What are you doing?” He stood fast, when she did not say anything, and the slow realization washed over him like the waters the ocean he had seen in Reikonos. “You’re done with me now, aren’t you?”

She stared at him with the dull eyes, and he saw a flicker. “You know I’m climbing. And you—and your family—are not.”

“I suppose all those gifts of influence and deals that benefitted your house are unnecessary now?” Terian asked, shaking his head slowly.
I forgot where I was. What I was doing. Who these people are
.

“They were appropriate for the business we were conducting,” she said, still icy.
Like she doesn’t know me at all.
“So don’t think I’ll be handing them back, because the rules of society say I needn’t.”

“You certainly know how to play by the rules of society.” Terian felt pressure in his mouth and bit his lower lip for a second to hold it in. “But you don’t know a damned thing about loyalty, do you?”

“I know enough about loyalty to keep your secrets,” she said, with the ghost of a smile.

“My secrets?” Terian said, nearly scoffing. “I don’t have any secrets. Not from Shrawn, anyway.”

“Of course you do,” Sareea said, almost amused. “Like, for example, those innocent souls you left under the invisibility spell during the insurrection.” He snapped his head around to look at her, caught the corner of her smile. “Yes, I knew about them. They got safely away, not that you bothered to check. Now they’re gone without a trace, and no one knows—except me, of course.” She smiled wider. “And by the rules of our society, as your mistress, it is not only my prerogative but my duty to keep that secret.”