Promise of Blood

chapter 14



The Lighthouse of Gostaun had been dated by most historians back to the Time of Kresimir. Some claimed that it was older still, and Tamas wouldn’t have been surprised. It was certainly the oldest building in Adopest. The stone was carved by the wind, its granite blocks pitted and scored by centuries of exposure to the elements, mercilessly whipped by every type of foul weather to come off the Adsea.

Tamas stood on the balcony of the lantern room, his hands clutching the stone railing. Something was wrong. The royalists were scattered, the granaries opened to the public. Already they had begun reconstruction efforts in the city, employing thousands to clear rubble from the streets and rebuild tenements. He should be concentrating completely on the approaching Kez ambassadors, yet he could not keep from looking to the southwest.

South Pike Mountain smoked. It began as a black sliver on the horizon the day of the earthquake two weeks ago. Since then it had grown tenfold. Great billowing clouds of gray and ebony rose from the mountaintop, spreading as they gained height and blowing off over the Adsea. Historians said that the last time South Pike had erupted had been when Kresimir first set foot upon the holy mountain. They said that all of Kez had been covered in ash, that lava had destroyed hundreds of villages in Adro.

Words like “omen” and “bad tidings” were being spoken by men far too educated to take such things seriously.

He turned away from the distant mountain and looked south. The lighthouse itself was no more than four stories, but it stood on a bluff that put it well above most other buildings in Adopest. A side of the hill had given way during the earthquake, revealing the foundation of the lighthouse but sparing the structure itself. Beneath him, artillery batteries flanked the docks. Tamas didn’t think those cannons had ever been fired. They were mostly for show, a remnant of older traditions, not unlike the Mountainwatch itself. In its long history, the Nine had come close to war countless times, but not since the Bleakening had there been actual bloodshed. Off in the distance a Kez galley floated at anchor, flags flying high.

“Have those batteries tested tomorrow,” Tamas said. “We might have need of them soon.”

“Yes, sir,” Olem said. Olem and Sabon stood at his shoulders, bearing his quiet reflection with patience. A full honor guard waited down on the beach for the Kez delegation. Servants rushed around the beach, making last-minute preparations to a welcoming repast for the visiting dignitaries. Food was brought out, parasols and open tents staked in the sand, liveried men trying to keep them from blowing away with the wind coming in off the Adsea.

Andriya and Vlora were hidden at either end of the beach, eyes sharp for Privileged, rifles loaded. Tamas was taking no chances with this delegation, and the wrenching feeling deep in his gut told him he was right. There were Privileged with them, his third eye had revealed as much—though at this distance it was impossible to sense how many or how strong.

A longboat was making its way from the galley to the shore. Tamas put a looking glass to his eye and counted two dozen men. There were Wardens among them, easy to pick out for their size and their hunched, misshaped shoulders and arms.

“Ipille dares to send Wardens,” Tamas growled. “I’m tempted to blow that boat out of the water right now.”

“Of course he dares,” Sabon said. “He’s bloody king of the Kez.” Sabon coughed into his hand. “The Privileged with them likely feels the same way about you as you do of him. He knows you’ll have powder mages on the beach.”

“My Marked aren’t godless, sorcery-spawned killers.” Only the Kez had figured out how to break a man’s spirit and twist his body to create a Warden. Every other royal cabal in the Nine blanched at experimenting with human beings.

Sabon seemed amused by this. “What scares you more: a man who’s next to impossible to kill, or a man who can kill you at a league’s distance with a rifle?”

“A Warden or a powder mage? I’m not frightened of either. Wardens disgust me.” He spit on the lighthouse stones. “What’s gotten into you today? You’ve been philosophical enough lately to drive a man to tears.”

Olem gave a strangled laugh. “Breakfast,” he said.

Tamas turned on the soldier. “Breakfast?”

“He ate six bowls of porridge this morning,” Olem said. He tapped the ash from his cigarette and watched it blow off with the wind. “I’ve never seen the colonel put down so much so fast.”

The Deliv gave an embarrassed shrug. “That new cook is really something. It was like drinking milk straight from the teats of the saint herself. Where’d you get him?”

Tamas swallowed. He felt a cold sweat on his brow. “What do you mean, ‘Where’d I get him?’ I’ve not hired a new cook.”

“He said you appointed him head chef yourself,” Olem said. He put a hand out in front, miming a large belly, and took on an air of self-importance. “ ‘… to fill the hearts, minds, and souls of the soldiers and give them strength for the coming years.’ Or so he says.”

“A fat man, this tall?” Tamas gestured above his head.

Olem nodded.

“Long black hair, looks like a Rosvelean?”

“I thought he was a quarter Deliv,” Olem said. “But yes.”

“You’re mad,” Sabon said. “He’s not got a drop of Deliv in him.”

“Mihali,” Tamas said.

“Yes, that was him,” Sabon confirmed. “A devil of a cook.”

“Chef,” Tamas said distractedly. “And devil he may be. Find out who he is. Everything about him. He said his father was Moaka, the na-baron of… oh, something or another. Find out.” He would not have strange men infiltrating his headquarters with nothing more than a lamb soufflé.

“I’ll get right on that, sir,” Olem said.

“Now!”

Olem jumped. “Right away, sir.” He flicked his cigarette away and went for the stairs. Tamas watched him go, then turned back to the slowly approaching longboat. He felt Sabon’s eyes on his back.

“What?” he asked, more annoyance in his voice than he’d intended.

“What the pit was that about?” Sabon said. “A lot of fuss for just a damned cook.”

“Chef,” Tamas said.

“You think he’s a spy?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m having Olem find out.”

“What’s the good in having a bodyguard if you send him off when the Kez show up?”

Tamas ignored the question. So Mihali hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. But what about what he had said? He’d warned Tamas to investigate the Privilegeds’ dying admonition—something he should have no knowledge about.

Tamas wasn’t a religious man. If he were to ascribe to any one belief, it would probably be one most popular with upper society and philosophers these days—that Kresimir had been a timepiece god. He’d come and set the Nine in motion and had moved on, never to return.

Yet now the holy mountain itself rumbled in anger. What could this mean?

Superstitions. He couldn’t let them get the best of him. He’d have Mihali arrested this very night, and that would be the end of it.

They watched the approaching longboat for a few minutes before Sabon pointed down to the beach. “The rabble-rousers are here.”

“About damn time.”

They headed down to the docks to join Tamas’s council. With aides, assistants, bodyguards, and footmen, it seemed like all of Adopest had turned out. Tamas missed the days when secrecy demanded that they meet in person: just seven men and a woman plotting to overthrow their king.

The members of his council gathered at the front of the group to meet him on the boardwalk.

“Tamas, my dear,” Lady Winceslav said as he approached. “Be so kind as to ask His Eminence and the other gentleman”—she gestured disdainfully at the arch-diocel and the eunuch—“not to smoke so heavily around a lady.”

“You could ask them yourself,” Tamas said.

“She has,” Ricard said. “Seems His Holiness doesn’t know how to act around the ladies.”

Lady Winceslav harrumphed. “Sir, I don’t think you do either.”

Ricard removed his hat and gave her a bow. “I’m just a poor workin’ man, marm. Excuse me.”

The arch-diocel and the eunuch both seemed to enjoy Lady Winceslav’s discomfort. Charlemund turned to Tamas, blowing smoke rings. “Did you know this fellow had his manhood removed at birth? I didn’t know they still practiced such a thing, not for a thousand years.”

“The Church favored castrati for their choirs up until fifty years ago,” Ondraus said, looking over his book at the arch-diocel. He smirked. “There are still a few famous singers like Kirkham and Noubenhaus who are castrati. They’re popular in cathedrals all about the Nine. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

The arch-diocel puffed hard on his pipe.

“It’s a common practice,” the eunuch said softly, his high-pitched voice nearly drowned out by the crash of the surf on the beach. “In my native land there’s a whole caste of eunuchs, created at birth, who serve the Gurlan magistrates. They serve in the harems and the magistrates’ courts and see to their every whim.” He eyed Lady Winceslav. “Every whim imaginable.”

“Disgusting,” Lady Winceslav said, turning away.

Tamas watched the whole exchange without a word. Sometimes the council seemed to amount to nothing more than children thrust together at a boarding school that has no thought for class or upbringing. They were a motley assortment. “This is all quite interesting,” he said, “but the ambassador is here. I’ll greet him myself. Alone. No doubt he’ll bring up the Accords before he’s even off the boat. I’m going to tell him to stuff them up his ass.”

“I think he’d respond better to a lady’s charm,” Lady Winceslav said.

“I bet you do,” the arch-diocel grunted. “I have nothing to say here. The Church is neutral on matters of war in the Nine.”

“Your unwavering support brings tears to my eyes,” Tamas said. “The Kez will have demands. I prefer peace, if possible. The only question is how hard we sue for it. The Accords are out completely. I’ll not have them take this country from us. Ricard?”

“War will bring trade on the Adsea to a crawl,” Ricard Tumblar said. “The union doesn’t like the idea. Then again, the factories will grind into full use, employing thousands for munitions, clothes, and canned foods. It’ll be a great boon to industry in Adopest. Between that and rebuilding the city, we may completely solve unemployment in Adopest.”

“Start a war to improve the economy,” Tamas murmured. “If only it were so simple. Lady?”

“My mercenaries are at your disposal.”

Until Adro ran out of land for her officers, Tamas supposed.

The eunuch shrugged. “My master has no opinion on war.”

“Will he hold the gangs in check?” Tamas asked. “If Adopest goes to war only to tear itself apart, things will be over before they start.”

The eunuch took a draw at his pipe. “The Proprietor will keep things… under control.”

“Vice-Chancellor?” Tamas said.

The old man looked wistfully off over the sea and trailed a finger across the spiderlike birthmark on his face. “There hasn’t been a real war among the Nine since the Bleakening. I hope for peace but…” He wiped a hand across his brow wearily. “Ipille is a greedy man. Do what must be done.”

The reeve was the last to speak. Ondraus pocketed his ledger and removed the spectacles from his nose, folding them and putting them inside his coat. “It’ll cost us more to pay the Kez back what Manhouch borrowed than it will to run a war for two years. They can go to the pit.”

Sabon burst out laughing. Ricard and the eunuch grinned. Tamas swallowed a chuckle himself and nodded at the reeve. “Thank you for your educated opinion, sir.”

Tamas headed down the dock to greet the ambassador. He removed a powder charge from his pocket, gently unwrapped it, and sprinkled a bit on his tongue. He felt the sizzle of power, the surge of awareness that came with a powder trance, closing his eyes as he walked, one foot in front of the other, the dock boards creaking underneath him. He opened his eyes twenty paces from the boat.

A small delegation disembarked. Wardens scrambled up to the dock and then turned to help noblemen up, their sorcery-warped muscles moving like thick snakes beneath their coats. The Wardens were all big men, some nearly two heads taller than Tamas and each one worth ten soldiers in a battle. Tamas shuddered.

He wouldn’t let himself be threatened. Whatever the Kez said in the coming negotiations, he needed to keep a level head. They would menace and insult and he would take it in stride. War was not the best course here. He would sue for peace, but not at the cost of his country.

One by one the delegation climbed onto the dock. There were a number of them, all dressed in the finery of the nobility. He caught sight of a white Privileged’s glove as it reached up and took the hand of a Warden. Only one sorcerer, his third eye told him. Tamas took a deep breath, reaching out with his senses. This Privileged was not a powerful one, though such a thing was relative when speaking of men who could destroy buildings with a gesture.

The Privileged stepped up onto the dock and straightened his jacket. He laughed at something one of his delegation said and headed toward Tamas, alone.

Tamas gripped his hands behind his back to keep them from shaking. He felt his heart thunder in his ears, his vision grow red in the corner of his eyes. He shrugged Sabon’s hand from his shoulder.

Nikslaus.

Duke Nikslaus was a small man, with the delicate hands of a Privileged and an overly large head that looked to wobble on his small frame. He wore a short, furred cap and a black, buttonless coat. His stopped a foot from Tamas and extended one hand, a smirk at the corners of his mouth.

“It’s been so long, Tamas,” he said.

Tamas’s fingers tightened around the duke’s throat before he could even think. Nikslaus’s eyes bulged, his mouth opening silently. Tamas lifted him, one-handed, from the dock planks. Nikslaus raised his hands, plucking at the air. Tamas slapped them away before sorcery could be unleashed. He was vaguely aware of Wardens running toward him, of his own bodyguard approaching hastily from behind, and of the cocking sound of Sabon’s pistol. He shook Nikslaus hard.

“Is this what Ipille sends to negotiate?” Tamas demanded. “Is this their white flag? I told you if you ever stepped foot in my country again, I would nail you to the spire of Sabletooth by your hands.”

“War,” Nikslaus wheezed.

Tamas lightened his grip.

Nikslaus gasped. “You risk war!”

“You dare come here?” Tamas said. “Ipille has declared war. He sent his snake.” He threw Nikslaus to the dock. The duke squirmed along the planks, crawling backward, his hands working silently. Tamas pointed at him. “You try one thing and my Marked will gun you down.”

“How dare you?” Nikslaus said. “This was in good faith!”

“Eat your good faith, worm! Get out of my country. Tell Ipille to wipe his ass with the Accords.”

“This is war!” Nikslaus shrieked.

“War!” Tamas pulled a handful of powder charges from his pocket, crushing them in his hand. He ignited the powder as it fell, directed the energy. The dock boards beneath Nikslaus exploded upward, throwing the duke into the air and head over heels into the water. The Wardens leapt in after him, and Tamas spun around, ignoring Nikslaus’s sputtering cries for help.

“What the pit was that?” the arch-diocel demanded.

Tamas stiff-armed him, throwing him to the ground. The rest of the council stood aghast. He felt their stares on his back as he made his way up the beach to the lighthouse. His ears, tuned from the powder trance, picked up Sabon’s voice.

“Go easy on him,” Sabon told the council. “That was the man who beheaded his wife.”

Adamat pounded on the front doors of the Public Archives for twenty minutes until he heard the sound of bolts being drawn back. One of the big doors opened and the lantern-lit face of a young woman stared back at him.

“Library’s closed.” The door began to shut.

Adamat put his foot in the door.

“It’s three o’clock in the morning,” the woman said.

“I need access to the Archives.”

“Too bad. We’re closed.” She pushed the door open a little farther and then jerked back until it crunched on Adamat’s foot.

“Ow. SouSmith, if you please.”

SouSmith leaned against the door. The woman stumbled backward, lantern swinging.

“I’ll call the guards!” she said as Adamat stepped inside. He motioned SouSmith in and closed the door.

“Don’t bother,” Adamat said. “I’ve got a writ from Field Marshal Tamas.” He didn’t, but she didn’t know that. “I only need to do some research and I’ll be gone before you open in the morning.”

“A writ? Let me see it.”

Not for the first time in his investigation, Adamat felt a keen sense of loss that he’d had to send Faye away. She had many friends and would have gotten him into the Archives no matter the hour. Instead he was reduced to bullying his way in.

Adamat peered at the woman. She was not what most people expected in a librarian. Her hair was down, curly and gold, and she was very young. Almost too young. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. “Who are you?” he asked.

She drew herself up like one who was used to having to justify her authority. “The night librarian! I tend the shelves and carry out research.”

“Yes, well, miss, do you understand where the funding comes from for the Public Archives?”

“The king… oh. Grants from the nobili—oh.”

“And do you think Field Marshal Tamas will be pleased about one of his agents being turned away from research on which may rest the safety of the state? Do you think he’ll stand up for funding for the Public Archives when his agent was so poorly treated? Funding that may end up going to another library, say, to the Adopest University Library, which I know for a fact I’d have access to right now except that it’s very far out of my way.”

Employees given the night shift were often easily talked around. They tended not to be too bright. This one followed Adamat’s every word. He could tell by her eyes. He was just lucky the argument made some sense.

“All right,” she said. “But only for a few minutes.”

Adamat followed her into the archives. A few lanterns hung from the walls—but only enough to just light the way. Fire hazards were taken very seriously in libraries. He paused when they reached the tables.

“You said you tend the shelves?”

“That is one of the functions of a librarian.”

“So you put away the books?”

“Of course.”

“Do you remember a pile of books on that table that was here about ten days ago? The books would have been left out after Tamas retook the library from the royalists.”

She rounded on him fast enough to make him take a step back.

“Those books were vandalized,” she said, waving a finger under his nose. “Did you do that?”

He heard a snort of laughter from SouSmith. “No,” Adamat said with a sigh. “This is very important. Where are they?”

She didn’t drop her glare for a good thirty seconds. “This way,” she said primly. “They’ve been taken to repair.”

He followed her into the back rooms of the library where a repair bench had been set up in one corner. The bench was well worn, the wood polished from countless hours under a librarian’s behind. Stacks of broken and old books lay all around the bench ready to have covers or spines mended. Adamat recognized the books that Rozalia had been reading, all stacked neatly near the end of the piles. Adamat sat on the bench and picked the first one up.

When it became clear he wouldn’t actually be “only a moment,” the librarian reluctantly left him to his own devices. He sped through the paragraphs, though even with a perfect memory, reading was more than just glancing at the page. It was only when the room was just beginning to receive light that wasn’t from the lantern, and he was on the fifth book, that he was satisfied. He gathered three of them into his arms and woke SouSmith.

“We’ve got to see Tamas,” Adamat said.

The Public Archives were only a twenty-minute walk from the House of Nobles. Adamat was amazed as he went through the center of the city. Rubble had been cleared from the main thoroughfares, buildings damaged by the quake had been pulled down, and preparations for rebuilding were under way. The newspaper said that the Noble Warriors of Labor had employed fifty thousand men and women to help with the reconstruction efforts.

Adamat was ushered in to see the field marshal almost immediately. When they reached the top floor, Adamat was almost bowled over at the door. A young woman with dark hair and a powder mage’s keg pin on her breast shoved past him. Her mouth was set in a hard line, her face red from yelling. Inside, the room was filled with people who looked like they wanted to be elsewhere. Adamat recognized two of Tamas’s councillors—the city reeve and the vice-chancellor. Two men and a woman were brigadiers of the Wings of Adom. A half-dozen Adran soldiers sat around a table to one side, their ranks denoting captain or above.

Field Marshal Tamas sat behind the desk, his head in his hands. He looked up when Adamat entered. He looked like he’d just been shouting at someone.

“You have a report for me?” he asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

“Yes.” He hefted the books in his arms. “And more.”

Tamas jerked his head toward the balcony. “Forgive me a moment,” he told his officers.

Outside, the sun was shining. The breeze made Adamat wish he’d worn a thicker jacket. It was windier up here than at street level.

“What do you have for me?”

Adamat set the books aside. “Kresimir’s Promise.”

“And?”

“I’ve just returned from the South Pike Mountainwatch. There I interviewed Privileged Borbador, the last remaining Privileged of Manhouch’s royal cabal.”

“Formerly of the royal cabal,” Tamas said. “He was exiled. Otherwise he’d be buried in an unmarked grave with the rest.”

Adamat grimaced. “We’ll get to that in a moment. When I mentioned the Promise, Bo laughed at me. It’s an old legend, passed down among members of the royal cabal. It says that Kresimir promised the original kings of the Nine that their progeny would rule forever. If their lines were cut off, he would return himself and take vengeance.”

“A fairy story meant to scare children,” Tamas said.

“Bo said the same thing. The legend was perpetuated by the kings in order to keep the royal cabals in line. Their fear was that as soon as Kresimir left, the Privileged would seize power themselves.”

“I don’t see how it could be true. What educated man would take that seriously?”

“Apparently the older members of the royal cabal.”

Tamas grunted at this.

“It did get me thinking,” Adamat said. “Bo made a vague reference to the notion that the kings had other ways to keep the royal cabals in line—something that would make Kresimir’s Promise unnecessary.”

This piqued Tamas’s interest. “Go on.”

Adamat picked up one of the books. He found a page he’d marked, and handed it to Tamas. When Tamas had finished reading, Adamat had another passage in a different book for him, then another in the third.

Tamas handed the last book back, his face troubled.

“A gaes,” he said.

“A compelling, of sorts. Every Royal Privileged has it. If the king is killed, they are compelled to avenge him. It gets stronger and stronger over time until they either succeed or it kills them out-right. The gaes is manifested by a demon’s carbuncle—a large gem worn on the Privileged’s person that they cannot take off. When I spoke with Bo, I saw him fiddling at a necklace repeatedly. And this.” He flipped to a different page in the third book and handed it to Tamas.

Tamas scowled as he read. When he’d finished, he flipped the book shut and handed it back to Adamat. “So the gaes is permanent. Nothing can remove it, not even being exiled or removed from the royal cabal.”

“Indeed. One other thing,” Adamat said. He quickly explained his run-in with Rozalia and the message she’d sent to Bo. “As soon as he heard that message, he bolted back into the Mountainwatch. When I went to find him to ask him what it meant, he refused to see me. I saw him head out of the north gate of South Pike an hour later.”

“The north gate…?” Tamas said.

“The mountain gate. The one pilgrims use to reach the South Pike’s peak, where Kresimir first set foot on the mountain. It’s the only route up there.”

Tamas leaned against the balcony railing and looked up toward the sun. “What do you think of all this?”

Adamat had thought hard on this question the entire five-day journey back from South Pike. “I’m a reasonable man, sir. A modern man. While the last words of sorcerers give me the chills, there’s no going around it. The whole thing is rubbish. It smacks of religion. There’s a reason the royal cabals distanced themselves from the Kresim Church five hundred years ago.”

“I agree,” Tamas said. “And this thing with the gaes?”

“There’s religion and then there’s sorcery. I confirmed this with secondary sources,” Adamat said, gesturing to the stack of books. “Sorcery is deadly serious.”

“Looks like I can’t spare Borbador after all.” Pain crossed Tamas’s face quickly enough that Adamat thought he’d imagined it. Tamas gave him a look up and down. “You’ve done a commendable job,” he said, offering his hand. “You went above and beyond what I asked.”

“I’m sorry it came to nothing,” Adamat said, shaking the field marshal’s hand.

“No need to be sorry about it. Better to know it’s nothing than to not know it’s something. See the reeve about payment. I’ll make sure he’s not stingy. Good day.”

Taniel jerked awake, a pistol in his hand. He struggled to focus on the figure looming above him.

“You’re going to blow a foot off sleeping with that.”

Taniel sagged back to his bed and dropped the pistol on the floor.

“What do you want?”

Tamas pulled the only chair over and sat down, kicking his boots up on the edge of Taniel’s bed. “That’s no way to talk to your father.”

“Go to the pit.”

There were a few moments of silence. Taniel could barely think. He’d tried not taking powder last night. He’d lasted until about two in the morning before he went looking for his powder horn. Ka-poel had hidden it, along with his snuffbox full of powder and all his spare charges. His pistol wasn’t even loaded. Savage bitch. He’d just barely fallen asleep.

“Vlora was looking for you.”

“I don’t care.”

“I wouldn’t tell her where you were.”

“I don’t care.”

“I threw Duke Nikslaus into the Adsea.”

Taniel opened his eyes and sat up. His father was cleaning his nails. He looked pleased with himself.

“I think I’ve started a war,” Tamas said.

“Should have blown his head off. The Adsea’s too good for him.”

Tamas took a deep breath. “No, a bullet is too good for him. I want that man to suffer. I want that man to feel humiliation. But I want it to last.”

Taniel grunted his agreement.

“It was calculated,” Tamas said.

“What was?”

“King Ipille sending Nikslaus. He wanted me angry. He wanted me to beat him or kill him. He wanted an excuse to start a war.”

“So did you. From the very beginning you wanted to go at them.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Tamas said. “Over the last few months. I’ve been thinking that we should avoid war. Especially after the earthquake. We need to rebuild our country, feed our people. Too late now.”

“Can we take them?” Taniel’s head was starting to clear. That wasn’t a good thing. It pounded harder than a smith’s hammer.

“Maybe,” Tamas said. “The Church is threatening to take sides. The Kez side, more specifically. They didn’t like me throwing Nikslaus in the Adsea. That pompous bag Charlemund says he’s trying to convince them otherwise. I believe him. I have to believe him. He was Adran before he became an arch-diocel, after all.”

Taniel swung his legs out of bed and groaned. His body hurt. His head hurt. Whatever luck or sorcery or what-have-you that saved his life at the university had not spared him the aches of the aftermath.

“I have a new chef,” Tamas said.

Taniel gave his father a long look. Why should he care? His whole body ached. He just wanted powder, and Pole had hidden it all.

“He says he’s Adom reborn,” Tamas went on. “I should have had him arrested, but his cooking is too damned good. Rumor has it he’s been making food for half the regiments. Don’t know how he does it, but the men like him. I’ve got a war about to start and a mad cook quickly becoming the most popular man in the army. And…”

“Out with it,” Taniel said.

“Out with what?”

“You’re rambling. You only ramble when you’re about to ask me to do something I won’t want to do.”

Tamas fell quiet. Taniel watched him struggle internally, emotion barely touching his face. This was the first time he’d been alone with his father in what, four years? He noticed that Tamas was wearing the saw-handled dueling pistols he’d brought him from Fatrasta. They looked well used.

Tamas took a deep breath, his chuckle dying out, and stared at the ceiling.

“I need you to kill Bo.”

“What?”

Tamas explained about the gaes. It was a long explanation, with a great deal of technical detail. Taniel barely listened. There was something about an inspector and a promise. He could tell by his father’s tone that Tamas didn’t want to say it. That it was duty alone that forced his hand.

“Why me?” he asked when his father finally fell silent.

“If Sabon had to die, I’d give him the courtesy of doing it myself. I’d feel like a coward if I had someone else do it.”

“And you think I can kill my best friend?”

“Bo’s very strong, I know. I’ll send help with you.”

“That’s not what I meant. I know I can shoot him. I can probably get close enough without him expecting a thing to do it with a pistol. But do you really think I can bring myself to do it?”

“Can you?”

Taniel looked at his hands. He’d last seen Bo over two years ago, the day he’d gotten on the ship for Fatrasta. Bo had been there to see him off. Yet what was another friend? The world was different now. He’d killed dozens of men. His fiancée had bedded another man. His country no longer had a king. Who was to say Bo had remained the same?

Taniel squeezed his hands into fists. How dare he? How dare Tamas come here and ask him this. Taniel was a soldier, but he was also Tamas’s son. Did that even matter? “I won’t do it if you ask me,” Taniel said. “Not if you ask me as a son. If you give me an order as a powder mage—then I’ll do it.”

Tamas’s face hardened. This was a challenge, and he knew it. Taniel’s father didn’t take well to challenges. Tamas stood up.

“Captain, I want you to kill Privileged Borbador at the South Pike Mountainwatch. Bring me back the jewel he has on his person as evidence.”

Taniel closed his eyes. “Yes, sir.” That son of a bitch. He was really going to make Taniel kill his best friend. Taniel wondered if he should come back and put a bullet in Tamas’s head once he’d finished with Bo.

“I’m sending Julene with you.”

His eyes snapped open. “No. I won’t work with her.”

“Why not?”

“She’s reckless. She got her partner killed, and nearly me too.”

“She said the same thing about you.”

“And you’d believe her over me?”

“She had the courtesy to report to me after you so freely let the enemy go.”

“That Privileged would have killed us all,” Taniel said.

“I’ve given the order.” Tamas turned around, headed for the door. “Marked Taniel, carry out your orders. Then you’ll need some time off to deal with your… personal problems.” He left.

Personal problems? Taniel sneered. He felt something on his arm, looked down. His nose was practically pouring blood. He swore, looking around for a towel. What would help this? Oh yes, some black powder…