13
Once he was actually standing in front of the ruined tavern again, Valyn wasn’t sure what he had hoped to see. Most of the place had disappeared beneath the murky water in a tumble of broken beams and waterlogged walls, and even if there had been something to look at, the sun was already dipping toward the horizon—a sullen, red orb—and the light was too poor to see much beyond the skeletal outlines.
The certainty he had felt immediately following his fight in the ring had faded like the afternoon light. It was possible that a leach had been behind the destruction of Manker’s—there were probably more leaches on the Islands than anywhere else in the empire. It was possible that the whole thing had been part of a plot directed at him, at his family, part of an ongoing coup. The shit part of it was that just about anything was possible. He needed something concrete, something solid to explore, and a leach’s kenning would leave even less trace than Kettral explosives. That meant turning to people, people who might have noticed something unusual, seen something they didn’t expect.
“Only four made it out,” he said, frowning. Juren, of course, and three others who had clawed their way clear of the wreckage.
“Four out of twelve,” Lin replied with a shrug. “Not bad, considering the whole thing dropped straight into the bay. Better odds than you’d get on the losing side of most battles.” The gash on her cheek had scabbed over, but the indignity of their defeat in the ring still seemed raw and ragged. The Kettral devoted countless hours to tourniquets, splints, medicinal herbs, and bandages. No one said much, however, about the humiliation of having your face ground in the dirt while a fellow soldier thrust a rough hand up between your legs and a few dozen others looked on.
“It wasn’t a battle,” he said, his mind jumping back to the image of Salia, hot, bright blood leaking from the wound in her neck. “The people in there were just drinking. They didn’t sign on.”
“No one ever signs on to get killed.”
“You know what I mean.”
Lin fixed him with a hard stare. “You mean you feel guilty.”
Valyn shrugged. “Sure. Someone comes after me and these poor bastards get crushed? I thought we were supposed to be protecting the citizens of Annur.”
Lin spread her hands. “I’d hardly call the scum from Manker’s ‘citizens.’ Most of them would be strung up or cut down within a day if they showed their faces back on the mainland.”
“It doesn’t mean they deserved to die.”
“Spare me the guilt, Valyn. It’s self-indulgent. It’s a waste of time. You didn’t kill them. You tried to save them. You’re noble. Is that what you want to hear? You’re a fucking prince.”
Lin’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes ablaze. Valyn swallowed a sharp retort and began to put a hand on her shoulder instead. She jerked back.
“Let’s find the bastards who did this,” she said curtly, refusing to meet his eyes. “Let’s just find them.”
Valyn started to respond, then, trying to cool his own anger, turned away. Dilapidated buildings hung over the muddy street, paint peeling, roofs sagging, thresholds rotting into the dirt beneath uneven doors. Despite the bright colors, they all looked about ready to give up and tumble into the harbor alongside Manker’s. Maybe he and Lin were imagining the whole thing. Everything falls apart eventually, he thought, glancing over once more at his friend. Maybe the tavern just gave up.
On the other hand, his father had been killed. It was possible the plot went no further than a single disgruntled priest, but Valyn wasn’t ready to believe that just yet. If there were people on the Islands responsible, he wanted them found. He wanted them dead.
“Juren was one of the ones who made it,” he said, breaking the silence. “Laith says he’s holed up at the Black Boat, drinking himself straight to ’Shael while he waits for his leg to heal.”
“Who’s Juren?”
“That thug Manker used to pay to watch over the place.”
Lin’s face hardened. “The first one to jump clear. The one who refused to help.”
Valyn nodded. “He’s not much good to anyone else now, not with a busted leg.”
“Then he should have plenty of time to talk.”
The common room of the Black Boat was poorly lit and cavernous, far too large for the number of chairs and tables scattered haphazardly around the floor. When Valyn had first arrived on the Islands, the Boat was the most prosperous alehouse on Hook, with wine all the way from Sia, blowsy whores hanging from the balconies, and music every night. In the intervening years, however, the owner had died, one of his sons had stabbed the other in a dispute over the property, and the place had fallen into gradual decline. Only half a dozen or so people were at the tables now, and after looking up, eyes heavy with drink and boredom, they returned to their muttered conversations and games of dice.
Juren sat by the bar, his splinted leg propped on a chair, a half-empty glass of wine beside him, and a half-full jug beside that.
“Mind if we join you?” Valyn asked, pulling up a chair.
The man darted them a bloodshot glare. He opened his mouth as though to suggest that he did mind, then took another look at their blacks and the Kettral-issue blades at their belts and thought better of it. He scowled. “Suit yourself.”
“Juren, right?” Lin asked brightly, settling herself on the chair with a grim smile.
The man grunted.
“You used to work for Manker, didn’t you?” she went on. “You were there the day the place collapsed.”
“S’how I got this busted leg,” he replied, waving a hand at the limb. “Manker bit it along with his shithole. Bastard owed me two weeks of pay.”
Valyn shook his head in commiseration. “Bad luck, friend. Bad luck. Listen, we just got paid—why don’t you let us top off that jug for you?”
Juren brightened momentarily, then narrowed his eyes. “What d’you want to drink with me for? I seen you often enough. I even seen you over at Manker’s the day it dropped. You Kettral are usually too good to rub elbows with the likes of me.”
Valyn suppressed a grimace. “Not our decision, friend. Command’s got regulations. Security and all that.”
Juren snorted. “Right. Security ’n’ all that.” Despite having served as Manker’s hired muscle, he didn’t look like he thought all that much of security.
Lin took the newly filled wine jug and topped off the man’s glass before filling two more.
“I remember you now,” she said, nodding as though at the memory. “You made it to the doorway first.”
The man edged back on his stool, putting a little more space between them.
“You made it to the doorway,” she continued, voice deceptively level, “and then, instead of helping get anyone else out … you jumped.”
“What are you, the town constables?” he asked, licking his lips furtively. “I came to Hook t’get away from this shit.”
“By ‘this shit,’” Valyn said, leaning in until he could smell the sour wine on the man’s breath, “I can only assume you mean things like courage and human decency.”
“Don’t lecture me,” Juren snarled, pushing him back with a meaty hand. “I don’t get paid no tall stacks of gold to risk my life. I did what I had to do. That’s why I’m alive.”
“Oh no,” Lin said, airily. “We’re not going to lecture you. We’re just going to ask you a few questions.”
“Fuck your questions.”
She pursed her lips and looked over at Valyn.
Valyn was rapidly tiring of the man’s attitude. There were faster ways to get answers out of a drunken brawler than plying him with wine, and he and Lin had spent years mastering just about all of them.
“Look, friend,” he began, tapping conspicuously at his belt knife. “The questions are going to be easy. Don’t make them complicated.”
“Actually,” Lin went on with a vicious smile, “I don’t mind if you make them complicated.”
Juren scowled, then spat over his shoulder onto the floor. “What questions?”
“Did you see any other Kettral in the tavern that day?” Valyn asked. “Maybe in the morning, or just before we got there?”