“I’m enjoying the view. She’s praying,” Taniel responded in Palo.
Vlora could hear the confusion in the scout’s voice. “Where is your army?” She pressed her palms together tightly and ground them together to destroy the wrapping around the powder charges, then opened them up as if she were miming a book and buried her face between them, inhaling as hard as she could. Powder flooded her nostrils and mouth, granules like little specks of static as they touched her saliva and the inner membranes of her face. Her whole body vibrated with powder, every second seeming to take an eternity as her sorcery attempted to compensate for the barrage on her senses.
Tamas had always warned them about overdosing on powder—from either running a trance for too long a time or imbibing too much in one go. She’d flirted with the edges of her limits a few times, walking up to the precipice that would either make her powder blind or outright kill her. And now she ran up to that cliff and jumped off the edge.
Vlora’s eyes flew open. She reached out with her senses, across the mile of Dynize infantry that snaked down the road. Every six rows, she detonated a single powder charge in an infantryman’s kit. It took her less than a second, and within moments the column was overshadowed by powder smoke, the air full of the screams of the dying and the confused. She turned to Taniel and nodded.
The scouts were dead before they could voice another word. Taniel breezed past them, the very tip of his sword slick with crimson, sprinting into the head of the column with a speed Vlora had never seen before. He was upon them in the blink of an eye, his sword moving like the wings of a hummingbird, soldiers collapsing as he passed like some kind of avatar of death sweeping his scythe through the souls of the damned.
Vlora watched the dance for mere seconds before following him into the slaughter.
CHAPTER 67
Michel stumbled down street after street, ignoring the curious glances of the afternoon traffic and occasional Dynize soldier as he made his way to Ichtracia’s townhouse. The heavy map-carrying case pulled at his shoulder, and he considered dropping it in the street but couldn’t quite bring himself to do so until he reached the dead-end cul-de-sac where Ichtracia lived. He paused a few feet from the narrow garden path that led up to her front door, painfully adjusting his cuffs and collar. He tried to dust the debris from the tunnels off his shoulders, only to realize just how addled his head still was, and walked up to the front door. He knocked, fixing his most charming smile, and prepared to greet her footman. He really hoped that she would wait to kill him until he’d had a chance to talk a bit.
His smile disappeared as the door opened to reveal a man Michel had never seen before. He was enormous—easily six and a half feet tall—and as wide as a draft horse. Behind him, standing just inside Ichtracia’s foyer, Ka-Sedial leaned on his cane. He eyed Michel with the same sort of eagerness that a child eyed the display case of a candy store.
“I’m looking for Ichtracia,” Michel said.
The brute snatched Michel by the front of his jacket before he could even think to yell. He felt himself swung around, held in the air like a doll and deposited on the floor of the foyer in the blink of an eye. The door shut behind him, and Ka-Sedial leaned over Michel, his kindly old face fixed with a gentle smile.
“Ichtracia isn’t here at the moment,” Ka-Sedial said. “But you have very good timing and very poor luck, Michel Bravis.”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but it’s not a great idea.” Michel summoned all the bluster his aching head could manage. “I just put a bullet in the head of the man who’s been bombing your people. Je Tura is dead, and within the hour every one of your bloodthirsty soldiers is gonna know I’m the man who killed him. I’m going to be very popular and—”
The brute leaned over Michel and punched him so hard in the jaw that stars swam in front of his face. His mouth numb, uncertain whether any teeth had been knocked out, Michel could do nothing but hang limply as the brute lifted him like a toy and carried him into the sitting room, where he tossed him unceremoniously into one of the chairs. The brute carried another chair over to face Michel, and Ka-Sedial took a seat, that gentle smile still fixed to his face. Despite his grandfatherly manner, his eyes smoldered with an entirely different story.
“I don’t care,” Sedial said. He raised one hand. “Don’t mistake this for ingratitude, of course. I am pleased that je Tura is dead. He had far outlived his use to me. But your name will be forgotten long before you’ve finished screaming in my dungeons, so don’t try to appeal to my very small regard for populism.”
Michel stared at Sedial, uncertain what to say—uncertain if he could even speak. He didn’t bother looking at the brute. The brute was just a fist, but Sedial was the man swinging it. Something had changed, and very recently, and Michel’s luck had led him to stumble straight into Sedial.
“Shall we wait for Ichtracia to return?” Sedial asked. “Or should we continue this discussion now? Ah! I think I hear a carriage outside. Delightful—we won’t have to wait long.” He turned toward the door, raising his eyebrows. Michel heard the front door open. “Mara, my dear, please come in here.”
Ichtracia appeared in the sitting-room doorway, an irritated expression on her face turning to shock at the sight of Michel. “What the pit are either of you doing here?” she asked in Adran.
“You know I prefer you speak to me in Dynize,” Sedial chided.
“I’ll speak in whatever I like, lizard. What are you doing here, and what happened to him?” She glanced at Michel. “I thought you were with Yaret. There’s already a rumor going around that you killed je Tura personally.”
Michel swallowed, wondering if opening his mouth would get him punched again. “I did,” he managed.
Ichtracia’s eyes turned to her grandfather. “Then what is this?” she demanded.
“My dear,” Sedial purred, “your friend Michel is not what he seems.” Michel resisted the urge to say, She already knows. Sedial continued. “While it seems that Michel managed to find our bomber, the rest of our sweeps through the Landfall catacombs were not entirely devoid of success. We pulled in three small cells of Blackhats still hiding down there. The first of those included a woman by the name of Hendres. I believe that she was Michel’s ex-lover.”
Michel felt his heart fall. He knew exactly where this was going. “I need to talk to you,” he said to Ichtracia.
Sedial ignored him. “We didn’t even have to torture her when she was brought to me. Within an hour, she had told me everything she knew about Michel. It seems that he doesn’t work for the Blackhats, nor even for us. He works for a Palo freedom fighter by the name of the Red Hand.” Sedial paused to examine his nails, waiting for Ichtracia to respond. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Michel and Sedial, but she said nothing.
“Ichtracia, I need to talk to—” Michel said, his voice stronger, but Sedial cut him off.
“This Red Hand has been set against both us and the Fatrastans for years. He’s murdered our spies, even killed our dragonmen. Apparently he is a powder mage, though we still haven’t managed to ascertain his true identity. I’m not even sure what his motives are, and I think you and I will have a long talk with your friend Michel to find out just exactly what information we’re missing.” Sedial turned to Michel, that grandfatherly smile disappearing. His eyes bore into Michel with a hungry intensity. “Well, Michel. Shall we begin?”
“Aren’t you just going to take my blood? Force me to talk?”
“We will. Eventually. But I’m in no hurry. This way will be more amusing.”
Michel fixed his eyes on Ichtracia while she, in turn, watched her grandfather as one might watch an adder. “Ichtracia,” Michel said, “I know why he calls you Mara.”