55
Thank you for receiving me,” Momma K said. She came out onto the castle balcony where Logan stood, his dinner untouched. He didn’t lift his eyes from the river. It had been twelve hours since the wheel began turning. Behind him, Gnasher ate noisily and, with a total lack of stealth, stole Logan’s biscuits.
“How could I deny you? When the Shinga plays, kings dance,” Logan said flatly. He didn’t turn. A wetboy had delivered her letter—her admission that she was the Shinga—just this morning. But the shock of it was muted by Logan’s grief.
Momma K came to stand beside him at the railing. From this distance, all they could see was that there were still a few dozen people on the platform, half of them guards, and that the wheel was still turning. The signal flag to let Logan know when Kylar died still hadn’t been raised.
“This changes everything,” Momma K said.
“What hand did you have in Terah Graesin death?” Logan asked.
“None,” Momma K said, “though not for lack of trying. I put Quoglee Mars on the right track, hoping he would discover that Terah betrayed her little sister Natassa. I even arranged for him to sing the night of the coronation. I made sure that no guards would stop him once he began, and I arranged for Luc Graesin to be there to hear it. I hoped Luc would kill Terah. Once you were king, I planned to have this talk with you regardless, though I was planning on waiting a month.”
“In which time . . .” Logan led.
“The Ceuran food supplies and our own would run out,” Momma K said.
“And?”
“I would come to you with enough food to feed the city through the winter.”
Logan stared at her, not asking how she’d get it. “In return for what?”
“The thing is, Your Majesty, with this—” she gestured to the wheel—“you’ve proven that you have integrity. Integrity is rare here, but it won’t change this city alone. You need allies for that, and if you want allies in this city, you will be seeking allies who have objectionable histories.”
“Like you?”
“And like Count Drake, whom you conveniently forget was also once in Sa’kagé leadership.”
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Logan blinked.
“The point is, if you try to hold to account every official in the city who’s ever taken a bribe or violated a trust or broken a law, you will have no officials.”
“What do you propose?” Logan asked.
“The question is what you propose. What will the reign of King Gyre the First mean?”
Logan looked at his friend dying on the wheel in the distance. “I mean to make this mean something. I mean to destroy you Sa’kagé.”
“That’s a means, not an end.”
“I mean to make Cenaria a great center of trade and learning, a place our people are proud to claim. We will be able to defend ourselves. We will live in peace, not in fear and corruption. The Warrens may never equal the east side, but I mean to make it possible for a man to be born in the Warrens and die in an eastside palace.”
“How about a woman?” she asked lightly.
“Of course,” he said.
She wore a small smile. “Sounds good. I’ll take it.”
A flash of anger passed over his face. “You could already buy a palace.”
“I want you to appoint me duchess and grant me the Graesin lands, Your Majesty.”
“There’s not enough rice in the world to buy that.”
It was his anger speaking. His best friend was dying. Momma K ignored it. “The Sa’kagé is a parasite latched onto Cenaria’s face. Fully uprooting them is impossible, but their power can be broken. It may take years, and it will cost much of your treasure and perhaps your popularity. Success is not certain. Are you a king who can stay a course through a river of blood?”
Logan watched the wheel turn for a full minute. Then he said quietly, “While there is breath in my body, I will fight to make Kylar’s death mean something. What will you do if I give you what you ask?”
“I will give you my complete loyalty. I’ll be your spymaster. Last but certainly not least, I’ll destroy the Sa’kagé.”
“Why should I believe that you would so casually betray an organization that must include every friend you ever had?” Logan asked.
“Friends? The Sa’kagé relieves us of the burden of friendship. The truth is, in all my years I had only three friends in the Sa’kagé. One was a wetboy named Durzo; Kylar had to kill him because of something I did. One was Jarl, who died trying what I’m proposing. The last is dying for it as we speak. What I propose is a betrayal, that’s true, but it’s not a casual betrayal. If we do this, we’ll need to keep my appointment secret for a time. Once the Sa’kagé learns of my new loyalties, they’ll go underground, and I need to speak with as many of them as possible before that.”
“Can they be broken?” Logan asked.
“Not with swords alone.”
“What can go wrong?” Logan asked.
“You want the short version or the long one?”
“The long one.”
So she told him. Then she told him the plans she had in place to counter every one of those possibilities. It took an hour. She spoke succinctly and asked him questions as well: was he willing to use wetboys to do work the guards could not? How much amnesty was he willing to extend? Would thieves walk free? Bashers? Extortionists? Rapists? Murderers? What would be the penalty for those who took bribes in the new Cenaria?
“Our first strike will have to be sharp. Seizure of funds, arrests, making legitimate employment available. Large carrots, large sticks. And most of our plans will probably only last until the first sword is drawn.”
Logan said nothing for a long time. Then he said, “If we do this, I won’t put you in charge of uprooting the Sa’kagé.”
“What?”
“I won’t put that much power in your hands. You could destroy anyone with a word, and I’d have no idea if you were telling the truth. Rimbold Drake will be in charge. You will work for him. Fair enough?”
Momma K’s eyes were cold for a long moment. Then they cleared. “I can see that taking orders is going to take some getting used to. Yes, it’s fair. Perhaps you are the king who can do this after all. Your Majesty, I swear my fealty to you.” She knelt gracefully and touched his foot.
“Gwinvere Kirena, I hereby establish House Kirena, peers among the great houses of the realm. I grant to you and your house in perpetuity the lands stretching from the Smugglers’ Archipelago in the west to the Wy River in the east, and from the boundaries of Havermere in the north to Ceuran border in the south. Rise, Duchess Kirena.”
She stood. “Your Majesty, there is one more thing. Yesterday I received confirmation of an earlier report that I hadn’t believed. In each case, my sources had nothing to gain by lying. Both have been trustworthy in the past. I don’t know how this is possible, but I believe it is true. I didn’t want to tell you before we concluded our own negotiations because I didn’t want you to think I was trying to influence them.”
“That’s a lot of hedging. What is it?” Logan asked.
“Your wife didn’t die in the coup, Your Majesty. Jenine’s in Khalidor. She’s alive.”
Some time after dark, the wheel stopped turning. Kylar jerked his head up. He blinked through the river water coursing from his hair and looked around. Blinking still hurt, but he could make out shapes now with the eye that had been blinded in the morning.
A young man in armor stood before him. Obviously, he was one of Logan’s bodyguards. “I was given a message, Sir Kagé,” he said. “Aristarchos is healthy and safe at home now with his wife and children. The Society wishes to thank you and hopes that stopping the wheel for a few hours is a small repayment.” He glanced up one of the bridges.
Through the darkness, Kylar saw a Ladeshian man he’d never met. The man raised his hand in greeting, though in the darkness, no one but3€€h=" Kylar could have seen him. Then the Ladeshian walked away. So Aristarchos ban Ebron had survived his addiction. Kylar hadn’t known he had a family. He wondered what Aristarchos’s wife thought when her beautiful husband came back with blackened and missing teeth, his looks and pride sacrificed to a cause she couldn’t understand. The Society thanked Kylar?
“We can only stop the wheel until dawn, Sir Kagé. I’m sorry.”
But Kylar barely heard him. He unclenched his bloody hands from the knife-edged grips and let the belt and the ankle straps hold his weight. His head sunk to his chest.
“Kylar?” Vi asked. They were in a little room with two beds, a basin, and a small chest at the foot of each bed. A small figure was asleep on one bed, and Vi was propped up on one hand in the other. She looked worse than Kylar had ever seen her. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face blotchy, nose runny, and handkerchiefs wadded in her hands. “Gods, what have they done to you?”
He looked at the sleeping figure on the other bed and shuffled over to her. “Uly,” he said. “God, she’s getting big. Uly?”
“She can’t hear us,” Vi said. “We’re not really here. Come, sit down.”
Kylar sat with difficulty. He smiled wanly. “Uly’s your roommate?”
Vi nodded. “Thirteen years old and she’s better than me at everything.”
“Tell her I’m sorry. I abandoned her like everyone else. I made a lousy father.”
“Quiet. Lie down.”
“Get blood . . . sheets,” he said, but he didn’t resist. He put his head in her lap and closed his eyes.
“Kylar, I think I can help you,” Vi said, brushing his hair back. “But I need you to tell me what happened. Who did this to you?”
Her fingers were warm and gentle. It was an effort to speak. “Doing,” he said.
“Doing?”
“I’m being executed for murdering Queen Graesin. Logan’s the king. I did that, Elene. That’s worth my life, isn’t it?”
“Elene’s not here, Kylar. It’s me, Vi.”
Kylar winced as a muscle in his back spasmed. He drew quick little breaths.
Vi laid both of her hands on him and the cramps released. He heard her gasp and then warmth flooded through his body and a blessed absence of pain.
There was a long silence and Kylar began fading. Finally, Vi said, “But you’ll come back, right? After you die?”
“No one ever explained it. Live every life like it’s your last, huh?” He chuckled. He couldn’t help it. He felt warm all over. When he opened his eyes to look up at Vi, she wasn’t smiling. Her face was rigid with concentration and pain.
“Sleep,” she said. “I’ll help you all I can.”