James always had a way of stripping away her excuses. She saw herself in Malikel’s study just a few days prior, pleading with the Defense Minister to get Flick out of the early units. Of course, if Flick had been excused, someone else would have been conscripted in his stead, but that hadn’t stopped Kyra.
“What’s the point, then?” Kyra wasn’t sure if the disgust in her voice was aimed more at the wallhuggers or at herself. “What’s the point of fighting against the ones in power if others’ll just take their place? Mayhap it’s better just to live my own life and let things fall as they will.”
“That was the life you were living before I took you into the Guild. But I don’t believe you can just turn a blind eye, once you’ve seen what the world is like. I couldn’t.”
“What do you want for Forge?” Kyra asked. “Would you see the whole Palace razed to the ground?”
“Does the city truly need to make its decisions in marble-lined halls? Would we really forget how to live our lives if the Council were not there to dictate it?”
“You can’t possibly want anarchy,” said Kyra.
“There are ways to rule that don’t require the rich to step on the weak. The city’s trade guilds rule themselves adequately without wallhuggers. Parna’s people elect representatives that rule in concert with the nobles.”
“So my efforts to discredit Willem—is that goal too small for you?” she asked.
“It’s a step. Willem must go, but he cannot simply be dispatched. He’s a good enough politician that his death would make him a martyr and cement his cause. No. Willem must be disgraced before he’s brought low.”
Kyra wondered again about what kind of man James had been before. For a moment, she imagined what might have happened if she’d stayed in the Guild, if she hadn’t killed that manservant so early on, or if she hadn’t had Bella or Flick to keep her grounded. Would she have followed in James’s footsteps, becoming just slightly more ruthless, year after year? Would she have become his lover and protégé, taken up his cause?
James looked at her again, perhaps sensing the direction of her thoughts. “You and I are not very different,” he said. “Not very different at all.”
“You keep saying that,” she said. The dankness of the dungeon settled on her skin.
“I say it because it’s true.”
E L E V E N
If it hadn’t been for the whole “being sent out to fight demon cats” thing, Flick might well have enjoyed being conscripted into the early patrol units. His fellow recruits were friendly folk—men ranging from Kyra’s age to those with young grandchildren. The Palace fed them well enough (some of the merchants complained about the food’s quality, but Flick wasn’t picky), and he learned quite a few new skills. And while Sir Malikel and his men exhibited some wallhugger snobbishness from time to time, Flick had encountered far worse.
Since his conscription, Flick reported to the Palace every day for training. Today, he and his unit congregated on the training fields. The large, flat fields were supposedly covered with grass during the summer, though the surface was now well-packed straw and dirt. While the grounds were large enough to run horses, the only people currently on it were on foot.