It was hard to concentrate with him so close. It was all just part of the sparring, each of us trying to knock the other off guard, but I could still feel the heat in his hands, his breath tangling in my hair, his smooth chest brushing for just half a moment against my own. Memory’s delicious ministrations slid over me: those warm Si’ite nights, the breeze through the open window tangling my hair, his hands on my hips, the small of my back, gliding up in the insides of my thighs, his eyes deep as the jungle and every bit as easy to get lost in. My heart bucked like a paddocked horse eager to be free. With an effort, I shackled all that recollected passion, forced myself to focus on the story.
“There was a young man,” I began, “a scion of his city, heir to a proud but dilapidated legacy. He might have been expected to lead his people—these centuries enslaved—to a long-awaited freedom.”
Ruc chuckled. “Expected by whom?”
“Those who know the truth—that he is descended from Goc My, the greatest of the Greenshirts—”
He raised an eyebrow. “The same Greenshirts that quit mattering two centuries ago, when Annur conquered the city?”
I shook my head. “The past never quits mattering. Dombang’s silent priesthood was only waiting for the right moment, the right man—”
“This legionary?” Ruc asked. “Someone who served the empire for eight years rooting savages out of the Waist? Doesn’t seem as though you’ve thought through your characters, their motivations.”
“Haven’t I? Who better than this legionary, one trusted by the decadent minds of the empire, one well versed in their ways and wiles, to bring Annur to its knees? Who better than the son of Goc My—”
“All Goc My’s sons are centuries dead.”
“The spiritual son of Goc My, then. Who better, as I was saying, than this prince of Dombang to see the Greenshirts and the priesthood returned to their former glory?”
“Someone should have told him he was a prince. He would have quit boxing, saved himself some bruises and broken bones.”
I met his eyes, traced the scar running up the edge of his jaw. “No, he wouldn’t have.”
“Not everyone needs to fight.”
“He does,” I murmured.
“Let me see if I can guess how it ends. At long last, this prince heeds the call of his downtrodden people. He begins murdering the very Annurians charged with helping him keep order in the city, starting with a legionary known—quite colorfully, I might add—as the Neck.”
“We knew the betrayal was coming.…”
“Then he goes to the baths to find the legionary’s secret ally and murder her as well.”
I nodded, never taking my eyes from his. “An audience likes betrayal. They like a story that ends with everyone drenched in blood.”
Ruc slid his hand up from my waist, brushing my breast, coming to rest gently against my throat. “It’s an exciting story,” he said. “Compelling. The trouble with it is—and I’m sure you’ve noticed this—you’re still alive.”
“As are you.”
“Which means,” he said, “that either we’re slow when it comes to killing, or we’re on the same side.”
I nodded. “That could prove useful, what with a revolution brewing.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about that?”
I shrugged. “The same as everyone else. Paintings dashed up on the statues and bridges. The kind of painting that has a way of getting people killed and whole huge chunks of the city burned down.” I smiled. “I’m here to stop it.”
“I thought that was my job.”
“It ought to be. There are those, however, who have developed the opinion that you don’t seem to be doing that job.”
Ruc snorted. “Back-room second-guessers. A bunch of clean-fingered bureaucrats who’ve never set foot outside Annur.”
“I can’t comment on the cleanliness of their fingers, but some of the second-guessers rise well above the level of ‘bureaucrat.’ The Kettral don’t take orders from bureaucrats.”
I winked, stepped back, took my pants from the bench, and slid into them, forcing myself to patience as I waited for his response to the lie.
I’d thought hard, during the long slog to Dombang, about what kind of life to invent for myself. Finding Ruc Lan Lac was, after all, only the first step. Once I found him, he would have questions, and while I’d managed to side-step most of those six years earlier, I had a nagging worry that he would prove less trusting the second time around. My new identity needed to be unassailable, utterly unfalsifiable, even by someone as smart and tenacious as Ruc. Just as important, the tale I told needed to be relevant. If I was going to fall in love with him, I had to give Ruc a reason to talk to me, to work with me, to keep me close.
It took me weeks to come up with the Kettral cover—strange, given that it wasn’t just the perfect story, it was about the only one to fit the bill. For starters, Ruc could never check on my lies. The Kettral, elite warrior-assassins of the Annurian empire, were notoriously secretive. They lived, according to rumor, on an archipelago of hidden islands—the Qirins—the location of which was known only to themselves, a handful of merchant captains with military clearance, and the ocean’s bolder and more desperate pirates. Ruc had no way to reach the Kettral, no way to follow up on a story about a young woman, such-and-such a height, so many years of age.…
Even better, the Kettral backstory gave me a reason to work with the Greenshirts. Ruc himself, of course, had been tasked with crushing any rebellion inside Dombang. The legions provided the muscle. It seemed only natural, however, that Annur would have a contingency plan, another set of eyes and knives keeping watch, not just on the city, but on the city watchmen. For all I knew, the story was actually true. Somewhere in Dombang there could have been one or two Wings of Kettral, the empire’s greatest soldiers posing as fishermen or barkeeps. It was plausible, at the very least, and even better—it explained my unlikely abilities. Servants of Ananshael are trained to be discreet, and I’d certainly managed to hide the bulk of my training from Ruc the last time we crossed paths. Even the little he’d seen, however, was enough to raise eyebrows, a level of martial ability completely unbelievable from most of the world’s professions.
The Kettral provided me with the perfect lie, one he couldn’t not believe.…
“I don’t believe it,” he said, voice flat.
I raised an eyebrow, sucked a slow breath in between my lips, tried to find a way to strike back. “How many other people do you know who could go toe-to-toe with you in a bare-knuckle fight?”
He drummed a thumb absently over his ribs, just the spot where I used to hammer him in the ring.
“Of those,” I went on before he could respond, “how many weigh forty pounds less than you? How many are nineteen-year-old women?”
“If you’re Kettral,” he asked slowly, “then what in ’Shael’s name were you doing in Sia?”
I shrugged. “Work.”
“Where was the rest of your Wing?”
“We don’t always work in Wings.”
I had no idea if that was true or not, but I was betting he didn’t either.
“What was the mission?”
“Everyone off the Qirins who knew the answer to that is dead. I wouldn’t suggest joining them.”
“And your mission here, in Dombang?”
“Meeting the Neck, for starters.”
“Not off to a great start.”
“Just means we have to do things the hard way.”
He studied me a moment. “We?”
I nodded. “The rest of my Wing.”
“You just said you didn’t work with a Wing.”