by C. L. Clark
“When you’re ready to begin, I can show you her notes, the records, everything you need. Her aides will fill you in on everything, I’m sure.
“That said, there’s the matter of your safety, Your Highness. Cheminade’s death is suspicious on its own. When I consider your—” Cantic cleared her throat. “There’s already been one attack on your person.”
Luca nodded briskly. “I’ll keep to the Quartier and the compound unless my duties take me elsewhere.”
Cantic’s relief showed in the sudden straightening of her shoulders. “Thank you, Your Highness. Cheminade’s death was… unexpected. A blow. If something happened to you, the empire would reel.”
Luca raised her eyebrows. The words sounded disingenuous, but Cantic looked sincere. The older woman had a serious face, sharp jawed with deep-set eyes. Surprisingly, she reminded Luca of Gillett. They were both so rigid, and it made them capable. They were like oak trees, deep rooted and unbending. The similarity made Luca want to soften toward her, but this particular trait was also Gil’s most infuriating.
“Thank you for your concern. Have the streets been like this very long?” Or is it my arrival that makes them bold?
“As much as it pains me to say it, Beau-Sang might have been right. It seems the rebels have grown more dangerous. After you read Cheminade’s notes, we can go over the details.” Cantic looked agitated again, eager to be gone. “She and I had discussed mandatory documentation for Qazāli, river sanctions, a citywide curfew to start.”
Luca was intrigued. It sounded like the changes could help quell rebel activities, or at least make it difficult for them to maneuver. However, the implication that all Qazāli were prisoners would end poorly, like it had with the Verinom city-state back in the ancient ages. She knew enough of history—Balladairan included—to know they would toe dangerously close to breeding further resentment.
She caught the general’s quick look toward the window.
“Are you worried about something, General?”
Cantic looked down, and her lips moved in what might have been the shadow of a smile. “Your Highness. I command over one hundred thousand lives. I’m always worried. It keeps us alive. I do have an urgent meeting, however, and I’m happy to leave you to your morning.” The general tried and failed to cover up the exhaustion in her voice with a short, businesslike tone.
Luca wanted to ask, Had it ever been this bad? Did she think it would get worse? They were the questions of a child in need of reassurance. Luca wasn’t a child.
Instead, she asked, “Where is Nasir?”
For a moment, the general’s mask of command dissolved entirely. She closed her eyes and shook her head, lips folded in. A second later, she was stern and implacable.
“It’s hard to lose a spouse. He’s gone to be with family in Zanafesh.”
“I see.” A palpable grief hung between the two of them, though Luca wasn’t sure it was Cheminade that Cantic mourned. She wasn’t sure it was Cheminade she mourned, either. “I’ll come to go through Cheminade’s office later.”
Cantic’s visit left Luca’s mind full and fogged at the same time.
As she dressed for the day, she imagined Cheminade splayed across the ground. Had she been poisoned? Had she spasmed and choked on her own tongue? Had it been sudden and painless?
Had she seen it coming?
If Luca died, Uncle Nicolas would stay on the throne. The man was a coward. He wouldn’t protect the nation from another outbreak of the Withering. He had chosen to run away to the north rather than stay in the city with the king and queen, helping their people. And he had signed away a fertile region of eastern Balladaire because he was afraid of the Taargens. If he stayed on the throne, who would stand for Balladaire? Her father’s legacy, their empire, her home would be chipped away by enemies and plague until it fell.
When Luca emerged, Gil was waiting outside her door. She put a hand on his arm. She wanted to put her head on his shoulder and find comfort in his hug, but just the thought of it made her feel too small for the role she’d set herself.
Instead, she went up to her office and sat at her desk. With so much to do, and the city hostile to her, she couldn’t get to the books and the magic they offered. That was only a dream, anyway. As governor-general, she held true power in her hands, and an entire quartier hoped for influence with her or her uncle. Time to play the role, then. To gather all the pieces to her and see how she could make them move.
CHAPTER 8
THE LIEUTENANT
The murder of a Balladairan soldier?
Rogan whistled as he marched Touraine to the general’s door. Dread weighed her boots down, but she refused to let Rogan drag her. He knocked sharply, regulation three times. Cantic called, and he pushed Touraine in. Rogan saluted; Touraine did not. The effect would have been ruined by the manacles around her wrists, and Touraine preferred not to call attention to them.
“Thank you, Captain. You’re dismissed.”
Rogan’s glee flickered. “Yes, sir.” A smirk still played across his mouth as he walked out.
The room was bright with sunlight, and Touraine squinted. She would kill Pruett for this hangover. She blinked hard and focused on the general.
“Explain yourself, Lieutenant.” General Cantic loomed over her desk, which was covered in stacks of fresh ivory-colored paper, pristine and more expensive than Touraine could even imagine. Letters from the regent, perhaps. The lines of her face were deep with disappointment. No nostalgic fondness this time.
Touraine looked suspicious. She couldn’t change that. And if she couldn’t convince Cantic that she was innocent, she would die.
She spilled everything, from the carriage driver tricking her and her getting lost in the Old Medina to Émeline’s death in the rescue. Everything except that she had gotten so drunk on the governor-general’s wine that she had passed out.
“You deny killing the Balladairan soldier?”
“What soldier, sir? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“We found his body in an alley, his skull bashed in and his… testicles removed and placed inside his mouth.” Cantic frowned in distaste.
Touraine’s mouth dropped in surprise. Despite the horror of the crime, though, she couldn’t muster much sympathy. She had her own grudges against Balladairan soldiers who thought those with less power were playthings. Cantic’s frown deepened.
“Whoever he pissed off, General, it wasn’t me. I never even saw a blackcoat that night. I swear it.”
“A bloody baton lay nearby.”
Touraine stopped breathing. Her baton was gone.
“Sir, one of the rebels took my baton that night.” Touraine had forgotten. Stupid. If she hadn’t goaded that asshole of a woman, maybe Touraine would still have her weapon. She wouldn’t be in quite so shitty a position. “She took my baton off my belt. They—she must have killed him. She could have left him to set me up, or—”
“If that’s true, help me help you. Did you get any information from the rebels? Anything could be valuable.” There was an urgency in that rusty, smoke-damaged voice. Had the damage happened because of the general’s smoking habit, or in the Brigāni’s fires?
“I don’t have anything, sir. I’m sorry. They questioned me but they covered their faces. They never even said their names.”
She started to say There was a Brigāni who asked me to spy on you but stopped herself. Cantic would never trust her again.
“Did they torture you?” Cantic’s expression was part tenderness, part threat.
Touraine nodded slowly. “I was beaten. And cut. They threatened me with… magic. As you said, sir. They’re uncivilized. Nothing worse than we were trained to tolerate, sir.”
And yet. Touraine still felt the knife on her chest, still saw the Brigāni studying her blood. As if she would make Touraine a puppet. The wound began to itch.
“Then why didn’t you report to the infirmary?”
“I don’t know, sir. Exhaustion was no ex
cuse.” Nor was grief. “I’ll show you the damage if you want further proof.”
Cantic frowned at her desk, shifted something on it. Shifted it back.
Nothing hidden meant less guilt. As Cantic opened her mouth to pass judgment, Touraine said in a rush, “The second one asked about you, sir.”
Cantic paused the shuffle of papers. “Who?”
The general’s blue eyes dug into her, picking her clean. It sent Touraine spinning back into an insecure vulnerability she hadn’t felt for a decade. She froze before she could respond one way or another, hesitated a moment too long.
Cantic misinterpreted the silence. “Enough.” She threw the papers down in disgust and turned away. “We’re done here.”
“Sir, a Brigāni, golden eyes, I don’t know what else, a robe—”
Cantic looked back sharply. “A Brigāni? A woman?”
“I don’t know who. Just…” Touraine flushed. “She claims you killed her family. That you burned them all.”
The general’s breath caught, and something unreadable crossed her face. “Anything else?”
“No, sir.” Touraine shook her head. “Except—sir, please look at my record. It’s excellent. I would never betray you or Balladaire. You’ve given me too much.”
“I understand, Lieutenant. However, it’s difficult to believe under these circumstances, and you actually do have some particular altercations with other Balladairan soldiers against your record—”
“Sir, I’m not asking you to believe me. I’m asking you to trust me.” Touraine’s fists were clenched white-knuckle tight in front of her, as if she could hold Cantic by the coat and shake the truth into her. “Please, sir.”
Cantic deflated. She kept her eyes on the desk. “This is unfortunate, Lieutenant.”
“Sir?”
General Cantic held out her palm. She still didn’t meet Touraine’s eyes. “You are relieved of your rank as lieutenant until further review. You will not return to the barracks. For now, you’ll be in custody.”
Belatedly, Touraine realized the general was waiting for her lieutenant’s pins, two pairs of golden wheat stalks bound together. Her hands shook, clattering the manacles as she grasped her collar.
“Now, Lieutenant.”
Touraine pulled the pins’ clasps and dropped the golden wheat stalks into Cantic’s palm. The general finally looked up, and Touraine held her gaze as steadily as she could.
“The charges stand. You’ll be tried, and your commanding officer will have a chance to speak on your behalf. We’ll weigh that, along with any testimony you have to offer, against the evidence.” Cantic sidestepped around her desk, ushered Touraine out of the office, and gestured to two nearby blackcoats. “Take her to the brig. Give her water and food. Send a medic.”
Touraine spun around, her knees weak, hoping for a hint of the woman who had slipped her candy when she was a child. “Sir!”
The words died in her throat. The general was giving her the other look Touraine remembered from childhood. The look that said, I don’t want to do this, but you’ve left me no choice. It said punishment was coming.
For murder and sedition. Sky above. Touraine was as good as dead.
The soldiers pinned her arms roughly to her sides and marched her all the way to a squat building at the far end of the compound.
Despite everything, the coolness of the rock and the windowless dark was a relief. And then the sergeant shoved her into her cell.
“Here you are, Lieutenant,” the sergeant sneered.
They left her in the dark.
In the darkness of the jail cell, Touraine blinked and stared until the black outlines of the bars were silhouetted against the darker black of the small corridor. The jailer must keep the lamp in his office. No reason to waste a torch on a Sand prisoner.
A prisoner who would be court-martialed and likely executed in less than a week.
Touraine growled wordlessly at the empty dark.
“Shut your mouth, Sand whore!” the jailer said.
Sky above, if she could kick that asshole rebel with the boots in the teeth just once, she’d go happily to her grave. Thanks to her, Touraine wouldn’t even go to a firing squad like a soldier but hunched like a beggar.
The worst thing about the darkness was that even when she opened her eyes, her mind could still project one of two pictures on a black canvas:
Pruett’s fear-gray face, stormy eyes wide as Rogan locked cold iron around Touraine’s wrists and led her away, or—
Cantic’s face, red with anger held in check, words toneless in disappointment.
No, worse than that was not knowing which woman’s face had been the greater blow. Didn’t matter. As a lieutenant, she’d failed them both.
If Cantic would just listen to her, if there was a way to get the rebels, to bring them in and prove she was innocent and loyal—if she could make the lock open by waving her fingers over it, if she could kill Rogan just by saying his name and biting her tongue. As Aimée liked to say on campaign—and in the canteen, and in training exercises—wishes were like assholes. Full of shit.
Touraine pushed herself off the ground. Her body was tight, but her headache had eased. The food and water the jailer had brought after she’d arrived were basic but satisfying to a starving body. She hadn’t eaten since that fancy dinner with the fancy governor and her fancy guests. Perhaps Lord Governor Cheminade would reach out again. Little silver threads of hope to trail after.
It helped to go slowly through her fighting forms. To give herself some occupation instead of letting the fear coil into desperate energy that would only chew at her from the inside. It ordered her thoughts. When she was moving, she was powerful. Her body rarely let her down. She knew its faults and its compensations, knew when to back away from the pain and when to dig into it, even when injured. She knew what her body could do, what she could teach it to do, and what it never would do. It was hers.
Or so she thought. The more time she had to think, the less everything made sense. It didn’t seem right that she would pass out like she had that night. She hadn’t had more than two cups of that wine, one with dinner and one with Cheminade. If it had been that strong, she would have felt the effects sooner. Wouldn’t she?
It had felt more like she’d taken a dose of valerian, the sleeping herb the Sands took when nightmares or pain kept them awake. Or like the valerian and a kick to the head. But if Touraine had been drugged, it meant someone at the dinner had done it. Maybe even Cheminade. Why? She was just a Sand.
Probably a dead Sand, at that. She would never prove she was drugged before trial, and no one would take her word over a Balladairan’s. Even if she survived, the dream of her promotion was dead. She was a compromised soldier. The best she could hope for was low camp-follower duties, like digging latrines or scrubbing dried blood out of uniforms.
At this remove, losing the dream felt like being cut adrift in the ocean and forgotten. No—not exactly. Balladairan justice was a swift shot or a short drop. So this was more like being cut adrift and then torn to pieces by a sea monster with rows of dagger teeth and—
Touraine stopped and straightened, shook the acid burn in her body away. She slumped against the bars of the cell door and let them dig deep into the tight muscles. She slid from side to side, reveling in a friendlier pain.
Until she found the cracked rib instead of the muscle.
“Ugh.”
Her pain sounded bizarre in the emptiness. Had she ever been so alone before in her life? No complaints, no jokes—no hushed moans of a covert fuck in crowded barracks, no whispered arguments.
Actually, this was the worst thing, worse even than her Sands at Rogan’s mercy: if she was left drying to leather on some gallows frame, the Sands would break apart. Tibeau and his band would go. They’d run to find family or to disappear in a desert of brown faces. That would leave Pruett and those sensible enough—or too afraid or too attracted to Balladaire’s gifts—to take the punishment instead. Whips, dock
ed pay, brands, hunger, more—Balladaire’s gold stripes were full of creative ideas, Droitist and otherwise.
And when the blackcoats found Tibeau, they would kill him.
Touraine found herself short of breath just thinking of it. She didn’t know how it could be more terrifying than leading them into battle after battle, and yet…
Balladaire was a land of gifts and punishment, honey and whips, devastating mercies.
When she was a child and new to the green country full of massive trees and covered in grass and flowers, she ate too much. Always afraid the food would be taken away—or that it would run out. Such luxury, to sit at a full board every day. One day, she ate herself sick, and a young Cantic carried Touraine in her arms like a baby to the infirmary for a miracle medicine. Perhaps she hadn’t been so far from that. A baby.
Then there was the first time she’d fought with Rogan, ended up on the wrong side of a midnight brawl. If Pruett and Aimée, Tibeau and Thierry hadn’t come to rescue her, Rogan would have had his way with her a long time ago. The next morning, their captain (Cantic was long gone by then) led Touraine to the infirmary. She’d scarcely believed her luck! For one delusional moment, she’d thought Rogan and his flunkies would pay. Justice was sweet enough to ease the shame of her helplessness.
The whip snaps and the screams filtered in through the infirmary’s open window. She couldn’t see outside, but she knew Pruett’s raised voice. She knew Tibeau’s yell and Thierry’s shriek and Aimée’s swearing growl, and Touraine had to listen to them all as she wept into her bandages.
They’d all been whipped when Mallorie “came home,” too. While Mallorie watched. Before they executed her for desertion.
Harsh training, but easy to learn, to fall in. To do well and keep your doubts to yourself.
It was Balladaire where they’d celebrated the harvest season every year with the smell of baking bread and roasting vegetables wafting across the compound to mix with the wonderful rot of autumn leaves. Their mouths watering during drills. The race to bathe and get to the table for the feast.
It was the mountains and the trees she had fought for, the bread and the herbs her soldiers had died for.
