Code hated to admit it, but Kosarin had a point. Everyone in the Nazaniin had heard about what Winter did at the battle against the Daemon Mefiston; after what she had done to the Eye with nothing more than a big trebuchet, he did not want to see her get her hands on another rihnemin.
“And take the couple from Maven Kol with you,” Kosarin said, waving his hand. “What are their names? Alain and Morayne?”
Code’s eyes narrowed. “You sent for them.”
Kosarin nodded. “Of course I did. The world is collapsing, Code, if you haven’t noticed, and it’s collapsing on Triah. We need as much power here as we can muster.”
Code masked his anger as best he could. “Why not send for them in your own name? Or ask me to do so?”
“I was not sure they would respond to my summons,” Kosarin said. “And I know you are fond of them, Code. You are a good agent, and a powerful psimancer, but emotion tends to cloud your judgment.”
Inside, Code was boiling with rage. So you went behind my back, deceiving all of us. Just to get your way.
Code was under no illusions. Kosarin was the Venerato of the Citadel, the Triadin of the Nazaniin. He was one of the most powerful men in the world, and Code happened to work for him. For all Code knew, Kosarin was delving him right now, perceiving his every thought. His thoughts he could more or less keep in check, but he could not mask the anger seething beneath the surface.
“Very well, I’ll take them,” Code said, forcing a smile. “Next time, sir, do me a favor and just ask me first. I’m a Nazaniin, after all. I’ll obey orders.”
Kosarin smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. “Yes, Code,” he said. “I have no doubt you will.”
* * *
Sky Plaza had become a tomb, and Code, Morayne, and Alain helped to excavate it. The sheer immensity and force of the debris as the Eye collapsed had blown away the four smaller towers around it, and a large portion of the other closest buildings; only skeletal ruins remained; broken walls, defeated but still reaching upward; cracked foundations beneath mounds of crumbled stone, melted metal, and splintered, charred wood.
The destruction twisted Code’s gut in on itself, as if his insides had turned to stone and now ground continually against themselves. The sick feeling had made it almost impossible to move, let alone help, yesterday when he’d arrived at the plaza shortly after the fall. Today, the sick feeling seemed partially alleviated, but Code hated the great, gaping emptiness that took its place even more.
He could not believe this had happened. And yet it had. He could not believe someone would do this, and yet someone had.
In a way, the impossible work of cleaning up was a welcome distraction from the thoughts that otherwise threatened to overwhelm.
They assisted all day long at Sky Plaza, lifting rubble, dealing with yet another unidentified, and often unidentifiable, corpse. Code wasn’t sure what was worse: finding them individually, dead and alone, or in groups, dead and together. No more survivors had been found, and a feeling echoed around the plaza that they had likely found their last. They could not hear anyone shouting for help, and were rapidly approaching the point at which a person could no longer survive without water.
But retrieving the sunstone, however, was not as difficult as Code would have feared. As the sun sank lower in the sky, people began to return to their homes. By nightfall, only a few other people remained besides the three of them. And, by midnight, Code—with his gilded dragon piece—had made sure they were the only ones around.
Morayne’s ability to move earth certainly helped in the search, as did Code’s telesis, but what helped more than anything was the tug Code felt shortly after he took faltira, just as they began the search. As if something in the debris called to him, sought him out.
The pull made Code uncomfortable. He had ascended the Eye numerous times, and never remembered feeling anything like that tug. But he followed it anyway, and sure enough after a few moments, with their combined powers, they had unearthed a rune-covered amber stone from the rubble.
“That can’t be it,” Code said, staring at the thing. But this fit the description Kosarin had given: an amber stone just larger than a human head, covered in runes, and unexpectedly light. Very different from every other rihnemin Code had ever seen.
“What a strange thing,” Morayne said, her eyes wide. Code wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the stone glow faintly as she regarded it.
“And now what?” Alain asked. “We take it back to your superior? The one who summoned us here?”
Code scoffed. “Not a chance.”
Arro had sparked something in him, and that spark had become a fire in Mavenil. After returning to Triah, that fire consumed him. There were things in this world that mattered more than the coin and power he got from the Nazaniin.
He’d watched the Odenites, Cinzia among them, heal countless people over the last few days. He’d even seen them raise a few people from the dead, for Canta’s sake. Those actions stood in stark contrast to Kosarin’s orders, and Kosarin’s deceit.
Code was nothing but a tool for Kosarin; Alain and Morayne had now become tools in that bastard’s hands, too. And while Code agreed that he didn’t want the Chaos Queen getting a hold of a rihnemin, he had also realized, as he walked to Sky Plaza that day, that he didn’t want Kosarin’s hands on it, either.
“If we’re not going to give it to him, then what are we going to...?” Alain’s voice trailed off, and Code turned to see his friend glowering at three newcomers in Sky Plaza: a full cotir, approaching from the south. Code knew them well: Anthris, a lanky young woman, an acumen; Tarbin, the telenic, a thickly muscled man; and Methasticah, an elderly voyant, and one of the first psimancers on record in recent history. This cotir, in particular, was known for completing many of Kosarin’s personal, most secret assignments. Which, more often than not, included hefty dirty work.
Code could hold his own against any one of them individually, but he knew he couldn’t possibly take them all at once.
“Code...”
Glancing at Alain, Code saw sparks dancing around the man. He cursed. The last thing they needed was another explosion in Sky Plaza.
“Keep calm,” Code said, speaking low and smoothly, “and let me handle this.”
If it came to a fight, he feared his friends would have no choice but to step in. But he hoped to avoid that.
“Give the stone to us, Code,” Tarbin said, stepping forward.
“Afraid not,” Code said, flashing his most winning grin back at them. “I’m under Kosarin’s orders, you see, to bring it back to him. That’s what my friends and I were just about to do before your little interruption.”
“We know you weren’t going to take the stone back, lad,” Methasticah said, his voice high and jittery. “And Kosarin knew it, too. That’s why he sent us.”
Code looked down at the sunstone, teeth clenched through his smile. “You know, I haven’t heard anything about passing the stone on to anyone else.” There are things more important than coin and power from the Nazaniin. “But if you want it that badly, I’d be happy to hand it over.”
With a grin of his own, Tarbin stepped forward, but Code continued. “If you let my friends and me go.” He realized he didn’t have much to bargain with, but he needed to at least make the appearance that he did.
Unfortunately, Tarbin’s response was a soft chuckle, which didn’t help their chances.
“Can’t really grant you that either, I’m afraid. We need those two,” he said, nodding to Alain and Morayne, “just as much as the rihnemin. Kosarin wants to add them to his collection.”
The same boiling rage Code had felt in Kosarin’s presence came rushing back. He knew that bastard had been up to something. Alain and Morayne were special; they controlled a form of magic the Sfaera had never seen before. Of course Kosarin would want to know more about them. He didn’t know what Tarbin meant exactly by “collection,” but he’d be damned if he was going to find out.
“Did Kos
arin know about me?”
Another figure—the source of the new voice—walked out of the shadows and into the moonlight. A young tiellan man, with light, straw-colored hair and bright eyes.
Code tilted his head to one side. He’d never seen this lad before in his life, he was certain of that, and yet there was something oddly familiar about him.
Methasticah stepped forward, his movement urgent. “Tarbin, she’s a—” He stopped speaking in mid-sentence as his head snapped backwards, and he collapsed to the ground.
She? What in Oblivion was Methasticah talking about? Code squinted. He’d been quite sure the tiellan was a man.
“You,” Tarbin growled, but his head was shuddering violently.
Acumency. Code had suspected it with Methasticah, but someone—the tiellan man, it seemed—was killing the cotir with unrestrained psionic bursts, rupturing their brains inside their skulls.
Still gripping the sunstone in both hands, Code took a step back, glad to see Alain and Morayne do the same with him. They stood atop one of the smaller mounds of rubble, and had no solid cover to get to one of the street entrances to the plaza.
“We’ll have to run for it,” Code said. “I’ll distract them as best I can, and you two get to safety. I’ll meet you at the Blessed Storm.”
This could not be the Chaos Queen—her description didn’t match this young man at all. Then again, Methasticah had called the lad a she, so what did Code know?
“I am not sure running for it is in our best interests,” Morayne whispered.
A half-dozen tendra exploded forward from Anthris, but she met the same fate as her companions, collapsing to the ground.
“It’s our only chance,” Code said.
Code.
Code blinked as the voice echoed in his mind. He knew that voice. A woman’s voice, one he’d heard before. But it was still the young tiellan man staring at him.
Give me the rihnemin, the voice said, and I will spare you and your friends. My quarrel is not with you, Code.
And then, Code knew. Kali and Nash had been two of the most famous—and, among some circles, infamous—field operatives among the Nazaniin. Nash a telenic to be reckoned with—he’d taught Code everything he knew—and Kali a force rumored to be making even Kosarin nervous with her rising power. She’d even managed to transfer her sift into the body of another. But they had both died in Roden, on a mission to deal with Lathe and the tiellan girl.
But now it was Kali’s voice Code heard in his head.
Give me the rihnemin, she repeated. Do not try my patience.
Code dropped the amber stone. It landed with a soft crunch on the debris at his feet.
“It’s yours,” Code said out loud, taking another step back. He didn’t know what in Oblivion Kali wanted with it, but there was a delicious irony in her taking the stone instead of Kosarin. How she was still alive, and why she’d taken the body of a young tiellan man, were mysteries for another day.
“Let’s go,” Code said, walking as quickly as he could away from the rihnemin, while maintaining some level of dignity. “Before she changes her mind.”
“Why is everyone calling him a she?” Morayne asked.
Code ignored her. His mind was already racing to think of how to avoid Kosarin—the master of the greatest spy network in history.
PART IV
WHO WE TAKE WITH US
36
The Cliffs of Litori
THEY SAT AMIDST THE tall grass atop the cliffs. Despite nearly two years gone between them, Knot found the way they sat cross-legged next to one another familiar. They had sat like this lifetimes ago, in Pranna, before and after they were engaged to be married.
“And now you’re here, Queen of the Tiellans,” Knot said.
And now you’re here, and you’ve killed thousands of people.
Winter had just told him her story, how she had indeed demolished the imperial dome in Roden as Astrid had seen, but how she had then survived and been imprisoned by the new emperor, Daval; how she had traveled back to her hometown of Pranna, where the tiellans had been pushed out by humans, and on to Cineste, to witness a massacre; how she had led the survivors to the ancient tiellan city of Adimora and taken control of their forces—with the help of Daval’s former captain, Urstadt, the woman Knot had just fought in error. She told him of her victories against the Khalic Legion, capped by a battle against the Daemon Mefiston, where the Legion briefly allied with and then abandoned her army. And finally she told him of the path that led her here, to Triah.
The path that led her to fell God’s Eye.
“And now I am here,” Winter said quietly.
Knot shook his head. “Astrid saw the dome fall on you; she told me you were dead, that nobody could have survived.”
“I was the only one who did,” Winter said with a shrug. “And I thought you were killed, too. How could we have known otherwise?”
She looked out over the cliffs, toward the sea. Knot’s own gaze followed hers for a moment, but then he turned back to the city below them.
“And the Tokal-Ceno, the—the new one who became emperor, he told you I was dead as well?”
“He did,” Winter said. “Although I now realize he had no idea what had happened to you. One more reason to hate him.”
And yet, Knot sensed no hate in her voice. He sighed. “I am happy you are alive.”
“And I you.”
The wind moved between blades of grass, between Knot and Winter as they sat together.
I am so sorry I left you, Winter. That’s what he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t form in his throat. Not after all that had happened, after all they had both done.
“But you are not happy to see me,” Winter said after a moment.
Knot looked at her sharply. “No, darlin’.” He exhaled heavily. “Circumstances make that impossible.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. We have both changed.”
Knot shook his head. “It ain’t that you’ve changed, it’s…”
Goddess, how to tell her this.
The city below hummed and swarmed with movement, from this distance and height like a massive colony of ants making their way above ground. A pile of rubble marred the surface.
Knot nodded at the site of the collapse.
“You’ve killed many people, Winter. Why’d you do it?”
“It’s a long story.”
“You’ve told me your story, haven’t you? Why don’t I understand what you did here? Why is that still a mystery to me?”
“You don’t understand,” Winter said quietly.
“No I don’t, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. But if you have a reason, if you—”
“You aren’t one of us, Knot.”
He knew what she meant. He just hadn’t expected that particular argument from her.
“I lived in Pranna for a year—”
“That year isn’t worth a horse’s ass, and you know it.”
“I’ve helped you,” Knot said, “and I’ve helped many other tiellans since you… since we parted ways.” He’d fought Kamites in Tinska; he’d put his life on the line for Ocrestia and Cavil, the tiellan Odenites. But some had died. Been killed, rather, whether in Tinska or one of the two attacks at Harmoth.
Had he really helped anyone?
“You are still a human. You’ll always be a human, Knot, so you can never fully understand what it’s like.”
He couldn’t argue the point.
“But how does that,” Knot said, pointing at the tiellan camp behind them, “lead to this.” He pointed at Triah, at the crumbled scar on its surface near the sea.
“A long road,” Winter said quietly. “My people were enslaved by humans for a thousand years. When we were finally freed, we weren’t acknowledged as equals; we were banished to the smallest, dingiest corners of your cities, or the far outskirts of your towns.”
Winter, who had been sitting straight and still, leaned forward ever so slightly. Knot would have hardly
noticed the change in posture, but her eyes changed a great deal. Where a moment ago they had been deep, calm pools of darkness, they were now twin pits of black fire. “Tiellans are being beaten to death in the streets. In Cineste, I saw a field of bodies—tiellan men, and women, and children—all of them slaughtered for no better reason than that a few humans did not want them to leave of their own will. And outside Adimora, Riccan Carrieri fled with his army and left us to fight dozens of Outsiders, just like the ones we fought in Izet, alone. He could have helped us, and he left us to die.”
Knot could say nothing to those things. Her account of what had happened outside of Cineste, and then at the Battle of the Rihnemin, had sent chills down his spine. A part of him wanted to tell her what he, too, had witnessed, of the persecution in Tinska, and the Beldam’s preaching. But another part of him did not dare; not if another God’s Eye would be the result.
“You killed tiellans, too, when you attacked the Eye.”
Winter sat up straight, and while the fire did not leave her eyes, it calmed somewhat.
“I know I did,” she said. “And I have wept for them. I will continue to weep for them, and for the innocent humans I killed that day, too. But I do not regret it, Knot.”
Knot stared at her in disbelief. How could she not regret the slaughter of innocent people?
“I am using the only tactic the humans left me.”
“And what tactic is that?” Knot asked, his throat dry. The words barely scraped past his lips.
“Fear.”
Silence fell between them, a silence like that which followed a sudden clap of thunder, gently rumbling and ringing until all sound faded, and there was nothing but tension.
“Are you still taking faltira?” Knot asked. All but blurted it out, really; the question had been on his mind since the moment he knew she was on the cliffs with her tiellan force, since the moment he saw her through the Void. And, truthfully, he knew the answer. He knew a monstrously powerful psimancer traveled with the tiellan Rangers. It would be too much of a coincidence for it to be anyone else. He’d been resisting asking the question this entire time, thinking it was none of his business anymore. Winter was right when she had said they’d both changed; perhaps, for all he knew, she had changed for the better in this way. Perhaps she could take faltira, and it did not affect her the way it once had.
Chaos Queen--Fear the Stars (Chaos Queen 4) Page 35
