Taniel drew a shaky breath.
Julene marched straight up to Taniel and knocked him off his trembling legs with a shove. Ka-poel slid in between them, her silent glare driving Julene back a step. It was several moments before Taniel could hear well enough to know what Julene was shouting.
“… let her go! You let her get away! You bloody fool!”
Taniel climbed to his feet. He gently pushed Ka-poel out of the way by the shoulder.
Julene stepped forward and punched him full in the face. His head jerked back. He reacted without thinking, grabbing her next blow out of the air and twisting her hand. He slapped her. “Back the pit off.” Taniel turned and spit blood. “She’s dead. There’s no way anyone could have lived through that.”
“She’s not dead.” Julene’s cheeks were flushed, but she made no move to continue the fight. “I can still feel her. She got away.”
“I ran her through with three spans of steel! She wasn’t walking away from that.”
“You think steel can hurt her? You think it can really hurt her? You don’t know shit.”
Taniel took a deep, calming breath, then a snort of powder. “Ka-poel,” he said. “Is she still alive?”
Ka-poel hefted the end of Taniel’s rifle in her small hands and drew her finger through the blood along the bayonet’s edge. She smeared it between her fingers. After a moment she nodded.
“Can you track her?”
Ka-poel nodded again.
Julene scoffed. “I can’t even track her,” she said. “She’s covered her trail. Even wounded she’s far more powerful than you can know. This damned girl can’t find her.”
“Pole?”
Ka-poel snorted and turned away. She paused a few moments to get her bearings, then pointed.
“We have a heading,” Taniel said. “Get yourself under control and watch how a real tracker does it.” He gestured to Ka-poel. “Lead on.”
Taniel shaded his eyes from rain and looked up at Julene. She stood above him, arms folded, a belligerent smile twisting the scar on her face. “It’s been two days,” she said. “Admit your pet savage can’t track this bitch and we’ll get out of this rain and tell Tamas there’s a problem.”
“Giving up so easily, eh?” Taniel kept his hand in the gutter and tried not to think about the substance squelching between his fingers. Storm drains collected everything, from human waste to dead animals and whatever garbage and mud piled up in the streets. During a storm like this, all of it was swept down into the large sewers beneath the city. This drain was clogged, leaving Taniel up to his shoulder in rainwater and filth, and he was enjoying it just about as much as he was enjoying Julene’s constant badgering. “You know Tamas won’t pay you until the job’s done, don’t you?” he reminded her.
“We’ll find her,” Julene said. “Just not today. Not in this rain. She caused this storm. I can feel it. The auras swirl, summoned from the Else. It muddies her trail too much, but once the rain has cleared up, I’ll find her trail again.”
“Ka-poel already has her trail.” Taniel stretched a little farther, his cheek touching the squalid puddle he lay in. He felt something hard, wrapped his hand around it, and pulled it out.
“She’s been scraping her fingernails between street cobbles and having you dig in every ditch between here and… what the pit is that?”
Taniel climbed to his feet. The glob of gray mud in his hand looked like the scrapings from a hundred boots. His stomach crawled at the smell of it and he held it at arm’s length. The whole mass clung to a long piece of wood. With a squelching, sucking sound the puddle at his feet slowly began to drain.
“Broken cane, I think,” Taniel said.
Ka-poel came over to examine the stinking mud. She poked it with one finger, her head held up and away, scrutinizing the whole mass down the bridge of her nose. Her fingers darted in suddenly, then came out, pinched together.
Julene leaned forward. “What’s that?” She shook her head. “Nothing. Stupid girl.”
Taniel washed his arm in the cleanest puddle he could find, then took his shirt and buckskin coat from Gothen. To Julene, “You need sharper eyes. It’s a hair. The Privileged’s hair.”
“That’s impossible. To find a single hair from the Privileged in all this muck. Even if it did belong to her, what can your savage do with it?”
Taniel shrugged. “Find her.”
Ka-poel walked away and opened her satchel. She worked with her back to them for a few moments. When she turned around, she straightened her satchel on her shoulder and gave a brisk nod. She tapped herself in the middle of the chest and then made a grasping motion.
Taniel grinned as he buttoned up his shirt. “We have her.”
They flagged down a hackney cab. Ka-poel sat up with the driver to direct him, and Taniel, Julene, and Gothen climbed inside. Julene made a disgusted sound a moment after the door closed.
“You smell like filth,” she said. “I’d rather be in the rain than in here with you. I’ll be on the footboard.” She swung back outside. A moment passed, and then the carriage jerked forward.
“Ka-poel can track the Privileged with a hair?” Gothen asked after they’d been moving for several minutes, his knees knocking uncomfortably close to Taniel’s.
“Hard to do it with one hair,” Taniel said. “Helps if there’s more. The blood from my bayonet, a discarded nail in the street-this Privileged bites her nails-an eyelash. One bit leads to the next. The more she has, the easier it is to track. If we want to sneak up on this Privileged, we need a precise location.”
Taniel opened his sketchbook and flipped through it, pausing briefly on the sketch of Vlora tucked between two pages, before moving on to a half-finished drawing of the Privileged. He was sketching from memory, but he’d been the only one of the four of them to get a good look at her. Gothen scanned the drawing for a few moments. When he finished, Taniel snapped the book shut, returning it to his jacket.
“How does Ka-poel’s sorcery work?” Gothen asked.
“No idea,” Taniel said. “I’ve never seen her do magic. Not what we think of as magic, anyway. No fingers twitching, no summoning elemental auras.” He’d long ago stopped trying to figure out her sorcery.
Gothen cleared his throat after a minute. He didn’t look at Taniel directly, but a sly smile crossed his face. “Julene and I, we have a bet.”
Taniel tapped out a line of powder on the back of his hand and snorted it. “What’s that?”
“Julene thinks you’re bedding the savage. I say you aren’t.”
“Not exactly the bet of a gentleman,” Taniel said.
“We’re all soldiers here,” Gothen said. His grin widened.
“How much was the wager?”
“A hundred krana.”
“So much for women’s intuition. Tell her she owes you a hundred.”
“Thought so,” Gothen said. “Men are so much easier to read than women. You look at her-the savage-like that once in a while, but even then it’s only a hint of longing, not the look of a lover.”
Taniel scowled at the magebreaker and shifted in his seat, not sure how to respond. In an officers’ setting he’d call a man out for that. Here, though… well, like Gothen said, they were both soldiers.
“She’s nothing more than a kid,” Taniel said. “Besides, the whole time I’ve known Ka-poel, I’ve been engaged to another woman.”
“Ah. Congratulations.”
“The engagement is off.”
“Your pardon,” Gothen said, looking away.
Taniel tapped out another line on the back of his hand. He waved his snuffbox in the air dismissively. “Think nothing of it.” He snorted the black powder and took a deep breath, then leaned his head against the side of the carriage. He listened to the patter of rain on the rooftop, to the clatter of the horse’s hooves and the wheels on the cobbles. So many noises that could drown out his thoughts.
Where was Vlora, he wondered, at this moment? Perhaps just arriving in Adopest. Ma
ybe already here and gone, sent off on assignment by Tamas. He’d forced the question out of his mind every silent moment since he’d nailed that fop to the wall, wriggling on his own sword like a pinned butterfly. What had gone wrong? He’d made a mistake, going off to Fatrasta like he did. Getting tangled up in a war just to impress Tamas. He’d left her alone for too long. The man who’d bedded her was a professional philanderer. It wasn’t her fault.
He made a fist, reeled in his anger. Was he mad because he loved Vlora? Or was he mad because another man had sullied his woman? Had Vlora truly been his woman? Taniel couldn’t remember a time at which he wasn’t going to marry Vlora. Tamas had thrust them together in every possible situation. She was a gifted powder mage, and chances were their children would be gifted as well. Tamas had encouraged them to be together for years. If anything, Vlora was more Tamas’s future daughter-in-law than she was ever Taniel’s future wife. He swallowed that thought, and with it the satisfaction with Tamas’s disappointment. Now Taniel didn’t have to marry at all if he didn’t want-or he’d find a wife of his own, not some prearranged powder-mage bride. Maybe Ka-poel. Taniel chuckled aloud, ignoring Gothen’s curious glance. Tamas would be absolutely livid if Taniel married a foreign savage. His amusement died down, and he resisted the urge to open his sketchbook and look at Vlora’s drawing.
“Awfully nice part of town,” Gothen said, pulling Taniel from his thoughts. The magebreaker held back the curtain just enough to see outside. A moment later the carriage jostled to a stop. Taniel opened the door.
They were in the Samalian District. Thick smoke hung over the entire city, mixing with the light rain and stinging Taniel’s eyes. The place was silent-the mob had been quelled two days prior and in their wake had left little of what had once been rows of stately manors. Smoldering ruins and gutted houses were all that remained.
Except this one. The townhouse was three stories tall, and made of ancient gray stone. It had been modeled after castles of old with parapets and walks. The walls were blackened from the fires raging around, but the building itself seemed undamaged. It was easy to see why.
The parapets were manned by soldiers. Cobbles had been torn up from the street and made into a waist-high wall in front of the main entrance. More soldiers squatted behind that, their muskets at the ready, watching Taniel’s carriage with outright hostility.
Taniel swung out of the carriage. Julene was already on the ground, pulling on her gloves. Ka-poel climbed down from beside the driver.
“Whose house is this?” Taniel asked the driver.
The man scratched his chin. “General Westeven’s.”
A squad of soldiers issued from the townhouse and headed straight toward them. Taniel felt his gut wrench. They wore the all-too-familiar gray-and-white uniforms and the high, plumed hats of the king’s Hielmen. The Hielmen were supposed to have been wiped out. Yet here they were, guarding the residence of the former head of the king’s guard. General Westeven was nearly eighty, ancient by all standards, yet it was said he was still sharp and alert. Of all of Adro’s commanders, only Westeven had the reputation to match Tamas.
“Is the general in the city?” Taniel asked. Surely Tamas would have dealt with him. A loose end like this couldn’t have been left.
“Heard a rumor he was back,” the driver said. “He was supposed to be on holiday in Novi. He cut it short and returned just yesterday.”
Taniel glanced at Ka-poel. “You sure she’s here?”
Ka-poel nodded.
“Pit.”
The Hielmen halted five paces from Taniel. Their captain was an older man with a sour face. He was taller than Taniel by half a hand, and when his eyes fell on Taniel’s powder keg pin, his lip curled into a sneer.
“You’ve a woman inside your house,” Taniel said, fingering his pistol. “A Privileged. I’m here to arrest her in the name of Field Marshal Tamas.”
“We don’t recognize the authority of traitors here, boy.”
“So you admit you’re protecting her?”
“She’s the general’s guest,” the captain said.
A guest. Hielmen under the command of General Westeven and now they had a Privileged? This was dangerous territory. He could see rifles in windows on the floors above and on the parapets. The Hielman captain wore a sword and a pistol. Two of his guards carried long, slender rifles with fist-sized cartridges attached underneath-air canisters on air rifles. Weapons specifically designed to be unaffected by a powder mage’s power. No doubt some of the marksmen above carried the same weapons.
With Julene and the magebreaker he could probably fight his way into the manor. Soldiers were one thing to deal with, the Privileged another.
He could feel when Julene touched the Else. He held up a hand. “No,” he said. “Back down.”
“Like pit I will,” Julene said. “I’ll burn through this lot and-”
“Gothen,” Taniel said. “Rein her in.” He had to get away from here. Warn Tamas. If General Westeven was in the city, he wouldn’t take too long to marshal his forces. He’d attack quickly and go straight for the heart. Taniel moistened dry lips. “We’re going.”
“Sir,” one of the Hielmen said. “That’s Taniel Two-Shot.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not going anywhere, Two-Shot.”
“In the carriage,” Taniel said. “We’re leaving. Driver!”
The soldiers lowered their muskets. Taniel leapt onto the footboard of the carriage. He drew his pistol, swung around. He shot one of the Hielmen in the chest before the man could bring his weapon to bear. He tossed his pistol through the carriage window and looked toward the Hielmen, reaching out with his senses for their powder. Two of them carried standard muskets and the captain had a pistol. They’d all have powder reserves.
He found their powder horns easily. He touched the powder with a thought, causing a single spark.
The explosion nearly knocked him off the carriage. The horses screamed, and Taniel held on for dear life as the animals fled in terror. He took one look back. The Hielman captain had been blown clear in two. One of his companions struggled to sit up. The rest were in bloody pieces in the road. No one bothered to fire at the fleeing carriage.
When the driver finally got control of his animals, Taniel stuck his head into the carriage.
“I could have torn through them,” Julene said.
“And gotten us all killed. They had at least two dozen soldiers with air rifles watching us, not to mention the Privileged inside. I want you two to get out. Keep an eye on that townhouse. If the Privileged leaves, follow her but do not try to fight your way in.”
“Where are you going?” Gothen asked.
“To warn my father.”
Taniel climbed up beside the driver and told him to slow down for a moment. Gothen and Julene exited out the other side, jumping to the ground and heading into an alley. Taniel half hoped they’d try the manor against his orders, just so he didn’t have to deal with them again. But he needed that magebreaker.
“You’ll be paid well,” Taniel said to the driver.
The driver nodded, his mouth in a firm line.
“Take us to the House of Nobles,” Taniel said. “As quick as you can.”
Chapter 8
Olem,” Tamas said, “did you know someone wrote a biography about me?”
Olem perked up from his at-ease position beside the door. “No, sir, I didn’t.”
“Not many do.” Tamas pressed his fingers together and watched the door. “The royal cabal had them all bought up and burned-well, most of them anyway. The author, Lord Samurset, fell out of favor with the crown and was banished from Adro.”
“The royal cabal didn’t like his portrayal?”
“Oh, not at all. He was very favorable toward powder mages. Said they were a fantastically modern weapon that would one day replace Privileged altogether.”
“Dangerous conjecture.”
Tamas nodded. “I’m just vain enough to have rather enjoyed the
book.”
“What did he say about you?”
“Samurset claims that my marriage made me conservative, that my son’s birth gave me mercy, and that my wife’s death hardened both qualities with an objectiveness to make them useful. He said that my climb to the rank of field marshal while on the Gurla campaign was the best thing to happen to the Adran military in a thousand years.” Tamas waved his hand dismissively. “Rubbish, most of it, but I do have a confession.”
“Sir?”
“There are times when I don’t feel a sense of mercy or justice or anything but pure rage. Times that I feel I’m twenty again and the solution to every problem is pistols at twenty paces. Olem, that is the most dangerous feeling a commander can have. Which is why, if I look like I’m about to lose my temper, I want you to tell me. No fidgeting, no polite coughs. Just plain out tell me. Can you do that?”
“I can,” Olem said.
“Good. Then send in Vlora.”
Tamas watched his son’s former fiancee enter the room with no small bit of trepidation. Many thought of Tamas as cold. He encouraged the notion. Perhaps his son had suffered for that. But Tamas knew that beneath his calculating nature he had a temper, and for the first time in his life he wanted to shoot a woman.
Tamas interlocked his fingers on the desk in front of him. He fixed his mouth into that ambiguous place between smile and frown.
Vlora was a dark-haired beauty with a classic figure, wide hips and a small chest outlined by the tight blue uniform of an Adran soldier. Her father had been a na-baron who had lost his fortune speculating in all the wrong things. The last of their family wealth had gone to a gold mine in Fatrasta-one that pinched out two months after mining began. He had died a year after that last failure, when Vlora was only ten. Sabon had found her months later, placed in a boarding school by her few remaining relatives; an abandoned child with a unique talent: the ability to ignite powder from not just a dozen paces, as most Marked could, but at a distance of several hundred yards. Tamas had taken her in, provided for her upbringing, and given her a career in the army. What had gone wrong?
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