by Alex Lidell
Back in the chandeliered dining room of Palan’s estate, the sizzling aroma of steak filled Tanil’s nose. He fidgeted, waiting for his uncle’s sizable rear to get comfortable in the cushioned chair. The comfort-seeking rear end took its time. Palan savored such pleasures. One would think he’d show a little respect for Tanil, considering the deficit in kin.
Of the three Family brothers, the oldest had changed his name and disappeared decades ago with a band of mercenaries. The youngest, Tanil’s father, fell into the Servants’ hands and kept to the Family code of silence throughout prison and, ultimately, his execution. His sacrifice left the middle brother, Palan, in charge and with patronage of Tanil, however grudgingly the idiot gave it.
Just as Tanil reached for his fork, the room’s heavy door swung open. A tall figure in a hooded cloak looked in from the hallway.
“An unexpected pleasure, Yus.” Palan smiled. He drank deeply from a silver water chalice and daintily replaced the cup before speaking again. “News on our corn merchants? A single attack may have been accidental, but two . . . ”
Yus nodded. “The Vipers learned our route, my lord. I have redirected the remaining veesi to other networks.”
Tanil’s stomach churned. Who knew the man would obsess over losses so petty? Plus, it was Palan’s own greed at fault—if he’d granted his nephew a sustainable allowance, Tanil would not have been forced into alternatives.
The fat man frowned. “Keep at it, Yus.”
Tanil ground his teeth. This obsession was breaching all bounds. Good gods, Palan likely expended more coin on the search than he had lost in product. Uncle needed something else to worry about.
“What else?” Palan asked Yus.
“More Vipers are slithering into Atham. I have men in place to thin their numbers.”
Palan drank more water and pursed his lips. “No. They target the Crown, as the attack last week proved. So long as they stay off our assets, let them shake Lysian. They push hard enough and he shall welcome us with open arms and closed eyes. Or better yet, he’ll send troops against the Madam’s stronghold in Catar and it will cost us nothing.” Palan smiled again. “The young king does not yet realize his error in so antagonizing the Madam. Once he does, he will be desperate.”
Yus bowed low. “Yes, my lord. Might other matters impose on my lord’s attention?” His eyes shifted between Tanil and his uncle, and Tanil relished the man’s discomfort. The lieutenant was, after all, interrupting the dinner of two very important people.
“Excuse yourself.” Palan’s words singed the air.
Tanil began to smile before realizing that the order concerned him. Anger and embarrassment heated his blood. Him, the head’s next of kin, discarded like a lackey! He glared at both men, but suppressed a futile protest. Watch your step, Uncle, he thought before pulling the heavy door closed behind him.
The serving girl appeared a half hour later to tell him that his uncle wished the pleasure of his company. Tanil’s stomach growled. The steak would be cold by now. Forcing an appropriately humble expression onto his face, he reentered the dining hall. The cause of his recent exile had departed. “I wish you would permit me to remain and learn from you, Uncle.”
“You have other duties, my boy. What of your classes?”
Tanil wanted to roll his eyes. The Academy was another of the coward’s roundabout schemes. Servants of the Crown traditionally rose to prestigious posts, and Lord Palan wished to have his man fill such a role. “Savoy is a brainless sadist.”
“Who won’t flinch to fail you.” The words carried no sympathy. The cowardly lord wasn’t the one spending his evenings sore and bruised. “Do not trifle with the man.”
You want a Servant on the Family books, not me. You deal with it. “He is a risk to our work, Uncle. I want to dispense with him.”
“Out of the question.”
“I didn’t know the Family now fears Servants.” Let his uncle explain his way out of that one.
Palan tented his fingertips and laid them atop the tablecloth. “Permit me to clear your misconceptions, boy. Your task, your only task, is to enter the Service of the Crown. Should you fail in that, I will no longer have need of your . . . labors.”
Ice gripped the lining of Tanil’s stomach. “But Savoy—”
“I don’t care whether you polish the man’s boots or train until the Seven Hells freeze over. Either way, you will pass and you will graduate. And, for once in your existence, you will fulfill this task independently. The Family needs leaders, not cripples who use my influence as a crutch.” He rang for the servant girl. “Mari, pack Master Tanil’s gear. He will be returning to the Academy early.”
Tanil stared in a combination of disbelief and humiliation. Blood raced through his heart, heating and speeding. So, dear Uncle liked Savoy, did he? And to dare imply that Tanil did not work independently? That hunk of lard, chasing his tail about a sorry bushel of corn, didn’t begin to know the connections Tanil maintained.
He fingered a key in his pocket, a gift from the gods found on the opening day of school. The key would ensure his success at practical exams, but that, Tanil knew now, would not be enough to regain peace in his life. He had no intention of spending the rest of the year suffering indignities from Palan or Savoy. Those two needed to occupy themselves—and each other—elsewhere. Yes, that was it . . . Let Savoy shift his sights to the dear lord coward. Tanil just needed to figure out a way of handling the bloody dog. One bite at Rock Lake had been quite enough.
He found a smile for his uncle and pushed back the chair.
CHAPTER 13
In the month following the Queen’s Day fiasco, Renee’s life reclaimed its old pattern, despite an increase in guards now patrolling the Academy grounds. She returned to the palace once to debrief with Fisker, who, as one of the first responders on the Queen’s Day scene, was charged with overseeing the investigation into the attack. The man had opened the interview with a threat—no, a promise—to see her hanged for treason for colluding with the Vipers and kept her five hours while she first disproved the accusation and then described details of the attack. Despite knowing he used the same tactic with everyone, Renee had come out trembling.
Meanwhile, more children and young men disappeared from Atham’s streets, likely snatched by Viper hands—Madam, it was said, had a taste for harvesting people and breaking them. Sasha confessed that King Lysian had now retreated a step in his aggression against the wanted Viper lords, deescalating death warrants to imprisonment.
“He bought time, but to what end?” Sasha said into the doom of unfinished homework that hung over the barracks. “Now Lord Palan is trying to take advantage of the Crown’s troubles and dwindling treasury. Yesterday he offered Lys a purse to help address ‘the Viper threat to the Crown.’ ”
Renee jerked up. “Palan runs the Family. Proof or not, you know he does. The coin is tainted.”
“Of course it’s tainted.” Sasha waved her hand. “And Lys refused it, for now. You must admit, though, it was a wise move on Palan’s part. The Crown could never accept a bribe from a crime group, but funds from a wealthy noble to help protect the Crown from Vipers, well . . . The residual benefits for the Family can almost be overlooked.”
Renee sighed. The Madam tried to bend the king to her will while Lord Palan was luring him to his. At the end, it was the same thing. She glanced at the door. Alec should have been in by now. They had homework to start on. He appeared as if summoned by the thought, his cheeks the apple-red of outside chill.
“Where were you?” she asked.
He dropped his books to feed a log into the fire. “Library.” Ignoring her frown, he found a chair and opened his journal to read Seaborn’s latest assignment, their major one of the half year. “Analyze the facts of the case assigned and discuss whether a thief’s intentions should be taken into account before passing judgment. Twenty journal pages due in six weeks. Have you started?” he asked her.
Twenty pages. Renee winced and shot a look a
t Sasha. As a magistrate cadet, she would have had this course a year earlier; the archives of her mind could save them hours of work.
“All right, all right. Hold on.” Sasha pulled an old journal from her drawer and rustled through pages of her neat writing. “Here. In essence, two boys took a pair of the Crown’s prized horses for a night ride. Bandits attacked, killing one horse and severely wounding one of the riders. The surviving boy took the blame, but swore that he intended to bring the horses back. Claimed he wasn’t a thief.”
Renee snorted. “Thieves always claim they had meant to give the loot back.”
Sasha shook her head. “In this case the claim was true—all agreed the deed was a jest. The boy just wished to ride the stallion, not keep him. But, the guardsman—who was responsible for said horses and didn’t take kindly to a pair of children making him look the fool—claimed that intentions are irrelevant. Said the boy was a thief and a heinous one, since he stole from the Crown himself.”
Renee pulled her legs up under her and sat back against the wall. She was inclined to side with the guardsman. “What happened to the boy?”
“Court agreed with the guard. Ordered the boy flogged for horse poaching and sent to the dungeons for treason.”
Renee blinked. With Tildor’s economy bound to commerce, thieves received harsh treatment, but common reason separated a boy’s prank from a criminal conspiracy. “How in the Seven Hells did two boys even get close to the Crown’s horses to begin with?”
Sasha’s smile confessed that she had awaited the question with some eagerness. She put her palms on the writing table and leaned over them. “They were Servant cadets—fighters—in this Academy.”
Cadets? Renee jerked her head toward Sasha. Cadets weren’t criminals; they were kids like her and Alec and Sasha. Moreover, they were kids training to do right by Tildor while others did right only by themselves. To scourge a cadet, much less shut him in a dungeon, was to violate . . . something. The word eluded her. The peasants on her father’s estate pledged their obedience and lives to Lord Tamath, but he pledged to protect and care for them in return. Did King Lysian owe anything to the Servants who swore to him? Did he owe anything to Savoy, who took his arrow? “Who was it?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know.” Sasha dropped the journal back into the still- open drawer and shut it with her foot. Her lips tightened as if the lack of information was a personal affront. “The Academy precedes the anti-mage rebellion, so we can narrow things down to several centuries of students and closed records.”
The logs in the fire began to crackle and the room filled with a savory aroma of burning hickory. Renee scooted closer to the flame and reached for her ink. The bottle tipped, spilling blackness over the blue trim of her uniform. The cap rolled mockingly under the bed.
Cursing, she righted the bottle, sprang to pull a rag from her trunk, and blotted the mess. At last settling back down, she grabbed another bottle from her desk. The cap slithered off in mid-motion, spilling ink over her hand. She cursed again.
Once an accident, twice . . .
Renee opened her drawer to find all the bottles identically sabotaged and glared around the room. One day she’s in battle for the Crown’s life and the next she must check her quarters for juvenile pranks. Wonderful.
“We didn’t play jest with your ink.” Alec held up his hands.
“Yes. Triple promise,” a voice added from the doorway. Sloshing mud on the ink-stained floor, Diam and Khavi padded into the room. Beads of murky water dripping from the boy’s once blond hair had turned him into a grinning mound of dirt.
Sasha threw a towel at him. “What happened?”
“I learned the jumping-tumble-of-doom. Wanna see?”
Alec stiffened as the equally wet dog rubbed against his side, sniffing his jacket and whining. “What if you go bathe Khavi instead?”
It was a worthy effort, but destined for failure. Diam cocked his head in Alec’s direction, smiled, and sprawled himself in front of the fire. “No, we like it here,” he announced. And fell asleep.
* * *
“You’ll lose a student after midyear exams,” Seaborn said, his knee testing a chair in Savoy’s quarters. “Who do you think?”
“Tanil or Renee.” But you knew that before you asked. Savoy watched his friend pry off the chair cushion and smack it, eliciting a dull thud. “Quit destroying my furniture.”
“I think someone put a board inside the pillow.”
“Yes. Me. Put it back.”
“Life here too soft for you?”
Savoy perched himself atop his desk. His friend didn’t come to speak of furniture. He came to talk about the only topic he cared about these days. Cadets. “Say it, Connor. Or don’t say it. Make up your mind.”
Replacing the cushion, Seaborn sat down, his eyes inspecting the floor. “I care little for Tanil’s fate, but Renee . . . She’s got the mind to make a good Servant. It would upset me to lose her. Speak with her about her academic efforts. Your words would do what mine cannot.”
And Cory, the Seventh’s sergeant, could speak on virtue next. “Connor, you wrote half my papers.”
“Which makes me a dangerous evaluator.”
“I’m a fighter, Connor. My job is to keep her alive, not to worry about her grammar.”
“You are a teacher! Your job is to steer her from trouble and help her graduate. Are your morning sword games accomplishing that?”
“If she deigns to actually use the moves I teach her, they may guard her life.” Savoy crossed his arms. “Whether she does, or how she balances time, is her decision.”
“A teacher ensures his students make the right one, with books as much as with swords.” Seaborn shook his head. “You work with her because you’re bored, Korish. But you aren’t here for you, and you aren’t here to be her friend. Kids make choices based on your guidance. When you get it wrong, they pay the consequences. Stop this before you lead her into trouble.”
“She is sixteen, not six, Connor.”
“Wake up, Korish! With your looks and status, you could tell a sixteen-year-old girl to drink poison, and she’ll want to.” He drew a breath. “You don’t even see how she looks at you, do you?”
“Bloody gods, listen to yourself.” Savoy shook his head. This was the senior cadets’ last Academy year, before their two-year field trials. By nineteen they’d take the Servant’s Oath and make decisions in the Crown’s name. They’d hold others’ lives in their hands. And Connor feared granting them control of their own schedule. “Have you even ventured out of Atham in the past five years?” Savoy asked. “There is a world out there, you may have failed to notice. One where people must make their own decisions of what to eat for breakfast. And then deal with the consequences.”
Connor sat down and laced his fingers together. He spoke with frustrating calm, as if addressing a magistrate in court instead of a friend in a barracks. “The Seventh, if I recall, primarily runs secret, highly tactical missions in hostile territories. Do you believe that platform gives you the full worldview you speak of? Do you even know the real purpose behind half your assignments?” His hands opened. “So yes, Korish, I seldom leave Atham, and I ride in a wagon when I do go. But I work with the law, which touches more people than the edge of your sword ever can. And I work with cadets, who will likewise touch others.”
Savoy stared at the invisible wall of words that his friend erected between them. “You tangle in abstracts, Connor. I’m a fighter.”
Connor raised his brows. “Abstracts? Like laws that treat children as hardened criminals?” His voice dropped and he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “You hiding from everyone for two years did not make me blind. What happened to you—”
“Was what I deserved and what I needed.” Savoy shoved himself away from the desk. “I went from hooligan to master swordsman. Don’t fix what isn’t broken, Connor. And sure as hell don’t do it under my flag.”
“Verin—”
“Saved
my life.” Heated blood rose to Savoy’s face and he locked eyes with Connor, daring him to so much as consider contradicting.
Connor held up his palms. “Forgive me,” he said softly, and dropped his face down before turning to the window. Outside, the wind ruffled golden leaves. The transition from summer heat to autumn chill had been as gradual as a cliff. “I heard the Crown recalled the Seventh.”
A peace offering. Savoy swallowed, accepting the change in conversation and letting his heart reclaim its normal beat. His men were coming. Verin had handed him the stack of documents that morning, including permission for the Seventh to lodge at the Academy’s guest barracks. For all his words at the year’s start, Verin knew a unit worked best when whole. “Under guise of ‘inspection and training.’ ” Savoy replied, and allowed a smile at Seaborn’s snort. “Should be here toward autumn’s end.”
“A mission?”
“A precaution.” Savoy stretched his shoulders. “The Madam ordered the Queen’s Day attack. She is unlikely to give up after one bout.”
CHAPTER 14
On the sand floor of the salle, Renee leaned into a stretch and shuddered against the chill of the morning. Beyond the window, red maple leaves lost their grip on branches and drifted to cover the stiff yellowing grass. Despite Alec’s grumblings that she was wasting time learning moves she’d never use, Renee still returned to the salle each dawn.
Kneeling a pace away, Savoy bound his forearm with a string of thin lead weights. Healer Grovener had promised to skin him alive for overworking the joint, and Savoy swore to do the same to Renee if she reported him.
The weights unwound and slid to the sand. Savoy growled.
Renee rose to help, but he shook her away.
“Very well, struggle on.” Remembering herself, she added, “Sir.”
His face rose from his task, the corners of his mouth twitching, but then he cocked his head and frowned at the opening door.
