by K. Eason
At least Istel had the sense not to call out to her. But she saw him coming, from the corner of her eye, a brisk legion march straight across the plaza. There was no way to walk away from him now or to gesture him back. So Dekklis folded her arms and pretended great interest in the mosaic under her feet. Wished Istel wait, and hoped that he understood why she wouldn’t look at him. Please, foremothers, he didn’t pick now to get stubborn and difficult.
Maybe Istel heard her. Maybe Briel passed the message along. Whatever the reason, he stopped. She heard his single hard exhale, as if someone had hit him. And then his footsteps retreated, with that same legion briskness.
She would pay for that later. She’d get to spend the rest of her day with a sullen partner, when Istel hadn’t known how to be sullen before Snow. Hell and damn, she missed that Istel. This new one—
She didn’t finish the thought. Hollow tang from behind the curia doors, before they swung a body’s width open. Her mother stepped into the gap. Looked fast around the plaza until she spotted Dekklis. Then she extricated one hand from the official robes and beckoned.
This summons, Dekklis would answer. She walked over, conscious of the bondies’ eyes on her. Of the guards’, too. She looked to them like a scout in mismatched armor, that was all, and not the sort of person with whom a senator would have personal conversation. Knew how she looked to her mother, too—that same shabby scout, who was also the fourth daughter of House Szanys, who need never wear battered armor. Who need never wear armor at all, and chose it anyway.
Dekklis was conscious of the sword’s weight on her hip, and the fresh oil smell on the leather. Of her mother’s scowl as she came within earshot.
“You couldn’t’ve worn a proper uniform?”
“We’re scouts, mother. Not regulars. Reckoned we should look the part.”
“Mm.” Elia’s gaze floated past Dek’s shoulder. Settled and hardened. “That’s your second?”
“Istel. Yes.” Dekklis peered past her mother. The curia looked smaller than her remembered glimpse. Darker, despite the firedogs and braziers and the heat rolling out. It stank like wax and perfume and incense and a hundred bodies in heavy robes in a space too small and tight.
“The consul has declined to summon you for testimony.”
“What?”
“She says.” Elia frowned at the guards. Came down onto the steps as if she only wanted a breath of cool air. Low-voiced: “She says there is no need to hear your report.”
“That’s absurd. Mother, did you tell her about the Taliri? About Cardik?”
“Of course I did,” Elia said coolly, as if she were giving dinner commands to the kitchen. It took a daughter to see the set to Elia’s fine jaw, and the way her lips pulled tight at the corners. “But it is the end of the winter season. The Taliri do not raid in summer. Everyone knows it. No doubt they will withdraw.”
“They won’t withdraw. If they haven’t already stormed the gates—” Dekklis made herself shut it down, calm it down. No shouting on the Senate steps. “So what, she—the Senate—thinks I’m lying?”
“You’re not here officially, are you? You have no letter from Praefecta Stratka.”
Who was the consul’s daughter. Their House had no love for Szanys. Never mind Cardik’s praefecta was dead now, or worse.
“She think I’ve deserted?”
Elia folded her arms across the robes. Her bracelets chimed and winked. “The consul did not make that allegation. But she did suggest that you may have—oh, what was it? That you may have exaggerated the threat in order to excuse your own error in judgment.”
A woman who was also a soldier did not say, out loud, the consul is full of toadshit, especially when there were other troopers to overhear. Dekklis imitated her mother’s stance: arms folded, chin level, gaze drifting. “What did Senator K’Hess say about it?”
“She did not attend.”
“What? Didn’t you send for her?”
An eyebrow. “One does not send for a senator who is also a proconsul, Dekklis. One issues an invitation. Which I did. Nor is she the only absence. Haata and Saarvo also missed this morning’s session.”
Senate sessions weren’t mandatory. Absences weren’t that unusual. But K’Hess, of all people, had to know there was something wrong in Cardik. She’d already lost one son to Taliri. Had probably lost a second when the city fell. And Haata and Saarvo had made their fortunes opening the northern routes. They, too, had a stake in Cardik’s future.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Elia rearranged her mouth into her best politician’s smile. “The families have been in some disarray, of late. K’Hess is no doubt relieved to have two of her sons safe in Cardik, with her first son gone missing. I’m sure she saw no need to attend this session.”
Dek was amassing quite a collection of blank-faced whats? this morning. She skipped the utterance this time and simply stared. K’Hess Kenjak was the fourth son, and he had been very dead since before midwinter. His mother had to know it by now. Even if Cardik’s praefecta hadn’t sent the obligatory message, Rurik would have. Son to mother, reporting a brother’s death.
Unless the messages hadn’t arrived. Unless the consul was lying about what she’d heard and hadn’t. Because damn sure Senator K’Hess knew neither of her northern sons was safe, that safety up there was pure toadshit, and—
And Elia knew it, too. Which meant Elia wanted Dekklis to reckon what Elia wasn’t saying.
All right. Dekklis scraped her wits together and thought. K’Hess’s first son—who was that? She shook out her memory. Came up with a dim recollection of a solid-framed young man with the proud K’Hess features. She couldn’t remember which House he’d gone to, but he’d stayed in Illharek, and he was missing now. Maybe Haata and Saarvo had missing sons, too. Maybe that was the reason three senators with clear personal interests in Cardik weren’t there to vote on hearing First Scout Szanys Dekklis’s report.
“K’Hess has another son. The second one.”
“Consort in Stratka,” said Elia. “Yes.”
Stratka was the consul’s House.
A soldier served the Republic, might even die for it; but for the foremothers’ sake, don’t look into its guts. That was politics, a senator’s job. Nor could a soldier ask a senator what the hell does this have to do with Cardik? Are you telling me it’s politics, why they won’t hear me? Are Saarvo and Haata missing sons, too? Are you saying blackmail and conspiracy, Mother?
Here, now, on the Senate steps, with everything far too quiet, a soldier could only say, “You didn’t mention her.”
“No.” A heartbeat. Hesitation, unheard of from Szanys Elia. “I’m sorry, daughter,” soft as snowfall.
Dekklis drew up stiff. “May I return to my duties?”
Elia returned the salute. “Dismissed, First Scout.” She turned on her heel and climbed back up the steps, through the curia doors. They thumped together. Sent a puff of incense and heat rolling out like an impatient breath.
And then it was only clear plaza between her and the bridge. Dekklis marched past bondies and guards. Collected Istel with a look. He fell in beside her as she stepped onto the bridge. Said nothing for the first ten paces. Then: “What happened?”
“Nothing. You saw. They didn’t want to hear my report.”
She felt Istel’s stare on the side of her face. “Your mother say why not?”
“My mother.” A breath. Two. “There’s something wrong with the Senate.”
It was the start of an old legion quip that Dek had never liked, that she’d never repeated herself. Istel knew it. The silence stretched and creaked before he delivered the next line. “Yeah. What’s wrong, is it’s only made out of highborn.”
The half-blood was standing exactly where Briel’s sending had shown her, leaning against the wall on the middle level of the Arch. She had jenja in one hand, a deliberate blankness to her face that meant trouble. She threw a look at Dekklis and Istel, sharp as any knife, and went back to s
taring out over the edge.
“Took your time, yeah?”
Dekklis settled beside her, on the side without the jenja. Made a face at the smell. “Briel didn’t tell you we were coming?”
“She’s a svartjagr. She doesn’t actually talk.”
Oh yes. Very unhappy. Angry, with a touch of scared. And, Dekklis realized, alone. She looked both ways up the bridge.
“Where’s Veiko?”
“Out.” Snow jabbed the jenja stick toward the dark overhead. “Up there. Above.”
“He left?”
“No. Fuck and damn, Szanys, don’t be an idiot. He’s doing what he does. Talking to the dead. That’s easier for him to do in quiet places. And safer if he’s not here.” Snow took a hard drag on the jenja, so that the tip turned hot and red. “I’m hardly going to haul him all over Illharek, yeah? Can’t take him to the Academy, either, not yet.”
There was a why not? begging to be asked. Dekklis rolled it over her tongue. Swallowed it for later. “Is that where you were today, then? The Academy?”
“Yes, that’s where I’ve been for the past, oh, two days, after I stomped all over the Suburba with Veiko and pissed everyone off before that. But let’s talk about you first, and what you’ve done with your week so far. Briel found you on the Senate plaza. That seems promising.”
“Guess she told you that?”
“Showed me, Szanys, and I have a fucking headache to prove it. So what happened?”
Dekklis leaned her elbows on the wall. Stared down at the Jaarvi’s black mirror, and the Suburba’s twisting streets. They looked like guts, laced with witchfire and lanterns.
“The consul wouldn’t hear my report.”
Dek had expected a wide-eyed that’s some toadshit look like the one Istel had given her. Got flat nothing instead, Snow’s whole face locked down to stone and steel. “Why not?”
“You don’t ask the consul for explanations.”
“Guess, then.”
“Something’s wrong in the Senate. K’Hess was missing. So were other senators with interests up north. And the consul stopped just short of calling me a liar to my mother’s face.”
“Are they sending a cohort up to Cardik?”
“The consul insists that raiding season is over.”
Snow cut a look sidelong. “Your mother do something to fall out of favor? Or is Illharek’s consul particularly stupid this year?”
“The consul’s Stratka, mother to our praefecta in Cardik. They’re old enemies of K’Hess and us, too. It’s political.”
“Toadshit stupid politics if they cost us Cardik,” said Istel. “Don’t look at me like that, Dek. You know it.”
“You’re in uniform.”
“You want my opinion, First Scout, what the consul’s doing is more treason than what I’m saying.”
“He has a point, yeah?” Snow blew a gust of smoke over the Arch. Frowned and looked past Dek at Istel, who had tucked in on Dek’s other side. “Sorry. You want a stick?”
Hell and damn if he didn’t smile. Lit his whole face up, stripped away years. And when had he stopped doing that? “Love one. Thanks.”
So Dekklis had to wait while Snow handed Istel a stick of jenja and she conjured up fire out of nothing and Dek pretended it was a common sight, flames coming out of someone’s fingertips. But she did note the broken finger on Snow’s left hand, thicker than its siblings and crooked. She glanced at the right hand, which had all its fingers, pinching Snow’s own jenja between them. Marked the angle of the arm, and the stiffness, and the way Snow held it away from her body.
She almost said something. Snow was a chirurgeon. Snow had dragged Veiko
back from the dead
through an injury that should’ve cost him a leg and fever that should have killed him. She did not need Dek’s advice on her own health. Had said as much, in the forest.
But Dekklis had seen Veiko’s recovery stretched across long winter months. He still limped, too. Probably always would. A soldier could fight with a limp. A hunter could hunt. A whatever-else-Veiko-was, noidghe—which involved things Dekklis did not like to think about—did not need two healthy legs to traffic with ghosts. But everything Dek knew about conjuring
not much, yeah, Szanys?
emphasized manual dexterity. A conjuror needed both arms, and both hands, and every single finger.
Snow caught her looking. Asked “What?” in a tone that said I don’t want to hear it.
Dek shrugged. “My sister says there’s a rash of missing highborn. Males. All of them between sixteen and twenty-six. About ten in all, what I hear.”
One fair eyebrow hitched its way up Snow’s forehead. “Missing.”
“As in, they go out of the house, they don’t come home. Their own mothers’ houses, or their consorts’ houses. Doesn’t matter.”
“And they’re not feeding the catfish in the Jokki?”
“They haven’t washed up anywhere.”
“Weighted at the bottom of the Jaarvi, then. Or one of the deep chasms.”
Hell and damn. Dek forgot who Snowdenaelikk was sometimes. Forgot what she’d done, and for whom. “This is your experience talking? Where you hid bodies for the God?”
“This is sense talking,” Snow said, which wasn’t denial. “So. Highborn men. All right. Your sister the paranoid type?”
“Not remotely. My mother, who is paranoid, is worried about my nephews, too. My other sisters say their friends have lost consorts. So I asked around the barracks. And here’s the thing. No one who isn’t highborn knows toadshit about it. And the highborn don’t want to discuss it.”
“I’m sure they don’t.” Snow frowned. She leaned forward, close enough Dekklis could smell the jenja smoke on her clothes. Flipped her hand and studied the palm as if she’d never seen the God’s sigil before. “I think the problem’s bigger than I thought.”
“Meaning . . . ?”
“Meaning, Tsabrak’s people are also dead or missing. But here’s the thing. They’re godsworn, and godsworn are hard to kill. And the woman who’s taken over down there isn’t smart enough, or good enough, to’ve done them herself. I reckon she’s had help.”
Dek stared at her. Shook her head, wordless, strangling on hell and damn and you can’t mean it’s—
“Tal’Shik,” Istel guessed. “She’s got new godsworn, and they’re in the Suburba.”
“Smart man.” Knife-smile, flash and draw blood and gone again. “And maybe up here, too, with what you’ve told me.”
“Ehkla’s dead,” Dekklis said flatly. “You killed her back in Cardik. What godsworn can these be?”
“I flatter myself to think so. But she said she had sisters.”
“Taliri sisters!”
“We assumed Taliri, yeah, and only Taliri. And I think we were wrong.” Snow smiled tightly. “That’s why I sent Briel for you, Dek. Not for the joy of your company, yeah? Because I’ve been in the Archives. Found out some things that you need to see.”
CHAPTER NINE
Of course, Dekklis wanted to see proof. Snow had expected as much—knew, from the moment she offered heresy for evidence, that she’d slam into that highborn stubborn that Dek did better than anyone Snow had ever known. Most of the men in the Academy came from highborn families, but the girls there were mostly midtown, like Bel, with a scatter of Suburban talent. Highborn daughters went on to politics and officer ranks in the legion—taking over, because it was just what they did. They had a habit of thinking that what they wanted should be what was, and hell with any contrary evidence.
Well. That was predictable, too. Fire was hot. Water was wet. And highborn were—
“Impossible,” Dek said, there on the Arch. “I don’t believe it. You’re wrong. You have to be.”
Snow had tied down a smile. Twisted her mouth into a different shape. “I know what I read, yeah?”
“You might have gotten it wrong.”
“I might have. Except I didn’t.” Snow paused two beats so they could gla
re at each other. These were steps in a dance Snow knew well. Dekklis argued. Dekklis wanted proof. Dekklis was afraid. “Fine, then. You come to the Archives. Meet me at the Academy gates, two days from now, tenth mark.”
“Why wait?”
Because Belaery would be there at tenth mark and ten. “Because there’s rules against people like you in the Archives. Two days, it’s the Adept Council open session. Required attendance for students. Easier to get you inside, yeah? So come then, and I’ll show you the motherless scrolls. You read them. Tell me I’ve got it wrong.”
Belaery would cough up a snail when she saw Dekklis. Adepts with aspirations had to be careful of rules. But Bel was smart. She’d reckon Tal’Shik a bigger threat than Szanys Dekklis sniffing around in the stacks. Dek couldn’t even read half the documents. She was no danger.
Tell yourself that.
And if not, if Belaery couldn’t get past her objections and see sense, well, Snow had a lot of practice handling the unwilling. She’d spent more than ten years with the Laughing God’s people, with Tsabrak, running business and keeping order on the wrong side of legal. If Belaery wouldn’t listen, then—
What, Snow, you kill her?
If it came to that. Snow’s stomach shied away from the idea. Clenched and chilled. Tsabrak would have, with no hesitation. She might hesitate, at least in making the decision; but if she had to do it, well, she would. Tsabrak had taught her that there was no room for sentiment when it crossed business.
Is that what this is?
Business. Revenge. Something more tangled than either. Call it stop the Taliri, and leave it at that.
The archivist—who looked more like Suburban street muscle, lacking only a seax—had waved Snow into the library without more than a cursory glance. She knew Snow by now, had seen her in Adept Belaery’s company, prowling the old stacks. The archivist’s indifference was Snow’s good fortune; she had Dek right behind her, wrapped in look away, and that kind of conjuring was fragile. A good hard stare could crack it, or a noisy misstep, or even basic suspicion.
