City of Betrayal

by Claudie Arseneault

  Diel kept his tone calm despite the roiling anger in his stomach. With every new word, he expected Lord Allastam to burst into a furious rant and throw him out. Instead, the lord’s expression turned into a sneer. The intense smugness doused Diel’s indignation and squeezed his insides. What now?

  “I’m glad to hear you would rather be by their side. The next Golden Table should make you quite happy, then.”

  Quite … happy? “It’s not for another week.” Diel had hoped Arathiel would have returned with Varden safe and sound by then, and a better arrangement for him than the dark cells of Isandor Sapphire Guard’s headquarters could be discussed. That matter settled, Diel could focus on fixing the Dathirii’s finances—or at least on shoring them up long enough to survive their struggle with the Myrians. A shiver crawled down his spine. Judging from Lord Allastam’s tone, his vague plan might never see the light of day.

  “I’m afraid it has been moved. I can only imagine how packed your schedule is if you didn’t receive the note.”

  Or the note had never been sent. Diel gritted his teeth. “When?”

  “Tomorrow, at noon.”

  A swear crossed Diel’s lips. Tomorrow? How could he hope to be ready in time? That was Lord Allastam’s plan, of course. Now Diel knew why he’d given Yultes such an ultimatum, and what those letters Branwen had mentioned were for. He must have spent the last forty-eight hours pushing the other nobles of Isandor to move the Golden Table a week earlier. If they had complied … they might agree with Lord Allastam’s motion to throw him out, or were at least willing to consider it.

  “Understood.” Diel spoke very slowly, giving time for his thoughts to settle as much as possible. “Should I assume this is about the Dathirii’s two seats at the Table, and that we will want our most recent wealth status?”

  “I hope your young coinmaster has more free time than you do. He will need it tonight.”

  “Garith is nothing if not efficient. Goodbye, Lord Allastam.”

  There was nothing else to add. Diel refused to throw a tantrum or let Lord Allastam know how unstable his stomach now felt. He spun on his heels without bowing, strode to the great wooden doors, and pushed them open. A derisive snort followed his steps out of the audience gardens, and Diel forced himself to remain calm.

  The Golden Table wrote Isandor’s laws. Thirty nobles gathered around it monthly, debating the city’s issues and how to fix them. Bickering between rival houses consumed a lot of their time, but every now and then a major event came up, and the attention of Isandor’s ruling class could be focused on it. The next order of business should have been the Myrians and their growing economic hold on several Houses, but it seemed Lord Allastam meant to make it about House Dathirii.

  At any other time, Diel wouldn’t worry about it. Even nobles he often disagreed with liked him, albeit in a patronizing way, and the elven family had been around since Isandor’s foundation. True, House Dathirii wasn’t the richest, not by a long shot, but they had enough power to consider their two seats at the Table safe. With a few well-placed speeches, Diel even managed to carry more weight than a few of the bigger houses during debates.

  His recent stunt with Arathiel would have killed a great deal of his political influence, however. Most lords had been relieved to see Lady Allastam’s murderer finally caught. They’d felt safer, like these things wouldn’t happen again, or go unpunished. As if this assassination hadn’t been ordered by someone more important than this dark elf. This arrest marked the end of the feud between House Freitz and House Allastam, however, and Diel had ruined that. With time they might forget or forgive, but he couldn’t count on their support right now.

  Which meant the Golden Table would seek to determine if House Dathirii was still worthy of its two seats through the official means: finances. The more money a House had—either handling it through trades or keeping it in coffers—the more seats they were awarded. When two families went to war with one another, they typically destroyed established trade deals or blocked new ones. Smaller Houses often teamed up to secure good business partners before Isandor’s three biggest houses—the Lorns, the Allastams, and the Balthazars—nailed them. When the fortunes of several families changed, the Golden Table examined their current relative wealth and reassigned seats accordingly.

  Diel hated the system, which gave no voice to tiny businesses, and even less to the poorer folk. It had spurred him to conduct small deals with dozens of local merchants, promising to speak up for them in exchange for a little support. At least once a year, he brought forward a motion to reserve half of the Golden Table’s seats for lowborn citizens, but it was inevitably ignored. Some of the families snorted at the word “citizen.” His summer reminder was a joke to them.

  The way things were going, Diel wasn’t sure he’d be there to give it when the warm season returned. The Dathirii had no money left, and barely enough trades for a single seat, even counting the one he meant to conclude tonight. He would ask Garith to make it look as good as he could, but he doubted he could fool the thirty nobles around the Golden Table into thinking House Dathirii still held an economic weight worthy of their two seats. One would be a stretch.

  Diel emerged from the Allastam Tower, and a cold blast of wind hit him. He ran a hand through his hair, his stomach lurching left and right. What would he do about the Myrians if they weren’t even lords anymore? Avenazar had already thrown Branwen into a wall and tried to capture her. Deprived of their titles, the Dathirii would lose the unspoken protection that came with the standing. They would have only Kellian’s men left to shield them from harm.

  Diel couldn’t help but glance around, wondering if he shouldn’t have a bodyguard trail him. Kellian had hounded him about it for decades, and for the first time, Diel was inclined to agree. He looked at the eccentric spires rising all around him, and the crisscross of bridges below his feet. Vines hung down from them, obscuring part of his view. The greenery used to soothe him, but this afternoon it seemed to hide danger and treachery. Isandor had never felt so hostile.

  Arathiel set his palm on the Shelter’s door and inhaled deeply. Although stepping out of the guards’ headquarters had removed a weight from his shoulders, he hadn’t felt good until he’d reached Larryn’s little haven, nestled in the bowels of the Lower City. Shackles clamped around his wrists still, and they’d assigned him an escort of three to ensure he would behave: a thin, sharp woman in Allastam livery, one of Kellian Dathirii’s men, and Sora Sharpe. None of them had uttered a word on the trek down to the Shelter, and tension had built in the prolonged silence. House Allastam might not know why Diel wanted Arathiel’s help, but they would try their best to figure it out and perhaps stop it.

  Arathiel hated the idea of entering the Shelter with noble guards, however. He’d made his way there because Diel had told him to bring any allies he wanted to their meeting the next morning, and he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. He hoped Cal still came, because he wouldn’t know where to find the priest’s home in the Middle City.

  “This is where I require privacy.” He infused his voice with as much assurance as possible, squaring his shoulders despite his bound hands and the filth of prison sticking to his clothes and body—as if his demand were justified. He was, after all, a member of House Brasten.

  The Allastam guard bristled, but Sora raised a hand to stall any protest. “Everyone but me stays outside. You’re here to prevent escape, not spy.”

  She gestured for Arathiel to open the door, and he spared her a smile before he entered.

  When Arathiel stepped inside, silence spread through the Shelter like a wave as patrons turned to stare. Everyone recognized him. Not as the strange man who’d shared the occasional meal and drink in the common room, but as Lord Arathiel Brasten, the unflinching warrior who had saved Hasryan from execution and run on a broken ankle. Arathiel wondered if their silence was filled with gratitude or animosity. Did they approve of his rescue, or feel betrayed by his title? Perhaps both. Arathiel swept
his gaze over the crowd, and when he couldn’t find Cal or Larryn, he crossed the room to the main corridor, Sora on his heels. Her presence didn’t help their wariness, and to his surprise, she advanced with her shoulders hunched and a guilty frown. When they left the heavy silence of the common room behind and slipped into the corridor, she sighed.

  “Can you smell it here?” Sora asked, her voice subdued. “The stink, I mean.”

  Arathiel shook his head. Sweat and refuse permeated the Lower City, but he knew only from memories over a century old. Nothing tickled his nose, unlike his prison cell.

  “I can,” Sora said. “Colleagues pretend it makes them want to gag and puke. They don’t care about what it means for those who live here. The Upper City smells of lilacs and lavender and other delicate flowery scents, and some days I go straight from that to the Lower City on a noble’s request, and it makes me want to quit.”

  Arathiel hadn’t expected a confession. Cut off from the stink of the Lower City, his first shock had come from elsewhere. He had been used to large quarters and never-ending food supplies, then to the wide spaces of the open road. There had been the stasis-like time in the Well, but none of these compared. In the two years after his escape from the Well, he’d witnessed people fight over a piece of bread and experienced the misery of sleeping outside and struggling for food, yet even these had been tempered by the distance his numbed senses imposed. Arathiel barely distinguished between hard ground and a soft bed.

  The tightness of the quarters here got to him first. People packed themselves in small lodgings or spooned with strangers on the Shelter’s floor. They lived elbow-to-elbow, keeping their belongings in tiny bags or chests, unafraid to climb to precarious heights if it afforded them a little privacy. Arathiel’s cramped room had soon felt like a luxury. Even if Sora grasped the poverty reflected by the Lower City’s stench, she couldn’t fully understand life around here. He had barely glimpsed it.

  “You should,” he said.

  “This city needs someone who won’t accept a bribe,” she said.

  “What’s the point? Your superiors do, and you obey their orders. You know Hasryan has been framed, but you’re still putting all your energy on him. Imagine what else you could’ve accomplished in that time.”

  “He committed those crimes.” Sora pushed herself off the wall, pulling her fur coat tighter around her shoulders. Her body had stiffened and her tone hardened—an attitude he sensed hid her true thoughts about him. “The point is that most days I conduct the investigations of my choice and go after whomever I want.”

  “Until they shut you down. All I’m saying is that ‘most days’ could be ‘every day’ if you were independent.”

  “I wouldn’t hold any power on my own.”

  No arguments against that. To have any legal weight, she needed to belong either to Isandor’s Sapphire Guards, who applied the laws voted for by the Golden Table, or to one of its noble families. Neither gave her complete freedom. Her skills would still be useful without the law to back them up, and many problems could be solved without needing an arrest, of course, but Arathiel wasn’t in a mood to argue about Sora’s potential career. The kitchen door swung open before he could answer, and Larryn stepped out. His curious expression turned into a scowl as soon as he spotted Sora.

  “When will we be free of you? What do you want this time?”

  “Finding Hasryan would be nice,” she replied casually.

  “Sure can’t help you with that,” he said.

  His gaze shifted toward Arathiel. Sora’s eyes followed, and for a long, awkward moment, they both stared at Arathiel. Never had he expected Sora and Larryn to so naturally team up and combine pressure, and he raised his eyebrows. “Hasryan is safe, and I’m not telling either of you where or how. Is Cal here, Larryn? I … I’d like to speak with both of you.”

  Larryn’s cheeks darkened, and Arathiel sensed a storm brewing under the surface. He crossed his arms, fingers digging into his shirt, emotions barely under control. Arathiel had no idea what to expect of him. Would he deal with the angry Larryn who had thrown him out of the Shelter, or the one who had pointed an arrow at Sora and called Arathiel one of his own? Judging from the expressions flitting across the Shelter owner’s face, Larryn himself might not know.

  “Yeah. Room 7, with Nevian. He still comes every now and then to chat with him.”

  Arathiel frowned. Every now and then? Cal used to spend entire days at the Shelter, helping Larryn and chatting with patrons. They were inseparable. They had fought during winter solstice, however, and although they had seemed to put the conflict on hold for Hasryan’s execution, it clearly hadn’t vanished. Tiny weights dropped at the bottom of Arathiel’s stomach as he contemplated the dissolution of the tightly-knit group of friends that had welcomed him into Isandor.

  “Nevian is the Myrian apprentice, isn’t he? Let’s go to his room. Sora, I will only be a moment.”

  “I should come,” she said. “I must stay with you.”

  Arathiel tensed. He couldn’t speak freely with Sora over his shoulder. If word of Diel’s plans spread, they could never make it into the enclave unnoticed. The enormous risk he’d taken provoking Lord Allastam would amount to nothing. “It depends on who you mean to serve. If you truly believe this knowledge belongs with you—and whoever will demand it of you—then neither Larryn nor I have the institutional power to stop you.”

  He didn’t wait for her reply, instead striding directly for the apprentice’s room. Arathiel’s eyes trailed for a moment on his old room across the hall before he knocked on Nevian’s door. Larryn followed close on his heels, but Sora hadn’t moved. Her stillness was choice enough; she must have trusted Lord Dathirii’s intentions.

  Cal’s voice sounded worlds away as it called for them to enter, muffled by the door and his numbed hearing. Arathiel traced the wood’s relief for a moment, wishing he felt the rough lines in it. Although he had sent Vellien to heal him, Arathiel knew nothing of the teenager he’d saved with Cal. Nevian had lived in the enclave, however, and their expedition could benefit from his knowledge. Arathiel doubted he’d have a better occasion to learn what had happened to him, why, and how he fared now. He pushed the door and entered with Larryn.

  Cal sat on Nevian’s bed, a large tome opened in front of him. A pile of coins rested next to him, and he snatched one to mark a page. Meanwhile, Nevian bent over another book at his desk, with his notes to the right. He ran a hand through his blond hair and made an obvious effort not to look Arathiel’s way, as if too busy to bother. Cal, however, let out a squeal of joy and leaped down the bed, scattering the book and coins as he rushed to Arathiel. He wrapped his chubby arms around the tall legs, squeezing hard enough to be felt.

  “Arathiel!”

  Intense warmth coursed through Arathiel at the charming, spontaneous hug, and he ran a hand through Cal’s blond hair, holding the chain of his shackles up with the other. He’d missed Cal’s exuberance, and how simple everything always seemed with him.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said.

  Nevian cleared his throat, staring at them. “Can’t you do this elsewhere? I need to study.”

  Cal stifled a laugh in Arathiel’s clothes, then stepped back. Before he could agree to move out and give him some space, however, Arathiel shook his head and signalled for Larryn to shut the door.

  “We can’t,” he said. “This concerns you, too.”

  Horror flashed through Nevian’s expression. He tried hard to appear calm, lips pressed together into a thin line, but Arathiel noticed the tightness in his jaw, the whiteness of his fingers. Cal moved back to Nevian and reached out for him, only to stop just short of touching him.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said instead.

  “It’s time, Arathiel.” Larryn leaned on the door, blocking the exit. A strange light burned in his grey eyes. “Seems like you have a lot of important elven friends in town. First you send us a healer, and now they free you? What else have they been helping with?
Because if they’re what you call ‘safe’ for Hasryan, I have bad news for you. You can’t trust them with anyone below their station.”

  Arathiel gritted his teeth. He hated how close to the truth Larryn landed, and how fear and bitterness laced his accusations. He couldn’t reassure them about Hasryan—better for Larryn to be angry at him for staying silent than for asking Lady Camilla’s help. “Yet Vellien came here, didn’t they? Have they been causing trouble?” Silence met Arathiel’s question. Larryn huffed and cast his gaze down. “No one but House Dathirii knew me in the entire city. I trusted them to send a competent healer, and they did. Now they’re offering me a way out of prison despite the political cost in exchange for help, and I intend to accept.”

  “What help?” Nevian asked, a hitch in his voice.

  “I was asked to infiltrate the Myrian enclave and free High Priest Varden Daramond. We go tomorrow evening. In exchange, Lord Dathirii will vouch for me, and try to negotiate better conditions for my imprisonment. I doubt he can do much, but it’ll be a full day without a cell, and from the sound of it, this priest is being tortured.”

  Nevian whimpered at the mention of the Myrian enclave. He clutched his chair, staring at the wooden floor, sweat rolling down his forehead. Arathiel couldn’t hear him breathe, but his chest heaved in an irregular pattern.

  “Nevian?” Cal asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I-I knew it. Don’t go in there. You can’t.”

  Arathiel strained to perceive Nevian’s tight, low voice. He cast a worried glance at Cal and walked closer, kneeling next to Nevian. Diel had assured him Varden was worth the risk, but what if Larryn was right about the Dathirii, or some of them? Perhaps he had lied. It didn’t sound like the idealist elf he’d met over a century ago, but time could change people.