Siege of Rage and Ruin

by Django Wexler

  It seems like an eternity before we reach the edge, where the line of Blues is still waiting. The crowd could easily rush them, a mere two dozen spearmen, but fear holds them back. Meroe waits with Giniva until all the rest of the refugees have passed, and I stay beside them. Then, finally, we begin our retreat, while shouts indicate the crowd has discovered the shop’s contents. As we turn the corner, I hear the first screams.

  * * *

  “You’re not hurt.” I repeat it to myself, trying to calm the pounding of my heart. We’re back in our rooms, finally. “You’re not hurt.”

  “I’m not hurt,” Meroe says. There’s a hitch in her voice. “Could you hold still a moment?”

  “Sorry.” I hadn’t even realized I was pacing. Meroe comes over to me and leans against my chest, head on my shoulder. Hesitantly, I put my arms around her, and she presses in tighter. I pull her close, and I never want to let go.

  “We were trying to help them.” Her voice is muffled. “I kept telling them. Shouting it at them. That there was enough, that they just had to wait and they’d all … and then they just…”

  “Rotscum,” I say, very quietly.

  “The Returners saved us,” she says. “Giniva got everyone running, but we weren’t going to make it inside until some of them just … stood in front of the crowd. People hit them with cobbles until they were just … mush.”

  “I saw.” Rot, rot, rot. Rot this bastard city and everyone in it.

  For a long while we just stand there. Meroe shakes in my arms, quietly, with the dignity of a princess. I hold her tight and make myself breathe.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, eventually. “I know you need me to be … strong. I just—”

  “Rot that,” I snarl. “Take as long as you like. If anyone comes in here to bother you I’ll kill them myself.”

  Meroe chuckles weakly. “Maybe not exactly what I had in mind.” She takes a deep breath, looking up at me. “This was just … they were just people. Not monster crabs or walking corpses or those horrible lizards. Just people.”

  “Yeah.” I shake my head. “When I was fighting, in the Fourth Ward, there was a moment…” I grit my teeth. “It’s hard to explain. But we shouldn’t be here, Meroe. We don’t belong here.”

  “Tori needs our help,” Meroe says. She pulls away from me and goes to the table, pours herself a mug of water, drinks greedily. “They all need our help.”

  “They can go to the Rot.” I feel my fists clench. “I’ll take Naga’s deal, and we’ll be shot of this place for good.”

  “Naga’s deal?” Meroe pauses, mug halfway to her lips. “He sent a message?”

  “Yeah.” I take a deep breath. “He wants Soliton.”

  “Of course he does. What are his terms?”

  I explain, briefly. Meroe exhales.

  “That’s…” She looks at me, as though trying to decide what to say.

  “It’s what I wanted from the beginning,” I say. “I hate his rotting guts, but he’s right. It’s a better life for Tori.”

  “You’d never see her again,” Meroe says softly.

  “So rotting what?” I shake my head, feeling tears prick my eyes. “That was the point. I should have never gone to see her in the first place. Had Ofalo tell her I was dead. She doesn’t need me in her life. She’s pure and perfect, and I’m … me.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Meroe says. She sips calmly. “About her, or about you.”

  “I let myself think it could be different.” I look down at my clenched fists. “I was wrong.”

  Meroe crosses the room, covers my hands with her own. “You’re not wrong. Not about this.” When I look up, she meets my eye. “You may be wrong about Tori, though. Does the girl that everyone here knows sound like your innocent flower?” She cocks her head. “You’ve talked to Giniva and the others. Do you still think someone forced her into all this?”

  “I … I don’t know.” I let my hands fall. “When I saw her, she was always…”

  “Perfect?” Meroe smiles.

  “But—”

  I shake my head. “What does it matter? She’s away from me now, and she’ll have a better life.”

  “I don’t think that would make her happy,” Meroe says. “Giniva told me how she looked for you, when she found out you were taken by the Immortals. If you left her here, I don’t know if she’d ever forgive you.” She shrugs. “Besides, you know we can’t give Soliton to Naga. We need it to get back to the Harbor. We can’t strand Jack and Zarun here, can we?”

  I hadn’t even thought about them. Or the friends I’d left behind in the Harbor—without Soliton bringing in more Eddica energy, eventually the city will shut down again, freezing itself in time to wait for the return of a ship that will never come.

  She’s right. As usual.

  “So what, then?” I ask. “Try to convince Hasaka to attack the palace, and hope we can get to Tori before Naga’s people kill her?”

  “From what you’ve told me, I don’t think that would work,” Meroe says. “But there may be a more … subtle option. How much does Naga know about Soliton?”

  “A lot more than he told me, that’s for certain,” I say. “One of his other agents must have managed to get some information overboard. The Scholar told me he’s been trying for this for a long time.”

  “So he knows something about the ship, and what it can do,” Meroe says. I can practically see the wheels turning behind her eyes. “But he doesn’t know what you can do.”

  I look back at her for a moment, and then, slowly, start to smile.

  10

  TORI

  I go back to the library to see the Emperor.

  The last few times, he hasn’t been around. That’s fine with me, since I’ve had some reading to do to prepare for our next meeting. This time, it’s a gray, cloudy day, and I can see the light of a covered lantern flickering from the table as I approach the door. I take a deep breath, straighten my kizen, and go in.

  Here goes nothing.

  He’s sitting in his usual spot, with the usual stack of books beside him. The joy on his face when he hears me is almost painful to see. Most of all, I’ve realized, Avyn is lonely. I wonder how long he spent among these books by himself before I wandered in. If there’s anyone, back in his official residence, he can really talk to.

  Probably not. Who but an imprisoned traitor would risk actually talking to the Emperor? Safer to hide behind formal obeisances.

  “Hello, Tori.” He clears his throat. “I’m sorry if our last meeting got … a little heated. I hoped…” He looks pained. “If you want me to leave you alone to use the library, I’ll go.”

  “You’re the Emperor,” I tell him, smiling to take the sting out of it. “It’s your library.”

  “I suppose.” He looks so relieved. “You seemed angry with me.”

  “I seemed angry?”

  “To be honest I don’t have much experience with people being angry with me,” Avyn says. The slight twinkle is back in his eye. “But I definitely got that impression.”

  “Your impression was correct,” I tell him. “Congratulations.”

  “I know from your perspective what I said might seem cruel, but I didn’t mean—”

  “I understand. It took me a while to realize it, but I do.” I put on a slight smile. “Can you keep a secret?”

  He grins back. “Naturally.”

  “I have never told anyone this. Not anyone. Not even my sister.” It’s surprisingly hard to get the actual words out. “I’m a mage-blood. An adept.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Really? Of what Well?”

  I swallow. “Kindre.”

  His eyes widen slightly.

  “Kuon Naga knows, of course,” I go on quickly. “One of his Immortals is around here”—I gesture vaguely—“somewhere, smothering anything I might try to do.”

  “Hard to keep you a prisoner otherwise,” Avyn murmurs. “A commoner Kindre adept. How extraordinary. If you’d been found out—”
r />   “They would have taken me for the Immortals. Or killed me, if they thought I couldn’t be controlled.” I let my face go hard. “Or given me to some noble family, to be raped and bear children to add strength to their bloodline—”

  He winces. “It’s a barbaric practice.”

  So why not do something about it? This time I don’t say it out loud, but he can see it in my face, and he looks away. And it’s not as though the Imperial family never needed its blood strengthened. How many of your ancestors were chained to their beds, do you think?

  I clear my throat. “The point is,” I say aloud. “Do you know what it’s like, being a Kindre adept? If no one knows what you are?”

  He shakes his head, fascinated.

  “You can reach out to anyone around you, whenever you want, and twist them.” I close my eyes for a moment. “Always get your way. Always win an argument. And they wouldn’t even know it. It would be wrong, I know it would be wrong, but sometimes the world feels like trying to walk on a bed of eggshells. It would be so easy. But once you start … there’s nothing left. Nothing real.”

  My dreams come back to me, the whole world transformed into a puppeteer’s stage, with the strings wrapped around my fingers.

  “I imagine,” I tell Avyn, “that it’s a little bit like being Emperor.”

  Very slowly, he nods.

  “So I do understand,” I go on. “I spent most of my life hiding from my power. And the times when I did use it … I don’t know if it was the right choice. If I made things better instead of worse.”

  Another nod. “Clumsy giants.”

  “Right.” I take a deep breath. “But I’ve been doing some reading, too. Have you heard of the Emperor Gengjo?”

  Avyn looks a little thrown by this change of topic, but he’s willing to play along. His forehead creases in thought. “Pre-Blessed by about five hundred years, wasn’t he? Made a mess of things, if I remember correctly.”

  “More or less. Back in those days, the Emperor could have multiple wives, and Gengjo had two. They were both political marriages—one was Jyashtani, the other was from Nimar. Poor Gengjo was a quiet soul, as best I can tell. He just wanted to stay in his garden and look at the stars with a telescope—which he basically invented, incidentally. But both the Empresses were ambitious, and they hated each other like poison. So while Gengjo hid himself in his garden, the court split into two factions, and it very nearly came to civil war. The Empire ended up fighting both Jyashtan and Nimar before the decade was out. Tens of thousands died.”

  “Remind me not to marry two ambitious women,” Avyn said, with a half smile.

  “Or take the Emperor Curoa,” I say, ignoring him. “He had a finance minister who was exceeding his authority, squeezing the people until they were forced off their land so his cronies could expand their holdings. Representatives from the farmers came to plead with the Emperor, and he sympathized. But the minister was from an influential family, and the Emperor needed him.

  “When the peasants finally rose in rebellion, the Emperor knew they’d been wronged, so he wouldn’t let the Legions restore order. But he couldn’t give in to their demands and remove the finance minister, either. So things just got worse and worse. A rebel army nearly burned Kahnzoka before one of Curoa’s generals took matters into his own hands.”

  “I sense that you’re trying to make a point.”

  “I am.” My palms are sweating, and I rub them against my kizen. “I’m not the historian you are, I’m sure, but I can follow an argument. When you told me about Rhioa and Valenga, you meant to show me that when the Emperor intervenes—when he makes a choice—things go badly.”

  “Exactly—”

  “But what that ignores is that doing nothing is also a choice. Once you know what’s happening, it’s not just a matter of which side you come down on, because not picking a side is using your power just the same. It’s not always the wrong move, but that doesn’t mean it’s always the right one, either.” I’m talking too fast, and I force myself to breathe. “Do you need more examples? I have more examples.”

  “I think I get the gist,” he says. His eyes are hooded, now, giving away nothing. “But it’s not that simple. My position—”

  “Of course. That’s what I realized, when it came to my power. I could use it, and maybe help people, but it would put me at risk. I could pick a side, or—”

  “Be a coward?” His face is dark, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far.

  “It’s not that simple. If a plan has a small chance of accomplishing a little good, you’d be a fool to bet your life on it. If it’s certain to accomplish a great deal, it would be equally foolish not to accept a bit of risk. It all comes down to the circumstances.”

  “Now you sound like a merchant, calculating percentages and odds.”

  “Better a merchant than a supplicator chanting thou shalt not. Merchants get things done. Who was the last supplicator who accomplished anything useful?”

  That makes him smile, at least. “A touch,” he murmurs. “If I could get back every hour I’ve spent listening to the Grand Supplicator drone on, I could do … well, just about anything.”

  “Then you appreciate my point?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” He sighs and waves at the books around us. “In the end, though, it’s all so much hot air rustling dusty pages.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  His eyes narrow. “Meaning what?”

  “Hypothetically. If you were so inclined. You could help me get out of here.”

  There’s a long silence. Too long. My heart thumps, painfully loud.

  “I can’t just tell Kuon Naga to release you,” he says. “If even he knew I’d met you…”

  “I understand,” I say hastily. “I know you can’t move against him openly. But you must have a way in and out, one that gets you past the guards. Otherwise they wouldn’t let you alone, would they?” I wipe my hands on my kizen again. “You once told me that you know the palace better than anyone.”

  “I do,” he says. “Though there’s a bit more to it than that. But why should I help you? You want me to intervene—why is this the right way?”

  “I…” I hesitate, and Avyn sighs.

  “You’d make a good scholar, Tori,” he says. “But this…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I need to think.”

  “Think, then.” I fix his gaze with my own. “But not for too long.”

  * * *

  It’s not going to work.

  I should never have expected to get Avyn to help. Of course a few citations from ancient history aren’t going to overcome a lifetime of caution. Emperor or not, he’s a schoolboy like any other, coming up with convenient justifications for why he shouldn’t take any risks.

  There has to be another way. Maybe I can find whatever secret passages he uses for myself. But I’m running out of time.…

  I pass through a courtyard, staying to the covered path to keep out of the spitting rain, and find myself facing a trio of palace servants. They bow, deep and respectful, and one of them steps forward.

  “Miss Gelmei,” she says. “Master Naga requests your presence.”

  “Naga’s here?”

  “Yes, miss.” She bows again. “Please, come with me.”

  And just like that, there may be no time left at all. My mouth goes dry, and I lick my lips as I make my own bow and follow them. The servants lead me to a small sitting room, sliding the door open and shuffling out of the way. Naga is waiting inside, legs crossed on a cushion, peeling an orange with his long, claw-like fingernails. Standing behind him is an Immortal, motionless in black leather and a chain-veil. I freeze as I recognize the Melos and Rhema adept who kidnapped me from rebel headquarters. Kadi. I hear her rasping voice. The only reason you’re not screaming in agony right now is because Master Naga requires you undamaged. For the moment.

  “Miss Gelmei,” Naga says pleasantly. “So glad you found time to see me. You have been difficult to locate this aftern
oon.”

  “I went for a walk,” I manage. “There are some wonderful gardens here.”

  “I’m sure there are.” He gives his joyless smile. “I wanted to give you the good news. Your sister has agreed to … a discussion.”

  Isoka. I wonder what took so long. Probably had to decide whether it was really worth getting me back. I try to squash that thought, but it lingers like an unwanted guest.

  “As you can imagine,” Naga says, “she is not inclined to trust me. She is coming to the palace tomorrow, to verify that you are in good health. You will have the opportunity to help convince her to accept the deal. I suggest you take it.”

  “Isoka isn’t going to listen to me,” I say.

  “I think she will. And it is in your best interest to be persuasive. If she refuses…” He nods at Kadi, who crosses her arms. “Well. Various of my employees are quite cross with you, and I might be inclined to let them relieve their frustrations.”

  “Very subtle,” I tell him.

  “I am only subtle when that is what the task requires, Miss Gelmei,” Naga says. “Some objectives require a scalpel. Others call for a hammer.”

  “Or a bonesaw,” Kadi says, in her raspy voice. “Or a branding iron.”

  “I get it, all right?” I hug myself, protectively, showing Naga a little bit of the weakness he wants to see, letting my voice quiver a little. It’s not hard. “I’ll get Isoka to go along.”

  “Very good.” Naga pops the last of the orange slices into his mouth, leaving a neat coil of peel on the table. “Then I will see you tomorrow.”

  He gets up, nods to me, and moves to the door. Kadi falls in behind him, chain-veil jingling gently. As she passes me she gives a grunt that’s as good as a threat, and chuckles as I flinch away.

  Tomorrow. My mind is racing. Rot rot rot. There might be another way out, but I’m not going to find it. Not in time. It has to be Avyn.