by Sam Sykes
But I was a practical woman.
Practical women make practical decisions.
And mine was to sit there and stare at her, in the way I always did when I wanted something. Soldiers, outlaws, and Vagrants have looked into my eyes and pissed themselves, pulled out guns or known they were going to die. But when Liette looked into my eyes, the eyes I showed her like I showed her all that time ago, I knew what she saw.
Because I had only ever shown it to two people.
And I was ready to kill one of them.
“What’s in the letter?” I asked.
She met my eyes. “Names.”
I nodded slowly. I reached into my vest, into the hidden pocket. And there, right next to my heart, I found an ancient scrap of paper folded into a tight square. Delicately, so as not to shred the old and frayed edges, I unfolded it and laid it out on my lap.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Sal, please—”
“Tell me.”
In the silence before she spoke, I could feel something between us break. Something tender and fragile that I’d never taken very good care of.
But she held the letter up. She ran a finger across the sigils. And his voice sang out.
“Galta the Thorn.”
I looked at the paper in my lap. And there was her name.
“Riccu the Knock.”
His, too, two names beneath the first one.
“Zanze the Beast.”
Him.
“Taltho the Scourge.”
And him.
“Kresh the Tempest.”
And him.
“Vraki the Gate.”
And him.
She paused, spoke the last name like all curses should be spoken.
Slowly, with great hesitation and the knowledge that someone would die.
“Jindu the Blade.”
And there. Right at the very top. In red ink. The very first one I had thought of when I started this list.
Seven names. Seven out of thirty-three. It might have seemed small, maybe. But there was another name on my list that had taken a lot of bullets, a lot of blood, and a lot of bodies so that I could finally cross it out. I would have killed for one name.
For seven?
I’d burn the world to cinders.
I folded the paper back up, replaced it in my vest. I went to the coat rack by her door. I strapped my belts around my waist, strapped my holster to my thigh. The Cacophony all but leapt into my hands. I could feel him warm in my palm.
He had heard every name, too.
“Sal,” Liette called after me. “Wait.”
I didn’t say anything as I pulled my scarf around me and slung my satchel over my shoulder. I couldn’t afford to listen. We had done this dance so many times our feet bled whenever the music came on. I said not a word as I stalked away.
“Wait!”
But she did.
“Sal,” she said, rising from her chair. “I can’t let you go.”
“Would you kindly spare me?” I sneered over my shoulder. “Is this the part where you make some heartfelt plea about the emptiness of vengeance? Or is it some speech about the cycle of violence? Either way, if you’ve got any respect for me, spare me this cheap, back-alley opera shit and—”
“I can’t let you go,” Liette interrupted, clearly and forcefully, “because you’re bleeding all over my floor.”
My feet shifted. The rug made a grotesque squishing noise beneath me. I looked down and saw the dark puddle at my feet, a perfect match for the wound dribbling blood down my side.
It hurt, don’t get me wrong.
But she was never going to shut up about this.
TEN
HIGHTOWER
In her illustrious career in service to the Revolution, Tretta Stern had kept meticulous record of how many executions she had been a part of.
As a field corporal, she had personally gunned down six soldiers for cowardice, two for theft, and one for rape. When she had been promoted to lieutenant, she had recommended execution for twenty-three for desertion, eleven for counterrevolutionary thought, and six for collusion with Imperial forces. And once she had achieved the lofty station of Governor-Militant, she had personally looked into the eyes and ordered the guns that killed every man and woman she had ever had executed in the city walls.
Execution was a grim order, but this was a grim war in a grim land, and she would not be the one to fail the Revolution by shirking her duties. After so many bodies, it was rare she ever faltered when the time came to hand down the orders to the firing squad.
But this?
This was the first time she had ever had so many reasons to execute a person and found herself at a loss to decide which one was most pertinent.
Sal the Cacophony, across the table, took a long sip of water. She looked up over the rim of her cup to Tretta’s baffled expression and quirked a white eyebrow.
“What?” she asked.
“Those names…” Tretta whispered.
“Which one? Liette’s?” She smiled, wistful. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“No, you fool!” Tretta slammed her hands down on the table, its width and weight all that kept her from leaping across and throttling the woman. “Galta the Thorn! Riccu the Knock! Zanze the Beast!”
“And Taltho and Kresh and Vraki.” Sal yawned as she poured herself another glass from the pitcher. “I know, they’re all kind of pretentious, aren’t they? See, the thing about the Cacophony is that it’s long and interesting, but it doesn’t necessarily imply malice, so it doesn’t sound like I’m trying too hard to be intimidating and—”
“We know those names,” Tretta said icily. “The first time I ever saw them was three years ago, in big red print at the top of a debriefing carried by a messenger who rode all night to reach me. And since then, I’ve seen them plastered on every propaganda poster and newspaper in Weiless.”
“Really?” Sal smirked. “They’d be delighted to know they were that famous.”
She reached for her cup. Tretta’s fists came down on the table again, sending it tumbling to the floor. Sal watched it shatter with a wince.
“Well, that was rude.” She began to look up. “What am I going to drink—”
She was cut off as a pair of gloved hands seized her by her collar. Tretta hauled her from her chair, held her up by her shirt, thrust her scowling, snarling face into Sal’s.
“I was content to think of you as just one more thug,” she growled. “One more Vagrant wandering the desert that happened to stumble into circumstances larger than herself. I was content to let your confession be easy and your death painless. But that was before you spoke those names.”
Sal, for her part, did not flinch at Tretta’s hands around her collar, nor at her hot breath blasting her in the face with each word. She simply stared back, flatly.
“Does that mean we aren’t going to be friends?” she asked.
Tretta hurled her back in the chair, its legs groaning as it slid along the floor and struck the wall with a cracking sound. Sal’s head struck the stone but barely made a noise. She brought her manacled hands up to the back of her skull, drew away fingers with a smear of blood on them. She betrayed not a hint of pain nor fear as she looked at Tretta, who stared at her down the length of a finger thrust in Sal’s face.
“Until you uttered those names, you were going to receive a clean death. But I can guarantee you that I will ship an interrogator here all the way from the Great General’s office to beat every last syllable out of your mouth if you don’t tell me what you know about them.” She twisted her finger up, holding it in front of Sal’s face. “One chance,” she said. “Do not test me.”
Like any Revolutionary guardswoman, Tretta Stern had a career that was measured in blood, not length. She had stared into the eyes of Imperial swine, Vagrant scum, and counterrevolutionary deserters alike and had seen all the hatred, malice, and fear that a dying man spat into the world before he bled his last on the dust. But i
n the dim light of that cell, in the cold blue of her prisoner’s eyes, Tretta found something she had never before encountered for the second time that day.
Sal stared back at her, into the face of the woman who could have her tortured, dismembered, or fed to dogs, and showed absolutely nothing but an empty expression and a tired sigh.
“Fine,” she said. She leaned back in her chair. “I take it if you know those names, you know the Crown Conspiracy.”
Tretta grunted an acknowledgment.
Nul spies in the capital had been reporting back to Weiless a steady stream of growing discontentment among the mages of the Empire. Once it was revealed the young, yet-to-be-crowned Emperor Althoun possessed no magical talent whatsoever, the mages had rebelled.
It was proof, the Revolutionary philosophers had said, of the Imperium’s sheer arrogance. To them, nuls were barely worthy of humanity, let alone leadership. Faced with ten thousand years of loyalty to the empire they had built against ten thousand years of lording over their lessers, the mages made their choice.
And they chose war.
Some went loudly, rioting and turning on their former comrades. Others disappeared quietly into the Scar to become Vagrants and make their own fortunes.
But a few of them were not content with either of those.
The specifics of the conspiracy were hazy. The plot they had conspired to overthrow the Imperial family and install a proper mage upon the throne either had never been fully unearthed or fully leaked from the palace. All that was known was that thirty-four of the Empress’s brightest, closest, and most talented mages had launched a quiet revolt to kill her, her son, and her court and had failed to do so.
Even though the court had failed to capture them after their botched operation, the loss of such talent did not go unnoticed by the Revolutionary leaders in Weiless. The Revolution had made significant gains—some of them led by Tretta herself—in the confusing aftermath.
Those had been good times.
Until, of course, those thirty-four had resurfaced in the Scar and Weiless found itself dealing with some of the most powerful Vagrants they had ever known.
“I’ll skip the overview,” Sal said. “An educated woman like you no doubt knows what happened with the Conspiracy itself.” A grin scarred itself across her face. “And an educated woman like me knows your Glorious General has been hunting for the conspirators ever since they escaped into the Scar.”
“The Revolution is dedicated to bringing all Imperial swine to justice,” Tretta growled in reply. “The Crown Conspirators, the Vagrants…” She spat the next word. “The hated criminal, Red Cloud…”
“Red Cloud?” Sal grinned. “Well, shit, if I could give you her, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we? It’d be hard to do that with you kissing me out of gratitude and all.”
Tretta narrowed her eyes upon that haughty scar. Perhaps she should have hit the woman harder.
“What’d you say your surname was?” Sal said. “Stern?”
Tretta blinked, surprised. “I don’t recall telling you, but yes. It is Stern.”
“Stern, Stern…” Sal’s manacles clinked as she tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Above a Proud but beneath a Courageous and well beneath a Merciful. Your family must have arrived late to the Revolution, no?” She smirked. “That’s why the General gave your father the name of Stern.”
“You’re familiar with Revolutionary history,” Tretta observed.
“The Revolution is still young, at least compared to the Imperium. There’s not much to know. But I do know that your General has offered a number of rewards for anyone who can bring him information on the conspirators.” She clicked her tongue. “What’d he offer you, Governor-Militant Stern? A new post? A new rank?” She quirked a brow. “Or a new name?”
The emptiness was gone from Sal’s eyes. And Tretta decided she liked the predatory slyness that replaced it much less.
“A promotion is nice, sure, but it ends after you die, doesn’t it? But a new name?” Sal grinned, crossed her arms, leaned back. “Well, that’s a new rank for your entire family, isn’t it? Governor-Militant Stern is high up, but Governor-Militant Merciful or Ferocious would be through the fucking clouds, wouldn’t she? More rations for your spouse, better doctors for your ailing father, nicer schools for your son.”
“I don’t have any children,” Tretta said.
“Whatever, I—”
“And my father is in excellent health.”
“All right, don’t go overthinking it,” Sal said. “Point being, your General would bump you up to a Courageous, minimum, to know that even one of them was dead for sure. And, honey, you’ve got a girl who can tell you what happened to seven of them.”
“You’re saying seven of them are dead.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then they’re alive?”
“Didn’t say that, either.”
“I don’t have time for your word games,” Tretta growled.
Sal’s laughter was an expensive wineglass shattering on a cold stone floor. “Fine, fine. But I’ll tell you this for certain. Kill me now, you’ll never know what happened to them. Or Lowstaff. Or Cavric.”
“There will be someone who does.” Tretta tried to smirk, though, so unused to the gesture, it looked more like an uncomfortable sneer. “You just admitted to consorting with the wanted criminal Twenty-Two Dead Roses in a Chipped Porcelain Vase, as well as gave us her location. We can find her.”
“You can look for her, certainly. But a woman who thinks two sentences constitutes a word game isn’t going to find her. Whatever you find in that smoldering crater that was her workshop in Lowstaff, too, you’re welcome to. You’re more likely to kill yourself than find any trace of her whereabouts.”
“Then we’ll search for her by her true name. Liette.”
“You won’t find her, either.”
Tretta growled. “And why not?”
Sal’s grin softened into something distant and tired. She looked down at her hands and whispered, “Because that was a name,” she said, “she gave only to me.”
“I should have you killed just on principle,” Tretta snapped. “No creature as irritating as you should be alive.”
“Fine by me. But I don’t think your Great General will react well once he learns you had a chance to find out what happened to seven conspirators and ruined it by killing me.”
“Don’t pretend to know how we operate,” Tretta said, sneering. “And don’t pretend to think the General would ever spare a thought for one more dead Vagrant.”
“Well, I’d never presume to grasp the intricacies of your gloriously reverent Revolution or whatever the fuck adjectives you use for it. But whatever I don’t know, I hear. And I’ve heard that in the last year alone, your benevolent General has carried out three different purges of his ranks.” Sal offered a lazy grin. “A man paranoid enough to kill his best friend three times over is paranoid enough to find out anything, eventually. Or did you honestly think that your soldiers report to you and you alone?”
And for the final time that day, something else had happened to Tretta that had never happened before.
Her blood ran cold.
Something dark and doubtful wriggled its way into the back of her skull, snaked down her spine, and coiled around her ribs. She shook it off, told herself it was just a Vagrant trick—they all knew magic and none knew morals. This, too, was just some moment of buffoonery. And she moved forward to tell Sal just that.
With the back of her hand.
But at that moment, the door creaked. She looked over her shoulder, saw the narrow gap of light where the door was opened. And the dark eye peering out from between it.
“Clerk Inspire,” she said, spitting the name. “How long have you been there?”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt, madam.” The cell door groaned open as the clerk shuffled in, hands folded in a show of obeisance. “You seemed absorbed with your task and I was loath to interrupt an
d—”
“And you interrupted all the same.” Tretta rubbed her eyes. “Speak, then, and stop wasting my time.”
“Oh, that’s just it, madam. There’s no time left to waste.” He glanced up toward the window, where the orange light of the setting sun seeped through. “It’s time, madam. The firing squad is ready. The crowds have gathered.” Beneath his mustache, an ugly smile bloomed. “The execution is at hand.”
“The execution happens when I say it does,” Tretta replied.
“It does, madam, of course, but…” He cast a nervous glance toward Sal, who stared impassively back. “But you did say that it would take place at this time. We let the populace know and they are ready for a firing. It would be a”—he paused to lick his mustache—“shame to let them down.”
The emphasis did not go unnoticed by Tretta, nor the implication unheeded. It would not so much be a shame as it would be an issue of citywide importance. Scarfolk beneath Revolutionary protection should expect two things: orderly promptness and severe punishment for those who disrupt it. To push the execution back would do both, emboldening those few counterrevolutionaries she had not yet stamped out.
Besides, she reasoned, this was a Vagrant. The differences between them only went as deep as whatever garish, stupid costumes they chose to wear. At their hearts, every one of them was an Imperial; thus, every one of them was a filthy, arrogant liar. This one, whatever else she might claim to be, was no different.
Better to kill her now.
And yet that dark, wriggling doubt continued to worm its way through her belly. And that promise of a new name, of a new life for her and her family, continued to shine brightly on some distant horizon. But beyond any of that, it was one crystalline, clear image that filled her mind.
Her signature on the bottom of the letter she would have to send to the Proud family to inform them that she had failed to bring their son Cavric home.
She sighed, glanced at Inspire.
“Tell the squad to remain at the ready,” she said. “The execution is delayed by two hours.”
