“Captain Pey Lu wants to know our destination,” Yanko said. “For dropping off the refugees. I assume we’re not taking them to Turgonia.”
Yanko imagined Dak and Tynlee landing in Port Morgrant and walking hand-in-hand to the consulate so she could show him her chapters.
“The last thing Turgonia wants is a bunch of mages wandering its streets,” Dak said.
“What did Prince Zirabo say?” Tynlee asked. “I saw you talking to him.”
“He’s going by Zir now,” Yanko said. “He wants to speak with you, but I don’t know if he wants to be in charge.”
“No? But he has all these troops to rally behind him if he wants to attempt to take the dais.”
“I was sent here to offer him some subtle support from Turgonia if that’s his wish,” Dak said, giving more details of his mission for the first time.
Yanko had only known he was supposed to find Zirabo, not that he had orders beyond that.
“Or for the man or woman he chooses to support,” Dak said, “though Rias does want to know who it is before committing fully.”
“What kind of support?” Yanko asked curiously.
“Money, agents, food. Not likely troops. Nuria has enough people.” Dak waved, maybe indicating the prisoners sailing on the other ships.
Agents? Like Sicarius and Amaranthe? Yanko had never figured out why they had come to his country, but he hadn’t gotten the impression that it had anything to do with Dak’s mission to find Zirabo.
“You still haven’t talked to your president since, uh, you got in trouble for helping me, right?” Yanko wondered if the offer of support might be rescinded if the Turgonians came to find Dak’s actions questionable.
“No, but if I’m to be punished, it won’t affect deals he planned to have with your people. I’m hoping that finding Zirabo and, however accidentally, his former teacher, Professor Hawkcrest, will count as mitigating circumstances and leave me no worse in my people’s eyes than before I left last year.” Dak’s lips twisted without humor, and Yanko remembered the sense he’d once had of a young nephew of a famous man, never able to live up to the expectations others had of him.
“I’ll hope for that too.” Yanko regretted that working with him had caused suspicion to fall upon Dak.
A knock sounded at the door. Dak and Tynlee gazed at it without saying anything, as if they now expected everyone to burst in without waiting for a response. Yanko sensed Zirabo out there, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Come in,” Yanko offered.
Zirabo poked his head around the door, then stepped inside. “Ah, you’re all here. Good.”
“All?” Dak asked.
Zirabo smiled faintly. He had washed and shaved, but there weren’t enough changes of clothes to go around, so he still wore his grimy prison garb. His eyes looked brighter. Maybe he’d gotten a good meal.
“All of the people who know who I am and want to help me stay alive as I aid my nation,” Zirabo said.
Dak quirked an eyebrow at Tynlee. “You were just supposed to tell him that Rias sent me to find him.”
“I extrapolated the rest,” Zirabo said.
Dak snorted but didn’t countermand the assumption.
“You’ve decided to fight?” Yanko asked. “Er, to aid Nuria? Not to hide?”
Zirabo’s smile turned a touch wry. “I must. It’s in my blood. It was one thing to hide when nothing could be done, but… now that I know my father is gone and that I may be the last of my siblings, I must at least throw my support behind a worthy candidate, someone who will be good for the nation.”
“Who do you have in mind?” Dak sounded interested but wary.
“I need to find out what’s been happening the last couple of months before deciding. I have a favorite, but if that’s not plausible, I may need to readjust.”
“And choose the least bad of multiple bad options?” Tynlee pressed her lips together. It sounded like disapproval. What would she have Zirabo do? Attempt to claim the dais himself?
Zirabo spread a palm. “Once I choose, I shall find the supporters that I can rally, and with Yanko’s help—” he met Yanko’s eyes, “—we will find a way to claim the new continent for our people and offer it as part of whatever negotiations we may have to go through in the end.”
“You’ll have to negotiate with Turgonia for it first,” Dak said.
“I fully anticipate that.” Zirabo smiled easily at him, then turned to Yanko again, a question in his eyes.
“Of course, Honored Prince. Helping our people with the new land is what I’ve always wanted. A chance to start over, maybe with some of the Kyattese farming methods that improve the soil while making use of it. And maybe, with a new Great Chief in charge, he or she would agree to send people to study those methods to employ on our own continent.”
It seemed to be the answer Zirabo wanted, for he nodded firmly. “Thank you, Yanko. Now, if you could talk your mother and her new passengers into coming along to glare fiercely at any Turgonians already attempting to stake out that land, I would appreciate it.”
Dak’s eyebrows flew up. Yanko had no idea if his own eyebrows were doing anything. He was too busy gaping.
“You want me to… uhm, Honored Prince. We don’t have that close of a relationship. And she definitely doesn’t owe me any favors.”
“Better find your flute, Zirabo,” Tynlee murmured, looking dazed herself.
“It is hidden on the mainland, but I doubt it would work on such a legendary warrior mage. I have faith that Yanko can win her support.”
Yanko lacked that faith. His mother’s words rang in his head: I’m not backing a kid with a flute.
Zirabo extended a hand toward the door and tilted his head for Yanko to go out. What more did he want to talk to Dak and Tynlee about? Or was it just that he thought Yanko should get to work on convincing his mother right away?
“I’ll… see what I can do,” Yanko said, shuffling toward the door. “I don’t suppose you have any money we can offer to pay her?”
“If we succeed in helping someone onto the dais, we should have access to money sufficient to bribe pirates.”
That was a big if. Yanko kept the thought to himself and walked outside.
Thankfully, the passageway was empty now of all but one person. Jhali.
She had also washed up, and her hair was down, one of the few times he’d seen it that way. It softened her face a little, though her chiseled features were far different from the round, gentle face of someone like Tynlee. Still, they were elegant, and he wondered what she would look like if she ever smiled.
“We are even now, White Fox,” she said.
“Even? And Yanko, please.”
“I saved your life tonight during the battle.”
He almost said something sarcastic to her bluntness, but she had kept that soldier from reaching him when he’d been slinging magic at the soul construct. “Yes, you did. Thank you.”
“My debt is repaid.”
“Does that mean you’re going to go back to trying to assassinate me?”
She gave him an exasperated look. “It has been weeks since my assassination attempt.”
If one didn’t admit the time he’d caught her looking between his shoulder blades and fondling her pistol, true. “An eternity, certainly.”
“Killing you is not the reason I’ve been following you, not… any longer. Not since Sun Dragon died and it was clear that my mission…” She gazed down the passageway at nothing discernible. “It was clear that I would not succeed.”
“Why have you been following me?” he asked curiously. He had assumed she had been swayed by his argument that she might find some of her people on the prison island, but she had first, somewhat inexplicably, decided to follow him when he left Turgonia.
The question earned him another exasperated look. He lifted his hands. Why did women have to be so inscrutable? So much more complicated than men?
Jhali stepped forward, gripped his shoulders, pus
hed him against the wall, and kissed him. Not on the cheek like a friend or relative, but on the lips, intensely and intimately.
Before he could figure out what was going on—and whether he liked it—she lowered her arms and stalked away without looking back. He stared after her, his thoughts a jumble, his feelings even more of one.
“Lost and confused,” he whispered, repeating the words he’d given Falcon. “I am definitely lost and confused these days.”
But he had been given a mission, he reminded himself. He had to convince his mother to help Zirabo claim the continent for Nuria and then end a war.
“So glad my life is getting easier,” he muttered.
THE END
The Chains of Honor series will wrap up with Book 4, Great Chief, which is coming this spring.
Assassin’s Bond: Chains of Honor, Book 3 Page 31