The Last Mortal Bond

by Brian Staveley

  56

  “We could kill him,” Adare said quietly.

  Kegellen took a long sip of wine, set the goblet on the table before her, leaned back in her chair, and pursed her lips. “I assume,” she said finally, “that when you say we, you are not, in fact, imagining the three of us taking turns plunging knives into the poor man’s heart.”

  “The poor man?” Adare demanded. “The son of a bitch has as good as seized the city. He’s got men on the wall, men in the Dawn Palace, men in the Spear itself, and that’s not all—there are patrols on all the major streets, barricades and checkpoints between neighborhoods.…”

  Kegellen waved the objection away. “I am aware, of course, of General Van’s … zeal when it comes to the defense of our city.”

  “He’s so fucking zealous that I’m afraid to hold this meeting in my own ’Kent-kissing palace,” Adare said. “It is because of his zeal that we are here.”

  They were back in Kegellen’s wine cellar. The same priceless, dusty bottles lay silently in their racks. The same marble gods fixed them with empty eyes. It wasn’t lost upon Adare that the last time she’d been in the room had been with Triste, just before the leach escaped. It hardly seemed like an auspicious meeting place, but then, all the auspices had been pretty ’Kent-kissing bleak of late. At least Kegellen’s manse wasn’t overrun with the general’s soldiers. At least inside the wine cellar the only person spying on them would be the Queen of the Streets herself, not that she had any need to spy, sitting as she was half a pace away, blandly sipping her wine.

  Unlike Kegellen, Nira hadn’t stopped moving since they closed the heavy wooden door. The narrow cellar didn’t offer much room to prowl, but the old woman did her best, cane tapping against the stone floor as she stalked back and forth, muttering sometimes—mostly curses against il Tornja—sometimes silent. At first, Adare thought the constant motion might drive her insane, but she’d quickly come to find in it a strange sort of relief. At least one of the people in the room was as furious as she felt.

  “I’m surprised that you’re not angrier,” Adare said, turning back to Kegellen, trying a different tack. “The soldiers are even more a threat to your power here than they are to mine.”

  “Anger,” Kegellen said, closing her eyes, tipping her head back until it rested against the back of her chair. “It’s so exhausting. Who has the energy for it?”

  “Spare me the act,” Adare spat. “I know your history. You’ve got more blood on your hands than I do. How many people did you kill to end up where you are? A hundred? More?”

  “You can kill a man without being angry,” Kegellen replied mildly. “You can kill a great many men without being angry.” She took another sip of her wine, held it in her mouth a moment, swallowed, smiled. “I find it’s better that way. Easier on the heart.”

  “Then kill Van. I don’t give a pickled shit if you’re angry when you do it, just make him dead.”

  “The one-footed general,” Nira snapped, turning from the ranks of bottles, “is not the problem.”

  Adare raised her brows. “He’s commanding the soldiers occupying the palace.”

  Nira snorted. “He’s il Tornja’s dog. You could kill the son of a bitch, and another son of a bitch would just take his place. That’s the way an army works—chain a’ command, and all.”

  “So we kill the next one,” Adare said. “I’m sure Kegellen can manage more than one murder per month.”

  The Queen of the Streets opened her eyes. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Now it is just me doing this hypothetical killing? What happened to our happy triumvirate of high-minded murderers?”

  “What do ya keep between those ears?” Nira demanded, raising her cane as though preparing to rap Adare on the skull. “A pair a’ very small, very stupid worms? An army doesn’t run outta commanders until ya kill the last man, and I don’t think I need ta point out that you might need some a’ those bastards on your walls when the Urghul arrive.”

  Adare blew out an angry breath. “They’re not all part of il Tornja’s plan.…”

  “I wager shit against silver even Wobbly Van himself isn’t part of il Tornja’s plan. He has orders ta hold the palace, and so he’s holdin’ it. It’s not him you have ta go after.”

  Kegellen nodded slowly. “Though your councillor and I don’t always see eye to eye on matters, in this case, I have to agree.” She tapped a finger against her generous chin. “Is there any word from that spirited young woman you sent north with all those birds?”

  “Do you think,” Adare asked, staring at the other woman, “that if the Kettral had returned, if they had word of il Tornja, that I would have forgotten to mention it?”

  Kegellen heaved her shoulders into a shrug. “There is so much going on, and I find I grow more forgetful with each passing year.”

  “Well, I don’t. The Kettral are still gone. Il Tornja is still missing. And Horonius Van still has his booted heel on the throat of this fucking city.”

  “Perhaps,” Kegellen suggested, “you should let him leave it there. At least until after this … war.” She frowned, as though that final word were unpleasant even to pronounce. “He will be weaker then and you might need him a little less.”

  That, in fact, was exactly what Adare would have preferred to do. Much as she loathed the military takeover of Annur, there was no way around the fact that Van would make a better commander for the coming battle than Adare herself, probably better than Lehav. Certainly, the addition of the Army of the North gave the entire city a fighting chance against the coming horde. The Urghul, however, were not the only foe; not even, if Kaden was to be believed, the greatest foe. Il Tornja’s absence from the front was evidence enough that there was another struggle going on, a quiet war invisible to almost everyone, a battle that might decide far more than the fate of a couple of continents. Adare had no idea why il Tornja would want the Dawn Palace or the Spear, but the fact that he wanted them was reason enough to try to deny him those very things. Not that she could tell Kegellen that. Despite their alliance, she didn’t trust the woman much more than she would a half-rabid dog.

  “It ought to be possible—” Adare began again.

  A sharp rap on the door cut her off.

  Kegellen frowned. “I try to give the clearest instructions to my staff, and still they will disturb me when I have asked not to be disturbed.” She shook her head as she set down her wine, then levered herself up from the chair. “If this is not a pair of naked young men—preferably beautiful but dumb, between the ages of twenty and twenty-five—I will be quite displeased.”

  Despite the woman’s levity, Adare’s stomach had knotted up suddenly, viciously at the sound of the knock. It had been a long time since unexpected tidings meant anything but death or disaster. All over again she saw her son’s eyes, burning, terrified. She was clutching her wineglass, she realized, clutching it so tightly she was amazed it had not already shattered. Deliberately, she set it down as Kegellen swung open the door.

  “What is it, Serise?” the woman asked.

  Adare exhaled slowly. No stranger come calling after all. Just one of the household slaves.

  “Apologies, my lady,” a meek voice from beyond the door replied. “A note. It was delivered with some urgency.”

  “And did the bearer of this note speak the crucial words?” Kegellen asked.

  “No, my lady, but—”

  “Then it cannot be so urgent, can it?”

  “Pardon, my lady, but the note is not for you.”

  Adare felt sick all over again.

  “Ah,” Kegellen said, extending her hand. “How interesting.”

  By the time the woman had closed the door, crossed the room, and passed the note across the table, Adare found she was trembling. There was no seal on the paper—it was folded over twice and tied with a length of rough twine. Hardly a terrifying epistle, and yet Adare eyed it as though it were a viper, and instead of reaching for the note, she raised her goblet, swirled the li
quid around the glass, then drained it.

  “And just what kinda lump-brained ritual is this?” Nira demanded finally. “Ya gonna look at the ’Kent-kissing thing or are we all gonna sit here guessin’?”

  Adare ignored the woman, took up the paper, opened it. It didn’t take long to read the hastily scrawled lines, and only a moment more to understand them. She looked up from the message, relief welling up inside her. There was no word of Sanlitun. It had nothing to do with her son. Which meant she could believe, if only for another day, that he was still alive.

  Kegellen cocked her head to the side. “Good news?”

  “Good news doesn’t come creepin’ in like a kicked dog,” Nira said, watching Adare warily. “Out with it, woman.”

  Slowly, Adare dragged her eyes back to the text. Already, the relief was seeping away, replaced by something colder, more dangerous—some feeling balanced on the knife’s edge between hope and horror.

  “He has returned,” she said.

  Nira leaned forward, suddenly hungry, predatory. “Il Tornja?”

  Adare shook her head. “Kaden. My brother. And he has Triste with him.”

  57

  The Kettral returned to Annur a little after midnight, when the moon’s blade had lodged itself in the dark horizon. Gwenna put the birds down in a quiet square just south of the city’s northern wall. A couple of empty plinths flanked a fountain at the center of the open space. Someone had already toppled and hauled off whatever statuary had stood atop them, but the fountain still ran, water gushing up from the pipe’s mouth, tracing a glittering arc through the night air, then splashing into the open sandstone bowl. The huge birds, free of their soldiers, gathered around the fountain, dipped their beaks into the water over and over. The motion was strange, almost mechanical, but delicate.

  “Our staging area,” Gwenna said. “Compliments of the Emperor.” She gestured to a series of buildings fronting the square. “Barracks. Command. Livery. Infirmary. Supply. Our little slice of the Eyrie right here in Annur.”

  Valyn studied the silent structures. There were no lamps or candles in the windows. No smoke issued from the chimneys. He closed his eyes, listening for the rustle and murmur of sleeping men and women. Nothing.

  “Where are the people?” he asked. “Who lived here?”

  Gwenna shook her head. “Fuck if I know. I told your sister I needed a staging area, and she gave us this.”

  The Flea nodded. “A good spot. Close to the fight. Plenty of room for simultaneous landings.”

  “There’s a bigger square a little to the west,” Gwenna replied, “but this one’s close to the Emperor’s own command post.” She pointed north toward a blocky tower rising above the wall a hundred paces away. “Figured it was worth trying to consolidate the command.” She glanced over to where two soldiers were carrying Newt toward one of the buildings. “Enough bullshitting about the logistics. Your Wing needs medical care, better care than we could give you in the field.”

  “See to Newt and Sigrid,” the Flea began. “I’m fine.…”

  “Horseshit,” Gwenna snapped. “You’re bleeding through your bandages while we stand here.”

  “I know what this body can take, Gwenna. I’ve been fighting in it a long time.”

  “And I need you to keep fighting in it. We’re not losing the best fucking soldier we’ve got to a case of his own stubbornness. You are going to the infirmary if I have to tie you up and kick you all the way there.”

  The Kettral close enough to hear the outburst turned, tried to watch the conflict unnoticed as they went about their work. They knew the Flea. Washouts or not, everyone knew the Flea, and this was not the way people talked to the Flea. Valyn himself took a step back. After a pause, however, the older man just chuckled.

  “I won’t say no to a bed and a few hours’ rest. Just make sure you don’t let me sleep through the war.”

  Gwenna grunted. “Don’t you worry about that. When the war gets here, I’m planning to hide behind you the entire time.” She turned to glare at Valyn. “You, too. The fuck’s wrong with you people? Get to the infirmary and put your heads on the ’Kent-kissing pillows.”

  Only when Valyn and the Flea had almost reached the building did Gwenna finally turn, barking orders at the Kettral who still remained in the square.

  “Never should have put her in charge of Andt-Kyl,” the Flea murmured, shaking his head with mock regret. “Now, anytime there’s a city to defend, she acts like she runs the place.”

  Valyn just nodded.

  Gwenna was a different woman from the headstrong cadet he remembered; there was no doubt about that. The old fire was still there, hot as ever, but she’d found a way to harness it. Back on the Islands she’d been almost out of control half the time, a danger to herself and everyone around her. Not anymore. She was still dangerous, more dangerous—that much was obvious just from the way she held herself, from the steel in her voice—but she’d found a way to hammer her anger into a blade, one that she could hold, wield, master.

  It’s what was supposed to happen to all of us, he realized.

  When they fled the Islands, every member of his Wing had been raw, green, and unready. Battle and blood had changed them, changed Valyn himself most of all, but where Gwenna and Talal and Annick had grown into proper Kettral, disciplined, driven, allied in their shared mission, and bound, too, by a deeper, human bond, Valyn had become a solitary creature, a thing of the shadows, hungry for blood, violence, annihilation.

  He glanced over his shoulder to where Gwenna was helping tend to the birds. She was arguing with Annick about something while the two of them rolled a huge barrel of feed away from the wall, then started prying off the top. The other Kettral had gathered around, trading barbs as they worked. Valyn hesitated, waited for the Flea to enter the infirmary before turning to stare at the scene. For a long time, he stood alone in the shadows, just watching, listening. It was nothing special, just a bunch of weary soldiers going about their work, but he felt, standing there in the starlight, as though he were gazing across an unbridgeable gulf into a different life, one he should have lived, could have lived, if only he had not made so many mistakes.

  For a moment there, he almost stepped back into the square, almost walked back across the open space to join them. There was always work for another pair of hands, always another job to do. He could throw his shoulder behind a barrel or check over a bird’s jesses. Learn the names of the new folks. Trade stories of the past year with Talal …

  He shook his head. His own stories were all darkness and death. Now that he could see again, he saw the way people looked at him: warily, one hand always on a weapon when he came near. The Kettral were just a few dozen paces away. All that separated him from them were wide-open flagstones, empty air. Men and women had walked across that square every day for decades, centuries, going about the bright, boring business of their lives—buying bread, running errands, hauling water—things a child could do. For Valyn, though, there was no way across.

  Talal glanced up, found him watching, but Valyn looked away, shifting his eyes from the square to the tower looming above. The Emperor’s command post. Where Adare came every day to oversee her city’s preparations. He’d said he would wait until the war was over, but then, he’d said a lot of things.

  * * *

  The Emperor’s guard was heavier than Valyn had expected. They were in Annur, after all, in her own city, safe behind the walls, the Urghul still at least a day away. He’d expected a couple pairs of Aedolians, maybe six men total. Instead, a dozen soldiers armored in the steel and bronze of the Sons of Flame flanked her as she made her way down the street, riding, as Gwenna said she did each day, from the Dawn Palace to her tower on the wall.

  Kill them, whispered a voice inside his head.

  He could do it—twelve men, taken by surprise, their only training whatever drills their priestly commanders had cobbled together over the years—he could take them apart one limb at a time, leave the bodies scatter
ed across the road. He started to lift an ax from his belt, then shook his head, settling it back in place. Though a part of him hungered to wade into the block of guardsmen, there was a chance Adare might escape in the chaos. Or worse, that she might die. Valyn had every intention of killing her, of course, but he needed to talk to her first, to learn what she’d done with Kaden, whether his brother was still alive, rotting in a cell somewhere, or already dead. Besides, now that he was back with the Kettral, there was another way, a more elegant way. He shifted his hand from the ax to the munitions he’d lifted from Gwenna’s stores: one smoker, one flash bang—more than enough to kindle the necessary madness.

  The whole thing took less than twenty heartbeats. He lit both charges at the same time, tossed them into the midst of the horses, waited a moment for the choking clouds of smoke to fill the narrow street, took a deep breath of clean air, then stepped into the swirling haze. All over again, he was blind. Even his preternatural sight was no good in the smoke, but that didn’t matter. He’d learned, in his long year of darkness, to listen, to frame the world around him from the sounds it made. There, to his left, a pawing horse. To his right, the scrape of steel against leather. He ducked under one man’s blind, stumbling attack, stepped past a panicking horse, and then he was there at the heart of the entourage. He could smell his sister, her soap and her choked-back fear. He could hear her lean heart pounding.

  He gained the saddle with a single leap, landed behind her, yanked the black bag down over her head, then kneed the horse forward, out of the blind melee. Adare twisted, tried to scream, tried to slide a hand up beneath the bag, to pull it off. It snagged on her crossed hairpins, however, and a moment later he clamped a hand down over the fabric and her mouth beneath, slid a knife from his belt and held it against her side, at just the spot between the ribs where she’d stabbed him so many months earlier.