She tried to pry his arms away so she could see if he was bleeding anywhere. But Chet shrieked and drew away.
“Do not touch me!”
Loren fell back on her rear, hands raised. Her eyes smarted as tears sprang into them. “I am sorry!” she said quickly. “I am sorry. I—are you hurt?”
It was as if he could not hear her. He took deep, heaving breaths, his chest rising and falling like ocean waves. Suddenly he turned and vomited on the floor.
“Here,” said Gem. The boy knelt by Chet, pounding him on the back. Chet groaned and heaved again, but nothing came out. “Here, you are all right.” Gem spoke softly, gently. It reminded Loren of the sewers of Cabrus, where he had used soothing words with Annis, trying to coax her out of her fear. He stroked Chet’s back gently.
“Get up, girl.”
Kal’s growl drew Loren back to herself, and she shot to her feet. The grand chancellor stood before her, though she had not heard him enter. She was a few fingers taller than he, but she did not feel it now. His eyes blazed with fury, and their long flight since the sewers had not quenched his rage in the least. His nostrils flared in and out with each breath. She half expected him to spit in her eye.
“I have had it far past the bounds of patience with you,” he said. “Darkness take the first day you came to Ammon. If I had known what a fool—what an incomprehensible idiot the High King had sent me, I would have sent you back to the Seat on the first available ship. You spurned my orders to hunt Rogan, you pursued Damaris—and then lost her—and now an entire kingdom has joined the rebellion because of you.”
Shame had flooded Loren from the moment she saw Kal. She had been living with it since even before they came to Dorsea, when she chased Damaris across the kingdom of Feldemar. And during all their pursuit, she had shoved that shame away, thinking that she could assuage it if she could only complete her mission before Kal found her, as he must surely mean to do. But she had failed, and now he was here. Yet even in the depths of her embarrassment, anger rose in her breast at his words now.
“That was not my doing,” she found herself saying, almost before she could think to form the words. “Damaris clearly set this in motion a long time—”
“Be! Silent!” he roared, loud enough to shake the walls.
And Loren obeyed. His was the voice of a battlefield commander, and it held incredible power when he was this close. Her legs grew so weak that she was surprised she could still stand.
“Do you think me a fool? I know the Dorsean rebellion was not undertaken overnight. Indeed, I heard rumors months ago that such an action might be afoot. Do you want to know why Damaris thought she could pull it off?”
Loren did not answer. She did not trust herself to.
“Because the Mystics left Danfon. The moment I learned you had come into Dorsea in pursuit of Damaris, I sent word to the grand chancellor of the Mystics in this kingdom. She pulled her soldiers out of the capital to find you and Damaris both. But that was just the opening the merchant needed.” Now he did spit, a fat glob of phlegm that splashed on the floor next to her boot. “The High King made a mistake the day she let you enter her service, but no greater than mine in ever believing you were worthy of the honor.”
Tears had already been in Loren’s eyes. Now she could no longer restrain them. But she kept her face calm. Her lip did not tremble, and she did not sob. Thin drops merely leaked from the corners of her eyes, one at a time, racing to lay little tracks down her cheeks.
She still could not bring herself to speak, and so it was with great relief that she heard Annis answer instead. “I do not know that that is the case, Grand Chancellor,” she said slowly. “I know the Mystic force that was once in this city. They would not have been significant enough to deter—”
“You may shut your mouth as well,” said Kal. He stepped past Loren, dismissing her as he went to Annis. Now he did loom, for he was taller than the girl, but Annis kept her back straight and did not cower. “I knew from the moment I met her that Loren was a naive thing, but I thought you had at least some glimmer of intelligence. Indeed, when I allowed you to go with her, I thought you might have some positive influence upon her. I suppose I should have known that it would be the other way around.”
The room grew deadly quiet. Annis’ eyes sharpened. Not for the first time in recent days, Loren thought she looked strikingly like her mother. “I told you this in Ammon,” she said in an icy voice. “But you have never let me do anything, Kal. I have merely, on occasion, deigned to assist you in your efforts—but then, I thought you were an honorable man. I am less convinced of that, now.”
“For all the good your help has done us,” said Kal. “If we gained any advantage by your advice, it is lost. We managed one step forwards, but now we have taken two steps back.”
“Some very pretty dances begin that way,” said Gem.
The boy’s mouth shut with a click of his teeth, his face going pale and his eyes widening. Quick as a landslide, Kal whirled on Gem and snatched him up by the tunic. Loren stepped forwards to pull him away.
“That is enough!” cried Prince Senlin.
Kal paused. The prince came from where he had stood in the corner. He wore a look of fury to match Kal’s own, though his stance was a bit more composed.
“Unhand him at once, Grand Chancellor. You have made your point and more. But if it were not for the Nightblade, I would surely be dead, and Wojin’s grip on Dorsea tighter than it is already. Whatever the Nightblade did before she and hers came to the capital is none of my business. But you are all in my kingdom now, and I am its rightful ruler. They serve me well—as they served my father—and they have my favor. If you care about restoring order and righting what wrongs have been done, you would do well to focus on that and stop this pointless ranting. You may think it does some good, but I am more inclined to believe it is only for your own pleasure.”
Gem stared at the prince with wide and worshipful eyes. Everyone else in the room had gone still. Loren noticed Uzo looking at her, and the spearman arched an eyebrow. Loren wondered if Kal would dare to turn his ire upon the prince—the king now, she supposed.
After a long, scowling silence, Kal finally turned away. “Very well, Your Grace,” he muttered. But his turn only made him face Loren again. She stiffened. Kal thrust a finger at her, and though his voice returned to some semblance of normalcy, she could hear the barely-contained fury lurking beneath it. “You are to take no action—not even the most insignificant—without telling me first. Anything more consequential than voiding your bowels requires my explicit approval. If you test me, I will pack you in a crate with straw and ship you back to the Seat to answer to the High King herself. You will do nothing but what I tell you, and you will do that the moment the order passes my lips.”
Loren felt a twisting, evil feeling inside her. She recognized the tone of Kal’s voice: one full of threats both explicit and implicit, promising greater harm than he would willingly speak of in front of so many witnesses. It was the same tone her father had taken with her for most of her life, and she felt a part of herself closing off, just as she had with him.
But Loren was not the same girl who had left the Birchwood nearly a year ago. She felt a sense of rebellion in her heart that she had never been able to muster with her father. So while her expression grew neutral and her hands went entirely still, her heartbeat thudded louder in her ears, and she felt a burning desire to get away from this man, to disobey him. To defy him.
She said only, “It will be my pleasure to do as you command, Grand Chancellor.”
Kal studied her eyes for a moment. What he saw there must have satisfied him, if it did not entirely please him, for he nodded with a grunt. “Very well,” he said. “Tell me everything you know—all that has taken place since you came to Dorsea, and especially what you have done here in the capital.”
Loren glanced at Annis. The girl understood at once and stood beside her to help deliver the report. Together they gave a full accoun
t of all that had happened on their long road since Dahab.
For his part, Kal listened and did not interrupt, for which Loren was grateful. It made it easier to maintain the veneer of courtesy that had settled over her. She did not trust the anger in her heart. In one way she welcomed it, for it was a more powerful feeling than the weakness she had always felt in the presence of her parents. But she feared that if she unleashed it, it would come out in a storm that might irrevocably damage her already-tenuous relations with the Mystic and the precarious position of power she held.
When they caught him up to the present moment, Kal stood for a time, pulling his long beard in thought. Loren and Annis glanced briefly at each other.
“Our objective seems clear,” said Kal at last. “We must restore Prince Senlin to the throne, and as quickly as possible.”
“Very well,” said Loren. They had intended to flee the city, but Kal’s objective seemed far more reasonable now that they had the Mystics’ strength of arms. “How shall we do it?”
Kal’s scowl returned. “I shall determine that. And I shall call upon you if—if—I decide I require your help. In the meantime, you and your friends have quarters here. Go to them, and do not leave for any reason. And someone clean up her lover’s sick before it stinks the whole place up beyond hope of cleansing.”
Loren very nearly struck him. But she forced herself to remain civil, for a moment longer at least. “As you wish, Grand Chancellor.”
She motioned to Gem, who helped Chet rise, and together with Annis, Kerri, and Wyle, they left the basement.
THEY HAD BEEN GIVEN TWO rooms, with not quite enough beds between them. Loren led them all into one, but Wyle excused himself to the other, claiming he needed a moment to recover from their flight and their battle.
Chet took little note of Wyle’s departure and collapsed on one of the beds. He rolled away from the others to face the wall, his arms wrapped around himself and his legs curled up. The rest of them sat, morose, in a circle in the room’s opposite corner. None of them looked at each other, but only stared at the floor. Kerri was the least downcast among them, but even she seemed subdued, a far cry from her usual self. At last she seemed to muster some bit of humor, for she looked up with a little smirk.
“That Kal certainly seems a pleasant fellow.”
Loren barely managed a snort. Gem picked at the threads of his trousers with a fingernail.
“Yes, mayhap that was an ill-timed quip,” mumbled Kerri.
“I am stifled in this room,” said Loren. “I need to get some air.” She got to her feet.
Annis looked up at once. “I am not certain that that is a good idea,” she said carefully.
“Because of Kal?” said Loren. “I could not care less what he thinks.”
But she could not stop herself from thoughts of her father. Always she had been quiet and compliant when he was nearby, when he was within striking distance. Rebellious thoughts had only come when he left her alone. Her current mood was far too similar, and it left a bitter taste of self-loathing in the back of her throat.
I am not the same girl who left the Birchwood, she told herself. Kal will discover that, and soon.
“You … at least you should not go alone,” said Annis.
Loren expected Gem to volunteer. But to her surprise, Kerri spoke up before the boy could. “I will accompany her,” she said. “I could use a moment’s fresh air as well, especially after those sewers.”
She rose to her feet. Loren gave her a grateful nod, which Kerri answered with a smile before following her out of the room.
They were on the ground floor of the inn. The hallway to their left led to the stairway down to the basement, and beyond that it bent around to reach the common room. But to the right, it ran to the inn’s back door. Apparently the innkeeper, whom Loren had not yet met, was some contact of the Mystics. She turned left and led Kerri to the back door, and was pleasantly surprised to find Uzo there.
“Uzo?” said Loren. “I am surprised to find you on guard duty.”
“Certainly you did not expect me to be resting,” said Uzo, giving her a little smile.
“I half thought you might be imprisoned,” said Loren. “Kal may not know exactly how to deal with me, but you are one of his soldiers. He can punish you how he sees fit.”
“Yet I was only following orders,” said Uzo. “Or at least, that is how the grand chancellor sees it. It does not do for a commander to punish his men for following the order of their officers.”
“I suppose not,” said Loren. She dropped her voice. “How is Shiun?”
“She is as well as can be expected,” said Uzo. “Healers are tending to her, and she will survive.”
“Good,” said Loren, relief flooding through her. She could not have borne it if she had gotten the woman killed. “Now, if you please, let us out.”
Uzo paused for a long moment, his mouth twisting. “Are you performing some errand for the grand chancellor? Because he told me that no one was to leave the tavern this way—particularly not you.”
Loren’s hands went to her hips. “I wonder: did Kal explicitly remove you from my command?”
“I—” Uzo froze, and then his lips split in a broad grin. “I suppose he never did, at that.”
“Then you had better let me through. In fact, I order you to do so. After all, a commander wants his soldiers to follow the orders of their officers, does he not?”
Uzo looked towards the ceiling, hiding a smile. “So I have heard it said.” He opened the door and stepped aside. Loren gave him a grateful nod and left, closely followed by Kerri.
Beyond the door was the inn’s back alley. It held a large rack of barrels on their sides, several rows high. They likely contained ale, and there was a lowering mechanism to remove them when the innkeeper needed them. Loren began to climb the rack towards the roof. Kerri paused for a moment, looking up at her with arms folded.
“You are overly fond of rooftops, I feel,” she groused.
“They are a wonderful place to get fresh air,” said Loren. “And that is what we came for, is it not? Come on.”
Kerri grumbled, but she followed Loren up. Soon they sat on the edge of the inn’s red tile roof, their feet hanging off into the empty air. It was nearly sundown, and the sky was a brilliant orange above them. Night’s chill had not yet come, and the air was quite pleasant for winter. Loren tilted her head back, breathing deep of the crisp, fresh breeze. A part of her realized that the rooftop was exposed, but the far greater part of her did not care. She would not remain cooped up in an inn where, even when he was not present, Kal loomed over her shoulder.
Silence hung between the two of them as they watched the sun lower itself towards the mountains. In the end, Kerri broke the quiet, speaking carefully.
“I would guess that you do not feel particularly proud of yourself right now.”
Loren snorted. She thought of Kal’s accusations—that Damaris had escaped because of her, and that her actions had inadvertently led to Dorsea’s capitulation. She was not entirely sure she believed it, but then again, she had long ago accepted that such politics were far beyond her scope.
“Not exactly,” she said at last.
“You should,” said Kerri. “Kal is wrong.”
Slowly Loren shook her head. “I do not think so. He may have … overreacted. That has always been his way. But my actions were far from perfect.”
Kerri turned to her, and she did not move until Loren at last turned to meet her gaze. “And do you think he is perfect? That he has never made an error, that he does not still make them even today? Everyone makes mistakes. Even if he is right—which I do not think he is—then he is at least complicit in your actions. If perfection is the goal, everyone is a failure.”
Loren held Kerri’s gaze for a moment, studying her dark brown eyes. It was Loren who turned away first. “Some failures are greater than others.”
Kerri let those words hang for a moment. When she spoke, it was not to argue.
“My parents were healers. When I was growing up, I saw them tend to others. They would not refuse care to anyone, and countless souls came to us for poultices, to have wounds sewn shut or bones set. I told you already that I was sick of the way Jun began so many wars. Part of the reason was that I would have to see my parents face his casualties. True, we were always far from the battlefront. But some soldiers returned with lingering wounds, and other injuries were related to the war effort—those who made weapons or constructs of war.
“After a time, I began to feel that my parents were somehow to blame, at least in part. They never did anything to prevent the wars, though I suppose it was mad to think that they could. But even in doing their duty, they would heal people who would only go back out to join the war again. But in the end I realized they had learned a lesson a long time ago, a lesson that I myself would not learn until later. It is the most important lesson of a healer, and it is something I have tried to keep in mind as I practice the art of the apothecary.”
Kerri fell silent. The air was growing colder, and she rubbed her hands together to warm them. Loren knew it for a cheap talespinner’s trick, but she could not help a smirk and a snort.
“Oh, go on,” she said. “What is the lesson?”
Kerri smiled at her, but it was tinged with sadness. “Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes grave ones. But the people who do the most good in life are the ones who keep trying—not in penance for what they have done wrong, but because they wanted to do the right thing in the first place. Penance is no worthy goal, not truly. Misdeeds are inevitable, but if we only try to correct them, we forget all the good we can do in life. I have only known you a short while, and I do not know what you did before you came to Danfon. But from what I have seen, you always do your best, and you fail less often than you succeed. Kal may try to pretend that he is better than you, but if he does, he is a liar.”
She fell silent, and this time Loren did not prod her to continue. Kerri’s words echoed in her mind, a gentle counterargument to the thoughts she had been plagued with ever since Yewamba.
Yerrin: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 6) Page 23