“It’s time,” Cyrus murmured quietly, looking up at them. He could feel their hesitation now, could see it in their veiled eyes, the red glaring through all but Enflaga’s, hidden behind her flames.
“Time to die,” Ashea agreed, every word like the sound of water rushing against the shore on an isolated beach. “For you and yours.”
Cyrus just shook his head, and let them see that he’d had Praelior drawn all along, hiding it behind his leg. He saw the concern flitter across their worried expressions, gone in an instant. Of course they’re worried.
I’ve killed too many of them to think they’ll come through this unscathed.
“No,” Cyrus said softly, letting his words rise and ring out in the empty chamber, letting the voice of a general—and Guildmaster—and a warrior who had served war better than any other—fall on the ears of gods and goddesses who hadn’t fought a true opponent in ten thousand years. The old feeling, the one he’d first felt back in the Society, when battle was upon him, caused his lips to split in a grin. Back to battle.
Back to war.
One last time.
“It’s time,” he said, relishing it all as he raised Praelior up, and knew his last, loyal soldiers were doing the same behind him, “… to finish this fight.”
42.
Alaric
“You look entirely too pleased with yourself,” Chavoron said, studying another thick book, eyes not leaving the page to look up at me as I returned to the Citadel of Light and Hope, a smirk on my face. Jena and I had parted at the carriage, tenderly, with the doors shut, which allowed us some measure of privacy to express ourselves in all the ways young lovers tended to—overly sappy and sentimental. I was not totally insincere in what I said to her, but it pains me now to say that I overplayed what I was feeling.
Standing before Chavoron, though, I let an entirely sincere feeling show, one as old as man’s desire to boast about his conquests. “Indeed,” I said smugly. “Perhaps I have something to be pleased about.”
“I expect that means that the Yartraak will now have another thing to yell at me about when next we meet,” Chavoron said. I looked at his red irises, thinking how strange things had been for me to have come to a point when looking at people with red eyes was unremarkable. “As though House Varsonne and House Garaunt did not have enough bad blood between us already.”
“Is that … is that Jena’s house? House Varsonne?” I asked, and Chavoron’s attention finally left the page.
“Heavens,” he pronounced, but very mildly. “You didn’t even know her last name?”
I bit off a reply about how a week ago I didn’t even know my new last name, because it seemed petty. “It’s not exactly a requirement,” I said instead.
“Indeed not,” Chavoron said, returning his attention to the book in his paw-like hands. “I don’t even know the first name of the man who fathered my Caraleen’s child, so I suppose I have no right to poke at you about your personal business … even when it does cause conflict in my cabinet.” I heard the rebuke buried in there, but it was well disguised.
“Do you want me to stop seeing her?” I asked, holding myself at attention like the men in my barracks had upon my departure.
Chavoron sighed, and the book thumped shut, one of those silk strings trailing out of the binding. “No, not at all. Please forgive me for sullying your moment. When you get older, perhaps you will understand the complications that can arise out of the seemingly carefree entanglements of youth. When I was your age, I would not have worried in such situations, either. It is an old man’s lot, I fear.” His thumb and forefinger found the bridge of his navy blue nose, and he rubbed there, as though trying to release some of the tension I saw building behind his eyes. “I am happy for you both,” he said finally, with a weary smile. “And perhaps, if we do things right, should … more … come of this, you will not have to experience the wrenching dislocation that others before you in similar circumstances have.” I could see by the pain in his eyes that he was, again, talking about his daughter, Caraleen.
“Thank you,” I said, in my youth and self-absorption glossing over the fact that he’d just insinuated that any child produced by the two of us would be a slave. “About … our efforts …”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Did you see your men today?”
“I did,” I said, breaking off my train of thought to answer his question.
“Are they being treated well?”
I wasn’t sure quite how to answer that. “They’re being well fed,” I said. “They could stand to see the sky and breathe fresh air.”
Chavoron took that comment on board with a faint nod. “Hmm. Yes. Perhaps we can arrange something to that effect.”
I watched him withdraw into his own mind. He did it often, a result of the fact that he helped run an entire empire. I had seen my father do the same thing in moments when he worked on decisions that would carry far-reaching consequences. When I saw my father ponder, I always considered it weakness. Curiously, when I saw Chavoron do it, I saw a man trying to make certain the decision he made was the right one for as many involved as possible. Had I been truly aware of myself in those moments, I might have seen the first hints of change coming over me.
But then, as even now, it was impossible to see the entire painting from within the frame.
With a weary look, Chavoron turned toward me. “You asked what is next. I do not think you will like the answer I have to give you, for it—” A knock sounded at the door, halting him mid-sentence. “Yes?”
The door opened and Rin entered. I might have been mistaken, but I would have sworn I saw a flush of relief on Chavoron’s face. “Ah, there you are,” he said, smiling tightly at Rin, then at me. “We will discuss it later, in the fullness of time. For now, go and train yourself with Mathurin, prepare yourself for what is to come.”
I frowned at Chavoron, hoping to argue the point, but he picked up his book again and started to read, plainly finished. I looked over at Rin, who waited expectantly at the thin slit of the stairs. He swept a hand down expansively, suggesting I should go first, and I deferred to his courtesy, leading the way out of the tower.
“It’s been a while since last we met—or trained,” I said as he shut the door behind him.
Rin’s hand was anchored on the doorknob, his body roughly parallel to the door to the tower chamber, and he was unusually still. He turned his head to look at me, taking me in with one glance, and then walking with grace down the stairs to pass me, wordlessly, descending the spiral down from the tower.
“All right,” I said under my breath, narrowing my eyes as I made to follow him. He’d never out and out ignored me before that I could recall, but Rin had certainly done more unkind things than this. Determined not to give him any satisfaction, I followed behind as he circled around past the cabinet quarters and then the meeting room, bringing us down into the largest room in the entirety of the citadel—the wide, spherical room that would later become the Council of Twelve’s meeting space, some ten thousand years later.
“This will do,” Rin pronounced, leaving the staircase behind as he sauntered out into the middle of the room. Whether he was addressing me or talking to himself, I wasn’t sure. He put his hands on his armored hips and stood with his back to me.
“For practice?” I asked, taking in the empty room. It was an impressive space, like a courtroom in the middle of the tower, but empty of anything. For a minute I pondered what possible use it could have, and then I realized—it could be used for anything, which was probably why it was empty.
Rin tilted his head left then right, and I could hear his bones popping as he realigned himself. He still seemed to be studiously ignoring me, which I found most irritating. A thought occurred to me, and instantly I knew how to drive him out of his shell of reticence.
“Sabushon?” I asked, infusing my voice with enough snottiness that it caused him to pause, back still turned to me. “That’s right,” I went on, jabbing harder at him, “Je
na told me what it meant, that it was the gravest of insults to a Protanian.” He listened, unmoving, as I continued to prod. “I’m a little curious why you told me to call you that, though. After all, if you wanted me dead, surely you could have arranged it much more easily.”
“I didn’t want you dead,” Rin said, still as a statue.
I listened for subtlety, and thought I heard some. “You didn’t then? Does that you mean you do now?”
He turned around far enough to give me a pitying look. “No.”
“Is that so?” I mused aloud. There was a faint hint of scorn in his eyes, and something else, something cagey, hiding behind his surface facade of anger and steel. “Then why have me call you sabushon?”
I knew in the moment I asked the question, knew before he drew his weapon and came at me while I was still unarmed. He didn’t come at me to kill but he did it to wound, and he did it fiery hot, in the way he always counseled me not to.
I took the blow along my flank, and it burned as the baton struck me. I hadn’t felt one of them in quite some time, with that peculiar, burning-flesh sensation that they caused. He didn’t catch me flat-footed; I was turned away, trying to evade, but he was blurred with speed, moving as though he were driven by some invisible force, something my ancestors might have mistaken for magic.
I might have called it magic, but I was under no illusions at this point. Jena had taught me enough to know that it was not so mysterious and unknowable. It was a force to be harnessed, some product of nature and life, and I could channel it, invoke it, and summon it to my fingertips.
And I did, blasting Rin right in the face with a handful of force channeled right into his helm.
Rin flipped like he’d been thrown backward over a clothesline, his legs rotating over his head, baton flying out of his grip. I might have gone for it if I hadn’t been reduced to falling to one knee the moment the spell left my hand. Rin landed on his knees first, then snapped down on his elbows, his armor clanking as it absorbed the impact.
Rin stirred, his head coming up slowly, his red eyes filled with pain as he looked at me. “You’ve … gotten better,” he said, no trace of ire in the way he said it.
“I’m not an animal,” I said, staring back. “I can learn magic, I can learn—”
“I never thought you were an animal,” Rin said, scraping to his knees. “Not really.” He wiped at his nose, and it came back bloody. “But my people … the empire … most of them do.”
“But you’re one of the enlightened,” I said, sarcasm dripping out, “like Chavoron. And Jena.”
“I’m a guard for the largest forced labor camp of your kind or the others in the empire,” Rin said, stretching, his neck popping again as he pressed it in the opposite direction. He didn’t show an ounce of pain. “I’ve been dealing with your people, with the dwarves, the goblins, the trolls … I know all of them, and I know all their languages.” He looked briefly sullen. “And I don’t hate you, Alaric Garrick … but I couldn’t pronounce your original first name if my life depended on it, so don’t ask me to.” He looked stiff.
I thought about asking him again about sabushon, but decided against it. He was already wary, and I felt like a wall had gone up. I had my answer; I didn’t need to hear it spoken aloud. There was a level of self-loathing in Rin that I hadn’t guessed at before, and it came out in his sharp tongue and sharper conduct with a blade. “I don’t care what you call me,” I said, “… but I would prefer it not be sabushon.”
Rin let out a low guffaw, a dangerous smile breaking across his thin lips. “That’s … that’s a good one.”
“So why are you here?” I asked, watching him.
The smile was fleeting, and he went back to serious. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “Because I believe in what Chavoron is pushing for. What …” his face tightened, “… Timmas and the others on the right side of the table are aiming toward. Freedom for your people and the others. An empire not built on the backs of slave labor.”
“You … want that?” I asked, skeptical.
Rin stiffened. “Yes. I want that. I want a strong Protanian Empire, and that’s not going to happen so long as we keep relying on others to do all our dirty work for us.” He took a step toward me. “We built this empire on the ideal that it could be a place where everyone stood as equals. We erred along the way, there’s no one going to argue that we didn’t. But this is our chance to own our efforts.” He slung a hand around to encompass the city beyond the walls. “The highest of us hit new heights every day; the lowest of us sag, an ever-constant leeching of our empire’s vitality, because they’ve lost any need or desire to work toward their own betterment. They have bread. They have their entertainments.” His face darkened, and it was obvious he was talking about the Coliseum. “What need have they to participate beyond that, when slaves are there to do all the other work? The menial work—as though conjuring food or building edifices is somehow beneath us,” he scoffed. “We lose connection with ambition when half our people have no investment in our empire’s success, for why bother to help us grow when their lot is the same regardless? When there is no point for them?” His voice was more alive in that moment than I’d ever yet heard it, more earnest and yet more passionate than even Chavoron’s when he’d taken up the subject.
I thought about what he said, how it fit with what Chavoron had told me thus far. But where Chavoron had spoken in broad strokes about his role at the top, from Rin I had just heard a different view of the empire, something that suggested it was rotting within. “And these people …” I said, peeling back the layer carefully, wanting to know more but not wishing triggering one of Rin’s wrathful tantrums, “the ones idle … what would you have them do?”
“The others talk about them in leering tones,” Rin said quietly. “Even the ones on the right side of the table. They say that many are worthless. That we should … that we should count them out, but perhaps hire the former slaves at a reasonable wage to do the work we have forced upon them thus far.” He lowered his head and shook it, staring at the floor, dismissing that idea. “As though you and most of the others wouldn’t go back home in an instant, provided the opportunity.” He looked back up at me. “The others seem to think our empire is so magnificent that even those we’ve mistreated, dragged from their homes, that they’ll simply bow to our will once freed rather than go their own way.”
That prickled at my mind. “But Chavoron—”
“He’s the only one who sees it,” Rin said, his brow heavy with the thought. “That when that labor is gone … it will truly be gone. The ones on the right side of the table, they think either the slaves will stay and work for pay because this is their home now, or they just don’t care about what will happen if it all doesn’t play out according to their adolescent fantasies.” His face hardened. “And then this underclass they’ve created, dependent on them for the very food they eat—it’ll be the first to get sacrificed … right under the foot of the elite.”
“This isn’t how Chavoron explained the empire to me,” I said. “He said it was—”
“First among equals,” Rin said, nodding. He cleared his throat. “It’s supposed to be. But … some people lead and some people follow. That’s a matter of fact.”
I thought back to Luukessia, how there were peasants and landed nobles, and that the divide between the two was permanent—for good reason, I thought at the time. “True.”
“Before,” Rin said, “I didn’t think teaching you would make any difference. You were an animal for slaughter, an amusement for the people.”
“And now?”
“Now I begin to believe that you are the only one who will be able to help see us through this,” Rin said, his head down, his eyes on the floor. “That you will be the symbol we need.”
“I don’t know if a symbol will be able help us along,” I said. “Chavoron seems to wonder if there is a path forward—”
“There is,” Rin said, “but it will be as perilous as a blind ma
n threading a poisoned needle.”
“Well, I’m only half blind,” I said with a smile.
Rin let out a laugh. “It won’t be you who feels the worst of the sting.” He turned sober. “The needle will be in Chavoron’s hands … but his are steady.”
“You believe in him?” I asked, wondering if Rin’s assessment was the same as my own.
“He is a good leader and a good man,” Rin said, nodding in the faint light glowing from the walls. “Two finer qualities I cannot imagine. But there are those who will stand against him on both sides of the table. Fools who are blind, or who desire not to see.” His armored hand tightened. “I cannot allow that.”
I detected a subtle change in the air and decided perhaps it was time to cast my lot, since I appeared to have already thrown in with Chavoron in any case. “We cannot allow that.”
Rin turned his head slowly to look right at me, and I saw something beyond the steely resolve, something beyond the self-loathing, some aspiration buried in the guise of hope. “Very well. We. But we will need to be careful and shrewd and perhaps even cunning in a way that a good man like Chavoron cannot.” He straightened up and looked me right in the eye. “He needs good hands that can do what is needed … and perhaps even a few things that he doesn’t even know he needs done. Will you stand with me in this?”
I stared at Rin and then crossed the distance between us, my hand extended in the manner of my people. “I stand with you—and Chavoron.”
Rin only looked at my hand for a moment before extending his own, and we shook on it, my bare palm against his armored one. “Then I will stand with you as well, across houses, as sworn brothers in service to the same cause. It is one of the highest bonds between our people.” He paused, looking slightly abashed. “And, one last thing—”
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