“Nice army you brought,” he said, waving a lazy hand toward the wall of the building. “Good marchers. There’s no end to the irritation when an army can’t march.” He shook his head, evidently recalling past frustrations, then shrugged. He didn’t so much as glance at Fulton or the blade ready at his throat. “You take up generaling while sojourning in the south?”
“A soldier named Vestan Ameredad has the command,” Adare replied stiffly.
“Ameredad?” He raised his brows. “That’s what my men told me, but it was a tough tale to swallow. I seem to have missed a verse or two since last we danced. Weren’t we trying to pound the dear, pious Sons of Flame straight into the mud not long ago?” He glanced speculatively up into the rafters. “I seem to remember a priest named Uinian—dead. Then there were those Accords you drafted so enthusiastically. . . .”
“Enough,” Adare spat. “I know you murdered my father. Adiv gave me your letter, but I didn’t need you to tell me. I knew long before that. I intend to see you executed for your crimes, and the only reason I’ve waited is to try to make some sense of what’s happening here in the north, what’s going on with the Urghul. If you want to discuss that, fine. If not, I’ll be happy to instruct Fulton to take your head from your shoulders.”
“Ah.” The regent set the single syllable between them, still and inscrutable as a stone on the ko board. He didn’t move. “How did you learn?” There was no gloating, no guilt. He looked . . . curious.
“My father,” Adare said. “He was hunting you even as you murdered him. Your attack triggered his trap.”
It wasn’t much of an explanation, but il Tornja seemed to accept it, pursing his lips, then nodding. “Makes sense. Sanlitun was clever. Clever and tenacious. Much like his daughter.”
It was the casualness of the compliment that shattered her reserve. He said the words as though even after his admission Adare might simply slip back into his arms, wide-eyed and breathless for his approval. As though the Sons of Flame and Fulton’s blade at his neck—a blade he had not once deigned to look down at—were insubstantial as her father’s ghost, wraiths that might be dismissed with the wave of a hand or a strong gust of wind. As though it didn’t fucking matter that he had murdered the Emperor and seized the throne for himself.
“If my father was so clever,” Adare demanded, voice rising, “if he was so tenacious, then why did you kill him?”
“If you read my letter, then you know: he was killing Annur,” il Tornja replied evenly. His gaze was level, sober, all trace of insouciance suddenly scrubbed away.
Adare shook her head, blood slamming in her temples.
“My father was a good emperor. One of the best. He oversaw a generation of peace and prosperity.”
The kenarang nodded. “Unfortunately, good men can make bad decisions, and peace is not always possible.” He considered Adare. “You seem to have learned that lesson quickly enough.”
“I raised an army because you forced me to. . . .”
“I did?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Was it my series of brutal atrocities? My callous disregard for the people of Annur? Where are the gibbets dangling with my political foes? Where are the burned-out shells of homes?” He shook his head. “Annur may burn, Adare, but if it does, remember this, you brought the fire.”
Adare’s mouth hung open. The man had put a knife into her father’s beating heart, framed a priest, and he expected to lay the guilt at her feet?
“You flouted our laws and usurped the Malkeenian line,” she said, voice tight as a harp string. “I am defending both.”
“More’s the pity,” he replied. “I had hoped you might be here to defend Annur.”
“You want me to believe that ‘defending Annur’ means sitting idly by while you profane the Unhewn Throne?”
“Your throne is an absurd piece of furniture in which I have less than no interest. I would gladly pass it over to you, although from what I’m told, you’ve already claimed it for yourself. Your Radiance.”
She couldn’t tell if he was mocking her or not. Threatening her or not. She had expected him to lie, to twist, to deny the truth in a thousand ways. Despite his earlier letter, she had not expected this, neither the honesty nor the accusation, and she struggled to find her balance, to take control of the conversation once more.
“And you expect me to believe that you won’t kill me, too, when I grow inconvenient? The same way you killed my father and Kaden?”
He shook his head. “I had nothing to do with your brother’s death.”
“Well, it’s pretty ’Kent-kissing convenient for you that my father’s rightful heir never returned to the capital.”
Il Tornja shook his head. “Listen to yourself, Adare. Your father. Your brother. You. The fucking Malkeenians. Even if I murdered your entire family, which I have not and do not intend to, Annur has more pressing worries. Worries that extend beyond the tidy walls of your palace. The Urghul are here.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “All of them. I am trying to deal with the threat while you are playing a petty political game.”
“Justice for my father is not a game,” Adare snarled. “And if the Urghul are here, it is because you erred. You are the kenarang and regent. Why wasn’t the Army of the North in place to stop them?”
“I was forced to recall the Army of the North,” he said grimly, “to deal with your religious uprising, to put down the threat of civil war. I thought Long Fist remained at the eastern end of the steppe, but I was wrong. When I pulled the men south to face you, he attacked. Unopposed, he will tear through the northern atrepies like a knife through rotted cloth.”
“Then I will oppose him,” Adare said. “None of this needs involve you.”
“Then kill me,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “Kill me if you think it necessary. But then march your Sons and the Army of the North hard. There will be daily messengers updating you on the Urghul movements.”
Abruptly, Adare felt that she stood on the verge of a high cliff, staring down into fog. She could kill the man, could appoint Lehav or Fulton to command the Army of the North, and yet, what did Lehav or Fulton understand about the Urghul? Had either of them ever seen one? Did they know the first thing about how to fight them?
“And when we encounter the horsemen?” she asked slowly.
Il Tornja smiled then, a wry little twist of the lip. “Hope that Long Fist makes a mistake.”
“How likely is that?”
“He hasn’t made one yet.”
Someone shifted on the floor behind Adare, the wide pine boards creaking with the weight.
“The Urghul might not a’ made a mistake,” Nira said, her voice a rough file over stone, “but you have, you son of a Csestriim bitch.”
Adare spun to find the old woman standing just a few feet inside the back door, her brother hunched in the shadows behind her. She looked the same—stoop-backed, hair a curled halo of gray about her wizened face—but there was something in her eyes, something sharp and bright that Adare had never seen there. For half a heartbeat she just stared at the woman she had made her councillor, and then, behind her, just where il Tornja was standing, she heard the clatter of steel dropping to the wooden floor. She turned once more to find Fulton still holding his sword, or what was left of it.
The blade had been cut cleanly just above the hilt, the steel scar seared smooth. The length of the weapon lay on the pine boards at the kenarang’s feet, while around his neck floated a bright collar of flame. The slender line of fire throbbed, as though someone had slashed open the world and beyond it lay another world, one filled to the stars and beyond with unquenchable fire. Fulton took a step back, obviously baffled, but il Tornja didn’t move. His eyes, lit by the light of the burning collar, had gone hard as stones.
“What is this?” he asked, raising a hand to the ring, taking care not to touch it.
“You might call it justice,” Nira said, stepping forward from the shadows. “Or you might call it vengeance.” She smiled a
tight smile. “Or you might just call it bad fucking luck. Doesn’t much matter, because either way, it’s gonna kill you.”
The kenarang turned his head just a fraction to meet her stare, narrowed his eyes, then, after a brief pause, said simply, “Ah. Rishinira.”
“Do I look different,” she asked quietly, “after all these years?”
He seemed to study the question. “You look stronger,” he said at last.
She barked a laugh, while Adare felt her own stomach shift queasily. The pieces fell abruptly, terrifyingly into place. Someone close to the center of power. A creature long given to schemes and machinations . . .
“What are you doing, Nira?” Adare asked slowly.
The old woman didn’t take her eyes from il Tornja. “Just finishing up a very tiresome errand.”
He was Csestriim. That was the only answer. Ran il Tornja was Csestriim. Her father’s killer was Csestriim. Somehow, impossibly, he was the Csestriim Nira had been searching for all these years, the one who made her nearly immortal. The brute fact smashed through everything Adare thought she understood about the world, and her mind refused it, kicked it away, grasped desperately for some other explanation. She felt as though she had looked into the bottom of a deep well and seen the sun.
Il Tornja spread his hands, the sort of invitation a host might make upon opening the door to newly arrived guests. “I see you’ve made the acquaintance of my old friends, Adare.” He nodded toward Nira’s brother, who was staring at him with eyes like saucers—“Hello, Roshin”—then turned back to her. “I don’t know how you found these two, but I assume you are ignorant of their history.”
“No,” Adare said, shaking her head, forcing down the confusion and the terror. “I’m not ignorant of it, in fact. Nira and Oshi have been completely honest with me.”
Il Tornja frowned. “Then you understand that they are leaches. That they helped to destroy half of the continent you call Eridroa. They are the Atmani.”
“What I understand,” Adare said, forcing herself to say the words, though she could only manage a whisper, “is that if they are the Atmani, then you are the monster who made them.”
Il Tornja frowned. “Monster is a terribly freighted word. As for making them, only Bedisa can weave a soul. She made them, made them a brother and sister, both leaches. All we did was help to extend their power, to give them the life they still enjoy.”
Adare felt like weeping, like screaming, but it was Nira who responded, her voice gravid with rage.
“Enjoy?” she spat. “The life we enjoy?” She thrust a finger at her brother. “Your gifts broke us.”
“A fact that I have regretted since the day I realized it was true.”
“You’re Csestriim,” Nira hissed savagely. “You don’t feel regret.”
Something alien passed through il Tornja’s gaze, an utter emptiness that made Adare quail. “Your certainties, Rishinira, may prove as illusory as my own have.”
Blood filled Adare’s mouth, bitter and salty. She realized she had bitten through her cheek, and tried not to gag. “What do you want?” she managed. “Why are you here?”
He turned back to her, pausing for a moment as though considering his answer. “I want what I have long wanted,” he replied finally. “To protect Annur from her foes.”
“A lie,” Nira snarled. “Just another fucking lie.”
Il Tornja shook his head. “Since its founding, Annur has been ruled by Malkeenians, but in many ways, it is my empire. It is the penance I undertook, the thing I created, to atone for my failure with you, Rishinira, and with Roshin, and the rest.”
Adare wanted to scream at Nira to tighten the flaming collar and have done with it. The man had lied to her so many times already, and each time she had allowed herself to be led like a docile beast. Just one more step. Always just one more step.
She almost said it. “Kill him,” she almost said, opening her mouth to let the words out, but they would not come.
It was the easiest course, the just course, but it also reeked of confusion and desperation. Revenge was a reaction, and she needed to do more than react. She needed to think, to think deeper and better than she had been thinking all these months. She needed to see further than her foes. That il Tornja was Csestriim she could barely believe, but if it was true, the truth had consequence. It explained things. He was not just a human general risen to his post on the strength of his native genius, but something even more dangerous. More powerful.
Adare eyed the collar of flame around the kenarang’s throat, watched it shift and writhe. Il Tornja hadn’t tried to move since Nira wove it in place, which meant that he was trapped, at bay. The terror inside her still raged, but emperors were not ruled by their terror. It was foolish to destroy something before she fully understood it, before she knew whether or not she could use it.
“How,” she asked, her voice rigid as steel, “is Annur your empire?”
He met her stare. “I have been with her since the start. I told Terial where to build his capital. I commanded the army that put down the Second Secession—”
Adare shook her head curtly. “Raginald Went put down the Second Secession.”
He grinned. “Have you ever seen a painting of Raginald Went?”
Adare’s mind foundered. Raginald Went had refused to be painted. He had refused a statue on the Godsway in his honor, going so far as to have his soldiers tear down the incomplete work. At the time, everyone had hailed his humility, but what if it had not been humility at all?
It was then that the realization started to penetrate, soaking in like a frigid winter rain, freezing her to the core. Ran il Tornja was immortal. This was not his first post, not his first role in the Annurian chronicles. Nira had said it herself on the road south to Olon: the man was drawn to power like a moth to light. How many names had he worn down through the dusty halls of history? How many parts had he played?
He nodded, as though he could hear her silent question. “I was Mizran to Alial the Great. I fought the Manjari at the Rift in the Western Wars, and the jungle tribes down in the Waist during the Dark Summer. I founded the Aedolian Guard to protect your family.”
Adare was shaking her head, but no words would come.
“The Kettral study a book on tactics by Hendran,” he continued, speaking slowly now, as though to a child. “I wrote it. I was Hendran for almost three decades. At every step, I have been there, a faithful shepherd to Annur and to the Malkeenians both.”
“Why?” Adare demanded quietly. “Why would you do that?”
For the first time he hesitated. “My people are gone,” he said at last. “Never to return. There can’t be more than a few dozen of us left, scattered here and there. The Csestriim will never come back, but I wanted to create something on this earth like what we lost: a kingdom, an empire, a polity ruled by reason and justice rather than fear, and greed, and passion.”
He gestured to Nira and Oshi. “We tried with the Atmani, thought that if we found a way to bring immortality to a small, just group of rulers, that they would, in turn, bring order to the world.” He grimaced. “We failed. Bedisa did not build your minds for the long passage of years. Instead of ushering in order and justice, we plunged the world into madness.”
He turned to Nira. “Do you remember, Rishinira?” he asked almost gently. “How young you all were, and beautiful? How eager for justice and peace? What we did, we did with you, not to you. We shared a hope. One that went awfully awry.”
Adare glanced at the old woman and discovered tears sheeting down her cheeks. “You knew what would happen,” she said, balling her hands into fists. “You’re Csestriim. You must have known.”
“No,” he replied. “We did not. Even the gods fail, and we were never gods.”
He turned back to Adare. “Where I failed with the Atmani, I have succeeded with Annur, at least to a degree.”
“Why didn’t you just rule yourself?” Adare demanded. “Why make my family your puppets?”
He smiled ruefully. “The Malkeenians were hardly puppets. You’re too quick and stubborn for that. And then,” he gestured with a hand to her scars, “there is Intarra’s hand upon you as well, a hand more powerful than my own will ever be. No, you were never puppets. We have been . . . collaborators in this great project. Men and women accept the Malkeenians, revere you, where they could never accept one of my kind.”
Adare took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to sort the lies from the truth. At the side of the room, Oshi had left his bear to stand beside Nira, their fingers laced together.
“Do we fight, sister?” he asked quietly. He stared at il Tornja, but his eyes held no recognition.
“It’s not a matter of fighting,” she said, gesturing to the collar of flame with a withered hand. “It is a matter of killing. A thought, and he is dead.”
Adare stepped forward, her body moving even as her mind scrambled to keep up, putting herself squarely between the Atmani and il Tornja, raising a hand, as though that would do anything to block Nira’s kenning.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You can’t.”
“Do not lecture me, child,” Nira replied, eyes cold as winter night, “on the handling of my own vengeance.”
Adare hesitated, tried to think. If she was going to lead Annur, she needed to be able to reason even as her mind reeled. If half of what the man claimed were true, a quarter of it—if he had fought in all those battles, had counseled the greatest of the Malkeenian emperors—then she could use him. No, she amended silently, she needed him. Despite her father’s tutelage, despite the hundreds of tomes she’d read on politics and law, finance and governance, she had no idea how to handle the threat posed by Long Fist, no idea how to manage the various borders, no strategy to keep peace down in the Waist. Letting il Tornja live was a danger, a risk, but risk was everywhere. The man was a well-honed tool, one she could turn to her advantage, to Annur’s advantage. . . .
“Stand aside, Adare,” Nira said.
Slowly, Adare shook her head. “Hear me out. For my sake, and for yours.” She raised her chin toward Oshi. “For his.”
Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne 02 - The Providence of Fire: Page 51