The Justice in Revenge

by Ryan Van Loan

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “You know I would.”

  “You and Eld,” Salina said, breaking into my thoughts, “have been reported missing and are presumed dead, along with hundreds of others caught in the Lighthouse explosion. Your funds were transferred into the account you provided.”

  “Listing you as executor.”

  “Only in your absence,” she agreed. She took a sip of tea and glanced at me over the rim of her mug. “The balance is, uh, much more sizable than I imagined.”

  “The Parliamentarian was generous,” I said with a shrug.

  “She was a traitor, consorting with Normain to overthrow the Doga.”

  “Aye, but a generous one.” If I’d had any emotions left, I’d have grinned at the success of the false papers I’d left in her study. That is, if I’d wanted Salina to know the truth. “How’s the Empress taking it?”

  “Word is she’s ordered a season of mourning for her cousin.”

  “Time to raise levies, more like.”

  “Aye, I’m afraid so. Speaking of treason … I don’t understand why you set me up to win the vote for Chair when it could have been you.”

  I leaned against the seawall, watching the ship before us making ready to set sail, and shrugged. “The Chair passed suddenly and we needed a new one.”

  “The same night the Doga did. The Imperial Guard have surrounded her palazzo and none have been allowed entry.”

  “They say trouble comes in threes,” I said.

  I laughed at her expression. “The Chair wanted the Doga removed, Salina. When I told her”—I shrugged—“she laughed so hard she choked. To death.”

  “She did not!”

  “Well, she’s dead, and none can say it was foul play, so that’s as good a story as any other.” I took a sip from my mug. And now the Empress thinks she has you to thank for staving off open rebellion. “Best watch out what jokes you listen to in the future, now that you’re Chair.”

  Salina chuckled. “But you should be the Chair! This is everything you’ve been working toward.”

  “It was,” I agreed.

  I thought about how I’d fucked up over the course of the past year, how I’d gotten caught up in the very thing I’d set out to destroy. It’d been easy to imagine that once I took control of the Company that I’d be able to change everything, but now I knew the truth. I need to get away from all of this. I’d given Salina instructions on how to break free of the Sin Eaters’ grip. It’d be difficult and messy at first, but with half the Servenzan branch dead as a result of fighting the Dead Gods, with the Empire and Normain at one another’s throats, Salina should be able to steer a path clear.

  My own path was looking rockier than I’d imagined. I thought I’d scaled the mountain, but it had turned out to be a hill. The real summit still lay before me and I was just beginning to realize how much farther I had to go, how much more was left. I’d do it, I’d come too far, scaled too high, to turn back, but I couldn’t win my war seated behind a desk or on a throne. If Sicarii had taught me one thing, it was the value of working from the shadows. After losing Eld, I felt like a shade of my former self, ground down to the essentials and ready to do what was required.

  “Salina, you’ll be far better at doing what is needed here than I.”

  “I hope I’m worthy of your faith,” she said dryly.

  “I know you are,” I said. If she wasn’t, well, the Doga had given me enough before the end that even if I had somehow massively misjudged Salina, she wouldn’t be able to step very far out of line before I could snap her back. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She was the closest thing I had left to a friend, but there was no one and nothing left that I wouldn’t sacrifice, in the end. Whatever the cost.

  “Another thing. Give Lucrezia the Parliamentarian’s position.”

  Salina whistled through her teeth. “Rewarding one of the sharks who had eyes for Eld? You’re growing soft.”

  “No, it was never about Lucrezia.” The ship I’d been watching, a massive galleon of Cordoban design, dropped sails and sailors began casting off lines. “She’s dangerous in her own way, but it’s a small way. Put her there and you won’t have to worry about a situation like the one her predecessor created.”

  Salina shuddered.

  “’Sides, do that and you’ll earn an ally. Even being able to fill two seats and wielding our votes in absentia, you’re going to need an ally.”

  “There it is,” Salina said. Her amber eyes were bright in the sunlight. “I knew there was more to it than that.” She frowned. “I’m not so certain she’s going to give a fig about me.”

  “You’re the Chair and your life is about to become very difficult. Everyone will want something from you—and from Lucrezia, if she is Parliamentarian. The woman will want for an ally, and who better than the Chair?”

  Salina nodded thoughtfully.

  “Artificer!” At my call, the short man detached himself from the wall a dozen paces down and joined us. Dusting off his dark, tailored coat that was buttoned to his neck, he dry-washed his hands and adjusted his spectacles expectantly. I pointed toward the Cordoban ship. “You’re sure that’s the one?”

  “It is,” he agreed.

  “All right, go find Joffers and tell him to have the gondola ready. I told that captain we’d sail within the hour.”

  “As you say, Buc,” he said, inclining his head before scurrying away.

  “Do you trust him?” Salina asked.

  “Gods, no,” I snorted. “Trust no one and you’ll never be disappointed.”

  “You’re not wrong, but that’s harsh advice to follow.”

  “The Chair’s a harsh position,” I told her, leaning back against the wall.

  She followed my gaze and cleared her throat. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I am.”

  “You … and Eld … have a year and a day to return before your seats on the Board will be forfeit.”

  “Should be plenty of time,” I lied.

  Eld was never going to see Servenza again, and neither was I. Not with the shadow war between the Gods finally coming into the light, Normain and the Empire on the brink of war themselves, and Eld’s killer somehow slipping the trap I’d laid for her. A-fucking-gain.

  A figure leaning heavily on a cane moved awkwardly across the deck of the ship I’d been watching, stopping every few paces to lean against the rail. They glanced back toward the docks just as the sun caught them in the face. Something glittered brightly where their eyes should have been.

  “Today,” I said quietly, “is my eighteenth birthday.”

  “Oh, Buc.” Salina sighed. “I’d wish you well, but I’m not sure there’s a present I could give you that would replace what you’ve lost.”

  “I’ve an eye on a prize. Won’t replace a damned thing, but”—I shrugged—“it will do.”

  “Where are you going, Buc?”

  “After,” I said, watching Chan Sha sail away. After my prize. I wasn’t sure how the bitch had escaped. Likely jumped and used her Spider to spear another building and climb inside before everything tumbled down. It’s what I would have done, were I her. All that mattered was she still breathed. That my revenge was incomplete.

  For several minutes we stood in silence; I kept my gaze on the ship as it grew distant, then blurry from the tears in my eyes.

  Salina didn’t understand. This was bigger than Chan Sha. It was bigger than empresses and kings and queens and parliaments and boards that all watched and did nothing. It was bigger than Gods who saw us as pawns to be used in their undying war. It was about justice. For Eld. For Sister. For the whole damned world. I thought the most powerful Company in this world would give me what I needed, but now I knew the truth: that kind of power corrupts, it spills poison in your ears, weighs you down with gold until you drown. Wielding that kind of power makes it impossible to mete out justice.

  No, there was no justice in this world. And in the absence of justice, revenge would do.<
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  The Selected and Annotated Library of Sambuciña Alhurra

  Numbered and listed in order read, with notes by the reader. At the time of the events detailed in this volume, by her own count, Buc had read 391 books and an uncounted number of pamphlets.

  11

  Geniver Gillibrand

  A Twist of the Tongue

  Gillibrand may have poached her better lines from writers and poets and philosophers from throughout history, but she’s not above a few originals of her own and even the weakest amongst them rival Ballwik’s best.

  Buc’s notes: She has as much faith in what passes for truth as I have. Wonder what gutter she was swaddled in?

  24

  Yanton Verner

  Disciple of the Body—Anatomy

  Verner’s magnum opus caused issues with the bookbinders upon its release, but if one wishes to understand the anatomy of the body in all its glorious complexity, one must study this work.

  Buc’s notes: Nearly passed this one over for want of a cover. There’s a feel a book has, though, cover or not, that beckons, and I’m glad I heeded the call. Else I might be emptying my guts over the side like Eld. Easy crossing, my arse.

  219

  Hul Ferda

  Pyrotechnomancy, Maestros of Powder and Flame

  Hul made their living by selling fireworks displays to rulers of various city-states for well over a decade before it was discovered their name couldn’t be found on any of the lists of maestros kept by the pyrotechnomancy guilds of Colgna, Frulituo, Servenza, or the other city-states. This was all the more embarrassing giving Hul’s superior displays. Having made their coin on the mystery of their name and persona—in public they went masked, wearing a deeply hooded cloak; features and gender were thus completely obscured—Hul disappeared. Several years later, this work was released. While the guilds denounced it as full of false information, many would-be practitioners (those who didn’t blow themselves sky-high first) made their living off Hul’s learnings.

  Buc’s notes: I wonder why the army never took advantage of this? Sure, it can send pretty lights up into the sky, and placed horizontal it’s not as effective as a cannon, but up close? It’d bring the Constabulary or the Imperial Guard on the lighter side of said fusillade for certain. Best leave it for now. Still, desperate times and all that …

  286

  Bocha Semsin

  Flying Insects and Their Proclivities

  Semsin’s work isn’t the first to dive into the world of the insect, but it is the most comprehensive. She traversed the world from north to south and all of the east, studying bugs, taking copious notes, making numerous drawings of their carapaces, and taking especial care to capture the detail in their wings. When travel to the Shattered Coast became possible, she was one of the first to book passage, vanishing, like so many before her, into the foggy notations on the edges of the map table.

  Buc’s notes: I almost put this down at the start—but it could be worthwhile knowing which areas of southern Cordoban to avoid or that there’s a morass between Normain and Colgna filled with a biting fly that will lay poisonous eggs beneath your skin. Even Eld didn’t know that one, and he has surprising knowledge of all things biting.

  371

  Pavlia

  On Hounds and Their Training

  Pavlia kept the coursers of Normain’s royalty for her entire life, having assumed the role from her father, who’d assumed it from his mother. While some claim Pavlia merely set down her father and grandmother’s lessons, a careful reader will note that many of her advanced tactics, such as using treats to reinforce good behavior that is then built upon in increasing layers of instruction, seem to have come, whole cloth, from Pavlia herself. Her father and those who came before were fond of the whip, but after the first third of the book, Pavlia dispenses with punishment nearly entirely.

  Buc’s notes: No stick, all honey, eh? I feel like men need a firmer hand than that or they’ll get uppity, but Eld’s too damned polite to push back much. If Pavlia’s tactics are sound, I need only tell him to do something he’d normally do already and then reward him for doing so? I’m not sure if this will have him eating out of my hand or not, but it’s worth a try. Men and hounds … I should have made the connection sooner.

  379

  Kanma Siltriva

  Silk and Sheets

  Siltriva was a famed mistress to the Doge of Colgna before his untimely death sent her fleeing into the Princess of Frilituo’s arms. When the papers learned of the wealth the Doge had willed to her and the Princess’s heirs uncovered similar alterations to her will, there were questions of poison. Siltriva was exiled to the Free Cities, where she ran the most famous bordello in the isles. Even the most experienced salt will learn something between these pages, aye, and blush in the learning.

  Buc’s notes: I’m not quite sure what is meant on page seventy-five. Oh wait, there’s an illustration on the next page. Damn …

  382

  Corewell

  On Pain and Its Application

  Half a century ago, Corewell was the maestro (futuwwa in Cordoban) of executions in the capital of the Cordoban Confederacy. One imagines, shuddering, that the man forgot more about torture than the rest of us have known. It is said that Corewell knew the methods to break every mind and every body, and how to keep a prisoner alive well past the point of endurance. Apocryphal, perhaps, but his famed execution of the assassin of the then-Doga’s son was witnessed by her captain of the Secreto, who reported that the woman took a score of days to die, rasping at the end because she’d chewed her own tongue off.

  Buc’s notes: What the actual fuck? I don’t think I’ll be able to let liver past my lips again after reading about the hook-and-anchor keelhaul. Yuck.

  384

  Archo

  The Distribution of Labor

  Archo could be forgiven for being mistaken for a maestro in his own right, but in point of fact he was a clerk in one of the sundry mercantile guilds that cropped up before the trading companies consolidated power. Had his guild listened to his suggestions or read his later works, they might have been the ones reaping the benefits instead of the trading companies. A masterwork in logistics and operational efficiencies for those who don’t mind a dry read, accompanied by, it must be said, rather bad illustrations.

  Buc’s notes: The bookseller warned me of Archo’s politics on distributive labor, but it reads like good sense to me. I’d have thought everyone involved in shipping or trade would have read and implemented half these practices already. Gods, how much profit is left on the table due to simple inefficiencies in the operations of these warehouses, let alone the manufactories?

  387

  Franca Witi

  Servenzan Antiquity and Architecture

  Franca Witi was one of the first to question not just how but why architecture existed in its current form, and why it had changed over time. Witi discovered that many of the architects who oversaw the construction of grand structures like the Castello and the original reef forts on the northern coast of Servenza were illiterate and that there may never have been blueprints, or even written plans, for many buildings on Servenza and the Imperial Isle. Her studies and drawings are the closest we will ever come to knowing how they were designed.

  Buc’s notes: There’s not just one, but two passages beneath the Castello’s great wall where we could have walked if we had not been forced out into that torrential downpour. If Eld finds out, he’ll never stop insisting politeness first is a policy I should adopt. If Witi is correct, there are several points of entry beyond the main doors; honestly, for being a prison the place has more holes than a block of Normain cheese. I don’t see any passages connecting to the cell of the Mosquitoes’ maestro, though. I’m missing something, I know it. I hate th—[paper is torn here, rendering line unreadable]

  391

  Kolka

  The Mind Fears the Body

  Almost assuredly a pseudonym, this Southeast Islander woman was a physiker cau
ght up in one of the endless forays against the Burnt. When medicine and even mage healing didn’t cure the ills of the mind, she began experimenting with that most novel of cures: talking. Refining her work over the course of a decade, Kolka gained fame after treating the son of the Crown Princess. Her work involved discussing the patient’s trauma while she distracted them by tapping a can against their leg. Her practices evolved from there, and briefly a sanctuary was established on the Southeast Island’s southern coast. Unfortunately, criticism by other physikers of Kolka’s refusal to include the body’s essential humors in her treatments led to a loss of patients and income and the clinic soon closed. When these same physikers refused to accept her patients—all former soldiers or sailors—they were sent to asylums or to the Shattered Coast.

  Buc’s notes: I could wish the woman was wrong, because I can feel the fire in my bones, but there’s something here, I think. I just wish it wasn’t so damned hard and that it wouldn’t feel as if I’d read Felcher’s Discourse on Planetary Bodies for the dozenth time after every session. My mind hurts and my heart aches and I just want this to go away. All right, Buc, the only way out is through. Let’s do this.

  Acknowledgments

  I don’t know if I’ve ever been more excited to write a novel than I was for The Justice in Revenge. I also know for certain I’ve never had a more challenging novel to write. Second novel syndrome. The sophomore slump. There are a lot of names for this common occurrence in the creative arts, whether it be acting, music, or in this case, writing: the second work not being as good as the debut that got the artist noticed in the first place. I’ve seen some good theories on why that might be: pressure that didn’t exist before, less time, no longer creating in a vacuum, etc.

  This book was not my second novel, but it was my first sequel and the first time I wrote a book knowing that someone beyond my friends and family and agent were going to read it. You, dear reader, were going to read it. To that end, I put a lot into this novel. Loads of new characters, arcs, twists upon twists upon twists. Too much, in fact. Like the Swedish flagship Vasa, The Justice in Revenge was top-heavy. Thankfully, I’ve some of the finest shipwrights in publishing on my side and they helped me get her trimmed up and into fighting shape. If you enjoyed Buc and Eld’s latest adventure, it is them you have to thank, and if you did not, the blame lies wholly upon myself. Here are a few of those shipwrights.