by Devin Madson
His words dropped some of the weight from my shoulders and I drew him to me, squeezing him hard. “Thank you.”
“Thank yourself for teaching me to be a stubborn ass,” he mumbled into my shoulder.
I let him go with a laugh, my soul momentarily lighter. “You had a good teacher there, that’s for sure.”
The lightness was short-lived. Amun was only one Sword, and even if I could get others to believe me, what could I do? We needed to get into Kogahaera to save who we could, and dividing the Levanti more would not achieve that. I didn’t trust Ezma, but we needed to get inside the city.
“I have to go see the empress.”
Amun set his hands on his hips and eyed me suspiciously. “What for?”
“To change my vote. I’ll explain later. Do you know where Tor is?”
I started walking away before he could answer. “Probably with the empress already or not far,” he called after me. “But wait—” He jogged to catch up. “There’s something else. I came to find you because a small group of Bedjuti arrived while you were gone. Only ten of them, don’t get excited. They’ve been scouting in the north and came across a large group of Kisian soldiers seemingly without a leader. Do we… do we tell the empress? Do you trust her enough to give her more soldiers?”
I had stopped to listen, but with so much on my mind I could hardly focus on what he was saying. I shook my head, more in confusion than disagreement. “I don’t know. I think so? I’ll tell Tor. I had better go.”
“All right,” he said as I walked away. “But you had better explain later! I don’t want to be still wondering what the fuck we’re doing by the end of the night, all right?”
I waved a hand at him and hurried on, fighting back doubts. I had voted against gathering the other Swordherds because I didn’t trust Ezma, because I feared how few would side with me, but there wasn’t time for doubt anymore. We needed more Levanti and we needed them now. Needed to get into the city. Needed to go home. Even if I could persuade half the Levanti I was telling the truth, it would be worth the risk.
Soldiers stared at me as I strode along looking for the empress’s tent. Many had flags and flapping crimson openings, but only one had General Ryoji standing outside, lantern light lapping at his feet.
“General,” I said, catching his attention. “I need to talk to the empress.” I mimed talking and pointed at the tent as I said her name, hating how foolish I must look.
But he didn’t laugh. He asked a question before thinking better of speaking Kisian at me and held up a hand for me to wait. Having stuck his head inside, Tor emerged.
“Rah?” the young man said. “What is it?”
Almost I demanded to know what he was doing with Empress Miko, but I swallowed the words just in time and said, “I need to talk to the empress. I’ve changed my vote.”
He stared at me a long moment. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I can’t hide behind someone else’s army because I’m afraid of my own people.”
A slow nod was all I got for my honesty before he ushered me in.
“If you surrender the city,” the empress muttered, pacing slowly back and forth across a carpeted floor. “If you surrender the city. If you surrender the city.” She stopped and looked up. “Rah.”
“You speak Levanti?”
She looked to Tor, who shook his head. “I’m teaching her a speech she can make. To appeal to the Levanti at Kogahaera.”
Of course. Stupid not to have thought of that.
Before I could recall why I had come, Shishi bounded across the matting toward me in a flurry of white and tan fur. “Shishi!” I knelt to scruff her ears, letting her lick my face and taking a moment to press my forehead to hers. As joyous as it was to be so fondly remembered, I had come with a serious purpose and soon forced myself to stand. Despite her dog’s welcome, the empress lifted her brows in haughty challenge, and I couldn’t but think of the last time we had stood so close together. She had kissed me, our mutual desire ending us in a tangle on the floor until I’d tried to explain why we could go no further. She must have thought of it too, for the tension in the lantern-lit tent grew tight and hot. By the opening, Tor said, “Shall I go and—”
“No,” I said. “I need you to translate. First, tell her there are some newly arrived Levanti who found a group of Kisian soldiers sheltering in the north. I don’t know any details, but if she wants to find them, talk to Amun. Then tell her I’m changing my vote. I agree to the Levanti leaving to gather more allies.”
Tor’s eyes had narrowed at the mention of more Kisian soldiers and stayed narrowed as he said, “With Ezma as their leader?”
“Yes. With Ezma as our leader and me as her second.”
My words were relayed to the empress, who snapped out a question.
“She wants to know what changed your mind.”
“Time to think. No Kisians should have to fight Levanti battles. We will do this ourselves.”
Empress Miko nodded, her face carefully neutral. I wished I knew what she was hiding behind it, but it would have to wait until this was done. We had both come too far to focus on anything else now.
“I will inform my generals,” she said. “You may leave whenever suits you.” She didn’t add that we had better not betray her or her people, but the sentiment was there all the same.
“Thank you.”
It was poor gratitude. She was trusting us, trusting me, with the safety of her empire, and I was only half sure I could keep Ezma from turning the Levanti back upon Kisia. I couldn’t say that, of course, couldn’t say anything but thank you and goodbye and bow as I left her tent, sure that to stay any longer would see all the truths come pouring like confessions from my lips.
Rather than risk another run-in with Ezma, I sent someone else to her with the message. I hadn’t been sure what to expect, whether she would seek me out herself with suspicious demands to know what I meant by it, or whether she would change her mind too and refuse, but all she did was send back a message with a condescendingly worded thank you that made me hate even the face of the Sword who had carried it. We were to leave at dawn.
Knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep, I went to the horse pen. Jinso was still awake, nosing about in the grass, keeping to himself. “Hello there,” I said, patting his neck. “We leave in the morning.”
I wanted to tell him I didn’t know what would happen. Didn’t know where we would end up when we walked out of here. That I wanted to leave as much as I wanted to stay, but I couldn’t risk admitting aloud how close the empress and I kept coming to having something, only for it to come to nothing. Perhaps it was too late now anyway.
“Rah! There you are!”
I turned, hand falling from Jinso’s neck. Amun hurried into the pen, someone following in his wake, their breathing laboured like they’d run a long way.
“What is it?”
Amun halted, taking a deep breath to steady his heart rate while his companion bent double, gasping. “It’s Gideon.”
“Gideon?” My stomach dropped. Everything seemed suddenly very far away. “What about him?”
“I’ll let Jass explain. He just arrived from Kogahaera. Dishiva sent him.”
“Dishiva? What’s going on?”
Fear thundered through my veins, and I had to keep from shaking Jass to make him speak faster. Sweat ran down his face and his chest heaved, but I would be sick if I had to keep waiting.
“Is he dead? Is—”
Jass shook his head. “No—not dead. But he’s—in a really bad way.”
One fear lightened, only to be replaced with more. “In a bad way? You mean injured? Sick? Tell me, please.”
The man let out a long breath and nodded. “Sick. In the head. I don’t know. It’s something to do with Leo, but I don’t really understand it. Dishiva just said I had to come and find you and tell you because if you don’t come, he’s going to be torn apart by Levanti before the Chiltaens even break down the gates.”
“
What? Why?”
Jass pressed his lips into a solemn line. “He’s… done some really bad things. The sort of things no one can forgive him for, even if they believe he was under the control of that shit.”
Control. “Leo’s an Entrancer?”
“A what?”
But I had been asking myself, memory spinning back to moments when it had seemed like he could read my mind. Like he knew what was going to happen. He’d been the only decent Chiltaen I’d met, and I’d fought hard to defend him, lost many Swords defending him.
And now he’d used Gideon too.
My stomach churned.
“Fuck.” I ran my hands over the short pelt of my hair. “Fuck!” If I didn’t go with Ezma she would get all the Levanti on her side, might turn them against Miko, but if I went, I was leaving Gideon defenceless, alone, fending for himself. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t.
“What did he do?” Amun’s question was quietly spoken, but his fierce words reminded me how Gideon had let him stay behind in our first Chiltaen camp, knowing he would be killed. That Gideon had ordered us not to take the heads of enemies. That he had made a deal with the Chiltaens so more Levanti would be forced to fight. Had given up his saddleboys. Had slaughtered whole towns of innocent people. What more could he have added to his list?
“You know about the city? Mei’lian?”
Amun nodded. “And the attack on the deserter camp.”
“Right, well, after that…” Jass flicked a look my way. Wary. “He sent a lot of the Swordherds away and… killed others. For conspiring against him, he said, but they were all people who spoke against Leo. I’m sorry,” he added, looking fully at me now. “He killed Yitti. And some of the other Second Swords of Torin.”
It was like someone had taken a club to my head. Either I staggered or the ground moved, and when Amun spoke it was from far away. Yitti. I had begged for his help. He had been taking them home and I had stopped him. And now—
I threw up, spraying my horror upon the grass at Jinso’s feet. Self-blame swirled, along with anger at Leo and Ezma and anyone who had ever sought to control a Levanti. But beneath it all, the sick knowledge that Gideon hadn’t needed controlling, hadn’t needed pushing, to be capable of terrible things.
“Rah.” Amun’s hand was on my shoulder. I tried to breathe evenly, to suck in air and let it out with the same ease I’d possessed before Jass had spoken, with the same confidence in my goal. In Gideon.
Overhead, Jass whispered words of comfort to Jinso, and I couldn’t thank him for it. Couldn’t focus. Amun said no more, neither man making any attempt to comfort me when nothing could be said. Under Leo’s influence or not, the blood of my Swords was on Gideon’s hands as Sett’s blood was on mine.
For a time, I stayed crouched, unable to move, unwilling to look up and face either them or the decision I had to make. But time was not stopping. The night was getting no younger. And no matter how many times I told myself Gideon had become a monster, that everything he had done was wrong, that he deserved whatever was coming to him, my thoughts returned to imagining him alone and afraid.
And to the boy I had once been, sitting at the edge of the herd, ashamed.
I stood on legs that trembled more than I would like. I think Amun knew what I was going to say before I said it, something resigned and pained in his face though he said nothing.
“I’m going to him.”
“If you can hear that and still go, nothing I say will change your mind,” he said. “But what about the Levanti here? What about Ezma? We’re leaving at first light, remember.”
“You won’t be back by then,” Jass said. “The only safe way into the city is through caves that go under the walls, and it takes time.”
My people or Gideon. I almost laughed at how little consideration I gave it. “I’m going. Amun, you’ll have to take my place as Ezma’s second. You know as well as I do what she’s up to now.”
“Yes, but I’m not you,” he said. “People don’t want to follow me just because I looked at them. I don’t have your words.”
I set my hand on his shoulder, forcing a smile I was far from feeling. “I think I taught you more than just how to be a stubborn ass, but either way, I won’t ask you to go to Gideon for me, so this is the way it has to be.”
He didn’t tell me he thought Gideon deserved to be abandoned, that I was wrong to go, that I had to think of my people, and for that I was more grateful than for anything else.
“I know he’s done—”
“Just go, Rah,” he said. “I know. You don’t have to explain to me. I don’t fucking like it, but I get it. And you have to go or it will eat you up forever.”
For the second time that night I pulled him close, crushing his shoulders. “I know you’ll do me proud, Amun,” I said.
“And I know you’ll be a noble idiot. You always do such a fine job of it. Now get going, before you’re too late.”
I wished I could thank him for the selflessness it took to encourage me to do something he hated, but I couldn’t. All I could do was take a breath and turn to Jass. “All right, show me the way.”
22. MIKO
Tiateph,” I said.
“More emphasis on the p sound.”
Tor had slowly relaxed as he taught me, moving from standing stiffly to attention to slouching, to sitting, and now lying across a bank of cushions in one corner, staring up at the rippling tent.
“Tiateph,” I said again. And when he made no sign I’d said it any better, I kept trying. “Tiateph. Tiateph. TeeeeahhhtePAH.”
He rolled his head to look at me. “Are you taking this seriously?”
“Are you?” I snapped.
A frown lowered his brows, and somehow that silent censure was worse than even Minister Manshin’s disapproving looks. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
I sighed. “Yes, and I know I can never thank you enough for all you do to help me, but it’s been a long day and I’m tired and Levanti is—”
“Not as difficult as Kisian.”
“Do you always have a retort on hand to make me feel foolish and whingy?”
Tor laughed, a sound rare enough to take me by surprise. “Absolutely, Your Majesty,” he said, raising himself on an elbow. “I consider it my most important duty. To stop you flying too high above us mere mortals.”
“You,” I said, “are a monster.”
Almost I wished the words unsaid, playful as they were, but his lips twitched into a smile and the skin around his eyes crinkled. He saluted me in the Levanti way, one elbow still propping him off the floor. “It’s my finest quality.”
Before I could think of a retort, a Levanti voice sounded outside, and for the merest instant my heart constricted, sure Rah was back, but Shishi hadn’t so much as lifted her head from her place curled up in the middle of the floor. With a grunt of effort, Tor was up and striding to the opening, as though it had been his job to welcome people in and out of my tent.
A few brief words outside and he was back. “It’s Amun, Your Majesty. Amun e’Torin. He says he has a letter for you.”
“A letter? From whom?” But of course, Tor just shrugged and I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. Tell him to come in. Are you able to—?”
Tor broke in upon my question with a bitter “It’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?”
Before I could answer, Amun e’Torin stepped through the tent flap and stood wary and unsure of his welcome. I knew their last names came from the herd they were a part of, yet it always surprised me to find Torin who were so very unlike Rah in appearance. Amun was about half a head shorter than his one-time captain, his face broader, with a jaw so square it didn’t only appear chiselled from stone but could have been used as a chisel in its own right. He had deep-set eyes with something of a mournful shape, but that could merely have been the gravity of his mission.
I must have spoken a welcome for he saluted, uttering a respectful Levanti greeting, before holding out a scroll sealed with Kisian wax. My hand tremb
led as I took it, hunting a hint of who it was from and finding no sigil.
“It came from Kogahaera,” Amun said through Tor’s translation. “It was given to Jass en’Occha, who brought it out through the narrow cave system with him when he came to fetch Rah.”
Even as Tor spoke he flicked a glance at me, tension filling the tent. I had taken the letter, but did not drop my arm, my whole being seeming to freeze in place. “Fetch Rah?”
Amun grimaced, glanced at Tor with something like belligerence, and set his already square jaw hard before replying.
“He left,” Tor translated. “A message came for him too. It is… hard to explain, but it seems like Gideon is in a bad way, and Rah is going to him before the Levanti tear him apart.”
Rah, departing on the eve of a potential battle, leaving to save the very enemy I had come here to oust. It would be more complicated than that, and he wasn’t my Rah, and yet the hollow sense of abandonment couldn’t be quietened.
“I see,” I said, because I had to say something, had to appear cool and unconcerned, like the vagaries of the Levanti marching with us meant nothing to me, though I had a hundred questions. Why had Gideon e’Torin’s people turned on him? What did the Kisians in Kogahaera think? And most importantly, why Rah? What was Gideon e’Torin to him other than a herd brother?
In the end the only one I could ask was “He went alone?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. With Jass en’Occha to guide him. I am to be Whisperer Ezma’s second in his place when we leave in the morning to sweep the area for other herds.”
I nodded, nothing else I could do. “Thank you.”
A salute and Amun was gone, leaving Tor standing tense, hovering like he wasn’t sure whether he ought to stay or go. “They’ve been friends a long time,” he hazarded after a silence. “I don’t know if friendship can survive this, but… Rah is… always very honourable. He does what is right even if he hates it.”
“I understand. I hope he has no cause to regret his decision. You may go and rest now, Tor. Thank you for your help with the speech.”
He nodded and then, remembering his position, bowed and was gone.