“I promised to stay,” I countered. “If I escape, they’ll go after for Bo. My being here protects him.”
I rolled onto my side, my back to Curlin. A rat skittered out of the pile of moldy hay in the corner, across the filthy flagstones and through the iron-barred door.
Curlin kicked me in the spine, making me groan in agony. “Don’t be a rutting fool. You aren’t keeping him safe by staying here. You’re allowing these asses to use you as leverage. Bo would never do anything that would put you in danger, and as long as you’re here, the temple can force his hand.”
I sat up and faced her, my body screaming in protest. “There’s no way out of here, no way out of this. Acting like we’re suddenly going to find a key or somehow pick the lock is wishful thinking. We’ve got no allies. We’ve got no friends. We’re alone, and we’re trapped. Even the rats have more freedom than we do.”
“Well...” A thin voice, wavering and quiet and eerily familiar, came floating over to us from the darkness just outside our cell. “That’s not entirely true.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Bo
After the disastrous meeting at the palace, we retreated back to the ship, where we found Patrise and Lisette waiting on board. Not, as I might have guessed, preemptively celebrating our victory—they hadn’t expected that outcome for a moment—but ready to plot our next move. Or, rather, putting themselves in the room where our next action would be decided. Neither of them had made a single suggestion in well over an hour.
“You truly mean to say that you didn’t think it was important to tell me that Claes had survived? My sister just handed herself over to the temple. To him. There’s no telling what he’ll do to her.”
Vi’s pain, her fear, were like bells ringing in the far distance. I forced myself not to focus on the cord of awareness that ran between us. I would get her out of there. I had to.
I glared at Patrise, lounging on the sofa. “We’ve all but declared war on both the temple and Rylain, and if the two of you have spent these last few months drunkenly gallivanting around Penby rather than bringing the singleborn over to our side and actually paying attention to what’s been going on here, I honestly can’t promise that I’ll be responsible for my own actions.”
Patrise sighed and took a sip of his kaffe. He made a face and turned to Lisette. “Darling, get me a bit of ouzel, would you? I don’t know that I can face this conversation entirely sober.”
Lisette snickered and passed Patrise the cut-crystal decanter. “No reason to change your reprehensible opulence now. I doubt you’ve faced an entire day fully sober in your adult life.”
“If you two don’t focus, I’ll throw you bodily off this ship,” I said.
Swinton snapped, “Who’s to say I won’t either way? Looks to me like they could use a good, cold dunk, the rutting ingrates.”
I laid a calming hand on his arm and forced my attention back to the papers and books on the table in front of me. We would have to talk about Claes, but not in front of these two.
“Gerlene, is there anything we’re missing here? Anything at all?”
She drummed her fingers on the table, shaking her head. “In the history of the empire, there’s never been a transition of power this complex, but as I said to the rest of the singleborn, I cannot see any legal reason that you should not ascend. Rylain’s newly formatted council is another matter entirely, as she’s changed the rules without legal precedent. We can question the legality of it, but it would be better still if we could simply force a majority vote.”
“If I understand it correctly—” Quill spoke slowly and deliberately, his brows furrowed “—Rylain’s new appointees doubled the size of the council, filling it out with temple flunkies. Correct?”
“That’s right,” Gerlene agreed.
“But by law, there’s a clear limit to the number of voting members allowed, whether Rylain changed the size or not.”
“Yes, but she has the majority,” I said, sighing.
Patrise flung his booted feet off the table and stood. “I do believe I may see where you’re going, you delectable bite of rebellious perfection. Brilliant. It’s simply brilliant.”
Quill’s jaw clenched, but he went on. “Bo has a seat on the council, and any person voted onto the council after him has no legal right to participate. Therefore—”
Patrise cut him off. “With the help of the other singleborn, we should be able to force Rylain to step down.”
Lisette’s sour look blossomed into a wry smile. “Well, that’ll be no trouble at all. We’ve got three of the six votes in the room already. And the others all but said that they would support Bo’s succession the other day. Plus Olivar’s got a dimmy daughter who was taken up by the Shriven not a week after Rylain took power. He’s not seen or heard from her since. He’ll be with us, certainly. Zurienne is a bit more difficult, but I do believe that somewhere in our little collection of blackmail we might have something on her if she tries to double-cross us. Dame Turshaw is the real beast.”
“It would be in everyone’s best interest if she would just do the right thing and die already,” Patrise said.
While Patrise and Lisette sniped, Gerlene’s face had taken on the blank, dreamlike quality that it did when she was in the midst of working through a complex problem in her head. But at the mention of Dame Turshaw, her eyes snapped into focus.
“There’s been more tragedy in that woman’s life than you’ll ever know, and she’s much stronger for it,” Gerlene said coldly. “I’ll thank you to speak of her with the respect and admiration that her long service to this empire rightly deserves.”
Patrise slumped back into his chair and filled his delicate porcelain kaffe cup with ouzel before sliding the decanter down the table to a pouting Lisette.
“That said,” Gerlene went on as she gathered up her papers, “I might have a way around the question of the temple’s seats at the council table. I’ll need to consult my books. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have a concrete answer.”
With Gerlene gone, the rest of the group disbanded, and I sank onto a plush sofa next to Swinton.
“So,” he said, “Claes is alive.”
I nodded and reached out to lace my fingers through his. “You know I don’t... I couldn’t... You are...”
He snorted. “You really think that after everything we’ve been through... After all you did for me in Denor—after everything that bastard did to you and Vi that I would, even for a second, imagine you’d go running back to him?” He brought my hand to his lips and kissed my palm. “Call me arrogant, but it would have never crossed my mind.”
I let out a breath I felt like I’d been holding since the moment I recognized Claes. “I haven’t got feelings for him,” I said. “I haven’t for a long time.”
Swinton grinned at me, a look that contained more confidence than I’d often felt in my life. “How could you with me by your side? I’m a far better catch.”
He leaned in close, his breath sweet with spiced tea, and kissed me. The scent of the sea clung to him, salt spray and adventure, and the scent reminded me of all the hours we’d spent on the decks of ships, talking about a future that felt impossible and just within our grasp at the same time.
I let myself fall into the kiss. Into him. Into the future we’d imagined together. And as I pressed my body into his, everything else—the stress, the fear, the sheer impossibility of what we were trying to do—receded into the back of my mind. And we were just two people. In love.
“Do you think it’s even worth it?” I asked sometime later. “Should I just let Rylain take over, and to hell with the empire? Save Vi and walk away? We could set up a house somewhere in the mountains in Ilor. Fill it with books and animals and children. We could be happy.”
Swinton, who’d been stroking my hair, froze. “Bo, these people...” His voice was determined, confident. �
�They’re your responsibility. Your endless compassion, your dedication to this enormous task that Runa set in front of you, your optimism, your hope—all of those pieces of you, all of those things I love about you—they’re what will make you a great king. You can’t give up now. Alskad is in your blood. You’d never be able to live with yourself if you walked away now.”
Exhaustion ate at my bones, gnawed at me until I felt raw. The conviction I’d felt not so long ago was a well long dry. I wanted to see a way out. Any way out. “Rylain’s not so bad. Without the ability to make more of the poison, the temple is basically harmless.”
I knew the words were lies even as they formed in my mouth.
“If you believe that, you’re not the man I know.”
Swinton shifted my head out of his lap and stood abruptly, pulling me to my feet.
“I don’t. Of course I don’t. I just feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do.”
“You can go see your people,” Swinton suggested. “Remember who you’re fighting for. Come on.”
* * *
Swinton and I followed Pem through the winding streets of the neighborhood by the docks and into the End. People rushed past us with their heads down. No one made eye contact. Gone were the fisherwomen hawking oysters and clams. Gone were the vendors with carts of tea and pastries. The people we passed were afraid, though of what, I couldn’t quite guess.
By the time we reached the house where my siblings still lived, curiosity and fear had seeped into my bones. Pem climbed the steps, cautioning us to stay back. She knocked a complex rhythm on the thick wooden door. The windows were shuttered, even on this mild day, giving the house the look of something abandoned, forsaken. The door finally opened, just wide enough for the barrel of a rifle to slide through the crack at head height.
“It’s me, you slivering hair ball,” Pem said. “I’ve brought Bo and Swinton.”
I heard a muffled cry, and then the door flew wide. Brenna raced down the steps to us and flung her arms around our necks, pulling us all together into a tight embrace.
“Come on, then. Let’s get you inside before someone sees you.”
Brenna pulled Swinton and me into the foyer, and Pem and Still hustled in behind us. The moment we were inside, Chase and Tie slammed the door shut, bolted all the locks and shifted a heavy iron bar into place across the door.
I glanced at Swinton, but his face was an impassive mask. “Has it gotten so bad as all that?” I asked.
Tie and Chase just stared at me, their jaws nearly hanging open. “Best come into the kitchen and have a bite,” Brenna said. “We’ve clearly got a lot to talk about.”
As she led us through the dim rooms, she pulled Pem and Still close, tugging on their collars and smoothing the flyaway curls that had escaped from their braids. Seeing them in this house, with its shabby carpets, shuttered windows and close, sparsely furnished rooms, my youngest siblings looked suddenly out of place. Though we’d been gone less than a quarter of a year, the two of them had grown taller, with roses in their cheeks and the bright eyes of well-fed, happy children. They looked like different people, especially in comparison to our other siblings. Brenna and Chase had dark circles under their eyes, and Tie’s cheekbones were sharp against the new shadow of a beard coming in. Guilt ate away at my stomach.
In the kitchen, Lair was stirring a pot of thin soup. When he saw Pem and Still, he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around the girls, wooden spoon still in his hand. He looked up at me with tears in his eyes.
“You kept them safe, brother. Thank you.” He looked back at the girls. “And you two. What trouble have you gotten yourselves into, then?”
Pem glanced over her shoulder at me, but before she could speak, I cut in.
“A story for a later time, I think. What’s happened here? Has Gerlene not taken care of you? Why’ve you turned this place into a fortress? Moreover, why are you still here? I thought Gerlene was going to set you up somewhere new. Somewhere safe. And where are Fern and Trix?”
Brenna filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove to boil, avoiding my eyes. Lair dished the thin soup into eight chipped and mismatched bowls, which Chase and Tie set on the table. When everyone was settled, Brenna poured tea and I watched as Pem and Still loaded theirs with cream and cubes of sugar, while the others stared at them aghast. Just a couple of months away, and already they’d seemed to have grown blind to how dear those little comforts were for the rest of our family.
Lair cleared his throat. “Fern and Trix got took up by the Shriven ’bout three days ago. They went out for an hour to get some things with the money Gerlene sent—”
Brenna cut in. “She’s been doing her best. Truly she has, but with the Shriven prowling the streets, and them knowing how we’ve ties to you? Well, it ain’t been easy for us to get in or out or nothing. We’ve been more or less trapped like rats in here.”
Tie went on, “Fern and Trix were the best at getting around them without being noticed, but I guess either they got careless or the Shriven got trickier.”
Swinton hadn’t touched his soup. “But what do they want from you? What could they possibly do to you? You’ve broken no laws that I can see.”
Tie and Chase exchanged a look. “They don’t need a reason no more. They took Brenna in for questioning right after you left. Broke her wrist, roughed her up—”
“You hush,” Brenna interrupted. “It wasn’t nearly so bad as what they’ve done to other folks. I got off easy.”
The single sip of soup I’d taken turned to stone in my throat. I looked at Brenna, but she was staring into her bowl. Pem and Still were the only of my siblings who would meet my eyes, and they looked as confused as I felt. I waited, hoping that my silence would force one of them to tell me the truth.
Finally, Chase squared her shoulders and put down her spoon. “We didn’t expect things to get so bad so quickly after you left. But before your boat even left the harbor, Rylain decreed that dimmys were no longer allowed to walk freely, and all of them had to turn themselves in to the temple, where they could be ‘properly supervised.’” Her voice became choked, and she swiped angrily at the tears flooding her gray eyes. “The ones stupid enough to follow those orders were burned on the beach within the week. A sacrifice to Hamil, the temple said. To make up for the evil of a twin having the audacity to take the sacred vows of the singleborn heir to the throne.”
Under the table, Swinton’s hand closed around mine, steadying me. I took a deep breath. “They’re placing the blame for a mass murder on my shoulders?”
“That’s just the beginning,” Lair said. “Anyone who’s not made donations to the temple at a sacrificial level has been tapped for immediate payment or seizure of property. The folks who’ve not gone to temple have disappeared, and anyone with enough sheer stupidity to speak out against the Suzerain or Rylain is executed. There are executions every evening at the square and sacrifices to the gods on the beach every morning at sunup. Even the children of dimmys, the brothers and sisters of dimmys, have been snatched off the streets.
“Ain’t no one safe leaving their house, and gods forbid everyone falls asleep without someone to stand watch,” Brenna said. “I never in my life thought I’d be grateful for Ina Abernathy, but the fact that she was always in enough debt to send bill collectors calling at all hours of the day and night has been a blessing. We’ve found more hideaways, hidden stashes and secret ways out of this house in the last few months than I’d’ve thought possible.”
Chase grinned at her siblings. “Should we tell—”
“Where is Ma, anyway?” Pem’s interruption was the first thing she’d said since we walked into the house. “Where’s Da?”
Brenna bit her lip. “Ain’t seen her since you left, pet. Dammal’s been in and out, but we ain’t seen him in a week or two.”
“Did you check Zinnia’s place over by the tanner�
��s?” Still asked, a note of sour hope squeaking into her voice.
“I know you can’t stand to see them as flawed, bratlings,” Lair said. “But we’re a right bit better off without them. Don’t forget, Dammal sold Bo here out to the Shriven. Plus Ma’s never made our lives easier, and we can’t afford for them to be any harder now.”
“You’ll come with me,” I said, squeezing Swinton’s hand beneath the table. “If we can find a way to get you onto the ship, you’ll be safe enough.”
Swinton pulled his hand from mine and stood. “It’s all well and good to get your family to safety, Bo.” His voice shook with barely contained rage. “But what about the rest of your people? What’s happening here, it’s genocide. It’s murder. You can’t let this go on. And what about Vi? What about Fern and Trix? What are you going to do about the rest of them? How’ll you protect everyone and take back your throne?”
Brenna’s gray eyes fixed on me, her expression gone cold. “You let them take her? Bo, they’ll kill her! The minute she’s dead, you’re a dimmy, and they can murder you, free and clear.”
I pushed back my chair and stood, all the pieces of a plan spinning themselves together into a complicated and unlikely tapestry. I wrapped an arm around Swinton’s shoulder and pulled him close to me before he had the chance to shake me off. His rages had been lightning fast and frightening since Denor, but we’d both worked hard to find a way through them without the dreadful fights we’d thrown ourselves into at first. And the medicine helped—it wasn’t perfect, but it helped.
“Pem, Still? Are you up for a bit of intrigue?”
Beside me, Swinton moved to protest just as Brenna’s and Lair’s faces went hard.
“Hear me out,” I said. “The girls have more than proven themselves, and the only way this plan will work is with their help.”
The Exalted Page 36