Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades Read online

  “Perhaps if you intervened on my behalf—”

  “I have other things to do than run errands for a pampered son of an Emperor.”

  “I see,” Valyn replied, eyeing the chicken carcass. “Lunch is a priority.”

  Rallen heaved his bulk half out of his chair and loomed over his desk, face florid with anger. “You will stand down, cadet!”

  Valyn had overstepped. He knew it the moment the words left his mouth, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to swallow them.

  “You think,” Rallen continued, puffing so hard, Valyn thought he might collapse, “that just because you’re the son of the Emperor you have the right to strut in here and demand things? Do you think that?”

  “No, sir,” Valyn said, trying to change course.

  “It is not your place, not your place to judge. Not your place to question. Obedience, cadet. That is what is required of you.”

  Valyn gritted his teeth and nodded. If there were any choice, he would have taken his request directly to Shaleel. She was the commander of all field operations in northeastern Vash, which meant she coordinated everything the Kettral did in one of the stickiest parts of the world. She was also one of the hardest and smartest soldiers on the Islands. Unfortunately, whatever oddities the Kettral allowed, their command hierarchy was as inviolate as that of any other Annurian military order. If Valyn tried to bypass the Master of Cadets and barge directly into Shaleel’s chart room, he’d find himself back scrubbing latrines quicker than he could recite the Soldier’s Creed. And then, there were the words of the dead Aedolian echoing in his ears: Someone here … maybe someone important … is part of it.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, trying out his very best conciliatory voice. “My place is to serve and to obey. I stepped out of line, and for that, I would like to volunteer myself for third watch every second night this week.”

  Rallen leaned back in his chair and squinted at him for a long time before nodding slowly. “You did. You did step out of line. You’ve got to get it through that dense head of yours that you’re not in charge here. You. Are. Not. In. Charge.” He smiled. “Third watch for a month, I think, should be adequate to convey the lesson.”

  6

  “We’re going to regret this in the morning,” Valyn said, peering into the depths of his tankard.

  “We’ve been drunk before,” Lin replied, waving over Salia, the serving girl, with a free hand, “and with less cause. Your father just died. No one expects you to be swimming circuits of the Islands.”

  Your father just died. Even a week later, the words still landed like a sharp fist to the gut. Lin wasn’t being cruel; she, like the rest of the Kettral, had long ago been trained to speak in the clear, crisp periods appropriate to combat. Talking round and round a point was like wearing lace into battle.

  “I think Rallen would be happy to see me doing just that,” Valyn said, settling his elbow on the table and his forehead against the heel of his hand.

  Lin frowned, tossed back the remainder of her ale, then frowned again. “Rallen’s a shit-sucking turd. It was bad form, giving you third watch at a time like this.”

  “I volunteered. It was the only way to get out of his office without something worse.”

  “Aside from avoiding his office in the first place.”

  “I had to try,” Valyn snapped. “It’ll take an imperial delegation at least two months to get to Kaden: a few weeks at sea and then twice that riding north from the Bend. They should have sent a Kettral Wing.”

  There was more venom in his voice than he’d intended. After a week of third watch, days training for the Trial, nights watching his own back, mourning his father silently, and the constant, nagging worry about Kaden, he’d taken the first free hour to catch the boat across the sound to Hook, made the short walk along the alley to Manker’s, and polished off five tankards of ale before Lin even walked in the door. It was just as all the Kettral said: You went to Hook to escape your problems and came back with a dozen more.

  While the Eyrie kept a close eye on Hook, they didn’t control it in the same way as they did the other islands. In fact, sometimes it seemed as though no one controlled the place. There was no mayor or town guard, no merchant council, and no local aristocracy. Lin described it as a “hive of ’Shael-spawned pirates,” and Valyn supposed she wasn’t far wrong. Those who ended up on the island were all desperate—people hiding from mountains of debt, or death warrants, or some other kind of pain. He always got the impression they would have run farther, but there was no place farther to run.

  Like most of the buildings on the island, Manker’s was built out over Buzzard’s Bay, the entire thing held up by tarred timbers sunk in the silt of the harbor bottom. On the outside, the tavern was painted a garish red to compete with the yellow and bilious green buildings flanking it; inside, however, it was low, and dark, and sagging, the kind of place where people held their purses close, kept their voices down, and sat with their backs to the wall. It suited Valyn’s mood just fine.

  “Kaden will be all right,” Lin said, extending a tentative hand and resting it on Valyn’s.

  “There’s no reason to believe that,” he growled. “According to the Flea, my father was murdered. Score upon score of Aedolians plus the ’Shael-spawned Palace Guard, and someone still managed to kill him. Kaden’s in some ’Kent-kissing monastery. What’s to keep someone from getting to him?”

  “The fact that he is in that monastery,” Lin replied, her voice level. “He’s safer tucked away there than he would be anywhere inside the empire. It’s probably why he was sent there in the first place. No one even knows where it is.”

  Valyn took a swig of his ale, then hesitated. For the past week he’d been wrestling with himself over whether to tell Lin about the murdered Aedolian, about the plot the man had revealed. He had no question about her loyalty—of all the cadets on the Islands, he knew Lin the best. She’d covered his back in scores of training missions, saving him a dozen broken bones at the least, and he’d hauled her out of some tight spots as well. If there was anyone he could trust, it was Ha Lin, but then, according to Hendran, secrecy admitted no half measures. The fewer people who knew a thing, the safer it was.

  “What?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

  “Nothing.”

  “You can lie to me if you want, but you’re gnawing on something.”

  “Everyone’s gnawing on something.”

  “Well, why don’t you give me a bite?”

  Valyn tapped absently at the side of his glass. Lin’s eyes were warm and urgent, frank enough in their concern that he had to look away. Secrecy was all well and good, but there was always the possibility that the plot against him would succeed. If he were the only one to know about it, and someone killed him, the knowledge would die, too. And, if he was being honest with himself, it would feel good to tell someone. He leaned forward over the table.

  “You remember that ship…,” he began.

  The tale didn’t take long to relate, and at the end of it, Lin sat back, took a long pull on her ale, and let out a low whistle.

  “Meshkent, Ananshael, and a bucket of pickled shit,” she swore quietly. “You believe him?”

  Valyn shrugged. “Men don’t tend to spend their last breath lying.”

  “But who?” she asked.

  He sucked a breath slowly between his teeth. “No way to know. I’ve been over all the names a dozen times. It could be anyone.”

  “Rallen’s high up at command. He doesn’t like you,” she pointed out.

  “Rallen’s too ’Kent-kissing lazy to hoist his fat ass out of his chair, let alone to put together a plot to topple the empire.”

  She took another swig of ale, then pursed her lips. “Let’s go back to your father’s murder. If you can figure out who killed him, it might give you a clue who to look out for here on the Islands.”

  Valyn shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about that whenever one of the trainers gives me half a breath
to myself. The Flea didn’t reveal much before he left, and no one else has told me shit since.”

  “Who were your father’s enemies?”

  Valyn spread his hands. “Take your pick. He was respected as Emperor, but even good emperors piss people off. Every time he passed judgment on some taxation issue, some disputed border, some stolen inheritance, he alienated at least half the people involved. None of the nobility appreciated the military draft—wanted to let the peasants do the fighting. None of the peasants liked forced labor, even when they got a stipend. The Black Shore Shipping Guild is always angry about something, despite the fact that they basically have an imperial monopoly. And then there’s the constant unrest at the borders: Antherans, Urghul, Hannans—all of them with these blood cults that are springing up, all of them pressing back against the ‘foreign oppressors,’ never mind that our oppression is what brings law courts and foreign trade, military protection and technological advancement. Even the Manjari seem to be getting restless recently, if you can judge from the Wings we’ve sent. There are plenty of people who’d want to see an Annurian Emperor dead. Shit, we might as well throw the Csestriim into the mix along with everyone else—maybe they weren’t all killed off three thousand years ago.”

  “All right, I take your point. It’s a long list.”

  “It’s endless. Until the Flea or Fane or someone gets back from Annur, it’s impossible to know where to start. I have to distrust everyone.”

  Lin tilted her head to one side. “So why did you trust me?” she asked.

  Valyn hesitated, suddenly conscious of the weight of her hand on top of his own, of the delicate, salty scent of her hair. She held his gaze with those wide, almond eyes of hers, her lips slightly parted.

  Valyn took a deep breath. “I don’t know.” It was a lie, of course. He did know, but what was he going to say? He was a soldier. She was a soldier. If he suggested anything more, she’d be likely to laugh him off the Islands or put a blade in his gut. “I needed another pair of eyes,” he finished lamely.

  An inscrutable glint flashed in her eyes—gone so quickly he couldn’t be sure he had even seen it. “So what are we going to do?” she asked.

  In spite of himself, Valyn grinned. It felt good to have someone on his side. “I figured I’d have you guard my back every waking moment and take a dagger for me if the shit gets thick. How’s that sound?”

  “I signed up for the Kettral, not the Aedolian Guard,” she shot back.

  “Are you saying you wouldn’t gladly throw down your life to keep me from harm?”

  He had meant it as a joke, but the remark sobered Ha Lin. “You’ve got to be careful,” she said.

  “What I’ve got to be,” Valyn replied, his mood souring with hers, “is off this ’Shael-spawned island. I could be at Ashk’lan in less than a week, and instead I’m here, drinking ale at Manker’s.”

  “Just a month more,” Lin replied. “We’ll pass the Trial and become full Kettral. A month after that, you’ll be flying your own missions, commanding your own Wing. You said it yourself—it’ll take anyone traveling by land at least that long to get to Kaden anyway. Two months, Val, that’s all.”

  Valyn shook his head. “I’m already too late.”

  “Meaning?”

  Valyn exhaled heavily, pulling himself back to the table, searching in his cup for the words. “We’ve spent half our lives here, Lin, learning to fly, to fight, to kill people dozens of different ways, all to defend the empire.” He shrugged. “Then, when the empire needed defending, when the Emperor needed defending, I wasn’t there to do a ’Kent-kissing thing about it.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not your fault, Valyn.”

  “I know,” he replied, reaching for his ale.

  She stopped his hand with her own, forcing him to look at her. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have protected him.”

  “I know,” he said again, trying to believe the words. “I know, but maybe I can protect Kaden.”

  “Two months,” she said once more, leaning in as though to will her patience upon him. “Just hold on.”

  Valyn freed his hand, took a deep swig from his tankard, then nodded.

  Before he could otherwise respond, however, the door clattered open and Sami Yurl stepped in. The youth scanned the low room with an expression of amused distaste. He had left his father’s gilded halls nearly ten years ago, but he still seemed to regard the workmanlike buildings of Hook and the other Islands as beneath his dignity, and he crossed under the lintel as though condescending to enter.

  “Wench,” he said, snapping his fingers at Salia. “Wine. Whatever’s not watered down too horribly. And a clean glass this time, or I’ll introduce you to my displeasure.”

  Salia cringed and bowed her way toward the kitchens, nodding obsequiously.

  Lin growled deep in her throat, and Yurl, as though he heard the sound, turned to the corner table where she and Valyn sat. Salia came hurrying back with the full glass of wine, and he took it without looking at her, then raised it toward Valyn with a smirk.

  “Congratulations! One step closer to the throne!”

  Valyn moved his tankard to the side slowly, then reached down for the handle of his belt knife. Lin caught his wrist beneath the table, her grip surprisingly strong.

  “Not now,” she hissed.

  Blood hammered in Valyn’s ears, behind his eyes. It was partly the ale—he understood that dimly—but only Lin’s hand kept him from drawing the knife.

  “Not now,” she said again. “You fight him, and you’ll end up in the brig for the Trial. Is that what you want?”

  Yurl watched the whole scene from a few paces away, sipping at his wine with an amused smile. Like Valyn and Ha Lin, he had left his swords behind, relying on his belt knife and Kettral blacks to keep Hook’s more enterprising criminals at bay. Valyn flexed his hand beneath the table. Yurl’s knifework was good, better than good, but nothing like his swordplay. Knife against knife, Valyn would have a chance. Not to kill the bastard—he’d end up hanged for that—but to cut him down a peg or two … but then, as Lin had already pointed out, he’d miss his chance at the Trial. He put his hands back on top of the table deliberately.

  Yurl smiled even wider. “Don’t tell me you don’t want the Unhewn Throne,” he mused, grinning.

  “My brother has Intarra’s eyes,” Valyn grated. “My brother will sit the throne.”

  “How filial.” Yurl turned his attention to Ha Lin. “And what about you? You figure if you fuck His Most Radiant Highness here enough times, you can ride his gilded cock to wealth and glory?”

  It was a groundless gibe. Despite Valyn’s confusing feelings for Lin, they had never so much as kissed. If they shared a blanket sometimes on a miserable patrol exercise, all the Kettral did as much—it was just to stay alive, shivering against each other beneath the woolen fabric, trying to save a little warmth from the hard ground below and the chill air above. The truth was, Valyn went out of his way to avoid such situations, wary, lest she realize he thought of her as more than a fellow soldier. Yurl, however, had never bothered much with the truth.

  “Don’t be hard on yourself,” Lin sneered, “just because you don’t measure up.”

  The youth chuckled as though amused, but Valyn could see the jest had hit home. Of all the people on the Islands, only Yurl seemed to harbor any lust for Valyn’s position.

  He sneered, then turned toward the bar.

  “This wine is swill,” he said to Salia, dropping the glass, letting it shatter, the shards bright in the flickering lamplight. “You can pay for it out of your earnings.”

  He cast a cool glance at Juren, the hulking thug Manker employed to keep something resembling order. Juren wasn’t too bright, but he wasn’t about to go toe to toe with a Kettral over a broken glass of wine. The man scowled at the floor, but made no move as Salia scurried to pick up the shattered vessel. Yurl chuckled in disgust, then turned toward the door and left.

  Valyn slowly unclenc
hed his hand, and as he did, Lin released his wrist.

  “Someday,” she said, her voice tight and hard. “But not today.”

  Valyn nodded, hoisted his tankard, and took a long pull. “Not today,” he agreed.

  A few paces away, Salia was weeping quietly as she swept the broken glass into a pan.

  “Salia,” he said, beckoning her over.

  The girl rose unsteadily and approached.

  “How much was the wine?”

  “Eight flames,” she snuffled. “I gave him Manker’s own stock.”

  Eight flames. It was probably as much as the poor girl earned in a week. At least, if you didn’t count the money she made on her back upstairs.

  “Here,” Valyn said, shelling out enough coin to cover his ale plus the spilled wine and broken glass. The Eyrie didn’t pay soldiers much, especially not cadets, but he could afford it more than she could. Besides, the desire to drink had gone out of him.

  “I couldn’t,” she began, though she eyed the coin hungrily.

  “Take it,” Valyn replied. “Someone has to clean up Yurl’s mess.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Salia said, ducking her head as she scooped up the coppers. “Thank you so much. You’re always welcome here at Manker’s, sir, and if you ever need … anything else—” She batted her eyes, suddenly bold. “—you just let me know.”

  “That was gallant,” Lin said with a tight smile after the girl had left.

  “She has a hard life.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  Valyn snorted. “Good point. Speaking of hard lives, I’m heading back to the barracks—we’re supposed to be running the perimeter before dawn tomorrow, and all this ale isn’t going to be doing my head any favors.”

  Lin chuckled. Then, in her best imitation of Adaman Fane’s gravelly voice, she began, “Real Kettral embrace adverse circumstances. Real Kettral lust for suffering.”

  Valyn nodded ruefully. “Six tankards on an empty stomach—all part of the training.”

  As they stepped out of Manker’s, he stopped to watch the sun setting over the sound to the west. In that direction, more than a thousand leagues distant, past the wind-lashed waves of Iron Sea, past the karst peaks of the Broken Bay, past dozens of islands, some too small for names, Annur glittered, tiled roofs, grand palaces, shit-reeking hovels all clustered around Intarra’s Spear, the enormous glowing tower at the heart of the Dawn Palace. Sailors could make out the Spear when they were still two days distant—used it to navigate toward the heart of the empire. It was supposed to be impregnable, that tower, one of the final fortresses of the Csestriim, and yet, it had not protected the Emperor.