The Last Mortal Bond Read online

  “We could kill him,” Annick had suggested.

  Gwenna had mulled it over. It was tempting, but following your temptations was a good way to get dead.

  “No,” she said finally, “we can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t have a bird and we don’t have a full Wing.”

  “You don’t need a bird or a full Wing to kill a man.”

  Talal had shaken his head at that. “He’s not just a man, Annick. His power—it’s self-fulfilling. Everyone across the north is terrified of him, and all that terror just makes him stronger.” His face was sober. “The things he could do back on the Islands, or even in Andt-Kyl … those were nothing.”

  “He should be punished,” Annick insisted.

  “He will be punished,” Gwenna said, “but since it looks like we’re the ones who are going to have to do the punishing, let’s try to get it right the first time, eh? We need a bird, we need more people, and we need to know what in Hull’s name is going on.”

  “Where are we going to get all that?” Annick asked.

  “We’re going to start by finding Valyn’s brother and beating some answers out of him,” Gwenna replied. “Which means we’re going to Annur.”

  She had steeled herself for an argument, for Annick to demand an attack on Balendin, or for Talal to insist on an immediate return to the Qirins.

  Instead, Talal nodded. “All right,” he said quietly. “Annur.”

  Annick just shrugged.

  It was disconcerting, this deference, unsettling. Gwenna wasn’t the Wing’s commander—with Valyn and Laith dead, there was barely even a Wing left to command—but the other two, for reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom, had started accepting her decisions as though they were orders, as though she weren’t just making it all up as she went along, as though she had some larger, more coherent vision in mind beyond just keeping them alive from one day to the next. Which she most certainly did not.

  It didn’t make any sense. Talal and Annick were both better soldiers than Gwenna. Annick was already a legend among the Kettral snipers, and Talal—though he lacked Annick’s obvious, ostentatious skill—had a good military mind and was cool enough to use it, even when the world was burning down around him. Either one of them could have commanded their truncated abortion of a Wing better than Gwenna herself … and yet they didn’t.

  Annick might argue some small tactical issue, but mostly she seemed to want to oil her bow and take target practice. Talal would actually say more than two or three words on a given topic, but he seemed to prefer advising to leading. And so Gwenna ended up making the choices, despite the fact that she had no fucking idea what she was doing. The whole situation made her itchy, twitchy, irritable, but what could you do? Someone had to make the ’Kent-kissing decisions.

  And so they came to Annur, set up shop inside the warehouse, cased the Dawn Palace, broke into it, then into the Spear, knocked out the Aedolians guarding what was supposed to be Kaden’s personal study, planted the note, and slipped out. The whole thing, as it turned out, was ludicrously, stupidly easy. The problem with having the largest fortress in the world was just that: it was fucking large. There were thousands of men and women inside, maybe ten thousand: bureaucrats to push the papers, masons to fix the walls, gardeners to keep the plants in line, petitioners dumb enough to think anyone in charge actually gave a pickled shit about their fishing rights or rice supplies or guild licenses or whatever. With a minimal amount of planning and improvisation, you could pretty much go anywhere you wanted. With a little more effort, Gwenna felt pretty sure they could have killed Kaden or any of the other members of the council, but she didn’t want to kill him. At least not yet. Not until she had a better sense of what in Hull’s name was going on.

  “You think he found the note?” she asked of no one in particular, scanning the dim space of the warehouse as though the answer might be hidden between the dusty crates.

  Annick ignored her, probably because Gwenna had asked the question a dozen times already.

  “If he hasn’t yet,” Talal replied, “I think he will soon. That monastic training…” He shook his head. “Evidently they can remember everything, remember it perfectly.”

  “But do you think he’ll know what it means?”

  “I think,” Annick broke in, tugging her arrows from the wooden post, checking the shafts and the fletching one by one, “that there’s nothing we can do about Kaden now. What’s important is focusing on our own readiness in case he does come.”

  Gwenna blew out an exasperated breath. “Fuck, Annick. How much more ready do you want to be? I’ve got every door and window rigged, that post you’re shooting at is ready to blow, we’ve packed enough steel into those crates,” she gestured toward the wall, “that Talal should be able to…” She squinted at the leach. “What can you do with that much steel, exactly?”

  Talal crossed to one of the wooden crates, set a hand on it as though it were a woodstove he was testing for heat. After a moment he turned, hand still on the crate, narrowed his eyes, and then Annick’s arrows, gathered in her fist like a deadly bouquet, leapt free, aligned themselves into a hovering phalanx, then hung quivering in the air.

  The sniper didn’t flinch. “Don’t break them,” she said.

  Talal flicked a finger, and the arrows flew the length of the warehouse, burying themselves in the far wooden wall. It was enough to see him burned alive in almost any part of Annur outside the Qirins; enough to see him burned alive, but hardly an overwhelming display of military force.

  Gwenna frowned. “Is that it?”

  “It’s not as easy as it looks.”

  “I’m sure it’s not. But we already have Annick to shoot the arrows. I was hoping you could, I don’t know…”

  “Raze entire towns?” Talal suggested. “Build bridges on thin air?”

  “Both might come in handy, yes.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not Balendin, Gwenna. With a few crates of steel here, I can help, but my well is never going to be the crucial factor in a fight. I’d rather trust to these,” he said, reaching over his shoulder to touch one of his twin blades, then shrugged. “Hopefully we won’t need any of it. There’s no reason for Kaden to distrust us.”

  Gwenna snorted. “I’m starting to think that people don’t need reasons. The thing is—”

  A low, metallic chime brought her up short. It wasn’t loud, but it didn’t have to be. Ever since she’d rigged the belled line the day before, she’d been waiting for it to ring, listening with one ear even when she was asleep. The fact that it was ringing now meant someone had finally come. She hoped to Hull it was Kaden. She hoped she wouldn’t have to kill him.

  She turned toward the other two Kettral, but before she could even start to give the orders, Annick and Talal had flanked the door, slipping silently back between the piled crates to either side, the sniper with her bow half drawn, the leach with one of his short blades naked in his hand. A few steps took Gwenna herself to the wooden post where she had tacked up the ends of the wicks leading to her various munitions. She lit one, a slow-burner, measured the distance to the charges strung up around the doorway—two dozen paces—then walked that same distance, easily outdistancing the hissing fuse.

  The bells rang again softly just as she reached the doors. She slid the belt knife from the sheath at her waist, glanced over her shoulder to check on Talal and Annick, flipped open the long iron latch holding the twin doors shut, then stepped back. With an aggrieved shriek, the doors swung ponderously open. A moment later, a hooded figure stepped inside, paused when he saw Gwenna standing just a pace away, smoke steel at the ready, then turned to push the doors shut, latching them in place behind him.

  Give it to the fucker, Gwenna thought. He knows how to keep cool.

  “Hello, Gwenna,” the figure said, turning back to her, then pushing the hood clear of his face.

  It was Kaden. She remembered him well enough from the Bone Mountains, and even if she
hadn’t, there was no mistaking those burning eyes. It was Kaden, but the intervening months had changed him. His cheeks were less lean than they had been, his whole frame fuller. It made sense—governing a republic didn’t shave the fat from the bones in the same way as running up and down mountains in the middle of winter. Anyone would get soft after a few months living in Annur.

  But he’s not soft, she thought, careful to keep still as she studied him.

  Regardless of the extra flesh, there was something about Kaden that looked … pared down. Hardened. Gwenna had known plenty of hard women and men over the years, killers willing and more than willing to lay waste to whole villages if it meant finishing out the mission. Kaden didn’t stand like a fighter, didn’t carry himself with the poise of the Kettral or the Skullsworn, but for all the flame in those Malkeenian eyes, they made her shiver. Not that she could show him that.

  “Hello, Kaden.”

  “You caused quite a stir in the palace.”

  “I thought we were admirably restrained.”

  “The Aedolian Guard was convinced that il Tornja had finally sent a legion of assassins.” He shrugged. “So was I.”

  “Assassins would have done more killing,” Gwenna said. “Your Aedolian Guard is worse than useless, by the way. You should have them replaced.”

  “With whom? Almost every soldier in Annur is in the field already, fighting Adare’s troops, or the Urghul, or the Waist tribes, or trying to keep order in what’s left of the empire. Trying and failing. We don’t have the numbers to spare.”

  “You don’t need numbers. One Wing of Kettral would be more useful than all those hundreds of clanking idiots.”

  Kaden hesitated. For the first time since stepping into the warehouse, he appeared unsure what to say.

  “What?” Gwenna demanded.

  “Where’s Valyn?” Kaden turned slowly in place, looking up into the rafters, scanning the haphazardly stacked goods. Gwenna gritted her teeth. She’d known this conversation was coming, but she didn’t have to like it.

  “He’s dead.” The words came out wrong, all hard and indifferent, but Kaden was a grown fucking man. He didn’t need the truth spooned out with a helping of honey. “He died trying to kill Ran il Tornja.”

  For a few heartbeats, she thought he hadn’t heard her. He kept studying those barrels and crates as though he expected his brother to step out from between them. Or maybe he had heard what she said, but thought the whole thing was some kind of fucked-up trick or test. Gwenna was still trying to come up with something else to say, ideally something that might convince and comfort him at the same time, when he turned back to her, those cold eyes bright as a fire’s heart.

  “You’re sure?”

  “As sure as you can be with these things. We never found the body, but all of Andt-Kyl was bloody as a butcher’s floor.”

  “Then there’s a chance—”

  “That’s what I thought,” Gwenna replied, cutting him off roughly. “Until now.”

  Kaden watched her in silence. “You think he would have come here,” he said finally.

  “I’m certain of it. The only thing I can’t figure is how il Tornja beat him. I understand that the bastard’s a great general, but tactical smarts aren’t the same thing as skill with a sword.”

  “He’s not just a general,” Kaden replied.

  “What does that mean?”

  Kaden exhaled slowly. “There’s a lot that we need to discuss.”

  Gwenna glanced at the closed door behind him.

  “Are you alone?”

  “More or less.”

  “I was hoping for yes.”

  “But you weren’t expecting it.”

  “I’ve learned not to get my hopes up.”

  “They have orders to stay outside. To stay out of sight.”

  “Orders are wonderful things,” Gwenna replied, stepping past Kaden to throw down the heavy bar over the two doors. “But you’ll forgive me if I back them up with a little bit of steel.”

  She studied his reaction as the bar slammed into place. Or rather, she studied his lack of reaction. Most people, even Kettral, would be edgy walking alone into a closed, locked space controlled by trained soldiers of questionable allegiance. It was starting to seem, however, that edgy was a little beyond the scope of Kaden’s emotional register.

  He nodded toward the doors. “That bar doesn’t seem like much. Are you sure it’s safe in here?”

  Gwenna watched him a moment longer, then turned, sending her knife spinning across the room in an easy overhand toss. It severed the thin, dark fuse that she had laid atop the baseboard of the warehouse.

  “Now it is.”

  Kaden raised his brows. “What was that about?”

  Gwenna just pointed at the fuse. A few heartbeats later, the flame emerged from behind a line of crates, bright as a tiny star, hissing quietly, snaking its way along the cable until it reached the knife, the break. It sputtered for a moment, then went out.

  “Munitions,” Kaden observed.

  Gwenna just nodded.

  “What would have happened if you let it burn?”

  “Less talking,” she replied grimly. “More screaming.”

  Kaden studied the knife for a moment, then followed the dark line of the fuse to the charges tacked up on the posts to both sides of the door.

  “Seems risky.”

  Gwenna barked a laugh. “Risky would be not rigging the place. Last time we met everybody got along all right, but that was last time. You’ve made some … unexpected political decisions. I’ve got no way to be sure you don’t have another Kettral Wing getting ready to smash through that door while we chat, do I?”

  Kaden turned back to her, face grave. “Where have you been, these past nine months?”

  “Around,” Gwenna replied, waving a hand airily.

  He stared at her. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “There are no more Kettral, Gwenna. The Eyrie’s wiped out.”

  The words were like a brick to the face.

  “That’s ludicrous. No one would ever go after the Eyrie. Who could destroy an island packed with Kettral?”

  Kaden met her stare. “Other Kettral,” he replied grimly. “Your order destroyed itself.”

  * * *

  “Half the Kettral backed the empire,” Kaden said, spreading his hands. “Half backed the new republic. The whole thing was over in three days.”

  The low stone basement of the warehouse in which they had gathered suddenly seemed cramped and stifling, the still air almost too thick to breathe. Annick and Talal stood at the two entrances, both with weapons drawn, but for the moment they both appeared to have forgotten their posts, turning in to stare at Kaden.

  Gwenna shook her head. “I don’t believe it. If the Kettral are really gone, then who told you this ’Kent-kissing story in the first place?”

  “A few made it out,” Kaden said. “A woman named Daveen Shaleel flew in on a bird a few days after the fight. The creature died a day later, along with one of her Wingmates. Weeks after that, one more soldier showed up. Someone named Gent, all alone in a rowboat. He claimed to have rowed it all the way from the Qirins.”

  “Where are they now? Shaleel and Gent?”

  “Daveen Shaleel is down in the Waist. We put her in charge of the legions there. According to the reports, she’s about the only thing keeping the entire front from collapsing. Last I heard of Gent, he was on a ship charged with finding and sinking pirates.”

  “They were the only two?” Gwenna asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

  Kaden met her gaze. “Shaleel said a few others got away. Maybe a bird or two. Scattered. No one knows where they went.”

  Gwenna could feel herself staring. The whole Eyrie—destroyed. It seemed impossible. The Islands were the safest place in the world, the only chunk of land that no kingdom or empire would ever dream of attacking. But then, Kaden’s story wasn’t one of kingdoms and empires. />
  “It makes sense,” Talal said quietly.

  Gwenna turned on him.

  “It may turn out to be true, but what about this insane story makes sense?”

  “Think it through, Gwenna. Put yourself in the shoes of the Wings back on the Islands: you know your foe has the same training as you. You know that, just like you, she has birds. You know that, just like you, she’s got enough weapons and munitions to storm a small city.”

  “And she’ll do it,” Annick said, voice flat. “That’s the important point.”

  Talal nodded. “You know that she’ll attack you, because it’s exactly what you would do.”

  “Would,” Gwenna pointed out, “is not the same as will. These are men and women who’ve lived on the same island, fought on the same side their entire lives. If they’d bothered to talk it through for half an afternoon, they could have found a way around it.”

  “Talking’s a risk,” Annick said. “If you come to talk, and they come to fight, you lose.”

  “I’ll tell you when you lose,” Gwenna spat. “You lose when the entire ’Kent-kissing Eyrie destroys itself.”

  “That’s true,” Talal said. “But to talk, you need to trust.” He shook his head. “The Eyrie taught us plenty, but trust wasn’t a big part of the curriculum.”

  “Fuck,” Gwenna said, shaking her head, turning her attention back to Kaden. “Fuck.”

  If he was bothered by the fate of the Eyrie, it didn’t show.

  “Actually,” he said after a moment, “it’s lucky for us.”

  “Lucky?” Gwenna growled. “How is it lucky, you son of a bitch?”

  “I’m sorry for your friends,” Kaden replied, “for the loss of the people you knew, but if il Tornja had the Kettral, if he had them intact and loyal, we’d be finished, dead. There’d be no standing against him.”

  “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” Gwenna retorted. “I’ve got no love for the kenarang, but everything we’ve heard on the march south suggests this republic of yours is even more useless than Adare’s rump of an empire. At least she and il Tornja are holding back the ’Kent-kissing Urghul.”