Days of Blood & Starlight(84)
When it turned out that he could, Karou dropped to her knees to genuflect. “Gods of math and physics,” she intoned, “I accept your gift of this clever, fair-haired boy.”
“Man,” corrected Mik, insulted. “Look: sideburns. Chest hair. Sort of.”
“Man,” amended Karou, rising and bending again in mock prayer. “Thank you, gods, for this man—” She interrupted herself to ask Zuzana, in her normal voice, “Wait. Does that make you a woman?”
She only meant that it was strange to go from thinking of Zuzana—and herself, too—as a girl to a woman. It just sounded weirdly old. But Zuzana’s response, employing full eyebrow power in the service of lechery, was, “Why, yes, since you ask. This man did make me a woman. It hurt like holy hell at first, but it’s gotten better.” She grinned like an anime character. “So. Much. Better.”
Poor Mik blushed like sunburn, and Karou clamped her hands over her ears. “La la la!” she sang, and when Ziri asked her what they were saying, she blushed, too, and did not explain—which only made him blush in turn, when he grasped the probable subject matter.
By the end of that first day, they had built five new soldiers for the rebellion, double Karou’s average when working with Ten, and that was with a late start and having to teach Zuzana and Mik the basics. They had followed Thiago’s wish list and specifications to appease him, even when Zuzana’s drawn-at-random thurible—the one she’d been pestering Karou about since her first afternoon—turned out to contain Haxaya. The fox soldier had been Madrigal’s friend once, and her soul was the touch of sunset and laughter, with a bite like the sting of nettles; Haxaya was someone you wanted on your side… which started Karou thinking about sides.
Who could she trust? The soldiers of the chimaera army were and had always been fiercely loyal to their general. But she had Issa, of course, and there was Ziri, who took a risk even coming here to tithe. Maybe the rest of Balieros’s renegade patrol. They remained in stasis, so she couldn’t know for certain. She thought Amzallag was unhappy with Thiago’s tactics, and possibly Bast. She liked Virko. He had a jovial go-along nature, and judging from his vomiting he was no fan of these terror missions, but she couldn’t see him defying the Wolf.
What was she even thinking? She couldn’t see herself defying the Wolf, let alone asking others to. She’d told Ziri her suspicions about the Wolf’s desire to kill her, and, uncomfortingly, he’d shown no surprise. “He needs to be in complete control,” he said. “And you proved a long time ago that you’re not under his spell.”
Yes, she had proven that, all right. The question that echoed in her brain now was: What can I do?
She couldn’t go along with him. His course was barbaric, and that was bad enough, but it was also ruin. Look what he’d brought down on the southern folk. She kept catching herself thinking that if the soldiers understood the cause and effect—if she could just make them see—then they could not support his strategy. But, of course, they did understand. That was the worst part. They had followed his orders anyway, all except one patrol.
And she couldn’t stand up to him, either. Thiago might as well have been their god, and what was she? A known angel-lover in human skin? Even if anyone was to listen to her, she was no leader. It had been a long time since she was even a soldier, and she was afraid. Of responsibility, of the Empire, of the odds against their survival, and most of all, of Thiago himself. Right now, she was afraid of seeing that malice in his eyes again.
“Maybe another day,” she had said to Zuzana, closing Haxaya’s thurible and setting it aside. “Right now, let’s just try to make the Wolf happy.”
And he was happy with their work.
“Well done,” he said, when they presented him with the five new soldiers. His mask was back in place. He was all mild benevolence at dinner, even pouring wine—wine? That was a rare commodity, and Karou hadn’t brought it—he raised a glass to the five new revenants. “To survival,” he said, and she wondered: Whose?
Turning over these soldiers to him—these weapons—she did not forget for a second what he would use them for, and it sickened her, but open defiance would not serve. She saw the way the others watched him: with an avid mixture of awe and fear, hoping for his notice, and beaming when they received it. And she saw how he worked the crowd, winning his soldiers again and again, making them feel like his chosen hands, his strength at the end of the world.
She watched him pour the wine, and when she saw the orb shape of the bottle, she lost her taste for it. It wasn’t chimaera grasswine, so called for its pale greenish color, but a seraph vintage, rich and red; one of the soldiers must have brought it back from some town they’d sacked.
She sat back in her chair, stirring her couscous with her fork.
“No wine for you?” Thiago asked, taking the bench at her side.
“No, thank you.”
“Some believe it’s bad luck to refuse a toast,” he said. “That its blessing will pass you over.”
What, his toast to survival? “So if I don’t drink your wine, I won’t survive?”
He shrugged. “I’m not superstitious. But it is good wine.” He drank. “Our pleasures are so few in these times, and we agreed earlier, today is a good day. Five soldiers join the fight, Issa is come to us… somehow.” They both glanced at Issa, who sat farther down the table with Nisk and Lisseth, who were Naja—though Naja as reinterpreted by Karou. “And, of course, you have your friends.” He tipped his head in the direction of Zuzana and Mik.