Days of Blood & Starlight(86)

“I know. You prefer your victims to know who’s killing them.” Hazael recited this as if he’d heard it a hundred times.

Akiva spoke. “This time especially. And there must be witnesses.”

They looked over at him, surprised. He had been doing a kata, seeking sirithar, trying to find a place of calm wherein an answer might come to him. He had failed on both counts: no calm, and no answer.

“The people have to know that it was us,” he said, sheathing his swords. “Or they’ll just blame the Stelians or the Shadows That Live, and Japheth will have no choice but to take up his father’s wars.”

Japheth was the crown prince. He was the crown prince because his next-oldest brother had murdered his oldest brother, then been murdered himself in the temple that same night while praying to the godstars to shrive his sin. He was remembered as the Unshrived; the brother he had slain was the Avenged, and Japheth was just Japheth. He was no paragon; he was a soft skulkling, afraid to leave the Tower of Conquest even under full escort. He was a coward, but the right kind of coward—who would shrink from war even if he didn’t have to fight it himself. At least, that was Akiva’s hope.

“So the Misbegotten become the enemy,” said Hazael, melancholy.

“The citizens despise us anyway,” said Liraz. “They’ll be glad it’s us.”

“They will,” said Akiva. “They’ll say that Joram should have known, and that it was his own fault for putting so many bastards in the world. It will shock them, and it will end with us.”

“And by us, you mean…”

“All of us.” Akiva’s words were heavy. “All of our lives will be forfeit.”

“So we three decide the fate of three hundred?” asked Hazael.

“Yes,” said Akiva. He looked out to sea. Three hundred. Only three hundred. So many already lost. Akiva had decided their fates, hadn’t he? He had set this in motion. Oh, the war had been going on for years, but once the portals were burned it was over in months. With Brimstone hamstrung by his lost supply, Joram had hit the chimaera with every breathing body under his command, and all had sustained massive casualties: the Dominion, the Second Legion, even the scouts and the Empire’s navy, but the Misbegotten were hardest hit, being expendable, endlessly renewable. Being the smallest force to begin with, their loss ratio was staggering, with only one in four having made it through alive. “We’ll warn the others,” he said. “They’ll leave their regiments and join us. Can you think of anyone with less to lose?”

“Slaves,” said Hazael.

“We are slaves,” said Akiva. “But not for very much longer.”

Over the following days they began, cautiously, to feed warnings out to their bastard brethren; word of mouth only, as troops passed through Cape Armasin. Some all-night flights were needed, under glamour, to reach distant postings. The Misbegotten were scattered to the four corners of the Empire, a few with this regiment, a few with that. Akiva thought of Melliel and her team, but had no way of reaching them. He wondered what they had found over the curve of the horizon, if they were alive, if any of the troops they’d gone to find were alive, and whether they would make it back. None had yet, not of all of Joram’s envoys, scouts, and advance troops. No one who had flown toward the Far Isles had returned.

One might think this would cool the emperor’s ardor for this conquest, but rumors coming out of the capital suggested very much otherwise. Hazael squeezed every scrap of news out of anyone who passed through—and there were more and more travelers these days as nobles under army escort came across the water to survey their new holdings—and the scraps added up to a strange mosaic indeed.

“Is he planning an invasion?” Akiva wondered. “It makes no sense.”

“A thousand pure white surcoats,” Hazael had reported. This was the sort of gossip they had from lords and their servants. “He’s having a thousand pure white surcoats made, with matching standards.” Hazael paused. “For the Dominion.”

“The Dominion?” Less and less sense. For one thing, the Dominion color was red. White signified surrender, and Joram did not surrender. But the color was a mere detail compared to the salient issue of: What were they for? New surcoats and standards… to make an impression on the enemy? What sort of impression did white make? And what would embolden Joram to send more forces into that void, let alone the Dominion? Surely he wouldn’t risk vanishing his elite army into the mysteries. The Misbegotten maybe, but the Dominion?

“Jael himself is pushing for it,” said Hazael. “There’s a rumor that it’s his idea.”

Jael? The Captain of the Dominion was many monstrous things, but he was no fool. And then there was the matter of the harpers. Joram had called up the harpers from the monastery of Brightseeming to cease their devotions to the godstars and come to Astrae, where they were to be appareled in white to match the Dominion.

“There’s something going on,” said Akiva. “Something that hasn’t made its way into rumor. But what?”

“I think you’re going to find out.” It was Liraz, coming into the barracks with a scroll in her hand. She handed it over. It bore the Imperial seal. Akiva froze, knowing what it must be, and looked up at his brother and sister.

“Go on,” urged Hazael, tense.