The Tiger at Midnight (The Tiger at Midnight Trilogy #1)(57)

They moved on to lighter topics, talking of the towns they had been in, carefully avoiding any details of whether they were any closer to finding the Viper. Kunal was still able to pick out a few details, knowing the location of most of the towns from the map he had drawn. It seemed Laksh was sticking to his path of questioning and following the Crescent Blade’s blacksmiths.

“I’m heading to the library,” Kunal said, answering Laksh’s last question as they washed their hands in the bowls to the right of their plates.

Laksh gave him a look, making a face, as Kunal knew he would. “You’re basically giving me a head start out of here.”

“You’ll need it,” Kunal responded, grinning. They rose from their seats and he embraced Laksh like a brother, his heart a bit lighter.

This library was nothing like the one in the Fort, which was housed in a vast room but was underused, almost criminally so.

This library was smaller but looked more worn and loved. Small, multicolored stools with embroidered peacocks were settled into the corners, nestled between long rows of scrolls in their small wooden cubbies. The cubbies were part of massive wooden structures, almost like a honeycomb, that stretched to the ceiling of the room.

Kunal traced his finger over the library’s categorization system, looking for older translation scrolls. He knew for a fact that each garrison housed specific works of translation, and he hoped the one he wanted was here.

Studying had been the lone bright spot in his first year at the Fort. He had been ahead of the others and it made the other soldiers seek him out for help and tutoring. That was how the “perfect Kunal” nickname had started, had become another form of armor for him to don.

Kunal found what he was looking for and grabbed the scroll, settling into one of the small nooks. He shook out the report he had stolen from Esha’s pack, sounding the words out loud as he went.

The dialect was difficult, but he understood enough.

Soon enough, he wished he didn’t.

He had been wondering what Uncle Setu might have done, and now he knew. He swallowed roughly, the coldness of the realization hitting his body like ice. It swept into his lungs and his heart as he read.

The writing was his uncle’s, and as he translated, he could almost imagine the words in his uncle’s voice, low and rumbling. It was a frustratingly slow process, but he was committed now to finishing the translation, if only to no longer be in the dark.

It was a personal account of the soldiers’ actions in Sundara, the small Dharkan town in the far reaches of the Aiforas. His uncle had lied about not being there. Soldiers had captured the town, driving the townspeople into the frozen desert in the north without food, water, or shelter. All for “disobedience,” which, after his time traveling, he now understood could have meant anything from refusing to give up their crops to active rebellion.

Kunal found himself giving the townspeople the benefit of the doubt, and it was a jagged dagger to his heart, tearing a wound that wouldn’t close so easily.

It was one thing to hear of Sundara and the innocents who had perished, but another to hear it in his uncle’s clinical, almost pleased voice.

A great victory, he called it.

Sour acid rose in Kunal’s throat and he almost couldn’t go on reading as the account became more and more detailed. A contingent of soldiers had stayed behind to guarantee the deaths of townspeople.

Kunal couldn’t fathom a reason for a massacre.

No matter how hard he tried to understand it, there was no explanation for ordering the deaths of hundreds of innocents. No Rule of Order that forgave it, no god that would either.

He now knew that Sundara was no victory, but a tragedy of epic proportions. Kunal resisted the urge to throw the scroll across the room, to remove the evidence of his uncle’s utter betrayal of honor from his sight. Then it wouldn’t exist and maybe he could forget it.

But as soon as Kunal closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt at control, he saw it all, every detail in the report. It played in his mind with no end.

If his uncle had ordered this massacre, it was possible he had done it before.

Kunal had always assumed Vardaan had been the mastermind behind the royal coup and murders that fueled it, but what if it had been his uncle? Had he known, or cared, about the people caught in the crosshairs? Like Kunal’s mother, his sister-in-law?

Torn by anger and betrayal and a deep, unending sorrow for all those lives lost, for the memory of a man he had loved, Kunal sat there, unable to do anything but stare at the slowly fading light of the camphor lamp. And in those silent moments, a thousand questions ravaged him, forced him to reconsider his uncle, his upbringing, himself.

Who was he if he held this man in esteem? If this man had created him?

Was he also this monster?

When he looked up, the sun had all but left the sky.

He left the library like a shadow, exiting the garrison quickly before he’d have to converse with anyone. He couldn’t bear the thought of talking when his mind and heart were this burdened.

The walk to his mare felt long, and Kunal dragged his feet despite knowing he had to move quickly to get back on Esha’s trail to Amali. The heaviness in his limbs had spread, and all Kunal wanted to do was lie down for a nap and wake up with the world back in order.

Esha was a murderer, his uncle a victim. That’s what he had believed.

Maybe it wasn’t that simple.