Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(107)

He was crying, sobbing in great, silent gulps. He moved his fingers to her face, traced the soft curve of her cheek.

“Hull have mercy,” he choked, pulling her to him, but Hull had no mercy. The gods of mercy would have offered meager trials.

“I’m sorry,” he moaned, gathering her up in his arms. “I’m sorry, Lin. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

They told him later that when he emerged from the Hole, the first thing people noticed was Ha Lin’s body, limp and lifeless, sliced and bleeding, draped in his trembling arms. He was crying, they said, sobbing uncontrollably, his entire body shuddering with the tears. But the Kettral had seen death before; they had seen sorrow. It was his eyes that everyone remembered, eyes that had always been the dark brown of charred wood, but that somehow—fathoms beneath the earth and the ocean, buried in the Owl King’s own temple—had burned past char, past ash, past the blackest hue of pitch or tar until they were simple holes into darkness, perfect circles bored into the night itself.





25





“So, it didn’t go quite as we’d hoped,” il Tornja said, leaning back in the chair to prop his gleaming boots on the desk before him.

Weeks had passed since Uinian’s trial, but the kenarang’s new duties had not afforded a chance to meet until now. Adare sat across the desk in what had been her father’s personal library, a high-ceilinged room ten floors up inside Intarra’s Spear. The space was as strange as it was spectacular—the transparent exterior wall, the very crystal of the Spear itself, giving an overview of the rest of the Dawn Palace—the Floating Hall; the twin towers, Yvonne’s and the Crane; the massive central courtyard leading to the Gods’ Gate, and beyond the gate, the Godsway, plunging like a great river into the chaos of the city beyond. It was a space in which a man might feel himself master of the world, aloof from the trials of mortals toiling in the shops and shipyards, alehouses and temples below.

Adare felt anything but aloof.

“It was a disaster,” she said flatly. “Worse than a disaster. Not only does Uinian go unpunished for my father’s murder, but the rumors of his miracle are probably halfway to the Bend by now.” The memory of the serried ranks of the Sons of Flame marching in Sanlitun’s funeral procession suddenly seemed more dangerous than ever. “Intarra has always been a popular goddess, Uinian has his own private army, and now, in a single day, he’s managed to command the awe and imagination of every citizen in Annur. Anlatun the Pious come again, people are calling him, never mind the fact that Anlatun was a Malkeenian.”

“It was a pretty good trick,” the kenarang replied, pursing his lips.

“That trick may have spelled the end of the Malkeenian line,” Adare snapped, amazed and irritated at the man’s nonchalance.

Il Tornja made a casual flicking motion with his hand. “I wouldn’t go that far. There have been birds in and out from the Eyrie every week since Sanlitun’s murder, and they assure me that Valyn’s hale and whole.”

“Valyn isn’t the heir.”

“There’s no reason to suppose anything has befallen Kaden, either.”

“There’s no reason to suppose it hasn’t. Ashk’lan is at the far end of the empire, practically in Anthera. Uinian might have sent someone to murder Kaden. Kaden could have fallen off a ’Kent-kissing cliff and we wouldn’t know about it. We haven’t heard a thing from the delegation sent to collect him.”

“Travel takes time. Meanwhile, you’re here.”

“I’m a woman, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Il Tornja glanced down at her chest, then raised his eyebrows provocatively. “So you are.”

Adare colored, though whether the flush came from anger or embarrassment she couldn’t be sure.

“The point is, I can’t sit the Unhewn Throne. You’re regent, but you’re not a Malkeenian. Uinian has an opening now, a gap in which he can assert himself as the inheritor to my family’s tradition.”

“So kill him.”

Adare opened her mouth, then shut it, unsure how to respond. Il Tornja said the words the way another man might suggest purchasing more plums. Life, of course, was cheaper on the frontiers, and he’d spent a career watching men die, his own and those of the enemy. Unfortunately, they were not on the frontier.

“There are laws,” she replied, “legal codes to be followed.”