Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(142)

He knew that voice, dry and tough as rawhide, although for half a heartbeat he couldn’t place it.

“What is it in obedience that the young find so difficult?” the voice went on.

The abbot, he realized with a start, and in spite of the pain, forced his eyes open once more. He was seated in the center of Scial Nin’s study, the humble, one-room structure where Nin and Tan had revealed the secret of the kenta a few weeks earlier. Nin slept in a dormitory cell like the rest of the monks, but he was known to stay late in his study when occupied with important business. Generally, a visit to the abbot’s study did not augur well, and this episode was starting out far worse than usual, although Kaden’s head still throbbed too badly for him to make much sense of what was going on.

A small fire burned in the hearth, but that was the only welcoming thing about the room. Nin sat behind his bare wooden desk, fingers steepled under his chin, dark eyes fixed on him intently, as though Kaden were some new species of squirrel that he had found in one of his deadfalls. A few feet from the desk, Rampuri Tan stood staring out the small window into the night. He hadn’t said anything at all, hadn’t even looked at his pupil, and Kaden felt his stomach tighten, an uncomfortable sensation, given that his head was still pounding and his legs felt like water. He started to groan, then suppressed the sound out of habit—it would earn him no sympathy from the older monks.

“Akiil?” he asked weakly, feeling like someone had scoured his mouth with coarse wool. His friend was not in the study. “Where is Akiil?”

“He is not here,” the abbot replied evenly. Normally Kaden would have ground his teeth in silent frustration at the response, but the knives they had discovered leapt into his mind, along with the memory of the hand clamped over his mouth, cutting off his breath.…

“The merchants,” he managed. “They’re—” What? he asked himself. Carrying knives? How was he going to explain the fact that he and Akiil were rummaging through their private belongings? “Who tried to kill us?” he asked instead. “Did you capture them?”

The abbot looked away, gazing at an indeterminate point over Kaden’s left shoulder. Rampuri Tan shook his head, not turning from the window. Kaden looked from one to the other, but neither seemed willing to speak.

“You did capture them, didn’t you?” he asked. He tried to stand, but his legs would have none of it, and he dropped back into the chair. Silence stretched out before them, bleak and cold as the night sky.

When the abbot finally spoke, it was not to him. “You told me he was making progress.”

Tan grunted.

“I don’t see progress,” Nin continued. “I see a blind, impulsive boy tied so tightly to himself that he can barely move.”

Normally the insult would have stung, all the more so for the flat, careless tone in which it was delivered. Memory of his assailants and worry for Akiil, however, left no space for wounded pride, and as Kaden lowered the pressure of the blood in his veins, he tried to make himself sound rational, unemotional.

“Abbot,” he began quietly, amazed that his voice was so level—he felt like shaking and screaming all at the same time. “Clearly you know already, because you rescued me, but the merchants are not what they appear. One of them or both caught Akiil and me—”

“How long,” the abbot interrupted with a raised hand, “has Tan been your umial?”

“What does Tan have to do—”

Without raising his voice, the abbot cut him off. “How long?”

“Two months,” Kaden replied, mustering his patience.

“And after two months, you still don’t recognize your own master when he is close enough to kill you?”

Kaden looked in confusion from the abbot to Tan, who turned from the window, eyes inscrutable as always. “I came to check on you at the shed,” the monk began. “When you were not there, I tracked you and brought you here. Akiil is unharmed.”

Kaden gaped.

“You brought me! How did you track me?”

“The Beshra’an. Your mind is a simple thing, although cramped to inhabit.”

He ignored the insult. “What about the merchants? Why didn’t you just ask me to come? Why did you attack me?”

“You would have argued,” Tan replied simply. “And the woman was approaching. There was no time.”

Kaden took a firm grip on his emotions. He had been conscious for several minutes now, but things weren’t getting any clearer. Determined not to make a fool of himself again, he paused to consider this new information. Tan returned to his post at the window as if there were nothing left to discuss, but the abbot continued to look directly at him.