Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(143)

“You didn’t send me to the clay shed as some kind of penance,” Kaden concluded after a time.

“I might as well have,” Tan responded, “considering how poorly you have performed.”

“But you didn’t,” Kaden replied doggedly. “If you had, there would be no need to knock me out in the dark, no need for this late-night conference. When you found me in the streambed, you would have simply sent me to haul water all night, or to sit on the Talon until dawn. But then we would have run into the merchants.

“You weren’t trying to keep me from seeing them,” he went on, the realization seeping in slowly. “You wanted to keep them from seeing me.”

He shivered beneath his robe. During his years at Ashk’lan, the maneuverings and machinations surrounding the imperial throne had faded to a distant memory. In fact, Kaden often wondered if he had been sent to the monastery, not for any particular education, but simply to keep him out of harm’s way until he was older. Was it possible that Annurian politics had found him even here?

“This is about my father,” he said, feeling the truth of the statement as it left his lips.

“Why,” the abbot responded slowly, “do you think anything is wrong with your father? Pyrre Lakatur said that the Emperor was strong as ever. Jakin agreed.”

“I know,” Kaden replied. He took a slow breath. What he was about to reveal would earn him an even more severe penance, but the water around him was already boiling. He had to know the truth. “There’s something not right about Pyrre, about both of them. You obviously already know about the knives and the crossbow, but that’s not all. That first night, the night in the refectory, I was in the dovecote, watching.”

Tan’s face hardened, but he did not speak. The abbot raised an eyebrow.

“Pyrre wasn’t looking at you when she came in the door,” Kaden continued. “Then, when she answered the question about my father, something was…” He paused, the scene springing clearly into his mind once more. He examined the faces for the hundredth time: the woman’s easy smile, the casual wave of her hand, the angle of her head as she looked down the table at the gathered monks. Everything seemed normal. Kaden let out the breath he’d been holding. “Something was … not right,” he trailed off lamely.

The abbot looked at him hard for a moment or two, then addressed Tan. “I take it back, friend. The boy has come a long way.”

“Not far enough,” Tan responded without turning.

The abbot leveled a bony finger at Kaden. “How many people in the world could have seen what he saw, even without being able to identify it? A few dozen?”

“More than that,” Tan replied dismissively. “Meshkent’s high priests. Most emotion leaches. Any of the Csestriim—”

The abbot laughed gently. “I’m talking about humans, my friend. I know that you have once again begun honing that old blade of yours, but the fact of the matter is, Csestriim have not been seen on this earth in millennia.” The abbot gave Tan a long, searching look that would have had Kaden squirming in his seat. His umial, however, simply shrugged. “There may be a handful of emotion leaches scattered around Annur,” Nin continued, “but no more than a handful. I doubt that even some of them would have seen what the boy saw.”

Tan opened his mouth, but the abbot continued, forestalling any protest. “The Shin are trained from the moment they arrive in close, careful observation, and yet, who here noticed Pyrre Lakatur’s misstep? You and I. Maybe one or two of the older brothers.” He looked at Kaden almost sadly. “The boy would have made a fine monk.”

“Noticed what?” Kaden asked. “What did I notice?”

“There is more to being a monk than hunches and guesses,” Tan responded.

“He did not guess. He observed.”

“What did I observe?” Kaden asked again.

Tan shook his head brusquely. “He is in a dangerous place. He sees enough to question, but not enough to know when to hold those questions.”

“I understand that you’re telling me to stop asking,” Kaden said, stifling his frustration, “but I’m not going to stop asking. What did I see?”

“A sliver of a pause,” the abbot replied, ignoring the outburst. “A few blinks more than normal. A slight tightening at the corner of her mouth.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Individually, those signs mean nothing.”