Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(144)

“Taken together, they may also mean nothing,” Tan added.

“But you don’t think so,” Kaden interrupted, a sick dread rising in his throat. “You think Pyrre is keeping something back. Why don’t we confront them? Demand to know about the weapons. Demand to know about my father?”

He lapsed into silence as Tan turned from the window.

“If I hadn’t found you, you might be dead now, instead of whining like a child in the abbot’s study.”

Kaden stared incredulously.

“Lies,” his umial continued. “Deception. These are not remarkable in a man or woman. They are even less remarkable in one who makes her living buying and selling. What is remarkable about Pyrre Lakatur is how well she lies. How ably she deceives.” The large monk approached until he loomed over his pupil. “The pricing of silk and the driving of wagons are the least of this woman’s training. Somewhere she has learned to suppress the most basic imperatives of the flesh. You may want to ask yourself, when you finish playing the impetuous prince, why a woman with such impeccable training comes here, to the end of the earth, dressed as a merchant. While you spend the following days digging out the cellar of the meditation hall, you may want to consider the goals of such a woman. What has she come here for? Who has she come here for?”





34





Whatever wary trust Valyn managed to establish with Talal, nothing had changed in the course of daily training. The Wing was halfway through its probationary period, halfway to flying its first real mission, and they still hadn’t managed to win a single contest. I’d be surprised if Command lets us stand guard over a vegetable stand, Valyn thought to himself grimly as he rolled over in his bunk, restless in the predawn darkness, let alone fly to northeastern Vash to hunt for Kaden.

It wasn’t that the individual members of his Wing were incompetent. In fact, operating independently, each had shown moments of genius: Gwenna rigged and blew an entire bridge by moonlight in less than an hour; Talal swam the entire breadth of the Akeen Channel underwater; and Annick, of course, hadn’t missed a single target, regardless of distance, weather, or time of day.

In spite of these successes, however, the Wing just could not manage to get out of its own way. Gwenna blew the bridge while Laith and Valyn were still crossing it, singeing half their clothes off and dumping them in the water; Talal emerged from the Channel only to take one of Annick’s stunners to the back of the head; and Annick’s perfect shooting only led her to grow more and more scornful of the Wing, as though she were the only professional in a group of children.

Valyn rolled onto his back. It was still pitch black outside, and the early bell had yet to ring, but after a few hours of uneasy slumber, he had lain awake, staring at the bunk above him. He could analyze and condemn the mistakes of his Wing mates until he was blue in the face, but the real truth was that he was failing them. It was his responsibility to formulate each mission plan, his job to make sure his soldiers understood their roles, and his job to stave off personal problems before they became a threat to the integrity of the group. So far, he had done piss-poor work on all fronts.

His mind drifted to the memory of Ha Lin—the banter, shared jokes, and easy camaraderie; the quiet, solid comfort he had felt when she was at his side or seated across the table. All these years, he’d never realized how much strength he drew from her, how much he had always assumed that she would always be there to bolster him. When he pictured commanding his own Wing, he’d imagined Lin there, quibbling with his small decisions but never doubting him, not really. He’d been unconsciously counting on her to back him up. Of course, when it really mattered, he had failed her.

The low tolling of the morning bell broke into his bleak thoughts, and his feet hit the floor before the sound had faded from the air. If the past weeks were any indication, the day was bound to be another failure, but anything was better than lying in his bunk, gazing up into the incriminating darkness, worrying that he wasn’t getting it right, worrying that while he bungled his command, danger, swift but unknowable, was drawing closer and closer to Kaden, his brother, the Emperor.

“Rise and shine,” he said, stomping into his boots before plucking a glowing ember from the fire to light the lamp.

Gwenna cursed from the bunk above, but made no effort to rise, let alone shine.

Valyn shrugged into his tunic and shouldered aside the door into the front room only to find Annick already awake and seated at the large table. She was fully dressed and oiling her bow with long, smooth strokes. For the hundredth time, Valyn wondered what went on behind those ice-cold eyes. He hadn’t had a chance to speak to her alone since before the Trial, since their encounter in the infirmary. Whenever he looked to have a word with her, there were others around or she had mysteriously melted away. She’d convinced him that she hadn’t tried to kill him during the sniper contest, but she was a riddle, and any riddle was dangerous. He shivered at the realization that she had managed to rise, dress, and go to work on her bow mere feet from him without making a sound, all in complete darkness. Why was Amie going to meet you? he wondered for the hundredth time. What are you hiding?