Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(150)

Assassination struck him as the more likely possibility, troubling though it was. Something was happening back in Annur, something with his father, and it wouldn’t be the first time a rival faction had attempted to strike at the Emperor through his children. During their early childhood, Kaden and Valyn were abducted from the Dawn Palace by Armel Herve, the malcontent atrep of Breata. For weeks they shivered in one of the man’s freezing tower chambers, each night terrified that they would be executed with the sunrise. Then the Kettral came.

Kaden, four years old at the time, had only scattered memories of the event: screaming, blood, fire, and, in the midst of the chaos, three men in black, shadows within shadows, smoke-steel blades flickering as they cut souls from bodies. Kaden could still feel the strong arm around his waist as the closest soldier gathered him up, holding him tight as the great bird took flight, lifting them into the air and away from the dark, fetid room.

From the moment they collected their wits, Kaden and Valyn both vowed that they would grow up to join the ranks of their heroes. They raced around the tapestry-hung halls of the palace swinging wooden replicas of the short Kettral swords, driving the poor palace staff to distraction. Valyn had made good on the dream, taking ship for the mysterious Qirin Islands on the same day that his brother was packed off to the monastery. After eight years training with the Kettral, Valyn would have nothing to fear from Pyrre and Jakin.

“But you’re not Valyn, are you?” Kaden muttered to himself as he drove the shovel into the earth, squinting in the dim light of the lantern. “And you’re not Kettral either.” The realization of his own helplessness galled him, but there seemed no remedy for it. He had trained in painting and patience, the one he could see no use for, the other he needed far more than he had. There was no telling how long Tan intended him to skulk in the cellar—doubtless until any trace of danger had passed.

On the third morning, just as he was finally wrenching a stone the size of his torso out of the hole, Tan came for him.

“Leave it.”

Kaden straightened, resisting the urge to knead the ache in his lower back. If he sees that, he’ll probably decide I need to spend the rest of the year hauling rocks and clearing out cellars.

Tan, however, paid no attention to either the rock or the back. His eyes were on Kaden’s face. “Let’s go,” he said after a long pause. “There are more than merchants here to see you.”

The older monk led Kaden out the back door of the hall and into a narrow passageway between the buildings. After so many days in the cellar, Kaden had to squint against the afternoon brilliance, and it was only after his eyes adjusted that he could see the pail of water sitting on the stone step and the clean robe beside it. Tan gestured to them.

“You’re going to want to get cleaned up,” he said, his face blank as stone.

“Who’s here?” Kaden asked.

Tan pointed at the pail once more. When Kaden realized he wasn’t going to get any answers, he plunged his head into the cold water, then began scrubbing the grime from between his fingers. It took more than a few minutes to scour away the worst of the dirt, digging deep beneath his fingernails, scrubbing with rough gravel scooped from the ground until he thought he might end up taking off the flesh with the grime. Tan clearly had no intention of letting him go anywhere before he’d finished, so he went as fast as he could. When the worst of it had been scoured away, he pulled the clean robe over his head.

“All right,” he said. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere, yet,” Tan replied. “We are going to take a look at these visitors of yours from the window of the hall.”

“Why don’t we just go out to meet them?” Kaden asked, curiosity overwhelming his deference.

There was iron in the monk’s voice when he replied. “From the hall, we can look at them without them looking at us. It might be time you started thinking about more than pots and the vaniate.”

Kaden almost fell over. Since becoming his umial, Tan had drilled him relentlessly in nothing but the vaniate. Everything Kaden had undertaken, from morning prayer to afternoon labor to the bare slab on stone on which he lay down at night, had been devoted to that goal. There were subsidiary challenges, of course—saama’an, ivvate, beshra’an, kinla’an—but they were all just rungs on the ladder. He stared at his umial in perplexity, but Tan steered him firmly back into the meditation hall to a window overlooking the central square.

Two men seemed to be arguing with the abbot while a small crowd of monks gathered around at a respectful distance. Kaden’s breath caught at the splendid figures they cut. Eight years among the Shin had accustomed him to shaven heads and plain, brown robes. A leather belt was an extravagance; leather sandals, a preposterous luxury. These newcomers, however strode directly out of the pomp of his childhood.