Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(165)

He reached for the empty calm that the Shin had spent eight years trying to teach him, reached for the tranquillity that would allow him to see the world with clear eyes, to judge it truly. It eluded him. He could feel his heart thudding dully in his chest, could trace the thoughts chasing one another like feral cats in his mind, and for the moment, he could control none of it. Scial Nin had said he was close to reaching the vaniate, and yet, as he sat there, trying to make sense of the past, trying to comprehend the future, he felt almost like that small lost boy who had left Annur for some unknown monastery in the mountains all those years ago.





40





“What,” Gwenna demanded, squaring up across the table from Annick, one hand on her belt knife, the other thrusting out an accusatory finger, “the f*ck?”

The fact that she’d waited until the entire Wing was back in their bunkhouse with the door firmly closed was something of a minor miracle, and Valyn had little hope of controlling the outburst now. In fact, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. After weeks of lurking, pondering, guessing, and second-guessing, he just wanted the ’Kent-kissing truth. If Annick really had murdered Amie, then she was almost certainly implicated in Lin’s death as well. If she hadn’t—well, then, maybe she could at least tell him what she was doing over on Hook the day the girl died. He was enraged over Yurl’s maneuvering—there was no telling how long they might be confined to the Islands—and yet, there was a strange sort of relief in the fact that everything was coming to a head.

“Slow down,” he growled. “Everyone just slow down.” He gestured to the chairs around the low table. “Take a seat. Yurl’s out to screw with us somehow—we all know him well enough to realize that. There are some hard questions we need to ask ourselves, questions I want answered, but we’re not going to start ripping each other apart with our bare teeth like dogs.”

“Teeth’s about all they left us,” Laith observed sourly, jerking his head to the empty scabbards on his back.

“Teeth is all I’ll need if I find out he’s lying,” Gwenna said, her mouth twisting into a snarl as though she were preparing to make good on her threat.

“Yurl can wait,” Talal interjected. “We need to have our own conversation first.”

“Agreed,” Valyn said. “We’ve all got questions, and we’re going to ask them one by one. And we’re going to get to the bottom of the answers.” That last comment was intended for Annick, and he fixed her with a stare. Before the Trial, her eyes had made him nervous, but now, after a long silence, the sniper was the one to look away. She was smaller than he remembered, sitting slumped in her seat, as though without her bow she was just a child once more, angry but lost.

“First,” Valyn said, “and most important—”

“Did you kill the f*cking girl?” Gwenna cut in, rounding on Annick, leaning in so close that the sniper must have been able to feel her breath on her cheek. “That’s all we need to know.”

Annick’s fingers twitched, but she did not look up. “No,” she replied curtly. “I didn’t.”

If only it were as easy as that, Valyn thought to himself bleakly. If only you asked honest questions and people gave you honest answers.

“But you met her,” Laith said, his usual good humor evaporated. He leaned forward angrily, hungrily. Perhaps, Valyn thought, Amie was more than just a dockyard whore to him after all. Laith had patronized a dozen girls over on Hook over the years, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have some sort of feeling for any of them. “Rianne told us her sister was meeting a soldier at Manker’s the morning it collapsed,” the flier continued. “The morning she was murdered. You were the only Kettral there.”

“I met her,” Annick replied with obvious reluctance, “but I didn’t kill her.”

“Why?” Valyn demanded, reining in his impatience and anger. “Why did you meet her?”

The sniper looked to the window, as though there were some escape beyond the thin pane of glass. Emotions flitted across her face as quickly as clouds before a storm. She was trapped, Valyn realized, and trapped creatures were dangerous, unpredictable. His hand drifted to his belt knife, and out of the corner of his eye, he caught Talal shifting to put the table between himself and the girl. Annick was a terror with her bow, but now she seemed vulnerable, almost naked. Her eyes flicked from one face to the next, as though looking for support. When she found none, her lips tightened.