Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(176)

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A glint of steel poked through the canvas, then the body of a belt knife, flashing in the lamplight as it sawed back and forth slowly, carving down through the heavy fabric. Kaden’s mind darted immediately to the long blades he had discovered inside Pyrre’s pack, and he tightened his hold on the candlestick, trying to get a good grip with his sweaty palms. Whoever it was would have to come through headfirst, and as soon as they were partway inside the tent, he could smash the candlestick down on the nape of their neck. He moved cautiously to the side of the growing rent and raised his weapon.

A small shaved head poked inside, pulled back a moment, then reappeared, followed immediately by a wriggling body.

Kaden started to swing, then checked himself.

“Kaden,” the intruder whispered urgently. “Kaden, you’ve got to listen!”

“Pater,” he exhaled heavily. “What are you doing here?” The small boy looked over at Triste, and for a moment it seemed all thought had gone out of his head, but when he turned back to Kaden his urgency returned in a rush.

“There’s men, Kaden, with armor.”

Kaden let out a long breath and Triste slowly relaxed. He noticed she had picked up the other candlestick, but lowered it now, unsure what to make of their diminutive intruder. “Those are probably just a few of the Aedolian Guards. They’re here to protect me, Pater.”

“No!” Pater insisted. “They’re in the mountains. All over the mountains. I was on the Talon. Heng caught me eating a carrot when I should have been fasting, but we only had to fast because you took over the refectory—” He glared at Kaden accusingly, then remembered his purpose.

“But I was on the Talon and I heard them and I knew that you’re Emperor now and I thought like you thought, that they were soldiers, but then I listened to them and they are soldiers, but I listened to what they were saying, listened to it and remembered it exactly, just like those boring exercises we always have to do. One of them said, ‘Make sure the perimeter is secure before you move.’ Then another one said, ‘I don’t see why we don’t just kill the boy and have done with it.’ And I got scared then, because I didn’t know who the boy was, but I kept listening, and the first one called the second one an idiot, he said, ‘If those were our only orders, we could have taken off his head in the square.’”

Kaden felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle. He glanced over at Triste. Her pale face had gone white in the candlelight and she shook her head in confusion, hugging her arms around her chest. “What did they say next?” Kaden asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“He said, the first one did, that if they didn’t secure the perimeter before the attack, some of the monks would get away. ‘Once you’ve nailed down the perimeter, make sure they’re all dead, but do not begin until they’ve finished with the boy.’” Kaden could feel his heart thundering in his chest and he took a moment to slow his pulse. He had to think. Triste was staring at Pater and tugging her gossamer dress tighter about her.

“He said they brought that pavilion all the way up the mountain just so they’d know right where he was and they didn’t want him slipping away when things got messy,” Pater tumbled on, still breathless from his run down from the Talon and the urgency of his message. “That’s when I figured out that he was you! I almost fell off the Talon, I was so scared. I climbed down and I ran all the way here, but there’s a huge man with a sword in front of the door, and so I had to sneak in the back. You have to leave, Kaden!” he finished with a rush. “You have to leave right now!”

“We have to tell Ut,” Kaden responded, heading for the door.

Pater dived for him, grasping him around the legs while shaking his head furiously. “No, Kaden,” he begged. “He’s on their side! They said his name, the men in the mountains, and I made sure to remember it. ‘Ut wants this.…’ ‘Report to Ut.…’ He’s on their side,” Pater repeated. “That’s why I had to sneak in the back of the tent.”

Kaden tried to gather his wits. The sudden arrival of the imperial delegation combined with the shock of his father’s death had left him disconcerted and raw, but he had done his best to tamp down his emotions, to smother them and play the young Emperor. Micijah Ut, even changed as he was, had been one familiar spar in a baffling flood, something to cling to as Kaden made his way back toward the capital. And now, it seemed, the man had been sent to kill him. The discipline he spent years cultivating threatened to evaporate as quickly as a late spring snow, and with desperation he reached for the novice exercises he had mastered in his first years among the Shin.