Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(38)

Ha Lin stopped just outside the reach of the tree’s branches, glancing up at the quiescent bats with a look of disgust. Valyn had no doubt that when the time came, she would pay homage to the god like everyone else, but she had never overcome her revulsion of the place. It was one of the reasons Valyn had chosen it—he thought the dark limbs and quiet susurrations of the shifting bats might keep her away. No such luck.

Lin’s lips were pursed, and her eyes, normally so open and warm, were hooded as she looked at him. She must have come directly from a training rotation; mud coated her blacks while a small cut wept blood on her left cheek. Somehow, even battered and dirty, she managed to look poised, beautiful even. Which is part of the ’Shael-spawned problem, Valyn thought sourly to himself. He wouldn’t have had nearly so much trouble thinking what to say to Laith, or Gent, or even Talal.

“How long are you going to sulk?” Lin asked finally, raising an eyebrow.

Valyn gritted his teeth. “It was wrong to kill her.”

“Valyn,” Lin said, “right and wrong are luxuries.”

“They are necessities.”

“Maybe for other people. Not for us.”

“Especially for us,” Valyn insisted. “If we don’t have some sense of right and wrong, we’re no better than Skullsworn, killing for the sake of killing, murdering to please Ananshael.”

“We’re not Skullsworn,” Lin replied, “but we’re not knights of Heqet either. We don’t ride around on white steeds, waving idiotically heavy swords and delivering noble challenges to our foes. Or maybe you hadn’t noticed. We’re Kettral, Valyn. We kill people. If we have our way, we poison them, or we stab them in the back. Maybe we shoot them when they aren’t looking, and if at all possible, we do it at night. It might not be noble, but it’s necessary. It’s what we trained for.”

“Not serving girls,” he said stubbornly. “Not civilians.”

“Yes, serving girls. Yes, civilians. If we have to. If they get in the way of the mission.”

“There was no ’Kent-kissing mission. We were trying to get people out of that place alive.”

“Maybe that’s what you were doing, but I was trying to keep you alive,” she spat back, her eyes bright and angry. “The girl was deadweight. She was killing you. I did what I had to do.”

“There might have been another way.” He’d been over it a hundred times already. Maybe he could have forced his way out one of the other windows. Maybe he could have leapt to one of the adjacent buildings. It was academic now. Manker’s was gone, and Salia with it.

“Of course there might have been another way. And you might have been killed. It’s all about odds, Valyn. You know that as well as I do.” Lin sighed deeply and slumped, as though the anger had gone out of her in a rush, leaving her weak and unsteady. “I always thought it would happen in battle,” she said after a long pause. “In a fight at least.”

Valyn hesitated, suddenly wrong-footed. “Thought what would happen?”

Lin met his eyes. “Salia was my first. My first kill.”

On the Islands, most men and women celebrated their first kill the way civilians might celebrate an engagement or a birthday. As much as passing Hull’s Trial or flying a first mission, killing was a right of passage, a necessary step. Regardless of the training and the study, until you killed, you weren’t really Kettral. Lin was right, though. You didn’t expect your first to be an unconscious serving girl. You didn’t want that.

Valyn blew out a long, slow breath. In his anger and guilt, he hadn’t even thought about how Salia’s death might have affected his friend. Although he’d held the girl as she died, Lin had thrown the knife. She had accepted the burden, and not for her own sake, but to protect him. From some forgotten corner of his mind, his father’s words came back to him, firm and uncompromising: You and Kaden will both be leaders someday, and when you are, remember this: Leadership isn’t just about giving orders. A fool can give orders. A leader listens. He changes his mind. He acknowledges mistakes. Valyn gritted his teeth.

“Thank you,” he said. The words came out rougher than he had intended, but he said them.

Lin raised her eyes, her face guarded, as though she expected some sort of trap.

“You were right,” Valyn said, forcing the syllables out. “I was wrong.”

“Oh, for Ananshael’s sake, Valyn!” Lin groaned. “You are so unbelievably proud. I have no idea why I—” She cut herself off. “I didn’t come up here so that you could tell me I was right. I came because I’m worried.”