Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(39)

“Worried?”

“Manker’s,” she said, gesturing across the bay toward Hook. “It didn’t just fall down on its own.”

Valyn frowned. He’d been gnawing at the same idea, but couldn’t be sure if his misgivings were the result of paranoia or healthy concern.

“Buildings fall down,” he replied. “Especially old ones. Especially on Hook.”

“An Aedolian warns you about a conspiracy, and then, a week later, a building that’s stood for decades just happens to collapse barely a minute after you step outside?”

Valyn shrugged, trying to put down the disquiet festering inside him. “You squint hard enough, and everything starts to look suspicious.”

“Suspicion keeps people alive,” Lin insisted.

“Suspicion drives people insane,” Valyn countered. “If someone wanted me dead, there are more elegant ways to manage it than bringing down an entire building.”

“Are there?” Lin asked, eyebrows raised. “Seems pretty elegant to me. An accident—one more hovel on Hook falls over, killing a dozen people. Nothing too unusual. Nothing to suggest an attack on the imperial family. It’s sure to Hull more elegant than cutting your throat.”

Valyn grimaced. She was right. Again. He knew she was right, and yet, there were accidents to go around on the Islands. Just a week earlier, Lem Hellen had had his leg crushed beneath a huge boulder during a training rotation out on Qarn. If Valyn started looking over his shoulder at every turn, he’d never get a wink of sleep, never trust anyone.

“There’s just no way to know,” he said, staring out over the sound. Hook’s colorful riot of tenements and huts was clear across the narrow strip of water. “I could spend a week poking through the wreckage and still have no idea.”

“Maybe,” Lin began cautiously, “you’re not the one who should poke through the wreckage. You’ve been training to lead a Wing the past eight years, and I’ve been studying the fine art of the bow. Half a dozen of our brothers and sisters, however, have been learning to knock down bridges and blow up buildings.”

“Demolitions,” Valyn replied, nodding.

“One of them ought to be able to tell you if Manker’s was rigged.”

Valyn considered the idea. “It would mean tipping my hand. I’d have to let on I was suspicious.”

“Is that so bad? Might make whoever’s trying to kill you think twice.”

“I don’t want them to think twice,” Valyn said, rolling his eyes. “I want them to think once and, if at all possible, drunkenly.”

“Point is, it’s not likely to make anything worse.”

That seemed like the truth. Valyn stared down at the neat grid of buildings below—storehouses and mess hall, bunkrooms and command center. Which one of them would come down on him next? Which was harboring the traitor or traitors? He could wait, looking over his shoulder every other heartbeat, for the next attack, or he could do something. “Does seem like I’m at a pretty low ebb,” he admitted. “Who did you have in mind?”

“I’ll give you two guesses,” Lin replied with a smirk, “but you’re only going to need one.”

“Gwenna.” He sighed heavily. “Hull help us.”

Lin didn’t seem pleased by the prospect either, but before she could respond, a dark shadow passed overhead, silent and swift. Valyn looked up to find a kettral, wings spread wide, swooping in for a drop on the field below.

“Bird in,” Lin said, tracing the backflight over the island, toward the low bluffs to the northwest. “Looks like it’s coming from…”

“Annur,” Valyn concluded. “Fane’s back.”

*

The Kettral mess hall, a low, one-story building packed with benches and long wooden tables, was a far cry from Manker’s, or any of the Hook alehouses. For one thing, it didn’t serve ale—if you wanted a drink stiffer than black tea, you had to cross the sound. For another, there were no whores, no civilians of any kind, just Kettral, same as everywhere else on Qarsh—men and women loading up on hard tack and dried fruit before flying out on a mission, or shoveling down a bowl of hot stew after they returned. The slaves in the kitchen worked all day and all night as well—soldiers needed food at odd hours. Usually everyone was so intent on their meals that any conversation was low and intermittent. When Valyn and Lin burst through the door, however, the place might as well have been a tavern, and doing good business at that.