Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(43)

“I didn’t realize you’d become a demolitions master when I wasn’t around.”

Valyn bit his tongue. He was here to ask Gwenna for a favor, after all. Lin, remarkably, had kept her mouth shut, and if she could be civil, so could Valyn. “Isn’t it a little bit longer and thinner than the normal tube?” he asked, trying to sound interested.

“Marginally,” Gwenna said, scrutinizing the weapon, then scratching away an errant drop of wax with her fingernail.

“Why?”

“Bigger. Louder. Hotter.” She was trying to sound casual, but there was something in her voice, something Valyn had not expected to hear. It took him a moment to place it: pride. Gwenna was often so venomous, so closed off, that it was hard for him to imagine her feeling anything but rage or bile. The sudden revelation that she might actually take joy in some aspect of the world disarmed him, but just as he was starting to reassess his opinion of her, she rounded on him with a scowl. “You going to tell me what you want, or what?”

Now that it had come down to it, Valyn felt strangely hesitant. His fears, which Lin had done her best to fan, seemed bizarre and paranoid when he had to state them aloud.

Gwenna spread her hands impatiently.

“I assume you heard about Manker’s,” Valyn began tentatively. “The tavern over on Hook?”

“I know what Manker’s is,” Gwenna snapped. “I’ve given that bastard about half my pay for the watered-down swill he calls ale.”

“Well, then I assume you know it collapsed,” Valyn replied, trying to keep his own temper in check. “I was there, drinking, and it collapsed just after I stepped out the door.”

“How lucky for you.”

“Most of the people inside were killed. Crushed.”

“How sad for them.”

Lin pushed past Valyn, her own patience evidently nearing its end. “It might not have been an accident.”

That gave Gwenna pause. Her eyes flicked from Valyn to Lin, then back. He waited for her to laugh, to make some crack about the self-involved son of the Emperor thinking the whole world turned around him. Everyone else on the Islands needled him about his birth, even his friends, and Gwenna had never been one of his friends. She didn’t laugh.

“And you think it’s tied up with the death of your father.” Gwenna could be a bitch, but she wasn’t stupid.

Valyn nodded.

“Doesn’t do much good to stab the Emperor if his son plonks his own ass down on the throne a few days later.”

“I’m not the heir—”

“Spare me the f*cking politics,” Gwenna replied, waving his objection aside. “I get the general idea.”

“And Manker’s…,” Lin pressed.

“You want me to look at it,” Gwenna said, wiping her hands on her blacks. “You want me to check it out.”

Valyn nodded carefully. “I don’t understand the munitions as well as you. I’m not sure if you could use them to bring down a building like that.”

“Of course you could knock over a building. That’s the whole point of the ’Kent-kissing things.”

“I know, but slowly like that? Without a visible explosion?”

Gwenna rolled her eyes. “You’re expected to lead a Wing someday and you don’t even understand the basics of munitions?”

“Look,” Ha Lin interjected, her lips tight. “We don’t spend all day in this little shed tinkering with matches and minerals—”

“You know more about this than we do,” Valyn said, cutting his friend off before the whole thing turned into a verbal sparring match. “You’re better than I am. You’re better than Lin is. You’re better than most of the ’Shael-spawned Kettral on the Islands. We could look, but maybe we’d miss something crucial.” If Gwenna wanted to be stroked, Valyn could grind out some compliments, although the fact that the words were true didn’t make them any easier to utter.

She scowled, then looked away, studying the wall of the shed. Valyn wondered if his strategy had backfired. Who knew how Gwenna’s mind worked? “Do you think you’d have time to do it?” he pressed. “I’d be happy to give you—”

“Money?” Gwenna snapped, her green eyes ablaze. “Your imperial favor?” she sneered.

Valyn started to reply but she cut him off.

“I don’t need anything from you. I’ll do it because I’m interested, because I want to know. Got it?”