Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(49)

“It was Balendin,” Valyn said, probing the gash on his forehead. It would leave a scar, but then, he had plenty of those already.

“I know it was Balendin,” Lin snapped. “When I went for him, my ankle twisted as though I’d stepped in mud. Mud. We haven’t had rain in days.”

Valyn nodded. “Same for me. Something tangled my feet. I went down before I even realized what was happening.”

“Gent’s right,” Lin muttered. “Somebody ought to string them up. Every ’Kent-kissing leach on the two continents.”

Valyn eyed her carefully. “Even Talal?”

“’Shael can have Talal,” she spat back. “Oh, he’s nice enough,” she rushed on before he could interrupt, “but how can you trust him? How can you trust any of them? I don’t care if the Eyrie wants another edge.”

Valyn wasn’t quite sure he agreed with her, but after the afternoon’s ordeal, he wasn’t about to argue further.

“The bitch of it is,” Lin went on, “to anyone watching that fight, it looked like they actually won.”

“They did win,” Valyn observed.

“They cheated.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re the ones who ended up facedown in the dirt. I want to smash out a few of Yurl’s teeth as badly as you do, but we’ve got to look at the thing straight on. There aren’t going to be any rules to hide behind when we start flying missions.”

“Spare me the ’Kent-kissing lecture,” she said, spitting a bolus of blood into the waves, then checking a tooth with her tongue. “It’s bad enough to lose to Yurl and Ainhoa without you scouring the wound with sanctimony.”

Valyn had been about to put a hand on her shoulder, but he leaned back now, stung by Lin’s bitterness.

“Don’t bark at me. I’m not the one who broke formation.”

She glared at him, then groaned in frustration. “I’m sorry, Val. I’m just burned because I’m sure that from the side of the ring, it looked like I slipped, like I just collapsed. People are probably still laughing about it back there.”

Something about the words bothered Valyn, and he looked out to sea, running them over again. His head still ached from the blow, and it took him a while to collect his thoughts. “What did you just say?” he asked.

“It looked like I just collapsed!” Lin said. “Nobody realized what really happened.”

Collapsed.

“Like Manker’s,” he said quietly.

“I like to think I’m a little more graceful than a termite-ridden alehouse.”

“I’m not talking about you or the alehouse. I’m talking about what brought you both down.”

Lin’s head shot up, and she stared at him, eyes bright and angry. “Holy Hull,” she breathed. “A f*cking leach.”





12





“Come on, Kaden!” Pater said, tugging at Kaden’s belt in an effort to hurry him along the trail. “They’re going to be starting already. Hurry up!”

“Starting what?” Kaden asked for the third time.

Sometimes it seemed like the boy was all bright blue eyes and bony elbows. Normally Pater’s enthusiasm made Kaden smile, but today he was hot and frustrated and in no mood for the small child tugging and pawing at his robe.

He had spent half the morning taking apart a small stone hut, and his Shin composure was beginning to fray. Under the best of circumstances, the work would be laborious and time consuming; the rough blocks of granite had a way of shredding his palms and pinching his fingers until they turned black and blue. And these were not the best of circumstances. After all, he had just finished building the ’Shael-spawned thing only a day earlier. It was all part of Tan’s “instruction,” of course. For almost two weeks, ever since the incident at the pool, the monk had had Kaden lugging stones from all over the mountain, laying them into place, checking to see that the walls were true and plumb, then hauling more rocks. Tan never told him what the building was for, but Kaden had assumed it was for something. No sooner had he finished it, however, straightening from the placement of the final piece, than Tan nodded impassively.

“Good,” the monk had said. “Now, take it down.” He turned away as if to depart, then looked back over his shoulder. “And I don’t want to see a pile of rubble here. Each of these stones is to go back exactly where you found it.”