Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(59)

On the other hand, Hendran had written that the last gift you could give to a suffering soldier was death. Valyn thought back to the corpse of Amie, dangling from her wrists in the garret, eyes straining from her skull. Perhaps, in the end, Ananshael had been kind to her after all. Perhaps he was no more vicious than a gardener trimming his trees, a farmer about his autumn harvest.

“‘Only the dead,’” Valyn said quietly, quoting the passage, “‘are at peace.’”

Rianne nodded. It seemed unlikely that she’d had occasion to study Hendran, but the sentiment seemed to make sense to her. When he considered the life she’d led, it wasn’t hard to see why. He hoisted the crock to his lips, took another swig, and passed it. For a while the three of them drank in silence, sitting on the cold earth, staring at the cold mound of stones that marked the termination of a life.

“Do you have any idea who did it?” Valyn asked finally. He hated to break the quiet, the illusion of tranquillity, but the question had been gnawing at his gut.

“No,” Rianne responded, shaking her head despondently. “I didn’t think anyone could…” She trailed off, but didn’t start crying again.

Tough girl, Valyn thought, to pull herself together in the space of a single night. He’d seen Kettral cadets who took more time to get over their first battlefield examination.

“Did Amie say she was going to be meeting anyone?” Lin prompted. “Any … men?”

Rianne bit her lip and squinted into the darkness. “She said … Yes … She said she was going to see a soldier, but that was early in the day.”

Valyn and Lin exchanged a look.

“Kettral?” Valyn asked slowly, although the answer was obvious. Marriage was forbidden to the Kettral; a husband or wife was a liability, a distraction, a lever an enemy might use to manipulate or blackmail. Henderson Jakes, the founder of the Eyrie, had envisioned a cadre of elite soldiers dedicated to celibacy, the empire, and the art of war. He had to settle for two out of three. Young men and women willing to leap off massive birds into burning buildings at a mere nod from a commanding officer grew violently rebellious when required to abstain from sex. After six or eight soldiers had been marched to the gallows for f*cking on night watch, f*cking on recon, f*cking while harnessed into one of the ’Kent-kissing birds (Valyn always found that one both implausible and impressive), resentment among the troops boiled over and it looked like Jakes might come to a violent and untimely end, along with the order he sought to found. Like any good tactician, Jakes knew when he had to give ground. The ban against marriage remained, but the prohibition regarding sex was lifted.

Hundreds of years later, whores and whorehouses abounded on Hook—a simple solution to an ancient problem. Valyn had visited a few himself, usually dragged along by Laith or Gent when they were in their cups. He always felt a little dirty afterwards, always knew he would go again when pressed. It seemed harmless enough, and after all, no one was forcing the women. Amie’s death, however …

“She was going to meet Kettral?” he asked again, his voice rougher than he’d intended.

Rianne nodded.

“Did she say who?”

“No,” she replied heavily. “Just that they were meeting at Manker’s. She seemed excited, which was strange. Being a whore—there are worse jobs—but it’s not something Amie enjoyed. She didn’t look forward to … seeing the men.”

Valyn’s heart thudded in his chest. It made a sick sort of sense; if anyone knew how to truss up a girl, how to silence her, murder her, and slip away without anyone the wiser, it was the Kettral. That’s what the Eyrie trained them for. And then, of course, there was the cord from Li to consider. The next question rose unbidden to his lips, but before he could ask it, a racket from the lane outside the shack brought him up short. Someone, two men by the sound of it—two drunken men were approaching the house, crowing out slurred lyrics as they came.

We wear the blacks when we attack,

From the moment we wake till we hit the sack.

Black as darkness, black as death,

We’ll wear the blacks to our final breath.

We march alongside Ananshael

And leave the widows to weep and wail.

You ask by whom this woe was sent?

The Lord of Pain and Cries: Meshkent.

“Kettral,” Valyn said, eyeing Lin.

She nodded tightly, removing her arm from Rianne’s shoulders to free up her right hand.