Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(73)

“You should be,” Tan replied curtly. “But memory is short.”

“There are those,” Nin said, nodding toward Kaden’s umial, “who believe the Shin should never have given over their charge, who believe that the Emperors neglect their responsibility.”

Kaden turned back to Rampuri Tan. The man stood in the shadow, arms crossed over his chest, eyes dark in the dim light of the study. He didn’t move, or speak, or shift his gaze from his pupil.

“You don’t believe they’re gone, do you?” Kaden asked quietly. “You’re not training me to be a monk or to rule an empire. You’re training me to fight the Csestriim.”

For several heartbeats, Tan didn’t respond. That implacable stare bored into Kaden as though seeking out the hidden secrets of his heart.

“It seems the Csesriim are dead,” the monk said at last.

“Then why are you telling me this?”

“In case they are not.”





17





“She lied,” Valyn insisted, slamming his fist down onto the table. “The ’Kent-kissing bitch lied.”

“Fine,” Lin responded. “She lied. Saying it over and over again isn’t going to help.”

“Although it is nice to get a firm grip on the facts,” Laith added, his voice too serious for the jest.

It was late—most of the soldiers were racked in their bunks or out on night training somewhere—and the three of them had the long, empty mess hall to themselves. Most of the place lay shrouded in darkness—no point in wasting good oil lighting a room with no one in it—but down at the far end of the space, through the open door leading into the kitchens, Valyn could make out flickering lamps and the humming of Jared, the old night cook, as he went about his business grilling pork for the next day’s lunch and keeping the kettle of tea boiling for soldiers returning late from their training. Laith had kindled the lamp above their own table, although he kept the wick barely long enough for Valyn to see the features of his friends. The flier was pushed back on the back legs of his chair, gazing up into the rafters. Lin’s hair glistened in the lamplight, still damp from her long swim.

She held up her hands in conciliation. “I’m not saying you’re wrong about Annick, but are you sure? You told me Fane held up the knot afterwards, that it was a normal bowline.”

Valyn tensed, then forced himself to take a deep breath. She was just trying to help, trying to sort through the facts with him.

“I managed to untie part of it before I blacked out,” he explained. “I panicked at the end, but I remember the knot clearly enough. It felt like a basic bowline, but it wasn’t. It had those two extra loops—the kind we found in the knot that was holding up Amie.”

“Well,” Laith pointed out, lowering the front feet of his chair to the ground and pursing his lips, “there’s no rule that she has to give you an easy knot. It would be just like Annick to try to drown you on principle.”

“It would,” Lin admitted. “But why would she lie about it?”

Lin still wasn’t convinced that Annick was behind Amie’s death, and her refusal to accept the reality of the situation was starting to grate on Valyn. Normally Lin was objective and clear-sighted, but there was something about Amie’s murder that she couldn’t see past, as though, because of the nature of the violence, it had to have been committed by a man.

“Because she knows,” he snapped. “That’s the only explanation. She knows we found Amie—everyone on Hook probably knows that by now. And if she’s got a brain in her head, she can figure out we were asking questions at the Black Boat.”

“So … what?” Lin asked. “She decides to kill all four of us? And Rianne, too, for good measure? Even if she did kill Amie, that’s an insane way to cover it up.”

“From Annick?” Laith asked, raising an eyebrow. “That actually sounds like a somewhat measured response.”

“I don’t claim to have it all figured out,” Valyn went on. “All I’m saying is there’s too much coincidence here to ignore. She might even have something to do with—”

Lin shot him a sharp glance and he cut himself off. He’d been about to say the sniper might have something to do with the plot against his own life, which meant she might know something about the death of his father, about threats to Kaden. Only he had told no one aside from Lin about the words of the dying Aedolian. It was a measure of his fatigue that he almost slipped in front of Laith.