City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(153)

“I have called in some favors with some middle managers in the Ministry,” says Shara.

“There’s an ‘and’ or a ‘but’ coming. …”

“True.” Shara pushes her glasses up on her nose. “And I am taking a train to Ahanashtan in two hours, and sailing home to Ghaladesh tomorrow.”

“Okay?” says Mulaghesh, suspicious.

“If I disappear—I will be blunt here, and say that if I am secretly murdered—during that trip, or when I arrive in Saypur, then you will be stationed in Javrat within a matter of months.”

“If you’re what?”

“If, however, I survive my trip,” continues Shara, “then much about the current predicament will change.”

“Like what?”

“Like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

“How will that change?”

“Well, for starters, it will probably cease to exist.”

Someone coughs somewhere in the hospital.

“Are you sure that you didn’t catch a bump on the head during—”

“I think you and I had the same job, Turyin,” says Shara. “You weren’t to intervene in Bulikovian affairs—things were supposed to stay the same. I intervened in Continental affairs constantly, but to keep things the way they are—with the Continent desperately poor, and all commerce directed to Saypur. ‘To leave the Continent to the Continent,’ ” Shara says from memory. “Which is to say, poor, savage, and irrelevant.”

“You don’t have to quote the policy to me. I wasted two decades of my life enforcing it. So what are you saying you want to do?”

“I wish to change this. And if I am to change this,” Shara says, “then I will need allies on the Continent.”

“Aw, shit.”

“Especially here in Bulikov.”

“Aw, shit.”

“Because if I need anyone backing me up,” says Shara, “I want it to be General Turyin Mulaghesh.”

“I’m a governor first and foremost, but my military rank is colonel.”

“If I survive, and do what I plan,” says Shara, “it won’t be.”

Mulaghesh blinks and laughs hollowly. “You want me to play Sagresha to your Kaj? I told you, I’m not interested in promotion. I’m out of the game.”

“And I’m going to change the game entirely,” says Shara.

“Oh, by the seas … Are you serious about this?”

Shara takes a deep breath. “I am, actually. I am not sure how many radical changes I can make—but I plan to try and make as many as I can. The Ministry failed Bulikov last week. It failed you, Turyin. It failed, and thousands are dead.”

“You … You really think you can? Do you really think you aren’t being, like”—Mulaghesh laughs—“well, wildly f*cking na?ve about this?”

Shara shrugs. “I killed a god last week. A ministry should be a small task, shouldn’t it?”

“That’s a pretty good point, I suppose.”

“Will you help me, Turyin? You and I were meant to be servants, and for years we chiefly served policy. I am offering what I think is our first real chance to serve.”

“Aw, shit …” Mulaghesh strokes the scars on her jaw with her right hand and contemplates it. “Well. I must admit all this is somewhat interesting.”

“I hoped you would think so.”

“And last I checked, the pay grade for a general is almost twice that of a colonel . …”

Shara smiles. “Enough to afford frequent vacations in Javrat.”

*

Shara creeps down the hospital hall toward Sigrud’s room.

Is this how governments are made? Forcing decisions on wounded people in the middle of the night?

She halts when she enters the ward, and looks out on the sea of beds—each with a pale white burden, some with arms and legs propped up, others eclipsed in bandages—and wonders which of her choices put them in those beds, and how things could have been different.

Sigrud’s voice seeps through the wall beside her: “I can hear you, Shara. If you want to come in, come in.”

Shara opens the door and steps inside. Sigrud is a mountain of stitches, bandages, tubes; liquids pour into him and out of him, draining into various sacks; a thick set of stitches marches from his left eyebrow up into his scalp; his left nostril has been split, and his left cheek is a red mass. Otherwise, he is still most definitely Sigrud.

“How did you know it was me?” she asks.

“Your footfalls,” he says, “are so small, like a little cat’s.”

“I will take that as a compliment.” She sits down beside his bed. “How are you?”

“Why haven’t you visited?”

“Why do you care?”

“You think I wouldn’t?”

“The Sigrud I knew and employed for ten years was never one for caring about much. Don’t tell me your brush with death has given you a new perspective on life—you’ve brushed it many times, often right in front of me, and it never seemed to affect you before.”

“Someone,” says Sigrud, “has been telling you tales about me.” He thinks. “You know, I’m not sure what it is. When I jumped off that ship, I didn’t think I would have a future at all. I thought I would be dead. But for the first time, I felt … good. I felt that the world I was leaving was good. Not great, but good. And now I am alive in what could be a good world.” He shrugs. “Perhaps I only wish to sail again.”