Kingmaker (3 page)

Except this night, the Dreamer hid something new in all those rehashed memories. A whisper and a hand clamped hard around her wrist.
There has to be a better way,
it said. Too faint for her to know who said it.

A better way for what? For whom? That’s how the Dreamer’s hints always were, Vera thought. Useless right until the moment you needed them—and then they were too late.

Edina was waiting for her outside the Minister’s office the next morning.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Edina whispered. A stack of papers were crushed in her fist; deep furrows cut through her brow. “Goading the Stargazers? Trying to find who’s in charge of those bloody vigilantes?”

“Of course. Find them, turn them to the Ministry’s side, take down the gangs. That’s always been the plan, even when we worked together. What, you can’t stand it that I’m running that mission without your help now?” Vera shoved past her. “You’d best get accustomed to it. I’m finding I work far better alone.”

“Vera.” Edina’s tone fell heavy as a stone. “You can’t toy with these people. They aren’t like the smalltime crooks you’re used to bringing in.” Her eyes shimmered; was she crying? “You’re going to get hurt.”

Vera stared at her for a few moments. “Good. Some things are worth it.”

She turned and headed for the Minister’s door, letting the righteous anger burn through her, stronger than any ale. But Edina called her back. “Wait.”

Vera jammed her hands into fists and pressed them against her thighs, fighting against the tears welling in her own eyes.

“The Stargazer you’re watching—Garrith? He sent a letter to the Ministry.” When she turned, Edina was holding a scrap out to her. “He knows the gangs are looking for the Destroyers’ leader. And he wants to meet.”

*   *   *

“Be careful,” Minister Durst said.

“This is the chance we need. It’s Garrith—it must be. He knows he’s been pegged as part of the Destroyers, and he’ll be looking for the sort of guarantees that only we can offer him.”

“Or it could be a trap,” the Minister said.

Vera rolled her eyes. “Or it could be genuine. Imagine. If you were a second lieutenant in the Stargazers, and feared you’d been outed as the sort of vigilante trying to bring the Stargazers down—wouldn’t you be desperate for help?”

“Or to silence the person who’d figured me out.”

“No one knows that was me,” Vera said. But she remembered the footsteps in the mist, off and on, following her from the Cloister of Roses to the Ministry barracks themselves. Had they followed her all the way from the tavern?

Well,
Vera thought nonchalantly, either it
was a trap, or it was an incredible catch.
“He reached out to the Ministry. Not the role I’d been playing when we met. At least he’ll know my face, though—he’ll trust me. Please, Minister. Let me persuade him to work with us.”

Durst rubbed at his jaw, his gaze far away. “The second lieutenant to the Stargazers. Must be an awful lot of knowledge locked away in his head.”

Vera leaned forward. “Knowledge we can use to take down the Stargazers. To take down all of the gangs.”

And Lord Alizard,
Vera added silently. Edina’s father. A threat no more.

Not that she believed it would change anything. Edina had already made her choice. But still …

“All right. Meet with him. Find out what he knows and what he wants from us. If he’s just looking for money, forget it. We need a long-term relationship with him if we’re going to make this work.”

Vera nodded. “Dreamer help us all.”

*   *   *

The five Ministry enforcers hidden around the meeting point—the tunnel entrance near Dreamer Square—did nothing to dampen Vera’s pounding pulse. Even the late winter chill couldn’t cool her down beneath the many layers she wore and the hood shrouding her face. No use revealing her identity to Garrith until she had to, after all. Assuming he showed. Assuming he really was with the Destroyers. Assuming he actually thought the Ministry could help.

All Vera could do was trust in the Dreamer, and in her own gut.

There has to be a better way,
her dreams echoed in her mind.

A trio of figures emerged from the tunnel grates, and the foremost of them lifted a hand to beckon her. Vera gripped her layered cotton skirts tight and followed. How close did the Ministry’s men intend to follow? She didn’t want to spook Garrith, but neither did she want to be left alone with him.

The moment she squeezed through the bars of the tunnel, the harsh tang of metal and damp stone and unwashed flesh surrounded her. The darkness tucked in tight; only the stripes of luminescent paint on the tunnel’s ceiling cast any light. The world was reduced to shadows and even darker space.

“You are from the Ministry.” The man was beside her before she even saw or heard him. But she knew it was Garrith from his height, from his short wiry gray hair catching the faintest glimmer of the light.

“I am.” Vera lifted her chin. “We want to help you. We know you are under some … pressure.”

The man laughed. They continued down the tunnel in silence, then he steered them off the main branch. Vera tried to twist her head back, tried to make it look natural, to see if her guards were following, but Garrith’s focus stayed on her.

“Someone’s been telling stories on me. False stories. The kind that get a Stargazer killed.”

Vera pressed two fingers against the shape of the knife tucked into the waist of her tunic. “Sounds like you need our help now more than ever.”

“Ahhh, I remember you now.” He pressed into her, driving her side up against the curved stone wall. “That snotty little attitude. I should’ve known.”

They’d stopped moving. Footsteps splashed against the trickle of runoff that coursed down the side tunnel they now occupied. Both of Garrith’s guards tightened their circle around them. And her guards were nowhere to be found.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Vera managed to say, though her insides felt like they’d turned to water. Why was she so nervous? And then she remembered—Edina’s warning about just what sort of criminals these men were. Maybe she was in over her head after all. “The Ministry always gets its way. You’d like working with us. We’ll keep you safe from your gang, help you accomplish all your goals and more.”

Garrith pinned her torso in place with his own. “That’d be great,” he murmured. “If I really were a Destroyer.”

Vera tried to swallow, but his forearm was suddenly at her throat.

“Too bad for you. I’m not. And I’ve got to kill this foolish rumor of yours before it spreads too far.”

“They’re handled,” someone said from the tunnel mouth. Coarse, heavy. Jorn, the brawler—it had to be.

Garrith grinned, his teeth almost blue in the luminescent paint’s light. “What was it, five guards you brought?”

A bead of sweat ran down Vera’s back.

“Sorry, little girl, but even the whole Imperial army won’t keep you safe.”

Vera pulled the knife from her waistband, but Garrith was quicker. He bashed her hand back against the stone wall, knocking the knife out of her grip and pinning her to the wall. She brought her knee up to his groin, but he moved faster, angling his body away.

Vera slid down the wall, trying to drop out of Garrith’s grasp. Jorn was stalking toward them, his hulking form blocking out the weak light. At least he was a slow fighter. She could handle Garrith and the others, maybe, but she’d have to save Jorn for last.

Vera dived for her discarded knife, but Garrith caught her shoulder and wrenched her back. He was grinning again—a grin that made Vera’s blood run cold. Her throat constricted, waiting for the blow. Then, before Vera’s eyes, the sick smile turned to a frown. Something slid slowly down his face and dripped into her eye.

Vera blinked.

There was blood dripping onto her face—and it was not her own.

It was Garrith’s, pouring out of the gaping wound in his forehead.

Vera scrambled back and out of his loose grasp. She scanned the tunnel, found her knife winking in the stream of runoff, and rolled toward it. She snatched it up before whirling around to face the next guard. Wait. Where was the next guard?

She squinted into the darkness. All she saw were dark forms, dotting the tunnel floor like lumpy sacks of oat. And Jorn, standing over them all.

“Dreams of death.” Vera clapped her hand to her mouth. How had he moved so quickly? But no, she realized, it had been just another strategy of his. He brawled slow and steady, dimwitted and blundering—so none would know his speed, his cleverness.

She wondered what else he’d been concealing, too.

“You’ve got some kind of death wish, don’t you,” Jorn said.

“That’s my business.” Vera straightened up, forcing the tremor out of her arms. “What about my guards? You said you—”

“They’re fine. Well—I had to rough them up a bit.” Jorn grimaced. “They’re, uh, waiting for us the next tunnel over. Had to be convincing, you know.”

Convincing. A story to sell. Vera liked him already. Assuming he didn’t kill her.

“Garrith was getting too cocky,” Jorn said, narrating to himself as he surveyed the carnage before him. “Thought he could impress the Stargazers leader and take down the Destroyers on his own. Tried to set a trap for you but didn’t bring enough men. Was quickly overpowered. Got the Stargazers’ prize fighter wounded.”

Vera furrowed her brow. “But you’re not wounded—”

Jorn grit his teeth and tugged at his shoulder until Vera heard the sickening pop of dislocation. “That should do.”

Vera flinched. Well, that was one way for him to prove his dedication. “So you’re part of the Destroyers,” Vera said.

Jorn snorted, humorless. “Girlie, I run the Destroyers.”

“And you’re willing to work with us?” she asked. “The Ministry?”

Jorn slumped against the stone wall next to her, his dislocated arm dangling uselessly between them. “Do you understand why I created the Destroyers?”

Vera twisted her head to look at him—his stern, calculating gaze and solid jawline. How had she not seen it before? He was no dumb brute. She should have known. “You want to protect the tunnelers from the gangs. The gangs give them work, yes, but they also prey on them, just as much if not more so than the rest of Barstadt.”

“Than the rest of Barstadt,” Jorn echoed. “That includes the Ministry of Affairs.”

“But we have resources. We have people in places the Destroyers couldn’t dream of reaching.” Vera softened her tone. “We could help you. With your knowledge of the gangs and our place beside the Emperor, we could tear the gangs down, and everyone in the aristocracy who supports them. Change the system.”

“And how do I know the Ministry isn’t as corrupt as all the rest?” Jorn shook his head, then stared up at the ceiling. “Your Ministry’ll just find some new way to muck it up for the tunnelers. There has to be a better way.”

The Dreamer’s words, coming from his mouth. Vera stared. Finally, the Dreamer was showing her the way ahead. Not leaving her to flail in her past mistakes.

She just had to convince him.

“Then let’s make one. Not the same old Ministry way—your own way.”

Jorn turned to look at her—as if he were really seeing her, now.

“Tearing down the gangs is only the beginning. We can work with the Minister—you, me, anyone else who cares to help—to protect the tunnelers throughout it all. And then we can work with the Emperor to bring the tunnelers out of the dark. Integrate them into Barstadt society.”

“And why would the Emperor go for that?”

“The Emperor already wants to crack down on corruption—he’s sick of the gangs running rampant. Our primary goal in the Ministry, after protecting the empire from external threat, is to protect it from internal ones—and no one poses a greater threat than the gangs. So we convince him that freeing the tunnelers is the safest way.”

And we rid the aristocracy of men like Lord Alizard,
Vera thought.

Jorn frowned. “Suppose I like it better where I am. Paid well by the Stargazers, helping tunnelers out on the side. Creating the Destroyers … it’s made a better man of me.”

“And you like tearing apart men like you in the brawling ring? Do you like tearing apart the aristocrats who’ve wronged the tunnelers you protected? Does that make you better, too?” Vera asked.

Jorn snarled at her. “The Stargazers made me a king. A king of death. It seemed fitting I should carry on the Destroyers’ work in much the same way.”

“With the Ministry’s help,” Vera said, “we can make you a king of life. A new chance. For the tunnelers, and for yourself.”

*   *   *

“And that convinced him?” Minister Durst asked.

Vera thrust her shoulders back and pointedly avoided Edina’s wide-eyed stare. “He handed over a list of Stargazers safehouses on the spot, with a promise of more to come.”

“I’ll run them by our scouts, make sure they check out.” Edina scribbled a note to herself.

Vera bit back a sharp comment and forced herself to smile.
There has to be a better way.
Dreamer, she was trying to find one. To take down Lord Alizard, even if it changed nothing between her and Edina. To find a new life instead of running laps around her past.

“We’ll meet with him regularly after the brawls—work through the bookie to pass information easily, make it look like bet payouts. I don’t mind overseeing that operation.”

“That’ll do for now,” Durst said. But his gaze was elsewhere again. “But I want to make this quick. Less chance of discovery.”

“How do you mean?” Vera and Edina asked at the same time, then Edina lowered her head, cheeks red, while Vera shot her a dirty look.

“The Dreamer has filled my head with ideas for this mission—ideas I think might actually bear out. I want to squeeze as much information from this Jorn fellow as we can, as quickly as we can, and then prepare for one quick purge to bring the gangleaders and aristocrats in before they have any chance to know something’s missing.”

“But even Jorn can only grab so much,” Edina pointed out. “He’s often with the Stargazers leader, it’s true, but he’s not trusted with all of his secrets. We’ll need those before we can truly act.”