Sworn in Steel (11 page)

“So you dusted Crook Eye?”

“It worked, didn’t it? I doubt we’d be standing here talking if I hadn’t.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

I stepped over to the nearest raised bed and sat down on its corner. “So why do you want to find Degan?”

Wolf shook his head. “I answered your question about why I killed Crook Eye; now show me the sword. I’ll answer your other questions after that.”

I hesitated for a moment, then unslung the bundle and laid it across my legs. By the time I’d undone the rope and begun working at the canvas, Wolf was all but looming over me. When I
folded back the last bit of cloth, he caught his breath.

“By the stars,” he murmured. “What happened to it?”

I ran my fingers over the wreckage that had been Degan’s sword. Soot blackened and charred, it looked worse than it was, but that was still bad enough. What had once been an elegant piece
of moon-kissed steel now looked like something that had been abandoned in a back alley after a losing fight. Oh, the sword still ran straight, and the edge seemed to be true under all the
grit—this was Black Isle steel, after all; it would take more than a simple fire to damage this blade—but no one would have taken this for a degan’s weapon at first glance, or
even a second. It hadn’t been until I’d noticed the traces of bronze chasing left on the misshapen guard that I’d suspected it for what it was, wasn’t until I’d rubbed
away the grime at the base of the blade and saw the single tear etched into the sword that I’d known it for what it was. And even then, I’d doubted—that is, until Crook Eye had
told me how he got his hands on it.

“It was in that fire you mentioned down in Ten Ways,” I said. “I’d thought it had been lost or, I don’t know, found and returned to the Order. Either way, I
hadn’t gone looking for it.”

“Because?”

“Because I figured that’s how he wanted it.”

“Yet Crook Eye ended up with Degan’s sword,” said Wolf. “How?”

“By being smart and lucky and in the right place at the right time.”

“And he wanted it why?”

“He didn’t. He wanted this.” I patted the rapier at my side. Shadow’s rapier. The tapering length of Black Isle steel that Fowler had fished from of the embers, gotten
remounted, and gifted to me.
A prince’s sword for the newest prince
, she’d said at the time, knowing damn well what my having that blade would mean. I hadn’t known
whether to curse her or kiss her at the time; still didn’t, to be honest. “For the Kin,” I said, “this blade holds far more meaning and symbolism than Degan’s sword
ever could. Crook Eye wanted the rapier, but someone beat him to it. But in looking, he came across Degan’s blade instead.”

“And then?”

“And then, being the smart Gray Prince that he was, he thought and schemed and bided his time until he could use it against me.”

“Blackmail?”

“More or less.”

“I’m surprised I found him alive to kill.”

I rewrapped the canvas around Degan’s blade and hung it from the baldric. “Why? I would have done the same thing in his place. Leverage is leverage. Besides, he was under my
Peace—there was no way I was going to dust him.”

Wolf cocked an eyebrow. “Not even over the sword?”

“I don’t break my word.”

The words felt like stones in my mouth. Of course I broke my word—but only when it truly mattered. The proof was lying right there in my lap. But I had to say it, had to see if I got a
reaction from Wolf—especially with Degan’s name hanging in the air between us. If he knew about my Oath to Degan and what had happened, he couldn’t not react, couldn’t not
call me out. All other things aside, he was still a degan.

I watched him as I slung Degan’s sword over my shoulder: studied the amber-limned lines around his eyes to see if they tightened, took in the red-gold line of his jaw to see if it clenched
beneath his beard, listened for an intake of furious breath.

But all Wolf did was follow the sword with his eyes and sigh.

“All right,” I said. “You got to see it. Now it’s your turn: Why do you want Bronze?”

“You mean aside from his having killed Iron?”

I looked up sharply at that. “Like I told your Order, Shadow was the one who—”

“And like I told you,” said Wolf, “I don’t care about the lies you told them or the half-truths they mouthed back. We both know Bronze killed Iron. There was no other
reason for him to disappear without a word, nothing else that would have caused him to abandon his sword. A degan’s blade is his identity, his soul. Bronze wouldn’t have done that
unless he felt he no longer had a right to carry it.”

“You’re that sure?” I said.

“We all are.”

I shifted on my perch. “You all . . . ?”

“We know that Gray Prince didn’t kill our brother. Not that cleanly. We’re not fools, after all.”

I’d kind of been hoping they were, actually. Most people wanted their answers simple, their mysteries solved. But then again, most people weren’t the Order of the Degans.

“So is that why you want him?” I said, my voice tight. “You think he dusted your sword brother, and now you want to make him pay?”

“No. That may be true for the others, but not for me.”

“How convenient, then, that I’ve been set up by the one degan who doesn’t want Bronze dead. Lucky me.”

“Believe what you wish, but know this: It’s not my intent to hunt down Bronze so I can exact vengeance on him.”

“Then why?”

Wolf gave me a long, thoughtful look. “Because I need him.”

“For what?”

“I cannot say.”

“Oh, Angels!” It was Degan and his reticence about Iron all over again. “You degans and your damn secrets. You’re worse than a courtesan at court.”

Wolf’s voice took on a condescending tone. “It’s a matter regarding the Order of the—”

“It’s about the fucking emperor, isn’t it?”

Wolf’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“The emperor. You know, the man your order promised to serve, only now you can’t agree among yourselves whether that means preserving the empire or the man himself.”

Wolf’s eyes grew even wider. I could almost read his mind by his expression: This was all supposed to be deep-file degan information, internal politics meant to be kept within the
Order.

“How . . . ?” he began.

“How the hell do you think?”

“Perhaps,” said Wolf after a moment, “you should tell me—exactly—what Degan told you about the Order.”

“And perhaps you should tell me which side of the split you stand on.”

It wasn’t an idle question. The whole reason I’d ended up breaking my Oath to Degan was because he’d decided we needed to turn an ancient Paragon’s journal over to the
emperor rather than let the information it contained fall into the wrong hands. Problem was, I’d already agreed to give the book to Solitude and help her throw down said emperor. That was no
small thing, and not just because he was the emperor; it was also because killing him didn’t mean he wouldn’t come back.

For the past six-hundred-plus years, the Dorminikan Empire has been ruled by the same man—or rather, by three recurring incarnations of the same man: the founder of the empire, Stephen
Dorminikos. Named, respectively, Lucien, Theodoi and Markino, each version of the emperor was reborn thirty years apart from the other two, always in the same order, always succeeding one another
to the throne—more or less. The occasional revolt or stubborn regent had caused their fair share of gaps, but in the end, one version or another of the emperor always regained the throne.
After all, it was the Angels who had chosen Stephen and shattered his soul into three pieces, so he could be perpetually reborn, wasn’t it? It only seemed proper that the Chosen One of the
Angelic Host sit the earthly throne that had been set aside for him, right?

Right.

Except it was all a load of shit.

Thanks to the notes in the Paragon’s journal, I’d learned the truth: that Stephen Dorminikos’s broken soul and unending rule had had nothing to do with the Angels. The sole
reason he’d been able keep coming back was that he’d tasked his magicians—his Paragons—with finding the secret to immortality. Unable to figure it out, they’d instead
come up with the best solution they could manage: cyclical regeneration.

The whole thing—the Angels, being chosen as the Perpetual Emperor, the resulting Imperial Cult—had been a con. And what was worse, it was slowly falling apart. Not in terms of the
magic—that appeared to working fine, at least from the outside—but rather in terms of the man, or by now the men, being reincarnated.

It was no great secret that the various incarnations had been slipping into madness over the last century or so. As each emperor aged, they tended to become paranoid about various things,
especially one another. Over time, that had translated to more and more hostility. Right now it was minor, but as Solitude had pointed out, the eventual path was easy enough to see: Sooner or
later, one incarnation would challenge the other openly, and the empire would end up at war with itself. Forever, because if the emperor you believed in never died, neither would his cause. But I
couldn’t say the same for the empire itself, and that had bothered me. No Empire meant no Kin, and I wasn’t about to see the closest thing to a family, and the only legacy I had, go
down the sewer someday because of a religious con job. Hunting us down because we were criminals was one thing, but to be destroyed as an afterthought of history gone bad? No, thank you.

And that’s where the problem had come in. Degan had stood with the part of his Order that believed preserving the empire meant preserving the emperor. If I’d let him follow his
conscience and turn that journal over, there would have been no stopping the downward spiral towards civil war. I’d needed the information the journal held to try and topple the man Degan was
sworn to preserve. Which was why I’d coldcocked my best friend the moment he’d turned his back to me and run off with the Paragon’s notes, even though I knew it meant I was
destroying his life.

But just because I’d betrayed Degan that one time didn’t mean I was willing to do it again. If Wolf stood on the opposite side of the Order from Degan, I’d be damn if I helped
him do anything.

For his part, Wolf waved the question off with a dismissive hand. “The Order’s issues with the emperor aren’t your concern.”

“You made it my concern when you set me up. So either you come clean or I take a walk and see just how well me and my people do against your lies.”

He shifted his weight back on his heels, but otherwise didn’t move. “You like dramatic threats, don’t you? To use your knowledge like a blade. Very well: I concede the point. I
stand with the Order. No,” he said, holding up a hand to forestall my argument. “Don’t interrupt me. By that, I mean I wish to see the degans come together under one purpose, like
it used to be in the days after our founding. I wish to see us do the things we are capable of, if only we didn’t have this thorn constantly worrying at our side. It festers and drives us
apart.

“You wonder how I know Bronze and Iron fought? Because it was inevitable. If not them, then it would have been two others. I have no proof, no witnesses as you would say, but that
isn’t important. One degan has spilled the blood of another over what it means to serve the Empire. If that deed stands unanswered, then the Order will fall upon itself. I need Bronze to
prevent this.”

“How, by making an example of him?” I said. “By dragging him before your brothers for some kind of mock trial?”

“You understand nothing.”

“And whose fault would that be, do you think?”

Wolf sighed. “How do you make an example of someone who’s already an exemplar? Where the rest of us have argued and debated and even changed our minds, Bronze has stood unmoving,
like a boulder in a gale. For him, it’s not about reasons or intentions—it’s about conviction.

“Bronze holds a special place in the eyes of my Order. By standing apart, he’s gained a certain degree of moral authority among us. In a roomful of yelling, headstrong swordsmen,
it’s no small feat for everyone to fall silent when you speak. Bronze had that power among the degans before Iron fell, and I think he might have it still. That’s why I need him: I need
his authority to help settle this before it becomes worse. Before we fully turn on one another.”

“But if they didn’t listen to him before, what makes you think they’ll listen now? You said yourself he did the unthinkable: He dusted another degan.”

“Which is exactly why they may listen.”

I reached up and ran my hands through my hair. “I’m sure that makes some kind of wonderful sense,” I said, “but let’s pretend I’m not a degan, that I
don’t think like a degan, and that I don’t know an entire Flock or Oath or Misery or whatever the hell you call a bunch of degans, all right? Just explain it to me.”

Wolf leaned forward, his left hand on his sword, and pointed over my shoulder at Degan’s blade with his right. “Understand this: No degan has raised steel—not
seriously—against another member of the Order in ages, and no degan has killed another since near the founding. Bronze’s action is no small thing. For two of us to come to blows over
something so fundamental strikes at the very core of our purpose. That it was someone as respected as Bronze makes it even worse.” Wolf shook his head, something close to disbelief on his
face. “No, if there’s anyone who might be able to sway the Order, it would be him: the man who bloodied his blade on his brother, and then had the presence of mind to cast it
away.”

“And they’re just going to let him stroll back in and change their minds?”

“Well, no, not exactly.”

“How ‘not exactly’?”

“I’m not sure he’ll be allowed back into the Barracks Hall.”

“And why is that?”

“Why do you think?”

Yeah, that’s what I’d thought.

“Go to hell.” I stood up.

A heavy hand fell on my shoulder. “Listen to me. This could work.”

“Like hell it could. If you think I’m going to—”

“What I think,” said Wolf, “is that Bronze is the best hope the Order has right now, and that I, in turn, am his. If any of my brothers or sisters find him first, it will most
likely end in blood. We are not a forgiving family. But win or lose, it will be too late for him then: The Order
might
be willing to look past one degan’s body if I can make a case
for Bronze, but two? More?” He shook his head. “No. If you wish to save Bronze, and if I wish to save the Order, then I have to find him before the others.”