The Mirror Empire (51 page)

The Patron’s sanisi met Kadaan’s group with a heavy whump of air and clash of blades and maelstrom of blue haze.

Kihin lay on the floor, bleeding out. The air in the room condensed. It was like swimming through honey.

Roh pulled Kihin into his arms. Blood pumped from multiple wounds in his chest. Roh remembered holding his own wounded belly, the way Kihin was grasping now at his.

“Don’t die,” Roh said. His voice sounded deep and syrupy in the thick air.

Kihin’s blood pooled across the floor. A dead sanisi thumped beside him. Roh flinched.

Kihin struggled. His mouth moved, like a gasping fish. “Please don’t die,” Roh said. “It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

Kihin went still.

Kadaan and two of his sanisi had cornered the Patron. Ten dead sanisi littered the room, more than Roh ever thought could die. They were speaking too fast for Roh to understand.

Roh looked across the bodies of his friends. Dasai, who had escaped this place and then died in it, Kihin, who was spared exile and then run through, and Aramey and Nioni mangled together in a twisted heap, their work cut short. All for nothing. They had achieved nothing.

Roh crawled over to the dead sanisi beside Aramey and Nioni. The man’s infused blade still lay in his hand, glowing with a faint blue light.

The voices of the sanisi thundered in his mind.

Roh took up the infused blade. Pain burst up his arm. He saw his skin blister. It was not his weapon, and he suspected it would punish him for it. He hefted it aloft before the hilt could grow around his wrist. A cold litany burned in his mind. He wrapped the weapon in Para’s breath and threw it with all his strength.

The blade flew straight and true. It split the sanisi next to Kadaan, then buried itself in the Patron’s chest. The Patron took flight. He careened across the room and was pinned to the wall above the bed. He huffed out a great spray of blood.

“Kadaan!” A woman’s voice, from the hall.

Kadaan met Roh’s gaze. It was a hot, terrifying moment.

Kadaan’s blade came up. He jumped onto the bed. He tore open the Patron’s shirt. The Patron pushed at him weakly, grunting.

Maralah burst into the room, weapon drawn.

She was just in time to see Kadaan yank the Patron’s fibrous, pulsing heart from his chest.

“Lord of Unmaking!” she said.

Kadaan threw the Patron’s spongy heart to her feet.

They stared at one another across the long length of the room, the bodies of the sanisi and Dhai between them. Roh dared not move.

“You can’t take the title any more than I can,” Maralah said, breathless. “Was this your plan all along? Because you won’t ascend that seat.”

Kadaan leapt from the bed. His weapon was still out. The Patron’s body hung behind him, limp. Kadaan pointed to Roh. “I claim the boy as a victory spoil,” he said. “He’s under my protection.”

“You have no victory,” Maralah said. “The victory is my brother’s. He’ll sit this seat before a sanisi ever will.”

“I will support Captain General Daonia,” Kadaan said, “and you, as I have in all things. But this boy, this one thing, this is mine, Maralah.”

Something passed between them. It was a look Roh had seen them give one another in the courtyard, before a spar. Roh realized he was trembling. Waves of pain still ebbed and flowed across his hand, fire.

“So be it,” Maralah said.

Only then did Kadaan sheathe his weapon.

“How long do we have?” Kadaan said.

“My brother’s army is at the gate,” Maralah said. “You’ve made things much worse. We’ll have to purge the harem now. The nursery. I’ll have Driaa activate our people below. And you,” – she narrowed her eyes – “you meet my brother with me at the gate. Come. Now. Leave the boy.”

Maralah ran out of the room.

Kadaan came to Roh’s side. His hands were smeared with the Patron’s blood. He took Roh by the shoulders. His look was intense.

“I’m sorry I–” Roh began.

“You belong to me,” Kadaan said. “Do you know what that means?”

“No,” Roh said.

“It means if they hurt you, they hurt me. If we are successful downstairs, that may mean something. If not, and I’m dead, well… someone else will try to claim you. If that happens, run. Go to Anjoliaa. Find a ship to Dhai.”

“I can help you downstairs. I’m a fighter, I–”

“Stay here. No matter what happens. This murder, what you see here? These bodies are nothing compared to what is about to happen below. Stay here, puppy.”

“But my brother–”

“You can do nothing for him now.”

“I need to find Chali.”

“Go now and you’ll die with him,” Kadaan said.

“Why did you protect me?” Roh said.

“If she knew it was you who killed him…” Kadaan shook his head. “By law, you’d be Patron. And she would have killed you for it.”

“Instead, you own me? Is that better?”

“One can escape slavery,” Kadaan said, “but death is permanent.”

“You can’t keep me from going after Chali,” Roh said. “You try it. You try to–”

“You won’t run,” Kadaan said.

Roh pushed past him to the door.

“If you run,” Kadaan said, “if you die with your brother, you’ll never learn to be a sanisi. And that’s what you want, isn’t it? More than anything. Even now. It’s why you came to watch me fight. It’s why you came to Saiduan. You are not a boy of books.”

Roh pressed his hands to the door. His eyes filled. He wanted to call on Para and burn himself into nothing. He had made his own fate, and this is where it led him. To die with his brother… or become a Saiduan slave. He said, “Why, Kadaan?”

“You remind me of someone.”

“Someone you killed?”

“Nothing so romantic,” Kadaan said. He came up behind Roh and gently pressed his hands to Roh’s shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but this is what can be done now. What happens after is up to you.” He released Roh and slipped out the doors.

Roh went back to the center of the room and stood amid a pool of blood and bodies. He sagged to his knees. He was shaking so hard, his teeth chattered. He was better than this. Stronger than this. He took a deep breath and forced himself to look at Dasai’s headless body.

Dasai’s head lay beneath the table. The letter Roh had written to the Kai had fallen to the floor beside Aramey’s body where it lay with Nioni’s, just to the left of Dasai. The letter was speckled in blood.

Roh crawled forward and took up the letter. “Why did you do that?” Roh whispered to Dasai’s still form. Roh still believed he could have talked the Patron down. He could have made up a better story. He could have been witty and charming. Somehow, he could have made this all right. He thought of Chali’s horrified face. Saw his brother’s hands still on the battered table, forgotten.

Roh felt something tugging at his trousers. He jerked his leg back.

Aramey’s bloody fingers reached for him.

Roh dragged himself forward and took Aramey’s hand. “You’re alive!” Roh cried. “We’ll find Chali and-”

“Caasa Mingaaine,” Aramey said, and his fingers went lax. He lost consciousness again.

“Who is that?” Roh asked. He shook him. “Who is that? Aramey?”

Silence.

It took another hour for Aramey to die.

Some part of Roh died with him.

 

 

42

Lord General Rajavaa Daonia expected to hear a good many horrible things from his sister Maralah. She had been the harbinger of terrible news since he was three years old, when she told him their mother had drowned herself in drink and again in the icy river that bordered their equally icy village.

When he saw her face as she descended the thorny spiral of the stairwell in Kuonrada’s drafty main hall now, he recognized the look. The year before, she had borne the same look when she told him that their village had been inundated by foreign invaders with the faces of Dhai. They had butchered what remained of their extended family, including the grandparents who had raised them after their mother’s death.

Maralah was an ugly woman, which was a blessing in her chosen profession, but he still winced when he saw the look on her ugly face. Perhaps it reminded him that he was less handsome than he believed. Or perhaps it just made her death-look more distasteful. He had seen far more distasteful things in the field these last four years, but that face… that face still made him cold.

They met at the bottom of the stair. His best friend and second, Morsaar Koryn, stood with him. Rajavaa rested the flat of his hand against his hip, and canted his pelvis forward. It was a southern affectation he had picked up at parties with titled lords in the south. Maralah turned her nose up at him every time he did it. But if it annoyed her now, she gave no sign.

“Let’s hear it,” he said.

“Alone,” she said.

“Anything you can tell me–”

“Alone,” Maralah said.

Rajavaa sighed and waved Morsaar away. The man grimaced and gave a little bow. Rajavaa knew he’d hear of it later.

“I’ll see that the men are settled in,” Morsaar said.

“Thank you,” Rajavaa said. When he was gone, Rajavaa said to Maralah, “I’m exhausted; can we make this–”

She took his arm, and pulled him to her. She lowered her voice.

“You’re about to become Patron of Saiduan,” she said.

He stiffened.

She continued, “Alaar is dead.”

“Whose hand?”

“Yours.”

“Who, Maralah? This has your smell on it.” The Patron’s minister of war had been killed six seasons before, and that left the Patron with Maralah as confidant. Rajavaa always wondered if that was her doing or just happy circumstance.

“One of the sanisi.”

“An oath-breaker? Didn’t you cast out the last sanisi to break his vow?”

“Taigan’s indiscretion was very public. In this case, you and I are the only ones to know. We’ve kept it quiet, waiting on your return.”

“No witnesses, then?”

He saw her hesitate. Her large mouth firmed slightly. Just enough.

“No,” she said. “Just me.”

Her, the sanisi, and a dozen slaves, more likely. Rajavaa said, “You do have a way of sitting on the seat without wearing the cowl.”

“I could never harm Alaar,” she said, “but others are not so gutless. He was going to hold our ground here. Kuonrada was to be the final stand.”

“We don’t have enough to hold Kuonrada.”

“I know that. His sanisi know that. I believe he knew it as well. But it’s been a long war, and he wanted to go out at a place of his choosing.”

“So you killed him.”

“No,” Maralah said. “You did.”

“Milk and tits, Maralah, I can’t–”

“We’re purging the harem and nursery now, and eliminating the sanisi who will not follow you. I recommend you marry Arisaa, his favorite. She’s from Anjoliaa. We’ll need them.”

“I can’t be Patron, Maralah.”

“You will,” she said. “Who else is there? It can’t be a sanisi. He only has two adult sons left, and they’re in the far north, already targeted by the invaders. They’ll be dead in a month. They have no army. Your force is the largest standing company we still have, and we can grow it as we retreat south.”

“It’s not the right time,” he said.

“When you see what’s been done upstairs, you’ll disagree,” she said. “His family is already slaughtered. If you don’t take up this mantle now, this hold will descend into chaos, and what remains of the country with it. Divided, we’ll be destroyed in three months. With you to lead us, we could last three years.”

“A year at best.”

“Three, if you take my counsel.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I like breathing too much not to take your counsel.”

“Then we are in agreement.”

“I can’t, Maralah.”

“Lords why? You can’t tell me you haven’t thought of it. I’m handing it to you now, Rajavaa. I held this coup for just the right moment. There are people dead upstairs, my people. I have twenty dead women in this harem and forty children–”

Rajavaa stared at Maralah’s bloody boots. She had done it, then. Done the thing she always told him she would. When she was accepted into sanisi training, she told him, “Someday, you will be Patron, and I will be your sanisi.” A lifetime ago. It was her idea to leave their village together, to travel to far-off Caisau to become sanisi. He had failed the training – he was not gifted – and joined the military instead. Not because he had a passion for it, but because he needed to eat.

Someday, you will be Patron…

He had never doubted it. He prepared for it. His men loved him. They flocked to him like bees to honey. He loved them like a father, a brother, a lover, a friend. He was all things to them. But he had not anticipated this long war of attrition and what it would do to the country and to him. For the last decade, he had marched them to their deaths each day and drowned himself in drink every night, just like his mother.

“I have the rot, Maralah.”

Her grip on his arm tightened. “You don’t,” she said.

He showed his teeth. “They tell me it’s the drink,” he said. “Blew out my guts. No way to fix it until Tira’s ascendant, and I won’t last that long.”

“How long?” she said.

“A year, maybe two,” he said.

“That’s long enough.”

“I’ll be vomiting blood before the end,” he said. He pulled his arm away.

She leaned into him. Pressed her forehead to his, the way she had when they were children. “I can get it fixed,” she said. “If I tell you I can fix it, will you do it?”

He choked on a laugh. “You’re mad. There’s no way to–”

“We have omajistas. I have one out on an assignment who can fix it.”

“Lords, you don’t mean Taigan?”

“Alaar is dead,” she said, “so it’s up to you to pardon Taigan. I give you a few extra years, and you spend that time keeping our people together. What’s it hurt, if you weren’t even going to have those years anyway?”