Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

Blood filled Adare’s mouth, bitter and salty. She realized she had bitten through her cheek, and tried not to gag. “What do you want?” she managed. “Why are you here?”

He turned back to her, pausing for a moment as though considering his answer. “I want what I have long wanted,” he replied finally. “To protect Annur from her foes.”

“A lie,” Nira snarled. “Just another fucking lie.”

Il Tornja shook his head. “Since its founding, Annur has been ruled by Malkeenians, but in many ways, it is my empire. It is the penance I undertook, the thing I created, to atone for my failure with you, Rishinira, and with Roshin, and the rest.”

Adare wanted to scream at Nira to tighten the flaming collar and have done with it. The man had lied to her so many times already, and each time she had allowed herself to be led like a docile beast. Just one more step. Always just one more step.

She almost said it. “Kill him,” she almost said, opening her mouth to let the words out, but they would not come.

It was the easiest course, the just course, but it also reeked of confusion and desperation. Revenge was a reaction, and she needed to do more than react. She needed to think, to think deeper and better than she had been thinking all these months. She needed to see further than her foes. That il Tornja was Csestriim she could barely believe, but if it was true, the truth had consequence. It explained things. He was not just a human general risen to his post on the strength of his native genius, but something even more dangerous. More powerful.

Adare eyed the collar of flame around the kenarang ’s throat, watched it shift and writhe. Il Tornja hadn’t tried to move since Nira wove it in place, which meant that he was trapped, at bay. The terror inside her still raged, but emperors were not ruled by their terror. It was foolish to destroy something before she fully understood it, before she knew whether or not she could use it.

“How,” she asked, her voice rigid as steel, “is Annur your empire?”

He met her stare. “I have been with her since the start. I told Terial where to build his capital. I commanded the army that put down the Second Secession-”

Adare shook her head curtly. “Raginald Went put down the Second Secession.”

He grinned. “Have you ever seen a painting of Raginald Went?”

Adare’s mind foundered. Raginald Went had refused to be painted. He had refused a statue on the Godsway in his honor, going so far as to have his soldiers tear down the incomplete work. At the time, everyone had hailed his humility, but what if it had not been humility at all?

It was then that the realization started to penetrate, soaking in like a frigid winter rain, freezing her to the core. Ran il Tornja was immortal. This was not his first post, not his first role in the Annurian chronicles. Nira had said it herself on the road south to Olon: the man was drawn to power like a moth to light. How many names had he worn down through the dusty halls of history? How many parts had he played?

He nodded, as though he could hear her silent question. “I was Mizran to Alial the Great. I fought the Manjari at the Rift in the Western Wars, and the jungle tribes down in the Waist during the Dark Summer. I founded the Aedolian Guard to protect your family.”

Adare was shaking her head, but no words would come.

“The Kettral study a book on tactics by Hendran,” he continued, speaking slowly now, as though to a child. “I wrote it. I was Hendran for almost three decades. At every step, I have been there, a faithful shepherd to Annur and to the Malkeenians both.”

“Why?” Adare demanded quietly. “Why would you do that?”

For the first time he hesitated. “My people are gone,” he said at last. “Never to return. There can’t be more than a few dozen of us left, scattered here and there. The Csestriim will never come back, but I wanted to create something on this earth like what we lost: a kingdom, an empire, a polity ruled by reason and justice rather than fear, and greed, and passion.”

He gestured to Nira and Oshi. “We tried with the Atmani, thought that if we found a way to bring immortality to a small, just group of rulers, that they would, in turn, bring order to the world.” He grimaced. “We failed. Bedisa did not build your minds for the long passage of years. Instead of ushering in order and justice, we plunged the world into madness.”

He turned to Nira. “Do you remember, Rishinira?” he asked almost gently. “How young you all were, and beautiful? How eager for justice and peace? What we did, we did with you, not to you. We shared a hope. One that went awfully awry.”

Adare glanced at the old woman and discovered tears sheeting down her cheeks. “You knew what would happen,” she said, balling her hands into fists. “You’re Csestriim. You must have known.”

“No,” he replied. “We did not. Even the gods fail, and we were never gods.”

He turned back to Adare. “Where I failed with the Atmani, I have succeeded with Annur, at least to a degree.”

“Why didn’t you just rule yourself?” Adare demanded. “Why make my family your puppets?”

He smiled ruefully. “The Malkeenians were hardly puppets. You’re too quick and stubborn for that. And then,” he gestured with a hand to her scars, “there is Intarra’s hand upon you as well, a hand more powerful than my own will ever be. No, you were never puppets. We have been … collaborators in this great project. Men and women accept the Malkeenians, revere you, where they could never accept one of my kind.”

Adare took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to sort the lies from the truth. At the side of the room, Oshi had left his bear to stand beside Nira, their fingers laced together.

“Do we fight, sister?” he asked quietly. He stared at il Tornja, but his eyes held no recognition.

“It’s not a matter of fighting,” she said, gesturing to the collar of flame with a withered hand. “It is a matter of killing. A thought, and he is dead.”

Adare stepped forward, her body moving even as her mind scrambled to keep up, putting herself squarely between the Atmani and il Tornja, raising a hand, as though that would do anything to block Nira’s kenning.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You can’t.”

“Do not lecture me, child,” Nira replied, eyes cold as winter night, “on the handling of my own vengeance.”

Adare hesitated, tried to think. If she was going to lead Annur, she needed to be able to reason even as her mind reeled. If half of what the man claimed were true, a quarter of it-if he had fought in all those battles, had counseled the greatest of the Malkeenian emperors-then she could use him. No, she amended silently, she needed him. Despite her father’s tutelage, despite the hundreds of tomes she’d read on politics and law, finance and governance, she had no idea how to handle the threat posed by Long Fist, no idea how to manage the various borders, no strategy to keep peace down in the Waist. Letting il Tornja live was a danger, a risk, but risk was everywhere. The man was a well-honed tool, one she could turn to her advantage, to Annur’s advantage.…

“Stand aside, Adare,” Nira said.

Slowly, Adare shook her head. “Hear me out. For my sake, and for yours.” She raised her chin toward Oshi. “For his.”

Nira hesitated, then spat on the floor.

“You have a hundred words.”

Adare didn’t pause. “He can fix you.”

“Horseshit,” the old woman snarled. She looked past Adare at the kenarang . “Go ahead, try to ride her lie.”

Il Tornja shook his head slowly. “I will not. I don’t know how to cure you.”