Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“Stubborn, ’Kent-kissing fools, ” she muttered, shaking her head and fumbling with the button on her breeches as she crossed to the privy, evidently still incensed by an earlier conversation. “We’ll have the local population at our throats before we even get to the Urghul.…”

Valyn shifted on the canvas slowly, sliding his head and shoulders through the hole.

Water sluiced through as he changed position, splattering the inside of the tent. Adare looked up, scowl on her face, and Valyn dropped, flipping in midair to land on his feet. She had just opened her mouth to scream when he clamped an arm across her throat, cutting off the cry and air alike. She started to thrash, but he buckled her legs with a quick knee and she folded to the damp dirt.

“I’m Valyn,” he hissed into her ear. The rain on the canvas roof was loud enough to drown out anything but a shout, but he wasn’t taking any chances. “Adare, it’s Valyn. Your brother.”

She went still. Then, just as he was about to relax his grip, she lunged forward, clawing at his arm with renewed fury. Grimly, he tightened his grip.

“I’ll knock you out if I have to,” he said. “Stop struggling. I’m not here to hurt you. I need to talk.”

Once again her muscles went slack.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he went on. “I needed to talk to you, and this was the only way.”

He eased up a little more. This time she didn’t try to break free.

“What about riding into the camp and asking for me?” she demanded. Her voice was low, but rough with both fear and anger. “The Kettral teach you how to ask?”

“Not really, no. Besides, il Tornja controls the camp. I wouldn’t make it ten paces inside the perimeter before someone clapped me in irons.”

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“No, I don’t. Not about this army, or the fact that you’re marching at the head of it. That’s why I came to you. Now, can I let you go? If I wanted to hurt you, you’d be hurt.”

It came out more roughly than he’d intended, but Adare hesitated, then nodded.

Valyn loosed his grip and she yanked free, rounding on him, eyes blazing. He could almost feel the heat. Adare opened her mouth as though to scream, and he tensed, ready to seize her once more. When she spoke, however, her voice was quiet but wire-tight.

“So you really have turned traitor. I didn’t want to believe it.”

He shook his head wearily. “That’s what they told you. It’s not true.”

“Really?” She cocked her head to one side. “Why don’t you tell me the truth?”

Valyn glanced toward the door of the tent. He had no idea how much time Adare habitually spent in the privy, but sooner or later the Aedolians outside would start to wonder. Probably sooner.

“We don’t have time,” he said. “I escaped the Islands to go after Kaden.”

“To kill him.”

“To protect him. Micijah Ut and Tarik Adiv were already there. They’d murdered the monks and were hours away from doing the same to Kaden.”

“And you saved him.”

He nodded.

Adare spread her hands. “So where is he?”

“Elsewhere,” Valyn replied. “Trying to figure out the same thing I am: who killed our father.” He watched her reaction, trying to read her face as she licked her lips, glanced toward the door, then locked eyes with him once more. He could smell her raw nerves, but also something else, something deeper. Defiance? Resolve?

“Ran il Tornja,” she said finally. “The kenarang killed Father.”

His heart lunged in his chest like a dumb beast. Fury ached in his veins. In the days since Balendin first named il Tornja a murderer, Valyn had felt the rage growing like a sick plant inside him, but his doubt had checked that rage, stunted it. It was impossible to trust the leach. Balendin was a liar. Valyn had repeated the words over and over to himself as they crossed the steppe, then the river, then the deep forests around the Thousand Lakes. Balendin lies. Wait until you know the full truth. Balendin lies.

And now, like a blade to the face, here was the truth. For a moment he stood motionless, awash in the full flood of his anger, ready, almost, to burst from the tent, cut down the Aedolians, and go hunting for the kenarang in the midst of the army itself. Slowly, slowly, he brought himself under control. He would kill Ran il Tornja, but he needed more information to do it right, to be sure.

“So,” he said slowly, voice ragged, “Long Fist and Balendin weren’t lying after all.” He shook his head. “What are you doing here, with him? What is the whole ’Shael-spawned Army of the North doing here? Why are people calling you Emperor ?”

She ignored the questions. “You were with Long Fist?”

“He’s the one that warned me about il Tornja. I had to hear it from the fucking Urghul .”

“No,” Adare said, shaking her head. “No, you’ve got it wrong. The situation is more complicated than you realize.”

“What’s to get wrong?” Valyn demanded. “The kenarang murdered our father. A military coup. Seems pretty straightforward to me.”

“Ran killed him,” Adare snapped, “because Sanlitun was killing the empire, or letting it die, at any rate. Your friend Long Fist has been plotting an invasion and now he’s invading. That’s why the army is here.” She glared at him. “Or didn’t he tell you that part when you were chatting over a cup of ta ?”

Valyn opened his mouth to retort, then stopped himself. He had expected Adare to either confirm or dispute Long Fist’s claim; the idea that she might do both at the same time had not occurred to him. His mind traveled back to that enormous camp north of the White River, to the tens of thousands of horsemen massed within miles of the Annurian border. The shaman had claimed it was a defensive force, but he could have lied.

“Even if Long Fist is attacking,” he said slowly, “how does an Urghul threat justify treason and murder?”

“Sweet Intarra’s light, Valyn,” Adare spat, “you think I didn’t struggle with that question? You think it hasn’t been at me like a knife stuck in my ribs every ’Kent-kissing day?” Her body was rigid, almost trembling. She looked like she might lash out at him or start sobbing. Maybe both. “I loved our father, loved him more than you ever did, off playing soldier on your tropical islands. I’m the one who talked to him about taxation, military levies, canal rights, the price of a fucking bushel of rice. I’m the one who actually knew him. I’m the one who had to see him put in the ’Kent-kissing ground, and now you presume to arrive in the middle of the night, a knife to my back, and lecture me about our father, about what we owe to his memory.” Her teeth were bare, as though she were going to rip out his throat, but her voice, when she spoke again, was quiet, tight as a bowstring. “Il Tornja tried to convince our father of the danger, but he failed. Father was a good emperor in peacetime. He was a great emperor, but he underestimated the military threat.”

“It was the kenarang ’s job to demonstrate that threat, to guard against it.”

Adare shook her head. “Father wouldn’t let him. He said any troop movement to the north was provocation.” She stabbed a finger into his chest. “Look, the murder of the Emperor is treason. I will grieve for him the rest of my life, more than you will ever fucking understand, but our father was only one man, Valyn. How many more people will die if Annur falls to the Urghul? Your horse-riding friends are probably across the river right now, hammering south through the Lakeland. That territory is basically undefended because our father left it undefended.”