Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

Kaden almost laughed. “That’s the point. I can’t match anyone strength for strength, blow for blow. Not Adare. Not il Tornja. Not the assembled nobles.”

“Then how do you control them? How do you win?”

The vision of Gabril in his shadowrobe danced through Kaden’s mind, of the attacking guardsman lunging forward, of his spear piercing the cloth, missing the body inside, then driving into the flesh of the other soldier. If the Shin had bothered to fight, that was how they would do it.

“There might be more strength,” he had said, staring at the drying ink on the parchment, “in simply standing aside.”

Faced with the sharp glares of Annur’s nobility, he was starting to question that decision. They could well have been a pack of hungry, late-winter wolves stumbling upon a deer carcass, snarling and sizing each other up, wondering who was going to get a bloody haunch, who was going to starve in the blood-soaked snow.

“And what,” Kegellen asked, still twisting those bangles as she eyed him, “will your role be in this great enterprise? Or do you long to return to a contemplative life in the mountains?” She smiled brightly, but her dark eyes were shrewd. Kaden forced himself to meet her gaze, to deliver the words as he had practiced them.

“I will be your servant,” he said, voice level.

Kegellen laughed, her cheeks and chins jiggling with levity. “How delightful! A strong young thing-with burning eyes, no less! — to rub my aching feet and pour my wine.” She glanced about her, false irritation flickering across her face. “And speaking of wine-why did no one think to bring any?”

Kaden ignored the last question. “The council will vote on every law, deciding on the direction of the republic and upon the surest paths to reach our collective goals. I will not be a part of the council. As Servant of the Annurian Republic,” he went on carefully, “I will not have a vote, nor will I have a veto over what you decide. My only role will be administrative. I will call the meetings, and I will see to it that the laws you set in place are executed according to the spirit in which you intended them.”

Fifteen sets of eyes watched him. Kaden forced himself to breathe easily, steadily.

“Why?” Kegellen asked slowly, lower lip turning out in a frown. “Why would you want this? You could be Emperor.”

“I spent most of the last ten years beyond the borders of Annur,” Kaden replied. “I saw another way.”

“Great,” Tevis snorted. “Another way. How enlightened. Or maybe it’s that you lost your power already, let your sister seize it, and now you’re trying to claw back any pathetic bit that you can.”

Tevis’s crack struck close to the bone, but Kaden had prepared for it.

“You’re right,” he replied evenly. “My sister and the kenarang have taken power for themselves. They tried to see me killed, and, if we succeed in what we are doing, they will try to kill you, too.”

The revelation had the intended effect-shocked faces, indignant exclamations-but Kaden rode right over them.

“You are right about Adare,” he continued, “but you are wrong about me. If I wanted power, I would hardly offer myself as your servant.

“Right now, Adare and the kenarang are in the north. When they return, they will either find their power kept nicely warm by their minions here in the city while the rest of you keep meeting in damp warehouses by the docks, or they will find a republic, a ruling council led by you, deciding the fate of Annur.” He shrugged. “Whatever happens, I have no intention ever to sit the Unhewn Throne.”

For a long, tantalizing moment, he thought he had them. Oil hissed in the lamps. Somewhere lost in the darkness above, birds shuffled on the rafters. No one spoke. No one moved. Kaden watched the faces, willing them to see the opening, the chance at power, to lunge . Tevis was nodding, licking his lips. Azurtazine studied him appraisingly, breathing out slowly between pursed lips. They all saw the risk, but their conspiracy had always been dogged by risk. They had all dreamed of an opportunity like this, but none had dared hope for it. Kaden waited, his face calm, eyes still, his hand extended with the parchment. He had them. They would take it.

Then Tevis shook his head.

“I want more.”

Kaden frowned. “More what?”

“More representatives on the council. Six from Nish. We hold the northern passes through the Romsdals. We keep the Ghost Sea swept of pirates. I want more.”

“The council is based on equal representation,” Kaden began, but Tevis cut him off.

“We’re not all equal.” He flicked a contemptuous thumb at a short man with wide-set eyes. “Channary? Hanno? They were added to the empire in the last century. They’re barely even atrepies.”

Kaden felt his stomach cave even as the chorus of voices rose in fury, smashing the silence into shards. The shouts and recriminations washed over him.

“Si’ite provides the silver…”

“The population of Kresh is three times that of…”

“Aragat deserves more seats…”

“… more votes…”

“More power…”

He shut out the words. It was obvious he had already lost, and the protestations, for all their difference, were all the same: a litany, the power of which he had long ago forgotten, a desperate string of syllables stronger than any prayer, the ancient, ineluctable chant of humanity itself: I want … I want … I want …

It took longer than Valyn had expected to reach Andt-Kyl. The Thousand Lakes, as it turned out, was comprised of a lot more than just lakes; the whole region was a maze of bogs, swamps, streams, and ponds. What solid ground there was seemed crammed with pines and balsams, the dark trunks so close that in most places you couldn’t see ten paces through the heavy needles. The western “road”-so named because it ran north vaguely parallel to the west coast of Scar Lake-was little more than a network of muddy tracks, crude bridges, and hastily bucked logs laid side by side over the deepest swamps. Even dry, it would have made for rough going, and it was anything but dry.

The land itself had slowed them to an agonizing slog, and the land wasn’t the only problem. The Thousand Lakes was dotted with small logging villages, some built on high ground, others on teetering stilts, all of them directly athwart the submerged track. Passing through would be simple enough, except that someone was sure to notice their passage, someone who might talk to il Tornja’s scouts, who, in turn, would tell the kenarang about three soldiers in Kettral blacks, three young men evidently unattached to any unit, one with coal-dark skin, another with burned-out eyes.… It wouldn’t take a brilliant military mind to recognize their descriptions.

Valyn’s meeting with Adare, far from reassuring him, had been both surprising and unnerving. Her insistence on the kenarang ’s loyalty to Annur, her willingness to pardon his flagrant murder of the Emperor, and her veneration for the man’s military mind all set Valyn’s teeth on edge. Worse, the discovery that Long Fist was on the march made it pretty ’Kent-kissing clear that he was just using Valyn as a tool in his own war, one in which he aimed to overrun Annur itself. Which meant that Gwenna and Annick weren’t guests at all; they were prisoners. Valyn and Laith and Talal had been over it two dozen times already, but the ugly fact was that, without a bird, there was nothing they could do for the two women. The best hope, in fact, lay in killing il Tornja, in hoping that after the kenarang was dead they could find some way to go after their Wing mates, to free them.

The fact that he had left them, abandoned them, gnawed viciously at Valyn, but for all the hours he’d spent rehearsing the decision, he couldn’t see a way around it. He’d joined the Kettral expecting to fight on the side of justice and imperial order, but the last few months had disabused him violently of that notion. Instead, he was caught between conflicting evils; any damage he did to one would make him complicit in the crimes of the other.