Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“We will move to my estate,” Gabril said. “These Ishien would not follow you there, and this temple is no longer safe. Now that the councillor knows you are here, he will come back.”

Morjeta hesitated, then shook her head. “He doesn’t know. Not for certain. We’ve been careful to keep Kaden hooded and hidden at all times save inside my own rooms. At the most, Adiv has heard that my daughter has returned. You should be safe here, at least for a few more nights.”

“He was searching for a man,” Kaden pointed out.

“He was fishing,” Morjeta said, “hoping Demivalle would let something slip. If he knew for certain that you were here, that I was shielding you, Ciena’s walls would not keep you safe.”

“There must be some way to stop him,” Triste said, hands balling into fists, “to kill him.”

“Tarik Adiv is not the problem,” Kaden said quietly, shaking his head. “Not yet, at least.”

Triste turned to him, aghast. “He tried to murder you once already. He threatened my mother and took me from the temple by force, and now he’s back, hunting us again. How is he not the problem?”

“He is only an obstacle,” Kaden replied, “if we decide to remain in the city. We could be gone tomorrow morning, by tonight, and he would have no way to follow us.”

“You would run?” Gabril asked, face hardening. “And what of this empire you pledged to destroy? What of your constitution?”

Kaden met the First Speaker’s angry glare. “I don’t plan to run, but until we have devised a way to destroy the empire itself, it’s irrelevant whether or not Tarik Adiv watches over the Dawn Palace. Irrelevant whether or not we kill him.”

“Killing would be a good place to start,” Triste said. “We can figure out the rest as we go along.”

“No,” Kaden said, shaking his head. “Killing Adiv will create an absence in the Dawn Palace, a brief period in which no one rules Annur-but absence is difficult to maintain. If our own council is not there to fill the empty space, then il Tornja, or Adare, or another of his minions will step in almost immediately.”

“Unfortunately,” Kiel said, “after our meeting tonight, forming a council looks unlikely.”

“The nobles are fools,” Gabril said, cracking the knuckles of one hand, then the other. “They would poison their own well to prevent others from drinking.”

“What if you were able to offer them something?” Triste asked. “Promise them more, if they sign the constitution?”

“I don’t have anything else to offer,” Kaden said, spreading his hands.

“Future rights and prerogatives,” Triste suggested, “in the new republic.”

Kaden considered the idea a moment, then shook his head in frustration. “It was greed over the rights I was offering in the first place that choked off the agreement.”

Morjeta had been staring at him, eyes bright in the lamplight. “It won’t work.…” she whispered. “I thought that maybe…” She shook her head. “They aren’t going to agree after all. I’m so sorry.”

They fell silent at that, Gabril glaring moodily into the lamplight, Triste gnawing at her lip. Kaden studied them a moment, the thorn of a horrible new thought pricking at his mind, then looked away, watching the delicate curtains shift in the breeze. From the garden below, he could make out the light sound of music and laughter played over the deeper bass of moaning, the fervent cries of physical rapture. The weariness he’d felt just after returning from the warehouse settled on him once more, a heavy, soporific helplessness. These were his people, the patrons of the temple and the angry nobility alike, and yet sometimes they seemed more alien than the Csestriim.

He filled his mind with a saama’an of the meeting, studied various faces in the feeble lamplight. He could see the scene in perfect detail, but it meant little. He could stare at the faces for hours, watch the disaster unfold forward or backward, but he had no idea how to change the result. If it were a crumbling wall, or the broken axle of a cart, a wet clay pot on the spinning wheel or a goat’s carcass to be carved, he would be able to discern the shape of the problem beneath the bright skin of the world, but he could find no pattern in the assembled aristocrats, no shape in the madness.

Exhaling slowly, he let the image go, watching instead as the oil lamp sputtered for a moment, the flame waving wildly before steadying itself. He understood how the lamp worked: oil and air, fuel and space, something and nothing. Starve it of oil-the flame died. Crowd it-the flame died. Kaden reached out, tested the heat, then settled his hand over the top of the lamp. The fire didn’t quite reach his skin, but it hurt, hurt worse, then began to burn. The quick, desperate animal part of his brain screamed at him to pull back, to cradle it to his chest, but he silenced the beast and kept his hand in place, watching the pain but discarding the fear of pain.

It felt as though he’d been fighting and running forever, struggling against his foes when he had the strength, fleeing more often. And where had it landed him? Trapped inside a temple, his secrecy fraying, his plans thwarted, enemies circling. He stared at his hand. The skin beneath was seared, blistered, but the fire in the lamp had gone out. He lifted his palm slowly, watching the smoke break apart on the light breeze. The others were exclaiming, but he set the sound aside, following the track of his thought. All this time, he’d been trying to guard himself, his few friends, his family.… He turned his hand over, stared at the livid red flesh across the palm. The truth was, he couldn’t protect anyone, not even himself. He’d failed at fighting. Failed at keeping his secrets. Failed at eluding Adiv and the Ishien both.

“Maybe it’s time to stop fighting,” he murmured, testing the idea aloud.

“What?” Triste asked.

He didn’t look up, staring instead at the lines in his scorched flesh, studying them as he considered the various pieces of a new plan, rotating them like stones in his mind until they fit, locking into place.

He turned to Gabril. “I need to meet the council again.”

The First Speaker frowned. “So soon? They will still be furious from tonight’s fiasco.”

“Not right away,” Kaden replied. “Three days. On my ground this time.”

Kiel raised his eyebrows. “Your ground?”

“The Shin chapterhouse,” Kaden said. “It’s neutral and discreet.”

“The Shin chapterhouse,” Kiel observed, “like this temple, will be watched by the Ishien.”

Kaden paused at that, forced himself to hesitate, to smile. “I know. But there are other ways in. The abbot explained them to me when I spoke with him. Passages underground.”

“Why risk these passages?” Gabril asked, shaking his head. “Why risk the place at all? I can secure another location easily, also neutral, one not watched by these foes of yours.”

“The meeting has to take place at the chapterhouse. I have to show the nobles something.”

Kiel studied him a moment. “The kenta .”

Kaden nodded.

“Why?” the Csestriim asked. “The gates have been your family’s secret since the founding of the empire.”

“It’s the empire we’re trying to replace,” Kaden observed, carried along by the momentum of his own lie. “Triste suggested offering the nobility something they can’t refuse, something in return for their participation in the republic. I intend to offer them the use of the kenta .”

“The gates would destroy them,” Kiel said, narrowing his eyes.

“They don’t know that. When they see me disappear, then return the same afternoon carrying fresh fruit from the markets of Olon, they’ll understand the power. They’ll sign whatever we put in front of them for a piece of it.”