Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“Individually, you are nothing. If you fight, you will die. If you run, you will die. Even if you escape the city, flee to your homes, and manage to raise a rebellion, my sister and her kenarang will march the legions and put it down.” He paused, letting the fact sink in. “They cannot, however, put down a coordinated push from all of you at once. This”-he gestured to the page-“is both your sword and your shield.”

For a moment no one moved, each trying to gauge the reactions of the others. Then Tevis surged to his feet.

“No!” he swore, reaching for his rapier, shoving his way past the table, cursing at Kegellen when his cloak caught on the arm of her chair. “You scheming Malkeenian fuck, I’ll see you dead, I’ll see you flayed before I so much as-”

The words fell off abruptly. Tevis’s brow furrowed, and he looked down. One of the peacock feathers from Kegellen’s hairpiece stuck incongruously from the hairy curls on his arm. The woman yawned as she drove the shaft of the feather deeper.

Tevis raised a hand, then, face baffled and rapidly turning blue, let it fall. He stared at Kaden, tongue lolling from his mouth, then down at Kegellen. When he finally fell, his face smashed into the table, tearing a gash across his purpled forehead. He thrashed twice on the wooden floor, then fell still.

Kegellen raised her eyebrows, nudged the corpse with a slippered foot, looked at Kaden, then over the small group.

“A man’s entitled to his own opinions,” she said with a shrug, “but not when they look likely to get me killed.”

She returned her attention to Kaden. “Now, who were the poor souls inside the chapterhouse that those soldiers just slaughtered?”

“Not poor souls,” Kaden replied. “A group known as the Ishien. A private foe of my own-one that betrayed me and people I held dear.”

Kegellen flicked open her fan, watching him awhile above the delicate whir of the paper, then nodded.

“I, for one, am feeling a republican spirit stirring in my fat, jolly heart.”

* * *

The signing of the constitution took only a matter of minutes. There were questions, of course, concerns, and demands, but the blood smeared on the stones of the square below and Tevis’s corpse sprawled across the wooden floor muted any real objections. As Kaden had hoped, once the thing was done, once it was clear there would be no turning back, the nobles began to put aside their own bickering in the urgency of the moment. Only when the ink had finally dried, however, only once the others had departed to muster their own personal guards, their money, their friends, any allies they might have in the city, did Kaden finally sit.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Gabril asked, standing by the window. The sun was sinking toward the rooftops, and people had returned to the square, pointing fingers at the chapterhouse, pointing at the blood, exclaiming in loud, worried tones over the violence. “You thought one of us would reveal your secret?”

Triste and Kiel, too, had remained behind with him, and he eyed each of them in turn, gaze lingering on Triste. Finally he nodded.

“I thought I could trust all of you, but I couldn’t be sure. The fewer people who know a thing…” He trailed off, spreading his hands.

Kiel pointed to the window. “It was the Ishien waiting inside the chapterhouse.”

Kaden nodded. “We knew Matol would have the place watched. It was one of the only spots in the city I might go. They wouldn’t take Triste, not until she led them to me, but as soon as she left, there was no reason not to burst in and demand the note that she had delivered.”

Triste was shaking her head. “And it didn’t say anything about Ashk’lan. It said we would be meeting there, in the chapterhouse, just the same way you told us in the temple.”

Kaden nodded. “I needed the Ishien there when Adiv arrived. I needed them to kill each other.”

“And the Shin?” Kiel asked.

“I don’t know,” Kaden said quietly. “For Matol to set the trap, he needed the monks out of the way.…”

Kiel raised his brows. “To Ekhard Matol, ‘out of the way’ usually means ‘dead.’”

Kaden nodded reluctantly. It was a risk, and one he had no right to take for the monks. They were no part of the conspiracy, no part of the Ishien effort to hunt him down. Like the murdered brothers he had left behind in Ashk’lan, those here would have been devoted to quiet, peace, mindfulness, and tranquillity, and Kaden had brought the twin hammers of Ekhard Matol and Tarik Adiv on their sanctuary. He hoped the Ishien might have bound the men instead of killing them, but his hopes were scant protection to those inside. It was one of the reasons he had remained. He needed to see the bodies. To know for sure just how deeply his sacrificial knife had cut.

“And Adiv?” Gabril asked. “How did he come to suspect you were there?”

Kaden glanced at Triste again. She was staring at the blank floor where Tevis had fallen, but looked up as though she felt his eyes upon her. It was there, obvious to anyone who looked. The marvel was he hadn’t seen it earlier.

“Morjeta,” he said quietly.

Kiel frowned, then nodded. Gabril said nothing. Kaden kept his eyes on Triste. For a few heartbeats she just stood there, face blank.

“What?” she asked finally.

“Your mother,” he said, as gently as he could. “She’s the one who told Adiv we would be here. She’s the one who gave him the names, who told him the people he’d be looking for would be dressed as monks but bearing blades.”

Triste stared, then shook her head, slowly at first, then more violently. “No,” she said, eyes blazing. “No.”

Kaden nodded. “Yes.”

It had taken him longer than it should have to piece it all together: the tension in Morjeta’s face when Triste reappeared, her odd insistence on cooperation with the man who had seized her daughter, the very fact that she had allowed Triste to be taken in the first place. And then Adiv’s unexpected arrival in the temple itself.

Oddly, the key had nothing to do with Morjeta at all. The whole thing had clicked into place only when Kaden watched Demivalle face down the Mizran Councillor. He had expected Adiv, with his title and the armed men at his back, to crush any resistance by the priestess. After all, that was the story of Triste’s abduction: the councillor came, he issued threats, and the leinas handed her over. The story looked a good deal less likely after witnessing Demivalle’s unflinching refusal to accommodate his demands.

The question was why ? Why would Morjeta willingly give up her daughter? Why would she betray Kaden to the councillor? The answer was scrawled across Triste’s face. Adiv’s blindfold had obscured the resemblance, that and the fact that his skin was a few shades darker than Triste’s, but when Kaden called those faces to mind, when he set them next to each other, there could be no mistaking the shape of the jaw, the elegant line of the nose. Adiv hadn’t wrested an innocent girl from the iron grip of the Temple of Pleasure; he had taken his daughter.

“I don’t think your mother meant to hurt you,” he said carefully. “Tarik Adiv is one of the most powerful men in the kingdom.…” He hesitated, wondering whether or not to reveal the whole truth, then plunged ahead. “And he is your father.”

Her face twisted with fear and revulsion, hands balled into fists at her side. For a moment she stood, a tower of mute fury and grief. Then, with a shriek, she hurled herself at Kaden. He caught her by the shoulders, but her fists rained down on him, pounding against his chest, his head. There was none of the inexplicable strength she had shown back in the Dead Heart, but the blows were powerful enough. As she sobbed, he pushed her back, forced her to stare into his eyes.