Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“ Which bastard are we talking about now?” Laith asked. “There are plenty to go around these days.”

“That fancy prick Adiv,” Gwenna said, jerking her head toward the northwest. “The one with the blindfold and the attitude.”

“The Mizran Councillor,” Kaden interjected quietly. It was one of the highest posts in the empire, and not a military position. Kaden had been surprised, even before the betrayal, when the man arrived with the contingent of Aedolians. Now it was just more evidence, as if he needed more, that the conspiracy had penetrated the most trusted quarters of the Dawn Palace.

“Whatever his job is,” Gwenna replied, “he’s over there, on foot, picking his miserable way out of the mountains. Couldn’t have missed our bird by more than a few hundred paces.”

Valyn sucked air between his teeth. “Well, we knew Tarik Adiv was alive when we didn’t find the body. Now we know where he is. Any sign of Balendin?”

Gwenna shook her head.

“That’s something, at least,” Valyn replied.

“It is?” Laith asked. “No doubt Balendin’s the more dangerous of the two.”

“Why do you say that?” Kaden asked.

Laith stared. “Balendin’s Kettral, ” he replied finally, as if that explained everything. “He trained with us. And he’s a leach.”

“Adiv is a leach himself,” Talal pointed out. “That’s how they kept up with Kaden in the mountains, how they tracked him.”

“I thought they used those spider creatures for the tracking,” Laith said.

Talal nodded. “But someone needed to control them, to handle them.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Valyn said. “Right now Balendin’s missing and Adiv is here. Let’s work with what we have.”

“I’ve got eyes on him,” Annick said.

While they were talking, the sniper had moved silently to a concealed spot between two boulders, half drawing her bowstring.

Kaden risked a glance over the ridge. At first he saw nothing, then noticed a figure limping down a shallow drainage three hundred paces off. He couldn’t make out the councillor’s face at that distance but the red coat was unmistakable, the gold at the cuffs and collar badly tarnished but glinting in the midday light.

“He made good time,” Talal observed.

“He’s had a night, a day, another night, and a morning,” Gwenna said scornfully. “It’s not more than seventy miles from where we lost him.”

“As I said,” Talal replied. “Good time.”

“Think he cheated?” Laith asked.

“I think he’s a leach,” Talal said.

“So … yes,” the flier concluded, grinning.

“Remind me not to ‘cheat,’” Talal replied, fixing the flier with a steady stare, “the next time you’re in a tight place.”

“Take him down?” Annick asked. The bowstring was at her ear now, and though the strain must have been immense, she remained as still as stone.

Kaden glanced over the ridge again. At this distance he could barely make out the blindfold wrapping Adiv’s eyes.

“Isn’t he too far off?”

“No.”

“Take the shot, Annick,” Valyn said, turning to Kaden. “She’ll make it. Don’t ask me how.”

“Stand by,” the sniper responded after a pause. “He’s passing behind some rock.”

Kaden looked from Annick to Valyn, then to the small defile where Adiv had disappeared. After hours of lying on their bellies, waiting and watching, things were abruptly going too fast. He had expected the long wait to be followed by conversation, deliberation, a review of the facts and exchange of ideas. Suddenly, though, with no discussion at all, a man was about to die, a traitor and a murderer, but a man all the same.

The Kettral didn’t seem concerned. Gwenna and Valyn were staring over the rock; the demolitions master eagerly, Valyn silent and focused. Laith was trying to make a wager with Talal.

“I’ll bet you a silver moon she kills him with the first shot.”

“I’m not betting against Annick,” the leach replied.

The flier cursed. “What odds will you give me to take the other side? Ten to one for her to miss?”

“Make it fifty,” Talal said, resting his bald head against the rock, considering the sky.

“Twenty.”

“No,” Kaden said.

“Fine. Twenty-five.”

“Not the bet,” Kaden said, putting a hand on Valyn’s shoulder. “Don’t kill him.”

Valyn turned from the valley below to look at Kaden. “What?”

“Oh for the sweet love of ’Shael,” Gwenna growled. “Who’s running this Wing?”

Valyn ignored Gwenna. Instead, his black eyes bored into Kaden, drinking the light. “Adiv’s behind all this, Your Radiance,” he said. “He and Ut. They’re the ones that killed the monks, that tried to kill you, not to mention the fact that they’re clearly involved in our father’s murder. With Ut gone, Adiv is the ranking commander down there. We kill him, we take a head off the beast.”

“I have him again,” Annick said.

“Don’t shoot,” Kaden insisted, shaking his head, trying to order his thoughts. Years earlier, while attempting to recapture a goat, he’d lost his footing above the White River, plunging down the rocks and into the current. It was all he could do to breathe, to keep his head above the roiling surface, to fend off the jagged boulders as they loomed up before him, all the time knowing that he had less than a quarter mile to pull himself clear of the torrent before it plunged him over a cliff. The immediacy of the moment, the inability to pause, to reflect, the absolute necessity of action had terrified him and when he finally caught hold of a fallen limb, clawing his way up and out, the feeling left him shaking on the bank. The Shin had taught him much about patience, but almost nothing of haste. Now, with the eyes of the entire Wing upon him, with the coal-smudged point of Annick’s arrow fixed on Adiv, he felt that awful, ineluctable forward rush all over again.

“A few more seconds,” Annick said, “and he’ll be in the camp. It’ll be more difficult to take him then.”

“ Why? ” Valyn demanded, staring at Kaden. “Why do you want him alive?”

Kaden forced his eddying thoughts into a channel, the channel into speech. There would be no second chance to say what he had to say. The arrow, once loosed, would not be called back.

“We know him,” he began slowly. “We need him. Back in Annur we can observe who he talks to, who he trusts. He’ll help us to unravel the conspiracy.”

“Yeah,” Gwenna snapped, “and maybe he’ll murder a few dozen more people on the way.”

“I’m losing him,” Annick said. “Decide now.”

“Oh for ’Shael’s sake,” Laith grumbled. “Just kill him already. We can sort out the details later.”

“No,” Kaden said quietly, willing his brother to see past the present, to understand the logic. “Not yet.”

Valyn held Kaden’s gaze for a long time, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. Finally he nodded. “Stand down, Annick. We have our orders.”

“ Plan might be too noble a word,” Pyrre said, reclining against a large boulder, head back, eyes closed even as she spoke, “but I’d like to think we had some sort of vague inclination .”

They’d made it back from the monastery easily enough, rejoining the rest of the group in the hidden defile where they’d set up camp. The other Kettral were checking over their weapons, the two monks sat cross-legged on the rough stone, while Triste fingered the long scab on her cheek, her wide eyes darting from one person to the next as though unsure where to look, who to trust.

Valyn studied the girl a moment, surprised all over again at the course of events that had led such a fragile, arresting young woman to this place, tangling her up in the same snare with soldiers and monks. She was a concubine, Kaden had said. Adiv had offered her to Kaden as a gift, one intended to distract the new emperor while the Aedolians made ready to murder him. Evidently, Triste wasn’t a part of the plot, but she was plenty distracting all the same. Valyn felt like he could watch her forever, but then, she wasn’t the one who needed watching. With an effort, he shifted his gaze to Pyrre Lakatur.