Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

“You said you were expecting me?”

“Just a thought.” The old man shrugged. “I saw your name in the broadsheets, and I figured you might come looking. It’s been a long time.”

“I’ve been away,” Marcus said. “Khandar.”

Hank nodded. “And it’s not like there was much left for you to come back to. It was a terrible business.”

“You were there?”

“I was. That was back when I went out on calls. Now I sit here and let the young’uns buy me drinks, and tell stories.” He tapped his half-empty glass, and gave Marcus a crinkly smile. “Not a bad life, to be honest. But yes, I was there.”

“What happened?”

“Didn’t they tell you about it?”

“Not much. Only that it was an accident, and that nobody. . got out.” Marcus’ voice hitched. He swallowed hard, irritated.

Hank peered at him kindly. “You want a drink?”

“No, thank you. Just tell me what happened.”

“Well. It’s not easy to say. When a house burns, ’less everyone’s asleep, usually somebody notices. They run from the flames and come out the other side, you see? Sometimes if a place is a real tinder trap, it’ll go up all suddenlike, and sometimes there’s no other way out and people get trapped. That’s bad luck.”

Marcus remembered the Ashe-Katarion fire, the swarms of determined people pressing tighter and tighter to get through the gates into the inner city, or throwing themselves into the river to drown instead of burn. He swallowed again. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“The d’Ivoire place-your place-it was old, but it wasn’t a tinder trap. It took time to burn. And there were plenty of doors. So how come nobody got out?”

Marcus shook his head. He didn’t even know if the fire had been during the day or at night, he realized. No one had volunteered any information, and he’d been just as happy to avoid the details.

“When we got there,” Hank went on, “it was obvious there was no saving the place. I led my boys in as soon as we could, but that fire burned hot. We never found more than bits and pieces of the folk who lived there.” He caught Marcus’ eye and shook his head. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have said it like that. What I mean is the fire was odd.”

“What do you mean, odd?”

“As best we could tell, it started in three places at once. Oil lamp by the front door, fireplace near the back door, spark in the straw by the stable door. Three doors, three fires. That’s real bad luck.”

There was a long silence.

“You’re sure about that?” Marcus said, voice dull.

“There’s no sure , with fires. But I had a look, and I talked to the people who were around. I’d been at this twenty years, even then.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I did.” Hank’s wrinkled face was a mask. “Went to the Armsmen, said I thought it was passing strange. They bounced me around for a while, and finally somebody told me they didn’t want to hear it, and they didn’t want anybody else hearing it, either. I got the message.”

“You’re telling me ,” Marcus pointed out.

“It never sat right with me,” Hank said. “And they were your people.” He smiled slyly. “Besides, him that told me to shut my mouth, you outrank him now. I reckon it’s your right to know, don’t you think?”

“Outrank-” Marcus stopped, abruptly. “I see.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Marcus murmured, his mind a whirl. “You’ve been. . very helpful.”

Giforte. It had to be Giforte. The vice captain had been effectively running the Armsmen since well before the time of the fire. Captains came and went, but Giforte stayed on, bending to the winds of politics and keeping the ship running.

Hank told him the fire wasn’t an accident. Couldn’t have been an accident. Someone killed them. His mother. His father. Ellie. Ellie!

Marcus realized he was holding his breath, hands clenched tight. He forced himself to relax.

It wasn’t an accident. The thought ran around and around in his head. Not an accident. Murder. Three doors, three fires. Cold-blooded murder.

Someone had murdered his little sister, barely four years old. He wanted to scream.

Who?

Giforte knew. Or at least he knew something . But he had no reason to tell Marcus anything. There was nothing like proof, just the ramblings of one old man. The vice captain’s position was secure; the Armsmen couldn’t run without him, and he knew it. No wonder he’s been so cagey around me. I thought it was just about the politics, but he must have been wondering if I’d found out.

There was another option. Ionkovo’s “trade.” The Black Priests’ agent obviously knew enough to send Marcus here, and he might know the rest. But he would want something in exchange. Which is obviously why he sent me here in the first place. The very fact that he wanted to know so badly what had happened in Khandar implied that telling him was dangerous.

I could ask Janus. . There was a certain comfort in the thought of appealing to the colonel. But that would mean revealing that he’d talked to Ionkovo in the first place, and Marcus wasn’t sure how Janus would react to that.

Hell. Anger squirreled around inside him, searching for a target, finding nothing. He tasted bile.

“Sir?” Staff Eisen said.

Marcus blinked and came back to himself. He was standing outside the Fiddler, facing the ivy-covered brick wall, one hand pressed flat against it. When he let it fall, bits of grimy mortar clung to his palm.

“It’s all right,” Marcus said. “I’m all right.”

“Did you find out what you wanted, sir?” Eisen said.

Marcus squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. I have no idea.

RAESINIA

Raesinia’s candle had burned down to a stub, floating in a saucer of molten wax. Her hand was splotchy with ink, and there was a spot on her index finger where the pen had rubbed it raw that would be a blister tomorrow.

Or, at least, it would be if she were a normal, living person. She set down the pen and felt the binding twitch, and the itchy pain was replaced with a cool numbness. The red spot faded away as though it had never been, leaving plain, unblemished skin.

She’d been working on the speech for nearly six hours straight. After they’d found Danton, Sothe had insisted she spend a day at Ohnlei, putting in appearances and playing the dutiful daughter. Raesinia hated it. Her grief was a palpable thing, a tight, hot ball in her throat, but parading it in front of everyone made her feel like a fraud. She’d visited her father’s bedside with Doctor-Professor Indergast, but the king hadn’t awoken. His breathing was terrifyingly weak under the duvet.

I’m sorry, Father. She’d spent a long time by the bedside, gripping his hand. I’m sorry I have to lie to you. I’m sorry I can’t stay. Then, once darkness fell, it was time for another fast trip down from the top of the tower so Sothe could smuggle her into the city.

Raesinia didn’t get tired anymore, in the normal sense of the word, but she was still subject to a kind of mental exhaustion. Too many hours of concentration left her feeling as if her eyeballs had been boiled in tar. She grabbed her elbows behind her head, arched her back, and stretched, feeling tiny pops in her shoulders and all up and down her spine.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ben raise his head, eyes surreptitiously locked on her breasts. Raesinia hurriedly unbent and crossed her arms over her chest with an inward sigh. Ben’s infatuation, which she had regarded at first as a curiosity, was getting more and more problematic. He tried to act like the soul of courtesy, even when it meant getting in her way, and he was more insistent that she not expose herself to anything that might be dangerous. Raesinia, who went out of her way to do anything that was dangerous on the ground that it was better for her to be in the middle of it than anyone else, was left in an awkward position.