Douglas Hulick - Sworn in Steel

“Can you break the Oaths that were sworn on it? Make them, I don’t know, go away?”

“I don’t know,” said Degan. “Nor am I sure if we’d want to.”

“What? Why the hell not?”

“Because we’re used to being bound,” said Degan. “Think: We’ve been swearing Oaths since our founding, attaching ourselves to people and causes, one after the other. I don’t think we want to stop that-it’s too much a part of who we are.”

“And the emperor’s Oath?” I said.

Degan leaned forward and picked up a few pieces of loose gravel, began tossing them down the steps. “That’s going to be harder. We’re still split over what our Oath means, but having the sword and the laws at least gives us the opportunity to try and settle the question-or maybe recast it.”

“You have a plan?”

“I’m sure several people have plans, or at least the beginnings of them, at this point.”

“Meaning Gold?” I said.

“Probably Gold, but others, too.”

“You worried?”

“Right now I’m too busy enjoying breathing to worry. Ask me again in a week.”

I chuckled. So did Degan.

“But you do have a plan?” I said after a moment.

Degan sighed and eyed me sidelong. Finally, he relented.

“I wasn’t joking when I said Steel was right,” he said. “We need to rethink what and who we serve, and how we do it. All of us being bound to one person, be it the emperor or a sheikh of the degans, isn’t the answer. The last two centuries have shown us that. We’re just not sure where to go yet. Me, I’m going to give some more thought to Steel’s idea of us treating one another more like a tribe or a clan, and less like a sworn brotherhood. There’s a, I don’t know, pomposity to what we have right now that makes it easy to keep one another at arm’s distance. After two hundred years, you’d think we’d be able to be frank with one another, but it happens less than you think.”

I chuckled and shook my head.

“What?” said Degan.

“Only you would think a bunch of immortal swordsmen being more open with one another is a good idea.”

“We’re not immortal,” said Degan, “just long-lived.”

“Oh, well, that makes all the difference, then.”

He smiled and cast more gravel at the ground. “Maybe you’re right. But we have to try something different than what we’ve been doing.”

“At least you don’t have to worry about growing old while you debate the topic.”

“There is that.” Degan brushed his hands together. “Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For not listening to me, for one thing.”

“Oh, that. I’ve had a lot of practice at it. Not a problem.”

“And for coming back and taking the risk.”

“You risked far more for me than I could ever hope to do in return,” I said. “It’s the least I could do.”

Degan rubbed at his bottom lip. “So what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Well, assuming it’s still standing, you’ve saved your organization, not to mention put yourself in a position to start taking shipments of glimmer from el-Qaddice. Seems to me like you’re in a sweet spot, wet-behind-the-ears Gray Prince or not. What’s next?”

It was my turn to pick up a handful of small stones and throw them at nothing in particular. “I’ve been thinking about that as well,” I said. “Both on the road and while I was waiting just now.”

“And?”

“And I think I’m done.”

“With what?”

“Being a Gray Prince.”

“What?”

“If going to Djan taught me anything, it’s that I’m a crap prince. I don’t think like one, don’t plan like one, and certainly don’t act like one. I’m street, down to the bone. It’s what I do.” It was stupid that it had taken nearly getting dusted in a foreign city to realize it: I was a better Nose than I was a Gray Prince. I always would be. No matter how many years I spent at it, I knew deep down that my first instinct would be to scrounge the whispers and mumbles, not make them. I could direct Ears and spread rumors now and then, but to coordinate dodges and manipulate gangs, not just in Ildrecca but eventually across the empire? That wasn’t me-not on the scale I needed it to be. “Nosing is what I do and where I belong.”

It felt good to say it. Free.

“What about your people?” said Degan. “Your organization?”

“What organization?” I said. “I have a bunch of Noses, some Cutters, and a few smugglers right now, along with an Upright Man who doesn’t know better, Angels bless him. They’d all of them be better off under someone who knew how to watch out for them-Kells, say, if he wants the title. Or Solitude. That, or they can head out on their own. I’ve been nothing but a target on people’s backs since I got handed the title.”

“And Fowler?”

“Hell, she might just break down and kiss me, it’d make her job so much easier.”

“I think you underestimate her.”

“Habitually.”

Degan pushed his hat back on his head and ran a palm across his brow. “Drothe, you can’t just walk away from being a Gray Prince.”

“Sure I can,” I said, sounding leagues more confident than I felt. “I walked into it, I’ll walk back out. Oh, it’ll take some planning and a few deals and rumors, but I’ve been a prince for such a short time, I expect everyone will have forgotten me within six months. The trick will just be staying alive and out of sight until them.”

Could I do it? Would it be possible, let alone that simple? I wasn’t sure-certainly, no one had done it before that I was aware of. Then again, no one had made the jump from street operator to prince like I had, either. A big step up can mean a big fall down, but if you were planning the fall? If you turned it into just as big a step as the one you’d made on the way up?

Angels knew it was better to try than to wait for more coves to pile up in the street because of my bad decisions.

“That’s not what I mean,” said Degan, his voice becoming tight. “You can’t quit. It’s-”

“Dangerous, I know,” I said. “But if I plan it out and think it through; if I make sure the other princes have no reason to-”

“Stop,” said Degan. “You’re not listening.”

I shifted to face him. “Fine. I’m listening. Tell me why I can’t quit, O wise degan.”

Degan met my eyes, then looked away. “Because I won’t let you.”

I smiled. “This isn’t a room full of degans. You can’t just-”

“And the Order won’t let you, either.”

“The Order? What the hell do they care. .?” I let the sentence trail off as a cold, hard ball of premonition began to form in my stomach.

“We’ve already started talking about what we want to accomplish,” said Degan. “How we want to serve the Empire. You have to understand that we’ve built up an impressive collection of debts and favors over the years. Some, like yours, are recent, but there are others that go back a century or more and are still waiting to be called in. Banks, merchants, guilds, families-it’s a tapestry of Oaths, all woven together, with the Order at its center.”

The ball had solidified now and was beginning to work its way up toward my mouth. I tried to swallow it back down, to banish the dread it was bringing with it, but I couldn’t-just as I couldn’t take my eyes off Degan even as he refused to meet mine.

“Before today, we were saving those promises for the day we needed them to serve the emperor. But now, with us looking at alternatives? With us beginning to think about breaking that first bond? Well, we’re going to need those debts, those Oaths, among the bankers and guild masters and high and low families.”

No. .