Брайан Макклеллан - Blood of Empire

Ji-Noren frowned, as if wondering how this could possibly be good news.

Sedial patted Ji-Noren on the shoulder. “She will continue to make the same mistake. Eventually, it will weaken her against my attacks, and I will break her.”

“Ah. Do we know where she is?”

“To the west, still. I can’t be entirely sure where, but I imagine she’s looking for the last of the godstones.”

“She doesn’t know we already have it.”

“No, I don’t think she does.” Sedial turned to the dragonman. “You’re still frowning.”

“We have many enemies in this place,” Ji-Noren commented.

“As we expected.”

“More than expected,” Ji-Noren said. “And far more powerful. Have you read reports about what those two powder mages did to the army we sent after Lady Flint?”

Sedial ignored the question. One thing at a time. “Don’t worry yourself, my friend,” Sedial said as he crossed the room toward the door. It was nearly teatime, and he might just be able to enjoy it before another messenger arrived with some ridiculous problem that needed fixing. “We’ve won almost every battle we’ve fought on this accursed continent. We possess two of the godstones. Once we’ve broken Ka-poel’s sorcery on the Landfall godstone, we will be in position to act.”

“And Lady Flint, with that new Adran army up north?” Ji-Noren insisted. “They have the third godstone.”

“But they have no idea how to use it.” He paused, then added reassuringly, “They have, what, thirty thousand soldiers? We outnumber them four to one in that region alone.”

“They have Privileged and powder mages now.”

“We’ll buy them off,” Sedial said. “The Adran delegation will be far more pliant than Lady Flint’s stubbornness. She may have gained an army, but she also gained the politics of the Nine. I suspect she’ll find the latter much harder to wield than the former.” He rested his hand on the door just as he heard footsteps pounding urgently up the stairs. He rolled his eyes and opened it just in time to see a messenger, covered in sweat and road dust, come to a huffing stop. “What is it?” Sedial demanded.

“We’ve done it, sir.”

Sedial was taken aback. “Done what?”

“The godstone, sir. The Privileged and bone-eyes say that they’ve solved it.”

It took a few moments for the thought to register. “They’re certain? They’ve broken my granddaughter’s seals?”

“Yes, Great Ka. Absolutely certain.”

Sedial felt the grin spread on his face. He let out a relieved sigh and gave the messenger one curt nod before closing the door and hobbling back to the writing desk. “We’ve done it, Noren,” he breathed.

“Congratulations, Great Ka,” Ji-Noren said warmly.

Sedial reached beneath the writing desk and produced a small cigar box marked with his Household crest. It pulsed with sorcery as his fingertips touched it, and continued to grow warmer and warmer until he managed to prick his own finger and press the blood to a special knot on the bottom of the box. The box sprang open, revealing several dozen prepared envelopes layered in protective wards. He drew them out almost reverently and handed them to Ji-Noren. “Send these back to Dynize immediately.”

“Are we sure we’re ready for this?” Ji-Noren asked with some surprise.

“It is time to strike. Begin the purge.”

“What of the emperor?”

“The emperor is just another puppet. He’ll think that the purges are being conducted in his name.”

Ji-Noren looked down at the orders. For a moment, Sedial thought he saw a flicker of hesitation. Understandable, of course. After such a long and bloody civil war, most Dynize were loath to spill the blood of their kin. Yet this was unavoidable. Enemies needed to be destroyed, both foreign and domestic.

“Can I trust you to stand beside me, my friend?” Sedial asked.

Ji-Noren’s gaze hardened. “To the death.”

“Good.”

“This is how it begins.”

“No,” Sedial corrected gently. “It began decades ago. This is how it ends.”

Michel Bravis stood in the doorway of a small Kressian chapel, sipping cold morning coffee while he watched Palo fishermen pass him in the street, their early haul hanging from long poles balanced on their shoulders. He examined each man and woman carefully, ticking them off mentally as he watched for new faces or suspicious glances or any amount of curiosity tossed in his direction. They bragged to one another about their catch or tagged along in sullen, unsuccessful silence, but not one of them gave Michel a second glance.

He’d grown and shorn the blond dye out of his hair over the previous month, and he’d made sure to spend plenty of time in the sun each day to allow the natural strawberry red to come out in both his hair and his beard. A starvation diet had allowed him to lose nearly two stone, and every shop-window reflection reminded him that he had changed his look about as much as possible since leaving Landfall.

To the townspeople of this Palo fishing village about twenty miles up the coast from Landfall, Michel was nothing more than just another Palo vagrant displaced from his home with the Dynize invasion. He spent his mornings on the chapel stoop, his afternoons cleaning fish at the only processing factory, and his evenings tucked into one of the dozen local pubs listening to gossip and playing the occasional hand of cards with loose-lipped Dynize soldiers. He gathered information, he kept his head down, and most of all he waited for an opportunity to present itself that would allow him and Ichtracia to slip out of this place and head inland to find Ka-poel.

Michel finished his coffee, tossing the grounds into the gutter and stowing his tin cup before slipping inside. He listened to the clatter of the big chapel door swinging shut behind him and tried to resist fiddling with the still-painful stub of the finger Sedial had cut off, hidden beneath bandages and a false splint. He took a deep breath and walked up the center aisle of the chapel.

To all appearances, Ichtracia looked like a grieving widow. She wore a black shawl and veil and sat hunched as if in prayer on the second row of benches. Michel glanced around the empty chapel, then came to stand beside her, raising his eyes to Kresimir’s Rope hanging above the altar. He noted that someone had written “KRESIMIR IS DEAD” under one of the stained-glass windows of the nave.

The hard-drinking fisherwoman who acted as the town priest hadn’t bothered to scrub it off.

“Are all Kressian churches like this?” Ichtracia asked, not raising her head.

“Like what?”

“Dull.”

Michel considered the question. “The cathedrals are more impressive.”

“I toured the one in Landfall. It certainly was big.” She didn’t sound impressed.

“Don’t Dynize have churches?” It had never occurred to him to ask before.

“Not really, not in the same way. We’re supposed to worship the emperor in the town square, but no one really does that, except on public holidays.”

That sounded very similar to Michel’s own relationship with religion. He’d never bothered with it as a boy, and as an adult he knew for a fact that Kresimir was indeed dead. He worked for the pair that had killed the Kressian god. “At least this keeps you from having to stay cooped up in our room all day,” Michel suggested.

“This bench is going to be the death of me.” Ichtracia stood suddenly, lifting her veil and stretching with a rather impious yawn. Ever since they had snuck out of Landfall, she’d been posing as his brother’s widow. Or at least, that was their story. No one had actually bothered to ask them yet. The Dynize didn’t have a strong presence here beyond the isolated, passing platoon, and the Palo simply didn’t care.