Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

Vlora froze, feeling as if she’d just been caught in some sort of trap. “What kind of news?” Tampo seemed just a little too comfortable; a little too pleased with himself.

“Oh,” Tampo said pleasantly. “Everything we get our hands on. Intertribal politics, government policy, that sort of thing.” He readjusted his cane, snatching a glass of iced tea from a passing servant and downing half of it in one go. “Sometimes we run stories about mercenary companies that have been putting down Palo revolts.”

Vlora considered her words carefully, but all she could come up with was a high-pitched “hmm,” followed by taking a sip from her own glass. She cleared her throat. “Are you a reporter, too, Mr. Tampo?”

“I am not,” he said with a condescending smile. “Though my reporters have written several very detailed articles about you.”

“And you wanted to meet me why?”

“Because the articles they write are fascinating. Something about you has the attention of my reporters. You’ve become a character study.”

“I can’t imagine you know enough about me to create a character study,” Vlora said. She glanced around for Vallencian, hoping to make a polite escape from this conversation, but could not spot him.

“You’d be surprised,” Tampo said. “Reporters dig up an awful lot. And they like to use it to paint a story. Tell me, were you really engaged to Taniel Two-shot?”

Vlora’s stomach clenched. That was ancient history, more than a decade old and across the ocean. Yet it always seemed to rear its ugly head. “I was,” she said coldly.

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but he broke off the engagement, did he not? Because he found you in the bed of another man?”

Vlora’s fingers tightened on the hilt of her sword without having commanded her hand to move there, and she had to fight down the urge to run Tampo through without warning. She’d expected a conflict of some kind tonight – perhaps a confrontation with a Palo who knew someone her men had killed – but certainly not with a fellow Adran. “That one, childish decision ruined my life,” Vlora said softly, “and I have spent the last decade putting it together. If you would like to step outside, I will kill you.”

“No dueling, I’m afraid,” Tampo said with a smug smile. “Mama Palo frowns upon it, and this is her residence. But you mistake my meaning. I’m not trying to twist the knife. I’m trying to help you understand something.”

“What, exactly, is that?”

Tampo pointed at her chest. “Taniel Two-shot was a war hero in Fatrasta even before he became a war hero in his native Adro. He helped us win our War for Independence and he was a friend to the Palo. And now the woman who spurned him less than a year before his heroic death is here in Fatrasta putting down Palo revolts in the very location he tried to help both Fatrastans and Palo alike earn their freedom from the Kez. That, Lady Flint, makes you an absolutely perfect villain to my reporters.”

“You think I’m a villain?” Vlora asked flatly. She’d been called far worse, but for some reason the accusation stung. She, a veteran fighter, a revolutionary by most standards, was an enemy? The very idea made her sick to her stomach.

“I don’t write the narratives,” Tampo said. “I just print them. I thought you should know how you stand in the consciousness of the Palo people.”

“Then why am I here?” Vlora demanded loudly. More than one face turned toward her at the outburst. “Why was I invited to this gala if I’m nothing but a figurehead for what these people see as evil?” She’d had nothing to drink, yet her head felt foggy, her vision swimming.

“I don’t know,” Tampo said quietly. He seemed pleased by her reaction, and it made her bristle. “Perhaps not everyone here thinks you are a villain. But how can I know? Anyway, Lady Flint, it’s been lovely meeting you. Have a wonderful evening and, if I may give you some advice, beware the Depths. They aren’t kind to strangers.”

Tampo disappeared into the crowd before Vlora could come up with a retort, leaving her to fume silently. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to kill something, and the little voice in the back of her head – which sounded suspiciously like Olem – told her to remove herself from a room full of civilians before someone said something stupid to her.

She managed to find a promising wing off the main hall with no occupants. It was dimly lit, and she could sense no patrolling guards as she slapped one hand against the yellow limestone and gave out an angry groan. Taniel bloody Two-shot. Eleven years since he severed their engagement – deservedly so – and destroyed her professional and personal reputation. Her life might have been over had not the Adran-Kez War started immediately, and Vlora’s skills were needed so badly it gave her the opportunity to win back some friends.

Taniel had forgiven her – or so he said – before his death. But even after all this time it hung over her head, a specter of bad choices that haunted her bed, driving her to Olem, a man who never judged her even though she refused to marry him or have his children. She thought all the self-loathing of that choice was locked away in a cabinet at the back of her head, only visible to her, but now it was back to affect her professional life.

A villain.

She was half-tempted to head back inside and call Tampo out, Mama Palo’s rules be damned. She slapped the rough stone wall again and again, until her hand ached and her palm bled. She was here with a job to do, people to charm, and now she didn’t think she’d be able to focus again at all tonight. What a damned waste.

“Lady Flint?”

Vlora ran fingers through her hair, collecting herself, and hid her bleeding hand behind her back as she turned to find a Palo man standing behind her. He was only a little taller than she, with graying red hair and freckles so thick that his face might as well have been ash. He wore a fine tan suit that wouldn’t be out of place in Adran high society, the collar flipped up. He must have been around fifty, and she recognized him as one of the men Vallencian had pointed out. Vlora cleared her throat. “Meln-Dun?”

“That’s right,” he said in slightly accented Kez. “I don’t speak Adran. Is Kez all right?”

“Kez is fine,” Vlora answered.

“Have we met?”

“No, I’m sorry. The Ice Baron pointed you out to me.”

“As he did you to me just a few moments ago. I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

Vlora could feel the limestone grit still stuck in her hand, her fingers slick with blood. “No, not at all. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Vallencian mentioned we might be able to help each other. It seems you’re worried about the safety of your troops.”

Vallencian has a damned big mouth. Vlora chose her words carefully. “That is true,” she admitted. “But I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. The Riflejack Mercenary Company is a stranger to Landfall and we’ve been placed here rather suddenly to act as a garrison. I’ve been told that Greenfire Depths, and the Palo who occupy it, have an understandable distaste for anyone who works for the Lady Chancellor. I’d hoped to figure out a way around that. It’s why I’m here, actually, though I’m not doing a very good job at it.” She looked at her bloody palm, certain Meln-Dun couldn’t see it in the dim light. “You’re the first Palo I’ve spoken to tonight.”

“But not the last, I think,” Meln-Dun said.

“Oh?”

Meln-Dun came up beside her, frowning down at her hand, which she hid once more behind her back. “We’re all a little curious why you were invited here, Lady Flint. Mama Palo hasn’t shared her reason with us, but we suspect that she wishes to have the same thing you do – a truce.”