Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

Styke remembered her. He remembered her better than he remembered Two-shot, if he was being honest. He could smell the blood sorcery on her, and see the playful confidence that seemed so strange in the eyes of a Palo youth. “A Dynize,” he echoed. “Didn’t know there were any in the swamps.”

“She was a refugee of some sort,” Flint said. “Was adopted by a Palo tribe as a child. Taniel talked about her in his letters, and then I met her later, after he brought her back and – after things were over between the two of us. I hated her at first. Thought she had taken Taniel away from me. But then I realized that he was still mine when he got back, and that it was only after I did what I did that she claimed him for herself.”

Styke glanced over at Olem, who remained silent through the whole thing. The two were obviously longtime lovers, and it couldn’t be easy to live in the shadow of someone like Taniel Two-shot. But Olem just gave Styke a small, knowing smile, and rolled himself a cigarette. “You’re getting drunk,” Olem said softly to Flint.

“Yup,” Flint answered. “Doesn’t happen often. Feels kind of good to talk about it.” Her eyes focused on Styke, and she said, “I like you. I have no idea why, but I do.”

“Because we’re both killers,” Styke said before he could stop himself. He held his breath, but Flint just gave him a rueful smile.

“To killers,” she said, raising her glass.

Styke clinked his against hers. He sensed it was time for him to leave the two of them alone, and stood up, finding that Celine was already fast asleep in his arms. He put her over his shoulder. “I saw a dragonman tonight,” he said.

Some of the haze across Flint’s face seemed to lift. “Really?”

“He’s not a Palo. He’s a Dynize.”

Flint seemed to sober slightly. “What the pit is a Dynize dragonman doing in Landfall?” she mused, more to herself than to him.

“He knew of the other one. The one you killed. Said his name was Sebbith or something like that. If they knew each other, I’m guessing they were both Dynize. But I don’t know why they’re here.”

“Find out,” Flint said.

Styke sighed. He found himself liking – even respecting – Lady Flint more and more. If he did have to kill her it was going to be a challenge in more ways than one. But for now, they were on the same side. “I’ll draw him out,” he promised.

Vlora watched Styke carry Celine through the door. From the window she saw him cross the muster yard, and she was struck once again by the contrast of the man gently carrying a child that was not his own, and the killer she’d witnessed down in the Depths.

“Did you see him fight tonight?” she asked Olem.

“I didn’t,” Olem said. “I was too busy aiming at the assholes coming after you.”

There might have been a note of reproach in his voice, though Vlora didn’t know if she deserved it. She stood by her choice to attend the gala alone. “He came up behind one of the Palo silent as a ghost. He put that knife through the guy’s sternum, then tossed him like a toy.”

“The stories all said Ben Styke was the strongest man in Fatrasta.”

“I wasn’t confident it was Ben Styke until now,” Vlora said. “But damn.” She took another drink. The wine was loosening her lips, maybe a bit too much, but her heart rate had finally returned to normal. She looked at Olem, feeling a stab of regret. He was a soldier, and he was used to friends dying in battle, but she knew that he worried for her all the same. She suddenly felt all the things that she’d been unfair about over the years.

It was unfair to head off alone on a mission of unknown danger. It was unfair to pull rank. It was unfair to turn down his proposals for marriage when she had no intention of ever leaving him. It was unfair to put off having children, when they both wanted them.

It was unfair of her to lie.

“Olem,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Do you remember after the end of the war? In the blood and the chaos when all those bodies were lost at Skyline Palace?”

“Quite well, yes.” Olem’s voice was flat, controlled, his lips clamped firmly around his cigarette. Vlora knew the pain the memory caused him, and was reluctant to add to it. No one had been closer to Field Marshal Tamas than Olem those last few months.

Her mouth tasted sour. She licked her lips, considering the secret she had kept for ten years. It had always felt like it wasn’t hers to give, and yet now she knew it was foolish not to share it. “I’ve been telling myself and everyone else for ten years that Taniel and Ka-poel died during that fight. But they didn’t. They survived the explosion and slipped away in the chaos.”

Olem sucked on his cigarette, staring at her through the smoke. “I figured,” he said.

“How?”

“You never grieved.”

Vlora cleared her throat. Faithful, trustworthy Olem. The bastard knew all along. By Adom, he was the best present a commanding officer could ever get. “I love you,” she said.

“I figured that, too.” He handed her his cigarette, then said, “Why do you bring it up now?”

“Because they told me they were heading to Fatrasta. This was ten years ago, but I’m worried they’re still here. I’m worried they’re involved in all of this shit. I would have sensed his sorcery if they were in the city, but still… I’m worried. If they do get involved, I can’t imagine it’ll be on Lindet’s side, and Olem? I can’t fight Taniel or Ka-poel. Neither of them was quite human when they left, and they’re out of my league.” And I don’t want to fight them.

“Well,” Olem said, lighting a new cigarette, “we better hope they aren’t still around then.”

Michel struggled through the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep and unable to work, trying to come up with some kind of plan for capturing the two enemies of the state that Fidelis Jes so desperately wanted brought in.

His first major decision was to discard his search for Styke. Half the Millinery was already looking for the old veteran, and Michel adding himself to that list would do little good. No, he needed to focus on his current goal, that of capturing Tampo. Tampo, if he could track the bastard down, would almost certainly lead him to Styke.

And if all the other sods searching for Styke managed to bring him in, Michel might be able to use that to find Tampo.

It was sound logic, but it didn’t help him sleep.

He tossed and turned in his small attic apartment on the southern edge of the plateau before finally crawling out of bed and pulling on some clothes, heading unshaven into the first splash of morning light and taking a hackney cab a mile across town to the Proctor market, where he stopped to fill a crate with breads and fruit before heading on foot through the still-sleepy streets.

Proctor was the kind of town in which, in those few moments he allowed himself to wonder what it would be like to settle down and have a family, he imagined himself living. It wasn’t too clean, or too dirty, or too rich or poor. It was absolutely average in every way, and Michel loved that in a place like this he could be as friendly or anonymous as he liked.

In some ways he lived vicariously through his mother – idle days, reading books and chatting with neighbors, staying out of the sun.

The thought brought him up short next to a bookstore, and he stared through the front window as sellers carried crates of penny novels out onto the sidewalk to entice passersby. He chewed on his lip, trying not to think of everything he should be doing right now.