Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

Michel considered Taniel a friend, but no more than he might consider a friendly cave lion a pet. He nodded slowly. “Infiltrate the Blackhats. Gain their trust. Climb the ranks. Be indispensable.”

“And?” Taniel asked.

“And wait,” Michel said.

Taniel gave a satisfied smile. “Very good.”

The waiting, Michel had decided, was the hardest part of being a spy. That’s why he created the marble; that’s why he stored the real him in a tiny corner of his mind and locked it away. If he could become someone else entirely, then the waiting no longer existed and he could carry on happily, untethered, until the moment it was time to change sides.

Becoming an actual spy for the Blackhats – a double agent working as a double agent – had been supremely difficult because he could not become someone else entirely. He was still Michel Bravis with a history and a family and friends and a heritage. He wanted nothing more than to make his mother proud of her Palo boy, working for a Palo cause, but instead he’d had to hurt her deeply by becoming the very thing she hated most – a member of the secret police.

Lucky for him, he was very good at compartmentalizing his emotions. But he wasn’t perfect. “What am I waiting for?”

Taniel frowned. “You know better than to ask that.”

Compartmentalize. If I don’t actually know my final goal, then I won’t be able to spill it if my cover is blown and I’m tortured. “I know,” Michel said, taking a deep breath. “But sometimes…”

“You want to know that it’s worth the trouble?”

Michel nodded.

“I won’t fill your head with false promises,” Taniel said.

“You’ve never claimed to.”

Taniel reached over and placed his hand on the back of Michel’s neck, grasping him in a brotherly embrace. He peered deep into his eyes, as if looking for something. There was a long, uncomfortable silence before Taniel pulled back, a thoughtful scowl on his face. “You’re a Silver Rose now?”

Michel showed him the Silver Rose looped around his neck.

“Do you think you have a shot at becoming a Gold Rose?”

“I do,” Michel said, then corrected himself. “Well, I did. Fidelis Jes is furious about the Iron Roses you stole. He promised to make me a Gold Rose if I brought you in.”

“And if you fail to bring me in?”

“I’ll be demoted.” Michel didn’t have to mention that a demotion would destroy years of hard work. The very thought made him anxious, tightening something deep in the pit of his stomach.

Taniel nodded, his thoughts seemingly far away. “We need you in the Blackhats more than ever right now.”

Michel raised his eyebrows. He wondered briefly if Taniel was dedicated enough to the cause to hand himself over, but rejected the idea. Taniel was the Red Hand. Without him, the change that they wished to enact would never come about. “I might be able to string Fidelis Jes along for a couple more weeks. But he’s already impatient, and something has him on edge. I can’t guarantee that he won’t pull me from the mission any day now.”

“Do Silver Roses have access to Blackhat records?” Taniel asked.

He obviously had something in mind, but Michel needed to be careful in his questioning. If Taniel revealed too much, their whole effort could be at risk. “Some of them.”

“Anything regarding sorcery?”

“No,” Michel said. “Absolutely not. I know they exist – the Blackhats keep information on all the Knacked, powder mages, and Privileged in Fatrasta and the Nine. But that kind of information is only privy to the Gold Roses, Fidelis Jes, the Lady Chancellor, and Lindet’s private cabal.”

“Right,” Taniel said, chewing his words like he had something sour in his mouth. “But a Gold Rose could find out about sorcerous artifacts?”

“I… think so?”

Taniel sat back, drumming his gloved fingers on the head of his cane. “I’m not sure if think so is good enough.”

“If it’s not…”

“It’ll have to be,” Taniel suddenly said, shooting to his feet and pacing the length of the room. “We need information, Michel. We think the Lady Chancellor is looking for something called the godstones, and we need to know how close she is to them.”

Michel sat up straight. His assignment had always been so vague; this was the first time he’d been given any indication of a clear goal. It was electrifying. And frightening. “I can’t find out that information as a Silver Rose.”

“Then we’ll have to get you your Gold,” Taniel said, consulting a pocket watch. “Be back here in eighteen hours. Bring lots of friends.”

Michel got to his feet, feeling slightly dizzy at the sudden changes to his mission. This was happening . “What am I going to find?”

“You,” Taniel said, heading toward the door, “are going to find exactly what Fidelis Jes wants.”

Why am I still alive?

It was the foremost question in Styke’s mind as he was pulled roughly from the back of the Blackhat paddy wagon and carried through the darkness. A dozen hands held him by the shoulders and legs, carrying him like a corpse, letting him swing and bump around every corner, his ass hitting every rock they crossed. The stink of the marshes filled his nostrils like the recurrence of a bad dream, and he knew from the creak of the gate, the cold breeze, and that horrid stench that he was back in the labor camp where he’d spent the last ten years of his life.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Jes was supposed to die, squealing like a pig, and Styke soon after him. What had gone wrong? Was Styke overconfident? Was he too wounded and worn out from his fight with the dragonman? Was he too crippled and old? Or was Fidelis Jes just that good?

Likely he’d never know.

His carriers constantly dropped him, their hands slipping on the slick blood that coated his body. Each scrape or jolt sent another lance of pain through his body. His once-good hand had gone completely numb, and the stab wound in his leg and shoulder both screamed out. He bit down on his tongue until he couldn’t feel that, either, and wondered whether he’d bitten clear through it.

What did it matter if he did?

He kept his eyes closed – it was pitch-black but for the occasional lantern, so there wasn’t much to see anyway – but he heard doors open and close, felt himself change directions a number of times, and when they finally came to a stop he guessed he was in the labor camp infirmary.

“On the count of three,” a male voice said over his shoulder. “One, two, hup!”

Styke was half-lifted, half-thrown on a cold marble slab. He inhaled sharply, using all his focus not to scream. By the pit, this hurt. No, he decided, this had gone beyond hurt. He was cut up, humiliated, and his wrist… he’d never hold a knife again. He might not even hold a cup again.

“He’s all yours,” the voice said. “You, stitch him up. And the rest of you – the grand master wants him to heal for a few months, then you can do anything you want to him, short of killing him.”

Styke heard the shuffle of feet leaving the room and finally opened his eyes. He found himself the focus of four guards and the camp doctor, a squirrelly little man by the name of Set. The infirmary had been cleared of patients and Styke was lying on one of the morgue slabs in the far corner.

The others gathered around him in a semicircle, and when he blinked one said, “Son of a bitch, he’s still awake.”