Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

“I’ve seen the future, Ben,” Lindet said quietly. “And I am the only one that can see the way through.”

Styke walked over to Lindet’s chair and put one hand on the wing-back, leaning close to look into her eyes. She stared back, coldly. The absence of even a tremble was more disconcerting than it would have been had she begged for her life. But that was Lindet. It always had been. It always would be. She believed every word she said.

“You could have had one of your Privileged heal me.”

“To what end? The war was over. The Mad Lancers were an immediate liability. It was time to bury our monsters and move on.”

“You didn’t bury Fidelis Jes.”

“I needed him. Same as I still need him. Had you remained free, you would have killed him for what he did to you.”

“I still plan on it.”

“And I find that incredibly inconvenient.” A note of peevishness entered her voice, and Styke almost laughed.

“But you still let me in here.” Lindet’s eyebrows rose, and Styke continued: “I could smell the wards coming in. I could sense your Privileged. You keep this place locked down tighter than a king’s asshole, and yet you still let me come here.”

“I felt we needed to talk.”

“You planning on having me killed on the way out?”

“As I said,” Lindet responded, “I don’t believe I’m capable of having you killed.”

“Bullshit,” Styke spat.

All this time he had remained leaning over her, their faces so close their noses almost touched. Lindet put out a finger and firmly but gently pushed him away. “Do you remember the night you killed our father?”

Styke turned away to hide his shock. He couldn’t remember the last time either of them had acknowledged their kinship. Probably more than twenty-five years. “I try not to,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “It’s not a happy memory.”

“It is for me,” Lindet shot back. “I was three and a half. You were what, twelve? Thirteen? I screamed when I found him standing over Mother’s body. He came for me, that bloody knife still in his hand.” Lindet’s voice became breathy and animated, her eyes looking over Styke’s shoulder as if she was witnessing a vision of the past. She gestured absently toward the door. “It was right down the hall. They’ve never been able to scrub all of Mother’s blood out of that rug.”

“You could have burned it.”

“I keep it as a reminder of what cruel men do with power. Anyway, you put yourself between me and Father. To this day he is still the strongest, evilest man I’ve ever met and when he came for me you broke him. That is why I cannot have you killed, brother of mine.”

Styke closed his eyes and forced himself to recall the past. They’d abandoned Willowhaven after their parents’ deaths. They’d disappeared and changed their names, and eventually Styke had risen to power in the army, Lindet in politics. She’d bought this horrid place – though he never understood why – and kept it as her home though few living souls knew the significance of its history.

They’d gone their separate ways, but had always remained intertwined.

“You never told me you remembered that night,” he whispered. “I thought you were too young.”

“You never asked.”

He could remember spotting the specter of his father standing over his mother’s fresh corpse, smelling of whiskey at twenty paces. Lindet stood in the doorway to her room, a stuffed bear clutched to her chest, screaming so loud it would have awoken the servants had Father not sent them all away. He remembered Father advancing on Lindet, bellowing for silence, and him running to put himself between them.

One teenage kid against the giant of a man he’d inherited his size from. Styke still had scars from that fight.

He put Ibana’s knife back in his pocket. “I’m not going back to Sweetwallow.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Lindet said, as if the possibility had most certainly crossed her mind.

“But you won’t call your dogs off.”

He waited for her to say that she couldn’t – that Fidelis Jes and the Blackhats were beyond her control, and that she could not bring them to heel if she wanted. Instead she shook her head and handed him his old cavalry jacket. For the first time he noticed that there was something else with the jacket – a bit of white cloth not much bigger than his palm. On it was a lance holding aloft a bare skull, flag swirling around them both; it was a scrap of flag, the emblem of the Mad Lancers.

“They found that flag in the remains of Sweetwallow Labor Camp. Jes is still trying to track down all the inmates that were released – including you – and he’s been sending me messengers all day demanding I bring in the army. This morning he tried to deputize Lady Flint and her mercenaries to help find you.”

The prospect gave Styke pause. He didn’t want to fight the Riflejacks. He wouldn’t win. “Did he?”

“Lady Flint’s last contract is over. She would not accept another one. But if you and your lancers cause enough trouble, I will call in the army.”

Styke suppressed a sigh of relief. Fatrastan soldiers he could deal with. “Where is my armor?”

Lindet lifted her chin. “I destroyed it.”

“Three hundred sets of enchanted medieval armor, and you destroyed it? That was art.”

“I believe you found it in a Kez art collection,” Lindet said. “But yes, I destroyed it. Your lancers ran down whole armies in that armor, and proved that relics like that are too dangerous to be left intact.”

Styke definitely didn’t believe her this time. Lindet was not in the habit of destroying art – and she didn’t destroy things that might still be of some use to her. For ten years he thought he was the exception to that rule, but if she was telling the truth about his execution, then there was no exception. He studied her face, considering pressing her further, but he knew her stubbornness reached even deeper than his.

“I could call off my dogs,” she suddenly said.

Styke’s eyes narrowed. “In exchange for…?”

“I could re-form the Lancers, make them my personal entourage. I’d restore all the personal property the Blackhats have destroyed this week and return your rank. You’d have uniforms, horses, pensions.”

Styke scowled. Lindet had always been cold and calculating, ten steps ahead of her opponents, but since she was a child she would occasionally be struck by some ill-conceived fancy. This sounded exactly like that. It was a practical, win-win situation. But it wouldn’t work. “Their lives have already been destroyed. You can’t undo the past, no matter how much you try. And I will kill Fidelis Jes.”

“It was just a thought,” Lindet said, dismissing it with the flip of a wrist as she ashed her cigarillo. “Despite what you may think, I do, from time to time, try to make everyone happy.”

“This doesn’t end happily. For anyone,” Styke warned.

“I know.”

Lindet suddenly stood up, crossing the few feet between them and putting her hand against Styke’s face, turning him first one way and then the other to examine the pitted scar where the firing squad bullet had bounced off his cheekbone. “In the morning,” she said, “I have a country to run. I exist to instill order and protect this country – even from itself. Fidelis Jes will ask me to permit your death. I will, reluctantly, agree.”

“I feel like this would go much more smoothly if you just had one of those Privileged hiding out in the bushes cut me apart with sorcery.”

“We’ve been over that. I cannot have you killed.”

“But Fidelis Jes…”

Lindet snatched the emblem of the Mad Lancers from his hand and thrust it in his face. She had nothing else to say, returning to her chair and gripping the armrests like a monarch on her throne. “Because I am weak, you and Fidelis Jes will destroy each other. Because I am weak, my Blackhats and the Mad Lancers will go to war. As I am weak, so shall this country be. You should go, before I find some inner strength.”