“Get your cloak,” he told her. She smiled briefly-a flash of white teeth-and plucked her cloak from the peg on the wall.
The Ambassador from the Firenzcian Coalition, Andreas cu’Gorin, possessed a face as thin and angular as a falcon’s. As he rose from behind his desk, his heather-colored eyes regarded Karl and Varina as if the two were rabbits to be snatched up and devoured. The hawkish face was supplemented with a swordsman’s lean body. Karl could imagine that the man was more comfortable in armor than in the proper, conservative bashta he wore.
It made him wonder how effective he could be here.
“Ambassador ca’Vliomani, Vajica ci’Pallo, your visit is… unexpected,” cu’Gorin said. “What can I do for you?”
Karl glanced pointedly at the aide who occupied the smaller desk on the other side of the room. “Gerald, why don’t you see if you can find that proposal on the new border regulations?” cu’Gorin said. The aide, as burly and thick as cu’Gorin was slight, nodded and shuffled papers noisily for a breath before leaving the room.
Karl waited until he heard the door click shut behind him. “I’ve spent the last several days thinking about Archigos Ana’s murder, Ambassador,” he said. The words sounded almost casual, even to his ears. Varina shuffled her feet uneasily next to him. “You know, as much as I try to find reasons for someone doing that, I can’t think of anyone who would want her dead except the people you represent.”
Varina sucked in her breath audibly. A cloud passed over the heather eyes, deepening them to green. The muscles of the man’s face tightened and his right hand closed as if it were searching for a sword’s hilt. “You’re rather blunt and direct, Ambassador.”
“I’ve given up diplomacy for now,” he answered.
Cu’Gorin sniffed. “Indeed. Then I will be blunt as well. I find your accusation insulting. I’ll forgive you, knowing how…” His nose twitched, the eyes narrowed. “… close you were to the Archigos of Nessantico, but I also expect an immediate apology.”
“It’s been my experience that expectations are often disappointed,” Karl said.
“Karl…” Varina said softly. Her hand brushed his arm. “Perhaps…”
Her voice died, as if she knew he wasn’t listening. The anger burned in his gut. Karl wanted nothing more than for cu’Gorin to make a physical move or to blatantly insult him, anything to give him an excuse to use the Scath Cumhacht that was smoldering in his mind waiting for the release word. But cu’Gorin shook his head; he didn’t sit, but seemed to lounge behind the desk, unperturbed.
“I think, Ambassador ca’Vliomani, that you discount the possibility that the assassin may have been a rogue, or perhaps hired by someone who had a personal grudge against the Archigos-someone within the Holdings of Nessantico. There’s no reason to attach a conspiracy to this.” His eyebrows arched; the rest of his body remained still. “Unless, of course, you have evidence that you care to share with me? But no, if you had that, you would have gone to the Regent, wouldn’t you? The Commandant of the Garde Kralji would be standing here, not two Numetodo heretics.” Slowly, almost mockingly, he sat again. Long fingers toyed with the parchments scattered on the desk’s surface, and the hawk face returned, looking scornfully at Karl. “I think we’re done here, Ambassador. Firenzcia has no business to do with heretics, and we never will. We’re wasting each other’s time.”
The dismissal was a wind to his internal fire. “No!” Karl shouted. “We’re not done!” He gestured, speaking one of the release words he’d prepared before he’d come. Quick fire crawled over the papers on the Ambassador’s desk, consuming them in the instant it took cu’Gorin to react, jumping backward from his seat. A quick wind followed, blowing the papers past cu’Gorin and out the open window and whipping the Ambassador’s bashta-that had to be Varina. “That fire could have been directed to you as easily as those documents,” Karl told him. He heard the door crash open behind him and he lifted a hand warningly as he felt Varina turn to face the threat. “I didn’t come with only a single spell, Ambassador, and my friend is stronger than I am. Tell your people to stay back, or I guarantee that you-at least-won’t leave this room alive.”
“Neither will you, if you persist in this nonsense,” cu’Gorin snarled, and Karl nearly laughed.
“That hardly matters to me at this point,” he told the man. Varina’s back pressed against his. He felt her arms lift, preparing a spell.
The Ambassador waved a hand to the people behind Karl. He heard a sword being sheathed and felt Varina’s arms drop again. “I tell you again, Ambassador,” cu’Gorin said, “you are mistaken if you think that Firenzcia was involved in the Archigos’ death. Kill me, don’t kill me; that won’t change that fact.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Cu’Gorin sniffed. “Lack of belief is the core of the problem with the Numetodo, isn’t it? Do you want me to mourn for your Archigos, Ambassador? I won’t. She brought this fate on herself by coddling the Numetodo and by her refusal to acknowledge the Archigos of Brezno as the true leader of the Faith. Violence was an inevitable result of her actions, but to my knowledge, it wasn’t Firenzcia that did this. That’s the truth, and if you can’t believe me…” He shrugged. “Then do what you must. You’ll only be demonstrating that the Numetodo are indeed the dangerous fools that every true believer knows them to be. Look at me, Ambassador. Look at me,” he said more sharply, and Karl glared back at him. “Do you see a lie on my face? I tell you-the one who killed the Archigos wasn’t anyone known to me or hired by me. That is the truth.”
Karl could feel the Scath Cumhacht vibrating madly inside him. He wanted nothing more than to lash out at this pompous fool, to watch the man’s arrogance crumble into a scream, to have him cry out in agony as he died. But he could also hear Ana. He knew what she would tell him, and he let his hand drop to his side. He heard Varina sigh with relief.
Cu’Gorin’s words gave him no comfort. But he was beginning to wonder whether cu’Gorin might not have told him the truth as he knew it, and Karl was also remembering a time many years ago and another person who could harness the Scath Cumhacht-though he didn’t call it that, nor did he call it the Ilmodo.
“If I find that you’re lying, Ambassador,” Karl said, “I won’t give you the opportunity to give me your excuses or to draw your sword. I’ll kill you wherever I find you. That is also the truth.”
With that, he turned and Varina moved to his side. There were three guards blocking the doorway, but Karl shoved past them and strode out into the cool air and sunshine.
“What in the Eternal Six Pits was that?” Varina raged at him when they were outside on the Avi a’Parete again. She grabbed at his sleeve and pulled him to a stop. “Karl! I mean it. What did you think you were doing?”
“What I needed to do,” he spat back at her, more sharply than he intended, still flushed with anger at cu’Gorin and the man’s attitude and his own gnawing doubts. They were all contained in his retort. “If you didn’t want to be there, you didn’t need to come.”
“Ana’s dead, Karl. You can’t bring her back. Accusing people without evidence is just going to get you dead, too.”
“Ana deserves justice.”
“Yes, she does,” Varina shot back. “Let those whose job it is give her that. She wasn’t your wife, Karl. You weren’t lovers. She wasn’t the matarh of your children.”
The fury boiled inside him. He lifted his hand, the cold heat of the Scath Cumhacht rising, and Varina spread her hands. “Do it!” she spat at him. “Go on! Will that make you feel better? Will that change anything?”
He blinked; around them, people on the street were staring. He dropped his hands. “I’m… I’m sorry, Varina.”
She glared at him, her lips pressed tightly together. “She was your friend, and I understand that,” Varina told him. “She was my friend, too. But she also blinded you, Karl. You’ve never been able to see what’s right in front of you.”