I glanced at Degan. He was eyeing Iron, studying his condition. It was no great leap to figure he wasn’t overjoyed.
Iron stopped outside the ring of bodies. “Has he told you what else happens if he succeeds?” he said to me. “About the consequences of his using your Oath like this?”
“Using it how?” I said.
“Bronze here is using the Oath you gave him to directly oppose the Oath of another degan-mine. That’s a no-no.”
“It’s been done before,” said Degan.
“Ancient history,” said Iron, “and a different time. We don’t do it anymore. But that’s not the worst part, is it, Bronze?”
Degan stood silently, head lowered, staring out at Iron from beneath his brows.
“Bronze here took the Oath with you,” said Iron, “knowing I was involved, and likely on the other side. By accepting your Oath, he set himself up to come into conflict with me.” Iron now openly glared at Degan. “Not only did he walk into the problem-he helped create it. It’s that last part the Order won’t be able to look past.”
“Which means what?” I said.
“Which means,” said Degan, “that if I kill Iron and take the journal-in direct conflict to his Oath-I get cast out of the Order and hunted down.”
“While if I kill him,” said Iron, “he just has his name removed from the rolls, permanently. No Bronze Degan ever again. Well, that, and he’s dead, of course.”
“But degans must have had their Oaths conflict in the past,” I said.
“That’s not the point,” said Degan, standing up straighter. He hefted both of his swords, then tossed the Cretin’s aside. “It’s about knowingly opposing a brother or sister and his or her Oath.” A sneer entered Degan’s voice. “It’s about keeping the peace rather than keeping our promises.”
“No, it’s about loyalty,” snapped Iron. “It’s about following the traditions of the Order and keeping your word to those who have sworn to follow the same path as you!”
“My word is mine own to judge,” said Degan. He switched his sword to his left hand and danced the tip in a small, intricate design. He frowned and looked up at Iron. “Believe me-if I could have found another way out of this, I would have taken it. But you’re wrong, Iron-about the emperor, the empire, and what we need to do-and that doesn’t leave me any other choice.”
Iron stepped to more open ground, away from the corpses. He brought his sword up, the guard just below his chin, and saluted smartly. “To old times.”
Degan stepped out past the ring of bodies. “It’s been a pleasure,” said Degan, though I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or to Iron. His salute was awkward in comparison to Iron’s, slow and uneven in his left hand. My stomach sank.
Both men took their guards. Iron shifted his foot. Then he was dead.
I blinked. What the…?
I can still see them: Degan, bent forward, his right hand on Iron’s wrist, pulling on Iron’s sword arm as his own sword slides beneath it. And Iron, his sword extended but off-line, his eyes narrowed in concentration, Degan’s sword entering beneath his ribs and coming out somewhere between his shoulder blades.
For the briefest of moments, both men stood frozen before me, as still and imposing as Elirokos on his granite block. Then I blinked, or breathed, or the world turned again, and time resumed.
Iron smiled. He opened his mouth to say something, but only a faint sigh and some pinkish froth escaped. Degan grimaced and nodded in turn. Then Iron collapsed.
Degan levered his blade out of his sword brother and stepped back. He let out a shuddering breath.
“That was close.” He mopped shakily at his forehead. “I was afraid he’d see it coming.”
I gaped at Degan.
Degan gently wiped his sword on Iron’s shirt and slid it home in its sheath. Then, with great reverence, Degan took Iron’s sword and cleaned it on his own clothes. He dipped his finger in Iron’s blood, dabbed a spot onto the sword’s handle, another on its scabbard. Then he took both and stood up, sliding the blade home.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Now that we’re done, I doubt the Rags will keep their distance much longer.”
I fell into step behind him, still going through the combat in my head, still failing to fill in the missing pieces.
“I suppose that’s that,” I said.
“For me and the degans?” said Degan from in front of me. “Yes.”
“So what do I call you now?” I said.
Degan didn’t answer.
“What are you going to do with the journal once you have it?” I said.
“Destroy it.”
“What?”
“What else do you expect?” he said, his voice growing tight. “As long as it’s around, it’s a threat.”
“What about the emperor?”
“What about him? I don’t know what he’d do with it, but even if it’s locked away somewhere, it could still be used. Better if it’s gone altogether.”
“But not all of it deals with reincarnation,” I said. “Hell, not all of it even deals with imperial glimmer! There’s information on the beginnings of the empire in that book-from someone who saw it firsthand.”
Degan spun around so fast, I nearly fell over. “It’s not a relic to sell, Drothe! Not a game piece to trade. Not a history book to read.” He gestured back at the square, back at Iron. “Do you think I did this lightly? I gave up my life for what that damn book could do, and now you try to tell me to trade it? To only destroy part of it? Have you even looked around to see the damage that it’s caused?” He pointed over to where the journal lay, outside Mendross’s stall. “That journal is dangerous,” he said, “and not just to the emperor. It’s going in the fire!”
“Because you promised to protect him?”
“Yes!” he said. “Because I swore it!”
“And what about what you swore to me?” I said. “You promised to help me and keep my best interests at heart. How the hell does making me break my word help you do that?”
“If you keep that book,” said Degan, “you’ll never know peace. Shadow will hunt you. The empire will hunt you. Hell, maybe even a degan will hunt you. Believe me, your ‘interests’ are far better served by having that thing go away.”
“How fucking convenient for you that my ‘best interests’ coincide with your Oaths.”
Degan straightened up. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I trusted you,” I said. “I trusted you not to take advantage of my Oath. I trusted that our friendship would count for something in all of this.”
I didn’t see him move; just felt the back of his hand across my face. I staggered back.
Degan’s eyes were so bright, they looked feverish. He looked feverish. “You can say that?” he grated through clenched teeth. “After all this? After I took your Oath, knowing what it would mean for me? For Iron?”
“That’s the point!” I said. “You knew what it would mean, but you didn’t tell me. All I knew was what was hanging in the balance: Kells, the Kin, me, Christiana. From where I stood, owing you a favor looked pretty damn good. If you’d even told me what it would mean for you.. .” What if he had? Would it have changed things? Would I have put all of them at risk, just to keep Degan from going to war with his own order?
I wiped at the blood coming from my mouth and looked over at Iron’s corpse. “Is that why you did this?” I said. “To be right when the rest of them were wrong? To be the degan who saved the emperor?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Degan looked past me and clenched his jaw. “He’s the emperor,” he said. “Without him, there’s no empire. Maybe four or five centuries ago it could have worked, but not now.”
“There might not be an empire with him, either.”
“I can’t believe that. Not now. Not after…” He trailed off, staring at the square; at what he’d done. And I knew at that moment that, for Degan, there was no other option. To admit otherwise would mean he had thrown who he was away for nothing; or worse, for me.
I couldn’t ask him to do that-not after he’d already picked his path and sealed his fate.
“The book’s going in the fire,” he said. “Understood?”