“When did I put you in command?” Tamas stood up, crossed to his desk, and poured himself a glass of water.
Taniel stiffened. “That was the implication when you paired me with those two. I am a Marked.”
“Hmm.” Tamas swirled the water in his glass. “Let that Privileged slip through your fingers again and I will put Julene in charge. She’s efficient – brutal when she needs to be, but efficient.”
“Do that and you’ll explain to your council why half the city was destroyed in a full – on melee between two Privileged.” Taniel couldn’t keep the venom out of his voice. Was Tamas being willfully stupid?
“I’ll give you one more chance,” Tamas said.
Taniel ground his teeth together. “You don’t trust me to do my job? You can’t, can you? What will it take for you to put any faith in me? Fifty Privileged notches on my rifle stock? A hundred?”
“I know what you’re capable of, but you’re still young. You have a hot temper.”
“And you have room to speak?”
“Watch your mouth. You’re going to follow orders or I’ll put someone else on this. Vlora would jump at the chance to get back into my good graces right now.”
“I can do this.” Taniel spoke between clenched teeth.
“Then prove it. Listen to Julene’s advice. She’s a veteran Privileged hunter and a skilled sorceress herself.”
Taniel snorted. “Kresimir above, it’s like you slept with the woman.” There was a brief pause, a flicker of danger in Tamas’s eyes. Taniel felt the grin sprout on his face. He threw his head back and laughed. “You did! You bedded the mercenary!”
“That’s enough, soldier.” That came from Tamas’s new bodyguard. The man sat on the sofa, watching them both through a swirl of cigarette smoke. Taniel glanced at him once, then back at his father. He could see the veins standing out on Tamas’s neck. Tamas’s fists were clenched, his teeth grinding together. Taniel felt his pride warring with the sudden sense of danger in the room. The two brigadiers had their heads together over a map of the Nine, pretending not to hear the conversation between father and son.
Taniel cleared his throat. “Julene can’t track her. She admitted so herself. The Privileged is spreading auras using the rain. I’ve tried my third eye and gotten nowhere. Our only chance is Ka-poel and she’s moving slow. Even then, once we catch her – well, this woman is powerful. Not just magically. I’ve shot her three times. I put my bayonet through her stomach and she destroyed two buildings and disappeared. She’s still on the move after a wound that should have killed her. That’s why I want Bo.”
Tamas seemed to gain control of himself. “Absolutely not. I will not risk a cabal Privileged in the city. Maybe in a few months. You’ll have to make do with the help you have. Ryze,” he said to the older of the two brigadiers in the corner, a veteran with a patch over one eye, “I need a company at the ready for whenever Taniel needs it. Give him an experienced tracker, too. One that’s good in the city.” The old brigadier nodded, and Tamas turned back to Taniel. “Dismissed, soldier.”
Taniel gave a mock salute and spun around, leaving the room. He paused outside the command post to snort another line of powder. The powder trance intensified instantly. He shivered, the world so clear in his vision it caused his eyes to water.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he said to Ka-poel.
The girl mimed his taking a snort of powder and shook her head. Too much powder.
“I’m fine.”
She shook her head again.
“What do you know?”
Ka-poel glared.
Taniel looked away from her. Gothen was still across the street, fiddling with his private armory so that he’d be able to sit down comfortably on a stoop.
“I think one of them is reporting to Tamas,” Taniel said to Ka-poel. “Behind my back. Wouldn’t put it past Tamas. He’s never trusted me.” He rubbed his nose. “Thinks I’m still a kid.”
Ka-poel touched a fist to her heart and pointed at him.
“He loves me? Huh. Maybe he does,” Taniel said. “He’s my father, he’s supposed to – and Tamas always does the right thing. It’d just be nice if he liked me too.” He jerked his head toward Gothen. “I’ve never much liked mercenaries.” He gave a quick glance around to be sure none of the Wings of Adom were within earshot and continued. “They don’t work half as hard for the money you’re paying them and in the end they’d rather save their own skins than finish a job.”
Ka-poel seemed to think on this for a moment. She understood him well enough – when it was convenient for her – but it took her a few moments to catch up when he spoke too quickly.
She made the shape of a woman with her hands.
“Julene?”
She nodded and bared her teeth.
“I don’t like her either. She could have gotten us all killed against that Privileged. Even a Privileged – especially a Privileged – should know you don’t just walk up to one of them and think you’re going to get the drop. She acts like she knows she’s going to win every fight.”
Ka-poel pointed a finger at him.
Taniel chuckled. “Me? I do know I’m going to win every fight.”
He headed across the street and joined Gothen on the stoop.
“Where’s Julene?” he asked.
Gothen shrugged. “She comes and goes. She won’t be gone more than a couple hours, though, with us on a job.”
“Have you worked with her long?”
“Two years.”
“For Tamas?”
“A little over a year.”
“Where were you before that?”
“Kez.”
“Hunting powder mages?”
Gothen shifted uncomfortably. “A Warden that went mad. An ex-cabal Privileged. Mostly that kind of thing.”
“I’d imagine the money is good in Kez.” Taniel decided not to press him on the powder mages.
“Very,” Gothen said. “Things went bad for us working for a duke, though, and we were forced to get out of the country quick.”
Taniel made a mental note that Julene might have a grudge against the Kez. It certainly explained why Tamas liked her. “How does that work out?” he asked. “A magebreaker and a Privileged being partners. She can’t do sorcery anywhere close to you.”
Gothen gave a lopsided smile. “Not as bad as you’d think. I have to touch the Else” – he lifted his hands, though he wasn’t wearing his gloves – “to truly cut off a Privileged’s sorcery. Even then, I have to be within about ten feet of them.”
“Which is quite a task in itself,” Taniel said.
“Yeah.”
Taniel leaned back. “Magebreakers are very rare. I don’t think my father even knows how you work.”
“We are quite rare,” Gothen agreed. “I’ve met only one besides myself. Magebreakers aren’t born this way, not like Privileged or powder mages or Knacked.”
“Then how?”
“A conscious decision,” Gothen said. He had a faraway look in his eyes.
“Simple as that?”
“Simple as that. I reached out, I touched the Else, and I willed away all auras.” He pulled his Privileged gloves out of his pockets and showed them to Taniel. They were dark blue with gold runes – not the usual colored runes on white gloves of a Privileged. “My gloves turned this color instantly. A kind of polarizing, as I understand it. Now, when I touch the Else, the area around me becomes devoid of sorcery. Auras can’t be summoned, created, or manipulated. Even when I’m not touching the Else, auras will not come within about six inches of me.”
“Can it be reversed? If you wanted to be a Privileged again?”
“No.” Gothen returned the gloves to his pocket.
Privileged were the most powerful beings on earth. They threw lightning the way a child might a ball. They commanded the sea and the earth. Taniel couldn’t imagine giving up such power.
“Why?” he asked.
Gothen kicked at a paving stone beneath his boot. “I was a very weak Privileged. Barely strong enough to touch the Else, much less command auras. I failed the test to join the royal cabal. I was angry. I thought, if they wouldn’t take me off the street and share with me their wealth and power, then I would become what they feared most: untouchable by their sorcery.”