“I’m afraid all we have is grass tea and hard bread,” Jorey said, ignoring the two newcomers magnificently. “But I can’t think of anyone I’d rather share them with.”
Clara walked past him and to the door of the tent. She patted his cheek gently as she passed. “You have always been such a good boy. Come along, you two. You can rest for a bit inside while I talk to my son.”
Once they were inside and the door closed behind them, Clara made her introductions. She could tell from Jorey’s reaction that Captain Wester’s name meant more to him than it had to her. She also caught a flash of distrust in Jorey’s eyes at the sight of Master Kit.
“What’s the news from Carse?” Jorey asked.
Wester was the one who answered. “Six kinds of hell have broken loose in Elassae. And possibly Sarakal by now. We’ve come to kill your priests and put in our own, such as he is, and get you and as many of your men as will survive the trip back to Antea in hopes that you can keep things from falling apart entirely.”
Jorey scowled, looking from Wester to Kit to her. They ought not to have let the actor-priest come along. It looked too much like another faction, another schism, another apostate come to champion another side in the war. And yet, would Jorey have been able to lead his men home without the perverse gift of the goddess?
No, not the goddess. The dragons.
“This is bel Sarcour’s plan?” Jorey said. “To send us home so that we can defend Antea against the consequences of the Lord Regent’s overreach?”
“It is. Assuming that you’re willing to abandon the plan to abduct her and hand her to Palliako for whatever unfortunate revenge he has in mind,” Wester said.
Jorey Kalliam was silent for a long moment, then let out a long sigh. “Can’t say my heart was in that to start with. Yes, I’ll turn back the army if you can keep it from mutiny when I give the order. I’ll tell Geder I had to. It won’t be a lie.”
“Well, we’ve an understanding then,” Marcus said. And then, “Just between us, it feels damned strange doing it. You and your men have killed some friends of mine. Helping your kingdom? Working with you? It feels more than half like betrayal.”
Jorey’s too-thin face broke into a bitter smile. “Well, at least we’ve that in common.”
Geder
It was a fit of pique,” Geder said. “I was angry. I wasn’t thinking straight. We can’t kill all the Timzinae children with parents in Elassae.”
“As my lord wishes,” the chief gaoler said.
“We have to keep enough back so that there’s incentive for them to put down their swords,” Geder said. “So maybe half? Does that sound right?”
A light snow was falling in the prison yard, dots of white too small to be called flakes. The Timzinae children were lined against the wall. Their scales were a light brown that would darken with age. Well, would have. The witness cull had already taken place. The ones who were set to watch and carry the word out to the farms huddled in a corner of the yard, the guards knotting leads around their necks, ten to a rope. Their inner eyelids flickered open and closed.
They didn’t know yet that they were the lucky ones.
“If my lord likes half, we can do that,” the chief gaoler said. He was a thin, grey-haired Firstblood man with skin almost as dark as the Timzinae, though of course his was real skin and not the insectile plates of the enemy. He lifted his whip, handle first, and the guards by the line stood to attention. “Count ’em off by twos. All the ones go back to the cells. The twos come with.”
Geder nodded to the chief and smiled. One of the children—a girl with pale-brown scales—tentatively smiled back at him, and he looked away.
The others were waiting in the street. Aster and Daskellin, of course, but a few other of the great houses had representatives. Coul Pyrellin was there. Mallian Caot, hardly older than Aster and standing in for his father and elder brothers. Some distant cousin of the Broots. If it could have waited until summer—or even until the King’s Hunt was ended—there would have been more. It couldn’t, of course. Tradition was all well and good. Geder had even read an essay once that said the rituals of tradition were what defined a kingdom, even more than the bloodline of its kings. But if that were true, it would mean Antea now was a wholly different empire than it had been when Geder became Lord Regent, and that couldn’t be right.
Their carriages stood at the ready, the horses’ breath pluming in the cold. His private guard surrounded him as he walked to the gold and silver carriage at the fore of the group. As if there were any danger to him here. Aster and Basrahip were waiting.
“Is there a problem?” Aster said, his voice strained and anxious.
“No, no,” Geder said. “Just some last-minute details. Nothing to be worried about.”
The carriage was more open than Geder would have liked, given the weather. It was designed to let them be seen from the street, which was important for the occasion, but since most occasions for the prince and Lord Regent to be seen happened in summer, keeping in the warmth wasn’t a priority. Aster wore a richly embroidered hunter’s jacket, Basrahip a grey wool cloak. Geder himself slipped under a thick lap blanket and a servant boy draped his shoulders with a throw still warm and smoky from a brazier.
High above and to the north, the banner of the goddess—red and pale with the eightfold sigil in black lines at the center—hung from the temple at the top of the Kingspire. The iron gates of the prison swung open, and a dozen guards with whips and blades paraded the prisoners out. Geder watched the small bodies trooping across the icy cobbles in double file. They were the witnesses, he thought. These weren’t the ones who were going to die, these were the witnesses. But they kept coming, so he was mistaken.
“Does something trouble you, Prince Geder?” Basrahip asked.
Geder shook his head, but said nothing. For some reason, he found himself recalling the burning of Vanai. There had been a woman in the city, on the wall. He remembered seeing her silhouette against the flames. That was a strange thing to recall now. Today was nothing like that. No fires. No smoke.
“I hear the Hunt’s sparse this year,” Aster said.
“Mm? Little game or few hunters?” Geder asked.
“Few hunters,” Aster said. “Everyone’s at war or busy with their new holdings.”
“Stands to reason,” Geder said. “It all stands to reason. All of it. We do what we have to do, and it’ll come out right in the end.”
The last of the Timzinae emerged. The iron gates closed. The carriage lurched. The procession began down the eastern side of the Division, sometimes along the cliff edge, sometimes turning down a street that only ran alongside it. Geder’s belly felt odd, and there was a thickness in his throat he couldn’t explain. The wet or the chill. Something.
“It’s a shame they’ve made us do this,” Geder said. “But they knew. They knew from the first, and they made their choices. And the death throes of the enemy are on them.”
“They are,” Basrahip said. “We are her righteous servant as she is ours, and the world is made whole through our works.”
“Even this one,” Geder said.
“Especially this,” Basrahip said. Geder tried to take comfort in it, and managed a bit. The Timzinae had, after all, brought all this on themselves. He had to remember that. They were the ones who’d tried to kill Aster. They weren’t even human, not really. Not like the other races. Even the Yemmu with their jaw tusks and the candle-eyed Dartinae were more purely human. The Jasuru might have dragon-like scales, but Timzinae were dragons at the heart. Turn over a stone, and the grubs died of exposure. Turning over the world was just the same.