The tiefling flipped the two disks so that he held one in each hand and lifted them up, wiggling them on either side of his head. “How about it, Midian? Does Tariic want these?”
Rage burned cold in Midian’s gut. “Give those to me, Tenquis.”
The tiefling’s face tightened. “Go and get them.” His hands snapped forward and the shaari’mal skimmed through the air. Midian’s head jerked up as he followed them.
It was no random throw; he saw that in an instant. One disk went to Geth, the other to Chetiin. Midian twisted back around in time to see Tenquis thrust his suddenly empty hands out in the gestures of a spell. Magic rippled through the air, trying to wrap itself around Tooth like some sort of shield. The tiefling was quick, but not quick enough. Midian stabbed down through the still gathering force
Ekhaas saw Tenquis reach into his pocket and knew what he was doing before he’d even pulled out the other two shaari’mal. Fear raced through her. Before, when the disks had seemed like nothing more than hunks of metal, she’d been willing to use one as a distraction. But with one pulsing softly in her hand, the thought of tempting Midian with them was just wrong.
How could the tiefling not feel the power in the disks? “Tenquis,” she said, “don’t!”
He already had them raised beside his head. “How about it, Midian? Does Tariic want these?”
The gnome’s face twisted. “Give those to me, Tenquis.”
“Go and get them.” He flung the disks away-to Geth and Chetiin. For an instant, all Ekhaas felt was a sense of relief, even if she already knew in the back of her mind that Tenquis’s defiance had doomed Tooth.
Then Chetiin’s hand closed on the flying shaari’mal.
— and the tickle at the edge of Midian’s mind tore wide open. Hard-edged clarity rose up from inside him and shattered into a hundred jagged, conflicting emotions.
Tariic was his master.
Tariic had stood over him with the Rod of Kings and commanded him to rip open his own belly.
He’d do anything to please Tariic.
Tariic wanted him dead.
He served his lhesh and Darguun.
His soul belonged to Zilargo. He’d killed for his country. He’d killed one king for Zilargo and tried to kill another.
Hurled stones found him as he tried to flee. An agent of the Trust, brought down by a mob. When he returned to consciousness, it was already too late for him. Tariic raised the rod. “Sit still and be quiet.” He had no choice. The power that had once belonged to the emperors of Dhakaan gripped like a wolf’s jaws. He sat still and was quiet.
Later, in the privacy of his chambers with only Pradoor to watch and cackle and Ashi d’Deneith to stare in horror, Tariic tore Midian’s mind to pieces-and put it back together again in a way that pleased him.
Midian screamed until his new master commanded him to stop.
He screamed again and fell back away from Tooth as the work of the Rod of Kings unraveled. Every memory of that tortured night came rushing back over him. Irresistible. Undeniable.
The warmth and power that Ekhaas felt in her shaari’mal exploded the moment that Chetiin took hold of his. The sense of purpose became an unwavering certainty-not of the shaari’mal telling her what to do, but of it telling her to do what she knew she had to.
Telling her to follow her muut.
Understanding came between one blink and the next.
Geth had said that the Sword of Heroes showed him memories of those who’d wielded it before, guiding him along their path. The quality of heroes was wrath. Aram. The Rod of Kings, Ekhaas knew, taught its holder to rule with the uncompromising power of the emperors of Dhakaan. The quality of kings was strength. Guulen.
Heroes inspired. Kings commanded. And nobles… served. They did their duty. Their muut.
But muut had two sides, didn’t it? Tuura Dhakaan had said she had muut to the Kech Volaar, that she led them and protected them “as it had been since the Age of Dhakaan.” And what had Senen Dhakaan once said of the Shield of Nobles when she’d told the tale of the three artifacts? That the ancient daashor Taruuzh had given it into the care of the lords and ladies of Dhakaan, that it represented both the fealty that the nobles owed to the emperor and the protection that was their responsibility to the people.
Muut wasn’t something that could rest in the hands of just one person.
There’d never been an actual Shield of Nobles in the way there was a Sword of Heroes and a Rod of Kings, Ekhaas realized abruptly. There had never been fragments for them to find. The shield, the protection that the nobles owed to the people of Dhakaan, had shattered because the nobles had failed in their duty. But muut couldn’t truly be destroyed-though it could be forgotten, just as stories could be confused and misinterpreted.
Like stories of what Taruuzh had created for the nobles of Dhakaan and what they had lost to Tasaam Draet. The Dhakaani had known at least some of the truth. Giis Puulta had carved three shaari’mal into his Reward Stela. Maybe later emperors had deliberately let memories of the Shield of Nobles, of Muut, fade, just as they let Suud Anshaar lie abandoned. Maybe as the empire slid toward the Desperate Times, the emperors didn’t like the idea of a shield standing between their power and the people.
A shield between their power and the people.
The disk in her hands shifted at that thought, and a feeling of clarity flooded through her. She remembered the sense of Tariic’s eyes staring out from behind Midian’s.
Ekhaas met Chetiin’s gaze and knew that he’d felt the same thing she had. Why didn’t Geth? Why hadn’t Tenquis? Maybe because they weren’t dar. Maybe because they didn’t live with muut as the Dhakaani had. She raised the shaari’mal, the ancient symbol of Dhakaan that Taruuzh had chosen to represent the collective muut of the empire’s nobles, and opened herself up to it. Chetiin did the same.
The shadows shrouding Midian flickered-and vanished. The gnome stiffened, the knife in his hand stopping just above Tooth’s throat. For a heartbeat there was silence.
Then Midian started screaming.
Geth and Tenquis stared between him, her, and Chetiin. “What just happened?” Geth demanded.
Ekhaas lowered her fragment of Muut. The shaari’mal was cold again, but she could feel its power lurking under the rune-carved surface of the byeshk. Her heart was racing in her chest.
“We’ve found our shield,” she said, “and our weapon against Tariic.” She looked up at Geth. “It’s time to go back to Rhukaan Draal.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
19 Vult
Ashi looked at herself in the polished surface of a shield. For the first time since Senen’s exile, she was wearing her formal outfit of trim trousers and cropped jacket. Her boots were freshly polished, her hair was pulled back, and her eyes were once again highlighted with Vounn’s cosmetics. The clothes and cosmetics were her tools. Her weapons.
And she needed all the weapons she had. She forced a smile onto her face. Her reflection smiled back at her.
“Are you ready?” asked Oraan quietly.
She answered without looking over her shoulder at him-although it was tempting, because he’d dressed formally as well, in light armor with a red sash around his waist. “I’m ready.”
“Did you eat well today?”
Her smile became less forced. “Very well.”
“Good.”
They turned into the antechamber outside Tariic’s throne room-and were engulfed in a crowd of junior warriors, minor functionaries, and merchants of little consequence. Oraan stepped around her and walked ahead, clearing a path with his shoulders and elbows. Ashi followed close behind, hand on her sword, the subject of a few disdainful glances but of many more jealous glares. Anyone in the antechamber was there because they hadn’t been invited into the throne room.
And with the entire throne room turned into a feast hall, if those in the antechamber hadn’t been invited, they really were unimportant.