Sins of Empire

Chapter 37

Michel reached deep into the depths of his memory to find the tiny marble he’d stored there so many years ago. He handled it delicately, cracking it open like an egg and letting all of the thoughts, hopes, ambitions, and memories flood out into his mind. The outpouring of emotion was so sudden that, even though he knew it was coming, he lowered his head and began to weep.

It took him over an hour to regain control. He struggled to reconcile two different personalities with two very different sets of goals until, finally, they were one again and he remembered who he really was: Michel Bravis, a Son of the Red Hand and to his knowledge the only Palo to ever infiltrate the Blackhats to the rank of Silver Rose.

Taniel stood silently through the entire process, watching him curiously, a slight frown on his face. Michel used Taniel’s face as a lifeline to his old self – the one he’d been before he joined the Blackhats – staring back into those cold blue eyes while his breathing normalized and his hands stopped shaking.

Michel dried the tears from his eyes and within moments found himself laughing. It began as a chuckle, bubbling up unbidden and escaping through his clenched teeth, and was soon a wholehearted guffaw. He slapped his knees, bending over to try to catch his breath.

“What’s so funny?” Taniel asked.

Michel, once again, regained control. “It’s just I’ve barely slept in over a week trying to find the person who printed Sins of Empire, and after chasing him through the bloody streets I come to find out it’s the very man I work for.”

Taniel gave a sardonic smirk. “You almost caught me down in the Factory District. I would have felt a lot better about things if I’d known it was you on my tail.” His face finally cracked into a smile and he seemed to relax, sitting down across from Michel and reaching for the skin of tea.

“If I’d caught you, it might have compromised my cover.”

Taniel made a noncommittal sound. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

Michel considered all the close calls and lucky breaks over the last two weeks, and then tried to think of them from Taniel’s perspective. The whole thing had been a game of cat-and-mouse, only for them both to find out that there’d never actually been a mouse to begin with. It was a little humiliating, if he was being honest with himself, but he decided that if no one found out he could live with it in private.

“The face thing,” he asked. “Sorcery?”

Taniel nodded.

“I didn’t know that was possible. Can’t other Privileged detect that kind of thing?”

“It’s…” Taniel paused. “Very well done. Sorcery woven to cover sorcery. Not even another powder mage can detect me. Unfortunately, it’s going to take a long time to reapply now that I’ve let it drop.”

Michel winced. “Sorry.”

“You had no way of knowing,” Taniel reassured him. “Besides, I thought it important for you to see my face.” He suddenly leaned forward, peering into Michel’s eyes. Michel tapped his foot with nervous energy. He didn’t know everything about Taniel – there were a lot of rumors in the newspapers back during and after the Adran-Kez War, including the suggestion that he’d killed a god – but he did know that, at the very least, he was a powder mage not to be trifled with. “You do,” Taniel asked, “remember your mission?”

Michel considered Taniel a friend, but no more than he might consider a friendly cave lion a pet. He nodded slowly. “Infiltrate the Blackhats. Gain their trust. Climb the ranks. Be indispensable.”

“And?” Taniel asked.

“And wait,” Michel said.

Taniel gave a satisfied smile. “Very good.”

The waiting, Michel had decided, was the hardest part of being a spy. That’s why he created the marble; that’s why he stored the real him in a tiny corner of his mind and locked it away. If he could become someone else entirely, then the waiting no longer existed and he could carry on happily, untethered, until the moment it was time to change sides.

Becoming an actual spy for the Blackhats – a double agent working as a double agent – had been supremely difficult because he could not become someone else entirely. He was still Michel Bravis with a history and a family and friends and a heritage. He wanted nothing more than to make his mother proud of her Palo boy, working for a Palo cause, but instead he’d had to hurt her deeply by becoming the very thing she hated most – a member of the secret police.

Lucky for him, he was very good at compartmentalizing his emotions. But he wasn’t perfect. “What am I waiting for?”

Taniel frowned. “You know better than to ask that.”

Compartmentalize. If I don’t actually know my final goal, then I won’t be able to spill it if my cover is blown and I’m tortured. “I know,” Michel said, taking a deep breath. “But sometimes…”

“You want to know that it’s worth the trouble?”

Michel nodded.

“I won’t fill your head with false promises,” Taniel said.

“You’ve never claimed to.”

Taniel reached over and placed his hand on the back of Michel’s neck, grasping him in a brotherly embrace. He peered deep into his eyes, as if looking for something. There was a long, uncomfortable silence before Taniel pulled back, a thoughtful scowl on his face. “You’re a Silver Rose now?”

Michel showed him the Silver Rose looped around his neck.

“Do you think you have a shot at becoming a Gold Rose?”

“I do,” Michel said, then corrected himself. “Well, I did. Fidelis Jes is furious about the Iron Roses you stole. He promised to make me a Gold Rose if I brought you in.”

“And if you fail to bring me in?”

“I’ll be demoted.” Michel didn’t have to mention that a demotion would destroy years of hard work. The very thought made him anxious, tightening something deep in the pit of his stomach.

Taniel nodded, his thoughts seemingly far away. “We need you in the Blackhats more than ever right now.”

Michel raised his eyebrows. He wondered briefly if Taniel was dedicated enough to the cause to hand himself over, but rejected the idea. Taniel was the Red Hand. Without him, the change that they wished to enact would never come about. “I might be able to string Fidelis Jes along for a couple more weeks. But he’s already impatient, and something has him on edge. I can’t guarantee that he won’t pull me from the mission any day now.”

“Do Silver Roses have access to Blackhat records?” Taniel asked.

He obviously had something in mind, but Michel needed to be careful in his questioning. If Taniel revealed too much, their whole effort could be at risk. “Some of them.”

“Anything regarding sorcery?”

“No,” Michel said. “Absolutely not. I know they exist – the Blackhats keep information on all the Knacked, powder mages, and Privileged in Fatrasta and the Nine. But that kind of information is only privy to the Gold Roses, Fidelis Jes, the Lady Chancellor, and Lindet’s private cabal.”

“Right,” Taniel said, chewing his words like he had something sour in his mouth. “But a Gold Rose could find out about sorcerous artifacts?”

“I… think so?”

Taniel sat back, drumming his gloved fingers on the head of his cane. “I’m not sure if think so is good enough.”

“If it’s not…”

“It’ll have to be,” Taniel suddenly said, shooting to his feet and pacing the length of the room. “We need information, Michel. We think the Lady Chancellor is looking for something called the godstones, and we need to know how close she is to them.”

Michel sat up straight. His assignment had always been so vague; this was the first time he’d been given any indication of a clear goal. It was electrifying. And frightening. “I can’t find out that information as a Silver Rose.”

“Then we’ll have to get you your Gold,” Taniel said, consulting a pocket watch. “Be back here in eighteen hours. Bring lots of friends.”

Michel got to his feet, feeling slightly dizzy at the sudden changes to his mission. This was happening. “What am I going to find?”

“You,” Taniel said, heading toward the door, “are going to find exactly what Fidelis Jes wants.”