Inherit the Flame

Chapter Forty-Six

After Clink and Forge so rudely abandoned him to seek their freedom, Detan paced the empty residence halls of the palace, wondering just what in the pits everyone was up to, but not quite curious enough to go find out for himself. It’d be just his luck Ranalae was planning some new heinous experiment for him. Or worse, his auntie and Thratia were busy picking out decorations for the wedding.

Thing was, he knew where he was going from the moment he wandered away from the east wing. Knew where his feet were leading him, though he didn’t allow himself to approach the thought. There was one place in the palace he’d avoided since coming home. One room he hadn’t dared to poke his head into.

Tibal’s.

The door swung open easily under his hand. Unlatched, unlocked. Left ajar, as was often Tibs’s way when he was head-deep in a project and couldn’t be bothered with niceties like closing doors and bathing. A fan of dust cleared away in the wake of the door. Not even the servants had bothered to touch his room. Detan couldn’t blame them. Last time he’d tried to polish a wrench Tibs hadn’t talked to him for a week.

It’d been the longest they’d gone without talking, before the Remnant.

He stepped inside. His fancy, polished boots felt strange clicking across the gritty floor. Tibs’s sheets were a twisted mess on the narrow bed, his tools spread out around the room in a pattern that made perfect sense to Tibs, and no one else. Detan reached for a hammer, thought better of it, and pulled his hand away before his fingers had brushed the surface. Touching Tibs’s tools pissed him off, and though he’d probably never be privy to Detan’s little saunter through this room, the habit was ingrained. Living as close together as they had on the flier had given them both clear boundaries to be respected. Mostly so they wouldn’t kill each other.

He shivered. Tibs had left the door to the airship dock open, probably never bothered to close the thing the whole time he was here. Damned man never felt the cold, not even during the harshest of winter nights in the highlands of the desert. Despite the airflow, the subtle scent of machine grease and leather clung to the fabric in the room. A phantom of Tibs’s presence.

A long, dingy linen curtain hung in the doorway to the airship dock. It fluttered in the faint breeze, kicking up swirls of dust. He pushed it aside, and stepped onto the dock.

The Happy Birthday Virra! was in the best shape he’d ever seen her. Her woodwork had been polished to a high, glossy sheen, her brass fittings bright as flame. Tibs had tied her sails and pulled in the wings, but he didn’t need to see either unfurled to know they’d been replaced with better stock, the broadcloth sails gleaming with wax, the stabilizing wings webbed with fresh, supple leather. This was a ship ready to fly.

Tibs could have taken off at any time. Could have turned his back on everything that’d gone wrong between them. But instead he’d waited, and worked, and cleaned up the old bird until there was nothing left to polish.

“Where are you?” Detan asked the breeze.

The deck swayed under his step, a familiar sensation that almost made him choke up from pure longing. Without thought, he moved to the captain’s podium, ignoring the empty nav deck behind him, and put his hands upon the primary wheel, set his legs in the wide stance he took while piloting.

He could leave. The flier was ready to go. There were probably provisions in its hold, and all his old clothes and trinkets. Money, too, and the means of making more counterfeit grains. Without him, Thratia would have no legal claim to the city. She’d have to take it by force. And he had no doubt she would.

He sighed and stepped back from the podium, peeling his hands away from the warm wood reluctantly. A corner of paper caught his eye, wedged beside one of the smaller wheels.

He plucked it free, annoyed that debris had gotten caught there, and nearly choked on his own spit.

Sirra scrawled across the outside in Tibs’s sloppy script. He opened it.

Knew this would get you. Just couldn’t resist the old bird, could you? Pains me to leave her here, but the Dame’s getting itchy with me and I can’t stick ‘round much longer. I think Ripka’s got some sort of plan, but she’s mighty pissed with me, so I don’t know if she’ll let me in.

Sirra. Detan. Look. You know I ain’t good with words. I don’t even know if you don’t already know what I’m trying to tell you. Thing is, Dame’s getting itchy because she knows my parents. Knew my pop, anyway. You remember your old uncle Rew? I’m his bastard, sorry to say. Not many knew, only my ma and the Dame. But when you went to the Bone Tower the Dame went a-huntin’ for Rew’s blowbys and found me. Heir and a spare, you know? But I don’t want it. Never had. Keeping you out of too much trouble kept my sorry ass from getting branded for next in line, and I’m sorry for that.

Thing is, keeping your sorry ass out of trouble may have been the deal I made with the Dame to start, but that changed. We ain’t cousins. We’re friends, and that matters more than any blood. If you can’t see that, you’re dumber than that rock you got for brains.

Guess you know why we got matchin’ tempers, now.

Don’t do anything too stupid. I’ll see you soon.

The paper trembled in his hand, and it didn’t have a thing to do with the wind.

“Honding, are you in here?” Thratia asked.

Detan near jumped out of his skin. He folded the paper and shoved it in his pocket, trying desperately to gather himself. She was across Tibs’s room in a moment, shoved the curtain aside and squinted at him with tired, dull eyes. They sharpened in a hurry, though, as she focused in on him standing on the deck of the flier, just behind the captain’s podium.

“Leaving so soon?”

“Just checking her fitness,” he said and shrugged, strolling across the deck. It took everything he had to jump down to the dock while maintaining nonchalance. “By the look of you, you’re the one preparing a run. Getting cold feet, dearest?”

Not so much as a frown. She gripped his elbow and steered him back into Tibs’s room, out of the light and into the gloom. She looked even more haggard in the half-dark.

“While you’ve been checking on your toy, I’ve been working with the Dame to secure aid for those damaged by your little outburst. It’s taken damn near every apothik I brought with me, and supplies are running low. What in the pits did you do?”

The words fell as a blow to the chest. Thratia hadn’t been doing anything nefarious while he’d been running around getting Forge and Clink freed. She’d been hip-deep in the rescue relief, working alongside his auntie to get the city tidied up. She’d been right where he should have been, if he had any sense at all.

“You want to know what I did,” he grated, “ask Aella and Ranalae.”

“I did. I want it from you.”

“They ambushed me. Pushed me as hard as they could thinking they could control me, and it turns out they couldn’t. That enough for you? To know your nasty little friends tried to make me choke to death on selium and I damn near tore the city apart because I couldn’t help myself?”

That wasn’t tiredness in her eyes, he realized now. That was regret, plain as the sky was blue. She’d counted on Aella’s ability to control him, counted on her own, probably, and now she was looking at him like he was a defanged snake who’d grown new teeth.

“Can you control yourself in the future?”

“You keep that bitch Ranalae away from me, and we’ll see,” he snapped. But it was the wrong thing to say, and he knew it the moment it was past his lips. Her eyes narrowed, her jaw tensed. The second she was done with him, the second she had a marriage contract or an heir in her belly or whatever the fuck else she wanted off him – he was dead. Or worse, she’d hand him over to Ranalae to make nice with Valathea while she gathered herself for another push in some other Scorched city.

“I’ll instruct her to avoid you.”

“You’ll instruct the diplomat of an empire in which you hold no standing, to stay away from a man in a house where you also hold no power?”

“No power?” She snorted. “A formality that will soon be resolved. The wedding’s in a week, Honding. Try to leave us a city to rule in the meantime.”

“Us? Don’t pretend to me, of all fucking people, that I’ll have any say in matters once you have your contract signed.”

She sighed and shook her head, the sharpened pins she wore in her braids clinking. “I’d prefer a partner, at the very least. You know my motives.”

“Am I not a prisoner, then?”

Again, that tension in the jaw. “You never were.”

Technically. He wanted to scream technically into her calm face. But that was how she did things. Pushed people around until she’d gotten them positioned to do the things she wanted of them of their own will. But she’d given his leash a bit of length, and he wasn’t about to lose it.

“Then I’m free to leave the palace?”

Her gaze flicked to the Dread Wind, positioned to destroy the city if she decided to take it by force. Subtle, but effective in chilling him straight to the core. That was the thing about Thratia. Her best threats were the ones she never said out loud. “You are.”

“Excellent. I have an errand to run.” He turned from her, strode toward the flier like he had every right in the world to take it.

“Honding,” her voice held an edge, a warning.

He threw a cheerful grin at her over his shoulder and blew a kiss. “Fear not, sweetums, I’ll be back before dark. Feel free to smash the city to pieces if I’m not.”

“Honding!”

But he was already on the deck of the flier, the tie-ropes kicked free. The day was calm, his sel-sense was keener than it’d ever had been. He didn’t even need the sails as he unfurled the flier’s wings, and took to the sky.