The Steel Remains

CHAPTER 16

They got back into Yhelteth just as the lamps were coming on across the city. Archeth, saddle-sore and stuffed with questions she couldn’t answer, would have willingly gone straight to her apartments on the Boulevard of the Ineffable Divine, and to bed. But you didn’t do that kind of thing when you were about the Emperor’s business. She compromised, sent Shanta and the others on ahead to the palace, and stopped off at her apartments with Elith. She handed the old woman over to her major-domo, told him to put her up in the guest chambers.

“Milady, there is already—” the man began, but she waved it off.

“Later, Kefanin, later. His imperial radiance awaits my presence at the palace. I speed to do his will, y’know.”

She swung back on her horse and clattered back out of the house’s courtyard, under the arch, and onto the main thoroughfare. Sunset made a dusty furnace glow in the west, backdrop for the blackening silhouettes of minarets and domes across the city. The evening crowds pressed around her, trudged onward toward the end of their laboring day. She felt a twinge of envy. If she knew anything at all, Jhiral would probably keep her waiting a couple of hours before he’d even see her, just to make a point. And even without that expected pettiness, his imperial radiance didn’t habitually rise much before noon anyway; it wasn’t uncommon for him to hold long counsel with bleary-eyed advisers right through to dawn, then send them directly off to their usual daily duties while he retired to bed. He’d likely have Archeth telling and retelling the details of her report a dozen different ways until the small hours.

She stifled a yawn with the back of a gauntleted hand. Dug in her pouch until she found a small pellet of krinzanz, slipped it into her mouth, and chewed it down to thin saliva-laced mulch. Grimace at the bitter, granulated taste, and swallow. She rubbed the residue against her gums with a leather finger and waited for the gloom of evening to recede a little from her eyes, for the drug to prop the weariness away and lend her its counterfeit lust for life.

DOORS BANGED BACK FOR HER, PIKE-MEN CAME TO ATTENTION AS she passed them down long marble halls. She tugged off her gauntlets impatiently, muttering to herself as she strode the familiar path to her Emperor’s presence. From the walls, representations of the Prophet and other notables of imperial history glowered down at her. The krin buzz made some of the better-executed portraits quiver with a simulacrum of hostile life around the eyes. It was scrutiny she could have done without, and it didn’t help that there was not a single Kiriath face among those pictured.

You’ll have to make it work without us, Grashgal had told her, toward the end. I can’t hold the captaincies any longer. They want out. They’ve consulted the Helmsmen, all the stable ones anyway, and the answer keeps coming back pretty much the same. It’s time to go.

Oh come on. Hiding her desperation in a snort. Fucking Helmsman’ll give you sixty different answers to the same question depending on how it’s phrased. You know that. We’ve been here before, at least twice that I can remember, and I’m only a couple of hundred years old. It’ll pass.

But Grashgal just stood there at the balcony’s edge and stared down into the red glow of the workshops.

The engineers already have orders to refit, he said quietly. They’ll have a fleet that works by year’s end. I’m sorry, Archidi. This time it’s real.

But why? Why now?

A shrug that came close to a shudder. These fucking humans, Archidi. If we stay, they’re going to drag us into every squalid fucking skirmish and border dispute their short-term greed and fear can invent. They’re going to turn us into something we never used to be.

These fucking humans.

“The Lady kir-Archeth Indamaninarmal,” bellowed the herald as the last set of doors opened before her, and across the vaulted and pillared space of the throne room, all the fucking humans turned to stare as she came in.

“Ah, Archeth, you grace us with your presence after all.” Jhiral was propped at a sardonic angle in the grandiose architecture of the Burnished Throne, one heel laid four-square over his knee. Light from the Kiriath-engineered radiant stones set into the walls of the chamber behind him conferred the borrowed glow of divine authority. He flashed her a boyish grin. “Almost on time for once, as well. I understand you had to go home before coming to see us. Did you find everything there to your satisfaction?”

Archeth shrugged it off. “I thought it best to come before you fully prepared, my lord. I am ready to deliver my report.”

“Oh, good. We have in fact already been hearing from my other, loyal servants.” A casual gesture to where Mahmal Shanta, Faileh Rakan, and Pashla Menkarak stood before him in a loose arc. Just the hint of a pause after other, the lightest of accents on loyal. It was done with masterful subtlety, and Archeth saw how secret smiles flickered among the courtiers. “It seems there’s some disagreement about how the situation in Khangset was handled. Some question of you overstepping the limits of your authority?”

Shanta slid her an apologetic glance. She could already guess how things were going. Menkarak had raged all the way back, had in fact been fulminating from the moment he woke up in the camp at Khangset and found Archeth had been busy all night without bothering to secure his approval for anything she’d done.

“It was my understanding, my lord, that the expedition was placed exclusively under my command.”

“Within the framework of the Holy Revelation,” snapped Menkarak. “To which all secular rule is subordinate. There can be no light to outshine the radiance of truth, and the servants of truth must brook none.”

“You were fucking asleep,” said Archeth.

“And you abroad by night in the company of an infidel sorceress.”

Jhiral lounged back in the throne and grinned again, toothily. “Is this true, Archeth? A sorceress?”

Archeth pulled in a deep breath, held it, let it out. She tried for authoritative calm.

“The woman Elith believes she is a sorceress, that much is true. But her claims are suspect to say the least. I do not think she is wholly sane. She and her family suffered greatly in the war, she was forci— . . . she became an imperial resident under very difficult circumstances. She lost almost her entire family in the war. I would say she was probably half mad with grief well before this raid took place. What she saw when Khangset was attacked may simply have pushed her the rest of the way.”

Menkarak exploded. “Enough! She’s an infidel, a faithless stone-worshipping northerner who would not convert when the hand of the Revelation was extended to her in friendship, and who persists in her stubborn unbelief deep within our borders. The evidence is plain—she has even torn the kartagh from her garb to blind the eyes of the faithful she dwells among. She is steeped in deceit.”

“Well now, that is a crime, Archeth,” Jhiral said reasonably. “And crimes are usually committed by those with criminal inclination. Are you sure that this woman had nothing to do with the raid?”

Archeth hesitated. “There’s no evidence to connect her directly, no.”

“Yet Pashla Menkarak here says you incited her to perform outlandish rites on the bluff overlooking the town.”

“Well.” She affected an icy disdain. “His holiness was not actually present when we went to the bluff, my lord. So it’s hard to see how he could know. Perhaps he suffers from an overactive imagination.”

“You blackened whore!”

And the world seemed to rock briefly on some unseen axis around her. The krinzanz slugged in her veins, pounded for release. Her palms twitched. Almost, her knives were in her hands.

But she heard the rustling murmurs run through the courtiers as well, saw the way even the urbane Jhiral blinked, and she knew Menkarak had overreached himself. Knew that in some hard-to-define fashion she’d won whatever ritualized combat Jhiral had wanted to see here.

She went in for the kill.

“It’s also hard,” she said evenly. “To imagine where his holiness learned his court manners. Must I and the memory of my people be insulted in this fashion, my lord, in the very throne room they helped build?”

From among the crowd on the right hand of the throne, a senior invigilator detached himself and came forward to Menkarak’s side. He took the younger man’s arm, but Menkarak shook it off angrily.

“This woman,” he began.

But Jhiral had had enough, at least for one day. “This woman is a valued adviser to the court,” he said coldly. “And you have just cast aspersions on her character that may require answer before a magistrate. You came highly recommended, Pashla Menkarak, but you disappoint me. I think you had better retire.”

For one insane moment, it looked as if Menkarak might defy the Emperor’s command. Archeth, watching keenly, saw something in his eyes that was at best poorly moored to any sense of self-preservation. She recalled Shanta’s words to her on the ridge overlooking Khangset. They say it’s a whole new breed coming through the religious colleges now. Hard-line faith. She wondered if that included aspiration to martyrdom, something the Revelation had flirted with on and off in the past but hadn’t seen much of recently.

The senior invigilator muttered intensely at his colleague’s ear and his fingers sank into Menkarak’s arm just above the elbow, this time with talon-like tenacity. Archeth saw the moment pass, saw the defiance in Menkarak’s eyes go out like a doused campfire. The younger invigilator went down on one knee, perhaps forced there by the clawed grip on his arm. He bowed his head.

“My deepest apologies, majesty.” The words didn’t quite emerge from between clenched teeth, but the tone was ragged—Menkarak sounded like a man slightly out of breath. Archeth surprised herself with a sudden spurt of fellow feeling for the man. She knew well enough the greasy, soiled feeling behind that bent knee and struggling voice. “If my zeal to serve the Revelation has in any way offended you, I beg your indulgence for my lack of courtesy.”

Jhiral played it for all it was worth. He sat forward, rubbed at his chin in kingly reflection. Assumed a stern expression.

“Well, Menkarak, that indulgence is not really mine to give.” A blatant lie—in the context of the throne room, all and any failure in decorum was a direct insult to the Emperor, whether he was present or not. “Your offensive comments were, after all, to my adviser here. Perhaps you could abase yourself to her instead.”

More grabbed-breath gasps around the hall. The senior invigilator looked startled. Menkarak’s head came up out of the bow in disbelief. Jhiral held the moment like a long note on the horse bugle he was famed for playing with such virtuoso skill. Held it, expanded it.

And let it collapse.

“Well, no. Maybe not. That’d be extreme, I suppose. Perhaps, then, you could just take your disagreeable presence somewhere it won’t offend again.” Jhiral nodded at the senior invigilator, voice hardening. “Get him out of my sight.”

The senior invigilator was only too happy to comply. He practically dragged Pashla Menkarak back to his feet and then, bowing repeatedly, away down the hall to the doors at the far end. Jhiral watched them out, then he rose without ceremony—a minor breach of etiquette that his father, too, had been fond of using to upset the court—and raised his voice to cover the whole throne room.

“Leave us. I will speak to Archeth Indamaninarmal alone.”

It took a minute or less to clear everyone out. One or two hung back, throwing curious glances at the throne; there were a few men among them whose concerns ran a little deeper than palace sinecure, but they were a minority, winnowed down in the years following the accession. Wherever he could afford to, Jhiral had nudged his father’s most loyal courtiers out to exile postings in the provinces, occasionally to jail, and in one or two memorable cases to the executioner’s chair. A rump of essential competence remained, but it was cowed and dispirited just as Archeth supposed Jhiral had intended. The vast majority of those present were only too glad to follow the imperial will and vacate the chamber.

Faileh Rakan had not moved, awaiting direct command from his Emperor as befitted his rank among the Throne Eternal. And it seemed Mahmal Shanta wasn’t going to be sent home, either—he’d begun to back away, but Jhiral caught his eye and made a tiny beckoning gesture with a cupped hand.

The brush and rustle of expensive clothing faded into the hall outside; the doors banged closed. Quiet settled into the throne room. Jhiral gusted a long, theatrically world-weary sigh.

“See, that’s what I’ve got to contend with these days. These new graduates from the Citadel, I’m going to have to do something about them.”

“Only give the order, majesty,” said Rakan grimly.

“Yes, well, maybe not right now. I’ve no desire for that kind of bloodbath in the run-up to the Prophet’s birthday.”

That’s right, my lord, we had better avoid a bloodbath. Krinzanz pushed the words forward on her tongue; it was a conscious effort to hold them back. Not least because, given the choice, the vast peasant mass of the Yhelteth faithful might just decide that fuck it, they’ve had enough, they’ll damn well take fanatical adherence to the tenets of the Revelation over venal exploitation of the throne and top-down decadence. Give it a whirl and see if it doesn’t deliver for them.

And when it doesn’t, of course, it’ll be too fucking late.

She remembered street battles in Vanbyr, the advancing lines of imperial halberdiers, the screams of the ill-equipped rebels as they broke and were butchered. The shattered homes of collaborators and the lines of shaven-headed captives afterward. The shrieks of women dragged out of line at random and raped to death by the side of the road. The ditches piled with corpses.

After the savagery of Ennishmin and Naral, she had sworn she would not take part in any action like it again. She’d sworn to Ringil, as she talked him down, it was the last fucking time.

She rode through Vanbyr and tasted her own lie like the ashes in the air.

And now here was Jhiral, contemplating the same thing in his own capital.

“Perhaps, my lord, we’d do well to analyze the new tendencies in the Citadel and aim to block them at a legislative—”

“Yes, yes, Archeth, I’m well aware of your liking for legislation. But as you’ve just seen, the Citadel is not currently breeding men with much respect for the niceties of a civilized society.”

“Nevertheless—”

“God damn it, woman, will you just shut up.” It was impossible to tell if Jhiral was genuinely aggrieved or not. “You know, I expected a little more support out of you, Archeth. It was you he insulted, after all.”

Yes, he insulted me. But only after you gave him cause to believe I was out of favor with that snide little comment about loyal servants. You built Menkarak a gangplank he thought was secure, and then when he set foot on it, you kicked it away from the ship and watched him get wet. You play your little games, Jhiral, you play us all off against one another for your greater security and amusement. But someday, you’re going to kick someone’s gangplank away and they won’t go down alone. They’ll grab your ankles and pull you down with them.

“My apologies, my lord. I am of course deeply grateful for the protection you extend to my honor at court.”

“I should bloody hope so. I don’t go up against the Citadel lightly, you know. There’s a balance to be played out here, and it’s ticklish at the best of times.”

She bowed her head. Anything else would have been risky. “My lord.”

“They don’t like you, Archeth.” Jhiral’s tone had shifted, taken on a pettish, lecturing tone. “You’re a final reminder of the godless Kiriath, and that upsets them. The faithful don’t react well when they run up against infidels they can’t conquer or condescend to—it starts to look like a nasty little flaw in God’s perfect plan.”

Archeth sneaked a look at Rakan, but the Throne Eternal captain was impassive. If he heard his Emperor’s words as the borderline heresy they so patently were, he gave no sign that it bothered him. And the two guardsmen on either side of the throne might have been carved from stone for all the reaction they offered.

Still . . .

“Perhaps we should discuss Khangset, my lord.”

“Indeed.” Jhiral cleared his throat, and she thought that for just a moment he looked almost grateful for the interjection. She wondered how much of his guard he’d let down in that last outburst, how much self-pity there was along with the sympathy in the words they don’t like you, Archeth. Rule from the Burnished Throne was, for all its brutal potential, very much the ticklish business Jhiral described.

“We were discussing, my lord, the—”

“Yes, I remember. The madwoman Elith, and these rites you say she didn’t perform. Let’s have it, then.”

“She did perform the rites, my lord.”

“I rather imagined so. Menkarak, whatever his other deficiencies, doesn’t strike me as a liar. And was this at your instigation?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Jhiral sighed and sank back into the arms of the throne. He leaned an elbow on the arm, put his hand to his brow, and looked at Archeth wearily from under it. “You are going to explain all this in a satisfactory manner at some point, I assume.”

“I hope so, my lord.”

“Then could we perhaps accelerate the process? Because at the moment I appear to be listening to a member of my inner court admitting to sorcery in collaboration with an enemy of the realm.”

“I don’t believe there was any sorcery, my lord.”

“Ah.”

“Khangset was certainly attacked by some force with technology we don’t have access to, and Elith thinks she helped summon them. But her involvement in these matters is coincidental at best. I encouraged her to repeat the rites she thinks communicate with the attackers, and of course nothing happened.”

Nothing, that is, if you don’t count the creep of flesh on the back of your neck as Elith stands erect before the crudely hewn stone figure on the cliff’s edge in the hour before dawn, arms held out to mimic its patient cruciform beckoning, singing a wild, arrhythmic incantation, fluid northern syllables stretched to shrieking and thrown out into the whoop and roar of the sea wind, until it’s hard to tell anymore who’s making which sounds. You heard a lifetime of suffering and grief poured out in song there, Archidi, and for more than just a moment or two it seemed to you, didn’t it, that something stony and violent must answer from beyond the curtains of gloom and gale.

“Archeth, come on.” Jhiral shook his head. “That doesn’t in itself prove anything. Perhaps these forces she attempted to summon just weren’t interested in an encore. Hmm? Sorcery is an unreliable business, you’ve said so yourself enough times. And Rakan and Shanta here both say the destruction was pretty overwhelming, the worst they’ve seen since the war. Who’d come back after a successful sacking like that? What point would there be?”

“My lord, what point would there be in attacking a garrisoned port in the first place, if nothing of value is taken and there is no onward assault?”

Jhiral frowned. “Is this true, Rakan? Nothing was taken?”

“No, majesty. It appears not. We found the interior possessions of houses untouched where they had not been destroyed by fire. And the port authority strongrooms contained silver bullion, paymaster’s bagged coin, and several crates of confiscated valuables, all of which were still in place.” A hint of emotion crept into the Throne Eternal’s dispassionate voice, the faintest tinge of confusion. “Though each door had been ripped off its hinges as if by a team of horses.”

“And I take it,” said Jhiral drily, “that you could not possibly introduce a team of horses in the lower levels of the port authority.”

“No, majesty.”

“Shanta? Any alternative explanation you can think of?”

The naval engineer shrugged. “Perhaps some system of pulleys. Sufficiently well anchored, they might—”

“Thank you, I think we’ll take that as a no.” Jhiral scowled and looked at Archeth again. “It seems to me we’re back to the sorcery that you’re so firmly of the opinion did not occur.”

“I don’t say that sorcery—or some form of science of which I’m ignorant—did not occur, my lord. I say only that the woman Elith had no hand in it, that I did not see her perform sorcery at any time, nor do I believe that she has ever had the ability to do so. She is merely a spectator to these events, a spectator with just enough specialized cultural knowledge to give the impression of involvement.”

Jhiral made a small, exasperated noise in his throat and threw himself back in the arms of the throne. “You see? I didn’t follow any of that last sentence, Archeth. Can you—please—spell it out for us in terms a pure-blood human would understand.”

She ignored the veiled insult, swallowed it, marshaled the facts at her disposal, and once more built up the façade of professional detachment that kept her sane and out of jail.

“Very well. Elith, in common with a lot of the transplanted peoples from annexed territories in the north, believes in a broad pantheon of different gods and spirits. It’s a tradition that bears some resemblance to the Majak nomads’ framework of faith, but it’s far more ordered. It’s been written down, modified, embellished, and shared among the Naomic tribes for long enough to become codified. Among this pantheon, there is a figure, or more correctly a whole race, called the dwenda.”

“Dwinduh?” Jhiral mangled the unfamiliar word.

“Dwenda. Or the Aldrain, depending on which tribe’s tales you prefer. It comes to the same thing. A race of beings, close to human in form, with supernatural powers, access to realms beyond human reach, and close links to or even shared blood with the gods.”

Jhiral coughed a laugh. “Well. I mean, that could be the Kiriath you’re talking about there. I’ve heard the same things said about them enough times. Human-type races with unexplained powers. Are you saying the Kiriath or some of their cousins are back, that they’ve taken to sacking my cities?”

“Clearly not, my lord.” Though she found suddenly she could not make herself hate the idea, the return and the final exasperated turning on these fucking humans. And she wondered fleetingly where Jhiral had derived the idea from, out of what guilt and half-suppressed fear of the race who had served his father but turned their backs on him. “The Kiriath are gone, yes. But they are probably not the only near-human race ever to have visited this world. In the Great Northern Chronicle, the Indirath M’nal, there is some mention of an enemy that fits the description of Elith’s dwenda. I’m not overly familiar with the text, I’ll need to look back through it, but one thing I do recall is that these dwenda were reputed to have a specialized relationship with the elements; they could, for example, summon up storms or command the earth to open and vomit up its dead. And certain types of stone and crystal were supposed to have powers they could draw out.”

“Crystals?” Jhiral’s face was a study in disdain. “Oh, come on Archeth. No one, I mean no one with a halfway decent education believes that power-of-crystals shit. That’s for the peasants on the northern march, the ones who never learned to read or add up.”

“I agree, my lord. But at the same time, it is a known fact that my own people were successful in utilizing certain structural peculiarities of geology for navigational purposes. It simply occurs to me to wonder if the dwenda might not have done something similar.”

“Navigation, eh?” Jhiral glanced shrewdly across at Shanta, who looked embarrassed. Archeth had run her theory by him, but he hadn’t reacted all that well to it. “Go on, then. I’m listening.”

“Yes, my lord. On the bluff overlooking Khangset harbor from the north, there is—there was, I’ve had it removed now—a stone idol. Very roughly human in form, about the size of a small woman or a half-grown child. It is made of a black crystalline rock called glirsht, commonly found in northern lands, but almost unknown farther south. Elith brought the figure with her from Ennishmin in a cart with her family’s other possessions. She set it on the bluff, and periodically she climbs the coastal path to make offerings to it.”

The look of disdain flowed back, this time on Rakan and Shanta’s faces as well. The Revelation and its adherents had scant time for idol worship. At best it was primitive nonsense, to be discouraged with a more or less heavy ecclesiastical hand; at worst it was a first-category sin, and deserving of death. Imperial conquest was built on a centuries-old assumption of the right to suppress the practice and instruct those conquered in the error of their ways. Specifics varied from Emperor to Emperor, and how well financed the levy was at the time.

“The way I see it, my lord, this idol may have acted as some form of beacon. Elith believes it was her prayers and offerings that brought the dwenda to Khangset. I’m inclined to think those rituals are beside the point. But the stone itself, the glirsht, may have some kind of . . .” A shrug; she had not fully convinced herself of all this, let alone Shanta. “. . . a structural resonance, perhaps. Something for the dwenda to steer by.”

Even in her own ears, the words sounded limp. Jhiral looked back at her for a couple of moments, then down into his lap, then back up. When he spoke, his voice was weary, almost plaintive, imploring the simple explanation.

“Look, Archeth—could this not just be a case of pirates? Albeit sophisticated pirates, pirates with a flair for disguise, for exploiting the terrors of our less worldly citizens? Maybe even pirates with some sorcery adept crewing with them.” The imperial fingers snapped—abrupt inspiration. “Come to that, they might even have been in league with this northern bitch you brought back with you—what if she was spying for them on shore, going up to the bluff to signal to them.”

“They took nothing, my lord,” she reminded him. “And no pirate vessel I’ve ever heard of mounts weaponry sufficient to damage Kiriath-engineered defenses.”

“If it were the dwenda,” said Rakan, perhaps in an attempt to back up his Emperor, “then they also took nothing. Why would that be?”

Jhiral nodded sagely. “That’s a very good point. Archeth? Are these creatures not interested in gold or silver?”

She bit back a sigh. “I don’t know, my lord. I’m barely familiar with the mythology as it is. But it does seem clear that these raiders, whether they were dwenda or human, came for something other than loot.”

“Such as? Not their local priestess, that’s for sure. They left her high and dry for us to pick up.”

“Revenge, perhaps?” said Shanta quietly.

There was a brief, prickly silence, during which you could see the naval engineer transparently wishing he’d never spoken.

“Revenge, on whom?” asked Jhiral with dangerous calm.

Archeth cleared her throat. Someone had to say it. “Elith was not well treated by imperial forces during the war. Members of her family were brutalized. One died, and the rest were resettled against their will.”

“Well, we all suffered in the war,” Jhiral said, in clipped tones of affront. “We all had to play our part in the struggle. That’s no excuse for treachery or betrayal of the realm.”

Jhiral’s part in the struggle and the suffering had been confined, Archeth seemed to recall, to riding behind his father at troop inspections and saluting. For all his training, he never saw combat.

“I don’t think Mahmal Shanta is referring—”

“I don’t care what you think he’s referring to, Archeth.” Affront now building to genuine anger. “We’ve pussyfooted around this long enough. If there is even the slightest suspicion that this woman Elith might have given aid or comfort to our enemies, sorcerous or otherwise—then I want her put to the question.”

Archeth’s flesh chilled.

“That won’t be necessary, my lord,” she said rapidly.

“Oh, won’t it?” Jhiral leaned bodily out at her from the throne, voice an inch off shouting. It was the most aggressive stance he’d taken all evening, the confrontation with Pashla Menkarak included. “How refreshing that you’re suddenly so certain of something. Perhaps you could explain to us, in this mess of mythological mumbo-jumbo and conjecture you’ve cooked up, how you can be so bloody sure of that?”

Seconds ticked away; she could almost hear the clockwork of their passing. Behind her eyes, the seared memory spread itself, of interrogations she’d been required to attend in the past. She forced herself not to swallow.

“I have gained this woman’s trust,” she said truthfully. “In the days since we found her, her madness has begun to recede. She talks to me freely, not always making sense, but that is improving. I don’t believe any degree of inflicted pain will help the process—if anything, it will simply thrust her back into her delusions. I need more time, my lord. But given that time, I am wholly confident I will discover everything of value that she can tell us.”

More quiet. But she no longer heard the clockwork in it. Jhiral still looked skeptical, but in a mollified sort of way.

“Rakan?” he asked.

Archeth’s gaze leapt to the Throne Eternal’s face. She should have known better—there was nothing to hang on to in that impassive face. Faileh Rakan considered for a moment, but the only indication that there was anything going on behind the narrow features was a slight distance in the normally attentive eyes.

“The woman is talking,” he said finally. “The Lady kir-Archeth does appear to have won her trust.”

Yes, you fucking beauty, Rakan. Archeth could have kissed the Throne Eternal captain’s impassive face for him. Could have punched the air above her head and whooped.

She held it down and watched her Emperor.

Jhiral saw her watching. He made a tired gesture.

“Oh, very well. But I want regular reports, Archeth. With something substantial in them.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Rakan, who did you say you’d left in charge at Khangset?”

“Sergeant Adrash, majesty. He’s a good man, northern campaign veteran. I detailed two-thirds of the detachment to stay behind with him, and he has the remains of the marine garrison to work with as well. They’re shaken up, but he’ll whip them back into shape fast enough.”

“How many men does that give him?”

“About a hundred and fifty, all told. Enough to put a cordon around the town, make sure word doesn’t get out about the raid until we want it to. We’ve posted penalty warnings about seditious talk and unlicensed meetings, built a gallows in the main square, and set a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Should have the place back on its feet inside a couple of weeks.”

“Good. That sounds like solid progress at least.” A sour glance at Archeth. “Can I take it we’ll be hearing some more about these dwenda?”

“I will begin the research immediately, my lord.”

“Fine. Let’s just hope the Helmsmen are feeling a little more cooperative than usual, eh?”

The same worry had been dragging at her ever since they left Khangset. She forced it down and manufactured a confidence of tone she didn’t feel.

“This raid represents a substantial assault on the realm, my lord. I believe that with those parameters, the Helmsmen will revert to wartime attitudes.” Yeah, Archidi—those we can still consider sane, that is. “I expect fairly rapid progress.”

“Rapid progress?” A raised eyebrow. “Well, I shall hold you to that, Archeth. As you say, this is an assault on the realm, and at a time when relations with our neighbors in the north are fragile, to say the least. We cannot appear weak. I will not permit a repetition of what has happened at Khangset.”

Archeth thought of the damage to the Kiriath harbor defenses, and wondered sardonically how Jhiral planned to exercise that particular point of imperial will if the raiders returned.

“No, my lord,” she intoned.

If, for example, the dwenda sailed up the river to Yhelteth, came ashore, and stalked the streets of the city as they apparently had at Khangset, phantasmal and to all appearances impervious to any harm human force could achieve. If they put to flight or slaughtered all these fucking humans, and then came like vengeful demons to the gates of the palace, and would not be kept out.

What would happen to Jhiral Khimran, Emperor of All Lands then?

Her own sudden ambivalence mugged her, jumped in her veins and belly like a fresh intake of krin. Unnerved, struggling with the jagged new thoughts, she forced recall of the shattered rib cage of a child, buried beneath charred and fallen timbers. Forced herself to remember that these fucking humans had once included her own mother.

It helped—but not as much as it should have.