“This is quite the prestigious gathering,” he said.
“Look at him,” Supi Magna snapped. “Sun-darkened like a provincial farmer, hands callused. Hardly the Ossan elite material we’re looking for.”
“We’re not asking him to a ball,” Gregori rumbled in his thick provincial accent. “Come off it. I don’t give a shit about your precious glassworks and side projects. This is important.”
“As important as a guild-family patriarch threatening the Cinders in front of a mob?” Supi demanded.
“More so,” Gregori grunted. “The Cinders need to be put in their place on occasion just like everyone else.”
Demir was taken aback by the exchange but tried to keep it off his face. The Inner Assembly was clearly not of one mind regarding … whatever it was they wanted him for. “Care to fill me in?” he asked.
“And no respect! Look how flippant he is. Look how–”
“Supi,” Aelia said. “Shut up.”
Demir glanced at Aelia, meeting her eyes, wondering if she knew that he knew that she’d ordered his mother killed. Based on her cool, vaguely distracted gaze, she did not. He then let his eyes settle on Sammi Stavri. She was the youngest of the group, though she was in her mid-sixties, and she sat dejected and despondent in her wingback chair, head lolling like she was either drunk or senile. Last he heard, she was neither. Something was going on here that he did not understand.
Before he could push them further, Father Vorcien finally roused himself and cleared his throat. “It’s good to see you again, Demir.”
“And you, Father Vee.”
Father Vorcien snorted. “I apologize for the Cinders, and the hour.” Father Vorcien’s eyes wandered momentarily before returning to Demir. On a man who could bluff a gargoyle, that was the greatest tell that he was distressed. “Just a few hours ago, word arrived from the Copper Hills that the Foreign Legion was soundly defeated by a Grent army led by Devia Kerite.”
Demir rocked back on his heels, his stomach doing a backflip. No wonder the whole group wasn’t lambasting him about the riot. This was far more serious. The Foreign Legion, defeated? That didn’t seem possible. “I thought Kerite and her Drakes were in Purnia butchering natives on behalf of the Nasuud.”
“She was wintering in the Glass Isles,” Aelia spoke up. “We negotiated for the use of her mercenaries against the Grent, but the Grent snatched her out from under us. She didn’t even give us the courtesy of a counteroffer!”
“And we’ve been screaming at each other ever since,” Gregori rumbled. “Who is to blame for that?” He shot a glance to Sammi Stavri.
“Gregori!” Aelia snapped.
“What?” Gregori frowned at Aelia. “We’re talking to Demir Grappo. Even if his mind broke at Holikan he is still Adriana’s son! You think he doesn’t know we bicker? You think he’d fall for our united public front? Bah!”
“Your sensitivity touches me deeply, Gregori,” Demir said. He kept his expression bland, his voice bemused, but inside his thoughts were churning over themselves. There was something deeply comforting about seeing the weakness within this most powerful of cabals, but he did wonder if they had frayed so badly that they were showing it even to him. Of course, an army led by Devia Kerite sitting on their doorstep would fray the nerves of any ruler. Demir had an inkling what this was about now, but … could he really be right?
Gregori grinned at him. “My little brother sends his regards, and I understand my grandniece loves your hotel.”
“Tirana fits right in.”
“I’m glad. She’s very pretty, you know.”
All four other members of the Inner Assembly rolled their eyes, and Father Vorcien sighed heavily before saying, “Now is not the time to marry off your distant relatives, Gregori. Demir, that is not all that happened. On the heels of this news of our defeat, we learned that the entire senior staff of the Foreign Legion has been assassinated; killed at the very moment they were trying to regroup.”
Demir’s throat went dry at this news. He didn’t quite believe it. He definitely knew why they wanted him now, and it was more terrifying than the prospect of the Cinders executing him. “What happened?”
“They were ambushed and murdered by a large team of Grent glassdancers.”
“Shit,” Demir replied.
“Shit is right.” Sammi Stavri suddenly seemed to come alive, her head whipping around so that she could stare bleary-eyed at Demir. “He hasn’t told you the half of it! Two of my little brothers. Two cousins. Two Vorcien cousins, a Magna, and three Dorlani. Of the greatest guild-families, only the Kirkovik came out unscathed.” She shot a look at Gregori, as if blaming him for the fact that her brother hadn’t kept any of Gregori’s family on staff.
That, Demir realized, explained Sammi’s current state. Losing two siblings was a personal and professional blow to a family as powerful as the Stavri. Two cousins just added insult to injury. “My condolences,” Demir said softly. Sammi seemed to shrink into herself, as if physically repulsed by the sympathy of one as young and powerless as Demir. He turned his attention back to Father Vorcien, noting that Supi Magna had ceased glaring and was gazing unhappily into the darkness outside a nearby window. “Why summon me?” Demir asked, though the answer was now obvious.
“Because the Grent just wiped out all the best officers in the capital,” Father Vorcien replied simply. “Everyone else is either stationed in the provinces or gone for the winter holiday. We’ve spent the last two hours digging around for anyone in the city with experience commanding more than a single battalion of soldiers. There are three of you, and frankly the other two have never won a battle.”
“We need the Lightning Prince,” Gregori interjected.
Demir puffed out his cheeks and then slowly exhaled. What a name for a man who’d never suffered a loss and still managed to come out of his only campaign looking bad. He glanced around until he saw a stack of wooden chairs in the far corner of the hall. He walked over, took one off the stack, then dragged it back toward the Inner Assembly. The legs screeched across the stone floor, thumped over rugs, then he deposited it exactly where he’d been standing and sank down into it.
“You all must be really glassdamned desperate,” he said.
“The safety of the capital is at stake,” Aelia replied.
He almost – almost – called her out then and there. How sweet it would have been to see the look on her face when he accused her grandson of killing his mother. But that would have accomplished nothing, and she was right: the capital was in real danger. “And you think I can stop Kerite? Don’t we have a defensive cordon for that? What’s the point of all those massive forts outside the city if not to stop exactly this?”
“Do you know anything about Devia Kerite?” Aelia asked.
“As much as there is to be known,” Demir admitted. “I based my tactics in the Holikan campaign on her own lightning war across Purnia. But she’s never published her letters or memoirs, or so much as given an interview to a newspaper. She’s never disclosed her inner mind to the public in any way – the only career general in modern history to stay so closed off.” He considered what he did know about Kerite and took a guess as to what they would say next. “You don’t think our defensive fortifications will stop her.”
“After what she and the Grent did to the Foreign Legion, I don’t think they’ll even slow her down,” Father Vorcien grated. “Our star forts are outdated and in disrepair, not to mention severely understaffed. They’re not ready for a regular siege, much less an attack by such a skilled commander.”
The news, unfortunately, did not surprise Demir in the slightest. Just another example of Ossan arrogance. “It’s too bad no one rich and powerful within the Assembly could have directed funds to their upkeep.”