The Dame leaned back in her chair, regarding Ripka and Enard in a silence so stretched Ripka had to resist an urge to fidget. At last, the Dame said, “Do you know how I spent my morning?”
“I do not, Dame.”
She gestured vaguely toward a door to the right of her meeting room. “Negotiating. Treating. Hammering out plans with my empress. Or a representative of her, at any rate.” She sighed. “Her highness is unfortunately unable to travel, and her surrogate leaves much to be desired, in my opinion. Do you know her? Ranalae Lasson?”
Ripka shook her head.
“Ah. Then you don’t quite understand.” Her expression twisted, but she was quick to school it into indifference. “Ranalae. I knew her father, a kind man, but she is no child of his. She has joined the Bone Tower, and spearheads the whitecoats. Yes, I see your horror. I would not treat with them, were there any other option. Rumor has reached me from Valathea in regard to their methods, and I know Detan was in their vicious care, tricked away from me. I should have never let him go, but… They said they could cure him. I should have known better.”
She pulled herself up, rolled her shoulders as if shaking off a great weight. “Regardless, Ranalae is who my empress sent, and while she inquired about Detan’s health she otherwise left the subject alone, she knows it is thin ground on which to tread. She comes offering me troops, fortifications. And if Thratia’s insurgency has taken root in my city, as you claim, then I need Valathea’s aid more than ever.”
Ripka swallowed around a dry throat. “At what cost?”
“Ah.” The Dame smiled. “I knew you were no fool. They ask I rescind Hond Steading’s independent status. That we become a vassal of Valathea in whole, turned over to their rule and their law.” She waved a hand. “No more forums. No more watchers hired by my choosing. It’d mean Fleetmen taking over the streets, while the power transitioned. And, upon my death, they’d appoint a warden of their choosing. Certainly they would allow the illusion of a vote, but the matter would be settled long ahead of time. The Hondings would no longer own this land, we would lease it. And Detan would never be able to return to his home without fear of capture by those–” She cleared her throat. “By his enemies.”
Ripka’s stomach soured. “You would do this?”
“Valathea’s hand on Hond Steading’s tiller, or Thratia’s. I am honestly not convinced that either is the better option. Now I lean toward Valathea, as they at least I know well. The Honding family was once ruled by that governance, and I trust my empress, if not her envoys. We would only go back to how things were in the early days of the city’s settlement. I do not think the upheaval would be so great.”
“How long until the Valathean troops arrive?”
“Two weeks, perhaps. The monsoons may hold them back, but they were already prepared to fly.”
“And when must you give your answer?”
“My dear, I have already given it.”
Ripka clasped her hands behind her back so that the Dame could not see her tighten her fists. “They would have to pass the message. Even with signal flags and the finest runners it would be a while before the troops received orders to move. Thratia is already on her way, or so I surmise. She may be here before them.”
“And if she is, Valathea will be the hammer that smashes them against the anvil of our city. But I have faith that Thratia is not completely mad. She will see reason, I hope, and realize her defeat has already been made.”
“And in the meantime, do I have your permission to root out Thratia’s network here in the city?”
She flicked her fingers, as if brushing the idea away. “If it entertains you, yes. I know you are a woman of action. And the information will be very useful to Valathea, once they arrive.”
Ripka tucked her head in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Dame.”
The Dame dismissed them by turning to a nearby attendant. Back in the hall, heart pounding in her throat, Ripka made a sharp right and angled for the stairs that led up to the smaller airship docks. Enard jogged at her heels, and though her breath came hot and her legs burned from the speed at which she took the stairs, she did not slow down. Not even for a moment.
“Where are we going?” Enard asked, a little breathless.
“To find Tibal. I find myself in sudden need of an airship.”
“What for?”
“I’m going to stop that messenger.”
Chapter Thirteen
With every step she took up the long tower stairs, Ripka cursed Tibal for picking a room so high above all the others. Enard’s steady panting at her heels cheered her, for at least she wasn’t the only one struggling with the climb.
“Why he chose the top of this hideous tower…” she muttered.
“I believe he did not wish to be bothered.”
She snorted. “Should have known better. Now I’m just going to be annoyed when I finally get to him.”
“I would not wish to be on the other side of your ire.”
The simple admiration in his tone both warmed her and sent a thread of nervousness throughout her. She had no time to think of such things – to explore the fine edges of her affections. The task she had set herself, saving this doomed city from both Thratia and Valathea, securing its independence as a beacon in the Scorched, was too great. The fall of Aransa, her failure to protect those people, shadowed every crevice of her thoughts. To succeed here, to save Hond Steading, would do more than fulfill a duty. It would return to her a piece of herself.
She reached the top of the tower, damp with sweat, and took a moment to lean over her knees and catch her breath.
The door to Tibal’s suite of rooms was shut, a foreboding silence leaking out all around it. The harsh rasp of her breath and the steady thump of her heart were the only sounds, so high up in the squared-off tower of the Honding family palace. Dame Honding had called this tower the crow’s nest, for its height and the airship moorings along its top. Ripka wondered just how crow-like Tibal had become in his self-imposed isolation.
When her breath was settled, she straightened her back and knocked. Nothing.
“Tibal,” she called, “it’s Ripka and Enard. Open up.”
A soft scraping – boot leather against stone? – and a rustling of cloth. She held her breath, swallowing impatience. Every moment that ticked away she imagined that messenger flying away from Hond Steading, coming closer to completing his task and delivering the future of this once independent city-state into the hands of Valathea for good.
The door jerked open. Tibal was silhouetted in bright sunlight, his dusty hair gone ragged and twisted out in all directions. Pale dust limned the cracks in his dark hands, his cheeks, and the wrench hanging from his fingers seemed as if it had grown there, forever a part of him. A wildness whispered in the corners of his eyes, a glint of something feral – something that had rejected human company.
The light shifted under the stroke of a wooly cloud, and the harsh lines of him were smoothed away, that animalistic gleam faded to dust. He was just Tibal again. Tired, and grieving, but Tibal all the same.
“Captain,” he said real slow, dragging his gaze over the two winded friends that stood in his doorway.
“I hate to bother you, but I need use of the flier. Quickly.”
A sour twitch took up residence at the corner of his lips. He glanced down at the wrench in his hand, turned it over so the harsh sunlight falling into the room from behind painted sunsets in the tool’s oil.
“She’s not ready.”
In that moment, she knew he was talking about himself. Dancing around the gnawing pain in his chest, using the little flier as a shield between him and the world he’d shunned. She took a breath, knowing that what she had to do was unkind, but that she had to do it all the same.