“I’m airsick.” He made a few attempts at a retching sound. Misol just laughed.
“You can’t possibly expect me to believe that.”
“Food poisoning?”
“Naw.”
“Moral quandary heavy enough to progress to physical illness?”
“Not a chance.”
Figured. Detan grunted as he pushed himself to his feet, taking a moment that he told himself wasn’t stalling to rub the ache from his knees. That ache was getting more and more frequent, lately. Probably his desire to stay far away from Hond Steading locking up his body, while the ship carried him steadily onward. Though he’d hoped to stay hidden, he hadn’t relied on the fact. He’d dressed himself in the soot-grey finery that Thratia had provided him with, the ochre-orange trim hinting at a threat he didn’t feel himself capable of.
Ever since Aella’d taken his injections away, he’d spent half of every night sweating himself cold, struggling to rein in his sense so he wasn’t so keenly aware of the great balloons of selium transporting the Dread Wind through the skies. Cursed child had just laughed at him when he told her he was on the verge of blowing them all to bits.
Misol wasn’t alone. Aella smiled at him as he opened the door, all sweet politeness, and swept into a slight bow. Misol gave him the once-over he now knew was her way of checking for weapons. Funny she should be worried about him packing a knife. He couldn’t wield a knife against anything bigger than a steak, and he had all that lovely selium above his head to use if he really felt like sticking it to them all.
Probably it was a force of habit for her. Just like giving her a once over – checking for loose pockets, poorly fastened jewelry, and anything likely to steal – was a habit of his own.
“You are required,” Aella said the words like she’d been practicing them.
“Thratia giving you etiquette lessons, little squirt?”
A scowl crossed her face – fleeting, but definitely there – and he allowed himself a brief smirk. Wasn’t often he was able to get the wind up that girl.
“We are entering a tenuous, diplomatic arena. Please try to remember that you were born for just these types of negotiations, despite your more recent… adventures.” Her smile returned, flashing with real pleasure so that he knew she was about to say something truly nasty. “We’d hate to have to resort to violence because you flubbed the diplomacy.”
“Have I ever told you what a charmer you are?”
She rolled her eyes and turned her back on him. The girl had ditched the white coat at Thratia’s request, but Detan knew well enough that a viper could be painted as plain as a garden snake, and its fangs were still loaded with venom.
They escorted him toward the prow of the ship. Every step he took, his legs felt heavier, until he was just a single step away from Thratia and he could have sworn his boots were made of lead.
He knew what he’d see at that prow, and he didn’t want it. Didn’t want the city of his birth burned into his mind’s eye from this angle, didn’t want to go to sleep at night seeing it from the sky, knowing he was about to descend upon it to work out the final throes of his battle with Thratia.
For that’s what this was, he realized, as he stood a step behind her, letting her long, straight back fill his vision so that he did not have to look upon the city she eclipsed so fully. From the second he set foot in Aransa, he’d loathed her and goaded her. He’d known so little about her then, only the rumor of her exile, her reputation for viciousness. Those two things were all the excuse he’d needed to justify taking her flagship, the Larkspur, out from under her nose.
Had it really been just the prize of the ship that’d lured him, then? He doubted that truth now. He’d seen her, a proud and impervious woman, kicked out of the same empire that’d turned against him – that’d split his flesh for curiosity’s sake – and loathed her for the freedoms she claimed for herself.
He’d been jealous of her, and wanted to take something from her. And in doing so he’d kicked a hornet’s nest, roused the specter of the whitecoats to chase him again and stumbled into the horror of Thratia’s bargains – deviants for weapons, though she claimed her reasons were worth that tribute.
He could not reconcile her. He hated her, even as he admired her, and knew he must defeat her here in Hond Steading even as, deeply, secretly, he knew that her winning here might not be the worst thing to happen to his city. Valathea taking full control – that would be the real pitfire. And Thratia’s attention was no doubt drawing the empire back to Hond Steading like moths to a flame.
He imagined pushing her over the prow. Imagined her breaking, fragile as glass, against the bedrock of his homeland. Imagined her entwined with him, too, taking control of his body and his life as the new Dame of Hond Steading by marriage and – and… And some cowardly part of him welcomed that; thought, wouldn’t it be easier, to let this woman who was so sure of herself make all the hard choices? Wouldn’t it be so much cleaner, to let her take control and do as she claims – kick the Valatheans out of the Scorched? He could sympathize with that sentiment. Wanted it, desperately.
But he knew how she’d go about it. Knew she’d trade innocents for the future betterment of many, knew the way she gambled, knew the way she played her hands. And at the heart of everything she did there was blood, and pain, and hadn’t he seen Aransa? Quieter than it’d ever been, people taking to the streets only to go where they absolutely must, and then as quickly as possible.
Thratia’s reign was one of control, of fear and blood, and bargains he could never bring himself to make.
He did not know if he could do better than her. But he had to try.
She turned. Though he’d been standing perfectly still, he felt frozen all the same. Cursed woman had a way of looking at him that made him feel as if she’d stripped every thought he’d ever had bare and laid it out under a microscope for the sort of cold examination she was capable of in all things.
That stare was momentary, though. She smiled, and though he knew the expression was faked, that was the danger of Thratia – how natural it seemed, how gentle and kind and impromptu. If he had not been staring at her in the moment when she’d speared him with that first glance, he’d think she was genuinely delighted to see him. Thratia was a woman of bargains, even in her own mind. And now she’d decided to trade on being gentle with him. That chilled him more than her cruelty.
“Stand with me,” she said, and extended her hand to him. He could never look upon that hand without imagining Bel’s blood on it, but this was just one more move on the board toward his victory, and his city’s freedom. He took her hand, and ignored the deep-seated cold of her flesh.
“The Dread Wind made good time,” he said, for he’d long considered small talk the easiest way to pry away at a person’s true thoughts.
“It was made for this day.”
And many more to come, no doubt. He held no illusions that Thratia would be done with the Scorched after she took Hond Steading. She could call the hulking thing her flagship, but it was first and foremost a warship built to last.
She drew him forward. He forced himself to look.
Hond Steading, from above. He loved this view. Had loved it all his life. And for just a moment, he shoved aside the reality of his arrival. Ignored Thratia’s cold hand, fingers folded like spider’s legs around his.
Here was the bedrock of his birth. The great valley of the city, sprawled between the trailing arms of five massive firemounts. Larger and more vibrant than any other city the Scorched had to offer, Hond Steading drew its water from a delta to the north, aqueducts the likes of which hadn’t even been seen in Valathea transporting that precious fluid south to support the citizenry. Three firemounts bounded the south of the city, the two larger loomed to the northern edge. Each bristled with metal fittings, all five mines active as the sensitives of Hond Steading drew forth its surplus of selium. Some of the richer districts had taken to building with sel, as was the fashion in Valathea. Great platforms held by thick guy wires added extra levels to the estates of the wealthy, many lush with gardens.