“What happened?” she repeated.
Honey curled her fingers to hide half the scars, head cast down so that her hair fell over her expression. It took her a while, but she found the words eventually.
“I loved to sing. My parents…” Twitch of the lips, as if the word were foreign to her. “I sang for their money.”
She fell quiet again, but Ripka had learned the texture of her silences, and this one meant she was building up the words she wanted to say.
“People wanted to give me money for other things, too.”
Ripka swallowed and squeezed Honey’s hands. Whatever had happened to her as a young woman, Ripka could only guess – and guess well, as during her time in the watch she’d seen some truly horrendous parents – and, in a strange way, she was proud of Honey for learning to sing with her knives. She hoped she could learn to sing without them someday.
A knock sounded on the door, and both women flinched, reaching for weapons they didn’t carry in their nightshifts.
“Who is it?”
“Dame Honding.”
Ripka gave Honey a sly glance and whispered, “I guess we are still under attack.”
Honey smiled. At least she was beginning to catch on to Ripka’s sense of humor.
“Come in.”
The Dame looked surprisingly hale for having suffered a full night of having her palace ripped apart. She glided into the room, servants carrying trays of hot cakes and steaming bright eye berry tea on their hips behind her, ordered the placement of the meals, and then ushered the servants right back out again.
“Good morning to you both. My apothiks tell me you both suffered injuries, but will recover?”
Ripka pressed a hand over her broken ribs and nodded. “Lots of bed rest in our future, but we should pull together quickly. Thank you for the food, and the use of your apothiks.”
“It is, I’m certain, the absolute least I can do.”
The Dame grabbed one of the room’s chairs and turned it around to face them as she sat, her ankles crossed and her skirt lying just so across her lap. Even in distress, she carried herself with dignity, with passion and grace. It was as reflexive to her as reaching for a cutlass was to Ripka.
“My dear, I know things have moved very quickly here as of late, and I have come to offer you an apology. I tried to hide you away from the trouble, to keep you safe, and that was a mistake. I should have listened to you from the very beginning. My nephew tells that Thratia claims the empress is dead, and that he believes her. I find I believe this, too. The empress I knew would never be so crass as to send her people to invade us, skies forbid. My, ah, people, are putting questions to Ranalae to find out the truth of the matter.”
Ripka winced. “I’d rather not know the details of that, Dame. Forgive me, but I’ve had my fill of Valathean politics.”
“Understood. But I hope you will be amenable to politics of a different nature.”
Ripka frowned. “Of what kind?”
“Local, my dear. Captain Lakon’s death leaves a very large hole in our community. I, for one, would be honored if you took up the position.”
Her throat went dry. She’d never dreamed of being a watch-captain again. Never even dreamed she’d be a watcher, or allowed to serve anywhere near them. To have worked with Falston so closely in his final days, to have been welcomed there and honored… That was a treasure. A memory she wanted to keep pure.
And she could never look his men in the eye without hearing his wife’s voice: keep him safe.
“I’m sorry, Dame. You honor me. But I’m sure there are viable candidates in your local watch. I will help you interview and select, if you’d like.”
“I’m sorry to hear you won’t take the job, but I will accept your offer to help in the selection process. Things will be busy, around here, for a time. What will you do afterward?”
Now there was a question she hadn’t dared to think of. Losing Enard… Her throat knotted. She glanced to Honey, to the open admiration there, and sighed. There was one task she’d promised herself, and Enard too. One thing she had left to do.
“I’d like to return to the Remnant Isle prison. The warden there is corrupt as a sewer line, and I promised myself I’d clear him out and set things right just as soon as I could.”
“You are a strange woman, Ripka Leshe, but I see your reasoning. If I can help in any way – funds, transport, men-at-arms, you have only to ask.”
“Thank you, Dame.”
She stood in one fluid movement and stepped to the door.
“Dame?”
She paused, fingers on the handle.
“Yes, Miss Leshe?”
“Go easy on Detan, won’t you?”
She smiled, small and slow and genuine. “I’ll do my best.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Thratia’s fleet had been spotted that morning, cresting the sandy dunes which hemmed in Aransa. Just a mark out, as the airship flies, the people were saying, and the streets of Aransa were abuzz with the return of their tyrant lord. The fleet bobbed low in the sky, struggling against heavy winds due to a lack of selium to vent. Pelkaia could tell. She had a clear view from the window of Thratia’s bedroom.
More than a mark, probably, the way they were fighting that wind. But she could wait. She’d waited years. Her body wouldn’t fail her in the next few moments.
She peeled off the servant’s face she wore to sneak her way into Thratia’s compound, watching her natural face come into view in Thratia’s vanity mirror. Sallowness made her skin yellow-pale, deep lines traced every edge of her features. She was old. So very old. And it was beginning to show. She tucked the selium into a small bladder, and hid it away in her pocket on instinct. Everything was ready. She had only to wait.
The knife at her back was almost as old as she was, a Catari blade of simple make. There was no real ceremony in what she’d come here to do. No real passion, either. It was something she’d been driving toward since they day they’d told her her son, her sweet Kel, had gone to the skies.
She took no pleasure in what was to come, aside from a job well done.
One mark. Two. Thratia must be in the city now, tying up her affairs before returning to her home. It was late. She’d sleep soon. Even monsters needed their rest. Pelkaia most of all, these days.
Pelkaia tucked herself into a shadow between the wardrobe edge and wall, and waited.
Eventually, the door swung open. She’d lost track of time, of course, but days and marks and months and years were meaning less and less to her. It was dark, and Thratia was here, and she was yawning and stripping her boots off and going through the whole night-routine Detan had told Pelkaia she did, every night, step by step.
Such a methodical woman. You had to be methodical to be a murderer. Pelkaia knew that, too.
Thratia sat at her vanity, twisted off the top of her scar cream, and slathered the balm against her cheek – against the mark Detan had left her, so long ago that the memory was growing hazy. But most memories were hazy, now. Pelkaia knew only two things: what she must do, and what would come after.
Thratia stretched out in her bed, wriggling her muscles, settling into the covers. She left a light burning, as she always did, fearful of being surprised in the dark.