“You might want to change that,” said Naomi.
“Jova is a true Great Soul,” said Scorio. “She’s driven to grow in power. It’s her only guiding star. Remember when you told me, way back during our first training, Naomi, how Great Souls only ascend as far as their ambition allows? How that tension, that failure to accept the world as it is and their place in it, spurs their Hearts to grow?”
“No, Scorio, I’ve completely forgotten.”
Scorio ignored her. “Jova is profoundly dissatisfied with everyone and everything. And after Daemon and her lost two years working with Manticore, she’s even angry at herself. Nothing’s going to stop her from rising to the top.”
“She’s a Dread Blaze now,” said Lianshi.
“She is?” Naomi clapped her hand to her brow. “But of course.”
“Do you know what her new power is?” asked Scorio.
“Not precisely. She doesn’t talk about it, obviously, but I heard it’s a defensive power. Something that triggers when she’s attacked in a certain way.”
“Interesting.” Scorio rubbed at his face. “Well, who wanted to speak with me?”
“The usual suspects,” said Lianshi, turning to the back of her book. “But the most important one is Plassus himself. I get the impression Aezryna and Moira want to prepare you for that conversation, but…”
“I think I’ll pass on that.” Scorio stood. “I’ll go now.”
“Now?” Naomi sounded incredulous. “You’re exhausted. You’ve barely slept. He can wait.”
“No, I don’t think he can.” Scorio lobbed his leather pack over to her. “Watch that for me. Whatever grace I won from Plassus will evaporate soon if I keep him waiting. If I’m not back in an hour, consider me dead and move on without me. It’s a big hell out there. I want you to live, to love again, to try and make something of this life even if it doesn’t include me, no matter how impossible that might feel at first. Yeah?”
“You’re the absolute worst,” said Naomi.
Scorio winked at her. “I know. Back in a few.”
Chapter 29
Plassus was dining alone. Kinch showed Scorio into the small chamber, and the Charnel Duke didn’t pause his energetic chewing, but gestured to the chair across the table from him.
The rich smell of perfectly grilled meat filled the room and flooded Scorio’s mouth with spit. The Charnel Duke was working his way through a half-dozen dishes, some laden with obscure vegetables, others with rare cuts. A dusty bottle of wine stood to one side, the man’s glass half-filled.
“Here,” said Plassus around his mouthful of food. “Drink.” And he filled the other glass.
Scorio raised it in a silent toast, then sipped. The vintage was rich, full, and unlike anything he’d ever tasted.
“Bravurn’s doing all he can to seduce me,” grinned Plassus, jaws still working. He swallowed, washed it down with the rest of his wine, and refilled his glass. “The finest imports from Bastion all the way to the Silver Unfathom. As if I’ll drop my breeches and bend over because he’s served me seared grillintine from the Mercury Basin.”
“It’s better than the fungus soup they’re serving the rest of us.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Plassus seemed delighted. “The perks of being a bloody Charnel Duke. No more slop and gruel. Respect from one and all, with everybody from Blood Barons down lining up to kiss your boot and tell you how magnificent you are.” Plassus cut a fresh chunk from his steak but paused, the fork half-raised to his mouth. “Well. Respect from nearly everyone.”
Scorio held the man’s stare but made no response.
Plassus dropped the cutlery with a clang onto the plate and leaned back. “What am I to do with you, hmm? I thought a nice and leisurely execution would do the trick, but no. That turned out to be a mistake. Because somehow - somehow - you managed to coerce the blazeborn queen into firing up the caldera and near made me piss myself. Canny, that was, screaming the True Fiend’s name. That was your plan, then, all along?”
“No. Queen Xandera only offered to help after the duel was set.”
“Why?”
Scorio didn’t answer at once. He sipped the wine, considered the question. “I’m still not completely sure.” Thought of her egg, safely swaddled in his pack. The queen it contained, Xandera herself. “She was looking for a way out. A way to save herself and her people. She had no other options, so she gambled on me. An exchange, I suppose. She’d help me, and then I’d help her.”
Plassus studied him, gaze canny, probing. “Clearly there’s much that you’re not telling, because for the life of me I can’t imagine why she’d help a mealy-mouthed Dread Blaze like you. Not if it meant her death. From where I’m standing, it was an absolutely terrible wager.”
“It was a long shot,” agreed Scorio. “Maybe one day it will make more sense.”
“But not today. Well. Your nerve continues to impress me.” Plassus let out a bark of laughter and took up his wine. “You’re a rarity, Scorio. Your rise to Dread Blaze is impressive, aye, but not unprecedented; there are others who’ve done it as fast, if not faster. But then there’s your perfect Heart and your Gold-tempered body. Remarkable. Add in your absurd penchant for surviving threats that should have crushed you like a bug, and you go beyond remarkable to fascinating.” Plassus sipped from his wine. “Tell me why I spared your life.”
This was the crux of it. A test.
“I’m too humble to say it out loud.”
“Ha!” Plassus grinned wolfishly. “Are you now? Then I’ll say it. You showed me what real tenacity looks like. What I once had. Was that your plan all along? To shame me, to inspire me to step back on the road to greatness?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Scorio set the glass down carefully. “Your plan to sacrifice thousands to the Blood Ox to shame the Imperators into action infuriated me. Everybody else was too busy playing at politics. I decided to speak my mind.”
“That you did, that you did. And had the blazeborn queen not acted when she did, had I not lost my nerve, had you not somehow managed to reach out and actually lay a claw upon me, well.” His grin turned feral. “You’d not be here now.”
“But I am. Why?”
“Why indeed.” Plassus frowned, sipped at his wine. “I’m surrounded by little dogs, Scorio. Tiny, energetic dogs, the kind whose eyes are covered in their own fur and who yap endlessly in both excitement and terror. Yap yap yap. All of them leaping about my knees, begging for attention. Do this, do that, telling me what my best interests are, trying to lead me by the nose as if I were a prized pig.” Plassus’ expression soured. “All of them convinced that they’re smarter than they really are.”
“Fortunately that’s not one of my failings,” said Scorio with a grim smile.
“Aye, you’re refreshingly direct. So here you are. It would take a blind idiot to not recognize the winds at your back. And you’ve shamed me into recalling myself. These past few years, toiling in the Blood Ox’s shadow, losing good people, losing ground, losing the trust of my betters, the respect of my followers…”
He trailed off and stared into the middle distance, lips pursed.
Scorio waited.
Plassus finally sighed. “Fuck me, I’ve become a garrulous old man. I’m going to work with Aezryna and Charoth. I won’t hand over my forces like they want - Broic would tear my balls off if I did - but I’ll coordinate with them, agree to their plans. If.”
“If?”
“If you agree to join my army. Oh, I know you’d rather be part of the glorious strike force that’s making for LastRock, but too fucking bad. You’ve earned my attention, and now I want you to take me up on my original offer. Fight for me on the Bone Plains, and I’ll do my part.”
“And if I refuse? You’d actually refuse to fight?”
“Of course not, because you’re not going to bloody refuse.” Plassus’ gaze sharpened, his presence manifesting in the room till the air itself became oppressive. “Don’t make the mistake of actually thinking you have a choice here. You’ll come fight for me, not forever, and I’ve no need of a stupid Heart Oath. You’ll just need to fight with my forces, do your part out in the war fields, and once Jova claims her old allegiances and the Blood Ox is robbed of his fiends, you’ll be free to do as you desire.”