Taniel returned slowly to his sleeping roll. There was a part of him that wanted to rush to her, take her in his arms and comfort her, but he knew that would make things more… complicated. They were done and nothing would change that. He had Ka-poel still. If she was still alive.
She thinks I’m lying. The thought hit him like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. She thinks Ka-poel and I have been lovers for these last two years. “Vlora,” he said. The name seemed foreign on his lips, as he’d refused to say it for so many months. “Me and Ka-poel. It’s just been recently, it…” He trailed off. “I just need to get her back.”
“We’ll get her back,” Vlora said.
Was it her way of apology? Some kind of self-sacrifice? “Why?” He had to know.
“Because she still loves you, you daft tit.” Gavril’s voice came out of the darkness to Taniel’s left, and Taniel realized it had been his laugh he heard earlier. Taniel surged to his feet, reaching for his sword, swearing to cut the big man in two.
Vlora was faster. She leapt into the darkness and dragged Gavril back to the fire, throwing him to the ground like a child, though he was twice her size. Her jaw was set in anger.
Gavril squirmed on the ground, and it took a moment to realize that he was laughing so hard that tears streamed down his face. Vlora planted a boot in Gavril’s ribs, eliciting a single “Oof” and then another chorus of laughs. “What’s so funny, you fat bastard?” She grabbed him by the hair, lifting him to his knees, and his laughter suddenly ceased. A dangerous glint entered his eyes.
“Vlora…” Taniel stepped forward, ready to throw himself between them.
“You like putting your nose in someone else’s business, do you?” Vlora said in Gavril’s ear. “Well, how’s this: Taniel, this hairy ass is your uncle. He didn’t tell you on South Pike because he was too ashamed of being the Mountainwatch drunk, and he doesn’t tell you now because… well, I don’t know.” She kicked Gavril in the small of the back and stormed into the darkness.
Gavril caught himself over the small fire and deftly rolled to his feet. He wiped the tears of laughter from the corner of his eyes and watched Vlora go, then turned to Taniel. Catching Taniel’s gaze, he gave a sheepish grin and held out his flask. “Drink?”
“My bloody uncle?” Taniel asked.
Gavril bowed at the waist. “Jakola of Pensbrook, at your service, nephew.”
Chapter 27
Adamat shuddered at the memory of the last time he had been to Skyline Palace. It had been in the middle of the night over six months ago when Field Marshal Tamas summoned him in order to investigate the last words of members of the Adran royal cabal. The gardens of the great palace had been dark and unguarded, and instilled him with a deep sense of unease that flowed through him even now.
Though, he acknowledged to himself, his unease this morning was likely of a different sort.
Lord Claremonte was the late Lord Vetas’s employer. And anyone who employed such a monster would surely be a monster himself. Every fiber of Adamat’s being told him to turn around and run, to return home and lock his door and never take a job in the city again – and bugger Ricard and Tamas and Claremonte and everyone else involved in this deadly dance.
But he’d made a promise to Ricard, so he straightened his jacket and dusted off the brim of his hat.
Most of the gardens had become overgrown, untended over the summer, and dozens of sentries in the colors of the Brudania-Gurla Trading Company were posted about the grounds. Adamat’s carriage traveled up the front drive, past the immense, silver-plated doors and along the front of the palace until they rounded one corner and proceeded to the servants’ entrance.
Adamat emerged from his carriage just as three policemen and the commissioner of police stepped out of theirs. The commissioner tipped her hat to Adamat and then strode up to a rather ordinary set of double doors and rapped twice.
The door opened a crack. Words were exchanged, and then the commissioner headed inside, with her officers on her tail. Adamat followed.
“Keep close,” Adamat said to SouSmith as the big man emerged from the carriage behind him. “I don’t trust Claremonte in the least.” He jogged to catch up with the commissioner. “What the pit is Claremonte doing here?” he asked.
“Running for First Minister,” Commissioner Hewi replied, straight-faced. Hewi – a sharp-eyed, soft-spoken woman with light-brown hair curled tightly beneath a small hat – was wearing a loose-fitting day dress that managed to look both utilitarian and elegant at the same time. She had been appointed by the Iron King not long before his death and had, from the rumors, been one of the first people informed of the coup. Upon hearing that the Iron King’s son was to be executed, her words had famously been, “It’s about damn time.”
“I meant here. In the palace.”
“He’s rented the space from the city,” Hewi said. “Housing his troops and Privileged here.”
“And we just let him rent it?”
“The Reeve agreed to it, from what I hear,” Hewi said. “Better than letting it sit empty. Claremonte’s paying an astronomical fee for use of the building and grounds, and the city needs the money.”
“I’m surprised Tamas didn’t have the place burned down,” Adamat said.
“I’m not. It’s part of our cultural heritage. Over four hundred years old. Many of the walls and ceilings are works of art in and of themselves. I think Tamas knows better than to destroy all that out of spite.”
Adamat conceded to himself that the commissioner had a point. He noted that even the walls of the cavernous kitchens, as they passed through them, were covered in bright murals.
“Still,” Hewi added, “Tamas had most of the art and furniture removed to the national gallery. Some of it was sold to pay off debts, from what I heard. The rest will be put on display for the public. Laudable, I think.”
“Though it would have been far safer to destroy every vestige of the nobility.”
“Right. Seems Tamas is something more than simply pragmatic. Who would have thought?”
They left the kitchens and went up the servants’ stairs to the main floor. Adamat had heard that the passageways behind the palace were a labyrinth all to themselves, but this was his first time experiencing them. They ducked around so many corners, led by one of Claremonte’s servants, that Adamat imagined that men without his Knack could very well get lost. He frequently stopped to urge SouSmith along so that the boxer didn’t get distracted gazing at all the art.
They passed by dozens of rooms, each one seemingly bigger than the last, with more ornate gold-work trim and colorful frescoes. Marble-faced fireplaces took up entire walls in some rooms. Curtains were drawn in most of them, casting the rooms into shadow, and what little furniture was left had been covered in white sheets to keep the dust off.
The servant stepped aside suddenly and gestured to a doorway.
Hewi and her officers went inside. Adamat paused momentarily, wondering if there was any significance to Claremonte’s having them use the servants’ halls and entrances instead of the immense, echoing hallways and full-length doors. Letting them know they were beneath him, perhaps?
Adamat glanced at SouSmith to reassure himself and then went in.
“Welcome, welcome!” Claremonte’s voice bounced off the vaulted ceilings. The room was about thirty feet by forty. Unlike the others they’d passed, this one was decorated entirely in silver-metallic paint on the walls, ornate silver-plated trim. Even the dual fireplaces were a marbling of light and dark gray that matched the walls. On the ceiling was a mural showing some ancient hero making a deal with a two-faced celestial being.