Promise of Blood

Adamat stifled a smile and realized the words had banished some of his nervousness. He was up here on the roof of the world, a five-day journey from Adopest. He was at a Mountainwatch. Everyone knew the Mountainwatch was filled with convicts and cutthroats and the very hardest men in the Nine. They tended the high passes, manned the mines and the timber yards, and they were Adro’s first defense against a foreign invasion. Adamat trusted his country with the Mountainwatch far more than he trusted them with his life.

“What’s a Privileged doin’ out here anyway?” SouSmith finished loading his pistols and stuck them in his belt. He leaned against one of the fixed guns that faced toward Kez.

“Exiled.” Adamat watched his breath come out white.

“What for?”

“Officially? There was a shift in power within the royal cabal, and Borbador was on the wrong side. Unofficially, rumor has it he slept with Privileged Khen’s favorite concubine.”

SouSmith grunted a laugh. “And he kept his skin?”

“Of course I did.”

The Privileged approached them from the town within the bastion. He was far enough away that he shouldn’t have heard any of that. He wore a long reindeer-skin jacket that went to his knees, and boots, pants, and a hat to match. He was shorter than Adamat had expected. Under a ruddy beard, loose skin hung from what once had been jowls. The Mountainwatch was kind to no one—not even a Privileged.

The Privileged stopped a few feet from them. His hands were tucked into his sleeves, but Adamat thought he caught sight of the white of Privileged’s gloves.

“It wasn’t hard, really,” the Privileged said. “I told Magus Khen that my best friend would come after him if he killed me.”

“And who’s that?”

“Taniel Two-Shot. I’m Privileged Borbador. Call me Bo.”

Adamat extended a hand. Bo took it in his gloved hand with surprising strength. “Inspector Adamat. This is my associate, SouSmith.”

Bo squinted at SouSmith. “The boxer?”

“That’s right,” SouSmith said, surprised.

“Used to go see you fight when I was a kid,” Bo said. “Taniel and I would sneak off and watch you. He lost a lot of money betting against you.”

“And you?”

“Made me wealthy—for a kid.”

Adamat examined the man. He knew little about this Privileged beyond city rumor. It was never wise to know too much about any members of the royal cabal. “Seems strange, a Privileged and a powder mage being friends.”

“Met long before either of us knew what we were,” Bo said. “I was an orphan when Taniel befriended me. Tamas let me live in the basement. Even paid for a governess. Said that if Taniel was going to have friends, they’d be educated. It was a shock to all of us when the magus seekers dowsed me out. I haven’t seen Taniel since he went to Fatrasta.”

“Aren’t Privileged allergic to powder?”

“My eyes puff up whenever I’m around him,” Bo acknowledged. “Always wondered about that as a kid. So. What brings a gentleman like you to the Mountainwatch? You don’t look like Tamas’s assassins.”

“We’re not assassins,” Adamat said quickly. “Though I don’t blame you for wondering. I am working for Field Marshal Tamas. I doubt you’d still be alive if he wanted you otherwise.”

Bo swayed backward on his feet. “He doesn’t know,” he murmured.

“Doesn’t know what?”

“Nothing. Why did you seek me out?” His conversational tone disappeared, his smile fading.

“What is Kresimir’s Promise?”

Bo watched him for a few moments. “You’re serious?”

“Quite.”

“Tamas sent you all the way up here to ask me that?”

“I came on my own,” Adamat said. “But I’m searching for the answer on behalf of Field Marshal Tamas.” Half disbelief, half mockery, Bo’s reaction stirred some disquiet in him.

It seemed as if relief washed over Bo. He cracked a smile, then began to chuckle. “Let me guess,” he said. “When Tamas slaughtered the royal cabal, their dying words were something along the lines of ‘Don’t break Kresimir’s Promise’?”

Adamat gritted his teeth. This Privileged was beginning to irk him. He seemed to find great mirth in knowing what Adamat did not. “Yes,” he said. “You laugh at the dying words of sorcerers? Was it some kind of morbid joke? A spell woven to baffle anyone who killed them?”

Bo’s chuckle tapered off. “Not at all. Those Privileged were in deadly earnest. A spell can be woven, a ward of sorts, that will speak itself upon a sorcerer’s death. A joke? No. That’s the kind of thing I might do. But not those men. They believed every bit of it.”

“And what does it mean?”

“Kresimir’s Promise.” Bo rolled the words around in his mouth like a bite of something sour. “Legend has it when Kresimir formed the Nine, he chose nine kings to govern the nations he’d created. To each king he assigned a royal cabal of sorcerers to protect and advise him. He called them the Privileged. The kings, seeing that the Privileged were men of great power, told Kresimir that they were worried that the royal cabals might turn against them and take power for themselves. So Kresimir gave them a promise.