Promise of Blood

“Wait!” He hurried to her side and opened the door. He tried to avoid looking at what was left of Gothen as he passed it.

There were a dozen soldiers within sight. Their rifles were bayoneted and aimed.

“Stand down,” Taniel said. They stared at him. “Stand down, damn it, or we’re all dead men!”

Rifles slowly lowered. Rozalia walked down the steps as if she were a queen with an honor guard. She passed them all and headed toward the front gate of the university. She paused twenty or thirty feet from Taniel and turned back toward him. “Beware Julene,” she said before continuing on.

It was at least an hour later when Taniel caught sight of Julene heading toward him across the quad. This was a different quad, undisturbed, in a quiet corner of the campus. Ka-poel sat cross-legged beside him. He rested with his head against the wall, his hand on his sketchbook. He’d begun drawing Gothen. The man had been brave, and mercenary or not, he deserved to be remembered by someone. Taniel’s head hurt. His body hurt. And the person coming toward him shouldn’t be alive.

Julene looked like she’s been trampled by a herd of warhorses. Her clothing was burned and torn, indecent parts of her bared to the world, though she didn’t seem to care a wit. She strode up to Taniel and paused above him, hands on her hips.

“Where is Gothen?”

“Melted.”

She blanched at this, but recovered quickly enough. “Captain Ajucare said you let her go.”

Taniel nodded. “She’s leaving the country.”

Julene bent over, her face not a hand’s distance from Taniel’s.

“You let that bitch go!” She raised one gloved hand.

Taniel didn’t even remember drawing his pistol. One second his hands were in his lap, folded, the next he held a pistol, the end of the barrel pressing into the soft spot where Julene’s jaw and neck met. Her eyes went wide.

“Go away,” he said.

Chapter 14

The Lighthouse of Gostaun had been dated by most historians back to the Time of Kresimir. Some claimed that it was older still, and Tamas wouldn’t have been surprised. It was certainly the oldest building in Adopest. The stone was carved by the wind, its granite blocks pitted and scored by centuries of exposure to the elements, mercilessly whipped by every type of foul weather to come off the Adsea.

Tamas stood on the balcony of the lantern room, his hands clutching the stone railing. Something was wrong. The royalists were scattered, the granaries opened to the public. Already they had begun reconstruction efforts in the city, employing thousands to clear rubble from the streets and rebuild tenements. He should be concentrating completely on the approaching Kez ambassadors, yet he could not keep from looking to the southwest.

South Pike Mountain smoked. It began as a black sliver on the horizon the day of the earthquake two weeks ago. Since then it had grown tenfold. Great billowing clouds of gray and ebony rose from the mountaintop, spreading as they gained height and blowing off over the Adsea. Historians said that the last time South Pike had erupted had been when Kresimir first set foot upon the holy mountain. They said that all of Kez had been covered in ash, that lava had destroyed hundreds of villages in Adro.

Words like “omen” and “bad tidings” were being spoken by men far too educated to take such things seriously.

He turned away from the distant mountain and looked south. The lighthouse itself was no more than four stories, but it stood on a bluff that put it well above most other buildings in Adopest. A side of the hill had given way during the earthquake, revealing the foundation of the lighthouse but sparing the structure itself. Beneath him, artillery batteries flanked the docks. Tamas didn’t think those cannons had ever been fired. They were mostly for show, a remnant of older traditions, not unlike the Mountainwatch itself. In its long history, the Nine had come close to war countless times, but not since the Bleakening had there been actual bloodshed. Off in the distance a Kez galley floated at anchor, flags flying high.

“Have those batteries tested tomorrow,” Tamas said. “We might have need of them soon.”

“Yes, sir,” Olem said. Olem and Sabon stood at his shoulders, bearing his quiet reflection with patience. A full honor guard waited down on the beach for the Kez delegation. Servants rushed around the beach, making last-minute preparations to a welcoming repast for the visiting dignitaries. Food was brought out, parasols and open tents staked in the sand, liveried men trying to keep them from blowing away with the wind coming in off the Adsea.

Andriya and Vlora were hidden at either end of the beach, eyes sharp for Privileged, rifles loaded. Tamas was taking no chances with this delegation, and the wrenching feeling deep in his gut told him he was right. There were Privileged with them, his third eye had revealed as much—though at this distance it was impossible to sense how many or how strong.