The Steel Remains

“Is that what we’re doing here?” Shanta came closer, peering at her face. “You been crying?”

“It’s the smoke.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Well, since you’re foolhardy enough to actually want an explanation for all this, I thought you might like to know Rakan’s boys have found us a survivor. Maybe we could ask her.”

“A survivor? Here?”

“Yes, here. It seems while everyone else was stampeding out into the surrounding countryside, this one was smart enough to find a hiding place and sit tight in it.” Shanta gestured back out to the street. “They’ve got her down by the harbor, they’re trying to feed her. Apparently, she’s been living off beetles and rainwater for the last four days, hasn’t been out of her hidey-hole since the raid. She’s not what you’d call calm right now.”

“Great.” Archeth looked deliberately around the ruined house one more time. The corner of her gaze caught on the child’s crushed rib cage again, as if each upjutting, snapped-off rib was a barb made expressly for that purpose. “So let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“After you, milady.”

Out in the street, some of the pressure seemed to come off. Late-afternoon sunlight slanted down across the piles of rubble; birds sweetened the air with song. Down the hill, the sea was a burnished, glinting fleece to the horizon. The heat of the day was beginning to ebb.

But the ruin stood at her back like a reproach. She felt like an ungracious guest, walking out on mortified hosts.

Shanta came past her, woke her from the moment and broke her free.

“You coming?” he asked.

Halfway down the road to the harbor with him, she remembered.

“So what was all that about back there? Foolhardy enough to actually want an explanation, what’s that supposed to mean?”

Shanta shrugged. “Oh, you know. We’re not a people that cares much about ultimate causes, are we? Show the flag, roll out the levy. Punish someone so we all feel better, doesn’t much matter who. Remember Vanbyr?”

Archeth stopped and stared at him. “I’m not likely to have forgotten it.”

“Well, there you go then.”

“I’m not here to show the flag and look for scapegoats, Mahmal. This is a fact-finding mission.”

“Is that what Jhiral told you?” The naval engineer pulled a face. “You must have caught him on a good day.”

They stood locked to a halt on the ash-smeared street stones, listening to the echo of Shanta’s words on the breeze, searching each other’s faces for the next step. The silence grew rooted between them. The relationship went back, but they didn’t know each other well enough for this.

“I think,” Archeth said finally, quietly, “that perhaps we’d best both concentrate on doing what we were sent here to do, and let our concerns for our Emperor remain a matter for private thought and prayer.”

Shanta’s lined, hawkish face creased into a well-worn court smile.

“Indeed, milady. Indeed. Not a day goes by that Jhiral Khimran does not feature pointedly in my prayers.” A slight but formal bow from the chest up. “As I am sure is the case for you as well.”

He made no mention of what it was he prayed for on his Emperor’s behalf. Archeth, who didn’t pray at all, made an indeterminate noise of assent in her throat.

And they went on down the ashen thoroughfares together, quiet and a little more hurried now, as if the ambiguity in Shanta’s words stalked after them, nose to the ground and a peeled glimpse of teeth revealed.

CHAPTER 9

It was still light when he got up.

Somewhat surprised by the fact, Ringil wandered yawning about the house in search of servants, found some, and ordered a hot bath drawn. Then he went down to the kitchens while he was waiting, scavenged a plate of bread and dried meat, and ate it standing at a window, staring absently through the glass at late-afternoon shadows on the lawn. The kitchen staff bustled about him in steam and shouted commands, carefully ignoring his presence, more or less as if he were some expensive and delicate statue dumped inconveniently in their midst. He looked about for the girl who’d served him tea but didn’t see her. When the bath was ready, he went back upstairs and soaked in it until the water started to cool. Then he toweled off without help, dressed with fastidious care from the new wardrobe Ishil had funded for him, put on the Ravensfriend and a feathered cap, and took himself out for a walk.

The Glades were suffused with dappled amber sunlight and thronged with strollers out enjoying the last of the autumn warmth. For a while he contented himself with drifting among them, ignoring the glances the sword on his back attracted, and letting the last dregs of the krin rinse out in the glow from the declining sun. High in the eastern sky, the edge of the band arched just visible against the blue. Ringil caught himself staring blankly up at it, and out of nowhere he had an idea.

Shalak.