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“Are you stupid—”
“—could have been killed—”
“—sheer recklessness—”
“—don’t care how powerful you think you are, how dare you—”
“Look,” said the man, whose cheeks had gone as white as snow. He had begun to tremble. “I’m happy to discuss this, really, but I’m currently leaking life out three different wounds and I think I may pass out. Would you give me a moment?”
Altan, Qara, and the newcomer did not come out of Altan’s office for the rest of that afternoon. Rin was sent to fetch Enki for medical attention, but was then told by Altan in no uncertain terms to get lost. She milled around the city, bored and unsettled and without orders. She wanted to ask one of the other operatives for some explanation of what had just happened, but Unegen and Baji were gone on a reconnaissance assignment and did not return until dinner.
“Who was that?” Rin asked as soon as they appeared in the mess hall.
“The man of dramatic entrance? He’s Altan’s lieutenant,” said Unegen. He sat down on the bench across from her. He adopted a contemptuous, proud affectation. “The one and only Chaghan Suren of the Hinterlands.”
“Took him long enough,” Baji grumbled. “Where’s he been, on vacation?”
“That was Qara’s brother? Is that why . . .” Rin didn’t know how to ask politely about Qara’s seizure, but Baji read the puzzled look on her face.
“They’re anchor twins. Some sort of . . . ah, some kind of spiritual link,” said Baji. “Qara explained it to us once, but I forget the details. Long story short, they’re bound together. Cut Chaghan and Qara bleeds. Kill Qara and Chaghan dies. Something like that.”
This concept was not wholly new to Rin. She recalled that Jiang had discussed this kind of dependency before. She had read that shamans of the Hinterlands would sometimes anchor themselves to each other to enhance their abilities. But after seeing Qara on the floor like that, Rin didn’t think it was an advantage but rather an awful vulnerability.
“Where’s he been?”
“All over the place.” Baji shrugged. “Altan sent him out of Khurdalain months ago, right around the time we got word they’d invaded Sinegard.”
“But why? What was he doing?”
“He didn’t tell us. Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Baji nodded, his eyes fixed over her shoulder.
She turned around and jumped. Chaghan stood directly behind her; she hadn’t even heard him approach.
For someone who had been bleeding out that morning, Chaghan looked remarkably well. His left arm was carefully bandaged up to his torso, but otherwise he seemed unhurt. Rin wondered exactly what Enki had done to heal him so quickly.
Up close, Chaghan’s resemblance to Qara was obvious. He was taller than his sister, but they possessed the same slight, birdlike frame. His cheeks were high and hollow; his eyes embedded within deep sockets that cast a shadow over his pale gaze.
“May I join you?” he asked. The way he spoke made it sound like an order, not a question.
Unegen immediately shifted to make space. Chaghan circled the table and sat directly opposite Rin. He placed his elbows delicately on the surface, steepled his fingers together, and rested his chin on his fingertips.
“So you’re the new Speerly,” he said.
He reminded Rin very much of Jiang. It wasn’t simply his white hair or his slender frame, but the way he looked at her, as if he saw straight through her, not looking at her at all but a place behind her. When he looked at her, Rin felt the unsettling sensation of being searched, as if he could see straight through her clothing.
She had never seen eyes like his. They were abnormally huge, dominating his otherwise narrow face. He had no pupils or irises.
She forced a facade of calm and picked up her spoon. “That’s me.”
The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Altan said you were having performance issues.”
Baji choked and coughed into his food.
Rin felt the heat rising in her cheeks. “Excuse me?”
Was that what Altan and Chaghan had spent the afternoon discussing? The idea of Altan talking about her shortcomings to this newcomer was deeply humiliating.
“Have you managed to call the Phoenix once since Sinegard?” Chaghan inquired.
I bet I could call it on you right now, you twit. Her fingers tightened around her spoon. “I’ve been working on it.”
“Altan seems to think you’re stuck in a rut.”
Unegen looked like he dearly wished he were sitting anywhere else.
Rin gritted her teeth. “Well, he thought wrong.”
Chaghan shot her a patronizing smile. “I can help, you know. I’m his Seer. This is what I’m good at. I traverse the world of spirit. I speak to the gods. I don’t summon deities, but I know my way around the Pantheon better than anyone else. And if you’re having issues, I can help you find your way back to your god.”
“I’m not having issues,” she snapped. “I was scared at the marsh. I am not now.”
And that was the truth. She suspected she could call the Phoenix now, right in this mess hall, if Altan asked her to. If Altan would deign to talk to her beyond giving her orders. If Altan trusted her enough to give her an assignment above patrolling stretches of the city where nothing ever happened.
Chaghan raised an eyebrow. “Altan isn’t so sure.”
“Well, maybe Altan should get his head out of his ass,” she snapped, then immediately regretted speaking. Disappointing Altan was one thing; complaining about it to his lieutenant was another.
No one at the table was bothering to pretend to eat anymore; Baji and Unegen both fidgeted like they couldn’t wait to leave, looking around at everything except Rin and Chaghan.
But Chaghan only looked amused. “Oh, you think he’s an asshole?”
Anger flared inside her. Her last remaining shreds of caution fled. “He’s impatient, overdemanding, paranoid, and—”
“Look, everyone’s on edge,” Baji interrupted hastily. “We shouldn’t complain. Chaghan, there’s no need to tell—I mean, look . . .”
Chaghan tapped his fingers against the table. “Baji. Unegen. I want a word with Rin.”
He spoke so imperiously, so arrogantly, that Rin thought that surely Baji would tell Chaghan where he could shove it, but he and Unegen simply picked up their bowls and left the table. Amazed, she watched them walk to the other end of the room without so much as a word. Not even Altan commanded that kind of unquestioning subordination.
When the others were out of earshot, Chaghan leaned forward. “If you ever speak about Altan like that again,” he said pleasantly, “I will have you killed.”
Chaghan might have cowed Baji and Unegen, but Rin was too angry to be afraid of him. “Go ahead and try,” she snapped. “It’s not like we have soldiers to spare.”
Chaghan’s mouth quirked into a grin. “Altan did say you were difficult.”
She gave him a wary look. “Altan’s not wrong.”
“So you don’t respect him.”
“I respect him,” she said. “I just—he’s been . . .” Different. Paranoid. Not the commander I thought I knew.
