Others took up the refrain, spitting questions at her like debris. She let them pelt her and bounce off, knowing their ravaged faces and soot-smudged eyes gleamed with the desperation to hurt. Beside her, Kadra’s vigiles tensed in preparation for a fight.
I’m so fucking tired.Why couldn’t they see it? Why didn’t they even try to look beyond the sphere of their existence to understand the greater forces puppeteering them toward ugliness?
“By the Elsar and Naaduir, I’m not your enemy!” she finally broke in.
“She isn’t.” An ash-covered Méherre waded into the fray, glowering at those fencing Sarai. “The few seconds of warning you gave us made a difference.”
Drawing Sarai aside, she surveyed her wounds with a tight exclamation. “FuckingNoceo. Is anything else broken? Are you ready to leave? I have firm instructions to bring you back to Edessa.”
“Please.”
“There are only a few designated spots within Edessa where Bridgers can bring people in, but Cassandane mentioned that they’d be at the Aequitas, so I’ll take you there.” Méherre pricked her finger and pressed the blood to the same curving rune Sarai had seen Dalvia use in the farmer’s memory. The Bridger closed her eyes, brow creasing in concentration. Power exploded to life by the still-burning entrance to the market, raising the hair on the back of her neck. The air glistened like a heat mirage before splitting to reveal the base of a familiar, unnecessarily large statue.
Inhaling deeply, she and Kadra’s vigiles stepped through the portal. The world spun in a blur of color and wind for all of a second. Then, she was on the other side, the north’s chill replaced with the milder bite of an Edessan winter. And a clanging in her ears.
Pressing her hands over them, Sarai gaped at the people racing toward the Aequitas over the sunstruck field. Kadra, Cassandane, and Harion’s vigiles had visibly abandoned all hope of orderly entrance and shoved people through the main doors. The emergency bells Cassandane had set up across the city jangled cacophonously.
“What’s happened?” she yelled to a passerby.
“The Elsarian Order’s staging a coup!”
Oh shit.
It was no hard thing to run a country.
Power sparked in the air as he strode through the Tetrarchy’s Entrance and into the Aequitas. The low hum announced his arrival even before he took the marble steps to the dais and seated himself.
Fifty-eight Guildmasters swiveled to face him from opulent seating boxes. Blood leeched from their faces.Wines Guild. Kadra let his gaze wander along the group until he found its Guildmaster. Etilia stared straight ahead as though avoiding his eyes would save her. A vain hope.
Some of them were undoubtedly Coerced. Others wouldn’t have required Coercion. His brother’s current ventures must be extremely profitable to allow him to move about the city with impunity.
The Elsarian Order once again marred the Aequitas’s stage. Verentia led the pack of indistinguishable priests fanning out behind her. Glee spilled from her like mist. Ioratius and the other Guildmasters seemed mildly perturbed at the sight. He wasn’t.
Dalvia’s spill of blond hair was noticeably absent from the crowd of blue-robed priests. That, too, didn’t surprise him. She wouldn’t have volunteered to be Examined before the Aequitas when she knew as well as he did that Anek or Harion would catch her in a lie.
Which meant that the Elsarian Order had sought a gathering for a farce. Cassandane was too eager for allies to see it, but the Order was not here to play her game. And today, he would not be of aid. The game mattered little to him when Sarai waited in a city of death.
His hands contracted into fists. The agony in his spine never worse. Sparks hissed around his seat, leaving scorch marks in their wake.
Halfway through her preliminaries, Cassandane stuttered with a wary glance at him. When she resumed speaking, it was at a significantly faster clip. “This will be a hurried assembly due to recent, distressing news from the north that Petitor Sarai may be… injured. While we still search for a means to end the beetle plague, we can confirm that it spread by means of whitesleep sacks found in a den.” She winced when the assembled Guildmasters rose in a wave to blame the north. “Understand that we’re still investigating the cause and blaming the north is premature. The Tetrarchy isn’t targeting anyone.”
On the contrary, he had every intention of doing so. Fissures ran through the arms of his seat with every flex of his fingers. Cassandane had never spoken faster.
“Why her?” Gaius had asked, days after Kadra had invited Sarai to live with him. “Beg your pardon, Tetrarch Kadra, but no one understands it. She hates you, and there are… fairer women,” he had muttered awkwardly.
A faint smile had risen to Kadra’s lips. “Your vision has been better, Gaius. She’s the best Petitor Edessa has had in decades. And she sees right through me.” A note of wonder had seeped into his voice, and understanding had flitted across his right-hand man’s face.
Men like him weren’t meant to be known or loved. Clevsin had beaten that in early. Everything he had learned of the world since had proven that true. Madman, savior, tyrant, hero. Magus Supreme. Legends people had made of him. They took what they wanted to see and avoided the rest.
Then, she had glanced up at her Robing, known him as a monster, and still defied him. Laid him open, and he had craved more. Knew how little he cared about taking a life and still rested her beating heart over his every night. Only part of her shared his madness, but she had embraced him whole.
“You’ve had a night,” she would say wryly when he came to her covered in blood, but would smile up at him, clear-eyed and guileless, and he had waited for another night to tell her that she knew who he was but not who he had been. He would not accept that he was out of time.
“Kadra, I could use some aid,” Cassandane hissed under her breath.
The crowd had begun spitting a jumble of familiar accusations and demands. Why the plague persisted, and when Sarai could return with answers.
His mouth curved in a humorless smile. “I would bring her here to tell you myself. Yet, it seems that we’re assembling, because the Elsarian Order is convinced that my Petitor is a servant to Death. They forced her to this stage under similar pretenses by citing Ruin. Now, they speak of Death. I wonder how many more of the gods she will have to go through.”
