Page 123 of A Trade of Blood

“Why? Can’t you see this is destroying him?”

“Perhaps. But he needs to know because I already requested records of any change in Velona’s inheritance filings. Such things are carefully recorded with the gentry families. So scrupulously observant of heritage and tradition, you see. He needs to know all this, because his father’s plan hassucceeded—Ippeas Armenta is now the sole living heir to Velona Armenta, and will inherit all the Armenta spreads the day she dies. Old bat did it the very day after Castus perished.” Ana picked something from her teeth. “Rather think she’d drafted up the paperwork after it looked like he was to be hanged, yes?”

Ippeas stopped weeping. Both he and Fotia gazed at Ana, thunderstruck.

“What?” cried Fotia.

“Yes, wh-what?” said Ippeas.

“I thought I was perfectly clear,” said Ana. “You, Ippeas Armenta, are inheritor to one of the wealthiest farming families in all the third ring. And I think it likely you shall inherit soon! For it seems quite feasible that Velona Armenta might die the instant someone tells her exactly what her brother did.”

“That can’t be,” said Ippeas. “It can’t…”

Again, Fotia buried her face in her hands. “By hell, yes. It could. Old Velona is bedridden now. She dwindles even now, locked up in her rooms.”

Ana turned to Ippeas, blindly peering down her nose at him.“Correct. So, Master Ippeas—Iam most curious to hear how you shall react to all this.”

Ippeas sat on the floor, his solid, bearded face gazing into the vined rafters. I watched his pupils dance about as he sorted through this thicket of revelations, alternatingly horrifying or stunning. Fotia sat beside him, her fingers entwined with his, her eyes fixed on his countenance. It was clear in that moment that neither of them had ever imagined this level of wealth: such a dream, such a wild desire, had never gotten within ten span of their thoughts.

Finally Ippeas spoke. “What of my father?” he croaked.

“He lives,” I said. “He is terribly weakened by the toxins of the lypi lance. We fear he might have had a brainstorm. But…”

“But?” asked Ippeas.

“He has asked to see you, I’m told. I am permitted to allow him visitors.”

Ippeas bowed his head and took a deep breath. “Well, then.”

—

The medikker’s wardhad been transformed since the day Jalin Burav had made his mad escape: now there was a custodus in every hallway, and every door featured new locks. Even for myself, navigating its corridors meant repeatedly asking permission to enter, to leave, to be accompanied, and so on. Though I understood that Trikao Armenta had been gravely weakened by Ana’s thrust of the lance, the medikkers were taking no chances with him.

I entered his chamber. Trikao’s arrangements seemed to be a dark mirror of his sister’s: he lay trembling upon a medikker’s cradle, with many dark, glistening tubes entering his flesh, each one trailing down to another quivering creature in a glass pot. How odd it was to heal his body but only so that he could be firm in flesh when he met the rope.

He cracked an eye as I approached. Though in the past he had pantomimed the state of a weary old man, this was no act: his face shook, and his eyes moved sluggishly, and his lips were thick and slow as he spoke tome.

“Who?” he murmured. “Oh. It’s you. But where…where is Ippeas? Where…”

“He will not come,” I said to him.

“N-no,” he whimpered. “He must. He must come.”

“He will not. He was clear.”

He swallowed, eyes swirling in his head as he thought. “Will you carry a message for him, then, Iudex? Tell him…” Again he swallowed, face wrinkling with pain. “Tell him it was…it was all for him. I did it for him. And it did work, yes? She has…she made him heir.”

I said nothing.

“I knew it would be so,” whispered Trikao. “And I knew my…my sister would not live long. I fade, yes. But I fade victorious, at least.”

“Your son will not come, sir,” I said. “But he has a message for you.”

“Oh? Please, t-tell me.”

“He says he intends to sell all the Armenta spread when he inherits.”

His eyes opened wide. A low, creaking cough came from deep within him.