He sounds . . . not sad, but almost wistful. “And then Karinna died. The Emperor didn’t give me leave, so it was a year before I returned home. By then Keris had stopped speaking. I spent a month with her, and then it was back to the battlefield. When she was chosen for Blackcliff, I was certain she’d die in the first week. She was so soft. So much like her mother.”
“But she didn’t die,” I say. I try not to tap my foot in impatience. I wonder when he’s going to get to the point.
“She’s a Veturia,” Quin says. “We’re hard to kill. Skies know what she dealt with at Blackcliff. She didn’t have your luck in friends, girl. Her fellow students made her life hell. I tried to train her, like I trained Elias, but she wanted nothing to do with me. Blackcliff warped her. Just after she graduated, she allied with the Nightbringer. He is the closest thing she has to a friend.”
“He’s not her friend. He’s her master,” I murmur, remembering the jinn’s words. “What of Elias’s father?”
“Whoever he was, she cared for him.” We are past the pond now. Beyond the edge of the plateau, low, rolling hills ease into the flats of the Tribal desert, blue with the approach of dawn. “After Elias was chosen, she was unnerved, worried she would lose her commission. I’d never seen emotion like that in her before then, or since. She said she let the child live because his father would have wanted it.”
So Keris loved Arius Harper? His file was scant, but the Commandant always hated Elias so much, I assumed his father had forced himself on her.
“Did you know Arius Harper, General?”
“He was a Plebeian.” Quin gives me a curious look, mystified by the sudden change in topic. “A Combat Centurion at Blackcliff who was reprimanded repeatedly for showing mercy to the students—kindness, even.”
“How did he die?”
“He was murdered by a group of Masks the day after they graduated—Keris’s fellow Senior Skulls. A vicious killing—more than a dozen of them beat him to death. Illustrian, all of them. Their fathers covered it up well enough that even I didn’t know of it when it first happened.”
Why would a group of Masks murder a Centurion? Did Keris know? Did she ask them to do it? But Quin said she didn’t have allies at Blackcliff—that the other students tormented her. And if she didn’t have Arius killed—if she truly loved him—then why does she hate Elias so much?
“You think Arius Harper is the father?” Quin catches on. “So Captain Harper is—”
“Elias’s half brother.” I curse under my breath. “But none of that matters. Her past, her history—none of it explains what she’s doing in Navium,” I say. “She gave up the fleet just to wrest power from me. Why?”
“My grandson always told me you were smart, girl.” Quin scowls at me. “Was he wrong? Don’t just look at her actions. Look at her. What does she want? Why? Look at her past, her history. How has it altered her mind? The Nightbringer is her master, you say. What does he want? Will she get it for him? What could she be doing for the Paters that they would agree to let that swine Grímarr wreak havoc in the poor parts of the city? Use that head of yours. If you think my daughter cares about the fate of a port city far from the seat of power, you are sorely mistaken.”
“But she’s been ordered to—”
“Keris doesn’t care about orders. She cares about one thing: power. You love the Empire, Blood Shrike. So you believe that because Keris was also raised as a Mask, she must be loyal to it too. She is not. She is loyal only to herself. Understand that, and perhaps you’ll best her. Fail, and she’ll have your guts for supper before the week is out.”
XX: Laia
The moment the sky pales, I throw on my dress and slip downstairs. If I move swiftly enough, I might still catch the Tribal caravan I saw last night—and the Kehanni too.
But Zella awaits me at the door, fidgeting in apology.
“Musa asked that you remain here,” she says. “For your own safety, Laia. Princess Nikla has Jaduna patrolling the city for you. Apparently, one of them caught wind that you were here last night.” She wrings her hands. “He says not to use your magic, as you’ll just lead the Jaduna here, and get us all thrown in prison. His words,” she adds quickly. “Not mine.”
“What do you know about him, Zella?” I ask quickly, before she walks away. “What is he doing out there? Why hasn’t he started the Resistance himself?”
“I’m just a smith, Laia. And an old family friend of his. If you have questions, you’ll have to ask him.”
I curse and slink out to the courtyard, where I assist Darin as he polishes a stack of scims against a set of smooth gray stones.
“I heard him, Darin,” I say after relating my run-in with the Nightbringer. “Gloating right beside me. Then he was gone. Which means he could be anywhere. He might even have the last piece of the Star.”
I want so much to conquer the self-doubt rising in me. To quash it and simply believe that I can stop the jinn. Fear does not rule me as it once did. But some days it stalks me with the ire of a jilted lover.
My brother slides a scim across one of the stones. “If the Nightbringer did have the last piece of the Star,” he says, “we’d know. You give him too much credit, Laia, and you don’t give yourself enough. He fears you. He fears what you’ll learn. What you’ll do with that knowledge.”
“He shouldn’t fear me.”
“He damned well should.” Darin runs a cloth across the scim he’s polished and hands it to me before reaching for his first Serric steel blade, the one I carried across the Empire after Spiro Teluman gave it to me.
“It makes no sense for him to be afraid,” I say. “I gave him the armlet. I let him kill Shaeva. Why the hells should he be afraid of me?”
My voice rises, and on the other side of the courtyard, Taure and Zella exchange a glance before making themselves scarce.
“Because you can stop him, and he knows it.” Darin tightens the brace he has fashioned for his left hand. He uses it in place of his two missing fingers, to steady his hammers, and I almost never see him without it. This time, he clips in his scim hilt instead of a hammer. “Why else would he kill Shaeva or ally himself with the Commandant? Why ensure the Waiting Place is in disarray? Why sow so much chaos if he’s not afraid of failing? And”—Darin pulls me up—“why else would he turn up the very moment you realized you might get answers from the Kehanni?”
That fact escaped me, and it makes me even more eager to speak to the Tribeswoman. When the skies is Musa going to be back?
“Spiro would kill me if he saw how little artistry that has.” Darin nods to my blade. “But if they’re true Serric steel, we can celebrate that, at least. Come on. Maybe this is the batch that won’t break.”
Sparks fly as Darin’s scim and mine crash against each other. The last set of blades we tried didn’t break until well into our battle, so I settle in for an arduous contest. After a few minutes, the rough simplicity of the blade has raised blisters on my palms. It is so different from the fine dagger Elias gave me. But it holds.
Zella and Taure emerge from the house, watching with growing excitement when, even after I press the attack, the blades remain whole.
Darin assails me, and I let my ferocity loose, pouring my frustration into every blow. Finally, my brother calls a halt, unable to suppress a grin. He takes the blade from me.
“It has no heart.” He hefts it, and his eyes sparkle as they haven’t in months. “No soul. But it will do. On to the next.”
Zella and Taure join us as we spar across the courtyard, as one after the other, the blades finally hold true. I do not notice Musa until he steps from the house to applaud jauntily.
“Beautiful,” he says. “I had full faith that you—”
I grab Musa by the arm and drag him toward the front door, ignoring his curses of protest. “I need to see a Kehanni, and I’ve been waiting hours for you to return.”
“The Tribes left Adisa to fight the Martials in the desert,” Musa says. “They’re not holding back, either.” With a chill, I remember Afya speaking of the attacks on Martial villagers.