The Tyrant's Law(154)

“Well, where’s the bank? We can go there now.”

“She’s not there, my lord. She and her guards and what was left of her staff got on a boat last night. They’re gone.”

Something cold was happening in Geder’s chest. Some kind of thickening. He hoped he wasn’t getting sick.

“No,” he said. “That didn’t happen. She knew I was coming. I wrote to her.”

“That’s as may be. But what I’m telling you is the woman left the city. She and the old magistra before her were shuffling Timzinae out of the city right under our noses. And with your grant of immunity,” Broot said, an angry buzz coming into his voice, “there wasn’t anything we could do to stop her.”

The meaning sank in, and the coldness in Geder’s chest detonated. For a moment, he couldn’t hear. Then he was standing in the street, his fist hurting badly, and Fallon Broot was on the ground with blood flowing down his mustache and shocked expression.

“Take me to her house,” Geder said. “Do it now.”

The compound of the Medean bank stood deserted. The doors swung open and closed in the wind. Straw from the stable littered the yard, caught up in tiny whirlwinds. Geder walked through the abandoned halls and corridors, tears running down his cheeks. He’d ordered Broot and his guards to wait in the street. He didn’t want anyone to see him.

She was gone. He’d come all this way for her, and she was gone. He’d told her how he felt for her, and she was gone. He loved her, and when he came to her to feed that love, to make it something that would have lived for the ages, she’d betrayed him and left. She hadn’t even had the kindness to tell him to his face.

He found a small bedroom with a mattress and pillow still in place. He lay down and curled up into himself the way an animal might to guard a wound. He didn’t feel sad or angry. He didn’t feel anything. He was empty in a way he’d never felt before. Cithrin had emptied him. When he began to sob, it was a distant sensation, but with every breath it grew closer and harder. When the grief finally came, it was like nothing he’d felt before except once. When he’d been a boy and his mother had died, it had felt just like this. His body shuddered and tensed. His breastbone ached like someone had punched him, and tears flowed down his cheeks like a rainstorm. He was sure they could hear him in the street, sure that they knew, and he wanted to stop, but he couldn’t. He’d started, and now he was too far gone to stop. He raged and he wept and he kicked the bed to pieces and ripped the pillow apart with his teeth and then collapsed on the floor, beaten and humiliated.

It was almost night when he drew the shell of his body up, blew his nose on a scrap of the ruined mattress, and did what he could to clean his face. His eyes felt like someone had rubbed sand in them, and his chest ached to the touch. His limbs felt heavy, like he was waking from too deep a sleep.

Broot and his men were still where he’d left them, standing in the street. Basrahip had joined them as well. Geder walked out to them and shrugged.

“You were right,” he said. “She’s gone.”

Broot’s nose was swollen and bruised. When he spoke, he sounded congested. “I’m sorry, my lord.”

“Not your fault,” Geder said. “This was my mistake. I … misunderstood.”

Basrahip put his arm around Geder’s shoulder, and Geder leaned into the priest.

“I’ll call your carriage,” Broot said, and a few minutes later Geder was rattling down the rough, wide roads past squares and marketplaces, all of them blighted and emptied by the winter cold. He thought he would never feel warm again, and he didn’t care. Suddapal spun past his eyes without being seen. When the carriage stopped, he was mildly surprised to find himself at the protector’s mansion. A footman helped him down. Basrahip helped him up the stairs.

“Jorey,” Geder said. “I need to get a message to Jorey.”

“Yes, Prince Geder.”

“We have to take the army back from Kiaria. Just leave enough to keep them from getting out, take back the rest.”

“As you say,” Basrahip agreed.

“I need them. I need all of them. And the priests. I need them too. I need everyone.”

“They are yours,” Basrahip said. “You are blessed of the goddess, and her will can bring you all that you wish.”

“Good,” Geder said.

Basrahip paused in the doorway.

“Tell me,” he said. “What do you want?”

When Geder spoke, his voice was rough and sharp as a serrated blade.

“I want to find Cithrin.”





Marcus