Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(212)
“The Csestriim have returned,” he said.
“Csestriim,” Valyn replied, sucking air between his teeth. “That’s what Yurl claimed. It’s tough to believe.”
“It is necessary to believe,” Tan replied. “Some of them have survived this long precisely because people failed to believe.”
“Adiv?” Kaden asked, voicing the question that had been on his mind all day as he watched the kettral circle and search. “You think he’s Csestriim?”
Tan considered him with a flat, disapproving stare. “Speculation.”
Valyn glanced from the older monk to his pupil and back. If he felt any deference toward Tan, Kaden couldn’t see it.
“I’m not sure what’s so wrong with speculation, and I have no ’Kent-kissing idea where those two bastards ended up, but I’ll tell you one thing—they’re not our problem anymore.”
Kaden frowned. “One of them might be Csestriim and the other is a Kettral-trained emotion leach who nearly destroyed your Wing.”
“And now we have two birds,” Valyn shot back. “Balendin and the minister are on foot with no food or water and no gear to speak of. We can be in the air by nightfall and out of this miserable maze of mountains you call home by morning. Of course,” he added grimly, “that brings us to our real problem—the Flea.”
Kaden looked over at Tan and Pyrre. The Skullsworn shrugged; Tan made no reply at all.
“What,” Kaden asked finally, turning back to Valyn, “is a flea?”
“The Flea is the best Wing commander in the Eyrie. He makes Yurl and me look like children, and his Wing is just as good as he is.”
“And he’s part of the plot?” Pyrre asked. Ut had left her with a light slice across the shoulder, but otherwise she seemed none the worse for wear. “Why can’t some of the really dangerous players be on our side for a while?”
“I have no idea if he’s part of the plot,” Valyn replied, his expression bleak, “but I’ll tell you this—he’s coming for us, sure as shit. He’s probably one day back, sent up as soon as my Wing went rogue. Yurl and Balendin were part of it, and we don’t know how far up the conspiracy goes.”
Pyrre shrugged. “If he’s not part of the plot, he’s not part of the problem. Kaden,” she said, making an exaggerated curtsy, “bright be the days of his life, rules the empire now, which means he waves his little finger and your Flea has to start bowing or kissing the dirt or whatever it is you Annurians do.”
“You don’t know much about the Flea,” Valyn said, “or about Kettral. It’s the mission that matters. My Wing disobeyed orders to come after you. As far as the Eyrie’s concerned, we’re traitors.”
“The Kettral serve the empire,” Pyrre replied, “which means they serve the Emperor, which means, they serve him.” She poked a finger at Kaden. “Working for Kaden is, by definition, not treachery.”
“It’s not quite that simple,” Kaden said, thinking through this angle for the first time. “Imperial history has been pretty messy at times: brother fighting brother, sons killing fathers. Atlatun the Unlucky murdered his own father out of impatience. What was it, Valyn, four hundred years ago?”
Valyn shook his head. “If there wasn’t a battle involved, I didn’t study it.”
“There wasn’t a battle. Atlatun wanted to rule, but his father looked a little too healthy for his taste, so he stabbed him in the eye over the dinner table. The point is, despite being Atlatun’s heir and having Intarra’s eyes, he was executed for treason. The Unhewn Throne went to his nephew.”
“You didn’t kill your father,” Pyrre pointed out. She frowned. “You didn’t, did you?”
“No,” Kaden replied, “but no one in Annur knows that. Whoever is behind the conspiracy could be spreading whatever rumors they want. They could be claiming that Valyn and I cooked up a plot against our father together, that we paid that priest to kill him while we were out of the capital.”
“Until we know conclusively otherwise,” Valyn said, “we have to figure the Eyrie views us as traitors.”
“And how does the Eyrie handle traitors?” Kaden asked.
“They send people,” Valyn replied.
“The Flea.”
“His Wing might be in the mountains already.”
“The mountains are endless,” Pyrre said. “I’ve been running around the ’Kent-kissing things for the past week. The nine of us could have a parade with pennons and drums, and no one would find us.”