Page 94 of The Cradle of Ice

Over time, his intelligence was noted. He was eventually gifted to the palace to serve in the royal residence. Fury built inside him with each passing year. Cloaked in the anonymity of servants, he observed how the imri conducted themselves. He noted the bounty of their tables, while others starved. The richness of their garb, while others shivered through a winter’s night. Even their laughter and music seemed only to deafen them to the sobbing and misery all around.

They were unendingly cruel, puffed with haughtiness, and firmly entrenched in their own superiority, a birthright of blood and incest.

He had also spied upon the worst of them.

The Illuminated Rose of the Imri-Ka.

Her glares made many a servant soil themselves. Her arrogance was boundless—and it was not entirely unwarranted. She was devious in all ways, her intelligence far surpassing that of her siblings. It was that cunning that exposed him when he was sixteen. He had mistakenly tried to befriend her, like he had those at the school. But she saw through his subterfuge, maybe smelled the rancor rising from his skin.

He had barely escaped into the sprawl of the city, where he eventually found a home among the Shayn’ra, who shared his ambitions and stoked it brighter. Only four years later, due to his ruthlessness and cleverness, he rose to lead them.

And I will succeed where every generation failed before.

He pictured Aalia’s face, gilded and painted, shining with the conceit of all the imri. Only days ago, he had been so close to—

A shout rose from the dusty planks next to him. “There!”

He followed where Jamelsh, his third-in-command, pointed to the far side of the square.

Armored horses trotted into view, with riders decked the same. Next came a war wagon bristling with arrows and crossbows. The helms of the dozen guardsmen reflected the low sunlight between the buildings and shone brightly in the shadowy square.

Following them appeared their target: a small cart pulled by four yoked oxen. Though the wagon was tiny, the load aboard needed the strength of so many shoulders and legs due to its sheer weight. Gold was far heavier than grain and oat.

Another war wagon followed behind.

Still, it was a meager escort for a fortune in gold, enough to fund the Shayn’ra for a decade, with enough left over to feed hundreds for the same span of time.

Jamelsh lay on his belly and rolled to one side. “I was not wrong. It is as I heard. A shipment of gold. Headed to the port.”

Tazar nodded. With war rising, the emperor was dispatching the gold to his sailing fleet in the harbor, where the bounty would be spread across the waves, intended to buy the loyalty of brigands and pirates, to use them as spies and saboteurs.

But we will find a better use for it.

Over the past day, the entire city was being roused. Garrisons were on the move. War machines hauled to key positions. Through a farscope, he had witnessed an arrowsprite blasting across the sky in a flume of fire and smoke. Both the Haeshan flag and the Klashean Arms had flown from its stern, confirming the rumors that the emperor was headed to Qazen, to consult his pet oracle. It was accompanied by a small fleet of the same vessels.

Everyone was on the move.

Such chaos served the Shayn’ra well.

Like now.

Someone must have thought this movement of gold would go unnoticed amidst the ongoing commotion, especially this early, when most of the city slept.

But not all of us are in our beds.

Tazar glanced to Jamelsh, who breathed hard, sweat dampening his forehead. His friend flashed a smile, excited for what was about to come. Maybe nervous, too. But they had prepared well.

Tazar slid a covered lantern closer to the window. He waited until the imperial force was in the square—then he slipped the cover from the flame three times, signaling his second-in-command, who was hidden in an attic on the opposite side.

A sharp whistle blew, alerting everyone.

From all the shops surrounding the square, the Fist of God struck at the same time. Arrows rained from on high in a deadly hailstorm. Crossbows spat in coordinated volleys, slicing like a scythe through the square. From every doorway, the Shayn’ra boiled forth, wielding curved blades and whipswords. Knives flew from fingertips in flashes of silver.

Horses and guardsmen fell.

Still, the war wagons responded, firing everywhere. Many of the Shayn’ra dropped, either writhing or dead. But Tazar had drawn almost the entire Fist to this ambush. Over two hundred men and women. They swarmed like ants over the square. The lives lost would be replaced with their weight in gold.

Still, he would not risk their lives and not his own.