Page 15

CHAPTER

Fifteen

“H OW DOES IT FEEL ?” Cain asked.

They were alone in a waiting chamber attached to the emperor’s private rooms, close to the inner sanctum. Hol Vabras was inside, giving his report on Gaida’s murder; Neema could hear their voices, muffled by the thick oak door—the emperor’s low growl, the High Commander’s thin, unmodulated reply.

Cain was sitting against the wall, legs out, as if he were drunk outside a brothel, not awaiting an imperial summons. Sunlight streamed in from a high window, slicing him half in shadow, half in light.

“Gaida Rack is dead. Your arch enemy. Your Neemasis .” He paused. “Don’t you get it—”

“I get your terrible pun.”

Cain—so hard to offend—looked genuinely insulted. It was a fantastic pun. “Did you kill her?”

She made a tight circle with her finger and thumb. Arsehole.

“Is that your official defence? It may require some finessing.”

Slowly, with great deliberation, Neema pushed her finger through the hole.

“You have to admit,” Cain said, “you’re the obvious suspect.”

“Says the assassin.”

“That again,” Cain grumbled.

There was a small display case set into the opposite wall, surrounded by gold and white votive candles. Hoping Cain would take the hint and leave her alone, she went over to inspect the contents, then wished she hadn’t. The Stone of Peace. The drab, grey-green inkstone she’d used to write the Order of Exile. Bile rose in her throat. She’d forgotten they’d moved it here for the duration of the Festival. It lay on its white velvet cushion, taunting her. Oh, hello again. Remember that unspeakable thing we did together? She could see faint traces of Raven’s Wing ink, trapped in its rough surface—from the inkstick she had ground with her own hand that day. The stone had not been used since. But it would be, once they found Gaida’s killer. The sentence for murdering a contender was exile.

And wouldn’t that be fittingly ironic revenge, served eight years late. Neema had sent an innocent girl to her death, and now the same could happen to her.

Assuming she was innocent.

“You look worried,” Cain said, from the floor. “At least, the back of you does.”

Neema rubbed the sweat from her forehead, before it dropped on the display case. It was hotter than yesterday, how was that possible? She was still dressed in the overalls Cain had stolen for her last night. They smelled of dirt, and a stranger’s sweat.

Cain was right. Once news of the murder was released, she was bound to fall under suspicion. Who else wanted Gaida dead? No one. Gaida was loved, admired, respected. Neema couldn’t even offer herself up for a Houndsight interrogation—if she couldn’t remember what she did last night, how could they dig it out of her? All they’d see was maybes, and don’t knows. She had to find a way to prove her innocence—first to herself, and then to everyone else. And as she thought on this, an idea came to her. A radical one, but it just might—

“—What’s this junk?”

Neema yelped and jumped a foot in the air. Cain had crept up on her. The swift, silent tread of a trained killer.

“The Stone of Peace,” he said. Improvising Neema the Historian, he tapped a finger on the glass display case. “Carved by Empress Yasthala in the year zero, this modest-looking inkstone was used to write the Five Great Rules of Orrun. Religious idiots believe the Raven helped the empress carve the stone with its mighty beak. To honour this thing that didn’t happen,

the Stone is coddled in white velvet, denoting its status as a sacred object. More recently, in 1531, Junior Archivist Neema Kraa used the Stone to condemn an innocent girl to unspeakable suffering and death. As punishment, the Stone cursed the young scholar to a sad, lonely life poisoned by shame and regret.”

The insults bounced off Neema like hailstones. “You’re just annoyed because you did that big, dramatic ‘see you in the next life’ bit last night, and now here we are again, five minutes later.”

Cain grinned, before he could stop himself. “I am annoyed about that,” he admitted. “I’d been saving it for ages.”

“You walked off into the shadows really well,” Neema said, graciously. “Did you do it?” That silent tread.

“Now why would I kill Gaida?”

Neema looked at him. Wasn’t it obvious? “To frame Ruko.”

Cain blinked.

No one else would have read anything into it—not even Shal Worthy with his Houndsight. People blink. But Neema knew Cain better than she knew herself. That blink meant he didn’t know about the dagger. Which meant he wasn’t the killer.

Unless he’d blinked on purpose, to make it look like he didn’t know anything. In which case, he was the killer.

Neema rubbed the knot in her collarbone. “Gaida was stabbed with the Blade of Peace.”

“Fuck.” That sounded genuine, but he was a good actor. She watched him work through the implications. “ When the Tiger’s eye weeps blood, then shall the Eight Return …”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No, but they do,” he said, indicating the private chambers. Vabras and the emperor were men of unshakeable faith. “They’re still talking.”

They were. Vabras would be annoyed. His beloved schedule.

Cain ventured closer to the door.

“You can’t eavesdrop on the emperor,” Neema said.

Cain did a headstand against the door. No law against that. Not his fault if he accidentally overheard something. “They’re talking about me,” he said, upside down. “How incandescently marvellous I am. Favourite contender… legend in the bedroom…”

“I need to tell you something.”

“Did I make a factual error about the inkstone?”

“Yes.”

It’s not easy to laugh upside down, but Cain managed it.

“You know how it is for me,” Neema said, plaintively. “Like an itch. If I don’t scratch it, it just gets worse. I’ll blurt it out at some inappropriate moment.”

“I love inappropriate moments. They’re my favourite moments.” His face was turning pink, the blood rushing to his head. “Go on then, go on.”

Neema visibly relaxed. “Yasthala carved the inkstone in the last year of the old calendar, not the year zero. It’s Mordir’s fault—he wrote a poem about it and needed a rhyme for hero.”

Cain’s tunic had dropped down, showing a flash of smooth, etched stomach. “And the part about your grim, meaningless existence? Was that factually accurate?”

Neema folded her arms. “Scholars remain divided. What are they actually talking about?”

“Too quiet.” He listened harder. “They’ve stopped.” Cain flipped back on to his feet as an elderly servant opened the door. Neema watched her make the same mental calculations she often made herself, with Cain: was it worth the effort of protesting? Answer: almost never.

“His Majesty will see you now,” she said, instead. And then, pointedly, “No acrobatics in the private chambers.”

“Noted,” Cain said.