Spy's Honor

“If you want to save Mosar, invade Mosar. Why come to Kjall if not to spill blood in vengeance? You cannot hold the palace for more than a few days. Reinforcements are on the way.”

“Please trust that I have thought this through better than that.”

She shook her head. “Florian killed your parents, which was horrible and wrong. I understand your desire to strike back. But what purpose does it serve, answering violence with violence?”

“You’re mistaken about why I came. I’m not going to explain why now, but the fact is that I couldn’t save Mosar with a direct invasion. I needed the support of the Sardossians, and to get that I had to avert the attack on Sarpol.”

Her finger brushed the casualty list that lay on the settee next to her. “Tamienne is dead. Did you know?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Cerinthus is dead. You don’t know Cerinthus—he was my friend Marcella’s husband. Justis, Nipius, and Quintilla. All dead.” She touched the paper again. “But perhaps they don’t mean anything to you. They’re just names.”

“They mean no less to me, and no more, than the tens of thousands dead on Mosar.”

She turned away, unable to bear his gaze. “I sent her.”

“Sent who?”

“Tamienne. I sent her to fight at the front gates. That’s why I was alone when Augustan came.”

“I didn’t know.”

She shook her head in sorrow. “They’re dead because of me, Jan-Torres. Because of you. If I hadn’t bargained for your life—”

“Would you rather have sent me to my death?”

“I don’t know.” She stared at her fingers as if they were foreign things. “There was no right answer. There’s supposed to be a right answer!” She shut her eyes, squeezing back tears. She’d always thought that if she just had the courage to make the right choices, even if they were hard choices, then at least she could live with herself, be proud of the person she was. If she had to make choices that made people angry, she could cope with that. But what did one do when there were no right choices?

Jan-Torres leaned toward her, his eyes soft. He tried to place his hand on her knee, the part of her closest to him, but she shifted and moved out of reach. He sat back in his chair, his mouth tightening. “Neither of us wanted this. It’s Florian’s war, not mine. Not yours.”

Rhianne grabbed a pillow from the settee and hugged it to her chest. “I didn’t love Tamienne. She was always reporting on me to Florian, tattling on me. But she was just doing her job. Florian employed her, not I. She was an orphan—all the Legaciatti are. She’d nearly finished her term. She was going to marry when it ended, start a family.”

Jan-Torres was silent.

“And poor Marcella. What must she be going through?”

“When you requested that casualty list”—Jan-Torres pointed at the paper on the settee—“I granted your request, much as it pained me, because from now on, I mean there to be no more secrets between us. Every life lost is a tragedy, but that casualty list is short. We’re counting the dead in the hundreds, and that’s on both sides, my people as well as yours. Do you know how many of my people died on Mosar?”

“No,” she said softly.

“Tens of thousands,” said Jan-Torres. “All of your family members survived this invasion. Do you know how many of my family members survived your uncle’s invasion of Mosar?”

She shook her head.

“One,” he growled. “My brother, Kal-Torres. My parents are dead. My aunts and uncles, dead. My cousins, dead.” His eyes grew hard and his tone more heated. “My anger is not directed at you. You didn’t ask for it to happen, and you were not there. You did not see the horrors that were inflicted on my country, and this very minor invasion is your first taste of war. Of course you find it horrifying; you place a high value on every human life, a trait I admire in you. You have no basis for comparison; you’ve lived a sheltered life here in the palace, away from the realities of war. But I do have that basis for comparison, and I tell you that we have exercised remarkable restraint, and I will not be shamed for what I have done here.”

Rhianne let her breath out carefully. She had never seen Janto angry before. He was an entirely different man now that he’d assumed his true identity, and he was a little bit frightening. “What are your intentions?”

“My intentions . . .” He frowned. “They depend on a few things that will happen over the next few days. But no matter what happens, I can assure you that no harm will come to you.”

“Will you let me go?” It had occurred to her that Jan-Torres and his men might flee the palace before the reinforcements arrived, and if they did, they might take hostages. She would be a prime candidate.

He hesitated. “I can’t answer that yet.”

She looked away. This was a nightmare. She’d saved this man’s life twice, once from Florian and again from Augustan. He’d saved her life too, but he had no right to lock her up and set guards over her. “What about Morgan, the man from the infirmary? Has he had his surgery?”

Jan-Torres’s eyes narrowed. “Who is that man and how do you know him?”

“First tell me if he lives!” Rhianne protested.

“I’ll send a runner to find out.” Jan-Torres rose and went to the door. He conferred with someone and returned to his seat. “We’ll have word shortly. How do you know him? He fired on my soldiers in the city of Riat— nearly killed someone.”

“Please forgive him; he was drunk. Morgan is former Legaciatti, forced into early retirement when a Riorcan assassin wounded and disabled him. Florian denied him his pension for failing to kill the assassin. And those pensions are supposed to be guaranteed.”

“Your uncle is a sapskull,” said Jan-Torres, “if you’ll pardon my saying so. If Morgan is disabled and without a pension, how does he support himself?”

“I supply the pension,” said Rhianne. “Lucien and I have been privately pooling our funds, and I’ve been delivering them by sneaking out through the hypocaust.”

Jan-Torres’s gaze softened. “I should stop marveling at how many acts of kindness I stumble upon here that have your fingerprints on them.”

Rhianne looked down at her lap. His words warmed her heart, but they did not change the fact that this man was now her jailer. She had loved the gentle language scholar she’d met in the Imperial Garden, and she’d continued to love him when she’d learned he was a spy collecting information to aid his people. But now he was the king of Mosar and the commander of an invading army. She had loved Janto. She was not sure she could love Jan-Torres.

The door opened, and Jan-Torres went to speak to his runner. “Good news,” he called from the door. “Morgan survived the surgery. He’s conscious but weak. It will take him some time to recover.”

Rhianne leapt to her feet. “Can he be brought here, to my rooms? I could care for him while his strength returns. It would give me something to do, and I wouldn’t be so lonely.”

Jan-Torres’s forehead wrinkled.

“Stop being jealous,” she scolded. “You’ve no right to be. And you know better than anyone that Morgan has never been my lover.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

35

The much-awaited message from the sentries arrived two days later: the Kjallan fleet had been sighted in the Neruna Strait. Janto’s stomach knotted. Here was the moment of truth. Now he would find out whether the plans he’d set in motion would save his country or destroy it.

Signals flew wildly between the palace, the cliffs, and Kal’s fleet in the harbor, as the Mosari and