Head spinning with anxiety, I raised my gaze to look at him. But his face was turned and I couldn’t catch his eyes.
What was he talking about? And why now? Why not before… ?
Well, it was pretty obvious why not before, I thought, with a sudden surge of bitterness.
Under the table, I clenched my fists, digging nails into my palms. I took a deep breath.
“Is that an order, Myar Mal?” I forced my voice to sound calm. At least, I hoped I did.
“No. But neither is staying here. It’s your choice. Perhaps the last one you’re going to get.”
I was tempted to ask if he meant I could die if I stayed or get kicked out if I left.
“Then I choose to stay,” I said simply.
The faces of my mother and sister flashed through my mind, sending out ripples of guilt. I just got a chance to quit, go to Tarviss, and at least try to help them. Instead, I stayed to play soldier.
But if the situation in Dahls didn’t change, I’d have nowhere to take them. So, in a way, staying there and trying to sort things out was helping them.
Myar Mal nodded across the table, then moved on to the next question so swiftly, I thought he forgot about me.
“Any estimates about the number of rebels?”
Another woman, this one with a square face and eyes so dark they were almost black, spoke, “We tried casting spying spells on the mansion, but they give us a different number each time. Sometimes it’s two thousand; sometimes it’s five thousand people.”
The Dahlsi used the dozenal system, where the base number was twelve, but we, Tarvissi, preferred the decimal, so I had to make re-calculate. A dozenal thousand was seventeen-hundred-and-twenty-eight in decimal, so the total number she proposed was between thirty-five and eighty-six hundred. Tight fit, given the size of the mansion, but not exactly impossible.
“Any thoughts?”
There was no immediate answer, and I raised my head only to realize the question was aimed at me. I shuffled awkwardly and cleared my throat. “I’d say the numbers are on the lower end. The people of Maurir were mostly of low class, and not many of them would follow nobles willingly.”
And that meant more of them were killed. Slaughtered like animals and probably tossed outside, since I doubted the rebels would bother with a proper funeral.
“Does their background tell us anything about them other than numbers?”
I took another moment to think. “They were probably trained to fight from a very young age,” I said without conviction. The nobles were different, even though my parents’ uprising strove to erase those differences. Still, old traditions were strong, even if those upholding them were young.
The problem was, as a peon and the child of the revolution, I knew very little about tradition.
“I thought you killed their parents during your revolt?” asked another man I didn’t recognize. I swore, after the meeting, I’d have to find a way to learn their names. Although I probably wasn’t going to need them ever again.
“I think they started learning earlier and just continued practicing.” Kiraes Auridion was almost an adult when the nobles were killed. And I still remembered Karlan carrying a long stick in place of a sword and waving it every day as mock practice. I doubted any of them was a swordmaster, but at least they knew which end to hold.
“What about magic?”
The question came from Tayrel Kan. He stood in what I started to think of as his usual spot against the wall, and I wasn’t sure if he had been invited to the meeting. Even if not, I doubted anyone could keep him out—he was just that kind of guy.
Come to think of it, I wasn’t even sure if he had been included in the spying spell they cast on me before my mission.
“A few of the rebels were wearing what looked like mirror armors,” said the dark-eyed woman.
Indeed, now I recalled seeing small, oval mirrors some Tarvissi wore over their sternums.
“I saw something similar on the bandits from Csivelin,” she continued. “They are enough to disperse a direct killing spell. Not so good against swords, though.”
“Do all the rebels have them?” pried the elder guy.
“Out of those in the yard, I’d say around one-third,” answered the woman. “But who knows how many there are.”
“What about those crystal balls?” asked Tayrel Kan, his eyes fixed on me.
I had no idea what he was talking about until an image popped up before my eyes: a man with a few transparent spheres hanging from his belt like a bunch of grapes. I was pretty sure it was implanted.
“They are weapons, aren’t they?” he pressed.
I shook my head. “Probably, but I don’t know how they work.”
“You don’t seem to know very much about the military of your people,” said the half-tan, and I felt my face heating up.
“Magic in Tarviss is reserved for the members of the highest class,” I explained, doing my best to control myself. It wasn’t easy. My heart was hammering, and I felt like instead of blood, it was trying to pump the words out before they turned into a scrambled mess. I caught myself before my speech became too fast and too loud. People have often mistaken it for anger, and I got into more trouble for it than I could count. “My people had no access to it and, even now, primarily associate it with oppression. My family won’t let me cast cleaning spells when I’m home.”
Only when I noticed gazes filled with shock and disgust, did I realize exactly what I had just said. “We use soap and water,” I grunted, wishing I could melt under the floor.
“By higher class, do you mean nobles or sorcerers?” asked Tayrel Kan, mercifully closing the topic.
“Sorcerers, mostly. But,” I added, suddenly remembering something I once read, “I think the spheres have spells trapped in them.
