The Tyrant's Law

lucky enough to avoid and shuddered.

“Give me a day or two to lay the groundwork,” she said. “I will do what I can.”

“Thank you,” Roach said, and turned to go.

“Wait, Ro—Wait. A moment.” He paused. Cithrin gathered herself. “Isadau and I may be shifting some of the capital from Suddapal to Porte Oliva. The ship will be heavily guarded, of course, and I’ll want someone from my branch there to oversee it. Make sure nothing goes missing between here and home.”

“Ma’am?”

“It will get you and Maha out of the city.” She could see the struggle in his expression; leaping hope fought with shame. She thought she understood. “I would have needed to send you or Enen regardless. All you’ve done is make the choice of which a bit simpler.”

“Yes, Magistra.”

After he left, the door closing quietly behind him, Cithrin let her forehead sink to the table. Her personal guard was getting the magistra’s family pregnant. How lovely. And, in the shadow that was falling over them all, how obvious. Cithrin put on her cloak and walked out through the corridors. The compound was emptier than she was used to. There was music, but it came from a long way off, and it wasn’t the bright, lively sound of dancing. She felt a knot tying itself in her gut and knew that her choices were to drink herself to the edge of sleep or stay awake until morning. Neither appealed, but they were all she had.

She found Yardem at the watch fire alone. The flames lit the back of his head and glittered off the rings in his tall ears. He never sat facing the fire. She sat next to him, her hands between her knees.

“Ma’am.”

“Yardem,” she said.

Across the road, someone struck up a mournful tune on a violin. The eerie reeds of a bellows organ rose with it. Yardem held up a wineskin, and Cithrin took it, wiping its mouth on her sleeve after she drank. It was a bright taste, and it warmed her throat, but it didn’t have enough bite to it to affect her thinking. She looked out at the night, trying to see the buildings and streets, lanterns and alleys of Suddapal the way she imagined Yardem did. No walls to speak of. Streets too wide to block. Commons big enough to field an army. History had made Suddapal a wide sprawl of a city. Rich with the trade from the Inner Sea, safer than the Keshet, and natural partner to the Free Cities and Put. Indefensible. Even if the Imperial Army arrived exhausted and half dead from thirst, Suddapal would fall.

There was nothing she could do to stop it. No hope she could offer up. She wondered whether Magistra Isadau would leave when the time came, or go down with her city like the captain of a sinking ship. She wondered how long she would stay and watch or go back to Porte Oliva. It was the time for asking questions like that.

“Looking bleak, ma’am.”

“The situation or me?”

“Meant the situation, but either works. Talked to Karol Dannien this morning. He says the defenses are going up at Kiaria. It’s the traditional stronghold. Thick walls, deep tunnels.”

“And are they going to fit everyone in Suddapal into it?”

“No.”

“Half?”

“No.”

“One in three?”

“Two in ten.”

“So the city falls with most of the population still in it.”

“Yes.”

“Isadau’s putting together a group to smuggle people out afterwards. She hasn’t told me, but it’s what she’s doing.”

“Brave.”

“Doomed.”

“That too,” Yardem agreed. “But it’s her people. Her family. Likely a third of the people in Suddapal are related to her if you squint hard enough. People do that sort of thing for their families.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“There’s more than one kind of family,” Yardem said. “It’s the kind of thing the captain would have done for you.”

“If you say so.”

Yardem sighed and drank more of the wine. Cithrin closed her eyes.

“Yardem?”

“Ma’am?”

“What’s Roach’s real name again?”

“Halvill.”

“Halvill’s gotten the magistra’s cousin’s daughter pregnant.”

“That’s a problem,” Yardem said. A moment later, he chuckled. Cithrin found herself smiling too.

For a while, they laughed.

Marcus

The mountains changed when they got close. The air still tasted of dust and the sun still pressed down on them like it bore a grudge, but before, the rise and fall of the land had been rough and stony. Here, it became knifelike. They skirted the village, but the spoor of goats and men in the few, weedy meadows made Marcus nervous. They were in the enemy’s land. Every turn meant the risk of another chance encounter. Kit promised that the path they were taking was the least traveled, only of course he didn’t say it that way. He said, I believe it is the least traveled, and I expect there will be fewer people here, constantly reminding Marcus that his guide was decades out of date. In truth, almost anything could have changed in that time, and something almost certainly would have. The only question was what.

And still, Kit knew the landscape well enough to be a guide. Without him, the long dry paths would have taken months to pass through instead of weeks. And all along the way, they talked of what still lay ahead.

“The great temple has a statue of the goddess,” Kit said as they walked through a defile so narrow Marcus could touch both sides with his outstretched fingers. “The hral kaska is through there, and down.”

“Hral kaska?”

“In the old tongue, it means something like ‘private chamber.’ ”

“Past massive golden statue, into bedroom of incarnate goddess. All right,” Marcus said. “Do you have any idea how big she is? Physically, do goddesses run the size of horses or houses?”

“I was never allowed past the outer chamber. I never saw more than a glimpse of her. But I have heard her breath.”

“So at a guess?”

Kit frowned

“Houses.”

“Lovely.”

“From what I was told in the temple and the stories I’ve gathered in my travels, I believe that you need only cut her. The poison of the blade will end her.”

The gorge tightened and began to slant upward. Marcus let Kit go ahead, then followed, the mule’s woven leather lead in his hand. The mule snorted but made no other comment.

“Any thoughts how quickly this ending would happen?” he asked. “A long, lingering death that gives her time to slaughter me doesn’t do as much good as a sudden collapse.”

“I don’t know,” Kit said.

A long shelf stood at the top of the rise, the stone marked by shallow indentations where rain had eaten