The Providence of Fire (68 page)

“And when we encounter the horsemen?” she asked slowly.

Il Tornja smiled then, a wry little twist of the lip. “Hope that Long Fist makes a mistake.”

“How likely is that?”

“He hasn't made one yet.”

Someone shifted on the floor behind Adare, the wide pine boards creaking with the weight.

“The Urghul might not a' made a mistake,” Nira said, her voice a rough file over stone, “but you have, you son of a Csestriim bitch.”

Adare spun to find the old woman standing just a few feet inside the back door, her brother hunched in the shadows behind her. She looked the same—stoop-backed, hair a curled halo of gray about her wizened face—but there was something in her eyes, something sharp and bright that Adare had never seen there. For half a heartbeat she just stared at the woman she had made her councillor, and then, behind her, just where il Tornja was standing, she heard the clatter of steel dropping to the wooden floor. She turned once more to find Fulton still holding his sword, or what was left of it.

The blade had been cut cleanly just above the hilt, the steel scar seared smooth. The length of the weapon lay on the pine boards at the
kenarang
's feet, while around his neck floated a bright collar of flame. The slender line of fire throbbed, as though someone had slashed open the world and beyond it lay another world, one filled to the stars and beyond with unquenchable fire. Fulton took a step back, obviously baffled, but il Tornja didn't move. His eyes, lit by the light of the burning collar, had gone hard as stones.

“What is this?” he asked, raising a hand to the ring, taking care not to touch it.

“You might call it justice,” Nira said, stepping forward from the shadows. “Or you might call it vengeance.” She smiled a tight smile. “Or you might just call it bad fucking luck. Doesn't much matter, because either way, it's gonna kill you.”

The
kenarang
turned his head just a fraction to meet her stare, narrowed his eyes, then, after a brief pause, said simply, “Ah. Rishinira.”

“Do I look different,” she asked quietly, “after all these years?”

He seemed to study the question. “You look stronger,” he said at last.

She barked a laugh, while Adare felt her own stomach shift queasily. The pieces fell abruptly, terrifyingly into place.
Someone close to the center of power. A creature long given to schemes and machinations …

“What are you doing, Nira?” Adare asked slowly.

The old woman didn't take her eyes from il Tornja. “Just finishing up a very tiresome errand.”

He was Csestriim. That was the only answer. Ran il Tornja was Csestriim. Her father's killer was Csestriim. Somehow, impossibly, he was the Csestriim Nira had been searching for all these years, the one who made her nearly immortal. The brute fact smashed through everything Adare thought she understood about the world, and her mind refused it, kicked it away, grasped desperately for some other explanation. She felt as though she had looked into the bottom of a deep well and seen the sun.

Il Tornja spread his hands, the sort of invitation a host might make upon opening the door to newly arrived guests. “I see you've made the acquaintance of my old friends, Adare.” He nodded toward Nira's brother, who was staring at him with eyes like saucers—“Hello, Roshin”—then turned back to her. “I don't know how you found these two, but I assume you are ignorant of their history.”

“No,” Adare said, shaking her head, forcing down the confusion and the terror. “I'm
not
ignorant of it, in fact. Nira and Oshi have been completely honest with me.”

Il Tornja frowned. “Then you understand that they are leaches. That they helped to destroy half of the continent you call Eridroa. They are the Atmani.”

“What I understand,” Adare said, forcing herself to say the words, though she could only manage a whisper, “is that if they are the Atmani, then you are the monster who made them.”

Il Tornja frowned. “
Monster
is a terribly freighted word. As for making them, only Bedisa can weave a soul. She made them, made them a brother and sister, both leaches. All we did was help to extend their power, to give them the life they still enjoy.”

Adare felt like weeping, like screaming, but it was Nira who responded, her voice gravid with rage.

“Enjoy?” she spat. “The life we
enjoy
?” She thrust a finger at her brother. “Your
gifts
broke us.”

“A fact that I have regretted since the day I realized it was true.”

“You're
Csestriim,
” Nira hissed savagely. “You don't
feel
regret.”

Something alien passed through il Tornja's gaze, an utter emptiness that made Adare quail. “Your certainties, Rishinira, may prove as illusory as my own have.”

Blood filled Adare's mouth, bitter and salty. She realized she had bitten through her cheek, and tried not to gag. “What do you want?” she managed. “Why are you here?”

He turned back to her, pausing for a moment as though considering his answer. “I want what I have long wanted,” he replied finally. “To protect Annur from her foes.”

“A lie,” Nira snarled. “Just another fucking lie.”

Il Tornja shook his head. “Since its founding, Annur has been ruled by Malkeenians, but in many ways, it is
my
empire. It is the penance I undertook, the thing I created, to atone for my failure with you, Rishinira, and with Roshin, and the rest.”

Adare wanted to scream at Nira to tighten the flaming collar and have done with it. The man had lied to her so many times already, and each time she had allowed herself to be led like a docile beast. Just one more step. Always just one more step.

She almost said it. “Kill him,” she almost said, opening her mouth to let the words out, but they would not come.

It was the easiest course, the just course, but it also reeked of confusion and desperation. Revenge was a reaction, and she needed to do more than react. She needed to think, to think deeper and better than she had been thinking all these months. She needed to see further than her foes. That il Tornja was Csestriim she could barely believe, but if it was true, the truth had consequence. It explained things. He was not just a human general risen to his post on the strength of his native genius, but something even more dangerous. More powerful.

Adare eyed the collar of flame around the
kenarang
's throat, watched it shift and writhe. Il Tornja hadn't tried to move since Nira wove it in place, which meant that he was trapped, at bay. The terror inside her still raged, but emperors were not ruled by their terror. It was foolish to destroy something before she fully understood it, before she knew whether or not she could use it.

“How,” she asked, her voice rigid as steel, “is Annur your empire?”

He met her stare. “I have been with her since the start. I told Terial where to build his capital. I commanded the army that put down the Second Secession—”

Adare shook her head curtly. “Raginald Went put down the Second Secession.”

He grinned. “Have you ever seen a painting of Raginald Went?”

Adare's mind foundered. Raginald Went had refused to be painted. He had refused a statue on the Godsway in his honor, going so far as to have his soldiers tear down the incomplete work. At the time, everyone had hailed his humility, but what if it had not been humility at all?

It was then that the realization started to penetrate, soaking in like a frigid winter rain, freezing her to the core. Ran il Tornja was immortal. This was not his first post, not his first role in the Annurian chronicles. Nira had said it herself on the road south to Olon: the man was drawn to power like a moth to light. How many names had he worn down through the dusty halls of history? How many parts had he played?

He nodded, as though he could hear her silent question. “I was Mizran to Alial the Great. I fought the Manjari at the Rift in the Western Wars, and the jungle tribes down in the Waist during the Dark Summer. I founded the Aedolian Guard to protect your family.”

Adare was shaking her head, but no words would come.

“The Kettral study a book on tactics by Hendran,” he continued, speaking slowly now, as though to a child. “I wrote it. I was Hendran for almost three decades. At every step, I have been there, a faithful shepherd to Annur and to the Malkeenians both.”

“Why?” Adare demanded quietly. “Why would you do that?”

For the first time he hesitated. “My people are gone,” he said at last. “Never to return. There can't be more than a few dozen of us left, scattered here and there. The Csestriim will never come back, but I wanted to create something on this earth like what we lost: a kingdom, an empire, a polity ruled by reason and justice rather than fear, and greed, and passion.”

He gestured to Nira and Oshi. “We tried with the Atmani, thought that if we found a way to bring immortality to a small, just group of rulers, that they would, in turn, bring order to the world.” He grimaced. “We failed. Bedisa did not build your minds for the long passage of years. Instead of ushering in order and justice, we plunged the world into madness.”

He turned to Nira. “Do you remember, Rishinira?” he asked almost gently. “How young you all were, and beautiful? How eager for justice and peace? What we did, we did
with
you, not
to
you. We shared a hope. One that went awfully awry.”

Adare glanced at the old woman and discovered tears sheeting down her cheeks. “You knew what would happen,” she said, balling her hands into fists. “You're Csestriim. You
must
have known.”

“No,” he replied. “We did not. Even the gods fail, and we were never gods.”

He turned back to Adare. “Where I failed with the Atmani, I have succeeded with Annur, at least to a degree.”

“Why didn't you just rule yourself?” Adare demanded. “Why make my family your puppets?”

He smiled ruefully. “The Malkeenians were hardly puppets. You're too quick and stubborn for that. And then,” he gestured with a hand to her scars, “there is Intarra's hand upon you as well, a hand more powerful than my own will ever be. No, you were never puppets. We have been … collaborators in this great project. Men and women accept the Malkeenians, revere you, where they could never accept one of my kind.”

Adare took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to sort the lies from the truth. At the side of the room, Oshi had left his bear to stand beside Nira, their fingers laced together.

“Do we fight, sister?” he asked quietly. He stared at il Tornja, but his eyes held no recognition.

“It's not a matter of fighting,” she said, gesturing to the collar of flame with a withered hand. “It is a matter of killing. A thought, and he is dead.”

Adare stepped forward, her body moving even as her mind scrambled to keep up, putting herself squarely between the Atmani and il Tornja, raising a hand, as though that would do anything to block Nira's kenning.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You can't.”

“Do not lecture me, child,” Nira replied, eyes cold as winter night, “on the handling of my own vengeance.”

Adare hesitated, tried to think. If she was going to lead Annur, she needed to be able to reason even as her mind reeled. If half of what the man claimed were true, a quarter of it—if he had fought in all those battles, had counseled the greatest of the Malkeenian emperors—then she could use him. No, she amended silently, she
needed
him. Despite her father's tutelage, despite the hundreds of tomes she'd read on politics and law, finance and governance, she had no idea how to handle the threat posed by Long Fist, no idea how to manage the various borders, no strategy to keep peace down in the Waist. Letting il Tornja live was a danger, a risk, but risk was everywhere. The man was a well-honed tool, one she could turn to her advantage, to Annur's advantage.…

“Stand aside, Adare,” Nira said.

Slowly, Adare shook her head. “Hear me out. For my sake,
and
for yours.” She raised her chin toward Oshi. “For his.”

Nira hesitated, then spat on the floor.

“You have a hundred words.”

Adare didn't pause. “He can fix you.”

“Horseshit,” the old woman snarled. She looked past Adare at the
kenarang
. “Go ahead, try to ride her lie.”

Il Tornja shook his head slowly. “I will not. I don't know how to cure you.”

Adare cursed him silently. Why he had chosen this particular moment, after a lifetime of lies, to cleave to the truth, she had no idea, but she pressed ahead regardless. “You might not know, but you have ideas.” If there was one thing she'd learned about Ran il Tornja, it was that the man had ideas. On politics. On war. On love. He might not know what had gone wrong with Oshi and Nira, but he'd had hundreds of years to wonder. “You have theories,” she said.

He watched her from beneath hooded eyes, then chuckled. “I do,” he replied.

“And now that you have the last two Atmani here,” Adare said, gesturing to Nira and Oshi, “it's possible you can help them.”

He hesitated. “There is always a possibility.”

“
Fuck
possibility,” Nira growled. “It was possibility that
broke
us in the first place. I will have my revenge, and see an end to this.”

The words were rock hard, sharp as chipped obsidian, but Adare could see something in the old woman's face, the first crumbling of doubt.

Adare tried to speak directly to that doubt, driving her argument into the hesitation like mason's spikes hammered into a stone's seam. “You can make that decision for yourself, Nira, but not for your brother.”

“Don't go lecturin' me on what I can and can't do. I've been makin' his decisions since before your fucking empire was born, girl.”