Chapter 51

Come night, Tratheke looked like a sea of lights.

Black House was not so tall that the view from the roof garden was not cut into by higher edifices still, but the spread offered to Song’s eyes was still a striking sight. The gas lamps of the capital lit up the dark like a thousand fireflies, their burning glow reflected on green glass and brass, and above it all towered the Collegium. That grand structure’s bones of brass were hard to make out from a distance, weaving the illusion that its massive transparent glass panes were instead made of pure light.

And atop that cube of light rested, like a slender crown, the palace that Song Ren was avoiding thinking about.

The bench beneath her was forged iron, digging enough into her back she was regretting declining the offer from the servants to bring up cushions. Perhaps it was for the best. Sitting alone in the dark surrounded only by grass, fragrant flowers and the sound of flowing water it would have been all too easy to fall into some sort of romantic melancholy. An iron ridge digging into her back detracted from the picturesque feeling, like a fly in the soup.

Pulling her black cloak tighter around her, Song’s swept the city’s skyline. Beautiful, she thought, but inherited. The sole claim the people of Tratheke had to this was that they had kept the lights on, tinkered replacements for the Antediluvian machines sucking gas out of the earth when they began breaking apart after the rough treatment of the First Empire. In Tianxia, such a thing would have been looked down on.

Her people’s pride was in what they built with their own hands, not the wonders bequeathed by long-dead titans. There was beauty in that as well, she thought. Not one so unearthly as this dream-city of glass and light, but no lesser for it.

Silver eyes flicked up to the palace above the city of lights, until she realized what she was doing and winced. Song was not a child; she had dallied before. With boys, as was her preference, though sometimes she suspected she was not entirely indifferent to the charms of women – merely discerning, as one should be in all things. Her mother had tacitly allowed it, almost encouraged it, so that Song would not be fooled by some seducer out in the world.

Yet her account book of some heated kissing and the one banal evening in bed had not felt like… that. How was it that a nothing haunted her more than the times she had actually indulged? It must be the denial, she told herself. Denial excited the mind, even when self-inflicted, and the mind was the better part of her troubles here anyway. Evander Palliades was easy enough on the eyes, but she liked his conversation more than his jawline.

Well. The jawline didn’t hurt, admittedly.

“Boo.”

The moment she felt breath against her ear Song’s hand lashed out, grabbing a collar, and after fastening her second grip in the same heartbeat she tossed her attacker forward over her shoulder and the back of the bench.

A second later the word and voice registered.

“Oh Gods,” Song said, hastily getting up. “Are you-”

“I’m fine,” Tristan painfully groaned, face in the dirt and hips well slammed into the back of the bench. “Ouch.”

She smoothed her face. It would not do to laugh, even though with his legs half-lifted and his face in the grass the Sacromontan looked like a manner of beached porpoise. His goddess showed no such restraint, the red-dressed beauty guffawing so strongly she almost fell to her feet and had to catch herself on the bench. Song eased her Mask past the edge of the bench, letting him drop belly down on the grass, and he did not refuse the hand she offered to help him up afterwards.

Tristan Abrascal brushed off his clothes and picked off a strand of grass that had stuck to his face.

“Well,” he coughed into his hand. “There goes my daily reminder of the virtues of humility.”

Song cleared her throat awkwardly.

“I did not recognize your voice until too late.”

“I’m the one who jumped you,” he snorted. “I was asking for it. Nice throw, though.”

“I could teach you if you’d like,” Song offered.

He was dressed for the city, in a belted brown tunic and trousers. In wool, which was common in these parts given how many Tratheke workshops made such cloth, and though his hair was bereft of a cap it was flattened in a way that implied he’d worn one for hours. Tristan was also, she noted, scrupulously clean from the fingernails to the shoes. He must have washed before coming here. Had he finally begun to notice the stink of cities? She’d thought Sacromonte had ruined his nose for life.

“Best to get my shooting up to par first,” Tristan ruefully said. “I would rather not split my attention when we already have so many plates to balance.”

Sensible enough. And the mention of plates led into an immediate curiosity of hers.

“Which begs the question,” she said, “of why you missed dinner.”

Late service should be finishing up around now, but he had missed the expected evening meal with Maryam. All trace of mirth left those gray eyes at her words, as if it had been suddenly squeezed out by some twitching grip.

“You should sit down,” Tristan said.

She did not, instead crossing her arms.

“What happened?” Song asked.

“The Kassa workshop is solidly guarded,” he said. “I could try to break in, but odds are it’ll be noticeable. The best shot for access is taking a job there.”

She nodded warily. He was circling around what he would rather avoid talking about, she could tell.

“To get that job I will need a recommendation, and to get that recommendation I will have to make a deal with a basileia the Kassa are friendly with,” he added. “Passing through the Brazen Chariot for an introduction seems the most feasible.”

“And you would pay in favors,” Song said. “In both cases.”

He nodded and she almost grimaced. A small favor to the Chariot for the introduction, then a larger one to the more powerful basileia for the good word. She would have preferred paying in coin, but since the misstep with the Brazen Chariot she had been educated on the difficulties of this. As a rule, most criminals were poor in actual coinage and had to pass through third parties to turn what valuable property they did own into something that could spend.

For a basileia to suddenly be flush with clean gold would draw much attention and speculation, something neither the Watch nor the basileias would want. And still she hesitated, because providing the services of a trained Mask to basileias was no small thing. An even halfway clever criminal could use his talents for a great many things best left undone.

“I’ll make it clear to the Chariot there are limits when they broker for me,” he told. “Nothing that can blow back on us too hard.”

She hesitated. Two months ago, the thought of letting Tristan Abrascal effectively freelance for criminals under the auspices of the Thirteenth Brigade would have had her writing a report to the garrison recommending his imprisonment. Yet things had… changed, since, in many ways. He knows what lines to cross and not, she reminded herself. An agent of the Krypteia could not be expected to operate under her gaze, that was simply not their purpose.

Tonight or some other day on the horizon, Song would have to extend this trust. Why shame herself by balking at giving it now?

“Keep me informed as much as you can,” she said. “I take it you will be leaving Black House?”

“I can’t risk the constant back and forth, someone might follow me,” he agreed. “I’ll pass reports through Hage regularly.”

“If it takes too long to infiltrate the warehouse, we may have to take another angle,” she told him. “Maryam’s experiment with the flowers at the shrine was inconclusive, but I have confirmed the existence of at least a second one.”

Maryam had not been able to reach beyond the brackstone to find out if there was resonance, which in a way was good news. The lack of answers had visibly irritated her Navigator, however, and yet another letter had been sent to Stheno’s Peak as a consequence. She wanted to know everything they did about the flowers, these Asphodel crowns.

“So the odds are good we’re looking at some old god slipping out of its cage,” Tristan muttered. “Bad timing for us, that. The priority is establishing if that cage and prisoner actually have anything to do with the Golden Ram, then. We might have stumbled into something much worse by accident.”

He frowned.

“And Brigadier Chilaca’s an ass, but he’s not wrong that between the noble plot and the aether lock we might have strayed away from our actual assignment.”

There had been no ‘might’ in the sentence the stern, older Izcalli used. But Brigadier Chilaca was the same man who had ordered Song not to warn their client about the coup brewing under his feet, most likely to use that as a bargaining chip in negotiations, so the Tianxi was disinclined to heed him any further than she must according to the rules of the Watch.

“I found no trace of the cult in the palace with my contract,” Song reminded him. “Considering the suspected membership, it is also rather unlikely the cult does not have some involvement in the planned coup.”

He grunted.

“I’m not unaware we’re running out of leads,” Tristan said. “I’d been hoping Maryam would find something more practical in the archives, but it has been all politics and old horrors. The Lord Rector really doesn’t know anything about the shrines?”

“There is reason to believe those secrets might have been swiped before the Palliades took the throne,” Song replied. “The finger is being pointed at House Eirenos – which was, it seems, once significantly wealthier in coin and land.”

“Bad news, that,” Tristan noted. “Empty coffers are when nobles start selling off the antiques they don’t show guests.”

Ah. She had not considered that, in truth, too pleased with the happenstance. If House Eirenos had sold land, it had very likely sold antiques as well. Hopefully not all of them. Tristan cocked an eyebrow.

“Does Tredegar know this?”

“I sent word after her,” Song said. “Under the guise of a lost hat being returned to her by her acquaintance ‘Lord Allazi’. The message is hidden inside the lining.”

Removing a letter from the word Allazei was not the most elaborate of deceptions, but then Angharad was no deep intriguer. Caution was the order of the day. Paying a messenger rider to take the package had been wincingly expensive, but it was the only way for it to reach her before she made it to the Eirenos estate – where it was not impossible her mail would be looked through.

“That should do,” he approved, rolling his shoulder, then changed tack. “I’ll be spending the night here, I think, and leave after our pistol practice tomorrow. Is Maryam still awake?”

“I believe so,” Song replied.

Neither had lit a lantern, she for lack of need and Tristan evidently finding the street lights sufficient, so calling his face shadowed would have been somewhat on the nose. Yet there was something, Song decided, to the cast of him right now. Tristan tended to geniality, or at least the show of it, but tonight it felt brittle. That look in his eyes earlier, when the laughter went out, it had not been the look of a man who had middling bad news to tell her. Despite his attempt to play it off that way, those eyes had not about the basileia business.

It had been too personal for that.

So when he inclined his head in goodbye and made to leave, Song cleared her throat.

“And if I were to ask what it is you aren’t telling me?”

He mastered his expression, but not quite quickly enough. Aware of the slip, the gray-eyed man grimaced and pivoted her way in more ways than one.

“Would you like to talk,” he replied, “about why you are sitting alone in the dark brooding?”

Song heard that, measured it. Headed it off at the pass.

“No,” she said. “But I will, if you do the same.”

Rank meant little to him, there was no point in even mentioning it. Trying to force him would make her an enemy – she had not forgotten Maryam’s words – and set back their functioning relationship. But they had a degree of trust between them, now, so she figured he’d not wave away a trade if offered.

The two of them stood in the dark, her watching him watching her, and she could almost hear the creak of the balance’s scales as he weighed the risks. His hand twitched, almost reaching for his chest. Where he kept his watch when in uniform, the one the old clockmaker had given him on the Dominion.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“You first,” he finally got out.

Song cleared her throat. In her eagerness to seize the advantage she had not quite realized that she would, in fact, have to tell him her… troubles. Her reluctance only seemed to sharpen his interest.

“The Lord Rector forced his way onto the expedition to the brackstone shrine today,” she said.

He snorted.

“The Lord Rector of Asphodel fought to visit cheapest brothel in Tratheke? Now there’s the opening line for half a hundred jokes.”

She grunted in dismay.

“When we took a room there, to avoid revealing we had come solely to investigate the wall, we spent some time alone,” Song said, then swallowed. “He tried to kiss me.”

It was like watching a folding knife flick open, the change that came over him. Almost instant.

“Our contract is to the throne, not the man,” Tristan Abrascal mildly said. “It would not be too difficult to-”

Oh, oh. He thought that Evander had tried to… insist.

“Not like that,” Song hastily said, clearing her throat again. “He was mortified when I refused, apologized effusively.”

He cocked his head to the side.

“We can send Maryam to give the reports from now on,” Tristan suggested. “Or have her accompany you if you would prefer. That should discourage him trying his luck again.”

She watched the knife slowly fold back into place. As if he had not just offered to arrange the death of a king on her behalf.

“It is not on your head that he should delude himself of an interest,” he assured her. “Nor would we blame you if he grows miffed and attempts complications. That would speak of him, not you.”

It was very kind of him to say that, Song thought, which made it all infinitely worse.

“It is not entirely a delusion,” she miserably said.

A long moment of silence, Tristan studying her as if she were a five-legged dog or some manner of wingless bird.

“That is inconvenient,” he finally said. “I don’t suppose sleeping with him once would cure you?”

She might have been offended, if he had not spoken of sex in the same way one would speak of mopping a dirty floor. A vaguely disagreeable chore.

“You really have no interest in it, do you?” she asked, oddly relieved.

It was like confessing to her seasickness to a desert tribesman deeply skeptical of ponds.

“I sometimes like the kissing,” he shrugged, “but not the rest, no.”

“Besides being a wildly bad idea in several different ways, I assure you sleeping with Evander would not ‘cure ‘me,” Song sighed. “Or him. I think he is lonely, and that I represent an adventure in several ways.”

She paced back and forth before the bench, ignoring his eyes on her.

“And you fear… succumbing to the bad idea?” he tried. “Or that he will try to pursue you again? Your refusal seems like it would settle either matter.”

Only there were refusals and then there were refusals. Song was no great seductress, but she knew that much. She could have confronted the matter, but it to rest for good. Instead she had handed him the excuse of the wine, which they both knew to be false. It was leaving the door cracked open, however slightly.

“If he were not king of Asphodel, tangled up in everything we do here, I would have let him kiss me,” Song admitted.

He shrugged.

“Then let reports to the palace become Maryam’s responsibility,” he bluntly said. “And ask to have her along when you are dragged into serving as his sniffer.”

“That simple, is it?” Song snorted.

She felt almost foolish now. As if she had made a mountain of a molehill. She sat on the bench, iron digging into her back.

“I don’t think desire is simple at all,” Tristan quietly said. “I wouldn’t find it so tricky to understand if it were. But it seems to me that if you do not trust yourself, you should turn someone you do.”

Song passed a hand through her hair, pushing the braid back over her shoulder.

“I thought I was better than this,” she told him. “That I had better rule over myself. Gods, the things that would be said back home if the sole Ren who fled the Republics was found to have lain with a king-”

It was not merely the Yellow Earth that would vilify her for that. Even her family would hold her in disdain, her own sisters. That last thought had been what kept sense in her, at the brothel. The visceral fear of it.

“You aren’t going to impress anyone with virtue, Song,” Tristan said.

Her gaze turned to him, frowning.

“My conduct must be without reproach,” she told him. “Much rides on it.”

She must distinguish herself, in record and deed, so flawlessly that there was no choice but the Watch raising her. That even those who most cursed the name of Ren found nothing to complain of in her, when word of her actions reached the Republics.

“You’re waiting for a payoff that will never come,” the thief said. “Virtue’s what they expect of you even when they dine on gold plates and you drink from puddles. It’s the rule they put in place so when they live easy and you live hard they can say you broke some natural law and deserved the gutter all along. They don’t actually care, Song.”

Tristan shrugged.

“It’s why it’s always excused when they do it, when they cheat their cousins out of fortunes and assassinate their rivals. Because virtue’s never about virtue, it is about the power to allocate vice.”

“There is right and wrong, Tristan,” she flatly replied.

“Would it be wrong to sleep with Palliades, or disreputable?” he challenged.