Kingmaker (2 page)

“If you expected me not to be reckless,” Vera said, “then you don’t know me at all.” She flashed him a sour smile.

The Minister’s secretary, transcribing notes from behind them, smothered a laugh.

“You think this is humorous? Invoking the Stargazers’ wrath?” Durst asked. “We’re trying to save lives, here. The Destroyers’ methods may be—”

“Extreme?” Vera asked. Word was that they’d mailed the neatly diced remains of a corrupt aristocrat to each of his associates.

“Highly illegal.
But they are certainly motivated to put an end to the gangs, and they clearly know a great deal about Barstadt City’s seedy underbelly. Enough to bring down the gangs for good. Enough to rid our fair empire of the scourge of criminality once and for all.”

Vera folded her arms. There was only one criminal Vera cared to see felled. But it was best not to dream of it. That dream was long dead, deader even than Nightmare’s bones in the eastern hills.

“Well, I’ve put the word out there now,” she said. “The Destroyers are bad for the gangs’ business, and it’s in the gangs’ best interests to find out who’s leading them. If the gangs turn up the heat on the Destroyers, they’ll be in need of someone to protect them, and who should come to their rescue? The Ministry. Their last refuge in the storm.” It was Vera’s favorite kind of plan—dangerous, reckless, and liable to attract all the wrong sorts of attention. Her skin tingled. “I can’t wait.”

“You have my support to proceed. Dreamer bless your hunt.” Minister Durst stood, and Vera followed suit. “Tell Edina to send in my next appointment.”

Vera froze: the ice started in her heart and spread outward. Four months and that name still held far more power than it deserved. What Vera wouldn’t give to bury it once and for all, to free herself of its taloned grip. But that would mean one of them had to leave the Ministry behind—they both were far too stubborn for that.

Vera stormed out into the Minister’s waiting room. “He’s ready for you,” she snapped to the room at large, then continued to the barracks without waiting for a reply. Better to forget Edina entirely.

*   *   *

The Dreamer, however, wasn’t ready to let Vera forget.

Dreams of Edina’s hand tucked in hers. Nerves crackling like lightning between the both of them as they waited for a door to swing open.
No need to worry,
Edina whispered to her, in that voice that could calm the stormy Itinerant Sea.
Everything will work out fine.

Dreams, too, of tears pouring down Edina’s face as her father raged and raged. Barbed words that refused to dislodge themselves from Vera’s brain. He went to strike Edina, hand reared, before something dawned on him. Not empathy. Certainly not paternal instinct. No. It was the look of a man remembering the value of something that he owned.

And so he turned on Vera instead.

If you ever so much as think about my daughter again,
he swore,
you’ll find yourself in so much pain you’ll wish Nightmare himself would swallow you up.

Vera jolted from bed and scrubbed at her arms, clawing away cold sweat. Why did the Dreamer torment her like this? If he wouldn’t give her dreams of foretelling, dreams of potential, even nonsense dreams, well, that was his business. Sometimes the Dreamer worked like that. But to torment her with the most jagged fragments of her memories seemed unbearably cruel.

The worst, perhaps, was how clear Edina’s face was in the dreams. Her delicate chin and soft brown skin and smile that almost never faded. The smoothness in her voice that never wavered, not even when she swore to her father that yes, he was absolutely right, and no, she and Vera would never see each other again. (Outside of their work together in the Ministry of Affairs. But Lord Alizard didn’t know this fact, either, about his daughter.) Edina’s father was a shrewd bargainer, and he knew precisely what his daughter was worth. Someone from a merchant family—a girl, no less—could never, ever afford it.

Vera lit her bedside lamp and scavenged through her leftover parcel of pastries.
Dreamer, please, spare me from my past. I’ve learned all I can from it.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Show me how to move forward. And if it’s not too much to ask … show me how to take down the worst criminal of all.

Lord Alizard.

*   *   *

The next evening, Vera headed to the dockside taverns to collect information, but instead netted three marriage proposals, the name of the suspicious Stargazer second lieutenant (Garrith), and no leads on the Destroyers. The second night, she opted for a slightly subtler disguise than the revealing clothing she’d worn the night before. Unwashed hair, wrangled back in the bucket-style hat many tunnelers preferred; trousers and a stack of tunics and sweaters from the Ministry’s costume storage; and, tucked beneath the layered tops and in her boots, a chef’s array of knives.

Vera inserted herself into a game of Stacks at the back corner of the tavern—no great feat, when she flashed enough coin and expensive-looking jewelry. (Only
expensive-looking,
the Ministry’s costumer was sure to stress.) She recognized at least one of the Stacks players as a Stargazers runner who shepherded the illegal Lullaby drug all over the empire, and the fellow he seemed chummiest with was probably Stargazers as well. Just the sort of fellow to possess the information on Garrith and the Destroyers she needed to learn.

First round: Vera swept the Stacks, not enough to wipe out the other players but certainly enough to get their attention. Second round: small talk about the recent constabulary raids near the docks. Third round: drinking tales, and another sweep (not that she’d planned it that way, but she took the opportunity when it arose). At this point, the other players were slamming their tokens on the table with far more force than necessary, thanks to the steady flow of ale. Vera hadn’t swallowed a drop of it but was sure to empty her mug all the same.

Fourth round: the dance on the knife’s edge. Minister Durst would argue for caution. Edina would insist on it. But Vera didn’t need alcohol to feel reckless. Edina’s father had as good as marked her for death if she didn’t do as he said. Why run from death? Vera preferred to snuggle it close.

“You ‘uns are Stargazers, aren’t ya?” Vera asked, gaze flicking toward the runner and his companion.

She stacked her second-highest token with the table stack, then made a show of looking disappointed with her own stack. “I saw yous at the brawl, other night. Your Jorn’s a beast.”

“Dumb as one, besides,” the runner said. He added to the table stack, then looked her over. “What’s it to you and yours?”

Vera shrugged. “Nothin’ to me. I only bet on brawls when I get paid. So, irregularly, and never as much as I’m owed.” She cackled, too loud, and earned a few raised mugs in toast.

“You a runner?” he asked, as the round progressed.

She shook her head. “Nah. Taskmaster. Used to oversee those tunneler kids what cleaned at the university, back when the Bootstraps gang ran that gig. Destroyers messed that up good for me, though. They didn’t like the dean diddlin’ with the kiddies. Left him a nasty present. Dean throws a fit, kicks us out, now I’m here.”

“We don’t talk about the Destroyers here,” one of the other women warned.

The runner’s companion nodded. “Bad for business.”

“Like callin’ on Nightmare,” the runner concurred.

Vera shrugged again. “Just tellin’ my sad tale.”

The Stacks Lord for the round did a quick tally and shoved that round’s pot toward the runner.

“Ever worked with the Stargazers before?” the runner asked Vera, after everyone had surveyed their tokens for round five.

“Sure. Just an overnight job, like—special work they had at the docks, nothin’ permanent.” Vera smiled with only one side of her mouth. “Why, they lookin’ for more?”

“Might be. If your stories check out. Y’know how it goes.” He made a double play—the table stack and his personal one. Vera tried her best to look impressed.

“Appreciate it.” Then she added to her personal stack—now a higher value than his, if she’d counted right. “Well, wait. Stargazers got that Garrith fellow, don’t they?” Finally, she could churn the waters of what she really wanted to discuss—whether or not Garrith was involved with the Destroyers—and hoped they’d take the bait. “That’s where he ended up?”

The runner’s smile wiped away in an instant. “He’s second lieutenant. Why you ask?”

Vera slid her jaw from side to side, then nestled back into her seat. “Enh, well, it’s only that—well, there was stories goin’ round. When I was Bootstraps, right? And he was, too.” A tidbit one of her other contacts had turned up, not that this crowd needed to know its origin.

The runner’s companion slammed his token onto the table stack. “Everyone knows he didn’t leave the Bootstraps in a pretty kind of way.” His expression went stony. “That’s how the Stargazers like ‘em.”

“Sure, sure, I hear that, boys. Only … the stories what were goin’ around. Well—” Vera gave him a grin full of teeth. “I s’pose they were only that.”

Everyone at the table was quiet for a moment, though the two Stargazers men were a particularly noisy sort of quiet, fidgeting and curling their lips. Vera took her time counting out her tokens before deciding which would go where.

“If y’know somethin’ about Garrith we don’t,” the runner finally said, “might be kind of you to share.”

For a fleeting moment, Vera imagined recounting this victory to Edina—the way Edina’s eyes would light up and she’d bounce like a spring as she threw her arms around Vera. Like they used to. Before her father threatened to have Vera killed.

The warmth from Vera’s victory in steering the conversation cooled, but she had to stay in her role. “All right, well. Word was, Garrith’s who tipped off the Destroyers to the crooked dealings in the university. Coz he’s one of’em himself.” That time, the silent over the table was absolute. The whole tavern went stuffy, smothering. So it felt to Vera.

“An interesting story,” the runner said at last.

The seed of doubt had been planted. Now Vera only had to hope her guess was right—that Garrith’s strange behavior really was because he was a Destroyer. That he’d just been put on notice.

“Well, anyway, s’pose it doesn’t matter none,” she said. “Destroyers aren’t gonna have anyone to turn to, before long. I suspect they’ll burn themselves out soon enough.”

“Vigilantes like that?” the runner said. “Lots of tunnelers look up to them, even if the rest of us want ‘em dead. Not that the tunnelers got much power to help ‘em.”

She shrugged. “Only the stuffy imperials would help folks like that. Ministry of Affairs, maybe. Constabulary’s too corrupt. Yeah, I reckon the Destroyers are good as dead.”

The runner smiled to himself. “If Garrith’s really runnin’ ‘em like you think, probably won’t be long.”

The conversation shifted. Vera stayed until she’d won double what she’d come with, then begged off for the night. Too much would’ve been rude; too little, a suspicious stopping point. Then she wandered toward the bar and clapped some fellows on the backs as if they were old friends she’d just seen come in. Spent some time chatting, calling for one last round. Waited until the Stacks players could forget her, if not her words. Then slipped out the tavern’s back door.

The streets of Barstadt City rang with her footsteps, bootheels clicking on cobblestones and bouncing across the narrow whitewash buildings. Only the sea mist rolling up from the bay offered any cover in the starry night. Vera pulled off her hat, setting her dark curls free, and peeled away the first few layers of her tunics until she reached one that was a different color from the one she’d worn in the tavern. Good enough.

A bootheel ricocheted on the alley walls behind her, and Vera turned, hand creeping toward the hilt of her knife, but no one approached. She waited a few moments for her rapid breathing to still and continued along her path.

At first, she didn’t know where she was headed, but when she passed the Ministry of Affairs barracks and found herself in the Cloister of Roses, she recognized her path all too well.

Alizard Manor, home to Lord Alizard and his cherished daughter Edina.

Candlelight danced in the rows and rows of windows that spanned each of the three floors, but the manor was otherwise dark. Lord Alizard was an early riser—he had to be, to assume his seat at the Imperial Council each morning. Some in Barstadt thought he was the most powerful man in the empire, after the Emperor himself. But Vera knew the truth. He was more powerful even than the Emperor, thanks to his shady deals with countless of Barstadt’s criminal gangs.

At least the Emperor had had the foresight to keep him and the other aristocrats in the dark when it came to the Ministry of Affairs. His own daughter worked against him there, trying to turn the tide against the gangs, while he thought she was tending to the poorhouses or sitting at lectures at the university. Oh, she did those things, too; enough to keep up the pretense, and enough to satisfy her altruistic heart. Edina was so pure and sweet and good sometimes Vera wanted to vomit.

But supporting the Ministry of Affairs—that was Edina’s act of rebellion against Lord Alizard. Vera supposed that had been worth it to Edina. Fighting to be with Vera—apparently was not.

Vera turned away. She no longer minded having a death threat hanging over her, but even she knew better than to overly tempt fate. Especially when the Dreamer only ever showed her what was behind, and not ahead.

Pebbles cascaded along the stone behind her.

Vera stopped and twisted to look back. As she slipped one hand into her waistband and closed it around a knife hilt, something in her unwound. This was what she’d been waiting for. A good, proper fight.

The crickets roared around her; the fog pulled tight as a blanket. Vera listened carefully for the sound of footsteps, but there were no other disturbances, no shadows cris-crossing the path ahead. With a slackening of her shoulders, Vera started back down the path toward the Ministry barracks and her nightly dreams of what once was.

*   *   *