Rebel Elements (Seals of the Duelists) (30 page)

Kipri kept going and took another bite of the fruit tart. “You like apricots, don’t you?” the baker had asked. At the time, he hadn’t thought anything of it, but in retrospect, she sounded like she already knew the answer would be yes. And since she hadn’t called him cricket, plum, or anything else, her “you” might have included more people than just Kipri.

Apricots hadn’t entered the imperial diet much until after the Raqtaaq Wars, because the vast majority of the orchards were in Nunaa. Had she served him an apricot tart simply because he was Raqtaaq?

Maybe. But she’d already had the tarts baked when he wandered in after delivering Philo’s progress report to Lord Eshkin. While it was true that the nobility loved to wrap their tongues around whatever new and rare food the empire discovered, Kipri didn’t think that was the answer. Or at least not a full answer.

What am I missing?
he thought, tapping a finger against his cheek.

Cheekbones.

He exhaled, open-mouthed, as his epiphany sank in. He turned around, and back on the portico, the man continued to stare after him. And in his face rested a fine pair of Aklaa cheekbones, broad and high. Quickly, Kipri resumed his exit toward the gate.

Hiding in plain sight. But why? Well, wouldn’t you hide your nationality if you could? I try so hard to be Waarden, every day.

He wanted to run, but forced his feet to walk. He glanced back at the house one more time.

The man on the portico still stared after him.

~~~

“Do you think I’m a fool?”

Wateyo Eshkin looked up as a shadow fell across his desk. “Anuq? How did you get in here?”

His visitor ignored the question. “Your Aklaa contact was here again. He just left by way of the kitchens. Did you think that he would feel more inclined to your cause because you stole him from his family and castrated him before brainwashing him in your Waarden ways? Or was he supposed to be someone
I
sympathize with, so I wouldn’t consider him a threat? Really, Wateyo. If you were trying to undermine my employer, you could have chosen a more subtle manner than bringing your contact to your home.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Wateyo said, a dark twist of alarm squeezing his bowels. “I’ve done nothing other than what you’ve required. Surely you must know that!”

Anuq leaned onto the desk and loomed over Wateyo. “Perhaps you are indeed the spineless fop I took you for. But, correct me if I’m wrong, your beloved spouse has chafed harder under my generous rules than you have. Is it not so?”

“My wife wouldn’t do anything to endanger Kiwani. She’s our only child!”

“Yes, poor dear. One of the reasons I approached you. But everyone has their breaking point. Even your lovely Iyanu.”

Wateyo’s nostrils flared as he struggled to keep his expression smooth. “Perhaps you didn’t understand me the first two times. I have not been in contact with any—” His tongue stuttered to a stop as his mind made a final connection.

Kipri. Philo! That fat, nosy bitch is going to ruin everything! I should have disemployed him days ago!

“I can explain. The eunuch you saw works for Philo, who has been—”

Anuq’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Silence. I shall question your wife myself. And you shall wait here like a good boy while I do it.” He turned away with a smug smile.

Wateyo shot to his feet. “No!”

Anuq whirled around. “You do not presume to deny me anything, you tame little Shawnash pup. I spit upon your name, you who hide your cowardice behind claims of culture! We look at you as a cautionary tale, lest our own people fall victim to the Waarden in the same way, and we lose ourselves entirely.
Naa
! We shall remember our glory! And that is what makes us strong. Stronger than you, than anyone!”

Wateyo leaned away from the man’s flying spittle.

“You do not understand what drives us, do you? Despite your years in our lands, we are still a mystery to you.” Anuq stepped back and tugged his maroon Shawnash tunic straight. “The key to the strength of the Raqtaaq is not in preventing loss. It is in gathering strength from the tatters of what has already
been
lost. It is
tilaa
,
the bending of the world, the speaking of change, that enables us to remain, to rise again. Too bad the Waarden didn’t realize this until
after
they had invaded.

“As for you, let us see whether you have what it takes to be as strong as we are. Perhaps if we take a child from every family in your empire, you might have an inkling of what it means to be Raqtaaq.”

Anuq turned away and Wateyo feared, from the expression on the man’s face, that he wasn’t headed in search of Iyanu anymore but had decided instead to make good on the threat hanging over their family for the past year.

“No, please!” Wateyo burst around the desk to stop him. Anuq batted aside Wateyo’s arm with one hand and slapped him across the face with the other. The double blow spun Wateyo to the floor; his ribs slammed into a topiary pot. Coughing, his chest somehow on fire and stiff at the same time, he cried for help.

Anuq drove the heel of his boot into Wateyo’s stomach. “Memories are all you have now.” He lifted his boot and slipped into the hallway.

Wateyo scrambled to his knees and crawled after him, calling for Iyanu, servants, anyone. Several people came running and surrounded him with courteous questions. Wateyo barked a painful demand for their silence and pointed down the hallway—but Anuq had vanished.

Iyanu knelt by his side. “What have you done, Wateyo?”

Wateyo panted from the pain in his ribs. “He was going to take you next.”

Iyanu bent close, eyes intense. “I would rather he took me than my daughter! Now, you get off this floor and ride like all the nightmares in the empire are chasing you. Because if you have killed our only child—may the sints witness—a nightmare is what your life will become!”

~~~

Kakios sat on his bed after lunch, his blond braids bundled back with a bit of twine, and doodled detailed drawings of various bladed weapons on a sheet of paper. One of the campus faculty had invited him to tea last night, then made him a very interesting offer. The man had deduced that Kakios was more than what he seemed, something no one else on campus had suspected in the year he’d lived in Peace Village.

The man hadn’t been so crass as to threaten him. Kakios was sure the man couldn’t know the real reason he had come to the Academy, but his host had been quite the pragmatist. Kakios got the impression that, even if the instructor had known Kakios was an assassin for hire, he would have tried to find a benefit for himself in it before choosing to expose or kill him.

The instructor reminded Kakios of his current employer, in fact, though without the glint of insanity lurking in her wide eyes.

Nothing had been resolved over tea. Kakios hadn’t been able to tell if the man had been fishing for Kakios’ purpose on campus, or if he was trying to recruit him for his own reasons. Perhaps he simply wanted to offer tea to a stranger. Kakios had put off the man’s offer of friendship with assurances that he would consider deepening their association. Afterward, he contemplated writing a letter to Anuq to ask for instructions regarding a possible new ally, but decided to think it over until the mail packet after next.

“Royal packet’s just in.” Imbar, his across-the-wall neighbor, leaned in the open doorway and knocked a greeting on the inner wall of Kakios’ boarding room with a lanky hand.

“Wait for me.” Kakios hopped off his bed. The two walked down the hall and exited the boarding house into a crisp morning half-heartedly dotted with snowflakes. Up the cliffside path, they reached Peace Village’s mail depot.

The short, plump mail clerk identified her customers with a quick glance as they stepped inside the tiny building. She turned to riffle through the mail she was sorting. “Imbar Telkas, your usual letter from the sweetheart.” She held out a thick envelope that reeked of perfume.

Imbar held it to his nose and breathed deeply, closing his eyes in rapture.

“And you’ve got something other than your regular stipend, Phokapolou.” She handed Kakios a wax-stamped envelope whose seal had been pressed into the wax off-center and twisted upon lifting, blurring the half-image in a way that spoke of haste or anger. “Looks like someone finally figured out that you live here.”

“Kakios?” Imbar nudged his elbow. “Not bad news, I hope.”

“I need a moment, Imbar. Sorry.” Kakios slipped out of the small depot and tore open the letter as he strode through a thin layer of snow on the way back to his room. The message was short.

The time has come. Delay risks discovery.

Kakios sighed. Naturally, I must wait a year and then I must rush. But the lovely lost bird has been paying me handsomely for a whole year, so who am I to complain? After all, I’m never not ready.

Back in his room, he flipped up the lid on his clothing chest and released the hidden catches inside the lid itself. A reinforced felt flap slipped down, revealing a neat row of thin metal spikes and another of slender throwing knives. After moving aside his neatly stacked shirts, he retrieved the parts to a small crossbow and began to assemble it.

A knock came at his door, nearly making him jump out of his boots. He stashed the half-assembled crossbow inside the trunk and closed the lid, then answered the door.

“Is everything all right?” asked Imbar.

“I’ve received some unfortunate news, I’m afraid.”

“My condolences. Will you be in class later, or do you need to return home?”

“I’m packing now.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. Do you need some help?”

Kakios gave a mental sigh. The man had been nice, if a little nosy, since he’d arrived on campus several months ago. Living next door to Kakios had seemed to give him permission to drop by every day for one thing or another. But now wasn’t the time for sharing, with him or with anyone else.

“I’d love some help. Come in.”

“You want to
what
with me?” Bayan rocked back in the padded hex house chair. He suddenly grasped why Kiwani had told Azhni to wait in the hex house plaza; surely the ever-present woman would have objected as loudly if she knew what Kiwani wanted from him.

“Shh, you moron,” Kiwani said, though they were the only two in the house at the moment. “I feel I owe you the chance to prove yourself my equal. The only way to do that, between duelists, is with a duel. So, let us duel.”

“Have you no respect for Odjin’s loss, for the rest of us who actually miss him?”

Kiwani looked hurt. “I miss him too, Bayan. It’s you boys who seem to have forgotten he existed.”

“Eward took it hard. His mother vanished when he was younger, and Odjin’s potioneering was hard on him. He couldn’t do magic at all for three days afterward, remember? He wasn’t his usual self again until after the Feast of Many Harvests. We’re trying to keep him happy, for all our sakes. Do you really think you and I dueling so soon after losing Odjin will help anyone, especially Eward?”

“You haven’t heard everything yet. It’s because of what happened to Odjin that I want extra dueling rules. We won’t use any lethal spells, and Flame, Shock, and Earth must be defensive, ground-based, or close-contact. We’ll have a skill duel. And the first to surrender, for whatever reason, loses.”

“A skill duel?” Bayan was interested despite his objections. “You may be taller, but I outweigh you. Close-contact spells are to my advantage.”

“I’m still asking for the duel.”

“Why can’t you just say I’m your equal and leave it at that? It’s not like you haven’t seen me duel before. Why this silly nobility and honor business?”

Kiwani looked away. “I just need to be right about you.”

Bayan frowned. She was barely making any sense with her crazy duel offer.
And I’m making less sense by considering it!

Yet, Kiwani had been a thorn in his side since the very day he’d arrived on campus. When they’d been put in the same hex, it had only gotten worse. Her distant, arrogant attitude had prevented the hex from fully pulling together as a single unit, even when Odjin was wounded and expelled. Bayan hadn’t yet forgiven her for that.

But maybe after this, he could. And another thought pressed into his mind: Right now, we’re a hex of four, plus Kiwani. It’s not that we wouldn’t like to include her; she’s the one being aloof. If she wants to earn her way into the hex she was always supposed to be part of, she’ll have to duel very, very hard. Because I want to win.

“When and where?”

~~~

Bayan wore his heavy winter workout uniform and a wool toque as he clambered up the narrow stone stairway carved into the cliff. Laden with switchbacks, its landings were narrow and slick in the darkness. He could hear Kiwani puffing along behind him. Once, he’d looked back to check on her and seen a long trail of her breath lit by the moonlight that fell through the low, scudding clouds.

Long after Bayan’s muscles had warmed up from the climb, he and Kiwani reached the high plateau of rock near one of the sints’ homes. The spot was not that far from campus, but it was blocked from sight by a rising spear of rock, which would conveniently conceal any bright magic spells they might cast.