Chapter 11 #2
Rodian nodded at them in acknowledgment as several servants bustled in behind him, holding trays laden with small plates, tea, and a samovar.
Food and tea was one way to make people linger, and Rodian could use it in subtle ways to continue conversations or cut them short.
It was one of the first tricks Arkadi had taught him, even if Rodian looked like he’d bitten into a sour winter plum at the thought.
Rodian did not care for small talk, but he was getting better at it with Arkadi’s help.
The palace guards who came into the room after the servants were waved off by Rodian and a firm admonishment of “This is a private ivoryanin meeting. Please wait outside.”
The lieutenant frowned, gaze sweeping across the room with blatant distrust. “Isar, I must protest that request.”
“It wasn’t a request,” Rodian said lightly as the servants finished setting up the tea spread on the low table.
The palace guards were unhappy about being banished from the room when Arkadi knew they were always present when Rodian held meetings. Removing them could only have been done by Rodian himself, using a self-centered reason to do so. But they left, and that was the important thing.
Rodian settled onto the sofa beside Arkadi with scant inches between them.
Even sitting, he towered over them all. Perhaps that was why he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, big hands folding together between them.
Arkadi kept trying to teach him to take up space, but ingrained habits were difficult to break.
“How fare your husbands and wives?” Rodian asked. The inquiry was a traditional opening in talks such as these, one which Arkadi had no need to answer. But it filled the time it took for the tea to steep in the samovar, and no one would rush that.
The answers given were rote, no one delving deep. Arkadi didn’t even bother to speak, as he had no one at home laying claim to his bed. He’d rather the man next to him lay claim to him instead, but that was a fanciful thought best left by the wayside of his road.
“I understand you have concerns with the tithes promised to the wardens,” Rodian said after they had all finally poured themselves tea, sounding almost apologetic to Arkadi’s ears. He doubted that was faked. Rodian cared deeply about his people.
“You’re taking our children away,” Sigurd said, not mincing words. His white-knuckled grip on his teacup threatened the fragile porcelain if Arkadi was any judge of pressure.
“They are the amends we must make to the rest of Maricol and for our folly in the attack against the wardens.” Rodian’s expression was one of grim sorrow, something Arkadi could see even in his profile.
His beard masked none of his emotion. Arkadi despaired of him ever cultivating a court mask, but perhaps it was for the better.
“Our children shouldn’t have to pay for the old Isar’s machinations,” Vissarion said, his deep voice threaded through with anger.
“And how many rionetkas were found to be in your bloodline?” Arkadi asked with a politely pointed smile. “At least a dozen, if I recall.”
Vissarion half stood, nearly forgetting himself in his sudden temper. “You dare—”
“He speaks the truth,” Rodian cut in with a steeliness that could have rivaled a shipbreaker in a sea of ice floes.
“Many bloodlines paid for it in blood. Yours was not excluded from that betrayal to the Poison Accords. Which means your bloodline will not be exempt from paying tithes to the wardens.”
Vissarion’s hands curled into fists as he glared at Arkadi, knowing better than to lay his temper at the Isar’s feet. After a moment, he composed himself and retook his seat, but his eyes still snapped with anger. “My family had no say in the decisions made by the Isar and the Navy.”
“You still voted to go to war with Daijal.”
“I did not,” Arkadi oh so thoughtfully pointed out. “Neither did the Isar, when he was but a Minister. And yet, our bloodlines will still pay the tithes owed.”
The silence that settled between the group was fraught with tension. Arkadi focused on the four ivoryanin, senses attuned to their body language. He kept waiting for an attack, but one had yet to manifest itself. A distant whisper in the back of his mind curled doubt through him.
What if I was wrong?
It would be embarrassing if that were the case, but Arkadi’s gut told him he wasn’t.
Sigurd was the kind of man to always believe he was in the right.
So Arkadi watched, speaking up only occasionally, as Rodian kept the conversation moving.
The four ivoryanin sought to verbally corner Rodian and get him to change his mind, but the far north bred stubborn people.
They needed to be if they wanted to survive the winter where the sun never rose.
An hour into the polite argument—no one had yet to raise their voice to Rodian, but Sigurd had come close a time or two—Kaja leaned forward to refill everyone’s tea.
Arkadi watched her, half his attention on Sigurd’s impassioned but ultimately useless speech to try to change Rodian’s mind.
Her hands moved from one teacup to the next with grace, but when she finally reached for Rodian’s, all of Arkadi’s instincts snapped at him in warning.
He could not say what had tipped him off, only that he knew Rodian could never touch that tea mug again, not if he wanted to live.
Vissarion and Demid watched Kaja rather than Rodian, while Sigurd held the Isar’s attention.
Kaja wasn’t finished pouring tea from the samovar when Arkadi reached across the space between them and wrapped his fingers around her delicate wrist. He dug his fingers into the tendons there, making her cry out and forcing her fingers open.
She lost her grip on the tea mug, and it clattered to the table.
“What poison did you just use to try to harm the Isar?” Arkadi asked in a low, furious voice.
Her eyes went wide, guilt a fleeting flash before it was hidden by anger. “You dare—”
Arkadi wrenched her forward, not letting go of her wrist. Kaja shrieked as she was slammed down onto the low table, spilling the remnants of food from the dozen or so small plates there. She knocked over her own teacup, spilling hot tea all over the table and into the skirt of her gown.
Vissarion swiftly stood, grim determination on his face.
Arkadi didn’t think, merely acted, reaching up to pull one of the stilettos free of its thin metal sheath and throw it with deadly accuracy at Vissarion.
The thin blade embedded itself in the ivoryan’s throat, slicing through the artery there.
The cascade of blood bubbling out from the small, deadly wound saturated Vissarion’s long-vest, staining delicate embroidery.
He gurgled out a wordless sound, both hands scrabbling at his throat.
He dropped what he’d been holding, and Arkadi’s eyes tracked the fall of the small opaque vial, its cap missing, spilling colorless liquid on the table.
Rodian jumped to his feet even as Vissarion fell back on the armchair behind him, clawing at his throat.
Kaja tried to wrench herself free of Arkadi’s grip, but he didn’t have the time to hold her.
As Rodian conjured up a flicker of starfire, that molten-gold magic making Sigurd and Demid recoil in shock, Arkadi deftly freed one of his throwing knives from its arm sheath and stabbed it neatly into Kaja’s hand, pinning her to the table.
She screamed, the sound high-pitched and agonizing, before fainting, sprawling loose-limbed over the low table.
Arkadi stood, aligning himself with his Isar, another knife held in hand, ready to throw at the next threat.
He met Sigurd’s gaze over the glow of starfire eating at the air between them.
Even found out and staring down a future death he could not escape, Sigurd still spat his way.
“Blade,” Sigurd snarled with all the disgust he could muster.
Arkadi didn’t even bother to deny it as the palace guard finally broke down the locked salon doors, barreling inside, drawn by the sound of the confrontation.
He looked at Sigurd instead of Rodian, not wanting to see the horror and disgust for what he was in his Isar’s eyes.
“Traitor. The Midnight Star will never hear your prayers.”