Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IAN
Do you hate me for being the one that got you caught up in all of this? Do you wish you’d never found out? That I’d never told you? I wouldn’t blame you for hating me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
Your name is written on my very bones, but I fear I’ll be the death of you.
-Letter from Ian Martín to Leon Ocon, never sent
The sun had crested the horizon over an hour earlier, leaving the sky a lifeless blue.
Ian was still sitting in the rubble of the inn, Isadora’s body cold in his arms. No one took notice of him in the turmoil.
He wasn’t a king’s man in that moment, only one of so many grieving family members left frozen in the chaos.
He’d heard the criers, running through the city, announcing that the resistance had taken credit for the attack. He wanted to scream back—wanted to grab the nearest kid by the throat and squeeze until they just stopped.
This hadn’t been the resistance. Sofia hadn’t bombed the inn where she’d lived the last few sun cycles.
No one in the resistance would do this. An attack like this, indiscriminate and in the heart of the slums was the chief commander’s doing.
Harlow always harped against the soldiers who used the Wall’s Inn.
He hated that they dared to mingle with the riffraff of the city.
It wouldn’t have been a sacrifice to kill his own men if they allowed themselves to patronize such an establishment.
Ian knew he was right. He had to be.
He stumbled as he stood, Isadora still held tightly to his chest, her blood drying on his hands.
She was gone. He wasn’t stupid. But he knew if he left her here, they would toss her into a mass grave or burn her on a giant pyre.
He couldn’t lose her among the other nameless Dragonborn, buried or burned by a soldier who had never heard the sound of her laughter or seen the brightness of her eyes.
His legs trembled as he walked, block by block until he was on the edge of town, past the short wall that split the city from the small field before the mangroves.
They’d stationed soldiers along the wall over the past week, but now there was no one.
Any soldier on active duty was in the city cleaning up the mess or searching for the supposed Dragonborn who had done this.
And when Ian found the perfect place between two small flowering bushes, he dug.
First with the stone he’d grabbed from the wall and then with his hands—until his fingers ached and mud caked under his nails.
He couldn’t dig her a proper grave—not as deep as it should be.
But once he’d laid her to rest, he began piling stones over it.
He stole them from the wall. It was easy to grab them from the crumbling structure. It was fitting to steal something the king had made to bury the sister he’d stolen from him.
Ian’s hands were bleeding by the time he was done, his own blood indistinguishable from hers. He’d always had Dragonborn blood on his hands. He’d thought it would be worth it to save a thousand by killing a few.
The sun beamed down on him, hot against his skin.
It was almost quiet here, the only sound the buzz of the insects.
He screamed his rage at the trees, throat scraping against his grief.
His eyes were dry. He didn’t deserve to be sad.
In the end, wasn’t this all his own doing?
Because he hadn’t fought better. He hadn’t killed the chief commander when he’d had a chance.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Ian’s body shook where he stood, legs uneasy with his own weight, but he took a deep breath and then moved.
The city was in upheaval, though the king’s men had commanded control over the crowds and the Dragonborn were tucked away in their homes, staring out of doorways and windows as the guards swept through the city.
Some were being interrogated, but Ian knew the king’s men would learn nothing new. The Dragonborn knew nothing.
The barracks were nearly empty, and no one stopped him as he stormed through the halls, turning over his own room until he found what he needed—sword strapped to his side, dagger tucked on his other—and left once more.
Fox had explained briefly where the dragon was being kept, and Ian knew the city well enough that he had an idea of which building it was. Harlow would be there. He’d be with his precious dragon.
Ian didn’t give himself room to think. He didn’t want to talk himself down. He’d spent too long playing politics from the back rooms.
Past the inner wall of the city, the citizens were uneasy, whispering to each other in doorways and peeking out from behind curtains as if being seen might draw the chaos to them.
“High Sergeant Martín.” His name brought him up short, and he turned to see Tomlo walking toward him. He wore his full armor, but it was pristine, untouched by the ash of the slums. “Sir, I was just heading down to the wall to see if I could help. You were near the bomb.”
It wasn’t a question. Ian knew what he looked like, bloody and soot-stained.
“Yes, I was searching for the chief commander.” His jaw ached under the words.
“He is down by the barracks,” he said. “He left an hour ago.”
“Of course,” Ian said. “I probably passed him on the way here.” The rage that had fueled him churned, but now his brain threatened to press back in on him, thoughts he tried to quell prickling.
Harlow was down by the explosion. He’d be surrounded by others—by soldiers that Ian had trained and fought beside.
He’d never get close to him. Never get a dagger through his neck. Not today.
He needed a new plan. The conviction was sharp in his chest. He needed to do something. He could learn more about what was happening. If he had an in.
“Sir?” Tomlo stared at him, his eyebrows furrowed as if he were trying to read the thoughts flitting across Ian’s face.
“You were with him an hour ago?”
“Or so, sir.”
Ian studied the man’s face. Fox had mentioned him only briefly. One of the men who was working with Harlow and the dragons.
They were on the edge of an alley, the street around them empty—with only a few stables and storage houses in the vicinity.
The high specialist stepped back, as if reading something in Ian’s face. It didn’t matter. Ian whipped forward, unsheathed his dagger even as he moved, and slashed the sharpened blade across Tomlo’s throat.
The man’s scream came out as a gurgle, and he collapsed.
Ian didn’t bother stepping back from the carnage.
The splatter only added another layer to the painting across his clothes.
He snatched Tomlo’s dagger from his sheath, turning it on himself.
He didn’t stop to think, letting the blade cut into his side and bringing with it a burst of pain.
“Fuck,” he spat the word out as he dropped the weapon, clutching his side. He tore Tomlo’s tunic, using the fabric to wrap his own side tightly until the blood that leaked from the self-inflicted wound slowed to a trickle.
He didn’t move the body, grabbing the man’s signet ring before he left. It wasn’t something a soldier should wear. It was pure arrogance.
But Ian was lucky. It would make what he was about to do easier.
Chief Commander Harlow wasn’t difficult to find.
As Ian suspected, he was in the center of the chaos, standing on the roof of an intact building, surveying the rubble—surveying the fruits of his labor.
Ian halted a few blocks away, when the tall man was just a silhouette against the horizon.
His stomach burned with acid, hands sweating even as they gripped their prize with desperation.
He could turn back now—change his mind. But to what end?
He couldn’t go back to the way things were before.
He couldn’t run to the resistance with his tail between his legs.
His feet took him down the block and up the stairs to the roof where he’d seen the chief commander. Resolve straightened his spine.
“Sir, I have information for you. Privileged information that I can’t discuss in front of others.”
Harlow’s eyes left the scene laid out before him at last, glancing at Ian with distant recognition.
After another too-long moment, he lifted his hand.
“Major Bradfira, take your men down to the street and assist with the searches. If the rebels are still here, we will find them. High Sergeant Augusto, you can wait at the top of the stairs.”
The muscles in Ian’s jaw jumped.
Ian watched the men file down the staircase, the last of them standing just at the top of the step at attention. For only a moment, Ian wondered if Harlow somehow knew who he was, what he stood for. The man was perfectly blocking any easy escape.
“High Sergeant Martín, what is this information that’s so vital that you see fit to interrupt this operation?”
Ian stepped forward, holding out his hand. The papers were smeared with blood—most of it Tomlo’s but some of it Isadora’s. Just a bit of it transferred to Harlow’s fingers as his hand closed over the letters.
“What are these?”
“Letters, sir. To the resistance. There is classified information within. The moment I realized it, I stopped reading, but...” He let the words fade out, thankful for his sun cycles of learning to act and pretend.
Harlow opened the letter that bore Tomlo’s family seal waxed along the edges. Ian had had just enough time to go back to his aunt’s house and borrow the wax from her study. Tomlo insisting on wearing his family seal on a ring was all he needed.
“Who...” Harlow’s voice was low as he read.
The letter was in Ian’s own hand—the same information he’d told Lumi last week, with a few recent additions that he’d only guessed. This was the test. Ian would either earn a place in the grave beside Isadora or—
“High Specialist Tomlo, sir,” Ian said, keeping his voice low. “He was acting suspiciously after the bomb when I saw him at the barracks. I followed him and found him attempting to send those via carrier birds.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead, sir,” Ian said, motioning to the wound in his side, still bleeding sluggishly into the torn tunic. “He attacked me when I tried to arrest him.”
Harlow stared at Ian, his black eyes holding his while Ian tried his best to keep his breathing steady.
“And you read what was in the letter.”
“I tried not to, but…” Ian swallowed. He needed to say it. “Yes, sir.”
“And your thoughts.”
“Are irrelevant, sir.” Ian gave a bow. “You are the blade of the king. I wouldn’t question the methods you take to save our people.”
Acid on the tongue.
Harlow stepped forward, and Ian’s entire body went cold.
The man grabbed his hand, shaking it firmly.
“I thank you for bringing this treason to my attention. Perhaps we’ll have to talk about a promotion.
For now, I’d like you to take me to his body.
We can discuss what was revealed in the letter as we walk. ”
Ian nodded, following the chief commander as he brushed past him and motioned High Sergeant Augusto out of their way.
They spoke as the chief commander promised, two men ambling through the city, speaking in hushed tones and euphemisms—Harlow never quite admitting out loud to his use of the bomb today or the training of the dragon beneath the city.
Ian kept his face neutral and his own voice steady. He didn’t take a full breath again until later that night when Harlow finally dismissed him with a promotion and an order to meet him in the upper city the next morning.
And when Ian was lying in bed in the barracks well past midnight, chipping away at the dried blood beneath his nails, he cursed himself.
He’d failed to kill Harlow again. Failed his sister and the city.
All he’d done was dig himself deeper into the snake pit.
He could only hope it wouldn’t be in vain.