Valediction
Kai was traveling much more slowly than a magically assisted battalion of Idallik Knights. That regrettably meant she was only an hour out from Bashan when Math found her, riding a (likely) stolen horse at a steady canter.
They both rode harder as they noticed each other, finally meeting at the side of the road.
“What happened?” Kai asked.
“What happened is that I dramatically overestimated the amount of brain matter shared amongst the Idallik Order’s leadership,” Math said bitterly. “They’re planning to blow up the Queens with bombard powder, never mind that it will probably take at least half our own men with them.”
“I see.” Kai frowned.
Math waved the small, carefully folded letter. “Nuhzar’s sending me back for more. Mostly because he doesn’t trust me.”
Kai’s eyes narrowed as she studied the letter. Then her hand darted out and she snatched it away from him.
He gave a token protest. “Hey!”
She flipped the letter over in her hands. “I thought you said these take time to write and fold.”
“They do. Although some people are faster than others—” Math stopped, frowning.
There hadn’t been enough time for Nuhzar to write that back at the camp.
They’d barely been there for a half hour—enough time to unload supplies, but not enough time to do a count, report a shortage, then write, spiral-lock, and seal a letter.
Which meant Nuhzar had to have written this before the trip even started. He’d claimed that he was sending Math away to make sure he couldn’t cause trouble, but Math had only given him a reason to think he would after they’d made camp.
“May I have that back?”
Silently, Kai handed it to him.
The letter itself was pristine. No smudges, no jitters, no hastily scribbled notations. The folds were crisp and perfect, the wax—
He pressed the wax seal with his thumbnail. The wax was cold and hard.
This letter had been folded hours ago.
A feeling of absolute dread came over him.
“You think it’s a trick,” she said.
Math pulled his knife out of his belt and slashed open the letter. He wasn’t being careful. He wouldn’t be able to seal it again without more effort and time than he had, but he didn’t have the supplies to do a proper job of it, anyway.
He read:
Math,
I’ve stayed up all night thinking about what you’ve told me, and I see no way to save this situation that you’d find palatable.
Talu’s dirty. I can’t prove he’s our Kaliri spy, but it’s the only solution that makes sense.
The damage he’s already done to your reputation is unrecoverable, and he’s the one who insisted you come with us today.
I think he’s hoping you’ll be too dead to defend yourself when he blames you for all his sins.
Which I think he always meant to. He didn’t raise you to be his protégé.
He raised you to be his scapegoat.
If he wants you dead, I say: be dead. They’ll never be able to prove you didn’t die on this battlefield.
This messenger token will take you anywhere in the empire, no questions asked.
Use it to take you and your woman far away from here.
I cannot stand the idea of going to the grave still owing you for saving my life. Now we’re even.
This is my gift to you. You should know that I meant every damn word I plan to say about how you were never meant to be an Idallik Knight. It’s all true.
You were meant for so much better than this, you absolute ass.
So be something better. I know you have dreams of fighting evil, but you are one man facing off against forces you cannot possibly defeat. Let the empire take care of itself. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is survive.
Your brother-in-arms,
Alik
“No,” Math whispered. He couldn’t …
It felt like a blade between the ribs. But even the fury that surged up was drowned by something worse: the slow, sick realization that there’d never been a request for powder.
That Nuhzar had correctly predicted that Math would open the letter that had, in fact, always been intended for him.
Nuhzar had pushed him away on purpose—not to wound him, but to save his life.
He’d insulted Math on purpose, dressed him down until Math would be too angry to ask questions, too angry to stay in camp.
Anything to convince Math to leave and not look back.
All to get Math out of there. Because honor had been everything to that gravefucker, and he couldn’t save Math’s life if the plan for victory hinged on a trap where everyone died.
“What does it say?” Kai asked, her concern obvious.
“We have to hurry,” Math said as he passed the opened letter to her. “Maybe we’ll reach the forest in time to stop—”
Off in the distance, a booming noise rumbled and shook the air.
For a heartbeat, Math prayed it was thunder. A storm was coming—he could see it, an anvil of dark clouds massing on the horizon.
Then came the smoke—a slow bloom of black, climbing above the treetops.
It wasn’t thunder.
The trap had been sprung.