Chapter Eight
A week later, on the day of the awards ceremony, Cyrus found himself sitting in The Ticklish Nymph in sunny Cepha, surrounded
by tavern chatter with his hood pulled up to hide his features. He was not alone.
Opposite him sat Maximillian’s personal assistant. He was a handful of years older than Cyrus, dressed neatly in a buttoned
maroon waistcoat and over-polished shoes. His auburn hair, thinning at the crown and losing its vibrancy, was swept off his
face to reveal a forehead that looked perpetually sweaty. Cyrus found his large eyes unsettling. They were the kind that always
looked like they were trying to stare into a person’s soul.
He was also, incidentally, the same man who had walloped Cyrus over the back of the head with a sizeable piece of wood in Arclee.
Cyrus had not taken kindly to this realisation.
In fact, he had made a beeline for him the moment recognition struck and snatched a nearby table’s tankard with full intent of bringing it down upon Balthazar’s sweaty little head until the man grabbed his wrist and hissed, “Don’t make a scene, you fool! ”
Attempting to brain him and calling him a fool. Two insults Cyrus would never have let lie if not for the fact that he wanted to see if there was value
in this fake nemeses scheme. He shook his wrist free, treated Balthazar to his very best lip curl, and sank slowly onto the
wooden bench opposite. Balthazar sniffed and pursed up his lips like he’d smelled something bad. Cyrus always smelled delectable,
so he could only be sniffing himself.
Minutes passed. Neither spoke. Balthazar was supposed to be providing Cyrus with more information about the awards ceremony
to ensure full preparation, but instead he was busy eyeing Cyrus with great dislike. Ironic, really. Cyrus was the one who
had been viciously attacked. He was the one displaying immense maturity by not removing Balthazar’s head from his shoulders
and using it to start a game of catch.
Cyrus waited. Balthazar waited too.
Cyrus fought the urge to fidget. In any other situation, he would have waited for as long as it took—until the drunks rolled
home and the barkeep bawled at them to leave. But the ceremony was looming. He could not deny that he felt jittery.
He coughed, to see if that would spur Balthazar into motion. It didn’t. Stubborn little shit. The responsibility would have
to fall to Cyrus.
“So,” he said. It was, he thought, a fair attempt at initiating conversation.
Balthazar neglected to answer, though he did huff out an annoyed little sigh, as though Cyrus had interrupted a deep thought.
“So,” Cyrus repeated, with an edge of threat.
Balthazar frowned. He didn’t appear frightened, as he should. He looked vexed, more than anything, as though Maximillian had
greatly imposed upon him by ordering his presence here.
“So,” he replied, deliberately bland.
Cyrus scratched his chin as he considered what else he could say. It was tempting to abandon all hope of conversation, maybe
just sit and stare in malevolent silence until Balthazar became uncomfortable and left, or else gave in to the provocation
to argue.
But if this worked out, Cyrus would get glory and goodies, two things he was rather fond of. Playing nice with Balthazar would
have to be the price he paid.
“So Maximillian says you don’t have a life of your own, but you can be trusted to keep a secret,” Cyrus offered, and tried
for a winning smile.
Balthazar stared at him. There was an edge of incredulity to his expression.
Cyrus’s smile dimmed slightly. His instinct, in the face of an attempted social nicety gone wrong, was to reach out and bash
Balthazar’s face into the sticky ale-spotted tabletop between them. That way either he wouldn’t remember the botched nicety
or he’d be too afraid to ever bring it up again.
But that probably wouldn’t go hand in hand with the whole putting-in-effort thing. Cyrus took a steadying breath and hitched
his smile back up. Balthazar continued to stare at him like he had sprouted a second head.
Perhaps he was just a little slow on the uptake. “That’s a good thing,” Cyrus added.
Finally Balthazar spoke, in a clipped little voice that immediately put Cyrus’s hackles up and made him imagine again the
satisfyingly hollow clonk of Balthazar’s skull against the table. “I don’t need your explanations, wrongdoer.” His eyes narrowed. “Though I’m interested
to learn that the two of you were gossiping about me.”
Cyrus shrugged, unconcerned. “We had a lot of things to discuss. But you were one of them, yes.”
Balthazar’s mouth tightened. “So Maximillian said,” came the terse response.
Of course he disapproved. Balthazar was probably the type to have nightmares for weeks if he accidentally broke a rule. Cyrus
was more interested in the way he said Maximillian’s name—like it was a cherished word, but one he was reluctant to spit out
in Cyrus’s presence. Presumably he believed that Cyrus was unworthy of his glorious master. It made him want to prod harder,
press a finger to the obvious bruise nursed by this uptight little man.
Cyrus leaned forward. “You know, Maximillian sought me out, not the other way round,” he said softly.
Balthazar’s eyes flashed to Cyrus’s. No surprise there; just a deep distrust. “He shouldn’t have.”
Cyrus smiled knowingly. “Oh, but he did. Thought he could—how shall we say—add some spark to his boring little life.” He gave
Balthazar a cursory look up and down. “I suppose it makes sense, really . . .”
Balthazar was grinding his teeth; Cyrus could tell by the way his jaw clenched. Seconds stretched taut between them. Then Balthazar sniffed and looked away. The tension in the air sagged, deflated with the knowledge of Balthazar’s submission.
“I don’t have to sit and listen to you jabbering on,” Balthazar said decisively, which was, honestly, a little offensive.
Cyrus hadn’t been jabbering. He had been murmuring threateningly, and very effective it was too. “Maximillian wanted me to fill you in on the ceremony,
that’s all.”
Cyrus leaned back. “Go on, then.” He got what he wanted in the end.
“He has ninety seconds to deliver the speech,” Balthazar said in a low voice as he herded Cyrus through the crowds with the
ease of someone who had mapped out a route ahead of time and practised to ensure it worked. He’d rebuilt his confidence in
the time it had taken him to explain the precise location of the ceremony, along with all possible exit strategies. Organisation
was his comfort zone, clearly.
Now, squeezing through the maze of streets, he droned on about the origins of the ceremony itself, as though Cyrus cared one bit for the Federation’s pomp.
He stopped listening, taking in his surroundings instead.
Cepha was best known for its trade in fine wool and for the specific breed of goats its citizens kept.
Those citizens, it seemed, were doing their best to make “goat” their entire personality.
Cyrus passed stalls selling soaps, yoghurts, ice creams, and fudges, all made from goat’s milk, and a particularly pungent little place overspilling with goat’s cheese.
The people themselves even looked a bit goatlike, he thought, which was impressive dedication: starey eyes, vacant expressions.
He would have shared this reflection, but he caught Maximillian’s name among Balthazar’s boring spiel and forced himself to listen.
“Maximillian’s handshake with the governor should be happening around that ninety-second mark.” Balthazar grabbed his elbow
and tugged him out of the way of a throng of youngsters. Cyrus stiffened at his touch, then narrowed his eyes as a straggler
attempted to push past him to join their friends. It would be unfortunate if a tree branch just so happened to—
“Do not start anything here,” Balthazar hissed. Cyrus’s head swivelled to stare at him. Was that an order? Was he trying to give
Cyrus orders? He was so taken aback that he forgot to react fittingly, his mouth falling open. Balthazar didn’t seem aware of his close
call, eyeing Cyrus in distaste. “Have a little self-restraint.”
“Wasn’t starting anything,” Cyrus muttered. The very picture of tolerance, he didn’t even stick his leg out as the straggler
passed by.
Balthazar shook his head. He started to plough through the crowd again, keeping his hand on Cyrus’s elbow. Cyrus valiantly
allowed it, finding that he had to jog to keep up despite the fact that his legs were significantly longer than Balthazar’s.
The man had the uncanny ability to squeeze through unseen spaces in the crowd.
Balthazar kept up a disgruntled mutter as they went; Cyrus would have assumed he was talking to himself if not for the baleful glances he kept throwing in his direction.
“The timings have been specifically worked out, so you need to make sure you enter at the right moment. If you go in too early, you’ll spoil the whole thing and you’ll throw Maximillian off course.
If you time it too late, it’ll seem more like you’re targeting the governor. ”
Cyrus made a noncommittal noise. Throwing Maximillian off course didn’t sound like such a bad thing.
They came to a standstill, the crowd splitting in two directions and weaving down mirroring paths that zigzagged to the bottom
of an amphitheatre, carved by nature and honed by human hand. Moss had grown over the rows etched all around the sides, lending
a layer of cushioning to the seating areas. The amphitheatre resembled a large green bowl with a natural stage built into
the bottom, and the stage had been extended for the ceremony, jutting out further into the audience with scaffolding forming
an archway above. Swathes of black fabric, draped over the scaffolding, provided a sleek backdrop. Cyrus was glad to see it.
He would be able to climb up the scaffolding to launch himself onto the stage, and the heavy drapes would prevent anyone from
seeing him until it was too late.