16. SIXTEEN
SIXTEEN
NIKLAUS
Location: Jiradesh
When sun hit the Jiradeshi sands, heat followed as surely as bad decisions chased a shot of whiskey. It was early to be breaking a sweat just by glancing across the russet-rimmed dunes: a promise that the day would be stifling.
As Niklaus tugged Dex from the wagon, the kid’s shoestring limbs lunged away from him. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”
The faint grinding of metal against wood told of the wagon’s lock clicking into place behind them.
Niklaus raised both hands. “I gladly release you.”
And he might have just saved the boy’s life, too. The mute had been chillingly serious. Rash as the thought might have been, it wasn’t unwarranted. If Dex’s sister was Attilatia Mitar, it meant she had connections in command, and so would he.
How serendipitous—that the re-attainment of Niklaus’s assets depended on Dex’s safe delivery back to Seraphinden.
Like the Fates were testing just how far he was willing to go to find the truth.
Niklaus’s only options were to quickly convert the boy to their cause, or lock him in the mess wagon for the next two months.
“Destruction awaits the indolent, so they say. Let’s get to the dishes.”
“Fuck you.”
Come to think of it, Niklaus was sure there was a good locksmith to be found in the merchants’ quarter.
“A more worthless excuse of a person has never existed.” Dex jabbed Niklaus in the chest. “I came here to have a reason for people not to hate me just for breathing. But instead of letting me learn how to defend this country, they paired me up with you! As if being spat at and cursed at wasn’t bad enough. ”
How refreshing to be popular.
Dex had finally let the heat get to him. He kicked at the sand. “Then I finally get a chance to learn dowagian, and you ruin it by pulling the only friend I have out here into one of your shratten schemes.”
Niklaus bit back a retort. “You’ve joined the Red Wing. You’re not on restricted access. You have a hundred opportunities to learn dowagian.”
“No. I had one, and you’ve just corrupted him.”
A familiar dispassion throbbed in Niklaus’s core. He wondered how much longer it could do that before he eroded. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to report you both.”
Niklaus stiffened. “Sounds like you’re the one doing away with your own dowagian trainer.”
Dex stood still, hands fisting as he prepared his next biting remark.
Whether he was desperate or driven, it was hard to say—the two went hand in hand—but Niklaus took his shot. “I didn’t put the mute up to this.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m past the point of fighting for belief.
I’m fighting because the fight is the only thing I have left.
” And any time he loosened his grip on his weapon, something far deadlier filled his hand.
“If he’s right—if something is wrong with Aetech’s plates—what do you think would happen to your sister?
” From what Niklaus remembered, Hashod Gorovich hated the woman.
Dex’s voice lowered. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a speculation. If it turns out to be factual, I can promise you, Limtush and his sycophants do not have your best interests at heart.
” They were alone. The encampment had migrated to morning mess.
There was minimal risk of being overheard, but Dex’s caution was a positive sign. “Do you think he’s crazy?”
“I don’t know,” Dex muttered.
“You still want to learn dowagian from him?”
Dex said nothing.
A drop of faith might quench a valley. “I’ll make you a deal.
I’ll teach you to signal while you wait to see if there’s something wrong with the plates that could compromise your sister.
Then you can chat dowagian to your heart’s content.
” Still no response. “It’s syllabic. Easy to learn.
You’ll have it in a moon cycle. And by then you’ll be able to read everything we’re ‘conspiring’ about on your own.
No need to make assumptions. If you’re still convinced, turn us in. Either way, you win.”
Dex narrowed his eyes. “If anything happens to me—”
“I know, I know. I lose everything.”
The world seemed to pause. Dex reached into the pocket of his uniform to retrieve a pair of dark-lensed oculars. He pulled them over his head. Niklaus couldn’t see the boy’s eyes when he turned to look at him. “That would only be the beginning.”
Long after the day’s march had ended and the evening meal was through, Niklaus approached the mess wagon, a second plate shield in hand.
An orange glow shone through the crack beneath the door.
Niklaus took the three steps to the door and knocked before entering.
The mute sat against the far wall with eyes closed, ruxechorin core clenched in his fist.
Niklaus cleared his throat, unsure whether the man was sleeping—it was nearing highmoon. “It’s me.”
The mute blinked and set the core on a table improvised from mess trays. Niklaus couldn’t help but notice the streak of crimson smeared across it.
As if his footsteps or knock might have given indication. Niklaus pointed to the mute’s hand. “You’re bleeding.”
“What are you doing with it?”
Niklaus didn’t fully understand the science behind distortion. As Hashod had explained it to him, neither did anyone else—and that was a strength for Aetech. Which meant this man knew something Niklaus didn’t, or was lying. “Just by sitting there?”
“You could at least buy me a drink before asking me trade secrets.”
The mute stared, unblinking, as though calling his bluff. Something about him was so disconcerting.
Niklaus swallowed and pressed forward. “I have a second distortion plate shield.” He set it on the tray-table beside the blood-smeared core with a light clack. “What can you tell me about Roskaad Thyatira?”
The mute’s eyes lingered on the device before snapping to meet Niklaus’s.
“Sleeping.”
“This is the first time I’ve let my eyes off him all day. We’re pitched up just a minute away. I didn’t come until I was sure we’d be alone.”
Niklaus wondered momentarily if he was asking for proof, or because he wanted to kill Thedexemore in his sleep.
He led the man through the maze of wagons and tents to where he and Dex had pitched tents for the night.
Nerves chewed at Niklaus’s gut for a moment as he pulled back the canvas, but the boy was just as Niklaus had left him, sides rising and falling in easy slumber.
The mute seemed more frustrated than satisfied—as though he would rather have a good reason to pummel the both of them.
He pivoted and strode back to the wagon, Niklaus fast on his heels.
Inside, the mute’s nose wrinkled, and he looked pointedly at Niklaus’s hands.
He glared.
Niklaus had truly hoped to break past this dance of mistrust, but this was the closest he’d gotten to a differing perspective on the Commander Prime in a year.
The mute winced and held up a hand to stop him. He shifted closer, and Niklaus’s stomach clenched. It was like coming into contact with a lion—dangerous and exhilarating all at once.
“It struck me as odd, considering the prior limitations on the oligarchy’s martial funding,” he started, keeping his voice as low as he could manage. “Odder still that Thyatira’s name appeared on the entry roster at Aetech headquarters. Not once. Dozens of times.”
“He fights for Groundling rights. Aetech does the opposite. I’ve spent a decade uncovering corruption in the oligarchy and airing it out to dry. I know machination when I smell it.”
“No. I went looking for information on him. Came up short. Did you read The Groundling Papers?”
Something twitched in the mute’s face.
A year, and he’d finally discovered his target audience: conspiratorial criminals.
“You know it wasn’t about Thyatira. It was about Aetech’s campaigning and Oligarchal manipulations against the Groundlings.
But it did suggest that, with his undocumented background, Thyatira could just as easily be an oligarch—or a Tera’thian—as the Groundling he claims to be.
And then—” He shook his head, too tired to tell the story again. “My life turned upside down.”
Lucky. In the months that had followed the Groundling Papers’ release, his mind had begun to feel crowded.
He had thought a good clean-out might be in order: boxing it all up, moving it all out.
A week in a ward had followed—all open windows and soft surfaces—after his mother found him. He wished he hadn’t been lucky.
“Technically, but I—” Time advanced, but the world around Niklaus regressed, shrank down to the singular thought that always returned, like a thrown stone to earth. Latouda?
“There was an accident.”
Clarity came crashing down. His marriage proposal aside, why would Latouda have been moved to a different house after two decades of service? Why would they have put her on a highmoon shift? Latouda had been able-bodied, not the kind to trip. A fall down a stairwell suddenly seemed impossible.
The mute waved a hand in front of Niklaus’s face.
“Repercussions…” He chuckled without mirth.
The mute’s brows lowered.
So, he did see right through Niklaus’s dependence. “I’m fine.”
“I-I don’t know.”
Damn him. “I don’t know,” Niklaus repeated more firmly.
“Are you giving me answers or interrogating me?” he snapped.
The giant’s brown eyes were pits of flame.
Niklaus sucked at his teeth. He crossed and uncrossed his arms. “Winning a war?”
The response only sent the mute right back into his first fated question.
He was using overt caution. It was a test, and Niklaus’s only option was to play along. “Because he wants to win a war. Alright.” Niklaus nodded. “What war?”
The mute ignored Niklaus’s question to ask yet another.
“You don’t enter a war. Either it comes to you, or you—” Niklaus squinted at the grain of the wagon’s planks beneath him. He stood and began pacing. “If Thyatira stages a war—and wins it—it works in his favor and in favor of the Groundlings that fought with him.”
Niklaus was fast to answer this time. “It would be devastating. Ninety-five percent of this militia is Groundling.”
Niklaus stared at the mute. “Aetech’s fault… because there’s something wrong with the plates?”
The mute neither confirmed nor denied it.
“Well, that practically makes it the oligarchy’s fault.” Panic rose in Niklaus’s chest. He ran a hand through his hair and blew out his cheeks. “It provides him with justifiable cause to support a Groundling revolution, I imagine.”
The mute leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. He hadn’t actually told Niklaus anything.
“My turn to ask questions. You’re clearly conspiring against Thyatira. What’s Thyatira got on you?”
Infuriating. “You just told me Thyatira’s done something with the Aetech plates. That we’re about to enter a war zone and something’s—”
If it was a game of outwitting he wanted, Niklaus would give it to him. “How do I know he didn’t put you up to this? If you want me on your side, if you want me to help you figure out whatever this is, you need to tell me what he’s got on you.”
The mute’s jaw clenched. His eyes flicked to the floor. The tips of his fingers rubbed together. Then his blazing stare flashed up to meet Niklaus’s.
He opened his mouth.