22. TWENTY-TWO #2
“He’s been out of sight for a year and a half. You know why he’s been in on our plan all along. He doesn’t want vengeance. He just wants his fucking bastards out of the Tume’amic system. That’s no lie. We know they’re real. We just fucking met one!”
Met. Met. Like, “How are you today? Fine sailing weather” met. If she still had two legs beneath her, she’d kick Mitek where it counted. “Don’t you dare suggest—”
“And without your protection, Cul’Mon could have easily found him.
Tossed him in a cell. Promised him their freedom in return for his happy cooperation.
Think, Brat. Think.” Mitek’s words were ferocious.
Fankalo’s pulse quickened in answer. Every beat was a stab into her broken leg.
“The Ratka showed up at Tennca Pui and in Chira’na, and he didn’t give you an explanation for that?
He’s never failed an assignment. Then this one, the most pivotal one, he fucks up.
And then when you call him out to Steila, he ignores your request?
He goes off the damn road, finds another fucking Ruxian, and gets himself captured, when he could have evaded it in a heartbeat.
He could have blown up half that city if he wanted!
Face it.” Mitek pointed a finger at her.
“Your bro’s got another agenda, and it’s not in your best interest.”
She made to grapple him by the knees, animal mind forgetting her condition. The pain nearly blinded her. She fell sideways, a cry tearing from her throat as she hit the floor.
Mitek rushed to her. He lifted her, sat behind her, and pulled her to his chest. “Take it easy, hothead,” he said, voice placating in her ear. “I’ve got you. I’m not attacking you. I just needed you to hear sense, and that was the only way to do it.”
Anger simmered into agony. “It’s not Calver,” she pleaded.
“Ok,” he conceded. “It’s not Calver.” The tightness to his words said otherwise.
With a shuddering breath, she scooted away from him. He stood and stepped back, knowing the boundary he’d just crossed. How many more times would he put his toes beyond that line before she had to remove them?
“What do we do?” Fates, she’d never asked him that. She always knew what to do.
Mitek straightened. His hands balled into fists. “We find the rat and make him squeak.”
Fankalo picked up Calver’s writing pad and flipped through its pages again. ‘Stay away from Thyatira’, Calver had said. Communication was not her brother’s strong suit, even when he had half a mind. He had tried in the only way he could. And she hadn’t listened.
Fankalo put her head in her hands until Mitek asked, “Did today’s meeting put you on to this?”
She rubbed at her eyes. “That and a little push of Luck.”
He cursed. “This is my fault. I encouraged you to accept Thyatira’s offer.”
“And I listened,” she snapped. “Nothing will be accomplished by martyring ourselves.”
Her ego had been too inflated. When she accepted the offer eighteen months ago, they’d just won the Pazirians’ funding.
The world was eating out of their hands.
But after the past few weeks, she had no choice but to look truth in the eye and see what she really was: a child, with fabricated legitimacy, pretending she could take over the world.
Their entire operation had been built on lies. Now they’d come home to roost.
As if reading her thoughts, Mitek clapped a hand on her shoulder. “If Thyatira’s chosen to cross the Queen of the Raiders, he clearly isn’t as smart as we thought him to be.”
Damn, but he made such a good show of it, she nearly believed again. Nearly. If they wanted to keep an ounce of their control, they would need to use sharper tactics.
She looked him in the eyes. “When Thyatira’s emissaries arrive, bind them.
We’ll question them on exactly what sort of sabotage the Tera’thians have planned so we can get the information to Calver.
Before the Red Wing hits Steila. We’ll need Drogus’s Tera’thian contacts to cross-verify.
” She bared her teeth. “Then I want to send Thyatira a message he has no room to misinterpret. It only takes one man to carry a couple of heads in a crate.”
“You’re joking.”
She laughed, a thing more bitter than she knew herself capable of. “Joking? The opposite. We have an image to protect. It’s nothing compared to what he deserves. For what he did to Calver he—”
“Forget about fucking Calver! And think about your father, who would have stepped off-ship into shark-infested waters before he saw you break the codex.”
“Self-defense,” she argued.
“Decapitating an unarmed emissary is not self-defense.”
It always came back to the shratten codex with him. She could guarantee Thyatira didn’t follow a set of morals. “My father was never put in the position we’re in. With the number of people that depend upon us.”
“Who’s going to do it then? You? Me? One of the initiates? Because, good riddance, we don’t have your fucking Reaper to do your dirty work for you anymore. And I’m not in the business of slitting throats.”
“You forget your place.”
“No!” he growled. “To the contrary, I’m sticking to it, Captain.”
Captain. Not Bratty. Captain, said in the way that Gelhard used to. Like the title was a mockery. Because…
She was a mockery.
She’d failed Calver. She’d fallen into a trap even Mitek had seen through. She wasn’t a real Ruxian. She couldn’t even walk any more. She submitted to the burning behind her eyes, fat tears rolling down her face in a way they hadn’t since she lost her father. He would be so ashamed.
The hard lines in Mitek’s face eased. He pulled a canteen from his waist. Pinched moss from the discarded satchel. Pressed it through the canteen’s mouth, passed it to her. The metal was still warm from the water he must have boiled before returning.
He found the tin he’d entered with, where it had rolled into the corner. Kneeling beside her, he applied the salve around the edges of her leg brace. It smelled wonderful.
“Mitek, I—”
“I know you.” His voice was low. His eyes focused on his work and didn’t rise to meet hers.
She nodded, wiping the tears from her cheeks. No one else. She couldn’t let anyone else know her like this. And shouldn’t have let him, considering the way he’d been acting. “What happened in Solutium has me rattled.”
“You’ve been through it, true. I still know you wouldn’t have done it, given the knife. If I had to place my bets, the fucking Casowhatan would shrink before your heart did.”
If Mitek could believe that, maybe she could too. Despite every boast, every claim she made as the Shadewalker’s Hand, she’d still never killed in cold blood.
“Stop thinking about Calver,” he said. “It does this to you. Every time.”
Did it?
“I-I want to stop thinking about Calver. I want it more than anything. But there are some kinds of love where it doesn’t matter how long you hold that fucker underwater, they just can’t seem to die.”
Mitek didn’t sympathize with her. He didn’t placate her or hold her or tell her it would all be alright. She was glad for that. He screwed the lid back onto the tin of salve, curled her fingers around it, and moved on.
“You, heal.” His jaw worked in circles. “I’ll deal with Thyatira’s emissaries in a way that’ll have Keane laughing so hard, you’ll hear him from Fate’s realm.”