Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sarai had joined hands with one of the Wretched.
Helvus hadn’t come knocking in the five days since she’d Probed him, either because he didn’t want her talking about what she’d seen, or because Kadra was looming over her shoulder more than ever.
Temples throbbing under the noonday sun, she transcribed their last case of the day: two street rats accused of stealing bread. In a test of their bargain that he’d shield her, she’d lied to the irate baker’s face that the girls hadn’t taken the bread and witnessed Kadra’s rare smile once again as he’d sided with her, breaking his thus-far ironclad rule of not lying as if their bargain mattered more.
As the bazaar emptied, she snuck glances at him smoothly offering the baker an aurei’s recompense for his lost loaves. Walking past the young bread-thieves, something fell from his hands with a pickpocket’s stealth. The younger one examined the pouch of aurei that had materialized in her hands with bafflement. The other gaped as Kadra angled his head toward the bazaar’s exit. Her grip on her pen slackened, ink blotting the verdict at the realization that Kadra had just slipped the children enough aurei to buy bread for years with no one else the wiser.
Rumor says he was a street rat, found in an alley as an adolescent . Her heart twisted at the memory of Cisuré’s comments. Tetrarch. Murderer. Street rat. None of the titles fit .
The urge to clear her mind was so strong that upon Cisuré’s invitation to grab a drink while their Tetrarchs conferred—without any broken noses this time, she’d specified—Sarai accepted.
Dinner was a lively affair. Anek shared tales of a bizarre case that week—a man who’d insisted that he was one of the Naaduir reborn—Cisuré shuddered after having visited Edessa’s outskirts for the first time—“it’s filthy ”—and Harion cracked lewd jokes the deeper he got into his amphora. Sarai was the issue.
“You’ve been scowling at your soup for an hour.” Cisuré touched her elbow when Anek went to refill their plate. “Is something wrong? Has Kadra been piling work on you?”
Harion let out a drunken chuckle. “Is that all he’s doing?”
Sarai set down her spoon. “It’s just a case.” Relating the morning’s encounter with the bread thieves, she omitted her lying and focused on Kadra’s donation. “Just thinking of the children.”
Cisuré stared at her plate, features tight.
A serpentine smile played on Harion’s lips. “Are you sure it’s the children you’re thinking of and not our national madman?”
A muscle below her eye twitched. “Yes.”
“If you say so. Now, calm down and don’t cause another scene,” he added when her jaw tightened. “Gods, you can take the barmaid out of the bar, but she’ll bring the bar with her.”
She was seconds from dousing him in soup when Anek sat down, effortlessly projecting their voice.
“By the way, lecher, I’ve just run into three women who each insist that you’re sleeping with them and that the others are lying. They’re locked in a squabble outside, if you’d care to sort it out. There’s a crowd gathering.”
Sarai snorted as Harion turned a becoming shade of green and raced outside. She mouthed her thanks to Anek when Cisuré spoke, looking serious .
“There’s no reason to be conflicted. Kadra didn’t help those children.” Ice seeped into her voice. “He bought their goodwill, and everyone else’s.”
“No one saw him do it. It was a fluke that I—” She jumped when Cisuré’s fist hit the table.
“Kadra deprived those children of proper, soul-building work. Like you had. Now they’ll blow through that money and always expect a handout. That’s who he is.”
A cool silence descended over their corner table. Sarai stared at her oldest friend in stupefaction. Anek contemplated their throwing knife, brow furrowed. Surprise flickered on Cisuré’s features like she hadn’t expected the reaction.
“It may sound harsh,” she added hastily. “But Tetrarch Aelius says—”
Anek groaned. “Please stop there. You can pontificate on Tetrarch Aelius another night.”
Cisuré reddened. “You say that, but you’d be kneeling at his feet, if he were here.”
“I would. But because he’s a Tetrarch, not a god.”
Cisuré’s chest swelled. Before she could launch into a tirade, Anek placed a few denarii on the table and patted her shoulder in farewell, nodding to Sarai as they left. Cisuré’s features flushed in anger.
Sarai expelled a long breath. She hadn’t expected Cisuré to stay the same after four years, but her diminished empathy was a bitter surprise. Time truly was the cruelest of the gods.
“You know Kadra’s insane, right?” Cisuré whispered after a moment.
“Of course.”
“I just thought … for a moment, you seemed intrigued. He didn’t give you that coin, you know. There’s no need to identify with those girls.”
“That was the furthest thing from my mind!”
Cisuré’s lips formed a thin line. “I know how you get about these things—”
“Don’t. ”
“He’s not the sort of man who would have rescued you in Arsamea, and he won’t now!” At Sarai’s look, Cisuré took her hands. “Tossing money at a street rat doesn’t make him a Saint.”
“I’m hav?d well aware of that!” She struggled to keep the anger from her voice, and Cisuré flinched. “Do you really think I’d paint him as a Saint after one deed? You—”
“It’s so easy for him to manipulate you. A show of righteous anger or—”
“Please, just don’t.”
“ Listen , I—”
“Don’t say it,” Sarai snapped. “If you think I’m gullible, fine. But don’t announce it to the tavern.”
“You keep getting angry.” Tears welled in Cisuré’s eyes. “It’s such a destructive emotion.”
Sarai rested her head in her hands. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
“No! Just listen to me.” Cisuré sniffed. “Four years ago, seeing you … like that, you can’t imagine how hard it was for me. I could have chosen anger then, but I didn’t. And I … attended one of Tetrarch Aelius’s trials. The plaintiff was awful, accusing the Tetrarchy of all sorts of crimes. He even pulled out a blade. Kadra would have burned him alive, but Tetrarch Aelius didn’t respond to the provocation. He simply ordered him to be removed from the court. And I knew that this was a good man, a safe man. But you can’t say the same about Kadra. His legacy is blood and ugliness. You shouldn’t forget that.”
“I haven’t.” The trouble was that she didn’t care.
Perhaps she and Cisuré weren’t so different. In some small way, she did see Kadra as the embodiment of the sort of justice she’d hoped for growing up, while painfully aware that he was a powerful manipulator. Cisuré saw safety in Aelius because he was the very opposite of Marus. She stifled a groan. Gods, we’re nutcases .
“Have you found anything?” Cisuré ventured timidly.
Helvus and Jovian flashed to mind. She shook her head.
The other girl winced. “It’s been a month and a half. ”
“I’m trying. Temperance and Time, I feel like I’ve aged a year since I came here.”
“You’ll be fine. You’ve always been strong.” Cisuré hugged her. “Find something to throw Kadra in the mines, and we’ll toil away at this job until we’re old and gray.”
Disquiet crept down her spine. “Do you still think he’s involved in the Petitor deaths?”
“He’s a monster.” Cisuré looked like she couldn’t believe Sarai had asked the question. “That’s what monsters do.”
After she’d left, Sarai stared at her plate, wondering if she’d fallen into an age-old trap in thinking that this monster might be different. A thousand different glimpses of him swam behind her eyes. Sardonic, yet never insulting to her. Perennially amused but rarely showing genuine humor. The deep, quiet way he spoke to her that felt almost tender.
“If only that were true,” she whispered. “If only that were true.”
A raucous laugh sounded from a nearby table as the people there rose to leave. She prepared to do the same when one of the men clapped another’s shoulders.
“Same time tomorrow, Martinus?”
“Why not?” A stocky man with an impressive beard helped himself to a wheel of cheese.
She froze. Martinus. The vigile who’d burned her records. Hairy as a northerner , the archivist had said. The man before her would be at home in Arsamea.
Without further thought, she sat at his table. “Vigile Martinus? Do you have a moment?”
“ Former vigile,” he said genially, then took one look at her robes and bowed low, brushing crumbs off his tunic. “Petitor Sarai, a pleasure.”
She knotted her shaking fingers. “I had a few questions on a case before Tetrarch Kadra’s time. The Sealed Records archivist recommended you.”
His chest puffed up. “That’s kind of him. What can I help you with?”
“What do you know of the Sidran Tower Girl? ”
He sighed. “Ah, the investigation that cost me my career. I heard you weren’t from Edessa. She’s a legend here.” He dropped his voice. “You’re this Quarter’s Petitor, so you may as well know, but she isn’t a dead one either.”
Sarai tensed. “Hold on. You knew—” She stopped before she could give herself away. “The Sidran Tower Girl’s alive?”
“Only a few vigiles and healers knew back then. Everyone else got the same story for procedural reasons.”
“You couldn’t have her assailant know she was alive.”
He looked pleased. “Exactly. Thing is, she couldn’t remember how it happened, and Tetrarch Othus forbade a Probe.”
Because he knew Kadra was there that night. “Wouldn’t searching her memories have been the easiest way to find the culprit?”
He shook his head. “Tetrarch Othus, Elsar bless him, was never one to reveal the workings behind his orders. Few days later, he told us she was a pleasure worker and to cease investigation.” Martinus sat back in his chair. “He’d just lost his Petitor, so I figured it was the grief talking, but then he asked for her records. I brought them over, and he up and threw them into his fireplace and blamed me for it.”
“Why …” She struggled to speak past the ache in her throat. “Why close the case?”
Martinus shrugged. “It’s a classic tale. Working girl sleeps with some wealthy scion, gets jilted, and goes to the extreme in a display of petulance. It happens. I’m not saying that made it right. But he had his reasons. That case was cursed.”
“How?”
“Every healer that touched that girl and all the vigiles who questioned her vanished the day before he closed it.”
Fear swallowed her whole. She undid her suddenly tight collar. “They died?”
“Fled the city. Not so much as a parting letter. It was eerie enough that I didn’t object when he wanted to stop investigating. But I became the only one who knew she was alive.” Martinus stared at his plate. “Next day, Othus was gone too. And I bundled the girl off.”
“How did Othus die?”
He winced. “Bludgeoned to death in an alley. The damage was extensive. Hands in pieces. The Lugens couldn’t begin to guess at what happened.”
I can . Chilled, she swallowed. “I heard rumors that … Tetrarch Kadra could have been involved.”
To her surprise, he laughed. “I doubt it. He didn’t get along with his old man, but he was furious at his death.”
“There weren’t any suspects?”
“Tetrarch Othus was too powerful for a mere criminal to have taken him down. A foreign spy was our best guess, but there’s practically no catching those.” He hesitated. “Petitor Sarai, I don’t know what Othus was hiding or why he used me as a scapegoat. I didn’t want to damage his name, so I accepted the blame. But I will say, there was something odd. He made every person in the know swear not to tell Tetrarch Kadra that the Sidran Tower Girl had survived. Refused to include him in the investigation.”
Slowly, as if manipulated by some magic, her head swiveled to Martinus. That can’t be right. But the words crescendoed in her head, ripping through her nerves . Because there was only one reason why Othus would have kept the truth from Kadra. Only one person who couldn’t know that she had survived the Fall.
The man who’d pushed her.
“No.” It came out as a croak.
“Oh yes. Elsar only know why, but Othus was never kind to Kadra. Great Tetrarch but not much of a father.” He gave her a stern look. “Don’t you go telling Tetrarch Kadra either.”
“I won’t.” Her voice was strung tight, inches from unraveling. “Thank you for your time, Martinus. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think Tetrarch Othus deserved your loyalty.”
Insisting on paying for his meal, she kept up a serene facade until she left the tavern. Then, she emptied her stomach on the grass .
Tetrarch Othus made every person in the know swear not to tell Kadra.
Spitting onto the ground, she braced herself against a tree. He wouldn’t have harmed a fourteen-year-old girl. But hadn’t she heard his voice while bleeding out? Hadn’t she seen ample proof of his sadism? He’s a monster. That’s what monsters do. Cisuré had been right.
“Damn you,” she spat, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. In the distance, the citadel housing the Academiae rose high, Aoran Tower a dark cudgel in the west. “You manipulative, violent bastard.”
She didn’t know how long she stood there, hunched over, until approaching voices made her retreat to where she’d tied Caelum.
The Tetrarchy approached the tavern in full regalia. Cassandane smiled weakly at something Tullus said, the deep shadows under her eyes saying that she’d prefer to be anywhere else. Aelius inclined his head graciously at passersby and took a few hands when people sidled up to greet him. And there he was at the back of the group. The Tetrarchy’s black sheep. The statues of former monarchs on Edessa’s city walls showed more expression.
A deep, slow-burning anger burgeoned until it eroded her numbness. She yearned to plow her fist into his face until that aristocratic nose shattered. But there were better ways to hurt him. Mounting Caelum, she dug in her heels and sped off. Steps from the front gates of Aoran Tower, she dismounted, breathing hard.
Think . Look at the facts . Kadra had known she was alive when he’d ordered for her to be given a new face. Why had Othus lied to him about her death?
Because he knew Kadra did it . She laughed bitterly. To spare him jail, he’d destroyed the records and turned her into a dead prostitute, rather than have his homicidal foster son learn of her survival. He’d most likely bribed the healers and vigiles into leaving and keeping her survival a secret. An edict they’d all have kept after he and his Petitor had died. And as for Martinus, who seemed incorruptible and obedient to his Tetrarch, Othus had simply ruined his career. And she’d passed into legend.
Then why would Kadra kill Othus and his Petitor despite those efforts ?
She didn’t care. He’d ruined her life. She’d destroy his. Sarai stared at Aoran Tower, trying to find the strength to storm in and ransack it. Bile hit her tongue again as the smooth fabric of Kadra’s robes slid across her skin. Undoing the buttons, she threw them on the ground and pulled out her key.
“Petitor Sarai.” A figure detached itself from the shadows on the cobblestone path. She brandished the key in front of her, a poor weapon.
Gaius raised his hands in surrender. “I apologize for intruding.” He sighed. “This is the last thing Tetrarch Kadra would want, but I can’t sit by. Do you really believe that he’s behind the Petitor deaths? Does what you’ve seen of him match with that?”
Fear spiked fast. “Were you listening to Martinus and me? Have you been following me?”
“Not intentionally, alright? I heard Othus’s name and figured you were asking about the rumors. And you’re clearly upset so—”
“Why are you watching me?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Tetrarch Kadra’s orders, but it’s to keep you safe!” he added hurriedly when her hands formed fists. “Helvus has you in his sights. Half the men in that tavern were Metals Guildsmen, and you were isolated. If you die—”
“Kadra gets blamed,” she finished. “You want to know what sort of man I’ve seen? I—” She swallowed, close to tears.
You’ve always been strong , Cisuré had once said ruefully. Perhaps too strong . But that wasn’t true. She wasn’t strong so much as capable of numbing herself to the worst and watching every blow land with wry fatalism. She’d buried the parts of herself that hurt and raged, turning wary and self-contained. It had worked for years. Until him .
She’d disliked him, even while reluctantly admiring his knifelike mind, tightly leashed control, and the way his every movement was imbued with the unconscious grace of a man accustomed to violence. Part of her had taken quiet pride in the moments he called her his Petitor, in their silent agreement on the law’s malevolence. And now she only had herself to blame for having fallen too deep .
“I can’t tell how much of him is real and how much is a facade that’s duped everyone into fawning over him,” she bit out, on the outermost edge of her restraint.
“Has he ever sought out public goodwill?” Gaius demanded. “I’ve worked with him since he was a fledgling iudex, mind like a steel trap even then. But I’ve never seen him do something purely because it would make someone like him. Have you?”
Stricken, she halted. She’d associated goodwill with his actions because it had drawn her to him. But killing the Guildsmen guarding the debt-slaves instead of jailing them, covering up her Probing of Helvus, none of that would look good for him if it came to light.
“He’s one man, Petitor Sarai. He has the sharpest mind I’ll ever have the privilege to know, but he is just one man. Why do you keep acting like he’s Deceit himself?”
Because if he were simply a man of preternatural cunning and not an evil manipulator, then she would have no shield against everything she felt for him. If she allowed herself to trust in his potential innocence in the Fall and she ended up being wrong, it would destroy her.
Whatever was on her face made Gaius hurriedly take a step back and apologize for upsetting her further. After he left, she walked along the path, trying to set her head to rights. A splash of scarlet caught her attention. A statue stood at the edge of the path. She drew closer and paused in awe.
Madness etched into marble, Lord Wrath rose before her, sword aloft and pointed at an unseen enemy. Fury twisted his features into a snarl. His burnished armor shone in the moonlight, a crimson swath staining his shield.
There wasn’t a more fitting guardian for Aoran Tower. Reviled and revered, Wrath held a controversial position in the High Elsar. Most saw no use for the god’s favor in a civilized world. Of course, those people rarely saw how thin the veneer of civilization was. She felt a strange kinship with that otherworldly face. In the silence between midnight and dawn where truth yearned to leap off the tongue, she knelt before the statue, desperate for a confidant.
“Help me,” Sarai whispered. “I … care for a monster. I haven’t condemned him when I know that the Tetrarchy is desperate for a chink in his armor. I don’t even know if my memories can be trusted”—her voice cracked—“or if I’m so angry that I’ve twisted everything.”
His mad eyes seemed to ask if there was anything wrong with anger.
“Most would say that there is. It swallows you whole if you stare too long at it.”
Righter of Wrongs. The thought abruptly entered her mind. One of Wrath’s oldest titles, it stemmed from a tale in the Codices that posited him as once being Lord Justice. Having given humanity laws to aid them in serving each other, he’d grown bitter and disillusioned when they used them to fashion wars and approve atrocities. After tens of millennia, Justice had gone mad, birthing Wrath. Only one of his former appellations remained. Righter of Wrongs. Where Justice had failed, Wrath would rectify what the law lacked courage to do.
Anger but with courage and restraint . The words slid into her head. She took an unsteady breath, tears rolling down her cheeks. The gods had never spoken to her. Not the grand ways they apparently did to clerics. But as she bowed low before the god of anger, quiet erasing her turmoil, she thought that perhaps they hadn’t forsaken her entirely.