Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A hard rap on the door propelled her to wakefulness.
Stumbling from bed, Sarai briefly glanced at the window. He’s early. The moons had barely reached the night sky’s summit. Her eyes were swollen, turmoil still fresh. She had nihumb and zosta active before drawing the bolt.
Kadra’s gaze fell on her and lingered.
“Are we starting early?” She addressed the far wall.
A beat of silence. “Did someone hurt you?” She raised her head in surprise, and his eyes narrowed. “Tullus’s Petitor again?”
Sarai debated on directing him to a mirror. “What do you need me for?” She stilled upon taking stock of the scorch marks on his robes. “Was there a strike?”
Something flickered across his face. “A Guildmaster’s home.”
“I’ll be right down.”
He looked hesitant for a moment, as though he wanted to say more. Grim lines tightened on either side of his mouth. Then, he left.
Numb, she hurried through her ablutions and joined him, their horses kicking up mud as they wove through the streets. Unless a Petitor also possessed some talent for lightning or fire, they couldn’t do much post-stormfall save assisting vigiles with rescue efforts. It must be bad if he needs me there.
She smelt the carnage before she saw it .
The air grew thick and bitter, smoke veiling homes like low-hanging mist. The radius indicated a catastrophe worse than the one on the outskirts nine days ago. Halfway up a street, Kadra dismounted and secured their mounts, indicating that they’d walk from there. Covering her nose and mouth with her sleeve, she followed, peering through the wall of smoke. The air shifted. Her heart sank.
The ruins of a magnificent home lay before them. Flames roared across every storey despite chains of vigiles atop the roofs of neighboring domii tossing buckets of water and sand at them. Gold leaf floated in a sea of floating sparks. A column from an upper floor teetered, then crashed through two floors to shatter on the ground, opulence crumbling.
A soot-covered vigile let out a groan of relief upon seeing Kadra. “He’s here!” he roared above the crackling flames.
The others scrambled off the roofs, away from the domus. Kadra placed an arm in front of her, guiding her to stand behind him.
“Don’t breathe too deeply,” he warned.
He raised a palm, features taut. The flames on the upper storeys faltered, their wispy tips leaning toward him. He did the same with his other hand, the blaze on the ground floor hungrily licking in his direction. Slowly, meticulously, he closed each outstretched palm, pulling them toward him as he did. The fire followed, racing over wood and upholstery to rise before him in a wall as high as the domus.
Her breath unfurled in bursts. A few vigiles staggered back in fear when the air warped into black poison. Kadra didn’t flinch. Only the tight set of his jaw revealed how difficult it was. He pressed down and out until the wall of flame split into several red columns, weaker in temperature. Hands steepled and steady, he turned to his vigiles and tilted his head. Looking as awestruck as she probably did, they stumbled back to their buckets, water sloshing as they tackled the stacks of flame. She did the same, scrunching her eyes against the ensuing smoke. The air screeched and sizzled. Within minutes, all was extinguished .
Kadra dropped his hands. “Watch for embers in the upper storeys,” he reminded his vigiles before turning to her.
Blood roared in her ears. “I see why you’re a Tetrarch,” she said without thinking.
His eyebrows rose. “You didn’t before?”
“That was …” She trailed off. “You’re terrifying. Whose domus is this?”
“Grains Guildmaster Admia.”
She froze, recalling the sharp-faced woman at Aelius’s convivium. Had she been inside when the strike occurred? “This fire must have been raging for hours. Why did no one call us here earlier?”
Something slithered in Kadra’s eyes. Before he could respond, a vigile called to him to indicate a patch of wood about to flare up on an upper floor. She picked her way across the thick fulgurites scattered in the debris to where a gray-cloaked healer crouched, features contemplative.
“Have you found any victims?” she called.
Their expression cleared upon recognizing her robes. “Just him.” They indicated a black shape at their feet.
Wisdom and Wrath . She flinched.
Tearing a strip of cloth from their bandaging supplies, the healer dampened it and passed it to her. “Wrap it over your nose and mouth. Best defense we have against esophageal burns. This strike’s a bad one.”
“We were only told an hour ago.”
The healer snorted. “Probably because everyone from the neighbors to their servants thought it served them right. Admia and her husband”—they cast a meaningful glance at the corpse at their feet—“weren’t well liked. I mean, you’d be lucky to get a crop out of her during a bad harvest. She ate well, even if it meant that the rest of Ur Dinyé didn’t.”
And she was paying the price now. With great difficulty, Sarai drew her eyes from Admia’s husband, mouth drawn open in a terrified wail. Just like Ennius. “Where’s Admia?”
“Haven’t found her.” The healer gripped the dead man’s rigid outstretched arms and dragged him to a pallet, uncaring of how his flesh snagged against debris. “To think that with everything she got from the gods, she still didn’t have faith! It’s a wonder her home wasn’t struck earlier.”
Sarai bit her tongue before she said what she thought of that explanation. Circling the debris, she helped Kadra’s vigiles search for its owner. Eyes stinging from the smoke, she glimpsed the glint of metal. A scutum . Drawing closer, she stared. Admia’s fulgur scutum had burst open, molten steel trailing down the sides. Some sort of mass lay within the rod, sparks still sizzling within. She jerked away right as a sweat-drenched Gaius rounded the corner.
“And here’s the last one,” he muttered upon sighting the rod. “All four exploded. Great.” Lifting a thick fulgurite, he gingerly prodded the scutum with it, cursing at a shower of sparks. “Wrath and cursed Ruin, of all the places for a bolt to strike, why on the rods?”
“Lightning struck the scuta? Not the house?” She spotted a twisted scrap of iron that looked to be the remnants of a steeple. “Not even the steeple?”
“That’s what eyewitnesses are saying.” He indicated a cluster of spectators.
Going over, she found an exhausted vigile trying to prevent an elderly man from scavenging in the rubble. Promising the man an aureus for his information, she steered him away.
“Did you witness the strike?”
“ Certo ,” he quavered. “There was a flash. A few seconds later, her house exploded. Lord Fortune spoke loudly today. The bolt targeted her. Good riddance.”
“What did the flash look like? Did it hit her house?”
“No, struck all four scuta outside.” He looked incredulous. “What little faith did they have for not even one scutum to shield them?”
Why hadn’t lightning gone for the steeple? “Did you see Admia?”
He chuckled. “ Certo . Screamed down the street to all and sundry that she was going to rip Helvus a new pair of holes. ”
Her suspicions coalesced. Helvus, the scuta, and his comment the night he’d framed Jovian’s death as a suicide. Anything that threatens the scuta threatens us and threatens our clients.
Pressing an aureus into the old man’s hands, she returned to Admia’s scuta. Each one was warped, the rod’s flat heads burst open to reveal a powder within. It was one thing to melt under the heat, but these scuta had combusted.
The scutum before her tilted, thudding to the ground. She stilled as the powder spilled out. Reddish-brown, it sparked in the air, and her heart dropped. That’s iron dust . A full-body shiver reduced her legs to cotton wool. Almost everyone in Arsamea kept a little iron dust on hand when their wood got too damp or for celebratory bonfires. Because it was highly combustible.
The gods hadn’t been behind this strike. Helvus had.
More dust spilled from the fallen scutum, grains picked up by the wind. Sarai shrank back. If any of it hit the smallest ember, the whole domus would go up in flames again. She didn’t pause to think. Racing around the back, she pulled the cloth from her nose and mouth.
“Get out! You all need to leave!” she yelled, running to where Kadra was speaking with the healer. “You need to evacuate everyone,” she wheezed, the back of her throat raw. Her collar was a manacle, her robes too much in the oppressive heat. “This place might explode again.”
“Show me.”
“We don’t have time! There’s iron dust in the scuta! It could ignite any second!”
He didn’t miss a beat, voice cutting through the hubbub like an executioner’s axe. “Leave the area. I want everyone three domii away,” he ordered.
The healer snapped to attention, dragging Admia’s husband’s body toward the closest horse. Vigiles herded onlookers away, making a last sweep of the rubble.
Kadra turned to her, features pulling tight. “Sarai— ”
“I need to get to Helvus,” she said without preamble. “Every scutum here was stuffed to the brim with iron dust. Everyone kept talking about faith and how Admia must’ve been taunting the gods to deserve this, but the scuta were faulty!” Even saying it knocked the breath from her lungs. “Helvus is in danger. Admia’s just lost her husband. That’s motive, and she’s had plenty of time for opportunity.”
“I can’t leave while there’s a hazard here. Helvus is likely dead.” He listed his head to one side, a sinister gleam in his eyes. “It’s better for you that he’s dead.”
The words multiplied a thousandfold in her head. For an ugly second, she thought of letting it go. Helvus was no loss to the world.
“It doesn’t matter.” Sweat trickled into her eyes. “If he dies, every evil he’s committed goes unknown and unpunished.”
“So you’ll save him to doom him.” A glimmer of amusement crossed his face. “As you wish. He lives four streets north. But”—he had never looked grimmer—“you’re on your own.”
“I know.”
There was a tension in him, the same hesitation she’d seen that morning. She fidgeted, knowing he was about to ignite Admia’s home and contain the explosions while the iron dust burnt itself out.
She didn’t meet his eyes. “Be careful.”
For a moment, Kadra looked as though he’d say what seemed to be pressing on his tongue. Then, he nodded tightly. Sarai got on Caelum and, with a look at the dispersing vigiles and the madman standing before a house of death, rode north as if all ten hells were chasing her.
She counted the streets. Please let me be in time. A woman’s bloodcurdling shriek reached her right as she turned onto the fourth. She didn’t have to guess at Helvus’s home. The domus rivaled Aelius’s tower for size, and Helvus had seen fit to gilt-edge everything down to the doors, turning it into an overlarge gold brick.
Kadra’s vigiles were already at the locked gates, slamming axes into the bars. How’d they arrive so quickly? The question became immaterial when another scream sounded, male this time, along with what sounded like an explosion. The gate parted after several blows. She raced inside the home, and froze when a familiar stench burned its way up her nostrils. Blood.
Helvus lay in a corner of the atrium, a pool of scarlet widening around him. Whatever had pierced him had obliterated the left half of his torso, remnants of his innards spilling out. She grew cold. A healer could repair crushed organs, but they couldn’t regrow obliterated ones. Admia had gotten her revenge.
She turned her head at another scream. A soot-covered woman, burns lacing half her torso, struggled against Kadra’s vigiles as they restrained her. Sarai’s heart sank. Admia.
“Petitor Sarai.” A gray-cloaked healer motioned her over. “She’s somewhat conscious if you’re ready to Probe her for the events leading to this. I can’t guarantee that she’ll stay awake once I start.”
“Of course, I …” She trailed off, with a glance at Helvus’s body.
Admia had committed homicidium today. And Helvus, for all his crimes, was a victim. Yet, if he’d known that Admia’s scuta were faulty, or worse, if her scuta weren’t the only faulty ones, then others could be in danger.
Sweat trailed down Sarai’s temples. This was a terrible idea. She’d already Probed him once and barely gotten away with it. But if he dies, then no one will know the truth.
Wisdom help me . She knelt beside Helvus. “Is he conscious?”
The healer looked taken aback. “Well … yes, but he won’t hold on for long.”
She drew a deep breath. The scent of warm iron was everywhere, tugging at memories only too eager to intrude. Helvus’s eyes flickered open, glazed with pain.
He glowered weakly at her. “Will … I … die?” he gurgled, blood leaking from his chest.
Swallowing, she wiped a bleeding thumb over herar . “I’m really am sorry,” she whispered, gripping his head. And plunged in .
The world went crimson. The library of Helvus’s mind was in chaos. Books and pages hung in the air, fragmenting images that trembled at her touch. She searched through the tangle until she saw an image of a scutum. All dissolved when she touched it.
“The rod will have two parts. A steel sleeve and core.” Helvus announced to the hundreds of Metals Guildspeople assembled before him. “You’ll produce the sleeve, and for the Elsar’s sakes, etch the runes right. I’ve a different group producing the core in Kirtule.”
A wiry man raised a hand. “Begging pardon, Guildmaster, but wouldn’t it be faster if we make and assemble both parts here?”
He crossed the floor toward the fellow. “I pay you to work, not think.” Readying to slap him, he thought better of it—damned man was too tall— and he punched him in the gut. The man doubled over with a satisfying squeak, and the others shifted nervously.
Iron dust was so much cheaper than steel. His Guild would do as told. Everyone in the south would buy his scuta without knowing about the dust core, and those two would take care of the rest.
Sarai wrenched herself out of Helvus’s mind with a gasp. His breath rattled, blood spurting from the hole in his side. She didn’t care.
How could you? She swallowed the scream, her shock melting into a single, terrible realization. The iron dust had transformed every lightning shield into a lightning rod. And Helvus had profited for it.
This was what Jovian and Livia, and likely even Othus and his Petitor, had died for. They’d found the truth and must have tried to warn consumers of the danger. And now, Helvus was going to take everything to the grave.
Anguish swamped her. When a Petitor Probed, only they saw the memories in question. That left the door open for people to argue that she was lying if she spoke out. The south was too eager to cite the gods for everything, and she still didn’t know who Helvus’s clients were. Materialization was a power reserved only for trial, but surely procedure was beyond the point here. Everyone had to know .
Removing her sweat-sodden robes, she moved on trembling legs to where Kadra’s vigiles held a still-screaming Admia down. She knelt, seized by the knowledge that she was on the precipice she’d sensed during Helvus’s raid at Decimus’s, and, this time, she was about to irreversibly go over. Her blood sank into astomand . She gripped Admia’s head, where the most recent page of a ledger of memories was only too easy to grasp. Sarai pulled it into the open.
Smoky figures formed in Helvus’s atrium. The vigiles started, as a transparent Admia strode toward an equally see-through Helvus.
“Admia, what a surprise.” Helvus sounded annoyed. “Any reason you look dreadful?”
“Your scutum!” Admia screamed. “It exploded! I know iron dust when I see it. You’ve been lying to everyone!”
“Don’t play the innocent. No one forced you to buy one.”
“My husband is dead because of you! Don’t you fear the gods?”
“Why should I?” Helvus’s grin held malice.
In a movement too fast to follow, he unsheathed and threw a dagger that embedded itself in Admia’s gut. A croak left her as she stared at the hilt protruding from her, then her eyes hardened. One hand snuck to her pocket. As Helvus laughed, she tossed a pouch into the fireplace behind him.
He raised an eyebrow. “Really—”
The fireplace exploded. Blood and organs splattered the walls, Helvus’s scream echoing through the atrium. “You—” His roar emerged as a gurgle when Admia crouched over him.
She spat on his head. “There’s the rest of your iron dust.”
Sarai braced herself against the ground, gasping from the effort of pulling it out. Several yards away, a rattle left Helvus, his jaw slack in horror. His eyes fluttered once, twice. Then shut.
Eyes darted from her to Helvus in a dizzying dance. She willed herself to get up, to explain, just as a roar shattered the graveyard silence.
“What the fuck? ”
She stumbled to her feet and found Tullus behind her, Harion in tow. “Tetrarch Tullus, I can explain—”
His hand cracked across her face, knocking the breath from her. She staggered back, winded, as she clutched her burning cheek.
“How dare you?” Tullus spat, craggy features mottled with rage. Behind him, Harion looked delighted. “Who gave you the right to Materialize memories?”
“Enough, Tullus.” Aelius appeared in the entryway, a pale-faced Cisuré in tow. Without looking at Sarai, he snapped his fingers at those tending to Admia. “Stop. Toss her in prison.”
She sucked in a panicked breath. “Wait, Tetrarch Aelius, please. Admia is absolutely guilty of homicidium , but Helvus has committed an awful crime—” The words died when he glanced at her.
Gone was the affable Tetrarch. This was a stony-faced man in ivory robes who looked like he’d enjoy throttling her.
“Petitor Sarai, you just violated every oath you took at the Robing and humiliated a dying man in his own domus by airing out the delusions of a murderer.” He looked bitterly disappointed. “I was wondering at your lack of cooperation. I see Kadra got to you.”
She blanched, speaking so fast the words tumbled over each other. “Helvus warped your invention. He added iron dust to the core because that made them cheaper to produce. I saw the dust at Admia’s home. Helvus—”
“That’s Guildmaster Helvus to you,” Tullus interjected, eyes glittering. “We’ve never heard of a single complaint with the scuta. What you saw was a plot to damage his reputation, and instead of punishing the perpetrator, you joined her.” His voice dripped with scorn. “Evidently, an untrained Petitor can be worse than none at all. Future Robings will feel the consequences of your actions.”
Terror swallowed her. “Tetrarch Tullus, I swear on all the High Elsar—”
“Another word, and I’ll charge you with calumnia. ”
Blood fled from her cheeks, pooling in nerveless hands that shook hard enough to rattle her. The charge punished officials for malicious prosecution with a thousand lashes. Certain death. She stared from one hard-faced Tetrarch to the other, and the bottom fell out of her stomach. They didn’t believe her.
“Probe me if you must,” she whispered. “Even now, hundreds of thousands of scuta are—”
Tullus’s hand wrapped around her neck and slammed her against a bloodstained marble column. She choked, chest going concave.
“You still don’t understand your place,” he growled. “I’ll fucking show you.”
His fingers tightened. She could feel her windpipe closing. Spots danced in her eyes. Scrabbling, she tried to pry herself free. Cisuré made a plaintive sound of distress and stepped forward, but Tullus halted her with a furious look.
This can’t be happening. She’d expected censure, would have accepted it. But not once had she foreseen such merciless disbelief. Her legs gave out, Tullus’s death grip on her neck preventing her from sinking to the floor. Her lungs screamed. She fought, vaguely aware of footsteps ringing across the atrium, a figure at the edge of her dimming vision.
“Let her go.” Kadra’s voice was forbidding. “Now.”
With a derisive laugh, Tullus released her. Slipping on the blood below, she struggled for balance and air and was about to lose both battles, when Kadra gripped her shoulders. She sucked in harsh breaths, rubbing the raw circumference of her neck.
“Like Tetrarch, like Petitor,” Tullus snarled. “ Tibi gratias ago for the summons, though this wasn’t the sight I expected. Sending her to do your dirty work, Kadra?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she had damn well made her own decisions when Kadra squeezed her shoulder.
“No less dirty than what your friend’s been up to,” he said mildly, with a glance at Helvus’s corpse being moved to a pallet.
Tullus’s eyes flashed. “There’s no authority on which to believe those accusations. Your girl is deluded. ”
“Then you’ll have no complaint if I seek authority by cutting open a scutum to see if the accusations hold true.”
“Producing scuta will be slower than ever now, and you want to chop them up? You would deprive people of a shield for your ego?”
“This is my Quarter.” Kadra’s voice was soft. “Mine is the only authority here. If your friend wanted to market lightning rods as shields, he should have conned people on your land. Seeing as you don’t seem to mind.”
Sarai’s pulse thudded at the gimlet stare Aelius leveled on Kadra.
“Let’s put the issue to trial then,” he said coldly. “You have a month to bring anything to support your suppositions. If you fail, the appropriate decision will be rendered.”
Tullus’s eyes filled with disgust when they found her. “As to the matter of your actions, there will be charges. When the Metals Guild files a petition, we will act on it in accordance with the law.” His eyes said, As you should have .
A buzzing rang in her ears as both Tetrarchs stormed out. Sarai could barely bring herself to look at Cisuré. The other girl looked like she’d aged a year, new hollows under her eyes.
I’m sorry , Sarai mouthed. Cisuré’s expression hardened before she left as well.
A slight movement of Kadra’s head, and Helvus was unceremoniously dragged out of his home. The ridges of his spinal column peeked through the hole Admia had blown.
Four years ago, hers had probably looked similar, broken in so many places that the healers had groused that she was more work than she was worth. She realized that Kadra’s hands were still on her shoulders. Withdrawing, she steadied herself against a wall, following it out of the house perfumed with blood.
She’d known that the law served the needs of the powerful. Truth and fairness were only raised for crimes by regular folk. When the wealthy butchered their way through life, the only words used were “necessary” and “profit.” Justice was a game of who could tell the better story in court and pay off iudices and vigiles. But she’d hoped that the Tetrarchy was different. Because if their leaders were different heads of the same monster, then this was a land without hope.
She could still feel Tullus’s fingers on her throat. A room crowded with Tetrarchs and Petitors, and only Kadra had stopped him.
A weight draped over her shoulders. Black and gold robes slid across her skin. Speak of the Wretched and they appear.
“Thank you for stopping him,” she said hoarsely.
Something that looked oddly like conflict twisted Kadra’s face and vanished. “You may regret saying that.”
“Because I’m in more trouble now that you can shield me from? You’re right. Perhaps it would’ve been better if Tullus snapped my neck.” She blinked back tears. “It’s ludicrous. Everyone was too scared to question Helvus, too fixated on the gods to search for a tangible explanation, or too eager to believe that everything he said was true. And despite Helvus admitting everything in what I Materialized, the Tetrarchy cares more about me procuring evidence illegally than what the evidence says.”
Wrath save me, I’m going to be on trial. A month from now, her life could be over.
“If only Aelius and Tullus hadn’t arrived, I—” She halted as Tullus’s comment returned to her. Tibi gratias ago for the summons, though this wasn’t the sight I expected.
Her blood went cold, eyes rising to the silent man across her. “Did Aelius and Tullus get here so quickly because you asked for them?”
Kadra watched her for a long moment. “I did.”
“Why?” She didn’t care that her voice had gone thin with dread.
He raised an eyebrow, silently asking her if she really didn’t know. She stepped back, wanting him to speak, to banish the horrible conclusion she’d reached, but he was motionless, gaze half-calculation, half-emptiness, and all power.
“You let me come here alone on purpose,” she whispered.
“I did. ”
Truth. There were no coincidences with Kadra. He hadn’t sent any summons while riding with her or in the midst of the chaos at Admia’s domus, meaning he’d sent for Aelius and Tullus beforehand. But for Kadra to have warned them to get to Helvus, meant he’d known the Guildmaster was in danger, and that could only mean …
“You knew,” she said in dawning horror. “You knew about the iron dust in the scuta before I found out. But you needed proof.” The conclusion crystallized and stabbed deep. “So you sent me off, knowing that I’d be angry and foolish enough to fish it out of Helvus’s or Admia’s head for you—” She stopped before her voice cracked. “You godsdamned manipulator.”
Kadra’s features were devoid of emotion. “Predicting how you’ll act isn’t manipulation.”
Her blood boiled. She couldn’t even blame him. She’d done it all herself. “So this was your plan. To rid yourself of Helvus and a Petitor you didn’t want.”
“To see if you’d let him die a victim or a villain.”
“Then ask !” She’d thought they’d built enough of a relationship for that. “Why the fuck would you drag out two other Tetrarchs and get me strangled? Was this some sort of test—” She froze, thinking back to the vigiles and healers who’d already been waiting outside Helvus’s in time for her arrival. How no one had been surprised at Aelius’s and Tullus’s appearance.
No. “Was this a test?” she whispered.
The cruel edge to his smile was all the answer she needed. And her control shattered.
She didn’t notice herself pushing away from the wall or closing the distance between them. She barely felt her hands fist in his robes, uncaring of his vigiles’ wide-eyed stares. All she saw was the arrogant face above her.
“You godsdamned bastard,” she snarled. “I’ve given you no cause to suspect my loyalty. From the Robing to every bazaar we’ve adjudicated in, have I not consistently held to my duties as your Petitor?” She wanted to scream that she’d had every chance to rat him out to Aelius and chosen not to, but he wouldn’t care. She’d only been a tool to him. Today had proven it .
Kadra tipped his head down at her. “Doing your duty before a crowd is simple. Today, you went against half the Tetrarchy.”
Sarai lost what little breath she had left. “This was about your game of choosing you over the Tetrarchy? You had me earn the ire of two Tetrarchs for that ?”
“Would you have let Helvus die as a victim if it meant keeping their goodwill?” he asked softly.
She knew he could see the answer on her face. Her hands ached with the desire to hurt him, to make him feel as small and foolish as he had her.
Releasing his robes, she laughed. Short, bitter, as ugly as his. “You think you’re better than the rest of the Tetrarchy? You aren’t. To them, everyone is expendable to law and procedure. And everyone is expendable to you, period. If the law deserves to be torn down, then so do you for treating your allies like puppets.”
He’d stilled when she called herself his ally, but she broke in as his lips parted.
“Still, I’m a quick study, Tetrarch Kadra. So rest assured I’ve understood everything you sought to impart.” Another half-step forward and they were a breath apart. “The law of this land is wrong. Its lawmakers are even worse. Tullus is a violent bastard.” She checked each lesson off on her fingers before balling up the robes he’d draped over her and throwing them to the ground. “And you’re the worst of them all, you hav?d sadist.”
Shaking with hurt and fury, she mounted Caelum. But as she pivoted, the man watching her with what looked like pride did the strangest thing.
He smiled.