Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AUDREY
On the topic of business, your daughter wrote me with pretty words.
I won't be receiving men this year to train my army.
If I weren't in direct conversation with you, I'd be confused. Best you call in your kin, Victor. Regardless, I’ve three companies of trackers on the way to you. They’re fleshed out with some wounded, as usual, but by the time they get to you, they'll be good enough to get what you need to do done.
Your boys are, as ever, doing peerless work.
—in a letter from General Dieudonné, Count of Black Borough to General Victor, Duke of La’Angi
7th Day of Winter’s Son Moon,
Age of the Locways, Year 271
La’Angi Keep
Rain drops hurled themselves at the windows. I’d stopped noticing how dark the city was at night, crouched around the keep walls, but in the storm, it seemed particularly menacing.
The problem with gaps is that people filled them. I didn’t want these particular gaps being filled only with war-minded folks who held my father in high regard.
Blueprints were spread over my desk, but I peered through the rain, trying to imagine what those plans might look like in a decade as we glanced across the city.
Would the plan for the gardens and marketplace be enough for our population?
Or was I being too ambitious, making the walkways wastefully wide?
For a moment I lost myself to the fantasy of mossy paths, sunshine and spilling flowers.
It would be closer to the docks than the keep.
My mind drifted back to the day I’d walked along the dock with the Captain of the Siren’s Ally.
Their thumbs had been hooked in their belt and they strode confidently along.
We’d really only talked about trade. A little about La’Angi’s projected needs for the summer. “What’s it like, living up there?” they’d asked me, nodding up at the keep standing grandly at the top of the cliff.
I couldn’t remember what I’d said. It hadn’t been a clever response, I knew that. But I could remember the way they’d listened. The Captain reminded me of myself, when I heard of far-off places. Fascinated, happy to explore, but not at all envious.
When I had a garden in the city, we could wander there instead. I could ask them about life on the waves, one day, when talk of trade was resting and I could do things for my own pleasure.
The fantasy was a sweet one. I blew out a breath and scrubbed a hand over my face, turning away from the window.
The gardens were partially about making our city a nicer place to be, but they were mostly about creating jobs and incentivizing families to settle down.
It made sense to prioritize the main market while trade was dead and disruption would be minimal.
I was confident in the gardens. I knew what plants would grow best. I knew what drainage and sun requirements were, I knew how terraced beds worked and what an efficient path would be.
I didn’t really know markets. I’d learned what I could, but I didn’t have the years of accumulated knowledge the way I did with gardens.
A knock at my door and the sound of it opening made the fury flow. It had always been there. Chay had merely ripped off the bandage.
I drew in a deep breath, knowing the only person who didn’t wait to be called in. Sure enough, the jangle of his sword at his hip came, the sound burrowing into my brain and raking claws across my ability to focus.
He’d never told me why he’d done it, and I’d never ask again. I didn’t need a reason. It would change naught.
He’d known how he was distressing me.
He’d know what that meant for me.
“You’ve a guest, my lady,” he said.
I glanced at the bay, forcing myself to be pragmatic. I didn’t know how long until the Siren’s Ally would be back with news of the coastal villages. There were no other guests I cared about, especially after spending all day dragging my eyeballs over columns of figures and blueprints.
“Tell them to make a time tomorrow,” I told him, without looking.
“Audrey.”
The familiar voice made me turn, shocked.
Luca stood there, in the middle of the room. From nowhere.
There was no way he would’ve been allowed into the city.
He’d come disguised, which explained the lack of announcement and his plain clothes.
It didn’t explain his purpose, or how he’d got the angry purple scar on his jaw that was as wide and long as my smallest finger, trailing down toward his neck.
That scar hadn’t been there last time I’d seen him, and it was too fresh to have been healed by a mage.
Had it been there as he’d written that note to Chay?
“What happened?” I asked Luca. There was a note of anger in my voice, but it wasn’t for this man, who lived his life with his fingers stained by ink yet had somehow come halfway to getting his throat cut. Then… “Do you hold La’Rea still?”
“Of course.” He crossed to me, his expression softening like I was a puppy who’d finally made its way home. “I heard—but I needed to see you.”
He was right on top of me, his eyes the color of rocks and full of misguided worry. Over his shoulder, I saw Chay lounging by the door, watching. Anyone but Luca. That’s what he’d said.
He’d had the audacity to say that and speak no more on it? As if that was enough? You’ve got two legs and I can eat your pussy alongside anyone except Luca, until I get a note from the man and then I’ll make you feel like you’re a disgrace.
Unease twisted my belly and I lifted my chin. Why had I been so patient with that man?
I reached for the protection rage and got hold of it, clasping Luca in a quick hug before stepping back. Chay was watching still. I pretended I couldn’t see him from the corner of my eye.
Luca had been sending him a note. Why had he pushed me away because of it?
“What were casualties in La’Rea?” I asked Luca.
“We lost one in seven,” he said. Sympathy tugged at me. Trust Luca to be so ready with an answer to my question, one that was both simple and accurate. “I heard it’s much higher here.”
“We can’t do a proper count,” I admitted, and suddenly that overwhelmed me. “But everyone fits in the keep now. We don’t need a city, Luca.”
The pity grew. He made a soft, comforting noise and spread his arms wide.
I folded myself into Luca as I’d done as a child. He smelled like snow, pine, and dusty libraries. The fury hemorrhaged. I felt the tears rising.
I should’ve been able to trust Luca.
I should’ve been able to trust Chay, too.
I swallowed the tears, getting hold of the grief, too, pulling it back into my chest and breathing through it.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when I could trust my voice.
“I needed to see you.” He closed his hands over mine. “I heard you were alive, but hearing it and seeing it…and with the situation being so grim…”
“That’s a three-week ride on a ’Ban horse,” Chay said, from the other side of the room. “You must’ve been busy.”
Rage washed through me. I saw the shock on Luca’s face before I crushed my own response to Chay’s comment.
He had no right.
I squeezed Luca’s hands before I withdrew from his grip, trying to smile reassuringly around the tightness in my muscles and the harsh truths in my gullet.
“Well, the situation is grim,” I agreed.
“We can survive for now, but the damage to trade—” I was the epitome of poise.
They’d never even know how angry I was. Not until they were weeping for mercy.
“I’m shoring up what I can, but I’m afraid we’re going to see a huge shift in quality of life for the people of La’Angi.
Our industry could take decades to recover from this. ”
“Your industry?” he was frowning. “Surely, population will improve when people migrate from the lesser-touched areas?”
“They might, if we had work.” I went to pour him a drink, only to find the pot of tisane empty. Just like me. “You didn’t come to listen to me talk about trade.”
“No, I didn’t,” he agreed, looking puzzled. “Why are you?”
“Because someone else ought to be doing it? Is that what you mean?” I asked him, enjoying the taste of the venom that dripped from the words.
His expression had shifted. “Yes.”
I held up a finger. “Firstly, they’re all dead.” I lifted another. “Secondly, the ones who are alive aren’t doing things correctly.” I lifted another. “Thirdly, it’s my Son-sprung city, Luca, why shouldn’t I?”
He blinked, then gently took my outstretched hand in his, a frown between his brows. “I…suppose. You could’ve asked me for help.”
“What a brilliant idea. I wish I’d done exactly that more than a dozen times when I begged for any assistance.
The extent of your generosity so far has been a note about the Head Steward being alive you didn’t even send to me?
” I took my hand back with a twist and saw the way Luca’s eyes flickered guiltily to Chay.
Furious, I walked out from behind my desk to put space between us.
“I’m not taking a beating from my father because you decided to check on me in person, Luca,” I said, without thinking about it. “You need to go.”
His mouth opened, then closed. I saw his attention skim quickly to Chay again before he paid attention to me. Me, who he was apparently here to see. I don’t know what Chay thought there was between Luca and I. The man was nothing to me.
“You’ve changed,” Luca said.
“Why did you look at him before you noticed that?” I asked him, going to the fireplace to stir up the nigh-dead coals.
“Mayhap the change is due less to his proximity to my person and more to the dead I’ve had to step over to help the living?
” I didn’t need Isolde to be present to feel her approval. It tempered the steel in my spine.
Luca stood, hands outstretched in a gesture of peace. “Slow down, Audrey. I’m working on limited information here.”
“That’s new for you?” I asked, but resisted feigning shock to make those words crueler than they already were.