Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Safiya fon Hasstrel knew that her pacing bothered her uncle.
But if she didn’t pace, then all this energy wriggling in her body was going to come out through her fists.
Back, forth, back, forth across the long room that had once held feasts and feasters, but now held all the missives, tomes, and ledgers necessary to run an empire.
The dining table that stretched almost thirty paces was now invisible beneath maps of the empire—and, more importantly, maps of Poznin.
Those were the maps that interested her.
Every day, more figurines were added to them, just as every day more were added to the area representing the Solfatarra.
And wherever those figurines were placed, corresponding images would appear on smaller Aetherwitched maps that were given to the spies or soldiers who needed them.
Understandably, these maps were closely guarded, because they revealed not only Ragnor’s troops but Eron’s as well.
“Safi, are you listening to me?” Eron demanded when she reached the midpoint of her usual path alongside the windows overlooking a courtyard.
“No,” she admitted, even as her magic whispered, False. She always listened—sometimes she even cared. But when she’d told her uncle she had no plans to be Empress, she had meant it. It was bad enough being the Cahr Awen; she couldn’t do both.
She frowned up at a portrait above the central window. It showed Henrick’s mother, a woman with a comparable underbite to her son’s. “Do you think,” she mused, “the artist tried to emphasize her jaw that way or was he just bad at shading?” She glanced at her uncle. “You knew the woman, yes?”
“Gods dammit, Safi.” Eron hauled to his feet, and Safi felt a twinge of shame at the stiffness in his rise. At the grunt of exertion he tried to hide, but couldn’t swallow back.
Turn around, she willed at him. Turn around.
He didn’t turn around.
Scowling, Safi planted her hands on the table opposite him and forced herself to recite, word for word, everything he’d said: “The Carawen monks and their new Abbot Lizl will leave their Monastery in one week—although only if the snows continue to hold off. You would almost prefer the snows arrive, however, and slow them, because at this point, we do not have a reliable supply chain from Ontigua. Thus, when the monks do arrive, we will be forced to ration.”
For several moments, the only sound was the crackle of the fire in the two hearths at either end of the room.
Then Eron matched Safi’s scowl—the same slouch to his brow, the same sideways curl of his lips, and the same thoughtful gleam in his Hasstrel blue eyes.
Clearly she had learned this expression from him, and that only made her own scowl sink deeper.
“The problem with our Ontiguan supply chain is the Hell-Bards,” Eron continued, pointing shakily toward the map next to the stack Safi needed to pull from. “With half of them leaving the service, our forces are—”
“Weakened to the point of useless. Yes, Uncle.” Safi straightened. “I know that’s why you sent the Bloodwitch on his special errand.”
“And if Habim and Mathew do not succeed on their offensive here…” Eron stretched toward another map, using a quill to gesture at the Sirmayans.
“Then we will be on tight rations the entire winter. Which is why you must return to Praga. You and Iseult, before the Carawens can reach us.” Eron wiped at his brow.
His skin was too pale. He needed to sit again, and his scowl was now shifting toward one of personal frustration.
He was glad to be alive, but he was not yet accustomed to the body the acid-thick dungeon had left behind.
True.
Unfortunately, Safi couldn’t let him sit again.
“The best way to recruit new soldiers is to show them for whom they fight.”
“Yes, and for what they fight.” Safi scrubbed a hand at her eyes as she walked the length of the table again, her tan breeches rubbing against the wood.
The map of Marstok showed ample soldiers in Habim’s forces, but all were blocked by mountains thick with blizzards.
The one pass the Marstoks could cross was still held by the Raider King.
His people would die. The Marstoks would die.
Cartorrans would die, and even the Carawen monks. And for what?
War, war, war. All in the name of peace. All in the name of the Cahr Awen.
But then, that is why we’re leaving.
“Your plan was such a foolish one,” Safi said, her voice fuzzy as she tried to count just how many people would die—or how many she might be able to save.
“So many years,” she went on, “and so many people. How did Mathew describe it? There are big wheels in motion. Wheels your uncle and many others have spent years rolling into position.” She shook her head. “What a waste of your time and energy.”
“Stopping a war is a waste?” Eron’s voice wasn’t, for once, angry. Nor even insulted. If anything, he sounded surprised—and mildly amused.
“The way you did it, yes.” Safi turned to face him.
“Except that war in the Witchlands has ceased, hasn’t it? Marstok no longer fights; Cartorra no longer fights; and Dalmotti has withdrawn after a rout at Nubrevna. So I should think my ‘foolish plan’ has actually succeeded.”
“The Raider King still remains, though. Blood will be shed to stop him. A war’s worth.”
“Yes,” Eron agreed. “But once he is gone—once you and your Threadsister have healed the final Well, peace will reign.”
“And you think I am the naive one?”
There—that finally did it. Eron set his jaw and turned to face the window. He stared over the soldiers, over Hell-Bards, over the servants and tradesmen rallied to an imperial banner.
In seconds, Safi was back at the map of Poznin and Arithuania. Of course the stack she needed was stuck beneath the primary map littered with the Aetherwitched figurines. She gripped the edge, hoping to slide it sideways—
“There has been some good news from our spies in the north.”
Safi snapped her gaze toward her uncle. He wasn’t turning around—thank the Twelve. “Oh?” she half squeaked. “And what is that?”
“Baedyeds are leaving the Raider King’s banner, now that Habim has agreed to their demands in Marstok.”
“So they will get back their Sand Sea?” Safi tugged again at the map. Figurines wavered on the top, and she recalled a street performer she’d once seen. The woman had snapped a cloth off a table without disrupting a single dish or saucer.
Safi, meanwhile, was disrupting everything.
Three of the Red Sails figurines fell. One of the Baedyeds too.
“But what of the people who live in the Sand Sea now? What will happen to them? They will be displaced just as the Baedyeds were a century ago. Have Habim and Mathew made accommodations for them and their families?”
Eron shifted as if to turn.
And Safi gave up on stealth. She yanked like the street performer had, but without the grace. Six more figurines toppled. Then the map was in her grasp. She instantly dropped it to the floor.
“Crap!” she barked, right as Eron finished his aching turn. “I, uh … knocked over your toy soldiers.” She pasted on a face of contrition.
Eron, meanwhile, didn’t respond. He simply sighed, all antagonism sliding off his face.
He was once more a tired man doing his best to run an empire.
“Safi, please: Will you at least consider traveling to Praga? Discuss it with your Threadsister. I’m sure she understands how much it will help our cause. ”
Safi rubbed at her forehead. Now that she had what she’d come for, a headache was coming on. One of the monstrous ones that never let her sleep. “I promise to make a decision,” she murmured. Lie, her magic frizzed. Because her decision had already been made.
“Thank you.” Eron opened his hands. They trembled. “Your consideration is all I ask for.”
Safi didn’t respond. Instead, she dug her fingers into her temples. The pain was building fast behind her left eyeball. Soon it would leap across to the right. “I need to lie down, please.”
A flash of understanding—possibly even sympathy—crossed her uncle’s face.
Though Safi had never directly told him of her headaches, they all must have noticed how often she vanished into her room.
And the servants certainly saw the blindfold she’d fashioned out of velvet.
It had become her nightly routine to tie it as tightly as she could around her head, until the pressure on the outside of her eyeballs felt as if it matched the pressure within.
“We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow,” Eron said. “Over breakfast.”
“Yes,” Safi agreed, even as her magic skittered and clawed: There won’t be a tomorrow! There won’t be a breakfast! She swooped down, and after sliding the map into a loose sleeve, she gathered up the fallen figurines. “Sorry,” she said as she dropped them onto the map.
And once more, Eron sighed.
For a brief moment, as Safi departed and the door clicked shut behind her, she considered if perhaps she should offer her uncle a good-bye. A proper ending after so many years as antagonists. After all, this might be the last time she ever saw him again.
Love and dread, Safi thought. That was the fon Hasstrel motto, and never had it felt more perfect for this family that was not really a family at all.
But Safi couldn’t make her feet turn. She couldn’t make her muscles swivel back.
She simply walked away toward the main stairwell.
And although her magic shrieked at her for all the lies she was telling herself—I don’t need Eron, I won’t miss him—she pretended not to notice. She pretended not to care.
On the floor above the dining room, elegant bedrooms overlooked the forest. One such room, small but finely appointed, had been repurposed to house Henrick fon Cartorra.
Iron bars were now fastened over his windows; a bewitched lock had been bolted to his door, and four Hell-Bards stood watch at every hour of the day.