Chapter 10 #3
“Because right now, you’re ruled by people who want you dead. From a purely practical standpoint, I’m an improvement.” He shrugged idly, as if it were the most obvious concept in the world and the people in front of him were slow students.
“A marginal improvement.” Kalo laughed.
“Most improvement is marginal,” Raziel replied. “The question is whether you prefer a certain death or an uncertain one.”
It was Kassa’s turn to laugh. Raspy though it was. “I’m starting to like you, Serpent. You’re a bastard, but at least you’re an honest bastard. That’s rarer than it should be.”
“Elder…” one of the guards began.
“Don’t.” Kassa held up a wrinkled, scarred hand. “I’m not making any decisions based on old clan loyalties or family sentiment. We can’t afford either. But I am willing to listen to what they’re proposing.”
And Nadi had the distinct sensation she had just let a nigh-literal snake into a birds’ nest.
“The fae clans are a powder keg waiting to detonate, vuampi. Your siblings have upset the balance of power—which was their goal, I expect. Secret alliances are about to become public ones. One wrong spark, and everything goes up. The Wild will burn.”
“That’s their goal. To destabilize the clans so they can pick them apart and control them.” Nadi shook her head.
“The question isn’t if things will explode, it’s simply when, and how we can either control the blast or survive it.” Kassa grimaced.
“We control it. That is what I do.” Raziel’s confidence was as foreboding as it was reassuring to Nadi. “I find the pressure points and I apply force until things break.”
“And if you’re wrong? If the explosion consumes everything, including us?” Kalo arched a deep blue eyebrow.
Raziel smiled, and for once it was mostly without malice. “Then at least we’ll have the satisfaction of knowing we murdered as many of them as we could on the way to death’s door. And that’s more than most people get.”
Kassa went silent for a very long time.
“We’ve been planning a raid on the Nostroms’ main narcotics processing facility for weeks.
You’ve seen what their fucking drugs have done to us.
I want their production capability crippled.
It might slow the feed into our systems enough to wake a few of us up.
But we haven’t had the forces to do it. Haven’t had the opportunity.
” Kassa looked meaningfully at Nadi and Raziel.
“Seems like that opportunity just walked through our door. And a great chance to test where your loyalties really lie, Serpent.”
Kalo hummed. “The one by the edge of the wall?”
Kassa nodded.
Kalo glanced to Nadi. “It processes the raw materials from the Wild before they’re distributed. Destroying it would cut the Nostroms off from all of their supply of powder.”
And with that, would go their control of the streets. And it would potentially cut off the fae from their supply. It’d be more of a gesture of revenge than anything else—Nadi wasn’t about to explain to Kassa how long it took to help an addict off the stuff. She knew. “When?”
“It’ll take a day for us to call our men back from their routes.
Two at most. You want our trust? You want our cooperation?
Prove you’re willing to bleed for it. Lead the raid.
” Kassa gestured between them. “You know their security protocols, their response patterns. She knows the building layout from her time in the family. Together, you give us the best chance of success.”
Raziel nodded. “It would upend their stable control of the lower rungs of the ladder. I agree. Nadi?”
She nodded as well. “Fine. We’ll do it.”
“Good. We’ll hit it hard. Take out their production capacity, steal whatever we can carry, send a message that the Iltanis aren’t as dead as they thought.” Kassa leaned back in her chair and gestured at one of her guards.
He went to the front door and knocked on it in a particular pattern. Nadi could hear the sound of metal-on-metal, of great squeaking hinges as bolts and windows unlocked.
Oh, good. They weren’t going to be burned alive. How charming.
“Get some rest.” Kassa sniffed dismissively. “Two days until you move. You come back alive? We’ll talk about next steps, then.”
Nadi felt the familiar tension before a mission settling into her bones—the mixture of nerves and anticipation that had carried her through eighty years of increasingly dangerous work.
But this was different. This wasn’t just another job, another target to eliminate for money. This was family. These were her people, what remained of them, trusting her with their lives based on nothing more than a shared vendetta and desperate hope.
“Understood,” Nadi replied.
“Then we’re agreed.” Kassa held out a hand. “Welcome back, Nadi Iltani.”
Nadi took a deep breath. She barely recognized this world. It felt too much like the one above. The old world was gone, burned away to dust by ambition and hatred and the simple, terrible logic of survival.
It felt wrong.
But it was all she had left.
She shook Kassa’s offered hand. “Glad to be… home.”