The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) by H. Anthe Davis Page B

her indifference to his philosophizing.  She couldn't remember the argument now, only that he'd been drunk and insulting and finally pulled out a knife.  She'd broken both of his arms, but not before he'd gotten a cut in that opened her face from chin to cheek.  He'd told her later, after paying the medical fees and fines, that it suited her; it gave her some expression, even if that expression was a sneer.
    “It's too late now,” she said.  “The dead are dead, and the decision is in my hands.  I came here not as a courtesy, Shan Cayer, but because I would know of Bahlaer—its people, its government, its threats.  Your reports cover the basics but I need to plumb the depths.”
    He raised his head, jaw clenched, cheeks wet.  “You'll never understand, Realm-born.  You're not a person, you're just a tool of your aunties, and when you fail, my city will suffer.”
    “Then help me.”
    Again that baffled look, as if he didn't know the meaning of the words.  She pressed on, “We can not permit mass bloodshed in the shadows; it would be catastrophic.  But neither can we back away from this.  I need your help to find a livable solution, something that doesn't create a new shadowless circle in Illane.”
    “Like in the Heartlands?” he rasped.  “Like all those other cities you abandoned?”
    “We were locked out, and we still don't understand it.  If it is magic and they've started another one here...”  She shook her head.  “We don't go to war lightly, but perhaps it is time.”
    He made as if to scoff, but the noise caught in his throat and became a wracking cough.  Pulling her canteen from its web, she moved to his side and pulled his good hand free, then helped him guide the water to his lips.  He drank like a man fresh from the desert.
    “Get me out of here,” he croaked once he came up for air.  “Let me return to Bah- kai , and I'll help how I can.  Piking quarantine won't even let me stand up to piss.”
    She looked down at his missing leg.  “I'll put in the request, but I can't guarantee it.  If it doesn't happen...“
    Blowing out a breath, he said, “Fine.  You asked pretty nice for a stiff bitch, and you're an Enforcer; I can respect that.  Promise me one thing.”
    “Yes?”
    “You get word to my girl Lark.  You tell her I'm alive, and the kai is hers when she comes back.  And you mean it.  Or else you get nothing from me.”
    “I'll have to run it past my superiors,” she said, “but I have no quarrel with your line of succession.”
    “Good.  Now open your ears, because we've got a lot of city to cover.”
     
    *****
     
    The next morning, Lieutenant Erolan Linciard squinted into the Civic Plaza and wondered when he'd suddenly become old.  That was the only explanation he could fathom for having a hangover after so little whiskey.
    Maybe it's the curse of officership.  Or maybe I've broken my brain with all this piking reading-and-writing.
    He had a roster in one hand, the names swimming before his achy eyes, and the act of matching them to the men who jogged in circles around the central fountain was about as much as he could handle right now.  Yet Sergeant Benson was at his elbow, droning on about requisitions, so he forced himself to pay attention.
    “...to run the kitchens, so Shield-Sergeant Kirvanik has taken them over for the moment.  Apparently he's a passable cook,” Benson was saying.  He was their bursar, quartermaster and all-around money man, a ruddy-faced, barrel-shaped former merchant who had been drummed out of the Gold Army after nosing around in his superiors' finances.  According to him, he had been sent here 'to fall off a horse and break my neck', yet he'd become a passable rider in his time in the Crimson.  Still a terrible lancer, though.
    Linciard wondered how their old captain Terrant was doing without him, or how Sarovy had pried the man from his grip, because everyone knew the only reason their company ran as well as it did was