Blood of Empire

Chapter 26

Michel and Ichtracia moved to a damp overhanging roof that viewed the exits of their former safe house. It was recessed beneath another walk, a good place to watch without being seen, but wildly uncomfortable. Ichtracia settled down next to him and scowled into the darkness, placing one hand on his knee. He reached down and squeezed it.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Of course.” Her tone was confident. Her face – what little of it he could see in the shadows – was not.

He cleared his throat. “You, uh, sure?” he asked slowly.

There was a long silence. He finally felt her gaze turn on him and heard the soft tremble of a sigh. “Just remembering,” she said with a shake of her head. “It’s been a few years since I’ve had to deal with an assassination attempt. You never really get used to them.”

“That’s right. You’ve dealt with this sort of thing before?”

“You haven’t?”

“Been woken up by an assailant? Once. It wasn’t pleasant, and I’ve slept lightly ever since.”

Ichtracia remained quiet for several more minutes. He could sense her reluctance to speak, and was surprised when she finally did. “I barely slept between the ages of eight and thirteen. I was so scared of them coming back to kill me. Then I started taking mala.”

Michel had always assumed that she took the mala to deal with her contentious relationship with her grandfather. It had never occurred to him that it was for a far more practical – and personal – reason. He let out a soft ah and put an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him, her head resting on his shoulder.

“How do you switch sides so easily?” she asked.

“Well, it’s not actually easy.”

“It looks easy for you.” She paused. “Dahre and his people. They all seem so… decent. Average. Just normal people living their lives. I’ve been with them for just a couple of days and I’ve stayed aloof, but I find myself wondering more about them – their home lives, their loves and hates, their inner thoughts. I wonder where they’ll be next year or in a decade.”

“That’s called empathy,” Michel said, trying not to sound condescending. “It’s an important tool for a spy.”

“So you’ve told me. But the deeper I get into these people, the more I care about them.”

Michel didn’t reply. It was something he struggled with for every person he had to deceive. He’d felt it so strongly just the other night when he saw Tenik again. “It’s hard,” he whispered.

“I never imagined.” Ichtracia’s voice trembled. “I think… I think I’m beginning to see why you do it.”

“Oh?”

“We’re deceiving them, but we’re also down here among them. The Palo, that is. I’m beginning to feel the bottled-up anger. The way that you eat and breathe the oppression by stronger people. I can see it in everyone’s eyes. Even the well-to-do have it – like Dahre. There’s a little pain that’s in the eyes of all the Palo that isn’t there for the Kressians or Dynize. It’s…” She trailed off for a moment, then continued thoughtfully, “It’s like I’ve found an entire people who know what it’s like to live beneath my grandfather. It’s terrifying but… wonderful at the same time. Does that make sense?”

“Misery loves company?”

She laughed softly. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

Michel was surprised when she suddenly leaned in and kissed him, then settled back against his shoulder to wait. He fell into his own thoughts, considering her words, turning over what it meant to be of a people but also of none. He eventually had to push those thoughts away before they took a dark path.

Over the next few hours, his anxiety began to lessen as no one returned. No assassins. No Dynize. Just no one. Frustrating, but not deadly. He was just beginning to think it might be time to abandon their hiding spot and move on to a new safe house when he caught sight of Devin-Mezi approaching one of the tenement exits. She paused just outside, beneath a gas lantern, looking around furtively. Michel nudged Ichtracia. “Our friend is back.”

“I still think you should have let me kill her.” Ichtracia yawned.

“We’ll find out if you were right soon enough.”

Devin-Mezi headed inside. Michel remained rooted to his spot, watching for any sign of hidden companions, until he was satisfied that Devin-Mezi had come alone. He slid back from the ledge. “With me,” he told Ichtracia, heading down a narrow staircase and then dropping onto the next level down. A steep ramp led them to the exit, and they arrived at almost the same moment that Devin-Mezi reappeared, her face screwed up in a look of frustration.

“You’re late,” Michel said.

Devin-Mezi jumped and whirled, drawing a knife. She eyeballed him for a moment, then Ichtracia, before putting her knife back. “You said three hours.”

“It’s been three and fifteen.”

“I had to get Kelinar to a doctor.”

“Will he be all right?”

“I have no idea.” Devin-Mezi glared at Ichtracia.

Ichtracia smiled back at her softly. “Careful who you try to knife, next time.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Michel intervened. “Well. You’re back. I take it you’re here to fetch us to Mama Palo?”

“I am. I was told to take the Privileged’s gloves, first.”

“Over my dead body,” Ichtracia snapped.

“Either I get your gloves, or I don’t take either of you anywhere.” Devin-Mezi folded her arms. Michel had to give it to her – she had guts. To come back and say that to a Privileged took both courage and stupidity. Just as it would be stupid for Ichtracia to give up her only pair of gloves just before heading out to meet with strangers. Luckily, Ichtracia had several pairs hidden about her person. He pretended to hesitate before turning to Ichtracia. “I’m going to give her your gloves,” he said, swinging the pack off his shoulder. He dug inside for a moment before handing them to Devin-Mezi.

Ichtracia’s lip curled, but she didn’t respond.

“Good enough?” Michel asked.

Devin-Mezi held the gloves up to the light suspiciously.

“Like I said,” he continued, “we’re on the same side. If that doesn’t prove it, I don’t know what will.”

“All right,” Devin-Mezi replied hesitantly. “Follow me.”

They were led through the twists and turns of the Depths at an alarming rate, heading up, down, across, and under a dozen different levels. Michel stopped trying to keep track of their path and instead watched for landmarks. By the time they reached their destination, he had only a vague idea that they were deep in the center of the Depths – very deep, with real ground beneath their feet.

They went through a nondescript white door and were suddenly stopped by a pair of heavily armed Palo. Both men wore two pistols and a sword, and both took a pistol in hand as the door opened. They relaxed at the sight of Devin-Mezi but kept their eyes on Michel and Ichtracia.

“The visitors that Mama requested,” Devin-Mezi introduced.

Whether the two had been told what Ichtracia was, or were just naturally wary, they fell in behind Michel and Ichtracia without a word. Michel reached into his bag and handed them his unloaded pistol. “I’ll want this back,” he told them before being herded through another door.

They might as well have stepped into a nobleman’s townhouse, so different was this next room from the rest of the Depths. It was a wide, open room with immaculate plastering, well-lit by gas lanterns, and genuine art on the walls. Mattresses covered the floor, each taken over by a sleeping form, and Michel was more than a little surprised by the sight of it. This had the feel of one of Taniel’s safe houses, and the extra bodies told him that it might well be Mama Palo’s headquarters.

They picked their way through the impromptu bunkhouse and went down a hallway. There was more art on the walls; the plaster and trim were all the familiar materials used by the upper crust of Landfall. Michel’s curiosity about the new Mama Palo grew tenfold. Whoever she was, she had good taste.

Devin-Mezi knocked on a door at the end of the hall. A muffled voice answered, and she opened the door. Michel took a deep breath, shared a glance with Ichtracia, and followed Devin-Mezi inside.

The room was spacious enough to have once been a drawing room. It had been commandeered as a bedroom and office with a large, four-poster bed shoved into one corner and a desk and several tables taking up the rest of it. Michel’s impression of a headquarters immediately solidified at the sight of all the maps and papers spread across every surface. There were even rifle crates piled in one corner, stamped with the Hrusch family logo.

The last thing in the room to fall under Michel’s eye was the woman sitting behind the desk. Like many Palo, she could be considered petite, just a shade over five feet tall with waist-length hair combed out over one shoulder. She was young, a couple years younger than Michel at best, but she had an aura of command about her, even sitting there in her nightgown with hair down. Her chin was resting on one fist, the other hand holding a book up to the lamplight, and it was only her eyes that moved when the small group paraded into the room. Her name was Jiniel, and the moment Michel saw her, he had to stifle a grin and a spike of fear all at the same time.

A normal reaction, he decided, for someone seeing an old lover for the first time in years.

“Cousin,” Devin-Mezi said, “this is the guy calling himself Puffer. Careful with the woman. I’ve taken her gloves, but she still might be dangerous, she –”

“Out,” Jiniel said.

“Cousin?”

“Not you. The other two. No need for guards.”

“Cousin, are –”

Jiniel snorted loudly, and the sound sent the two guards scurrying. Once the door had shut behind them, Jiniel set down her book and stretched, letting out a severe yawn. “The woman’s name is Ichtracia. She’s a Dynize bone-eye.” Devin-Mezi swore, and had begun to go for her knife before Jiniel held up one hand to forestall a fight. “If she’s here with Michel, that’s enough for me.”

“Michel?” Devin-Mezi muttered, turning toward Michel with a look of confusion. Her jaw suddenly dropped. “You’re Michel Bravis?”

Michel had never heard his name spoken with a tinge of awe before. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but he knew within moments that he liked it. “That’s me.”

“I had no idea, I –”

Michel cut her off gently with a question he’d been wondering since their first introduction at Meln-Dun’s quarry. “Did you really work for the Yaret Household?”

“I did. I was there the same time as you. I only ever saw you once, but you look nothing –”

“Michel,” Jiniel interjected, “is our best spy. I’d be shocked if he still looked anything like he did a month ago. He certainly looks nothing like he did three years ago. How are you, Michel? It’s been too long.” There was a note of exhaustion to Jiniel’s voice that elicited a bit of worry in the back of Michel’s mind. He was not, truth be told, all that surprised to find her here as Mama Palo. Despite her age, she was one of the cleverest people he’d ever met. Add in a great deal of intelligence and charisma, and she was a natural successor for Ka-poel’s authority in Landfall. But in the time he’d known her, she’d always had the most boundless energy. To hear such weariness seeping into her voice was not good.

“It has,” he agreed, waving his three-fingered hand at her to answer her question. “Sorry for coming in like this. Your cousin here tried to knife me earlier tonight.”

“So I heard.” Jiniel leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk and nestling her chin behind her hands. She looked hard at Michel, then at Ichtracia. “I’m sorry about that. We had no idea it was you – just some asshole mercenary here to ruin our plans.”

“That’s fine. I didn’t know you had a cousin. Or that you were the new Mama Palo. I forgot to ask Taniel the last time I saw him.”

“I’m sure he had other things on his mind.”

“He definitely did,” Michel agreed. He noted that Jiniel’s gaze was still on Ichtracia and glanced over his shoulder to find her hanging back near the door, hands thrust in her pockets. She hadn’t said a word in the brief time since they entered, and the look of appraisal on her face said that she was sizing up Jiniel the same as Jiniel was doing to her. She shot Michel a quick glance full of a thousand questions. They’d have to be answered later, he decided. For now, he needed to explain her presence. There was an awful lot to go through, and he wasn’t sure whom to trust and how much to trust them.

“Why do you have a Privileged with you?” Jiniel finally asked.

A moment’s consideration passed before he decided to tell Jiniel. He didn’t have much choice. But that didn’t mean he had to spread it around. He gave Devin-Mezi a significant look, and Jiniel spoke up immediately. “Give us some privacy, Cousin.”

Devin-Mezi hesitated only a moment before showing herself out. Once she was gone, Michel let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding in. “You don’t trust her?”

“I do,” Jiniel answered. “But the less she knows, the better.”

“Compartmentalization,” Ichtracia said.

“Exactly. I see that Michel has started training you how to think like him.”

“It’s an… education,” Ichtracia replied.

“It is. He trained me, too. Michel, are you going to tell me why the granddaughter of the Great Ka is running with you?”

Michel sucked on his teeth. “She’s Ka-poel’s sister.”

He couldn’t think of a time in the past that he’d seen Jiniel genuinely surprised, so the look on her face now was one that he cast to memory to enjoy for the rest of his life. He let the statement sit for a moment, then leapt into a very brief explanation of their adventures over the last few months. Jiniel remained silent throughout the whole thing, her fingers steepled in front of her face. Once Michel had finished, with a few interjections from Ichtracia, Jiniel opened a desk drawer, removed three glasses, and poured a finger of Palo whiskey into each. Michel took two glasses, handing one to Ichtracia. They all downed the unspoken toast in silence.

Jiniel chuckled and ran a hand over her face. “I thought I had had a pit of a year. But you… by Kresimir, that is some story.”

Michel rubbed the stubs of his missing fingers gingerly. “When I say it all at once, it certainly is.” He looked back at Ichtracia again. This was not the first time he’d been in the room with an ex-lover and a current lover at the same time, but that didn’t make it any less uncomfortable. He was willing to bet that both women had already sussed out that much about the other – Jiniel spoke to him too warmly; Ichtracia hovered too close. Nothing was said, of course, but the very energy in the air put him on edge.

“These sacrifices,” Jiniel said, pouring them each another round. “You’re certain about them?”

It was the one part of Michel’s story that had gotten a deep frown from Jiniel, and he was not surprised to hear her come back to it so quickly. “That’s the problem. I have the word of a Blackhat, and Ichtracia’s own certainty.”

“But no evidence.”

“No evidence.”

Jiniel sighed heavily. “I haven’t heard anything. Disappearances, yes. But those happen in times of war and chaos. People die, drift away, or are nabbed by enemy agents.”

“These would be… a few thousand disappearances in total since the invasion.”

“That’s not very many people in a city this big,” Jiniel said. “I’m sorry. Nothing has snagged our notice.”

“I need to find out,” Michel said, “and if it is true, the word needs to be spread.”

“Of course! But I barely have enough resources to keep our organization going. We’ve been running from Meln-Dun’s men, attempting to sift through Dynize propaganda to find out how they really intend to treat us, and dogging what few Blackhats were left after that purge you conducted through the Dynize.” Jiniel paused, her face scrunched up in a scowl. “What you’re saying is such an outlandish story that we need some kind of evidence to move forward on it.”

“And what can you do if we can find evidence?” Ichtracia spoke up. She moved to sit on the corner of Jiniel’s desk, crossing her arms and looking down at Jiniel as if daring her to comment on it.

“Fight back.” There was a note of helplessness in her voice. “Do what we can.”

“I have a plan for that,” Michel said, “but I’ll need your resources.”

“Then give me something to work with.”

Proof of Sedial sacrificing citizens in a blood rite of some kind. When Michel crammed the thought into so few words, it sounded simple. But if no one had noticed anything wrong yet? Maybe he was chasing a breeze, and the ghost of je Tura was laughing at him from the afterlife. He tapped his chin. Not no one. No one important. He needed to find the unimportant people who might have noticed. “I’ll come up with proof. For now, I need you to call off this trap you’re preparing for Meln-Dun’s men.”

“Call it off?” Jiniel scoffed. “It’s happening tonight – and it’s not just a little trap. We’re going to ambush his goons at the same time we send a strike team into the quarry.”

Michel inhaled sharply. “You’re planning on assassinating him?”

Jiniel nodded.

“Don’t.”

“The plan is in place.”

“You have to scrap it.” Michel paused, considering. “Wait. No, don’t scrap it. But I think I can make it unnecessary.”

“What are you planning?” Jiniel asked cautiously.

“Something that will eliminate Meln-Dun’s threat to us without having to kill fellow Palo and without bringing the Dynize down on our heads.”

“I’m listening.”

Michel gave her a tight smile. “Compartmentalization.”

“I forgot how much I hate it when you use that word,” Jiniel said.

“Right?” Ichtracia added.

“Okay, Michel,” Jiniel continued after a moment of thought. “If you can make my attack unnecessary, well… I’ll be damned impressed.”

“I’ll do it,” Michel promised. “Give me twelve hours.”