In the Shadow of Lightning

34

Thessa stared at the dark ceiling of her hotel suite, trying to come to terms with the events of the last week and all the ways her life had changed. The whole thing felt dizzying, from the attack on Grent to becoming partners with the patriarch of an Ossan guild-family. Grief swirling with elation. One moment her stomach would clench up as she replayed Axio’s death in her mind, or tried to come to grips with Kastora’s sudden absence from her life, and the next she’d quietly laugh to herself at the feel of silk sheets rubbing against her legs.

She tried her best to focus on the latter. She could get used to this: the hotel suite, the fine restaurant downstairs, the tiny but well-equipped glassworks in the garden. Just after Demir left, she’d gone looking for a cup of tea in the kitchen only to be gently turned away by a porter who said he’d have it up to her in fifteen minutes. And he’d done exactly that, setting the table in her sitting room with a porcelain tea set, including sandwiches and cookies, despite the fact that it was past one in the morning.

It was a level of luxury that made her vaguely uncomfortable, but she knew from seeing the way Master Kastora had lived at home that she would quickly get used to it – perhaps even rely on it. Another vaguely unsettling thought. What had Kastora said to her once? Luxury softens us all, true, but why should I make my own tea when ten minutes of my hands at the furnace could buy a whole shipment of tea leaves?

Thinking of Kastora brought the tears back to her eyes. She dabbed them away with her sheets and took a deep, unsteady breath. How long would it take the grief to go away? She still had nightmares of her parents’ deaths, though she hadn’t even been there when it happened. She’d seen Axio die violently. Would that haunt her every time she closed her eyes for the rest of her life? Not to mention Demir’s execution of the two Magna enforcers, or Craftsman Magna falling into the furnace.

She tried to push it all away, rolling this way and that in bed. What time was it? Two? Three? The hotel was quiet, the city outside peaceful. For a moment she thought to go for a walk, but the lurking specter of the Magna caused her some pause. What if they found out where she’d gone? What if enforcers were lying in wait outside the hotel for the first time she stepped out alone?

Thessa finally sat up and crossed the room, fetching her notes on the schematics from her desk. She turned up the gas lamp above her bed and began to flip through the pages slowly, processing them for the dozenth time.

This project was going to be a tricky one, and not just because of the added pressure of the cindersand running out. She had only one piece of cinderite, which meant one solid try. And not only did she have to remake the prototype, but she had to remake it better – to improve upon Kastora and Adriana’s design so that it didn’t take several cartloads of firewood just to recharge a single spent piece of godglass.

She found a pencil she’d brought up from the glassworks and wrote on a piece of hotel stationery the word “energy,” then followed it with “coal,” “gas,” “wood,” “oil.” She tapped the end of the pencil against her cheek, flushing her brain of all the chaos and focusing entirely on the task at hand. The source of the energy didn’t matter nearly as much as the phoenix channel itself, but it was still a consideration. She stared at those five words for a little longer before setting the paper aside and putting a clean sheet against her knee.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a gentle knock on the door to her suite. Thessa waited for a moment, wondering if she’d imagined it, until another knock followed. She put on a dressing gown and went out, looking through the peephole. To her surprise, it was Demir, still dressed the same as when he’d left with the Cinders a couple of hours ago. He looked sharp-eyed but exhausted.

“Come in, come in,” she said, opening the door for him.

He stepped only to the threshold, his thoughts clearly far away, and said, “The contract is signed. Breenen will give you your copy in the morning.”

“Oh! Thank you.”

They stood in silence for several moments, until Demir said, “This is … awkward.”

Thessa adjusted her dressing gown so it wasn’t showing off too much. “Did I overstep by asking you to share a bottle of wine?” She grimaced. “It didn’t mean we were going to sleep together, it just meant … I mean…” She realized she was babbling and swallowed hard, reminding herself how little sleep she’d gotten in the past week. By the vaguely surprised look on his face, it clearly wasn’t that.

“Um,” he said, his expression turning bemused for just a moment before slipping back to serious and distant. “That’s not what I meant. Sex is only awkward if we make it awkward. I was about to tell you what was awkward.”

Thessa hugged herself and tried to look casual. “I’ll just shut up and let you talk.”

He came several paces into the room, seemed to think better of it, and returned to the threshold. “The Grent have reversed the course of the war with a mighty victory just hours ago, and then the subsequent assassination of the senior officers of the Foreign Legion. The Inner Assembly is reeling, and an enormous army is now bearing down on a practically undefended Ossa.”

Thessa put her hand over her mouth. It had never even occurred to her that the Empire could lose a war against Grent. While the city-state wasn’t exactly undefended, with wealth and power and colonies all over the world, they were just a shadow of the Ossan Empire. In that moment she realized that something had happened subconsciously: she’d already made the mental switch from Grent siliceer back to Ossan provincial and was thinking about the war in terms of “us” and “them,” with “us” being the Ossans. A wave of shame came across her immediately at the thought that she could abandon her adopted countrymen so easily.

“Will we have to flee?” she asked.

“That’s not what’s awkward,” Demir replied. He was looking at her bare legs now, and she couldn’t quite tell whether he was admiring them or was so deep in his own head that he didn’t know where his gaze was pointing. “What’s awkward is that the Inner Assembly has given me command of what’s left of the Foreign Legion. I’m to leave for the front immediately, and slow down the Grent advance at all costs. That means I’m going to be fighting – and killing – your people. I thought that might cause a rift in our new partnership.”

Thessa walked to the sitting room table, where hours-old tea was still laid out, the leftover sandwiches gone crusty. She sank into a seat. “You really care?”

“Of course I do,” Demir said, clearly taken aback. “I’ve invited you into my home, signed a business contract with you. Nothing between us, real or implied, included me killing your people.”

“I see.” Thessa took a cookie off the tea tray and nibbled on it absently. She was relieved that the awkwardness wasn’t actually between them in that way, but Demir had a point: this brought something ugly to their new partnership. She peered up at him. “Are you really a general?”

Demir inhaled sharply and looked off to one corner of the room with a mile-long stare. “I conducted a very successful campaign a long time ago, back when I was still active in Ossan politics. This puts me in the unfortunate position of being the most qualified person to defend Ossa at this moment.”

“If I said that it bothered me?” Thessa asked, more out of curiosity than anything else. It did bother her, but not nearly as much as she might have expected.

“I’m not sure yet,” Demir replied. “This phoenix channel is part of my mother’s legacy, and a way to restore the Grappo to a higher place within the Empire than they’ve been in a dozen generations. On the other hand, I do have some skills to offer my own countrymen. I’m not sure if I can stand aside and let Ossans die.”

Thessa searched Demir’s face. He so desperately wanted to help people. To protect people. Such a strange thing for a guild-family patriarch and a glassdancer. On an impulse, she said, “I have a confession.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not Grent.”

This definitely took him off guard, though he covered for it well. “Really?”

“I’m an Ossan provincial. I was orphaned when I was thirteen, and Kastora became my guardian so I did, in a sense, become Grent. But I’m not Grent by birth.”

“Huh. Now that you mention it, your accent is quite light.”

“That’s why.” Thessa spread her arms. “It is my adopted country, and knowing that you’re going out there to kill those people does bother me, but to me, the phoenix channel is more important. I won’t let the war get in the way of our partnership.”

Demir let out a long sigh. “Good,” he said, obviously relieved. “Good good. I’m glad to hear that, I … You should close your robe.”

Thessa snatched it closed and tied the silk ribbon to keep it that way. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s only awkward if you make it awkward,” he reminded her.

They both started laughing, and Thessa shook her head. “There’s been a lot of ups and downs the last few days.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Demir replied, with a smile. “I’m glad this won’t come between us. More seriously, I’m facing the best mercenary general in the world, and I want you to know that you are provided for – Montego is my current heir, and he has instructions to protect you while I’m gone and, if I don’t return, make sure you finish work on the phoenix channel.”

Thessa felt her mirth slip away. “Oh,” she said. “You could die.”

“It does happen in war.”

“That’s a deeply unpleasant thought.”

“For me too.”

Thessa swallowed. She should be relieved that he had already provided for her future, but Demir was her closest friend in the world at this moment. The idea that this could be the last time she saw him was … overwhelming. She wrestled with that thought for a moment, wondering how someone she’d only just met could have had such an effect on her. She was still deep in this consideration when Demir suddenly crossed the room, bent over, and kissed her gently on the lips.

It was soft and very quick, and when he pulled away he said, “For luck.”

“For luck?” she echoed. His gaze was steady, but when she glanced away she could see that his hand was trembling. She took it, pulled him back toward her, and kissed him again. She let it linger, and he did not pull away. His lips were still cold from the night air, but his chest felt invitingly warm pressed against her. When they finally separated, she repeated, “For luck. Take care of yourself, Demir. Come back alive and we’ll split that bottle of wine.”

“Promise?” he asked, giving her a lopsided smile.

“Promise.”

Demir returned to the threshold, a pep in his step that Thessa was fairly confident she’d just put there. What a happy thought. “Oh,” he said, “if you need to purchase anything for your project, Breenen has funds at your disposal.”

“Thank you.”

She watched Demir walk into the hallway, then return to close the door for her. He paused there for a moment, a frown crossing his face, and said, “This is a very strange question, but how did your parents die?”

Once again, Thessa felt her good feelings deflate. “Is this important?”

“Perhaps not.”

She glanced down at her hands, considering the question before she responded. “I know it was suppressed, so you’ve probably never heard of it, but almost a decade ago there was a revolt out in the provinces. My parents were in Holikan when it was sacked by the Foreign Legion. They died with most of the city.”

Something changed in Demir’s face. It was not overt, and Thessa thought perhaps she’d imagined it, but all the muscles in his face seemed to go slack at once, his eyes losing life and focus. He nodded sharply. “I must go,” he said, and pulled the door shut behind him.

Thessa plucked another cookie from the tea tray, putting that oddness out of her mind as she listened to his footsteps retreat down the hallway. She hummed to herself, trying to stave off a dizzy bit of happiness. Demir was, after all, going to a war that might kill him. But there was something undeniable between them, they both knew it, and if – no, when – he returned, she was going to carefully feel this out. Love, money, or political gain, Kastora had told her.

What about all three?

She smiled to herself and returned to the notes still laid out on her bed. She was too giddy to sleep now. Best to study, so she was as prepared as she could be when she began work on the phoenix channel in the morning.