The Cadet of Tildor by Alex Lidell
He would not do it. Good gods. Verin would let Savoy die for the sake of . . . what? Administrative purity that had already been fouled by the Family’s agreement with the king? Renee drew a breath. “I know Savoy was recalled at Lord Palan’s request. And that Lord Palan controls the Family, for all that he tries to keep his hands clean. With all respect, sir, the Crown has already shown . . . flexibility . . . in regards to Savoy. Could you at least address the matter with King Lysian?”
This time, Verin’s brows rose. Tilting his head, he studied her in silence. “I see you are well informed,” he said at last, just when Renee began to expect a denial. “Bending to criminals’ demands, no matter how enticing the apparent rewards, is always a mistake. I have already spoken to King Lysian. We will not do it again.”
She frowned in confusion. “But no criminals are demanding Savoy’s rescue, sir. How would it be a boon to them?”
“An assault on Catar helps the Family.” Verin chuckled without humor. “Do you not see, my lady? When the Crown refused Lord Palan’s petition to attack the Vipers, he arranged for Commander Savoy’s recall from the field. Then, miraculously, Savoy became captive in the heart of Catar’s Viper layer. It is not a coincidence. Lord Palan is using the Seventh’s leader and High Constable’s foster son as bait. The guilt and affection you tried to stir in me moments ago is what the Family wishes of us.”
Renee rubbed her temple. Had Palan ordered Diam kidnapped and given to the Vipers so his older brother would follow? No, Verin’s theory felt wrong. Her fingernails dug into her thighs. “I disagree, sir. This isn’t a Family ploy. Diam’s kidnapper wished Palan himself dead.”
“Surely you realize such demand is a jest!” Verin tilted his head. “Very well. Who do you believe behind the events?”
“Tanil.”
The headmaster smiled. “Which brings us back to the Family, does it not?” He shook his head, his voice hardening. “I believe I am correct, my lady, and I cannot permit Tildor to continue bowing its head to the Family’s strong-arming. Not even for Korish Savoy.”
Renee’s fingers dug into the leather pads of her chair. “King Lysian owes Savoy his life!”
Verin’s palm slammed the table. “That will do, Lady Renee.” His voice froze her to the seat. “In light of your separation from the Academy, this audience is a privilege you and I extend to each other. I am certain neither of us wishes to jeopardize the possibility of enjoying the other’s company in the future. Have I made myself clear?”
Quite clear. Renee left the meeting in a temper to match the growing gale. Verin was wrong and would do nothing. Curse the man. Curse Seaborn and his duties. Curse the entire city. Hunching shoulders against the rain, she went outside, her hands seeking her pockets. Rough paper bent under her fingertips. It was the note from Palan. Taking shelter beneath a tree, she read it again. Greasy Pig. One hour past dusk. Why in the Seven Hells not?
CHAPTER 34
“Two! Three! Five!” Savoy called parry numbers as he advanced on Den, but his mind kept slipping to Renee’s apparent friendship with Jasper. It had been three days since her visit. Did the girl know the fire she toyed with? How long until Jasper turned and hurt her? “It’s a blade, not a club, Den.” Savoy pulled the blow, cracking the wood against the larger man’s clavicle instead of his skull. “And five protects the head. Which, unless your head is up your ass, makes it a high parry.”
Den rubbed the new red mark. “You held back. Don’t.”
Cocking a brow, Savoy threw him a square pad, let the man brace the target, and focused on a point well beyond the padded leather. His muscles snapped like a whip; hip, shoulder, and arm engaging before the blade. The thump echoed through the salle.
Den stumbled. “Good gods.” He gasped, cradling the arm despite the pad’s protection. “That is how you fight, then? When the stakes are real?”
“On occasion. I favor speed and precision over power.”
“Is it more effective?”
Savoy shrugged. “Preference born of childhood habit. I did not come into my height until my late teens and speed gave me an edge. Your size well complements a strength-based style, however.” Den stowed away the abused target.
“The day you found me fumbling with a blade, I didn’t see you enter.” Den jerked his chin at the pad. “You could have split open my skull, dull wood or not.”
“An error in judgment I am fast regretting.”
The corners of Den’s mouth twitched. “The girl who came here last week, she knew you.”
Savoy twirled his sword to ease the clench in his stomach. “Harness your brain to your sword.”
“No wench in her right mind risks remaining alone with an unrestrained Predator.” Den parried a blow. “Not unless she knows him.” The man’s self-satisfied amusement faded to a serious tone. “Better she keep away. It’s not safe for either of you.”
“That wench will fillet you from crotch to chin if you get a blade in her hand. And if you call her that again, I’ll grant your wish of not pulling strikes.” He realized his knuckles turned white in their grip and relaxed his hold, focusing on the clack-clacking wood. “Want to worry about a girl? Worry about your daughter.”
“Why do you think I’m here?” Den shook his head. “Have you ever been hungry, Cat? The kind of hungry when you resent a stray dog his bone? Or lived on a street so violent that each time your mother stepped from the house, you feared she’d not return?” He twisted the blade. “The Madam is a harsh mistress, but she keeps order. The Vipers, and only the Vipers, rule Catar now. So long as I obey, the food I buy is mine to keep and Mia is safe even from the guards with a taste for children. It was not thus before she took the Viper throne and tripled its influence.”
Savoy shook his head. “You’re a slave.”
“I’m a slave with the whip instead of the shackles. It could be worse. Was worse.”
“There are cities beyond Catar.” Savoy rubbed his wrists. “The others say you won the Freedom Fight.”
Den snorted. “The Madam needed a trainer around the time Mia was born. They killed her mother for trying to escape and came to me, knowing I wouldn’t risk leaving. We put on a show and I traded my binds for my daughter. No one leaves the Vipers, Cat. Not alive, they don’t.”
CHAPTER 35
Renee felt the note rustling in her pocket as she obeyed Lord Palan’s neatly penned summons. A card and dice pub at the juncture of the Mage District and Southeast, the Greasy Pig was an establishment that Lady Renee wouldn’t consider entering and Cadet Renee wouldn’t dare to. It was long and dark, like a candle-lit cave, with a small stage in the back where a scantily clad girl danced and sang. The patrons clustered around tables, shouting to each other over the din and mugs of ale. Bumps ran up the length of Renee’s spine, but she straightened it nonetheless and surveyed the room.
Guardsman Fisker looked up at her from a tankard, his eyes glassy. Beside him sat Seaborn, sourly sober. His eyes widened upon meeting hers. So she wasn’t expected. What in the Seven bloody Hells is Palan up to? Renee elbowed through the crowd to the small side table the two occupied and slid into a chair. “I thought you were at the palace,” she told Seaborn by way of greeting, biting back other questions.
“I received an invitation this afternoon that seemed wise to accept.” He paused. “I thought you were in Catar City.”
Renee frowned. “Lord— Someone went through a lot of trouble to arrange for us to see each other.”
Seaborn shook his head. “Not each other.” He jerked his chin at Fisker, who was trying to thread the stump of his missing finger through the tankard handle. “Him.” Seaborn grasped the guardsman’s cup and pulled it away, rousing the guard to sputtering fury. “Speak.”
The man scowled. “Nothing to say.”
“Very well.” Seaborn rose. “I’ll inform our friend you had a change of hea
“Curse your eyes.” Fisker grunted and demanded the return of his ale, which the other man slid across the table. He drank deeply, belched, and drank again. “Tell me,” Fisker said finally, finding Renee’s gaze. “Tell me, do you think a Family man or a Viper can be trusted?”
“No.” Renee’s brows narrowed.
“And is it a guardsman’s job to keep such filth clear of the Crown?”
She glanced at Seaborn, then back at Fisker. “Of course.”
He nodded and spoke to his cup. “Nine years ago . . . Nine years ago, a man offered me a heavy purse to ensure that Cadet Korish Savoy never graduated.”
Renee’s shoulders tensed. “Did you take it?”
“No.” Fisker slammed the tankard on the table. “I did not take a bribe. Cadet Savoy was both a menace and a liability, but I left him be and guarded the Academy he made a farce of. As was my duty.” He bared his teeth. “The man returned with a larger sum. I threw him out once more.”
A silence followed, lasting too long, but Renee gave Fisker his time. The man was loyal to the Crown. He valued law and duty both. Yet something had pushed him into tormenting a fourteen-year-old boy and seeded the vendetta that stretched to present day. She stared at Fisker’s mangled hand.
He caught her gaze and snorted, holding up the stump. “No. This was a folly of pride.” Fisker sighed. “The man returned a third time. With documents.” He scowled. “There once were three brothers heading the Family.” He held up three fingers to illustrate so great a number. “One rotted in prison like he deserved.” A finger bent. “Another—Lord Palan—took charge.” A second finger went down. “The third? The third, oldest, brother, who had a liking for killing, he heard that a warrant for his arrest was to be drawn, and fled like a frightened dog. He changed his name, married a mercenary, and, as I was told, was too cowardly to speak of the poison his blood carries.” He leaned forward. “Now, would you wager a guess as to who that was? Whose identity those papers held?”
Renee’s mind churned, arranging and rearranging the pieces as her heart quickened. A mercenary soldier teaching his son courtly dances. Palan’s longstanding interest in Savoy. His efforts to recall the man to the Academy the year Diam started it. The way Palan asked Diam to call him Uncle. That he told her about this meeting at all. Fisker’s Justice Hall rant about evils of criminal seeds. The last nail slid into place. Blood drained from Renee’s face. “Savoy’s father,” she said quietly, ignoring the sudden hot sear of Seaborn’s gaze. “He was the third brother, wasn’t he?” She nodded to herself, following the thought to its end. “Which makes Savoy a Family man—an offspring of criminal blood—in a Servant’s uniform. That is why you hate him so.”
“He is disease.” The guard’s eyes flashed. “I came to Verin with the news, but he refused to expel the pestilence and forbade me to take any action.” Fisker took a chug of ale. “So I held my tongue and I waited. Waited for the young bastard to put his own neck into the noose.”
Renee leaned toward him. “Did you bait Savoy into taking the Crown’s horses?”
Fisker grinned, showing his teeth. “It was a matter of time—with evil in his flesh, he courted trouble every moment. And when he slipped next, I made certain the festering pig got what was coming to him, didn’t I? Bloody Family scum. Should have died in that rotting jail cell.”
Leaving Fisker to his cups and curses, Renee and Seaborn went outside. The fresh air was welcome, despite the icy drizzle, and helped clear Renee’s head. Lord Palan had gone through some trouble to ensure the insight was both delivered and believed. Why? What was his angle? Was Renee to believe that, given their blood ties, Palan’s desire to help Savoy was genuine? She pulled her coat tighter. Perhaps it was, but the head of the Family surely had more than one motive. Renee spared a moment to consider what kind of leverage the lord had exerted on Fisker to force his tongue and, to her shame, discovered that she did not much care. “Did you know any of this?” she asked Seaborn.
He leaned against the side of the building, tilting his head up against the stone. “Not before this meeting. I am likewise confident of Korish’s ignorance.”
Renee nodded. How much did blood matter? To Fisker, who condemned Savoy for his lineage, it mattered beyond all reason. It mattered to Palan, who patronized his estranged nephews and looked after Tanil, as useless as he was. To Verin, who let Savoy earn a Servant’s uniform despite his father’s crimes, bloodlines appeared irrelevant. And to Renee herself? How much blame did she bear for her father’s Family dealings?
Her shoulders sagged and she pressed her hand against the wall for support. Could she blame Fisker for what he did to Savoy when the guardsman’s motives, like Verin’s, stemmed from a sense of duty? Yes. Yes she could. A wrong done in the name of right may be understandable—but it wasn’t acceptable. “I despise the Family, sir, as Fisker does,” she said finally. “Them, and the Vipers, and the rest of the criminals haunting Tildor. But Savoy isn’t a Family man, no matter who his father and uncle are. He is my friend and that will not change for all the bastards combined.”
Seaborn nodded and relaxed against the wall next to her. “It isn’t supposed to.”
They stood silent while the rain picked up, the droplets bouncing in the forming puddles. After several moments, Renee pressed her lips together and tilted her face up toward Seaborn. “I received no word from you.”
“I was beginning to fear that when nothing returned from you.” He sighed. “Several of the couriers carrying palace messages have faced trouble. No matter now. Verin—”
“Refused aid, I know.” She sketched the details of their conversation. “Not bowing to Palan counted for more than Savoy’s life. What of the Seventh?”
“Stationed a few days’ ride away. I’ve found a way of getting a message to them, but without a code word to authenticate it, they won’t believe it.” He shook his head. “They’re too well trained to abandon their mission for what could be a poison pen message. At best, they’d contact Verin.”
Renee jerked away from the wall and faced him. “Verin can’t be the only one with the code. Savoy must have it too.” She hurried to update him on developments in Catar, leaving out only Savoy’s reaction to the boy mage.
Seaborn leaned forward, nodding at her words. He listened to her like he did to Savoy, Renee realized. She was not his cadet anymore. Renee cleared her throat. “I will talk Jasper into arranging another meeting with Savoy. If I succeed, how do I ensure my message reaches the Seventh?”
Seaborn recited a set of instructions, which Renee repeated several times until they both were confident of her memory. Then good humor faded from Seaborn’s face. “You know of the royal kidnapping?” He waited for her nod and dropped his voice. “King Lysian will come to Catar in ten days’ time.”
“To attack?”
“To rule.” Seaborn spread his hands. “The presence of the Crown with his guards and magistrates does not eliminate illegitimate activities, but it does increase costs and headaches.”
“You think the Madam will back down if only to make him go away?”
Seaborn put his hands into his pockets. “No. But the next step spills blood.”
CHAPTER 36
Savoy pushed open the salle door to attend what the others thought to be another penalty workout and found Den leaning against the wall, a book in his hands.
“Forgive my unpreparedness,” said Den, looking up. “The reading absorbed me.” He twisted the book to reveal its cover. Battlefields of the Seventh.
Savoy moved his feet to gain better purchase on the sand. His heart quickened
“Please,” Den said quietly. “I suggest nothing.” He locked the door and remained with his back turned to Savoy. “Nine years ago, the Madam ordered me to antagonize a guardsman at the Academy of Tildor against a cadet who attended school there. The boy was a runt with blond ha
Savoy’s brow rose with an ease he didn’t feel. “The Madam?”
“Yes.” Den paused, his next words coming with care. “She . . . The Madam takes interest in certain youngsters. She has her reasons.”
Savoy stood motionless. The Madam and Lord Palan both. “Was your mission successful?”
“No.” Den turned, shaking his head. “I found the guard, a nine-fingered man who disliked the boy to begin with, and I fueled his dislike until it turned to hate. Nonetheless, the lad still graduated to become a Servant of the Crown and thwart many Viper projects.” He held up the book. “It is unfortunate the book has no pictures. I wonder what the man looks like grown. Is it not curious that many people may know of a man’s deeds without ever learning his appearance?”
A breath escaped Savoy’s lips. If Den had meant to capitalize on his discovery, he would have done so before now. Even so, Savoy’s life lay in the other’s hands.
“No one leaves the Vipers.” Den tossed the book to the sand.
“So you said.”
Pursing his lips, Den drew the amulet from his pocket.
Savoy spread his wrists to show that no resistance would be offered.
Den hesitated. “You know why the men pretend the Freedom Fight is real?”
“Hope.”
Den nodded. “I read the book. If anyone can get out . . .” Licking his lips, he threw the amulet into Savoy’s hands and spoke quickly, motioning to the wristbands. “It can’t disable your binds, nor unlock most of the doors. But it will open those on the path to the arena. And from the arena to the street. I’ll discover it stolen in ten minutes’ time. Go through the bathing room, down the corridor to the Pit.” He paused. “If you can climb the bars . . . ”
Savoy looked Den in the eye, and knew the courage the man’s decision had taken. “Should you leave Catar, you’ll find welcome at the Academy of Tildor in Atham. If I’m not there, a man named Connor Seaborn will care for you.”