Promise of Blood

“Dangerous conjecture.”

Tamas nodded. “I’m just vain enough to have rather enjoyed the book.”

“What did he say about you?”

“Samurset claims that my marriage made me conservative, that my son’s birth gave me mercy, and that my wife’s death hardened both qualities with an objectiveness to make them useful. He said that my climb to the rank of field marshal while on the Gurla campaign was the best thing to happen to the Adran military in a thousand years.” Tamas waved his hand dismissively. “Rubbish, most of it, but I do have a confession.”

“Sir?”

“There are times when I don’t feel a sense of mercy or justice or anything but pure rage. Times that I feel I’m twenty again and the solution to every problem is pistols at twenty paces. Olem, that is the most dangerous feeling a commander can have. Which is why, if I look like I’m about to lose my temper, I want you to tell me. No fidgeting, no polite coughs. Just plain out tell me. Can you do that?”

“I can,” Olem said.

“Good. Then send in Vlora.”

Tamas watched his son’s former fiancée enter the room with no small bit of trepidation. Many thought of Tamas as cold. He encouraged the notion. Perhaps his son had suffered for that. But Tamas knew that beneath his calculating nature he had a temper, and for the first time in his life he wanted to shoot a woman.

Tamas interlocked his fingers on the desk in front of him. He fixed his mouth into that ambiguous place between smile and frown.

Vlora was a dark-haired beauty with a classic figure, wide hips and a small chest outlined by the tight blue uniform of an Adran soldier. Her father had been a na-baron who had lost his fortune speculating in all the wrong things. The last of their family wealth had gone to a gold mine in Fatrasta—one that pinched out two months after mining began. He had died a year after that last failure, when Vlora was only ten. Sabon had found her months later, placed in a boarding school by her few remaining relatives; an abandoned child with a unique talent: the ability to ignite powder from not just a dozen paces, as most Marked could, but at a distance of several hundred yards. Tamas had taken her in, provided for her upbringing, and given her a career in the army. What had gone wrong?

“Sir,” she said, snapping to attention before him. Tamas found himself looking at an invisible point above her head as he struggled to restrain his anger. “Powder Mage Vlora reporting, sir.”

Tamas flinched. She’d called him Tamas since she was fourteen. Not one soul had ever commented on that brazen familiarity. She’d treated him more like a father than Taniel ever had.

“Sit,” Tamas ordered.

Vlora sat.

“Sabon apprised you of the situation?” He could feel her studying his face. He kept his own gaze in the air above her head.

“We’ve lost a lot of men, sir,” she said. “A lot of friends.”

“A serious blow to the powder cabal. I need mages now. I’d have liked to leave you…” At Jileman University, he finished in his head. Where she could continue her studies and continue betraying his son. Tamas cleared his throat. “I need you here.”

“I’m here,” she said.

“Good,” Tamas said. “I’m going to put you with the seventy-fifth regiment on the north end of the city. There’s rioters up there to mop up and…” Tamas paused at a low knock on the door. Olem opened the door just a little. A communiqué was passed through, and there was a moment of whispering between the bodyguard and someone on the other side.

“Tamas,” Vlora said suddenly. “I’d like to be put with Taniel, if that is possible.”

Tamas felt his body jerk and pulled back on the reins of his rage. “That’s ‘sir’ if you please, soldier,” he snapped. “And no, it’s not possible. This city needs to be cleaned up and I’ll have you with the seventy-fifth regiment.” He would not put Taniel through that. He was cold, not cruel.

Olem waved the communiqué. “Sir,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Problems.”

“Of what sort?”

“The boys have run into barricades.”

“And?”

“Big ones, sir, though hastily built. Very well organized. Not average looters.”

“Where?”

“Centestershire.”

“That’s less than a mile from here. Have they made contact with the barricade?”

“Yes,” Olem said. He didn’t look happy. “Royalists, sir.”

“They had to come out of the woodwork eventually,” Tamas said. “Damned king’s men without a king. Numbers?”

“Not a clue. They appear to have gone up overnight.”

“What’s the extent of their holdings?”

“I said, sir. Centestershire.”

“What, the whole center of the city?”

Olem nodded.

“Bloody pit.” Tamas leaned back in his chair. He let his eyes fall to Vlora, his anger at her betrayal warring with the stupidity of men who’d throw their lives away over a dead monarch. He felt his hands shaking. “Why?” The word wrenched out against his will. He scolded himself immediately. He had better control than that. He forced himself to meet Vlora’s eyes. Why did you betray my son?