Kenton continued walking across the courtyard, trying to reorganize his thoughts. The night before he had wondered about the Lord Merchant. Perhaps there was a way to break Vey’s carapace-like exterior. He just had to—
“Lord Mastrell?” another voice asked. The servant wore a cooking apron, and had wide lips and a pudgy face.
“Yes?” Kenton asked with a sigh.
“Do you know where Lord Dirin is?”
“He won’t be here for a few days,” Kenton said again. “What do you need?”
“Well, he was arranging for us to get a shipment of travel ZaiDon in, just in case the Diem did get dissolved and the sand masters needed something to survive on for the next few weeks. I gave him a slightly false estimate—it appears that there’s a shortage of ZaiDon lately. Several herds of sandlings to the north caught a disease, and we have to pay extra until new shipments arrive from the south.”
“I’m certain it will be all right,” Kenton assured. “I’ll tell Dirin to see you when he gets back.”
“Thank you, My Lord,” the man said with a bow.
Kenton rolled his eyes in frustration, then continued his walk. He needed to go see Vey again—an activity he didn’t look forward to. Their last meeting hadn’t gone very well. He would probably have to bribe his way in this time—
“Lord Mastrell?”
“I don’t know where Dirin is,” Kenton said, turning with exasperation.
The younger man, an acolent with long hair, jumped at the comment. “Um, yes, Lord Mastrell,” he said slowly.
Kenton nodded, turning again.
“But, Lord Mastrell?” the boy asked.
“Yes?” Kenton asked.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
Kenton groaned. “A few days.”
“A few days?” the boy asked with alarm.
“Take your problem to Elorin,” Kenton suggested.
“Um, yes, Lord Mastrell,” the acolent said.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have sent Dirin away, Kenton thought, continuing his trek across the courtyard. He hadn’t realized how much the boy was doing—of course, thinking back on it, he should have guessed. Someone had to see that the Diem was kept running; Kenton was so busy trying to save the Profession that he didn’t have time for the small things.
This time he noticed the person walking toward him before they spoke. Kenton paused, preparing himself to explain once again that he had sent Dirin on a mission. This sand master, however, spoke first.
“Lord Mastrell, you might want to see this.”
“What?” Kenton asked with a frown, his comments about Dirin slipping away.
“Well,” said the sand master—an underfen perhaps twenty years old. “She just kind of walked in, and we didn’t know whether to do what she said or not. We couldn’t find you, and we know she’s a … friend of yours, so we just let her do what she wanted.”
Kenton rolled his eyes. “Where is she?”
#
Khriss sat at the back of the room, watching with interest. An older sand master in a brown sash stood at the front of the room, controlling a line of mastered sand. About six students sat in the room, watching him with somewhat bored eyes. Khriss smiled, remembering some of her own lecture in the university. These students weren’t much younger than she had been during her learning days, though most of her classmates had been much older.
She watched closely as the teacher lifted a rock with his sand. The students followed, lifting similar stones on their own desks. Some of them did it easily, others had a lot more trouble. One boy was able to lift the stone from above, grabbing the rock with an arrogant wave of his hand and pulling it into the air. The rest, however, did as their teacher, pushing their sand underneath the stone and levitating the object into the air by forming a kind of sand pole that extended from the rock to the ground.
It must be easier for them to push than pull, Khriss decided, scribbling a note on her ledger. It made sense—the weaker ones were really using the floor’s strength to push the stone into the air. The one boy could pull from above, but he appeared much stronger than the rest.
The stones rose to different heights, several wobbling uncertainly. Apparently, ability to lift varied greatly amongst sand masters. Khriss looked closely. The higher the stones went, the thinner the students’ strings of sand became. However, some of the strings started wider than others, so they could lift higher. More importantly, however, some students’ sand glowed more brightly than others. The brighter the sand, the more power.
She hurriedly wrote the observation on her ledger. There were laws to sand mastery, obviously. A given string of sand could only hold so much weight, dependant on its diameter and its brightness—which, from what she gathered, was an indication of its density. Some people could control more sand in one string, and so they had more power than others.
“Enjoying yourself?” a voice asked.
Khriss jumped, scribbling an awkward line of white across her dayside ledger. Kenton stood in the room’s open doorway a short distance away.
Khriss gave him a sheepish look. “They couldn’t find you,” she explained awkwardly. “So I asked if there was a place I could wait … they led me here.”
Kenton eyed her disbelievingly.
The students lowered their rocks nervously, shooting looks at Kenton. He waved them back to their studies as Khriss rose and walked over toward him. He looked so authoritative in his distinctive white outfit that she almost forgot for a moment that he was just Kenton, the man she had grown to know quite well over the last few weeks.
He was changing, however. His personality was still the same, but he carried himself differently. He acted more like a leader; his orders were more assured, and he was more accustomed to being followed. It was hard to believe sometimes that he was the same age as she was—he seemed as old as the man teaching the class.
“Did you learn a lot?” Kenton asked, leading her from the room. She could tell her subversion of his authority wasn’t appreciated. Suddenly, she felt very guilty. It had seemed like a good idea at the time … .
Wait a minute, she thought, forcing the guilt out of her heart. You’re not doing anything wrong. You’re trying to save your homeland—If that’s not a noble goal, then nothing is. We need sand mastery.
“I didn’t learn much,” she admitted. “You came and got me too quickly.”
Kenton nodded to himself. He didn’t reprobate her, but the dissatisfaction in his eyes was bad enough to make her guilt resurface.
“You said sand masters couldn’t tell me their secrets,” Khriss explained, for to try and convince herself than Kenton. “You didn’t say I couldn’t try to learn on my own.”
He didn’t answer.
“All right,” she said with a sigh. “I won’t do that again.” Insufferable man. Doesn’t he know what is at stake?
“Good,” Kenton said with a nod. “I know it is frustrating, Khriss,” he said. “But the Diem isn’t ready to be exposed yet. Once we’re certain we will still be here in a few weeks, then we can decide how much we should reveal about ourselves. You have some good points, but now is not the time to implement them.”
I don’t have time to wait, Khriss thought with a sigh.
#
Ais entered walked into the Diem both excited and worried. The note Tain had delivered to him the night before had left him anxious and frustrated. But, when he had arrived at the Hall after leaving the Diem, he had found another note waiting—this one from someone completely different. Shaerezan’s unnamed powerful ally, the one who had split from his boss. The note left no way to contact the dissident, but it did say that he was willing to meet. Ais was close—very close.
But, for now, he had to continue the job he had been given by the Lady Judge. Fortunately, he hadn’t been forced to kill any more Kershtians the day before. Maybe the Ry’Kensha was right, maybe the family had already run out of assassins. However, he didn’t really believe that to be the case. Kershtian f
amilies were large.
Shaking his head, Ais walked toward the Lord Mastrell, who stood with the darkside woman at the far end of the courtyard.
#
“I don’t know why he continues to pay it,” Kenton explained. “That is the biggest question I have right now. And that is why I’m going to see him today. You may come if you like.”
Khriss shrugged. “I don’t have anything else to do now that I know Prince Gevalden is dead.”
Kenton frowned. Something was wrong—he hadn’t noticed it until just then. “Where is Baon?” he asked with surprise. The hefty bodyguard was nowhere to be seen.
Khriss paused. “He’s … not travelling with me any more,” she explained.
“What?” Kenton asked incredulously. “What happened to him?”
“It turns out Baon was a spy for the Dynasty,” Khriss said with an even voice. However, Kenton could sense the struggle within her as she tried to keep emotion from coming through.
“That can’t be,” Kenton said with a frown.
“He had us all fooled,” Khriss said with a shrug.
“But …” Kenton trailed off. “He can’t be a spy, he was so … so …”
“So Baon?”
“Exactly,” Kenton answered.
Khriss just shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m not certain of much anymore.”
“So you just came here alone?” Kenton asked.
“No, Acron dropped me off,” she explained. “He and N’Teese went to buy some things. They should be back any time now.”
“We’ll probably meet them on the way,” Kenton said. “Come on—I’m tired of sitting around doing nothing.”
“Are we going somewhere?” a sleepy voice asked from above.
Kenton looked upward, where a recently awakened Eric stood on his balcony, looking down with tired eyes. “That depends,” Kenton announced. “Are you going with us?”
“I’ll have to miss breakfast,” Eric complained.
“All right, you can wait behind.”
“I’m coming,” Eric grumbled—an amazing feat, considering he managed to project the grumble all the way down to the courtyard. He disappeared into his rooms and joined them in the courtyard a few moments later.
#
“So, how exactly are you going to pursued the Lord Merchant to see you?” Eric asked.
Khriss walked beside the two men, the Kezare crowds splitting quickly before Kenton’s sash. His presence was causing quite a stir—even more than usual. The people didn’t see quite as scared—more excited.
“I don’t know,” Kenton confessed. They were speaking in Dynastic, apparently for Khriss’s benefit, though the conversation didn’t really involve her.
“As I remember, your last meeting didn’t end on particularly affable terms,” Eric reminded.
Khriss still wasn’t sure what to make of Eric. When she had found out that he was the son of the Lord General, she had been completely dumbfounded. He didn’t look like a warrior, nor did he act like one. He was too casual—too uncaring. He didn’t hold himself like Baon did, always alert for danger, but instead walked with an almost flippant attitude.
As soon as she made the comparison, however, her mind was drawn to another subject. Baon. It felt odd, walking these streets without his comforting presence at her side. Not only did he offer protection, but she had begun to rely on his simple wisdom.
Cynder is right, she thought with a nod. He was far too … competent to be a simple mercenary. I should have realized …
However, now he was gone. It was likely she would never see him again—he would return to Scythe and report that Gevin was dead. The Dynasty’s purpose had been accomplished. The prince’s death was a harsh blow for Elis.
In recent years, the Dynastic ambassadors had begun to hint that unless Elis subjugated itself to the Dynasty, the kingdom would be taken by force. Some of the noblemen—an alarming number of them—were beginning to suggest that surrender was a preferable option. Gevin had denounced them vigorously. He was—had been—the Dynasty’s biggest enemy in the Elisian court; even the King the crown prince were less certain. During the two years of Gevin’s absence, the King had opened talks with Scythe’s emissaries, discussing just what a surrender of the crown would entail. If Gevin had been there, perhaps he could have stopped his father. But now … .
She could still hear his voice, passionate and driven, in her mind. Father hasn’t seen the Dynasty, Khriss; he doesn’t understand what it does. I’ve traveled through its provinces—you have no idea the poverty and despair of its people. Scythe keeps provinces, regions, and even cities isolated from one another. No one knows what is happening in the rest of the world, and they have no idea how poorly they’re being treated. If we give into the Dynasty, it wouldn’t only mean renouncing the monarchy and our titles. We would also have to dissolve the People’s Senate and abandon the Code of Rights. All of the progress we’ve made during the last century would be lost.
Khriss smiled to herself at the memory. The recollection wasn’t an exact picture of a place or time, more a general sense of what Gevin had been. His father didn’t really care about such things as the People’s Senate and the Code of Rights—in fact, the Senate had been a pebble in the Monarchy’s shoe for some time. The King would probably be glad for an excuse to get rid of it. Gevin, however, had always been more liberal. At times he had almost seemed more like a commoner than a nobleman, which was partially why the people had loved him so much. He had truly believed in the rights of all men, even the lowliest, and that was one of the things Khriss had respected about him the most.
Khriss shot a look at Kenton, walking beside her on the crowded Kezare street. There was a slight frown on his face, and his brow was furled in concentration as he wrestled with the overwhelming burden he was forced to carry. Gevin would have had little difficulty performing where Kenton was only barely succeeding. The Prince had been able to turn rabid enemies into teatime friends after just one meeting. Gevin’s charismatic force of will and mastery of politics had made him into a power that few could resist. In fact, Gevin had been good at everything. His jokes had been witty. He had been equally good at games of the mind and those of skill. He had passed his courses in the university with high marks. Gevin had been perfect in every way.
Why, then, hadn’t she felt for him the emotion she was beginning to feel for this intolerable sand master?
Kenton was rude, he was hardly a skilled politician, and he infuriated her. He wasn’t particularly handsome, and he definitely had something to learn about the proper way to treat a woman of noble birth. There absolutely nothing about him that she should find attractive. Yet, she did.
Perhaps it was his earnestness. Even now, as he walked toward another impossible confrontation, she could see the resolve in his eyes. He didn’t have the training or the upbringing, but he still tried. Where Gevin had been blessed with stunning looks and dazzling charisma, Kenton only had his sense of determination. And for some reason Kenton just felt more human to her than Gevin.
The prince had been perfect, but that made him unapproachable. How did one deal with a person so ideal? Khriss had loved him, to be certain, but it had been a more logical love. She had known she would marry him some day, she had respected his accomplishments and abilities, and had genuinely liked his personality. It had all seemed so simple—neat and orderly, just like one of her equations. They had met together often, discussing various topics of interest over meals, and then she had gone back to her books and Gevin had returned to his politics. The prince had been perfect, and she had been lucky to be his betrothed.
Kenton, however, infuriated her every time they met. But, at the same time, he invigorated her. There was no idle chatting with the sand master. Every conversation had a retort or an unexpected comment waiting at its end. However, some of the time she was able to get the better of him. He was more a person and less a god. Khriss could never have approached Gevin with problems or mistakes??
?they would have seemed too enormous in the face of his flawlessness. It was strange. She had enjoyed being with Gevin, but she had never really felt a loss when they parted at the end of one of their meetings. She kept finding excuses to visit the Diem, however.
It’s just the sand mastery, she tried to convince herself. Nothing more. You’re being a foolish girl—you’re associating the ability with the man. You don’t want him, you just want his power.
“Well?”
Kenton’s comment startled her, and she immediately blushed, irrationally thinking that he had somehow known about her internal debate.
“Well what?” she asked, trying to cover he blush with a nonchalant air.
“Well, how are you going to get me in to see the Lord Merchant?” Kenton asked.
“You expect me to get you in?” Khriss demanded.
“You’re the tactful one,” Kenton explained. “We’re almost there, and honestly, I have no idea how to get in to see him. In fact, I don’t even know what I’m going to say to him if I do get in.”
“Then why are we here?” Khriss asked as they approached the Lord Merchant’s office.
“I have to find a way to get Vey on my side,” Kenton reiterated, shooting an uncertain look at the structure.
“Personally,” Eric noted, “I think you’d have a better chance trying to get the A’Kar on your side.”
Kenton sighed. “Well, I’ll think of something,” he mumbled, turning to walk up the steps.
#
“I’m sorry, but the Lord Merchant regrets to inform you that he is occupied with other matters.”
Kenton frowned. They stood in the Lord Merchant’s waiting room, the austere quarters filled, as usual, with hopeful supplicants. The doors leading into Vey’s conference hall were open, though the turning hallway beyond didn’t provide a view of the Lord Merchant himself. Still, Kenton couldn’t hear the sounds of a discussion beyond, and he doubted that the Lord Merchant was ‘occupied.’ Of course, he hadn’t really expected a warm reception.