“Sparrow,” he whispered faintly, his lungs still arrested in his chest. “I can’t be here. I can’t—” He clamped his mouth shut as a single voice separated from the general murmur.
“…looks like we’ll need to adjust morning patrol?” That was Fallon, the second patrol leader.
“Indeed,” said another voice—the commander’s familiar, steady intonation. “All three of us will need to attend the audition.”
Audition? Elliot frowned, leaning closer, despite his recent apprehension. Next to him Sparrow was motionless, but he knew she listened as closely as he did.
“Right—Darius can take point,” Fallon answered, and there was a soft scrape of chair legs, as if he were pushing back from the table and getting to his feet. “I’ll make the arrangements now, if we’re all finished here?”
“We are,” said the commander. There were murmured goodbyes, along with scuffing boots, clinking glasses, and the whisper of loose papers.
Elliot was secretly relieved. The meeting was over; it was time to get out of there. He crouched, preparing to stalk away, when Sparrow found the edge of his tunic and tugged him back down.
“Not done,” she whispered, so softly he had to squint at her mouth in the darkness to catch her words. Not done?
A door shut in the room below. There were several moments of silence in which Elliot was certain they’d all left, but then Beryk’s measured voice floated out into the night.
“I think you should reconsider, Cassian.”
“What—telling Tristan? You know he can’t be involved in this.” Elliot leaned forward. The commander was keeping things from Tristan? Not only was he Tristan’s father, but Tristan was a patrol leader.
“Not just Tristan. All of it. The risks—”
“—will be well worth it, Beryk, if my plan succeeds.”
“That is a large if, Cassian,” Beryk said, his tone steady. “It is just as likely to fail.”
“It won’t.”
Elliot had never heard such steel in the commander’s voice. He was always a strong-minded, self-assured man. Poised, powerful, and in control. But this… There was a dangerous edge to his voice, a coldness, that brought to mind the blade of a knife. And when you walked that line… one slip was all it took.
“What next, then, Commander?” Beryk asked briskly, all his dire warnings forgotten.
There was a soft squeaking sound like a drawer being opened and shut again, then more shuffling papers.
“There are nearly fifty members of the Grand Council, and it’s safe to say these”—a stack of papers thwapped onto the table—“are sympathetic to Lord Rolan, while these”—another rustle of pages—“are supportive of animages, Pyra, and the Phoenix Rider cause.”
The Grand Council? Elliot had heard about the ruling body in the empire and knew they met very sparingly—and only to vote on matters of utmost importance. Clearly there was a meeting coming, and something to do with Pyra and the Phoenix Riders was at stake.
“Some of these allies, however,” the commander continued, “are border lords, and they may change their minds if Rolan’s antics result in too much damage to property or income. And there are these, who I know virtually nothing about and cannot predict their allegiances.”
“Mostly Stellan delegates…,” came Beryk’s thoughtful voice. “But Rolan isn’t very popular in his own province.”
“No,” the commander conceded, “but he still has some influence there. War in the northern provinces will matter little to Stel and will allow them to charge twice as much for their exports as agriculture in Ferro and Arboria North takes a hit. By my estimation, Lord Rolan stands to win the vote by a margin of ten. If we eliminate these five, plus—”
There was a sharp intake of breath. “That’s too many, Cassian. There has to be a way to sway some of these others….”
“We can try, Beryk, but unless we know how some of these Stellan representatives and border lords intend to vote, we can’t risk it.”
Silence descended.
The commander was obviously trying to get a handle on voting numbers to swing the results in his favor. Results that had to do with war? And then his use of the word “eliminate” made Elliot’s heartbeat speed up, but there was something else that had caught his attention—this time in a good way.
Elliot had lived in Aura Nova for most of his life; his father worked in the Office for Border Control and split his time between their home in the city and his offices along the northern border. But originally they were from the south. Elliot’s family hailed from Stel, and his great-aunt on his mother’s side was an important political figure in the province.
Important enough to vote on the Grand Council.
Elliot had only met his great-aunt twice, but she was a staunch supporter of animages and had represented a dissenting faction in Stel during the Blood War—she had refused to send soldiers or supplies to aid in the war against Avalkyra Ashfire. She still moved in those circles, which meant the commander had more allies on the Grand Council than he realized.
Elliot could help him, give him information he most certainly needed. But how to do so without revealing that he’d been eavesdropping?
“We’ll have to put that aside for now. There’s still the matter of contacting the members of the council who we know will vote in our favor and ensuring they are apprised of the situation and willing to intercede, should we need them to.”
The conversation died down after that. For a while there was only the sound of papers and the scratch of a writing implement, followed by low murmurs that were impossible to overhear. Then Beryk excused himself, though the lantern remained lit, its steady glow visible even after Elliot and Sparrow climbed back down and waited in the shadows behind the building until the dinner bell rang.
As they merged with the crowd, Elliot was lost in thought.
Whatever the commander was doing, it had something to do with Lord Rolan, a war, and a Grand Council vote.
It made very little sense to Elliot—but it didn’t need to. He had information the commander could use, and now he just had to find a way to give it to him.
My sister also taught me that there is more than one kind of ash.
There are the ashes of destruction—all that is left after a blaze—
and there are the ashes of rebirth. The ashes of a remade
world… the fertile ground upon which new life grows.
- CHAPTER 12 - SEV
IT HAD BEEN DAYS since Sev was forced to face Kade and the rest of the surviving bondservants, and his heart was still racing. He knew that the bondservants who had been deemed innocent had been released, thanks to the early-morning gossip exchange that happened in the soldiers’ mess hall during breakfast, but he didn’t know where Kade had been assigned. He could have been sent to a number of other places in Ferro—or to other places in the empire besides—but Sev was desperate to talk to him again. About the plan, of course, but there was much more he had to say.
As for Ulric… Sev didn’t hear any news of him and was ashamed to admit he was afraid to ask.