Fortiss swings to face them again. “Why did you choose fire to attack them? I mean, that’s such a specific weapon, and to unleash it inside a holding, inside a village, you had to know it would work.”
I don’t miss his rapid repositioning of his original question. Nobody in Trilion, certainly not the lords in the midst of being attacked, would have raised their eyes toward the coliseum to see the attack going on there, the bursts of fire from Ayne’s jaws. The few lords who are still standing, the Fourth, the Sixth, and the Ninth, aren’t paying any attention to Tennet. He isn’t encouraging their notice, either, and his skin is still far too waxy, his eyes dull.
I frown. His eyes are fartoodull. There’s more than exhaustion at work here.
“What is the poison that these things drip from their bodies?” I ask sharply, drawing the attention of the councilors. “We’ve got four lords laid out on their beds, tended by our best healers, but what have they been poisoned with? How deadly is this toxin?”
Miriam sighs. “It’s closest to solana weed poisoning. As to its danger, five hundred years ago, my answer would have been different. When the Imperium first claimed the Protectorate for its own, the toxin was unknown to us. Our warriors who fell to it weren’t poisoned intentionally but came upon the plant intheir foraging. Back then, the smallest taste could be deadly, but those who survived that first exposure proved to be hardiest in the fight against the skrill. The connection wasn’t lost on the founders of the Protectorate.”
Caleb huffs from his spot in the corner. “They made it into a medicine?”
“After a fashion. The earliest leaders of the Protectorate weren’t willing to let such a common plant destroy us—and the threat of the skrill was ever-present in those early days. Children were given the herb in small doses, and over the generations, we developed a tolerance to its poison. But that’s only effective in the case of chance exposure—and the toxin isn’t an exact match, especially after so many centuries. With what these men were subjected to, the snakes wrapped around exposed skin, hissing and spitting, there’s no way of knowing. Worse, there’s no way to counteract the poison once it takes hold. The men who have been exposed will follow a similar pattern, if they mimic the victims from the early days of the Protectorate. They will rave, then they will sleep, and then, after a period of hours or days, they will wake up again…or maybe they will not. If they do wake, they’ll never fall victim to solana again. It’s a poison with limited efficacy except for as a surprise.”
“And the villagers?” Nazar asks as I swivel away from my position and move through the group, heading for Tennet. He’s been nothing but a thorn in my side since he first opened his mouth, but he fought fiercely and well. And there’s something about the way he’s swaying slightly on his feet that sets my teeth on edge.What’s wrong with him?“There were enough still awake and milling around when the attack happened, even if they weren’t targeted. It only takes a few voices to build to a roar of fear and outrage.”
“Yes, what of the villagers, Miriam?” Fortiss’s tone is sharp enough that it distracts me from my quarry, but onlymomentarily. Still, I glance over to see a surprising flush skate across the cheeks of the normally stoic councilor. “You seem to be particularly skilled at managing their concern.”
“Lord Protector,” she begins with a placating tone that Fortiss quickly shuts down.
“No. I know what you’re going to say, and I know the intention behind the words. We are in crisis, councilor Miriam. The men in this room are now a part of an ever-smaller cohort of warriors who can command Divhs of great stature. How many do we have in the Protectorate now? Twenty? Thirty? Losing five as we have tonight makes a difference. Even if they recover swiftly, I can’t use them in battle. When you have such a small army to level against an unknown threat, we don’t have the luxury of secrets. From this point forward, the rules that you followed under Lord Protector Rihad are no longer merely dangerous, they’re treasonous.”
A startled gasp rises up from the councilors and maybe one or two soldiers, but none of the lords flinch. “And no, I know that’s not your intention,” Fortiss continues, “but I need you to understand whatmyintention is. And that is to save the Protectorate from the enemy that Lord Rihad has invited onto our doorstep. He’s made the call and it, whatever in the blighted pathitis, has answered. I thank the Light that you were there to stop today’s attack and keep as many warriors in the fight…but who else will be targeted, and where? And if we bring them together here to take up arms in Trilion, will their houses be at risk?”
No matter how much I want to just watch him command the room, Fortiss’s words fade into the background as I reach Tennet. I sidle up beside him to the left, my hand slipping under his elbow as he sways again.
“This isn’t just sickness from your flight on Ayne, is it?” I whisper as he swings his head toward me, his gaze not quite fixing on me as his jaw tenses.
“I’mnotinjured,” he mutters between clenched teeth. “And don’t think I don’t see what Fortiss is trying to do up there. He’s attempting to talk himself into not using the lords of the houses in this fight.Protectingthem, in some way. That’s not acceptable. The Protectorate is ours to defend as much as it’s his—lest he forget, he’s a house lord, too.”
“Sure he is—there you go. That’s good, stay upright.” I shift my stance wider so I can take more of his weight. I’m not surprised when Caleb steps up to the other side of Tennet. The two of us lock eyes as Tennet lists again, and Caleb wraps his right arm around Tennet’s waist as I grip Tennet’s right forearm, forcing him to look at me. “Tennet, where are your rooms? Where did they put you and your men?”
“He can’t—he can’t keep us from defending our land. Our people. He…”
“There you go.” With Caleb’s help, I muscle Tennet out of the chamber and into the hallway. Caleb grunts as Tennet swoons, and one of the two guards at the door steps up smartly, looking briefly to me. At my nod of assent, he bends down and tucks his shoulder into Tennet’s gut, lifting him over one shoulder. The guard staggers a little, then he stands tall.
“He’s out,” Caleb says, also bent nearly double to get a look at Tennet’s face. “I have no idea where Fortiss stashed him and his men, but?—”
“We’ll take him to Nazar’s chambers.” I direct the guards, and Caleb and I follow close behind. Nazar’s still back in the great hall with Fortiss, but there won’t be much he can do with Tennet anyway until he wakes up.
Once we reach Nazar’s rooms, the guard deposits Tennet on a low couch near a window, the view looking out over the vastplain. Caleb busies himself at the hearth, stoking the fire there to a cheerier glow. The moon has tucked itself behind clouds now, and with the fire leaping again, there’s nothing much to see outside.
“Hecan’t…” Tennet’s low moan jerks my attention back down, and I drop to a crouch beside the bed, physically pushing him down as he tries to rise. Worse, his pallor has given way to a low, rosy flush, and when I move my hand to his cheek, I grimace.
“He’s too hot. Get water or something.”
“On it.” Caleb darts away but doesn’t leave the room—instead, he moves deeper into Nazar’s personal sleeping room, where the man doubtless has some provisions stashed. I certainly do in my own chambers.
Meanwhile, I loosen the collar of Tennet’s tunic, setting my jaw as I see his skin is an even darker red beneath his clothes, as if there’s a fire burning away at him from within. I move to his belt and unsling it, but the tunic is all in one piece, and Tennet’s as heavy as an ox. “Caleb, come on!”
“Coming!” Caleb rushes out of Nazar’s room again and skids to a stop beside me, stowing the large flagon of—something—next to where Tennet’s lying on the couch. “What in the blighted path happened to him? The others didn’t look like this, did they?”
“Who knows what they look like now? Help me get this thing off him.” Given that Caleb has only one arm, we both tug Tennet into a seated position again, then throw his weight on Caleb while I yank at the man’s tunic, peeling it up his back and over his head and shoulders. “If he was truly injured, we would’ve had to cut it off,” I grunt as I finally pull the garment free. I scowl down at it. “Not great for a towel, either. And I don’t know how much poison got on this.”
“Blood andstone.” Caleb pushes Tennet back onto the cushions then turns to me all in one motion, ripping the tunic out of my hands and tossing it halfway across the room. “I didn’t think about poison. Don’t move.” He races back into Nazar’s bedchamber and emerges moments later with an armful of towels. Throwing the pile down next to the flagon, he grabs the topmost one and dunks it in the water, then thrusts it at me. “Clean off. I don’t want to have to deal with two fainting warriors if I don’t have to.”
I dutifully wipe down my hands and, for good measure, the front of my tunic while Caleb ministers to Tennet, who’s at least done us the favor of passing out again. But as Caleb shifts back for more water, I sweep a hard glance over Tennet’s bared chest. The skin is as pristine as Fortiss’s—smooth and unscarred, but that angry red blotch at his neck…
In my mind’s eye, I see him crouched over the neck of his Divh, streaking through the sky toward the roiling mass of snakes. “His back,” I blurt. “They got to his back.”
