“During the Night of a Thousand Fires, a woman you don’t know tries to run away from a group of pikemen chasing her. You interfere, and they impale you. You lose the use of your legs but survive for another three months as a beggar on the streets, until a random scrounger slits your throat for the few coins you had managed to gather that day.”
He stared at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said and meant it.
“Clover?”
“I don’t know. Some people have big parts to play, some small. I don’t know what happens to her and Kaiden.”
The blademaster sank into his chair.
The silence lay like a brick between us.
“How does it end?” he asked.
“It’s a mystery.”
The second book stopped with the civil war still raging and the invasion by the Crimson Empire going full force.
“How does Hreban fit into this?”
“I suspect he is the architect of this mess.” I had suspected it since finishing the first book. “I don’t know exactly how he brought this about, but while other Great Families are shocked and reeling, he jumps on a chance to seize authority.”
“As if he were expecting the opportunity to present itself,” Reynald said.
I nodded. “Hreban craves power. He thinks he is entitled to it. Yesterday morning I was walking through the city . . .”
I told him about the thief. Every gory detail was branded in my mind, and it spilled out of me like a geyser.
“He calls itthe contemplation. He doesn’t see people as people, he sees them as tools he can use. In his view, a faulty human tool should be discarded, but not before they fully understand the depth of their failure. That’s why he partially cauterizes their wounds—to prolong the suffering. He wants them to realize the errors that led to their end and have timeto contemplate. . .”
The expression on Reynald’s face cut me off. It was hard, cold, and merciless, as if a different man suddenly sat in his place. A dangerous man who’d made up his mind and wouldn’t be deterred. I almost scooted back in my chair.
“Is this something he does often?”
I sighed. “Not yet, but he will. After the second assassination, Sauven grants him unchecked power.”
“To Ulmar Hreban?” Reynald’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“Yes. Hreban is the one who burns the capital, he is the one who butchers Applegrove, and after he does all that, he starts mass executions. He lines the King’s Way with prisoners incontemplation. Fifty people per batch. They die slowly, while the city watches, and when they pass on, he brings more out. Around-the-clock executions for a week.”
There was a demon sitting in the chair in my office, and he was contemplating murder.
“It’s not that simple,” I told him. “Right now, the only thing Hreban is guilty of is killing the thief.”
“That’s enough for me,” Reynald said.
“You and I are on the same page. Hreban perpetrated torture and murder. He should be brought to justice. But killing him now would just postpone the inevitable. People like him rise to power not because they are incredibly capable but because the situation is ripe for it. Hreban murdered that boy and dumped his body to test Kair Toren. If eliminating Hreban could solve this problem, the city would’ve roared in outrage. Instead they let him get away with it.”
Reynald’s expression turned calculating. “Rellas has become accustomed to the Great Families wielding unchecked power.”
“Yes. And the higher he rises, the less accountable he becomes. Power attracts supporters. After Hreban receives the royal mandate, he reaches out to the Order of the Redeemer. Silveren has misgivings but in the end he sees a way to elevate his order above the Defenders and the Conquerors. The Redeemers become Hreban’s enforcers.”
“You’re telling me that a holy order willingly chooses to support Ulmar Hreban? The man despised by the entire knighthood?”
“Yes. By that point enough things happen to throw the other two knight orders off-balance. They leave Kair Toren, and Silveren jumps on that opportunity. With knights at his back, Hreban is unstoppable. Competing merchant guilds who wouldn’t do business with him enter losing deals to curry favor. Councilors who denounced him crawl to his house bearing gifts to save themselves. In the end, nobody can keep him in check.”
“All the more reason to remove him now.”
