Hazan hesitated, taking a breath before saying, softly: “No.”
Kamran dropped the book on the table, watching it land with a dull thud. “Heavens,” he whispered. “That’swhat they’ve been doing here. All these Tulanian spies. All these months.” He shook his head, looked up. “I was wrong, Hazan. War will not solve our problem with Tulan. In fact, I’m starting to think it will make things worse.”
“How do you figure that?”
Kamran briefly squeezed his eyes shut, muttered a foul word under his breath. “Because,” he said, “it seems so obvious now that war is what they want. All this time, they’ve been goading us.”
“I don’t follow your logic. Why would they goad us into war? If they want war, they might launch a preemptive strike of their own—”
“If they were to invade our borders,” Kamran said, frustrated, “they’d be fighting us on our own land. An ant challenging a lion to a duel. Ardunia is enormous, our bases spread generously across the empire, our soldiers numberingin the hundreds of thousands. It’d be a suicide mission.”
Hazan visibly tensed, understanding dawning in his eyes. “But if we were to engage in a land war on their territory—”
“Exactly,” said Kamran. “Our soldiers would be compelled to leave their posts. Ardunia’s forces would be fractured; our priorities rearranged, our troops diverted, our empire far less guarded as a result. Tulan would take full advantage of our distraction to plunder the Arya mountains at their leisure, striking us where we’d least expect it. They’d sustain great losses in the process, but if this magic you speak of truly exists, their reward would be great indeed. Several thousand lives lost in exchange for untold, unknown magical power? It would certainly be worthwhile to someone like Cyrus.”
Hazan looked a bit shellshocked.
“All these recent offenses”—Kamran shook his head—“Hazan, you know as well as I do that neither of our empires is allowed to use destructive magic at the border—and in all our years of discord with Tulan, they’ve respected this, never breaking the Nix convention. But during the last water journey our ship was nearly overturned upon impact with a magical barrier. This alone should’ve been cause for retaliation, but despite my protests our officials would not see reason—”
“Yes,” said Hazan drily. “I can imagine how they struggled to see your point when you convoluted the issue by insulting them, suggesting that our exchanges with Tulan had become as familiar to them as their ownbowel movements—”
Kamran silenced Hazan with a dark look, choosing to ignore this proof of his recent stupidity. “In the last twoyears,” he said instead, “we’ve detained sixty-five Tulanian spies, more than half of whom we intercepted in the last eight months alone. But spies have been infiltrating our borders for centuries. Did they suddenly forget the definition of stealth? Why would they be so sloppy now? It’s almost as if theywantedto get caught.”
Hazan took on a shrewd look. “And then, of course, there is the small matter of your grandfather.”
“Precisely,” Kamran said, his own eyes narrowing. “It was you who pointed out that never, in all these years of peacetime, had a Tulanian king accepted an invitation to one of our balls.”
Hazan drew a deep breath, releasing it slowly before he said, “It goes without saying that killing and disgracing the sovereign of a neighboring empire are grounds for immediate retaliation.”
“And yet.” A muscle ticked in Kamran’s jaw. “Our officials continue to hesitate.”
“It doesn’t compute.”
“Hazan,” said the prince. “I smell a rat.”
“A rat?” Hazan looked up, surprised. “But wouldn’t a rat aim to fulfill Tulan’s desires? If, as you posit, Tulan is goading us into war, would not the guilty official have pounced eagerly upon any one of these opportunities to strike back?”
Kamran hesitated. “Maybe our rat is awaiting new intelligence.”
“Who? Zahhak?”
“I don’t... know,” Kamran said, his focus drifting as he remembered something his grandfather had told him justyesterday—he couldn’t believe it was yesterday. But Zaal had confessed to putting off war with Tulan all these years only forKamran’sbenefit, to spare him the loss of another parent, an immature ascension to the throne, a childhood forged in war.
But the late king was also the first to confirm—despite the reticence of all the other nobles—that war with Tulan was absolute. It was in fact one of the last things King Zaal had said to the prince.
War is coming, he’d whispered.
It has been a long time coming. I only hope I’ve not left you unprepared to face it.
Kamran found his nerves would not settle after that; some unspoken unease had come alive in his body like a warning, as if the last of his grandfather’s betrayals had yet to reveal itself.
“I’m not sure,” Hazan was saying, his steady voice pulling the prince free of his reverie. “I’d like to believe Zahhak is a rat—he fairly looks like one—but I’ve also known him too long. He’s been brutally loyal to Ardunia for decades.” He paused, his brows pulling together. “When did you say we began to intercept the bulk of the spies? Several months ago?”
Kamran took a sharp breath, regrouped, and nodded. “I was on a tour of duty the first time we brought a cluster in for questioning. It was fairly unprecedented to capture so many at once, and we’d foolishly congratulated ourselves on a job well done. This was seven, eight months ago—”
“Cyrus took the throne eight months ago.”
The prince’s jaw clenched. “You think they were under his orders to be captured? Or do you think Cyrus has been doing reconnaissance?”
