“Take us to the House of Nobles,” Taniel said. “As quick as you can.”
Chapter 8
Olem,” Tamas said, “did you know someone wrote a biography about me?”
Olem perked up from his at-ease position beside the door. “No, sir, I didn’t.”
“Not many do.” Tamas pressed his fingers together and watched the door. “The royal cabal had them all bought up and burned—well, most of them anyway. The author, Lord Samurset, fell out of favor with the crown and was banished from Adro.”
“The royal cabal didn’t like his portrayal?”
“Oh, not at all. He was very favorable toward powder mages. Said they were a fantastically modern weapon that would one day replace Privileged altogether.”
“Dangerous conjecture.”
Tamas nodded. “I’m just vain enough to have rather enjoyed the book.”
“What did he say about you?”
“Samurset claims that my marriage made me conservative, that my son’s birth gave me mercy, and that my wife’s death hardened both qualities with an objectiveness to make them useful. He said that my climb to the rank of field marshal while on the Gurla campaign was the best thing to happen to the Adran military in a thousand years.” Tamas waved his hand dismissively. “Rubbish, most of it, but I do have a confession.”
“Sir?”
“There are times when I don’t feel a sense of mercy or justice or anything but pure rage. Times that I feel I’m twenty again and the solution to every problem is pistols at twenty paces. Olem, that is the most dangerous feeling a commander can have. Which is why, if I look like I’m about to lose my temper, I want you to tell me. No fidgeting, no polite coughs. Just plain out tell me. Can you do that?”
“I can,” Olem said.
“Good. Then send in Vlora.”
Tamas watched his son’s former fiancée enter the room with no small bit of trepidation. Many thought of Tamas as cold. He encouraged the notion. Perhaps his son had suffered for that. But Tamas knew that beneath his calculating nature he had a temper, and for the first time in his life he wanted to shoot a woman.
Tamas interlocked his fingers on the desk in front of him. He fixed his mouth into that ambiguous place between smile and frown.
Vlora was a dark-haired beauty with a classic figure, wide hips and a small chest outlined by the tight blue uniform of an Adran soldier. Her father had been a na-baron who had lost his fortune speculating in all the wrong things. The last of their family wealth had gone to a gold mine in Fatrasta—one that pinched out two months after mining began. He had died a year after that last failure, when Vlora was only ten. Sabon had found her months later, placed in a boarding school by her few remaining relatives; an abandoned child with a unique talent: the ability to ignite powder from not just a dozen paces, as most Marked could, but at a distance of several hundred yards. Tamas had taken her in, provided for her upbringing, and given her a career in the army. What had gone wrong?
“Sir,” she said, snapping to attention before him. Tamas found himself looking at an invisible point above her head as he struggled to restrain his anger. “Powder Mage Vlora reporting, sir.”
Tamas flinched. She’d called him Tamas since she was fourteen. Not one soul had ever commented on that brazen familiarity. She’d treated him more like a father than Taniel ever had.
“Sit,” Tamas ordered.
Vlora sat.
“Sabon apprised you of the situation?” He could feel her studying his face. He kept his own gaze in the air above her head.
“We’ve lost a lot of men, sir,” she said. “A lot of friends.”
“A serious blow to the powder cabal. I need mages now. I’d have liked to leave you…” At Jileman University, he finished in his head. Where she could continue her studies and continue betraying his son. Tamas cleared his throat. “I need you here.”
“I’m here,” she said.
“Good,” Tamas said. “I’m going to put you with the seventy-fifth regiment on the north end of the city. There’s rioters up there to mop up and…” Tamas paused at a low knock on the door. Olem opened the door just a little. A communiqué was passed through, and there was a moment of whispering between the bodyguard and someone on the other side.
“Tamas,” Vlora said suddenly. “I’d like to be put with Taniel, if that is possible.”