coach all the way to Brudania. Along with her silver, it was enough for a new life.
She saw Field Marshal Tamas in her mind as he coolly gunned down Bystre.
She couldn’t start a new life, not with memories of what had happened.
Chapter 12
Shouldercrown Fortress rested on the jagged ridgeline of South Pike Mountain. Its bastion walls were sloped and smooth despite the harsh weather at this altitude, a testament to the powerful sorceries that had built and warded them five hundred years ago. To the southeast, the amber plains of Kez rolled out in the distance. To the northwest, the far mountains that ringed Adro could be seen past the hills and forests. Adopest nestled like a diamond on the teardrop tip of the Adsea. To the north, South Pike’s peak smoked ominously.
Adamat turned away from the edge of the bastion. Seeing the whole world laid out like that made his head spin, and he wanted to head back into the town—a whole town inside the bastion, that’s how large it was!—yet the Mountainwatch soldier had told him to wait here for Privileged Borbador. They could have offered him a room. It was far below freezing at this height. Seemed they wanted to see him shiver.
Adamat was exhausted physically and mentally. Even with modern roads the trip was five days by coach, and they had barely stopped to rest. His body hurt from sitting on an uncomfortable, constantly jostling seat. His head pounded from too little rest. Rozalia’s cryptic warning about a woman trying to summon Kresimir had given him nightmares the few times he caught any sleep. What was wrong with him? He was a modern man. An educated man. Kresimir was a myth, an embodiment of monastic power that kept the peasants in line.
“What are you doing?”
SouSmith paused in the middle of loading one of his short-barrel pistols. The weapon looked like a toy in his big hands. “What does it look like?”
“You think he’s going to kill us?” Adamat asked. “Just for asking a question?”
“Last Privileged almost did us in.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“This is a Privileged, SouSmith. If he doesn’t want to talk to us, he waves a hand and sweeps us from this bastiontop.”
SouSmith shrugged. “You paid me to be a bodyguard, eh?”
“Yes.” Adamat sighed. SouSmith didn’t seem to understand. This was a Privileged. There was no guarding anybody against one of these.
“Even a Privileged has to come through me to get ya.” SouSmith resumed loading the weapon.
Adamat stifled a smile and realized the words had banished some of his nervousness. He was up here on the roof of the world, a five-day journey from Adopest. He was at a Mountainwatch. Everyone knew the Mountainwatch was filled with convicts and cutthroats and the very hardest men in the Nine. They tended the high passes, manned the mines and the timber yards, and they were Adro’s first defense against a foreign invasion. Adamat trusted his country with the Mountainwatch far more than he trusted them with his life.
“What’s a Privileged doin’ out here anyway?” SouSmith finished loading his pistols and stuck them in his belt. He leaned against one of the fixed guns that faced toward Kez.
“Exiled.” Adamat watched his breath come out white.
“What for?”
“Officially? There was a shift in power within the royal cabal, and Borbador was on the wrong side. Unofficially, rumor has it he slept with Privileged Khen’s favorite concubine.”
SouSmith grunted a laugh. “And he kept his skin?”
“Of course I did.”
The Privileged approached them from the town within the bastion. He was far enough away that he shouldn’t have heard any of that. He wore a long reindeer-skin jacket that went to his knees, and boots, pants, and a hat to match. He was shorter than Adamat had expected. Under a ruddy beard, loose skin hung from what once had been jowls. The Mountainwatch was kind to no one—not even a Privileged.
The Privileged stopped a few feet from them. His hands were tucked into his sleeves, but Adamat thought he caught sight of the white of Privileged’s gloves.
“It wasn’t hard, really,” the Privileged said. “I told Magus Khen that my best friend would come after him if he killed me.”
“And who’s that?”
“Taniel Two-Shot. I’m Privileged Borbador. Call me Bo.”
Adamat extended a hand. Bo took it in his gloved hand with surprising strength. “Inspector Adamat. This is my associate, SouSmith.”
Bo squinted at SouSmith. “The boxer?”
“That’s right,” SouSmith said, surprised.
“Used to go see you fight when I was a kid,” Bo said. “Taniel and I would sneak off