weeks ago. Since then it had grown tenfold. Great billowing clouds of gray and ebony rose from the mountaintop, spreading as they gained height and blowing off over the Adsea. Historians said that the last time South Pike had erupted had been when Kresimir first set foot upon the holy mountain. They said that all of Kez had been covered in ash, that lava had destroyed hundreds of villages in Adro.
Words like “omen” and “bad tidings” were being spoken by men far too educated to take such things seriously.
He turned away from the distant mountain and looked south. The lighthouse itself was no more than four stories, but it stood on a bluff that put it well above most other buildings in Adopest. A side of the hill had given way during the earthquake, revealing the foundation of the lighthouse but sparing the structure itself. Beneath him, artillery batteries flanked the docks. Tamas didn’t think those cannons had ever been fired. They were mostly for show, a remnant of older traditions, not unlike the Mountainwatch itself. In its long history, the Nine had come close to war countless times, but not since the Bleakening had there been actual bloodshed. Off in the distance a Kez galley floated at anchor, flags flying high.
“Have those batteries tested tomorrow,” Tamas said. “We might have need of them soon.”
“Yes, sir,” Olem said. Olem and Sabon stood at his shoulders, bearing his quiet reflection with patience. A full honor guard waited down on the beach for the Kez delegation. Servants rushed around the beach, making last-minute preparations to a welcoming repast for the visiting dignitaries. Food was brought out, parasols and open tents staked in the sand, liveried men trying to keep them from blowing away with the wind coming in off the Adsea.
Andriya and Vlora were hidden at either end of the beach, eyes sharp for Privileged, rifles loaded. Tamas was taking no chances with this delegation, and the wrenching feeling deep in his gut told him he was right. There were Privileged with them, his third eye had revealed as much—though at this distance it was impossible to sense how many or how strong.
A longboat was making its way from the galley to the shore. Tamas put a looking glass to his eye and counted two dozen men. There were Wardens among them, easy to pick out for their size and their hunched, misshaped shoulders and arms.
“Ipille dares to send Wardens,” Tamas growled. “I’m tempted to blow that boat out of the water right now.”
“Of course he dares,” Sabon said. “He’s bloody king of the Kez.” Sabon coughed into his hand. “The Privileged with them likely feels the same way about you as you do of him. He knows you’ll have powder mages on the beach.”
“My Marked aren’t godless, sorcery-spawned killers.” Only the Kez had figured out how to break a man’s spirit and twist his body to create a Warden. Every other royal cabal in the Nine blanched at experimenting with human beings.
Sabon seemed amused by this. “What scares you more: a man who’s next to impossible to kill, or a man who can kill you at a league’s distance with a rifle?”
“A Warden or a powder mage? I’m not frightened of either. Wardens disgust me.” He spit on the lighthouse stones. “What’s gotten into you today? You’ve been philosophical enough lately to drive a man to tears.”
Olem gave a strangled laugh. “Breakfast,” he said.
Tamas turned on the soldier. “Breakfast?”
“He ate six bowls of porridge this morning,” Olem said. He tapped the ash from his cigarette and watched it blow off with the wind. “I’ve never seen the colonel put down so much so fast.”
The Deliv gave an embarrassed shrug. “That new cook is really something. It was like drinking milk straight from the teats of the saint herself. Where’d you get him?”
Tamas swallowed. He felt a cold sweat on his brow. “What do you mean, ‘Where’d I get him?’ I’ve not hired a new cook.”
“He said you appointed him head chef yourself,” Olem said. He put a hand out in front, miming a large belly, and took on an air of self-importance. “ ‘… to fill the hearts, minds, and souls of the soldiers and give them strength for the coming years.’ Or so he says.”
“A fat man, this tall?” Tamas gestured above his head.
Olem nodded.
“Long black hair, looks like a Rosvelean?”
“I thought he was a quarter Deliv,” Olem said. “But yes.”