a meeting, but the Fist was a fortress and lacked such amenities.
The duchess entered the dark room slowly, taking a moment to grow accustomed to the light before she curtseyed stiffly. She was not used to paying obeisance to others, and sitting for an hour at the gates of the Fist hadn’t helped her disposition, but the white-eye seemed neither to notice nor to care.
‘Lord Styrax,’ she said while her retinue filed into the gloom behind her, ‘I thank you for granting this audience. I can only imagine — ’
‘Correct,’ Styrax growled, ‘you can only imagine it. Do not waste my time with sentiments you do not understand.’
‘My Lord,’ the duchess exclaimed in genuine shock, ‘my robes of mourning are no mere affectation! I myself lost my husband in the clerics’ rebellion.’
Styrax made a dismissive gesture and she bit her tongue as her still-raw grief raged at his arrogance. She gave the room a cursory inspection and guessed it was an officers’ mess, with doors on each wall and a fireplace in front of her big enough to heat the entire room. Lord Styrax sat with his back to it, wearing a black uniform emblazoned with his Fanged Skull emblem. He was unshaven and looked exhausted, and in the dim light the Menin lord looked old, as though his unnaturally long span was at last catching up with him.
‘Major Amber,’ the duchess said, inclining her head graciously to the soldier at Styrax’s right hand. She noted how he winced as he acknowledged her greeting. He was not in full uniform. One leg was splinted and stretched out on a stool; one arm was cradled in a sling. His bruised and bloodied face and the broken line of his nose put her in mind of Sergeant Kayel.
There were two other Menin, a man and a woman, in the room and she felt her breath catch at the sight of them. They sat to one side and were clearly not going to be part of the discussion, but they were priests of the War God and their presence made Natai’s hands tighten.
The bastard priests were at the very heart of Byora’s problems, from the murder of her husband to the fear that permeated its very streets. The religious district in Byora remained closed since the failed coup, and Natai had not been in the same room as a priest since the Gods had struck down two who tried to murder her and Ruhen. Even the sight of their robes made her want to order Kayel to draw his sword — Though that pair looked like no priests she had ever met, with their weatherworn faces freshly scrubbed, their boots —
She stopped.
No priests wear boots like those.
The duchess looked at the Lord of the Menin. You bastard, dressing up your troops as priests to see how I would react . . . Did you think perhaps I would not notice?
‘My Lord, let me make known to you my advisors,’ Natai said softly as she gestured towards Lady Kinna and the Demi-God Koteer.
‘One of them looks a little young,’ Styrax said. In the weak light his white eyes were even more apparent. She felt their heat on her skin.
‘My ward, Ruhen.’ She looked around and realised there was no seat for her. This was a studied insult, a major breach of protocol.
‘You will not be staying long enough,’ Styrax said, seeing her reaction.
Ruhen took a sudden step forward, slipping from Kayel’s unresisting hands to grasp the duchess’ skirt. He tugged it and she looked down at him, smiling.
‘I’m tired,’ he complained. He shook his head and his carefully brushed hair fell over his eyes, deepening the shadows in them.
‘There are no seats, sweetheart,’ Natai said, ushering him back to Kayel.
‘But he has one,’ Ruhen protested in rare annoyance, pointing a little finger at Lord Styrax. There was a collective intake of breath even as Natai shushed the boy and pushed him back into Kayel’s charge.
‘I apologise, Lord Styrax,’ she said, trying not to show her fear. ‘He is only a child.’
‘An allowance can be made,’ Styrax said in an oddly hollow voice. ‘Ruhen, come over here. You may sit on my knee.’
Before Natai could react Ruhen had again slipped Kayel’s grasp and trotted across the room. He was the size of a six-year-old, and he looked tiny in comparison with the seven-foot-tall white-eye. Though his head was no higher than Styrax’s knee, he did not appear in the least daunted. When he was close