ideals betrayed. Revenge on Eneko, for thrusting him here in the first place. Kacha… Kacha. Revenge on the guild would be revenge on her too, and that could only come about through Licio returning to power.
Whatever it took, the return of the king couldn’t come soon enough for him.
Interlude
Seventeen years earlier
Kacha sat on the parapet that spiralled around the duellists’ guild and looked out over the docks as the sun rose. Stupid, she knew. Stupid to think she might spot Ma or Da down there in among the people who looked like beetles scuttling over the yellow stone of the docks and jetties, weaving among the warehouses or just loitering on the shore looking longingly at those who had work. She hoped to anyway. Her ninth birthday, and the first without either of them. No being woken before dawn so Da could give her a present before he left for the docks, if he had any work. No special cup of chocolate – the yearly treat that he saved up for, for months sometimes. No sitting on his lap and soaking up his adoration, no one to be perfect for.
All she had to look forward to were drills, drills, more drills, Vocho trailing her every move like an annoying puppy that was her only link to home, and endless lessons on the history of the guild, interminable lectures on ethics and doing the right thing, the good thing. Vocho lapped all that up, loving the romance of the guildsmen and -women from long ago, before the empire when the guild had been a loose union of mercenary warriors looking to have a bit of security. When the Castans had come, and brought all their fantastic engineering with them, they’d been smart, Eneko said. Kacha loved listening to him more than she loved the history. There was something reassuring about the guild master at a time when everything was strange and new. He always had a smile for her, an encouraging word, a comforting hand on her shoulder, a trick or hint on how to do better at swordplay. He was the closest she had to Da here, and already thoughts of Da and Eneko were getting confused, mixed together.
Instead of fighting the duellists, Eneko said, who even then were seen as figures worthy of respect, the Castans had hired them wholesale as bodyguards, given them this stronghold and autonomy, and set up the codes she now had to live by. They’d become so strong that when the empire fell, the guild stood. The guild always stood, solid and invincible, which is why Da had sent them here.
She didn’t care. Homesick, that was the trouble. However much she’d thought she’d wanted this, she wanted to be home. Vocho being around helped. They had turned to each other a lot in the first weeks, and he wasn’t always annoying, but he wasn’t enough. She wanted home, all of it. Listening to Ma and Da, smelling his pipe smoke, telling him everything she’d done that day, and he always put aside everything to listen. Freed his lap from whatever job from around the house he had to do, scooped her up and listened. Here no one listened, not really. Not even Eneko, though he was better than most. No, here she was the one listening – do this, do that, mind your footwork, keep your guard up. Her only consolation was she was getting pretty good. She could beat half the boys in her year in a free fight, and the other half she’d get to a draw. She had to be good. There had to be something instead of Da and his listening and his pipe smoke; she had to make leaving him behind worth it. When she won a duel, even if it was with wooden practice swords, she got a bit of praise from her tutor, sometimes Eneko’s hand on her shoulder and a “Well done.” She had to make Da proud too, Eneko proud. Anyone proud. That “Well done” was what she lived for, the fuel to her fire. Some of the others, especially Vocho, teased her about being Eneko’s little pet, but she didn’t care. She needed something, someone instead of Da, and Eneko was it.
Why couldn’t she see Da down there? His face was starting to get hazy in her memory – every time she thought of him, his eyes would be overlaid with Eneko’s twinkling ones, his nose would morph into Eneko’s, his hair would lengthen,