Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass #6) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,168

to discuss the deal with your foreign trade vizier. Even if your armies will not join us, I don’t see how anyone can object to our purchase of your weapons.”

“And no doubt, this was meant to make me realize how lucrative this war might be, if your side is willing to invest in our resources.”

Chaol remained silent.

The khagan turned from the garden view, the sunlight making his white hair glow. “I do not appreciate being manipulated into this war, Lord Westfall.”

Chaol held the man’s stare, even as he gripped the arms of his chair.

The khagan asked quietly, “Do you even know what warfare is?”

Chaol clenched his jaw. “I suppose I’m about to find out, aren’t I.”

The khagan didn’t so much as smile. “It is not mere battles and supplies and strategy. Warfare is the absolute dedication of one army against their enemies.” A long, weighing look. “That is what you stand against—Morath’s rallied, solid front. Their conviction in decimating you into dust.”

“I know that well.”

“Do you? Do you understand what Morath is doing to you already? They build and plan and strike, and you can barely keep up. You are playing by the rules Perrington sets—and you will lose because of it.”

His breakfast turned over in his stomach. “We might still triumph.”

The khagan shook his head once. “To do that, your triumph must be complete. Every last bit of resistance squashed.”

His legs itched—and he shifted his feet just barely. Stand, he willed them. Stand.

He pushed his feet down, muscles barking in protest.

“Which is why,” Chaol snarled as his legs refused to obey, “we need your armies to aid us.”

The khagan glanced toward Chaol’s straining feet, as if he could see the struggle waging in his body. “I do not appreciate being hunted like some prize stag in a wood. I told you to wait; I told you to grant me the respect of grieving for my daughter—”

“And what if I told you that your daughter might have been murdered?”

Silence, horrible and hollow, filled the space between them.

Chaol snapped, “What if I told you that agents of Perrington might be here, and might already be hunting you, manipulating you into or out of this?”

The khagan’s face tightened. Chaol braced himself for the roaring, for Urus to perhaps draw the long, jeweled knife at his side and slam it into his chest. But the khagan only said quietly, “You are dismissed.”

As if the guards had listened to every word, the doors cracked open, a grim-faced Hashim beckoning Chaol toward the wall.

Chaol didn’t move. Footsteps approached from behind. To physically remove him.

He slammed his feet into the pedals of his chair, pushing and straining, gritting his teeth. Like hell they’d haul him out of here; like hell he’d let them drag him away—

“I came to not only save my people, but all peoples of this world,” Chaol growled at the khagan.

Someone—Shen—gripped the handles of his chair and began to turn him.

Chaol twisted, teeth bared at the guard. “Don’t touch it.”

But Shen didn’t release the handles, even as apology shone in his eyes. He knew—Chaol realized the guard knew just how it felt to have the chair touched, moved, without being asked. Just as Chaol knew what defying the khagan’s order to escort him from the room might mean for Shen.

So Chaol again fixed his stare on the khagan. “Your city is the greatest I have ever laid eyes upon, your empire the standard by which all others should be measured. When Morath comes to lay waste to it, who will stand with you if we are all carrion?”

The khagan’s eyes burned like coals.

Shen kept pushing his chair toward that door.

Chaol’s arms shook with the effort to keep from shoving the guard away, his legs trembling as he tried and tried to rise. Chaol looked over his shoulder and growled, “I stood on the wrong side of the line for too damn long, and it cost me everything. Do not make the same mistakes that I—”

“Do not presume to tell a khagan what he must do,” Urus said, his eyes like chips of ice. He jerked his chin to the guards shifting on their feet at the door. “Escort Lord Westfall back to his rooms. Do not allow him into my meetings again.”

The threat lay beneath the calm, cold words. Urus had no need to raise his voice, to roar to make his promise of punishment clear enough to the guards.

Chaol pushed and pushed against his chair, arms straining as he fought to stand,