CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The Arissen

Pyaras managed not to burst into the Division offices as if fleeing rockfall. He was carrying Evvi, though, which surprised quite a number of the officers at the nearby desks. Once they’d recognized him and Jarel, most of them just nodded respectfully and went back to their work. Pyaras approached the young man at the closest desk, a pale Cohort Third with a sprinkling of sunmarks over his nose.

“Third, I’d like to request your help with something.” He set Evvi down, told her to stay, and fished the device from his pocket. “I found this, and I’m wondering if someone here lost it. Can we use your ordinator to look?”

“Certainly, Executor, sir,” the Third said. And added, a bit incredulously, “Is this your hound?” He bent for a second and offered Evvi his fingers. She seemed to have that effect on everyone.

“She belongs to an Arissen friend of mine,” Pyaras said. “Here.”

The Third took the device, but had scarcely had a chance to plug it in when muffled shouts echoed into the offices from the door to the foyer. “Pyaras! I know you’re in there. Come out!”

Mercy, that was Nekantor. What was he doing here? Wasn’t he supposed to be at the Round of Eight?

He wouldn’t be looking for the storage device, though; he wouldn’t know about Evvi, or he’d have captured her before.

What could this be about?

Pyaras gave the young officer a deliberate smile. “Third, I’m going to need to talk to the Eminence in the foyer for a few minutes. Please take my Jarel’s guidance on this until I come back.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have reason to believe this may be sensitive information, so please allow her to study it first.”

“Understood, sir.”

Pyaras drew himself up, though it felt like he’d swallowed a stone. Most important: he mustn’t give Nek any reason to suspect what was going on behind this door.

He walked out into the foyer with his head held high. There was Nekantor, with a Cohort guard behind him.

“Your Eminence,” Pyaras said. “Are you here to speak to the Executor?”

Nekantor didn’t look good. He was scowling, and his gaze bounced around the foyer, from the woven mat on the floor, to the metal benches, to the door to the Executor’s playroom. He was straightening his clothes as if he’d had to hurry here and didn’t like it. He lashed a glance at Pyaras.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am. Here to speak to the Executor.”

“You found him.”

Nekantor glanced back the way he’d come in, as though he’d forgotten something, and his fingers flickered over his buttons. “Do you have any idea why I gave you this job?”

“That’s easy. I’m the only one in the Family who knows anything about how to deal with Ar—”

“To stop you being an embarrassment!” Nekantor snapped.

Gnash Nekantor. “Great. I hope that worked out for you.”

Nekantor’s eyes flashed, and he flung up both hands. “Of course it didn’t work. You’re worse than I thought. You’re not just stubborn. You’re utterly useless!”

Pyaras gritted his teeth. He couldn’t help thinking about what Jarel might be discovering, behind the office door; but for now, apparently, he had to stand here and let his cousin insult him.

“Fantastic.”

“You think you’re funny?” Nekantor demanded. “Well, I’ve had enough. That ends now. Starting today, you’re going to show me some respect.”

“Make me.”

His cousin’s lips stretched into a snarling smile. “Oh, I plan to. Don’t tell me you’re too stupid to notice some people aren’t where they should be.”

Veriga. Melín. His skin flashed hot, then cold. Mercy of Heile, this wasn’t about the investigation, or about the Selection, it was about him?

“You’re not going to be refusing my orders again,” Nekantor said. “From now on, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

He tried not to give away his horror. “Or else?”

“Or else your friends will have a more painfully difficult day than they are already.”

What was Nekantor doing to Melín and Veriga? He wasn’t the type to engage in physical tortures . . . but members of the Eminence’s Cohort might be. “Uh,” he said. “Let me just—”

“No.”

Pyaras snapped his mouth shut.

“I don’t recommend you try to rescue them,” said Nekantor. “They’re in two separate locations. If you want to try, you’re going to have to choose.”

Choose, between Veriga and Melín? No blasted way. But to do as Nekantor said?

“All right, I’ll do as you say,” Pyaras said. “Let them go.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

His face flushed hot.

Nekantor poked a finger at him. “Prove to me that you’re not lying. Send a hundred soldiers into the northern neighborhoods, right now.”

“What? Why?”

Nekantor crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. “I’m the Eminence. I don’t need to explain myself to an Executor.”

It was true; he didn’t. The answer was obvious enough. A guard of the Eminence’s Cohort had killed Herin, and Nekantor had publicly purged any guards deemed ‘suspicious.’ As a result, the Eminence’s Cohort, fully controlled by Nekantor, now guarded every gate and door on the Residence grounds—but after the purge, there were too few guards to control the northern neighborhoods. If he allowed Nekantor to control him, then Nekantor could control the Division—and that meant he could control every Grobal in Pelismara.

He couldn’t allow that to happen.

Holy Sirin, help me to be a better liar.

“All right,” Pyaras said. “I’m going to relay the new orders to Commander Tret; be right back.”

He turned his back on Nekantor, trying not to think about the Cohort guard’s weapon, or about what Nekantor might have done to Veriga, or what he might have done to Melín. He returned through the door into the offices and pulled the door shut behind him.

For a second, he could only stand there, breathing.

The young Cohort Third turned to look at him. So did his Jarel.

“Sir,” said Jarel. “It’s exactly what we thought.”

“Hide it, Jarel,” Pyaras said. “Tell no one where you’ve hidden it.”

“Yes, sir.” She bowed to the floor. “My heart is as deep as the heavens. No word uttered in confidence will escape it.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for your service, Jarel. You’ve always been better than I deserved.”

She must have seen his desperation in his face, because her eyes widened. “Sir . . .”

Pyaras walked between the desks toward the glass-enclosed offices at the back of the room, and knocked on Commander Tret’s door.

The Commander looked up from his desk and smiled, beckoning him in. “Executor, I thought I told you not to come back until the Selection was over.”

“I think it is over, Commander.”

Tret’s smile vanished. “What’s happened?”

“The Eminence is in the foyer. He is attempting to coerce me into ordering the Division to take control of the northern Grobal neighborhoods.”

Tret looked horrified. “Executor—”

“I hereby request asylum in the Arissen,” Pyaras said. “Commander Tret, sir, I hope you will be willing to serve as my sponsor. If I can no longer serve as Executor, it doesn’t matter what he tries to do; I will no longer be able to enforce his orders.”

The Commander understood instantly. He stood and strode past Pyaras to the office door. “Hand! I need you to print some paperwork, as fast as you can. And someone get me the quartermaster; or if she’s not available, get me someone about the Executor’s size.”

It was shockingly quick. The Captain’s Hand produced the papers—not more than four pages—and he and Commander Tret filled them out. Pyaras kept thinking of Nekantor, waiting in the foyer for his satisfaction . . . but then, he reached the last line and had to sign his name. The supreme effort of that act pushed everything else out of his mind.

Sign your name. Do it.

Arissen Pyaras.

The quartermaster was too slow, but one of the Seconds stripped to underwear right in front of everyone, and gave him a uniform. He apologized to the man, shucked out of his suit, and put the new clothes on. Bright rust-red.

“Are you ready?” the Commander asked.

He swallowed. “I think so. Sir, please come with me.”

“You’re not going out there by yourself. You, you, you, and you, and let’s get at least two more—” Tret waved over several officers, until he was entirely surrounded. “All right, let’s go.”

His heart pounded so hard he felt dizzy. Commander Tret led the way, opened the door. Nekantor was still standing there, impatient, frustrated, furious.

“Varin gnash you, what took you so long? You—” Then he seemed to see what he was looking at, and recoiled. “Pyaras?!”

Commander Tret glanced at Pyaras, encouragingly.

Pyaras took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I can’t help you, your Eminence, sir. I’m no longer the Executor of the Pelismara Division.”

Nekantor shouted, “No!”

“I’m an Arissen.”