25. THE ERODING LINE

Tyentso’s story

The imperial war camp

Afternoon

Tyentso returned to her tent and fought the temptation to collapse onto the bed. There was too much work to be done. Honestly, what was the point of being in charge of everything if she had to do all this damn paperwork? Caerowan hadn’t yet made any serious mistakes, but he had to know she was double-checking all his work. Tyentso knew that if she didn’t at least keep an eye on that paperwork, on making sure that everyone was pulling their weight fairly, any amount of funny business might sneak through.

She stopped herself. That wasn’t true. She knew that wasn’t true. Everyone was too tightly wound up in duty and devotion and giving their lives for the empire to do something like that. Yet her immediate, visceral reaction was still to assume the worst of intentions. In Caerowan’s case, though …

Fayrin wasn’t wrong. Caerowan’s problem was that he might cause trouble with the best of intentions, convinced he was acting for the good of the empire. She did need to keep an eye on him.

She stared down at the desk in her tent and then, gradually, focused on the paperweight on top of one of the stacks of papers. It was new.

It was a tsali stone.

She slipped her sight past the Veil to confirm that it wasn’t some sort of trap before touching the stone. Yes, it was a tsali stone. A recently made one. Red, fading to a subtle orange along its length. It rested on top of a piece of torn cloth, folded into quarters.

Tyentso unfolded the piece of cloth, recognizing the embroidery: the crossed swords over the Crown and Scepter of Quur. A general’s insignia. The edge of the cloth was bloodstained. She examined the way the light caught at the darker stain.

Still wet.

Whoever had placed this in her tent had done so only minutes before. And since her wards were intact, they’d done so with enough skill to avoid magical detection.

She felt a chill.

Tyentso stripped the wards in seconds and built a new set, this one based on a much more obscure set of techniques. Then she crafted another spell that would dampen all the heat signatures in the room. Lastly, she overlaid an illusion so that if someone managed to get through all that, they’d see Tyentso doing paperwork.

That was about as much as she could do to ensure privacy. She’d just have to hope no one was really committed to seeing what she was up to when she was alone.

Or at least, when she seemed to be alone.

“Jarith, are you responsible for this?” Tyentso asked. “I know you’re here. I can sense you. I knew you were following me before we left the Capital.”

Nothing happened for several long seconds. Then the shadows deepened and coalesced into a man-shaped cloud of darkness, topped with an eyeless white porcelain mask.

“Veils,” Tyentso murmured. She’d assumed he’d at least look human. But this was …

The darkness shuddered and changed again. This time, it morphed in front of her eyes into a human man.

Tyentso had only seen Jarith once, after he was already dead, but it was enough to recognize him. But even if the creature in front of her looked like Jarith, there was something decidedly wrong about his eyes, his blank expression. If this was Jarith, it was a Jarith who had seen things, done things, that had twisted him forever.

**No. I didn’t do this. I stayed with you after we left the meeting.** Jarith’s voice echoed in her mind.

“Great.” She held out the tsali stone. “Then whose soul is this? Can you tell?”

Tyentso hadn’t been certain that he’d be able to pick up the stone, but he reached out and plucked the rock from her fingers. He stared at the rock with peculiar intentness.

**Fosrin.** He gave the stone back to her.

Tyentso stared. “Fosrin? General Fosrin? Jarith, we were just talking to him! Just a few minutes ago—”

She thought back. She hadn’t gone straight to her tent from that meeting. She’d stopped by the mess for a cup of coffee and then spoke to one of the cartographers about the accuracy of the local maps. Twenty, maybe thirty minutes, not counting the time to walk the distance. She had walked too—teleporting everyplace played hell on assassin planning schedules, but it also denied her the opportunity to mingle with her soldiers.

That was enough time, perhaps, to commit a murder and leave the proof sitting on her desk. She swallowed and closed her hand into a fist. A tsali. Fuck.

Someone was trying quite hard to make Tyentso feel like Gadrith was alive again.

She let out a long, shuddering breath and sat down. Clearly, not everyone in the camp loved her. This was a mind game, another gentle nudge to leave her off-balance.

**You need to stop this.**

Tyentso’s head snapped up as she felt a rush of heat come over her in response to Jarith’s chastising. “Be more specific.”

**The morgage aren’t your enemy.**

Tyentso felt black laughter bubble up in her. “Aren’t my enemy? Oh, I beg to differ. Look, I understand that they’re just trying to survive. So am I. And the only way that I’ll do that is if I deal with them so quickly and so decisively that they cannot possibly be a threat to Khorvesh.” She waved her hand holding the stone. “And deal with whoever thinks this is cute. Havar, I assume.”

**Is that you speaking, or the anger? The fear?**

A shudder rippled through her. “How do you know—?”

**I’m a demon, Your Majesty. I feel it, taste it. This whole camp is soaked in unnatural anger and hate.**

“I realize that, but I’m fine.”

**You’re not fine. None of you are. And none of you are thinking clearly.** Jarith narrowed his eyes at the tsali stone. **Someone’s trying to feed that anger, make it grow. Someone wants to make it worse.**

Tyentso collapsed back into a chair. He was right. None of them were thinking. Fosrin, perhaps, but he was already dead. He’d already been in Khorvesh when the rest of the army arrived. Meaning he hadn’t been exposed to whatever was causing this. She wondered if that was why he’d been targeted—because he might otherwise have been a voice of reason.

She rubbed her face and tried to slow the pounding of her heartbeat, which even now was drumming out a tempo that screamed she should be attacking, that she was in danger. Everything made her angry. Everything made her lash out.

Made much worse by the fact that someone in the camp was her enemy.

But what was Tyentso supposed to do? Wait for some second-string House D’Lorus Ogenra to finish toying with her? Just withdraw and let the morgage rampage across Khorvesh? Give them an entire dominion and just shrug? Sit down and bargain with them?

Wait.

Fuck. Everyone expected her to fight the morgage.

Why not bargain with them?

There was only one enemy she planned on fighting, and that was Havar. The morgage? The Yorans? Those weren’t her enemies. They were distractions, meant to siphon away her energy, pick off her people, make her ill-prepared to face the real threat.

Murad, or Havar, or whatever the hell his real name was, had invested quite a bit of energy into putting her in an impossible situation. He was likely responsible for whatever curse was causing everyone to behave so recklessly. He had planned this.

No, no, no. She wasn’t a fool. Relos Var had planned this. Whether Havar D’Aramarin realized it or not was inconsequential. She knew who the real puppet master was. He would try to use the people she cared about against her, strike at her through what he perceived as her weaknesses. Even this, leaving a fucking tsali behind for her, smacked of someone who knew her too well. Havar may not have known about her relationship with her father, Gadrith D’Lorus, who did so dearly love creating tsali stones from his victims … but Relos Var did.

Jarith was right. Whoever was responsible for killing one of her people had done so simply to keep her off-kilter and upset. Not thinking clearly.

Tyentso still felt angry. She still felt like she was two steps from committing a murder with every breath.

“You’re right. I’ll try to control this better—”

But the demon was already gone.