The Heart of Betrayal (The Remnant Chronicles 2)

Calantha and Ulrix were taking me out on the Komizar’s orders. I saw him leaving with Lia as we arrived in the stable yard. I feared for her in the Komizar’s company. “She’ll be fine,” Calantha said. I averted my gaze, saying I was only curious about the purpose of these rides throughout the city. “A campaign of sorts,” she told me vaguely. “The Komizar wishes to share our newly arrived nobility with others.”

“I’m only a lowly emissary. Not a noble.”

“No,” she said. “You’ll be anything the Komizar wishes you to be. And today you’re the grand Lord Emissary of the Prince of Dalbreck.”

“For a nation that despises royalty, he seems eager to flaunt it.”

“There are many ways to feed people.”

As we led our horses from the stable, the patty clapper carted a load in front of the door, tripping and spilling it to its side. Ulrix cursed him for blocking our way. “Fikatande idaro! Bogeve enar johz vi daka!”

The patty clapper scrambled on the ground, trying to return the patties as fast as he could to the cart. He stopped and looked up, cowering, spilling out apologies in Vendan. I squinted when I saw him, thinking I had to be mistaken.

It was Jeb. He was filthy, with matted hair, and he stank. Jeb. A patty clapper.

It took every bit of my willpower not to reach down and embrace him. They had made it—at least Jeb had. I looked around the stable yard, hoping to see the others. Jeb vigorously shook his head as he apologized for his clumsiness. He briefly aimed his gaze just at me, shaking his head again.

The others weren’t here. Yet. Or did he mean they wouldn’t be coming at all?

“Bring some of those up to my room when you’re done. North Sanctum Tower,” I said.

Calantha exchanged some quick words with Jeb. “Mi ena urat seh lienda?”

Jeb shook his head and gestured with his fingers. “Nay. Mias e tayn.”

“The fool doesn’t understand your tongue,” Ulrix growled. “And your room gets heated last, Emissary. When the Council is nice and warm, then maybe you’ll get some.”

Jeb nodded, throwing the last of the patties into the cart. North tower. The fool understood perfectly, and now he knew where to find me. He wheeled the cart out of the way, and Ulrix pushed past us, his patience spent. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Where is there?” I asked Calantha.

She sighed as if bored. For someone so young, she was jaded beyond her years. As much as I had tried to pry information from her about her position at the Sanctum, she was an icy wall when it came to details about herself. “We’re going to the Stonegate quarter with a quick stop at Corpse Call,” she said. “The Komizar thought you might find it entertaining.”

* * *

I had been a soldier in the field for almost four years. I had seen a lot. Men stabbed, maimed, their skulls split wide. I’d even seen men torn apart by wild animals, half eaten. In the Cam Lanteux and on the battlefield, there were no delicate considerations for how a man died. I had learned to expect anything. But the bile rose in my throat when we topped the crest of Corpse Call, and I stifled the catch in my chest as I started to look away.

Ulrix pushed on my shoulder. “Better get a good look. The Komizar’s going to ask you what you think of it.” I turned back. I looked steady and hard. Three heads on stakes. Flies buzzed on swollen tongues. Maggots roiled in eye sockets. A raven yanked stubbornly on something sinuous from a cheek, like it was a worm. But even through the decay, I could tell they were boys. They were once boys.

“The Assassin took care of these three. Traitors, they were.” Ulrix shrugged and walked back down the hillock.

I turned to Calantha. “Kaden did this?”

“Overseeing executions is his duty as Keep. The dressing up on stakes is done by soldiers. They’ll stay there until the last flesh falls from the bone,” she answered. “That’s on the Komizar’s orders.”

I looked at her, her single pale eye glistening, a weakness to her shoulders that were usually rigid with cynicism.

“You don’t approve,” I said.

She shrugged. “What I think doesn’t matter.”

I reached out and touched her arm before she could turn away. She flinched as if she thought I was going to strike her, and I stepped back.

“Who are you, Calantha?” I asked.

She shook her head, her bored manner returned. “I’ve been no one for a very long time.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX