Chapter XXIV: The Traitor

I stood up, resting one hand on the hilt of my saber and looking up into Burnardor’s dull gray eyes, trying to make my face look neutral instead of utterly furious. She looked unperturbed. 

“You’ve been working with the Cassandrans,” I said quietly. “You don’t want to create an alliance with the Durkahns, you want them conquered and colonized. You’ve been trying to kill the other delegates, including Lady Halflance, and make it look like an accident.”

Burnardor raised one eyebrow, but otherwise didn’t let any reaction show on her face. “I did not, but I would very much love to see what brought you to conclude such a thing.”

I glanced to Sarnai, making sure that she was paying attention. Then, silently, I withdrew the folded and crumpled letter from one pocket. “You’ve been trying to convince Dinara to go along with you, to turn her own country into an annex of Bluerose.”

“You little thieving bitch!” she said, lunging for the letter. I ducked back, and Sarnai took a half-step, throwing her own muscular arm out to block Burnardor.

“I wholeheartedly agree with your thoughts on Urcos;” I read from the letter, “that the plateau remains so isolated in the face of the advancements made by her southern neighbors is a shame. This plan that you’ve put forward is very aggressive, and I don’t entirely think that you’re going in the right direction with it. Sarnai, if you want to read it, it’s all right here!”

I handed the letter to Sarnai, who began to read it, then turned back to Burnardor. “And I heard what you wanted Ironseed to do, before she died. Does ‘the Council of One’ ring a bell at all? You want what the Durkahns have, and I don’t imagine they’re going to give it over willingly.”

Sarnai stiffened at the mention of the Council. “You heard her talking about the Council of One? How do you know about the Council of One?”

“Rumors,” said Burnardor. “Nothing more. I was discussing the potential of scientific inquiry into the people of Urcos, with Dr. Ironseed. There was nothing about conquest.”

“Oh yes, because science has never been used for racism and exploitation,” I said.

“The Council of One is… an old practice of the Durkahns,” Sarnai said. “A rite of… elevation, used to mark leaders and warriors and priests, performed far out in the mountains. Mystical things, as old as the spires of Amrinval.”

“Thank you, Sarnai. So you hear about a ritual that’s not meant for outsiders and, what, you want to write a book about it? Steal some scrolls and put them in your private shrine? What’s your plan here?”

Burnardor chuckled. “Good to know that you’re stupid as well as headstrong and poorly bred. I wished to learn what I could, with the assistance of the late Ironseed. Even the Durkahns’ traditions must hold some value, no? Either way, I fail to see what this has to do with your conspiracy theory.”

“I… don’t know yet!” I said, folding my arms. “Maybe it’s just more supporting evidence toward you being a wretched bitch! I haven’t put it all together yet. But I know that you’re a part of this. Do you know why?”

“Because you’re a faithless little malcontent who cannot recognize her betters when she sees them?”

The glinggatluk was still in the inner pocket of my vest, where I’d been keeping it for this exact moment. I flicked it out, holding it between index and middle finger, grinning in the knowledge of my victory. “Because I have this.”

Burnardor’s expression wasn’t what I’d expected. She looked surprised, certainly, but not in the way that someone would be surprised when being showed the evidence proving they were an attempted murderer. More like I’d just showed her my professional monkey trainer’s license. Then it faded into confusion, followed by deep concern. 

“You have one too?”

“Tell me, Burnardor, do you have any idea where the matching one is to yours? I’m sure if you asked Sarnai, she could tell you that glinggatluks always come in a matched pair.”

Both of us immediately looked to Sarnai. “They do,” she said. “My first mother gave me a pair.”

“I found this embedded in one of the restraints on Farsight’s back. You used it to cut through them so that it would go on a rampage, right into the other delegates.”

Burnardor’s eyes went wide as she shoved her hand into the pocket of her suit-jacket, rummaging around for the other glinggatluk. She took a second to find it, and when she did, her fate was sealed. The two were nearly identical.

“I know what you’ve been trying to do, Burnardor. Sarnai, if you trust me at all, you’ll take her right now, and you’ll bring her to whatever authority you have here. She tried to kill Halflance, Zaya, Dinara, all the others, and if I’m even in the right field about this, she’s probably on a team with the army about to attack the treaty grounds.”

Burnardor’s expression went almost pensive, blank eyes with a furrowed brow, and she hardly responded when Sarnai wrapped a huge hand around her shoulder. When she did speak, her voice was distant, almost a mutter. “She never told me they came in pairs.”

If someone had put an ear to my forehead, I’m sure that they could have heard the gears grinding to a halt in my brain. “Who? What?”

Burnardor turned the glinggatluk over in her fingers, then returned to reality. “This little bauble isn’t mine, Emma. It was a gift to me, and it was given without a pair.”

“Can I have that letter back?” I said. Ideas were forming, but they were more a confused mass of logical connections than a coherent idea, and more to the point they all pointed in a direction that made no sense.

Sarnai handed me the letter. I looked right into Burnardor’s eyes again, then flicked my gaze down to the first line. The literal first sentence of the letter after “my gracious friend.”

“I hope you’ve enjoyed my gift.”

“When did Dinara send it to you?”

She shrugged. “Must have been a week and a half, maybe two weeks ago…” Her eyes went wide. “It was the day after the chargerthing attack.”

I nodded. “When I went into the burning building, to rescue Lady Halflance and Zaya Imzrai, I found that the whole place had been set up. The door was barred from the outside, and there were a dozen barrels of high-proof alcohol in the basement, as extra fuel. It smelled like herbs and fresh wood.”

“Dinara was drinking something like that about a week back,” Sarnai said stoically. “I thought it was a bit odd at the time; she usually prefers beer or wine.”

“And the reason I know that this letter was written by Dinara Murahnok is because Anna and Unity found a note in the same handwriting, ordering more alcohol. Weird that she would need more, isn’t it?”

“She’s the one who invited us all to that collection!” said Burnardor, with increasing fury. “And just before the chargerthing attack, she excused herself for some private business!”

I skimmed over the letter one more time. “This entire time I thought that you were trying to get her on board with your scheme; but I think she was trying to get you on board with hers!”

“That traitorous fuck,” Burnardor snarled. “I knew she was being too insistent for someone who was ‘just considering options.’ Does this mean what I believe you’re implying?”

We both looked to Sarnai. “Do you know where Dinara is?”

“Last I saw, she was at her compound…” Sarnai’s mouth fell open ever so slightly; she looked downright shell-shocked. I didn’t blame her. But there would be time for emotional processing later. 

I glared back at Burnardor, and those gray eyes glared back at me with a frenzied mix of loathing and excitement. The look of a wolverine smelling blood. “Burnardor, I want to make something very clear: just because you aren’t the traitor doesn’t mean I don’t hate you. I do hate you. You are a representation of everything I hate; you’re greedy, you’re hypocritical, you’re self-righteous, you insult and belittle everyone around you, and your beliefs are on multiple levels abhorrent and cruel.”

“You’ve made it clear.”

“But for the next fifteen minutes, I get the feeling I’m going to need as many sword hands as I can get. As far as I can tell, doing this won’t benefit you beyond the fact that I don’t imagine you’re a fan of getting stabbed in the back. So: a temporary truce while we hunt this bastard down?”

Burnardor smiled. It was an ugly smile, with teeth. “My pleasure.”

We moved quickly, Burnardor and I following a step behind Sarnai. I still hadn’t retrieved my revolver from the hill where I’d left it during the fight against the Musician, and I hadn’t been in the mood to pick up another one. Sarnai’s main weapon was a single-bladed axe, which she drew. Burnardor had a revolver out, and was checking it for dud rounds and jams as we went. Whatever happened when we found Dinara, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

Dinara’s compound was on the far side from the Halflances’, out by the edge of the treaty grounds. It was built in a different style from most of the others, with a foundation of stone upon which the greatly more squarish wooden roof and framework was built. We didn’t even need to go inside, because Dinara Murahnok was right there out front, drinking from her tankard and staring out into the middle distance, surrounded by half a dozen guards.

“Ah, Sarnai. You’re back. Did the negotiations go well? Can I have some damn privacy, or are you still worried that I might find myself shanked by Bluerosers if you take your eyes off me for more than a minute?”

She hardly even seemed to notice that Burnardor and I were following along. At least, not until Burnardor started talking. “You lying, wretched savage,” she hissed. “You thought you could trick me, couldn’t you? Trick me into joining you in your pathetic scheme?”

Dinara hesitated, like her brain lagged just a half-second behind her ears. “Burnardor, my friend! What’s the meaning of this? Do you want a drink?”

I sighed, showing off the glinggatluk once again. “Don’t try the folksy drunk uncle act, Dinara. We already know you’re the one behind the chargerthing attack, and the one who started the fire in Zrimash. I’ll admit, you had me fooled for a while, giving the matching one to Burnardor as a gift.”

Dinara’s piggish black eyes locked onto the object in my hand, and her smile faded rapidly. “I was wondering where I’d left that. Mind returning it? I’ve really been missing the thing.”

“Shut up! I thought you were my ally, but all along you were working to tear everything down. I nearly died because of you!”

“Ah, in the fire. Truly, I feel only empathy for you, it must have been terrifying to be trapped in the blaze like that. But I assure you that I had—”

“You were the one who invited them all to that collection,” I said. “You planted a dozen barrels of high-proof alcohol in the basement, and then sealed the door on the way out. And on top of everything else, you decided to take some of the fuel for yourself and drink it. Don’t try to deflect it, or deny it, or act all innocent. You’ve been working with the Cassandrans, haven’t you?”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Treason,” said Burnardor. “And murder.”

Dinara nodded resolutely. “Guards, weapons out, be ready to take down these traitorous pigs.”

I drew my sword, and Burnardor pointed her revolver directly into Dinara’s face, as at the same time the guards began to take axes off their belts and brandish muskets and pistols.

“Weapons down!” Sarnai roared. “Dinara has forsaken her oath of duty as Chanter of Temple Murahnok. You are no longer bound to her!”

The guards froze, hands on half-drawn axes and muskets, and looked back and forth between Dinara, Sarnai, and each other, searching for some kind of guidance. Dinara shook her head in disappointment. 

Sarnai’s hands were shaking. “Why? Why would you betray your own people?” 

“My people?” said Dinara. “Temple Murahnok will be safe, with Cassandra’s backing. Look on a map, Sarnai. The Cassandran Empire is twice the size of Urcos and Bluerose put together! Do you really think that, if we ally ourselves with the Bluerosers, we’ll win?”

“Coward! You would sell yourself into slavery to the Empire!”

“Slavery? The riches, Sarnai, the riches of Cassandra will be ours! When the reikverratr came, she showed me gold and wine and silk cloth, the likes of which have never been seen in Urcos. The Cassandran Empire would let us all live as kings.”

“And we’ll drink good wine and eat spiced meat on the floor, with a boot on our backs,” said Sarnai. “You’re a drunken, greedy, cowardly disgrace of a Chanter, Dinara.”

The disgrace shrugged. “That I may be. But I am still the Chanter! The gods speak through me, and me alone! Now defend me, you wretched creatures,” she said, turning to her guards.

One by one, the guards drew their weapons, and made their faces into stony masks, and moved to stand between us and Dinara. Dinara stood up, slowly, and backed off toward the door of her compound. Her eyes never left the three of us. Sarnai’s eyes never left hers. 

This was about to get bloody, and if I didn’t want a bunch of guards who were just doing their jobs to lose their lives, I was going to have to act fast. I pushed past Sarnai and Burnardor, a plan already forming, though it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Still, it was the best plan I had. 

My sword still had a sharp edge, and my fingers were trembling as I slowly raised it up to face-height. The guards in front of me braced their weapons in high guards, only to look on in confusion as I pressed the inner edge of my saber against my throat. Just that light pressure was enough to hurt, but if I wanted to get the proper effect, I would have to be willing to get it over with quickly. Dinara held her hands stiffly behind her back, and for just an instant we met eyes. Then I pulled back and to the right, as quickly and with as much force as I could.

The blood hit the ground in a neat little line coming off of the blade. The pain was a lot less than when I’d been impaled. Fewer nerves and a shallower wound, but a hell of a lot more at stake. I bled, a lot, warmth dripping down my neck and onto my chest, though the cut was shallow enough that my arteries healed shut almost as soon as the blade was out, before there was any spray. My clothes would thank me for that. 

It wasn’t easy to remain standing: my head went fuzzy, and there was a blur in front of my eyes, and for a second my whole body was heavy with pain and blood loss. But it was only for a few seconds. The smooth edges of the wound were pulled back together like there was a suture, and the flesh knit back together in moments. 

I didn’t let my voice box fully heal together before I started talking, which gave the first phrase a really nice, jagged quality, like a smoker. 

“I want you all to think long and hard about your chances of victory in a fight against an opponent who cannot die.”

For a second, there was total silence aside from the rustling of buckwheat in the wind, and I was sure this stupid stunt wasn’t going to work. Then one woman to my right dropped her axe and ran for her life. A few others, staring at me with terrified eyes, relaxed their guards and stood aside. Another ran, then two more gave up, and before I knew it there was a clear passage between me and Dinara. 

The traitorous Chanter sighed, her arms still in that stiff at-east pose. The faux discipline didn’t really become her. “Faithless assholes, all of you,” she said. There was a flash of movement; Dinara threw out both her arms, and something small and silvery went up into the air. Then there was pain.

It was worse than being impaled, if nothing else than because the pain of being impaled was at least confined to one place. This was everywhere, every surface of my skin. Worse, it wormed inwards, penetrating my guts and my nerves, sending me dizzily spinning to the floor. It was a feeling like a Tylenol overdose, the sweat, the pain, the nausea, and it was terrifying. 

Everyone else around me fell to the ground around me, and there was a cacophony of agonized screams and breathless grunts of pain. Arcs of static electricity jumped across stunned women and ground alike as though they were tiny glowing fleas. Something metallic clanged to the ground just in front of me, a steel sphere of some kind that bristled with copper wire coils and empty batteries. 

Dinara was the only one unaffected, though she tried shaking her right arm in a way that suggested it had gone numb. Without a word, she walked right over and past us, muttering silently to herself. With a last desperate effort of will, I reached my hand out to grab her ankle as she passed, shifting it a full three inches. So, to add insult to injury, she shot me in the chest. She didn’t even shoot anyone else, not even Burnardor; she shot only and exclusively the one person around who could survive being shot in the chest, which meant that she was doing it out of spite, the bastard.

The pain, nausea, and paralysis faded over the next minute or so, along with my bullet wound. I could almost hear my joints creaking as I fought to regain my footing, and with my hand locked around my sword so tightly that it hurt, I staggered off in the direction I thought I’d seen Dinara going off in. She was long gone, the benefit of long legs and a minute’s head start. Still, I didn’t give up for at least thirty more feet, at which point I slumped down against a rock and gave up. 

I was still angry; that was a constant, and it hadn’t changed since I’d seen Ironseed’s bloodless corpse that morning. What had changed was that now I was more angry at myself. Oh, sure, when I caught Dinara I would probably punch her in the jaw, maybe kick her while she was down once or twice, but myself? I wasn’t even worth the effort of getting my bones broken. It was obvious that I just sucked. 

I hadn’t noticed any of the signs, even though there were so many, because I was blind and headstrong and stupid. I hadn’t noticed that she was drinking the same stuff I’d seen under the burning house, I hadn’t noticed the mention of the “gift” in the letter, and I hadn’t noticed how she was always conveniently out of danger. Maybe if I had noticed, I could have stopped her before she led her Cassandran allies into the camp to put Ironseed up on a stake. Could I add her to the accounting, the big list carved into the inside of my skull with the name of every single person I had failed to save? My sister, Unity’s friends, Regan Leyrender, and now her. 

The worst part about it was that I couldn’t put that anger anywhere. I’d done it! I’d caught the bad guy, I’d solved the mystery, now all that was left was to have a group hug and treat myself to a celebratory cake. It wasn’t even as though I could direct my anger into taking Dinara down. She was gone, off into the wilderness, and she was almost certainly going more quickly on her seven-foot stride than I could on my five feet. My first experience with being lost in the middle of the steppe had taught me more than enough.

By the time I had settled on a plan of action, Burnardor and Sarnai and the rest had all recovered from Dinara’s shock grenade, or whatever, and had apparently scattered off to start arranging a womanhunt. I wasn’t any good for that sort of thing, even if I was technically immortal, and I needed to let out steam before I did anything so boring and patient as hunting. Fortunately, through all the chaos and discord, there was one constant in the treaty grounds: Rook and her training swords. 

Rook took one look at me as I walked into the training field, threw me a sword, gave me a minute to take off my shirt, and went right into the duel. We were still going full-contact, and I relished the chance to get myself hurt. Not to say that I went easy on her: I attacked with all of my anger and and strength and force, and my blocks and deflections were almost reflexive. Only a handful of times in the half an hour of dueling did she hit me hard enough to kill, and a couple of times I struck a hard blow against her hands or shoulders. She bruised, but even with a sharp blade it wouldn’t have been enough to kill. While I was catching up, I hadn’t caught up enough yet. 

When I set down the practice blade and put my shirt back on, the sun was starting to set and my sweat was already freezing on my skin. And yet the camp was absolutely alive with movement. Burnardor and Sarnai had gone to the Blueroser and Durkahni camps, respectively, and told them of Dinara’s betrayal. With everyone assuming that it had been her responsible for Ironseed’s death, the animosity in the treaty grounds had fallen considerably, and been replaced by a fervent desire to hunt her down. Even as darkness fell, Sir Margaret and Adilet Kurzurnah were organizing regular patrols and search parties of soldiers to go out and look for her trail. I was too far gone to care much for any of that, not that it was my job anyway. I had had a long, long day. So I slipped away to my cabin, flopped onto the bed, and fell asleep.

There were nightmares. Lots of them. Nightmares about impaled bodies, and wracking pain, and being trapped in a bed and surrounded by blinding bright lights. I woke up at least half a dozen times, thrashing and disoriented in bed, only to slip back under a couple of minutes later and start it over again. 

The next morning I slept in, bleary-eyed and restless, until I was finally forced to get out of bed by a craving for breakfast. In the end, that breakfast turned out to be a single scone with some butter hastily smeared on it, because like hell was anyone going to be cooking anything when the entire treaty grounds were this on-edge. Even my normally-oblivious social senses were on full alert; the entire treaty grounds were alive with activity.

Reactions were split roughly down the middle, with no regard for species or social class. Group 1 was where I had been the night before, the people who were shocked and appalled by the news of what Dinara had done, and were ready for some bloody-minded vengeance. Or, at the very least, throwing some rotten vegetables at her before she was stripped of all titles and banished to the hinterlands. Group 2 was where I was rapidly heading; they were the ones less concerned about what Dinara had done and more concerned about what that meant. They were the ones who were hearing rumors about reikverratrs and ghoul hordes on the horizon, and wondered whether Dinara had fled the treaty grounds for a good reason. 

The soldiers, by nature being mostly in Group 1, were out in force. The edge of the treaty grounds were ringed by squads on patrol, and once or twice an hour a group would return from scouting to report that they hadn’t been able to find a trace of Dinara. Joining the usual Blueroser guards and Durkahni musketeers was a new group, also Durkahns, bearing halberds and pistols. These, I found out from talking to Lady Halflance, were Zrimash militia. Apparently all it had taken for people to take my warning seriously was Lady Burnardor talking about it. 

After breakfast and that short talk with Halflance, during which she begrudgingly and with glacial speed admitted that my Cassandran spy theory had been on to something, I decided that it would be best if I did a search of Dinara’s personal chambers for evidence, or maybe even went out with one of the scout squads to try to remember where I had seen the stonewose encampment. Then, after a careful consideration of the gap between my hypothetical capabilities and my actual capabilities, I fell asleep on a bench in the dining hall. 

I was still recovering from the fight with the Musician, even if every injury or trace of strain had been fully regenerated out of my body. Ironseed’s death, the stonewose army, Dinara’s betrayal? All that stuff was backlog on my exhaustion. It made me homesick, longing for Earth, where the worst pileup of fatigue I could get was having an exam on the same day as a therapy session after a night of bad insomnia when I’d forgotten to take my meds. Which had nothing on the physical-mental-emotional gut punch of that last day. At least Selene was never boring…

I remember dreaming about getting ready for the big ball, my horned and tail-having maid helping me to try on lacy dresses while I fretted constantly about my date, the haughty and mysterious Countess of Ihernglass. As the dream faded away into nothing and my eyes opened, I was faintly bemused by the realization that it had been weeks since I’d dreamed of myself as a man, outside of nightmares. This is what happens when you read too many cheesy Selenian romance novels. Then my brain finished booting up and I realized, with a few seconds of delay, what had woken me up to begin with. 

People were shouting, and I think someone had sounded a horn as well. It was a prearranged signal, and could have only meant that something huge was happening. I rolled smoothly off of the bench and made a dash first for the armory, where I’d left my sword and where I could finally get a new pistol. I barely had the time to stuff a handful of spare shells into my pockets before the horn sounded again. This must have been really, really urgent. 

About fifty, maybe sixty soldiers had formed up into a rough formation, with the militia guarding the flanks while alternating blocks of rifles and muskets aimed forward. I arrived at the back of the line, unsure if it was even a good idea for me to be here, until I noticed the Halflances, Rook, Burnardor, Sarnai, Adilet, and Zaya all standing in a tight knot in front of the bloc. I circled around the edge, making eye contact with a few of the tired, anxious militiawomen, and joined the others. They had good reason to be ready for a fight; not forty yards away, arms folded, sitting astride a large and muscular falt, was Dinara Murahnok.

SaffronDragon

Basks in all of the praise for how good I am at foreshadowing. But actually though, this mystery has been in the making for most of the book, and that reveal really marks a turning point in the story. Like I said earlier: the next three chapters or so are going to be really, very intense, with some serious violence and a recurrence of Emma's trauma, so if you need to take a break, take it. If, on the other hand, the idea of gore and trauma excites you, then you can read those next three chapters right now, just by clicking the link below to join my Patreon for as little as $3 a month. There are also higher tiers if you want to read some of my exclusive bonus stories, vote in patron polls, or just give a little extra to express your gratitude. Patreon is, after all, my only source of income at the moment, so I could use anything you can give. Otherwise, I'll see you in two weeks for Chapter XXV: Powder Keg