The Unbroken by C. Clark (ebook reader .txt) 📕

Cantic was deep in thought, or perhaps memory, her brow furrowed. Maybe she was thinking about the massacre at Masridān. Had that started like this, a war room full of desperate soldiers and politicians? After the Battle of the Bazaar, Cantic had said it was her job to bloody her hands so that Luca didn’t need to. So that Luca could be the one to build something new out of the blood and shit. Sky above, there was plenty of blood. When would Luca get to grow something?

When you have it under control.

“Lord Governor Beau-Sang and Colonel Taurvide might have the right of it, Your Highness.”

“Indeed,” Beau-Sang said. “I’ve been managing these dogs for decades. That is why you appointed me governor, Your Highness. Let me do my duty to the empire.” He puffed out his chest and raised his chin.

Still, Luca shook her head. She had spent most of her time in Qazāl changing the way Beau-Sang and the other Balladairans were allowed to treat their Qazāli laborers. She had made him governor so that he could be the sting of the whip, but that didn’t mean there was no place for the honey.

“No,” Luca said finally. “Not yet. General, you say the problem is that anyone can be a rebel. That’s because everyone has a reason to rebel right now. The people are hungry, and the rebels are feeding them. We need to give them a reason to come to us instead.”

Taurvide huffed. “You’d short our own people for these ungrateful—”

“They are also my people,” Luca said sharply. “And ‘rebellions begin when the status quo fails to provide for its people.’”

“With all due respect, Your Highness,” Beau-Sang said, his ruddy cheeks stretched taut in a frown, “quoting Yverte will not get us out of a delicate situation. We all have the experience necessary to handle it.”

Beau-Sang opened his arms to include the veteran officers sitting at the table. Taurvide, with his graying beard and his bluster, one hand in a fist, the other ready to rap knuckles on the table again for emphasis. Cantic, her face haggard though her blue eyes were clear and alert, smelling of cigarette smoke and the coffee in front of her. Even Gil was included in this, though Luca’s guard captain remained silent. When she met his eyes, though, he nodded and gave an almost imperceptible smile. That was enough to bolster her.

“I don’t doubt your experience, any of you. However, I want different results. We try this my way first. If it doesn’t work, there will be plenty of time to go murdering my innocent subjects at your leisure.”

Taurvide, Beau-Sang, and Cantic all stared at Luca blankly, surprised either by the words or by her vicious sarcasm. This wasn’t the cool and collected princess they were used to. Luca stared them down in turn until finally, Cantic nodded.

“That will be expensive, Your Highness, but it could work. We’ll begin preparations.”

Colonel Taurvide began to object, but Cantic silenced him with a look. “We’ll begin preparations, Colonel.”

The colonel nodded stiffly, though he shared a dark look with Beau-Sang. The governor, however, calmly bowed his head to Luca and said, “Indeed, Your Highness. We’ll see it done.”

His acquiescence came almost too easily, and she wondered what machinations were turning behind those small, calculating eyes. Not for the first time, she thought of Aliez’s suspicions about her father and Cheminade. But thinking of Aliez made Luca think of Aliez’s missing lover, and that made Luca think of Touraine, so she pushed all the thoughts away again.

“Very good,” Luca said. She straightened. “I’ll have the writ signed and announce the changes to the city afterward. You’re dismissed.”

Ink dripped from Luca’s pen as she hovered over her signature. The ink of her name was still wet, glistening in the low lantern light of her office on the compound later that night. Though Beau-Sang was the governor-general now, she had grown attached to the space.

The writ she had just signed would—if all went as planned in a city where nothing she’d ever done had gone according to plan—save the Qazāli and kill the rebellion in one blow.

She had just—to think the rest of the sentence made her sick to her stomach with guilt, but she made herself finish the thought. She had thought she could win the city back more cheaply. She had thought the rebels would relent when she had the doctors and priests as hostages. There was no better way to say it.

The greatest benefit, more than the soothed populace, was that the proclamation would douse the rebellion’s fire before the rebels could stoke the coals of Qazāli anger in the wake of the tragedy.

All the Qazāli who brought proof or notification of dead family, injuries, or damaged property would be given recompense from the hand of the throne itself.

She would be paying a lot. And using soldiers to monitor the claims.

Luca lit her sealing candle and waited for the wax to heat, to make the slow transition from a single cohesive block to disparate drips. Slow. She’d chosen the gold wax this time, and the flames streaked it black.

She’d demanded the reports from Cantic since Gil and the general both agreed that it wasn’t safe to have her in the streets. The fires—literal and metaphorical—hadn’t been put out. It had been nearly a week since she’d run to the window at the sound of the thunderous explosion. She couldn’t see the temple from behind the Quartier walls, but that hadn’t stopped her from imagining the slow motion of the domes collapsing on themselves every day since. When she’d left the Quartier, just to see, the night sky had been bright with the burning heart of the city.

Luca pulled her shawl tighter against a shiver. She snapped to and realized the wax puddle was larger than she’d intended. She blew the candle out and stamped her rearing horse into the mess, with the L. A.