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

to stop the worst of it. This is an attack, General. I think the rebels allied with the Many-Legged tribes.”

Cantic sneered with distaste. “Those jackalfuckers in the desert?”

Luca grunted, surprised at the general’s break in decorum. “I think they’re like the Taargens.”

The general froze. “How do you mean?”

“They have some sort of link with the animals. Paul-Sebastien LeRoche and I were doing research. Animals can pass diseases to people. It all makes sense, all the way back to the animals vanishing from their farms, the birds destroying the crops. This is planned, Cantic. Something is happening.” Touraine. Djasha. Touraine knew tactics. And Djasha…

Had Djasha been the one to take down Cantic’s company, back when Cantic was a captain? She would know how weak the military was under plague fear. So would Touraine. They would be idiots not to press an advantage.

“How weak is the compound?” Luca asked.

“It’s not—”

“How weak, General? How many soldiers are down?”

Cantic leaned over her desk on flat palms and closed her eyes. She shook her head. And her shoulders shook, and her hands trembled on the desk. She said something, but in such a low whisper that Luca didn’t hear it.

“What did you say?”

“I said, it’s my fault. In four days, I’ve lost a third of my soldiers. A full fourth of them dead—the rest are just on their way, and it’s my fault, Your Highness.”

Four days ago. Touraine had snuck away seven days ago.

“What do you mean?”

“That Brigāni bitch planned this. It’s vengeance. I know it. She’s doing it again.”

Luca stilled, worried that Cantic was having a mental breakdown. “Doing what, General?”

The tightly coiled tension left Cantic’s shoulders. She faced Luca, eyes bleak above the mask. “The stories are real, Your Highness.”

“Your attack on the Brigāni tribe is a matter of state record. You were moved to the education division to teach the Sands. I know the story.” Luca tried to speak soothingly. She needed the general whole and ready.

Cantic shook her head. “If only.” She twisted the thick grief ring on her right middle finger for a quiet moment before she continued. “That witch destroyed my entire company. After the… incident… I rode off to—mourn my family. I came back to carnage you can’t imagine, Your Highness. Only one of my soldiers survived, and it broke him so badly that he ran away to find the southern monks. For all I know, he died in the snow, raving mad.”

Luca searched Cantic’s eyes for anything less than lucidity, and the calm grief she found there frightened her even more than madness. “If it’s real, why haven’t they used this magic on us before?”

Cantic gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know, Your Highness. My only guess is that they can’t. Or they’re preparing to. I’ve been afraid of this since Lord Regent Ancier sent me down here.”

Luca pinched her temples. She didn’t know how to fight that kind of magic.

Cantic rubbed her own forehead. “But if they attack us, they risk getting sick themselves.”

“You have their healers in your custody. Have you asked them?” Luca was practically yelling and had to pause to catch her breath. “Get answers.”

Cantic scowled. “I’m not going to torture the only people who can help my soldiers, Your Highness.” Then, surprisingly, her voice went solemn and thick. “On the subject of the doctors. You should know… I promised Aranen din Djasha that if we captured her wife, we would let her see her again. She says the bitch is dying.”

For a second, Luca lost her breath. “You promised her… what?” she stammered. “Why? Did she give you something else? Something good?”

“For healing my soldiers.” Cantic sighed. “You’ve never given your life to someone, only to learn they’ve been ripped away from you forever. People think I’m ruthless. A monster. But even I know that some things are just right, Your Highness. And some things aren’t. I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done for the benefit of your father or your uncle. Even the statesmen in Masridān. All sky-falling one hundred sixty-one of them, Your Highness. It secured the eastern reaches of your empire, so it was worth it.” The older woman stared Luca down, as if she were willing Luca to understand. Like she wanted someone to hear her and tell her what she had done was justified. “But when I lost Berst… our children… I made a mistake, that night with the Brigāni. That wasn’t for Balladaire. That was for me. And I regret it.”

Luca’s heart lurched down to her stomach. She had felt something like that when she thought Touraine had died. She and Touraine had never been married, had maybe never even loved each other, but there had been rage in her heart, and if she could have killed the ones she deemed responsible, maybe…

That didn’t matter, of course. She already knew who she would give her life to: her citizens came first.

“Whatever you need to do to fortify the compound, do it. We have other bases in Qazāl. Send for reinforcements. Where’s Beau-Sang?” snapped Luca.

The general snapped back, “The rich coward you picked to run this city is buying the first free berth out of it.”

They stared at each other, mouths hanging open at Cantic’s words, and perhaps even at the way she’d said them. Even Gil’s eyes went wide.

“He’s doing what?” Luca said, her voice small.

Cantic scrubbed her hand over her eyes above her black face scarf. “He’s fleeing the city, Your Highness. He was packing up his town house in the Quartier this morning.”

“How do you know?”

Cantic shared a look with Gil. “I’ve had him watched.” She twisted her grief rings around, around. Luca almost reached for her own rings.

“Watched.” Luca looked between the general and her most trusted advisor, who had clearly known about this but hadn’t seen fit to tell her. “Watched.”

“You said you wanted to be careful with him,” Gil said softly. “A leash?”

“I didn’t mean have it done behind my back,” Luca snapped. If Gil could do this behind her back,