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

framing them as mistrials. The general had been dubious, but she’d agreed. She’d also understood the need for secrecy; if word got out that the magistrate could commit such a thing as a “mistrial,” the unrest would be total.

Now Beau-Sang had caught her in a bear trap. Not to mention, it meant he did have eyes and ears somewhere he shouldn’t. Was it Cantic? No, the general hated him, maybe more than Luca did.

“Those who have served the appropriate sentence for their crimes,” Luca finally said. She felt breathless, her heart hammering so loudly that surely Beau-Sang could hear it.

“Ah, indeed.” He smiled knowingly and bowed again. Then he left, the young boy closing the door with a soft snick.

Touraine waited three long breaths before she growled, “Can I kill him, or do you want to?”

Despite the tension only just beginning to unspool from her shoulders, Luca couldn’t help but smile.

“Let’s take turns,” she said.

CHAPTER 18SHĀLAN LESSONS

Over the course of the next week, more complaints from the Balladairan upper crust flooded in. Rich bastards. They were upset because Luca’s new rules wouldn’t let them take advantage of the Qazāli workers. Touraine was ready to admit that the rebels had a few good points, even if she disagreed with those like the Jackal. It was just like she’d always told Tibeau, back when she was with the Sands: life with Balladaire wasn’t perfect, but slowly, they could change it.

The rebels had sent their list of demands by a runner shortly after Luca and Touraine’s meeting with Beau-Sang. It was written in Shālan, so Luca read it, occasionally scratching things out on her own paper. Soon, Touraine would take Luca’s response to them, and the thought set her blood humming with fear and excitement.

Tonight, Luca was downstairs in the town house’s sitting room, where she often spent the evening reading a book or treatise or whatever it was she did for fun. Touraine had started using this evening leisure time to sneak into the office. It was a peaceful place, without Luca frowning at her desk or one of her guards hovering just outside the door. She was starting to like the smell of ink and paper, and when she sat at Luca’s desk, she had the perfect view of the sunset through the window.

“What are you doing?”

Touraine jumped up at Luca’s voice, splattering ink from her pen all over the pieces of scrap paper she’d stolen from Luca’s waste bin.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness. Nothing.” She covered the papers quickly with her hands, then swore as ink smeared everywhere. “I—nothing.”

The princess shuffled over, shoulders sagging, to peer around Touraine at the desk. She looked exhausted. Touraine hid her ink-stained hands in fists at her sides.

Luca picked up one of the papers and smiled tenderly, and then she pulled a book from underneath the other papers. The Shālan primer.

“This is a good start,” Luca said. Then shyly she added, “My offer still stands. I could teach you.”

“No, you don’t need—it’s not important.” Touraine blushed. Furiously. She started scooping the papers into a stack, the better to stop embarrassing herself.

“No, no. Sit. It is important.” She sat down in the chair next to Touraine’s—the chair Touraine normally sat in—and put a hand on Touraine’s arm. Still, Touraine didn’t sit. “Would it help if I said you’ll be more useful if you know both languages?”

Touraine sat.

Luca fanned out the scraps Touraine had been writing on and opened the primer to the first page. In Balladairan, it introduced the letters and their pronunciations. The following pages included introductory words and phrases that Touraine couldn’t say and diagrams of the Shālan letters so that she could practice drawing them.

“First, take a new paper. Let’s try this one.” Luca pointed at the first one.

It was just a line. Touraine wrote it several times, feeling surer of herself with each stroke. She had been overwhelmed by it all as she tried to decipher it on her own. She didn’t know how to begin, and the phrases she saw in the book all looked useless. I want one apple. Where is my mother? I am happy. They were for children. Alone, Touraine had spent half of her stolen evenings raging at Balladaire for not teaching her and the other half berating herself for even bothering.

Repeating the sounds after the heir to the empire wasn’t ironic at all.

Luca made it easy, though. She might have been a bit of a know-it-all, but she wasn’t a half-bad teacher. They’d gotten through half of the alphabet by the time yawns cracked their jaws.

“I should say goodnight. I have breakfast with Sonçoise de l’Ouest, and I told her that I would join her for a ‘brisk cleansing of the mind’ beforehand. It involves something called a sunrise.” Luca scowled.

Touraine put her pen down with a smirk. “I’ve heard of that. Me and your guards know about ‘cleansing the mind.’”

Luca’s look went flat. “I know. I’ve heard you.” She glanced over her shoulder to include Guérin, even though the guardswoman was now on the other side of the closed door. Then Luca sighed and slumped deeper into her chair, away from the desk.

“If the visits annoy you so much, why do you go?” It felt risky, this casual tone, but the office door was closed, and Luca had made a joke first. Luca had cracked the door of herself open, and Touraine had the crazy urge to pull the door wider.

No, not so crazy. Vulnerability for vulnerability. Touraine could think of nothing more vulnerable, more terrifying right now, than letting the princess of Balladaire teach her Shālan. It felt good to pry back.

“She’s one of the few Balladairans who isn’t completely against my new changes. I need friends like that. No.” She shook her head. “Friend is too strong a word. Though that would be nice,” she grumbled under her breath.

“Friends who might support a deal with the rebels. Push back against Beau-Sang.”

Luca twisted toward Touraine sharply. “Someone’s been paying attention.”

Touraine