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

It was the second set of papers that was more difficult to manage. Papers of citizenship. She’d never had to make those. Nothing codified a Balladairan citizen’s rights compared to those of a subject of the Balladairan Empire. A Balladairan citizen was just a citizen. A colonial subject was merely a subject. Maybe she could change that when she took the throne.

For now, all she could do was decree it so. And if it was that easy, maybe she could do it for the rest of the Sands. Then, of course, she would have to explain to Cantic why a large section of her troops had the freedom to desert. Luca could recall no precedent for turning so many… foreigners into natural citizens.

Touraine returned just as Luca finished, looking even sicker. “Are you ready to go back to the Quartier?”

Luca put down the rag she’d been wiping her pen with. “Sit down. I’m calling for a medic first.”

The medic, however, agreed with Touraine after checking the soldier’s eyes and breathing. A concussion didn’t constitute “fine” in Luca’s eyes, but the medic said she couldn’t do anything but tell Touraine to rest.

“No sparring, no stress, sir.” The medic eyed Touraine appreciatively, tapping her fingers on her satchel. “Honestly, I’m surprised you’re up at all. Still be wallowing in bed if I was you, sir.” She turned back to Luca. “Have her watched while she sleeps, Your Highness. That’s when the real danger is.”

Touraine shrugged when the medic left. “Told you. Not my first day on the field.”

Luca intended to order Touraine right to bed and send Adile in with some soup or whatever helped injuries best, but there was a letter waiting for them when they arrived at the town house. A letter scrawled on a ragged piece of paper that looked as if it had been torn from a book. She opened it immediately, right in the foyer.

Touraine raised an eyebrow.

She didn’t dare do anything but nod. The rebels are ready to sign. She called out to the coachman. “Keep the horses on the carriage!”

The jostling of the carriage made Touraine’s head throb. Concussions always made her nauseated, but that wasn’t the only reason her stomach was rolling in on itself. Beside her, Luca drummed her fingers excitedly on a knee, probably anticipating victory. Touraine had seen the scribbled note. Djasha and the others thought Luca was trustworthy enough to settle with. To start the long journey toward peace. To trade a few paltry guns for the healing magic that Balladaire had been after for decades.

Luca smiled shyly at her, eyes still crinkled with concern. She leaned her thigh into Touraine’s. “I suppose we don’t have to wait for me to give you these. Maybe they’ll take away some of the sting?”

She handed Touraine two pieces of thick, soft, expensive paper. Touraine felt a lump rise in her throat and couldn’t stop her eyes from watering.

“Just like that?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Luca said simply.

The first square she unfolded looked almost like a receipt. Touraine followed the description of her position, assistant—not to the governor-general, but to Her Royal Highness Luca Ancier—all the way down to the monthly salary and yearly total at the bottom. Her mouth fell open. Next to her, Luca waited anxiously for her approval.

Touraine unfolded the other paper and skimmed it, too, landing finally on the last line, just above Luca’s black wax seal. I hereby approve the naturalization of Touraine, previously of the Balladairan Colonial Brigade, as an esteemed citizen of Balladaire.

“Is it all right? I can add a surname if you want to use one. Whatever you like.”

Touraine tried to swallow the lump in her throat down. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

Earlier that day, while Luca drew up this perfect paperwork in their office on the compound, Touraine had taken the excuse to get some air. Maybe not so much get some air as fight with herself without Luca seeing every expression on her face. Cantic’s office was just a door down. Touraine and Luca had come to work here so often, and each time Touraine debated whether to visit the general or not.

Touraine knocked on Cantic’s beautiful, forest-themed door.

“Come in,” came Cantic’s muffled voice.

The general was alone, smoking a cigarette, the air clouded and smelling like smoke. It reminded Touraine of Pruett, and that, in turn, reminded Touraine why she was there. Touraine closed the door behind her.

“Good morning, General. Do you have a moment?”

The older woman’s hair was out of its usual tail and hung messily around her shoulders. Cantic raked her empty hand through it before settling her gaze on Touraine. “You sound genteel, but you look like you’ve taken up pit fighting. What are you doing here?”

Touraine ducked her head, but it couldn’t hide the bruising. “Her Highness is seeing to governor’s paperwork,” she lied.

“I see.” Cantic took another drag from her cigarette and didn’t look away. She was drawing Touraine out, waiting for her to fall into the silence. It worked.

“Sir, if you had to choose between the good of the empire and your soldiers, how would you?”

Cantic propped her elbows on the desk. Now she was listening.

“That’s a complicated question, Touraine,” she said in that same smoke-scratched voice Touraine knew from childhood. “When you get to where I am, the only thing that matters is the empire. I can’t keep an accounting of individual soldiers. However, you don’t get to where I am without your soldiers. Why do you ask?”

And Balladaire would be nowhere without its Sands.

“My old soldiers. We’ve fought for Qazāl a long time, sir. Our whole lives.”

“Well, no, some of that time was spent educating you to a civilized standard.” Cantic smiled. “We didn’t send you out fighting at ten years old.”

Touraine forced herself to smile back, but inside, she felt her resolve crumbling. Never mind. She would take her own citizenship, her own wages, and wait for Luca to give the Sands what they deserved. Those who survived the