Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists) (2 page)

Kiwani
twisted her fingers together in the warm light of the circular hex house’s central fire pit. Her announcement would not be welcome amongst her hexmates, but last night she hadn’t slept at all, and somehow her sleep-deprived mind had finally grasped the real meaning of Sint Esme’s words. She felt as if she were behind on some invisible schedule, having passed nearly two seasons—fifty-seven holidays— by the calendar before solving what, in retrospect, seemed less a puzzle and more a semantic detail.

“
I can’t stay here any longer. My magic’s worse than Bayan’s was when he first started tossing elemental magic around last year, and I’m afraid that, in my condition, trying to become Savant with you under Bayan’s tutelage could kill me. I need to find myself if I’m ever to balance my emotions and make my magic safe around you, and now I finally know where to look.” She let go of Tarin’s and Bayan’s hands, slipping out of her circle of friends.

“Barmy sints,” Calder said. His eyes held caution and worry. “You’re certain you can trust anything a ball of light has to say? Why don’t you talk to Instructor Wekshi again? Maybe you don’t really have to leave.”

A smile tugged at Kiwani’s lips. “Thank you, Calder. But this is the only option that feels right. Instructor Wekshi seemed more inclined to top me out than help me learn. Her job is to teach competent students. I don’t think she knows how to help the incompetent ones.”
Because there are no incompetent duelists in the Waarden Empire. There are only potioneers.

“When will you be back?” Eward
stepped around the fire pit to give her a farewell hug.

“If I’m not back by Sint Rolf’s Day, you can send out the guards.”

“That long?” Tarin’s eyes looked pained.

“Sint Esme told me I must approach humbly. I’m taking that to mean I can’t arrive in an imperial carriage. I’ll walk to Wisnuk Bay and hitch rides when I can.”

“We’ll walk you to the roundabout,” Bayan offered.

Kiwani felt a shot of alarm pulse through her at his mention of the traditional farewell for students who left campus to take their first job at a duel den. “I’m not topping out. Don’t keep eyes on me all the way to the edge of campus as if you won’t ever see me again! You will. I promise.”

“Trying to boot her for good, Bayan?” Tarin teased. “I thought you two called a truce seasons ago.”

Bayan squeezed Kiwani’s hand. “You’d better promise to come back. We need you.”

Calder pushed in, separating her hand from Bayan’s, and wrapped his arms around both their shoulders. “Aye, and if you should see a wandering duelist out and about, be sure to drag him back with you. We need a sixth!”

Kiwani laughingly promised to do her best. After another round of farewells that became as emotional as the hexmates dared to allow for fear of causing the walls to sprout, she
left the small building, and the others followed her onto the balcony. Its rail extended in both directions, fronting other small huts. Her hexmates leaned against it, calling well-wishes and hopes for a safe journey. Some of the other hex houses on Earth level were decorated with potted flowers or bright paint. Kiwani’s hex had magicked theirs so that its walls resembled a Balanganese forest. Below the smooth brass balcony railing lay a row of six similar huts—the Water level. Four more hut rows named for the other elements climbed the terraced hill above.

Kiwani
turned her back to the balcony rail and the wide stone plaza beyond. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” She saw the collective concern on her friends’ faces. “If I can’t sort my feelings out, my magic won’t ever improve, let alone reach Bayan’s Savant proficiency. I’ll be doomed to potioneering for the rest of my life. I owe myself—I owe
you
—more than that.”

Calder slipped in next to her and pressed a small, heavy item into her hand. She looked down and saw a slender iron dagger in a dark leather sheath.

When she raised her eyebrows at him, Calder said, “Take it with you. Your magic’s shite right now, aye? You’ll be just another lass alone on the roads, an easy target.”

A weight landed on her shoulder, and wings brushed
against her cheek. She flinched away from Kah’s feathers. The hexbird cocked his head and eyed her with his usual intense expression. “Kah!”

“I’ll miss you, too, Kah
.” She offered the large black hexbird her hand as an alternate perch.

He dug his claws into her shoulder instead, bobbing his head at her. “Kah,
kah
!”

“He’s going with you,” Bayan said, looking at the bird.

“What?” Kiwani shot a quick glance at the bird, who tipped his head, unblinking. “But he lives here. In
your room
.”

Tarin tipped her head down in suspicion. A long red wave of hair fall across one eye.
“Did you put the poor wee birdie up to this, Bayan?”

Bayan, shorter than either girl, shook his head
and glanced up at Tarin. “No one can make hexbirds do something they don’t want to do. Or stop them from doing something they’ve set their minds to. Looks like you won’t be alone after all, Kiwani.”

She met the bird’s bright gaze.
Kah bobbed his head rapidly up and down, as if in agreement and encouragement. “Then I’m a lucky girl.”

~~~

The heavy iron door was closing. Kipri Nayuuti stuck out his thorn-ripped hand and caught it, but not before it pinched his fingers against the jamb. Wincing and rubbing the hot pink line of pain against his cream-colored pants, the eunuch jogged along the central marble corridor in the Ministry of Ways, paying little mind to the larger-than-normal crowds.

“Of all the days to be late,” he muttered. His landlady, Gati, had terrible timing when it came to waxing the hallway outside Kipri’s door. He’d finally given up waiting for it to dry and
scurried down the rose trellis outside his window, ripping both the skin on his hand and the hem of his ivory tunic on the thorns.

He skidded to a stop outside Philo’s office door. It wouldn’t do to burst in, panting like a tardy schoolboy, on the day he was to receive his first independent assignment. The thought of his
hard-won achievement brought a smile to his face. There had been many times—entire years—when Kipri had despaired of ever being seen as anything more than the son of a filthy Aklaa rebel. Yet here he was, about to embark on his latest endeavor, having been highly recommended by both his former employer, Philo Sallas, and by Emperor Jaap himself.

Helping to foil a rebel assassination plot last spring might have had something to do with that.

His breathing under control, Kipri opened the door and entered Philo’s long, many-windowed office—the same one Philo had always occupied, though the title on the door had changed back in early spring. But his breath left again just as quickly. The large, oblong room was packed. Dozens of Ways eunuchs filled the far half of the room. More of them than ever before followed Philo’s fashion trend of wearing feminine wigs in various noble fashions and eye-catching hues. A handful of high-ranking ministers and various officials from Ways offices clustered near the front, where Philo’s large desk rested. At their center was Philo himself in mid-tale, bedecked in a high pink wig and a lace-trimmed cream tunic. Kipri recalled Philo’s story from the year he had served as Philo’s assistant, surveying the roads and landmarks of Balanganam. But in Philo’s version, the creek had been a small canyon, and the helpful young Balang boy who’d rescued Kipri from it was now a plump matron with decades of delectable cooking experience and a fervent desire to spread her angelic cooking to all she met. Kipri sighed helplessly; there was no changing Philo Sallas or his complete devotion to all things culinary.

Philo
must’ve heard him; he stopped speaking, and all eyes turned toward Kipri.

Kipri gulped. “Good morning
.” He gave his torn tunic an unobtrusive tug.

A figure he hadn’t seen
amidst the crowd stood up from a chair directly to his left. “Good morning, Kipri,” said Emperor Jaap.

“Sire! Forgive me, I didn’t see—”

“It’s all right, Kipri. You’ve a lot on your mind. And I don’t mind disappearing from view now and again. Shall we begin?”

The ministers politely stepped back, giving Philo, Emperor Jaap
, and Kipri the floor. The emperor nodded to Philo, who stepped forward, waving a plump, beringed hand in welcome.

“Thank you all for coming. It is always a pleasure to see a Kheerzaal eunuch take his first step into the world as an independent servant of the empire. Even more so when the assignment he receives is actually one
at which he is competent.” High-pitched laughter dominated the room for a few moments. “Today, I am proud, and dare I say it, humbled, to be allowed to present my faithful assistant, Kipri Nayuuti, with his first independent assignment.

“You may notice,” Philo continued with a disarming smile, “that we have a frightfully important guest with us this morning. The emperor has been known to attend eunuch assignments in the past—indeed, he attended mine, no doubt to see if the rumors of my
immense capacity for pastry consumption were true (they are)—but this assignment is especially dear to our emperor’s heart. He, in his ceaseless efforts to improve our great empire for its citizens, has created a shiny new post which will fill a gap in the lives of some of the empire’s most valued citizens, and thus improve the safety of all.”

Kipri
felt his brows draw together in confusion. Philo hadn’t told him any of this. He’d always assumed the emperor would station him back home in Aklaa, perhaps as a political liaison. Sints knew that his beleaguered people could use one, after some of them—members of Kipri’s extended family included—had grown so frustrated with being repressed and ignored that they tried to assassinate the emperor. But the political liaison post already existed in Aklaa. Where was the emperor sending him?

“Kipri, my lad.
” Philo rested a hefty pink hand on the slender eunuch’s shoulder. “Nothing in my life has made me prouder than the opportunity to present you with the title and office of Imperial Cultural Liaison to the Duelist Academy.”

An interested buzz
momentarily drowned out the emperor’s applause, then everyone followed his lead. The emperor shook Kipri’s hand, followed by an eager string of toadying ministers whose names Kipri forgot in a haze of surprised wonder. An excited crowd of fellow crickets came next. They eunuchs smiled and fawned. In the face of the emperor’s obvious favor, none of them dared to call him “plum.”

Emperor Jaap excused himself from the gathering, citing an imminent need to take his older son, Sebastiaan, for a promised horseback ride. “On a real horse this time, though,” he added. “Even Juriaan is getting too heavy for my poor back, and Femke is threatening to ban me from further state dinners if I can’t sit in my chair without listing to the side. My congratulations again, Kipri, on your well-earned position.”

After the emperor departed, Kipri turned to Philo. “Paying Bayan’s expenses for the Duelist Academy was the best career move you could have made. Who knew that the dusty fellow you pulled from a hole in the ground would one day save the emperor’s life? But now you’ve got this network to construct. How will you ever manage the office of Minister of Information with just Gael and Cassander to assist you?”

Philo tittered. “My dear boy, this new position is simply rife with perks. Some of them are even edible. I could never let
such a delicacy slip through my fingers. I’ll bribe vagrants into becoming my loyal Thirds if I must.”

Kipri was far from surprised at Philo’s sentiment. After all, the lure of fine food and soft fabrics had been enough to convince Philo to give up the prospect of future children.

“And speaking of loyal eunuchs,” Philo said, “you must write me regularly. I want to hear all about your new position.” He took something dark and soft from a box on his desk and tugged it into place on Kipri’s head. Kipri reached up and felt a puffy wig covering his own hair. Philo, wearing a cheeky smile, held up a mirror. The wig’s style was only somewhat bouffant compared to others in the room, rising in a jaunty pompadour that matched his own hair color. Best of all, the wig was devoid of pearls, ribbons, lace, and anything else Philo-esque.

Kipri was well aware of the gift’s significance
. The empire’s new Minister of Information had marked Kipri as his own. Kipri was to be part of Philo’s new information network, just like all the other bewigged eunuchs.

He also knew what his new assignment meant: he hadn’t earned this new position at all. It had been given to him because he was Aklaa, and
for no other reason. His pride and happiness faded to ash, and the familiar acidic burn of betrayal churned in his guts.

Bayan’s words to the emperor after the palace battle have changed the empire
. For the first time, Aklaa are being allowed to train at the Academy. But now I’m being sent to spy on that bright new future. I’m being sent to spy on my own people.

~~~

Bayan sat on a thick layer of brown pine needles that lined the forest floor and looked up amidst the towering trees as they creaked and swayed in the stiff wind that heralded the approach of autumn. A tight regret squeezed his chest as he thought of Kiwani, now absent from the hex, leaving what was intended to be a seamless team of six with only four members. Yes, her absence was only temporary, but Bayan couldn’t help remembering the traumatic way that Odjin had been ripped from their hex nearly a year ago.
Doomed to stir a beaker for the rest of his life, since he hadn’t had the decency to die during his illegal duel.
Bayan shook his head. The glories of duelism were many, but its dark side was never far from his mind.