Beyond the Shadows - Brent Weeks [61]
“Surrender. Unconditionally. I will give you my word to be merciful. We will leave in the spring to claim my throne, and once I take it, I will grant this realm once more to your queen.”
Kylar couldn’t stop a twitch of annoyance.
Garuwashi caught it. “You prefer Duke Gyre be made king? Done. I will even restore half of the royal treasury. Beyond this, my men will spend the winter wiping out the Sa’kagé. Tell me, is not that alone worth the price of feeding and housing us? Is it not worth more than half the treasury?”
~Especially considering that the treasury’s empty?~
Then Kylar realized Lantano Garuwashi knew that the Khalidorans had taken everything. Garuwashi was merely offering the queen a victory for her pride: You want half the treasury? Here’s half of nothing! And letting his Ceurans talk of Garuwashi remitting half of the Cenarian treasury would help his reputation for magnanimity, no matter how little half was.
“You would have Cenaria trust you? You’re saying this to a people who recently suffered under the most brutal tyrant imaginable?”
“It is a difficulty.” Garuwashi shrugged. “We can do this however you please. But if my men must pay for this city with their blood, they will take blood in return. Take those papers to the queen. Take a few days to see if I’m bluffing. And by the way, this attack this morning, it’s not a good idea. Send these rabbits after sword lords, and this siege will end today.”
Kylar waved it off. “It’s canceled already. Stupid idea.”
“So, you do have the power to change things. I’d wondered.”
It was a throwaway comment, but it struck Kylar. How did I get here? He was blithely negotiating for tens of thousands of lives and the fate of a country.
How would Logan take it? Kylar could obey the letter of his oath and everyone except Terah would win. He wouldn’t kill Terah: Lantano Garuwashi would do it for him.
Garuwashi was an honorable man, but that wasn’t the same as a good man. The Ceuran culture didn’t require him to be apologetic about craving power. He would be true to his oaths. He would be merciful—by his own definition of mercy, and Kylar had no chance to get to know him well enough to know what that was. The Ceuran nobles called him a barbarian? What if they were right?
But Cenaria had more than lives at stake. Kylar hadn’t stayed in the city long after killing Godking Ursuul, but everyone had been brimming with stories and pride about the Nocta Hemata.
Cenaria had been burnt to the ground, and something good was trying to grow in the ashes. Was Cenaria a land where the small became great despite overwhelming odds—as they had in the Nocta Hemata and the Battle of Pavvil’s Grove? Or were they Midcyru’s whipping boy—doomed to be overrun by their neighbors, fending off aggression only through the threat of such deep corruption that no one would want to rule them?
There were great souls in Cenaria. Momma K and Logan and Count Drake and Durzo were giants. Could they not be heroes as they might be in another country? Couldn’t a Scarred Wrable have been a lauded soldier instead of a hired killer? Kylar thought so, but two things stood in the way: this man’s invasion and Terah Graesin.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do this,” Kylar said.
Fully dressed now, Lantano Garuwashi tucked his thumbs into his sash, which would normally hold his swords. It must have been habit, a not-so-subtle hint to whoever challenged him of Garuwashi’s prowess. He removed his thumbs nonchalantly. “Are you going to kill me?” he asked. “I should find it difficult to fight an invisible man, but I thought we’d covered this ground already.”
Kylar ignored him. He was looking past the Ceuran to the man’s bed mat. There, for all the world looking like Ceur’caelestos, was a sword in its scabbard. A sword that Lantano Garuwashi hadn’t tucked into his sash. A sword that Kylar had thrown into Ezra’s Wood.
“Nice sword,” Kylar said.
Lantano Garuwashi flushed. Though he smiled to cover it immediately, with his fair skin it couldn’t be hidden.
“Whatever will your men say when they find out it’s a fake?