The King's Blood

she said. “My parents were buried there, and the bank took me in. I lost everyone there.”
    Geder’s belly felt hollow with fear, and he quietly thanked God that he’d chosen against the truth. Guilt washed over him like a wave.
    “I’m so sorry,” he murmured, looking away.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I loved them, but they didn’t love me. Cam, maybe. But Magister Imaniel didn’t love anyone, I don’t think. He wasn’t that kind of man. It hurt me when they died, but…”
    “But?”
    “But I don’t know who I’d be if they’d lived,” she said. She spoke with the clarity of being just drunk enough to know she had to try not to slur her words. “I missed them. And I mourned for them, I think. But I like who I am. What I do. I’m looking forward to everything. The things that happened to bring me here? I can’t judge them. Good. Bad. Who would I be if I’d had parents? Who would I be if I’d gone to Carse? If something terrible leads to something good, where does that leave you?”
    “I don’t know,” he said, though he didn’t understand the part about going to Carse. She’d come from Carse, so she must have gone there at some point.
    She put the wineskin to her mouth, tilting back her head. Her throat worked, once, twice, last. A tiny red trickle slipped from her lips, and she wiped it away with her sleeve. When she smiled, the expression was lazy and joyful, utterly out of place in the ruins of a city at war.
    “I,” she said, putting the empty skin on the ground, “am drunk enough to sleep now.”
    “Well, then. Good night, Magistra.”
    She nodded an unsteady bow, but her eyes were bright and merry.
    “Sleep well, Lord Regent. We’ll see who has to find a home for the piss pot,” she said, leaned forward with pursed lips, and blew out the candle.
    The darkness was utter and absolute. Geder found a blanket by touch and curled himself into it. The welts on his arm were itching, but not badly. He heard her struggling with her own blanket, muttering small curses, shifting, cloth moving against cloth. Her breath was shallow and impatient, and then softer, deeper, fuller. She snored a little, the rattle high in her throat. Geder lay on the dirt, his own arm for a pillow. He heard the patter of soft cat feet, one of the previous owners drawn by the smell of the chicken. The frantic licking of a small, rough tongue. When he moved, the cat fled, and he was sorry that it had. He didn’t mind sharing what was left of the meal.
    He hadn’t realized how much the tiny candle flame had warmed the little room, but the air was growing steadily colder. He willed himself to sleep, counting his breaths to himself the way he had when he was younger. Going through his body, forcing each muscle to relax, starting with his feet and ending with the top of his head. It grew colder, but he minded it less. Slowly, by inches, he felt his mind letting go, slipping apart into the quiet darkness. When she shifted against him, he only half noticed she was there.
    His last coherent thought was that he was sleeping beside a woman and it didn’t seem strange at all.

Dawson
     
    T
    he battle of Camnipol had raged for more than a week now, violence following violence, attack calling forth reprisal calling forth reprisal of its own. Twice now, someone had tried to open the gates, and both times they had been driven back. The city’s food supplies were growing shorter, the water in the cisterns lower. The high summer sun had joined the battle with the worst heat in years. It beat down from an implacable blue sky, turning all the roofs to a burning bronze, wilting the flowers, and driving men to
    madness.
    Dawson stood on the rooftop of Alan Klin’s estate, his arms behind him, his chin jutting forward with a confidence he didn’t feel. His city was suffering. His nation was suffering. Asterilhold could have reassembled its army and stood outside the walls right now, and not only would Dawson not know it, it wouldn’t have made any difference. The siege they held themselves under was as vicious as any enemy could devise. It was like watching a beloved dog going slowly mad, biting itself to death while Dawson could only look on in horror and sorrow.
    Behind him, Alan Klin cleared his throat. And Mirkus Shoat, never a man of particular originality, did as well. Dawson turned to his council. The patriots being mistaken for traitors. Estin Cersillian was dead, caught by a blade in the street. Odderd