Partisan - Book II

Grave Dirt

Allayria feels the muscles in her back scrunch into tight knots as her spine seems to be made of straight steel.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," she says evenly, her voice cool, almost detached. "I thought the entire purpose of this circus was to cultivate a team to go into Jarles territory. We have a team, but you say we are not going."

"Yet," Beinsho corrects, folding his hands together on the table in front of him. "There is something that must be done first."

He looks down at the papers in front of him before glancing back up. His pause grows longer and Allayria can't tell if it's to steady himself or to see what she will do. If the latter, she won't give him the satisfaction; her face feels like granite in the still air. A quick glance toward Ruben shows she is not the only one who is hearing this for the first time—dismay is colored his expression.

"We have followed leads on the information you provided some months previous," Beinsho begins. "Our sources have finally managed to confirm at least one place these children are being taken. This, we think, is where you must go—the place we most desperately need an unseen advantage. However, we have been able to corroborate almost nothing about what is happening there." He sighs. "I cannot deny Abadi Chaudri runs her kingdom seamlessly. Ruthlessly, but seamlessly."

His thumbs twitch over the tops of his laced fingers.

"We need more information before we can send you in. We need to know what to expect in there."

"We need," High King Feuilles interjects, "to stabilize the homeland so we are not fighting a war on all fronts."

And then Commander Beinsho meets her eyes and she can feel it coming, feel its shadow looming over her, something dark and terrible, and not altogether unexpected.

"We need that black book, Paragon," Beinsho says.

"And the people who have it too," Hai Sofo wheezes. "We need them off the playing board. No more distractions."

"They go by the name Cabal now," Beinsho continues, his gaze not wavering now. "I do not know what Ruben has told you. Very little, is my guess. They have been very active in your absence. Apart from attempting to murder the Paragon, they have engaged in wide variety of arson, blackmail, torture, and murder to destabilize at least ten cities across Keesark and western Roften. A variety of cell groups have sprouted up in the other kingdoms, inspired by their accomplishments."

Beinsho passes a tattered piece of paper to her, and Allayria looks down once more at the intricate, curving symbol that Ben had shown her in the library at Lethinor.

"Stags are known as the protectors of the forest," Ben's voice hisses in her mind, laced with a malice that does not belong to her memory. "They leave the herd to make their own way, but always return."

"Their mark is showing up in cities all over the four kingdoms, even in capitals," Beinsho continues. "Their main selling point now is having killed you, but it's only a matter of time before they need to do something large again to make a point."

"They are killing innocent people," Hai Sofo adds, and his icy blue eyes pin her. "They may think the privileged are neither innocent nor human for the sin of their birth, but we are as much flesh and blood as our lesser kin." She does not miss the significance of this, nor the pointed tone of his voice. "I am too old to be holding sobbing widows' hands, telling their terrified children that all will be well. I won't deny the bad apples in our lot, but this madness isn't pruning the orchard; it's setting it on fire."

"We're going to tear it all down, Allayria. Every door and stone. We'll let these high men see how powerful they are when chaos reigns."

Isn't it exactly as you told me, Ben? she thinks, not really seeing the room around her. Isn't it exactly as you promised?