The Silver Sparrow

A Deadly Weapon

Deo di Amarra blinked, twice. "You're accusing me of treason?"

"We are." Jarem nodded.

"Over an escape of a convict?"

"One charged with the murder of a general of the salar's army, five city guards and thirteen soldiers. Your apprentice, to be precise." The most favorite apprentice, actually. That pretty boy had been brought up all too quickly from the pleasure district into the Tower almost singlehandedly by his new master. To him, something just didn't seem right with that, and in many ways, Jarem was glad to have gotten rid of the Silver Sparrow.

Di Amarra listened and raised a brow. Nothing but amusement and curiosity on that face. "So, one general, five guards and thirteen soldiers died failing to stop one man from escaping the city," he repeated, pride all over his face. "Are you charging me for the general competence of my men, commander, or for the lack of it in yours? Because I'm definitely involved in the first but not in the latter. I'm afraid you're going to have to arrest the men in charge of security for that one."

"They're dead, di Amarra." The salar stepped in, catching the Khandoor's gaze as he did. "As of this morning. All of them. Including your stewards who did so producing evidence of the Silver Sparrow having returned to your estate before he escaped."

It was something of a rush they'd gone through that morning. Five officers in charge had been pulled from their homes, made to explain why such an escape had been possible with hundreds of men being on watch all over the city and along the border before they were executed. Three stewards from Di Amarra's estate had been taken in for questioning—a lengthier process that had taken the interrogators as long as two hours to get anything out of them. In the end, only one man had spilled the information before they all succumbed to their injuries. An impressive set of employees, he had to admit.

To his right, di Amarra stood with a stillness of a black lake on a windless night, breathing lightly as a ghost. He tilted his head slowly toward Jarem, just enough for the razor-sharp gleam in those green eyes to show.

"You took my men in for interrogation without telling me, Commander?"

The words, spoken like a knife being carefully dragged upon bare skin to expose a vein, gave Jarem the sudden need to reach for the pommel of his sword. It wasn't there, of course, the only one allowed to carry a weapon in the presence of the salar was Ghaul. But the fact that di Amarra also didn't carry a blade rarely offered one much of a relief. The man might have been standing calmly there with nothing in his hands except the rings on his fingers, but he could kill just as calmly, and with less.

"Under my instructions, di Amarra," the salar, watching his advisor intently now, spoke with enough clarity to rival the hostility being shown by the Khandoor.

Di Amarra turned back to the salar, and Jarem breathed uneasily as the two of them stared at each other, wondering if he was the only one who felt it—that presence of some hungry beast pacing in the shadows of the chamber, waiting for the right moment to leap out into view.

Time limped by like an injured animal, and somewhere in the middle of it, di Amarra slipped into the privacy of his thoughts. His eyes flickered to the floor where he seemed to be examining a crack in the black marble absentmindedly, only one would have to be a complete imbecile to believe an absence of mind was a concept that would ever fit Deo di Amarra.

After a moment, he looked up at the salar. "I see," he said as if having just come to terms with something. "I presume you have a proposal for me then, my lord?"

At that, Salar Muradi responded with a raised brow, "To allow an act of treason to go unpunished? Are you so convinced that I'm above the law, di Amarra?"