Tales of the Vangen: The Black Ministry's Betrayal (Book 1)

Chapter 42: A Parley at Sundown

Custodia stepped aside just as a pitcher sailed over her head, smashing into the wall behind her. Cold wine splashed over the back of her cloak, the rest dripping onto Blackstone's floor.

"Gods damn it!" Tyrannus roared. He grabbed an apple off the table and flung it as well, this time in the direction of Aeturnus, who stared unblinking from an outside window. It bounced off his nose.

"Ouch." The giant muttered.

"You idiots! You fecking idiots! I told you to handle the Vangen before they reached the palace. Before, not after the fact." Tyrannus turned a glaring eye towards Custodia.

She winced as his power roiled in her direction, nipping away at her like vipers testing their next meal. "I'm sorry, sir. The failure is mine and mine alone. I'll take full responsibility."

"Be quiet." Tyrannus pointed the finger at her. "Our colleagues, well, former colleagues now, are as much responsible for this failure as you all are." He turned an eye up at the giant peeking through the window. If the Jotan cared, his eyes didn't show it as he stared down at Tyrannus with the same bored expression he'd had upon first arriving.

"Cannis was a wild card from the start, unable to listen or be reasoned with. The magick within his heart had made him as much a wild animal as the creatures he shifted into." Tyrannus turned his attention back to the table, where a map of the city sat stretched out. Various carvings were scattered about, standing upright or tipped over onto their sides. Reaching out, Tyrannus scooped up a tipped over carving of a wolf, the black marble gleaming in the morning sunlight.

A strange softness appeared in Tyrannus' eyes."He was still a useful tool, though, one that I had hoped to reign in before the Emperor's return, but he was too savage, too wild for civilization." He placed the wolf down and picked up another carving made out of iron.

"Tranquillis though, was a surprise. I had left him with Cannis in hopes he'd rub off on the boy, but that was a mistake as well." Tyrannus turned back towards Custodia. "I tried to reason with him, you know. Tried to convince the old warrior that honor had no place in this rebellion, but he thought himself right. That it was there, somewhere. Like a needle in a haystack, he'd said."

"He was the best," Custodia said.

Tyrannus nodded in agreement before picking up another carving, turning it this way and that in his hand before gripping the stone, squeezing it. "Mendax...," he paused, then tossed the carving aside. "Well, the less said about her, the better."

Tyrannus rubbed at his eyes, fingers massaging at the black bags deeply grooved into his old, tan flesh. For a man in his fifties, Custodia mused to herself, he looked decrepit. Sallow cheeks had taken away some of his handsome features. His raven black hair was streaked with more and more silver. His magick seemed to be slowly consuming him as it took more and more to keep his rebellion going. Commanding a thousand men was hard in the Vangen's case. Commanding ten thousand even harder, especially those who were unwilling at first.

"The fact of the matter is that we have lost over half our Ministry in one fecking night," Tyrannus said. "We cannot lose anymore. We are all that is left."

"We'll be careful," Custodia replied. "I promise. The Vangen have no more tricks up their sleeves now that they have been cornered into the palace."

"The Vangen will always have their tricks." Tyrannus reminded her. "As long as Captain Dux breathes, he will continue to elude us."

"I am well aware." Custodia did not need reminding. The bump on the back of her head had been a constant reminder of Dux's trickery when he'd bashed her with a candelabra to give Magnus a chance to escape. The night before Pyres Day.