Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

51. Damned if You Don't

The troops assembled in solemn silence. My heart weighed my chest, wondering whether I'd hear the carefree chatter at a muster any time soon. I clenched my fists while the centurions reported in, schooling my face into a calm mask. We'd get through it. We must.

"I'm looking for two scores of volunteers to go after the cultists who had murdered our wounded and our venerable High Scribe," I started without a preamble. "Make no mistake! This mission is conducted in service to me, Ismar of Palmyr, personally, not the Deadhead Company."

The women stirred as one. The load on my heart lightened when I noticed how many eyes brightened.

"Second-in-command Ondrey will oversee the regular operations while I'm on leave. His first order of business is to recruit a new High Scribe until we have one sent from Char-Kermen."

Ondrey stood like a rock, too disciplined to object, but his jowls worked. His wide brows furrowed into one thick line of disapproval. He would badger me later, that was a given. For now, he helped me with the volunteers without a word of complaint as was his duty. It also helped to lighten my heart.

Now, where volunteers were concerned, a black-skinned adolescent kept stepping forward despite being dismissed every time. She had neither arms, nor armor, nor did she make clear to me who the Vash-waters she was. She just reappeared before me and stared with mute resentment.

"Who the Vash-waters are you?" I asked impatiently once she had materialized for the third time like a ghost over a grave.

"Tipene, Your Grandissima!" She snapped to attention, already taller than me, though I doubted she was a day older than fifteen. From Tverizh to Bhar, people were born taller than what was normal in Palmyr, a fact that made traveling infuriating.

"I worked in the infirmary with my mother. Only, we argued, and I ran away to climb the cliffs... that's why I'm alive, Your Grandissima. And she... she's not." She held back from crying by a shred. Her large brown eyes were already swollen, yet her report was coherent. I liked the iron in her spine.

"Is Tipene our missing nurse?" I asked my entourage and received the nods confirming my guess.

This narrowed down the list of suspected traitors to two: the missing guard and Parneres himself. Parneres had regained consciousness while I was away. The memory of him choosing his cousin over freedom branded my heart like Scorpia on the cultists' skin for ten years. If he did this again--I couldn't bear thinking of it, so I didn't.

This leaves us two suspects, the guard and Parneres.

Back to the girl. She earned my attention.

"Your Grandissima, what we quarreled over with my mother... it was about..." She dry-swallowed before regaining her composure. "I wanted to join the Company. And my mother beat me up a little, owing to how I must carry on the family business, not traipse around the world. So, I volunteer to kill these Scorpia monsters and join the Company."

"And you are how old?" I asked her.

"Eighteen already!" she blurted, shamelessly using the fact that her fortunate complexion didn't show blush.

If she were eighteen, so was I. Under no circumstances I would take this untrained, untested girl into the desert on a hunt after a squad of Scorpia assassins!

But, but, but... the fire in her eyes spelled trouble. A mother in me sickened seeing the defiance, while the younger me understood it.

Mythra only knows what a girl of that age, whatever it actually was, could think herself capable of! Better give her a reasonable quest, before she devised something crazy on her own.