He had called her out by name. The thought still made her shudder with—what? Revulsion wasn’t right, and neither was fear. It was the sense that she had been walking a broad path along a cliff only to find it was a bayonet’s edge. She was just waiting to be pushed.
And how she’d stumbled with the praying woman. If Cantic thought Touraine had sympathized with the woman, this could be a different meeting entirely. One that ended with her own neck at the end of a rope. Touraine was long past the age when they were only whipped for sneaking prayers and hiding holy beads.
The administrative building was guarded by a sergeant at attention, rifle at her side. The sergeant was trying and failing to pretend the wind didn’t bother her. Even though the storm was blowing north through the city, the wind here ran wild.
“Lieutenant Touraine to see General Cantic.”
The soldier scanned Touraine up and down, lip curled. The effect was ruined by her flinching squint. “Address your betters appropriately, Sand.”
“Lieutenant Touraine to see General Cantic, Sergeant.” She leaned heavily on the subordinate title and left it at that. Irritation in the back of her throat threatened to bubble into temper as Touraine passed, but she swallowed it down.
She walked through the small hallway and up the stairs, dropping her eyes whenever another Balladairan passed her. They were all high-ranking military administrators or aides-de-camp. Here were officers in black and gold.
They made her feel small, even more conscious of the sand falling from the folds of her uniform to scatter across the floor. One day, she wouldn’t tiptoe through compound halls. She would belong there. Her soldiers wouldn’t be at the mercy of horse-faced bastards like Rogan. She’d have the certainty and safety that came with rank.
One day, even farther away, people would look at her like they looked at Cantic. She would command the same level of respect.
After passing door after plain door, Touraine knew instantly when she arrived. She knocked three times on the ornate wood.
The general’s door was smooth with age and nicked by travel, but well cared for. Touraine smelled the polish. Carved rabbits chased each other along the bottom panels, and birds flew at the top. The middle panels were taken by smooth deer, two fawns and a buck grazing while the doe looked warily around for a threat.
Another rumor: before Cantic became the Sands’ instructor, she was a captain in the field, instrumental in expanding the empire under King Roland. When her husband and two children died in the last Withering plague, the grief broke her. She couldn’t fight anymore. The army brought her home to teach and recover.
Touraine reached to brush her fingertips across the buck’s antlers.
The door swung open under her hand.
General Cantic stood in the doorway, looking sour. Not a good start.
“Are you deaf, soldier? I said come in.”
“Apologies, General.” Touraine saluted. “Your door. It’s beautiful.”
The general’s eyes might have softened. Then the moment was gone, and her eyes were the blue ice chips Touraine remembered from her childhood.
Cantic had taken off her black coat with its golden arm, and her tucked shirt hung loose on her wiry frame. Her skin had leathered and freckled with sun and age more than Touraine had realized on the gallows. She still wore a thick grief ring on her right middle finger and a small one on each little finger.
Cantic finally cracked a smile. “Touraine. Lieutenant Touraine. I am glad to see you well. I always knew you’d advance. This morning was very well done.”
Touraine smiled back, flush with pride and hope. “I think of your lessons regularly, General. It’s good to see you again, sir.”
“Good.” Cantic sat behind a desk carved with as much artistry as the door. Her face sharpened from impressed teacher to inquisitor. The familiar eyes searching for missteps. “Now, first. Who was that man to you? The one at the gallows.”
“No one, General.”
“No one?”
“No one I know, sir.”
The truth, no matter who asked.
“You know me better than he does,” she added. “I’ve spent my entire life in Balladaire. My commanding officers are Balladairan. My teachers are Balladairan.” She nodded at the general. “Sir.”
Cantic nodded slowly, her face a bit too pinched for Touraine to think the general would dismiss this entirely. She shuffled the papers on her desk in silence, as if she were looking for a particular topic she wanted to discuss, and Touraine’s heart crawled up her throat while she waited for the silence to break.