She stood and limped around her desk, reaching for Touraine’s hand. “I’m sorry—”
Touraine pulled her hand back. “My squad, they’re still—”
“They’re still stationed in the city. ”
Touraine hid her face. She was ashamed to feel so relieved. Rose Company was her company. She’d grown up with those Sands. She’d fought beside them. She felt Luca’s gentle hand on her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” the princess whispered.
“Then why not send the blackcoats?” growled Touraine. She backed away from Luca’s hand again. “Why send us—why send the conscripts?”
Luca stared blankly at her until understanding clicked.
“Touraine, they’re soldiers. It’s their job. The general deploys them based on skill and needs.”
Touraine knew all about skills and needs and the “sacrifices” that must be made.
“Then why is it always us first? The first to fight, the first to die?”
“What do you want me to do, Touraine?” Luca gestured in the direction of Cantic’s office. “Tell Cantic to never let them fight again?”
“That’s the problem, Luca.” Touraine gestured through the sandstone walls at Cantic’s office and toward the city, too. Her eyes burned, and all of Cheminade’s old junk blurred. Her voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. “It’s not a matter of let. They never chose this. They’re not getting rewarded for valor with ribbons and raises. We just die, and when we die, we’re not even worth the wood to burn us.”
Luca made a small sound as if she’d been punched in the belly.
Touraine’s faith in Luca’s ability to keep the rebels from turning the guns on the Sands dwindled to nothing.
This time, the princess didn’t try to touch her again, even though now a part of Touraine wanted the warm touch of sympathy. But the distance between who Luca was and who Touraine could be gaped impossibly wide.
Touraine sniffed, stepped back, and bowed. “May I be excused, Your Highness?”
Luca ran her hand over her messy blond hair. She started to speak twice before finally saying, “Of course. Take as much time as you need.”
CHAPTER 22
AN ALLIANCE
The day Luca meant to meet the rebels, she thought she’d die of the heat first. The last two weeks had seen the dry season rise to a peak, and the sun seared like a judging eye over the city.
Or maybe Luca only imagined it, and the heat was the flush of guilt as she diverted one hundred guns away from her military to her military’s de facto adversary. Old guns, likely to be jammed or to backfire in the shooter’s face, but still. Weapons that could be used against her people. Of all her concessions, this was the most dangerous. Economic changes she could justify, but this was as good as treason.
It was easy, surprisingly easy, to wedge open this crack in her empire. If Cantic had been a traitor to the realm, it could have been done long ago.
No. It was only the baking earth and lack of breeze that kept her sweating in her office on the compound.
She looked over the last of the notes for her first foray into arms dealing. Two separate shipments, in two separate storehouses. Just in case. When the time came, it would look like someone had broken into her personal stores, guided by an unfortunate leak on the merchant’s end or an especially enterprising network of spies. Not a queen sabotaging her rule for the chance at foreign magic. A chance at peace, not power, she told herself, multiple times a day. And yet her fingers itched for it. The magic. Her triumphant return to Balladaire, leaving a restful colony behind. Her coronation.
Luca would give the instructions to the rebels tonight—if they upheld their end of the bargain and told her how to use the magic.
As she left, she made sure to take all the papers with her. Just in case.
Back in the Quartier, Touraine was helping the porters pack away Guérin’s belongings. They were burly Qazāli, sweat staining their Balladairan shirts across the backs and armpits even though Guérin had but a single chest. Guérin’s ship would set sail today or tomorrow, depending on the water conditions.
When the porters carried her out on a litter to the medical carriage, the entire household came to see Guérin off. That surprised Luca more than a little. She didn’t think the taciturn woman had made so many friends. And that was even more to Touraine’s point that night she had railed at Luca.
Touraine was already dressed for the evening’s activity, in her black Qazāli garb, the face scarf hanging around her neck. She clasped Guérin’s forearm and then gave her a gentle, brief squeeze on the back. Lanquette practically had to bend double to hug her.