CHAPTER 30
| | |
ANA AND MILJIN LISTENED grimly in her chambers as I recounted what I’d seen in the halls of the Hazas. I sniffed at my vial of mint aroma and went through every detail, sparing nothing, reciting all I’d seen from the moment I’d stepped into their carriage—except for my fumbling attempt to review the Hazas’ correspondence in their rookery. That I would leave for last.
When I finished we sat in silence in the arbitration chambers of the Iudex tower. The only sound was the creak and sigh as the building flexed about us in the night breeze.
“You did well, boy,” said Ana quietly. “Well to look and see as you did…And well to resist Fayazi’s temptations.” She shook her head, disgusted. “What a tool cynicism is to the corrupt, claiming the whole of the creation is broken and fraudulent, and thus we are all excused to indulge in whatever sins we wish—for what’s a little more unfairness, in this unfair world? Wise you were, Din, to shut your ears to it.” She went still for a moment, then said, “Now. Repeat Fayazi Haza’s first set of questions for me, please.”
I took a breath, then echoed: “Have you found something? Has Dolabra found something? Anything?”
“I see…And the second set of questions?”
Again, I echoed: “What does your immunis know of my father? What has he done? What does she know about him and Taqtasa Blas?”
“Yes…and that moment, before you went to see the walls—she offered you food, but you did not take it,” said Ana. “Correct? And then she…”
I nodded. “She looked terrified. Frightened of something, like she’d done something wrong. But I didn’t know what, ma’am. Yet she looked the same when I saw her last, when she came to stand at the top of the stairs.”
Ana was silent again for a long, long time. Then she said simply, “And the bit you overheard her saying, Din? To her mysterious visitor, before she tried to tempt you?”
I summoned up some more energy and echoed those as well, mimicking Fayazi’s snide cadence: “…do any of this if you tell me nothing. A third? Third what? What are they to find? What do they seek?…Oh, you keep saying that! I did not ask for any of this, you know. You don’t understand what it was like, being here. If he wished me to lead, he would have given me some line. Yet here I stay, tied up like a mad dog…”
Miljin chuckled morosely. “Your impression of that dreadful woman, boy, is quite something…”
“Hm,” said Ana. Again her fingers flittered in the folds of her dress. “A third…a third what? Third murder? A third poisoner, or poisoning? We do not yet know enough to imagine. But one thing grows apparent…I don’t think Fayazi Haza knows, either.”
I sat there limply, too exhausted to react. But Miljin’s brows furrowed until they nearly eclipsed his eyes. “She doesn’t know…what?” he said.
“Apparently anything!” said Ana. “While it’d be convenient for her to be the spider at the center of this web, I actually don’t think Fayazi Haza knows a goddamn thing about what went on between her father and Blas. She might not know any more than we do, in fact.”
“Truly, ma’am?” he said. “That seems preposterous. I mean—she’s a Haza!”
“She’s the daughter of the third prime son of the lineage,” said Ana. “Which is not, genealogically speaking, an elite leadership position within the clan. And she’s been stuck out here on the Outer Rim, standing in the back rooms while her father ran the show—and it seems he kept many secrets from her. She now suspects we have figured out those secrets, but we have not. Not yet, at least. It’s very strange. She sounds so clumsy, so erratic…Like she was told to find things out, but was not told enough to comprehend what she found.” She chewed on her lip for a moment. “I think Fayazi is a puppet.”
“For who?” said Miljin.
“Why, the rest of her family, of course.”
“The rest of the Hazas?” asked Miljin. “Aren’t they one and the same?”
“Oh, no. The Hazas are a far bigger operation than what we see here in Talagray—and Fayazi is in a rather tough spot within that operation. Her father died, and she was suddenly put into power in his place. However, I suspect she quickly came to realize that her father was running secret little schemes for the family, ones she hadn’t been privy to—and, worse still, letters then came pouring in from the family proper, deeper in the Empire. Orders. Directives. Commands. Commands that probably told her nothing, other than what to do, not to ask questions…and to look for something here in the canton. Something important that they’re worried we’ve found. Perhaps this mysterious third. Fayazi is now probably sweating under all those silvery robes—and worried that if this truly goes south, it’ll be she who hangs, and none of her illustrious kin.”