Dagger and Coin by Kathy MacMillan

Author:Kathy MacMillan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

BY MIDDAY, THE Web had quieted down, with most people electing to stay inside. We’d closed the market early on, so the only people there were the Arnathim who had shown up to guard the Melarim. There were over fifty volunteer defenders now, so Kirol sent most of the guards over to help in Portside, where the sailors had constructed a barricade. A handful of homes and shops had been looted there, but now it was mainly sailors yelling about taking back the City of Kings and keeping the Arnathim out of “their neighborhood.” I ordered Kirol to get some spies into that crowd.

It seemed ridiculous to hold a regular council meeting that evening, but we had business to discuss. Jonis wanted to go down to see the Melarim, but conceded that in the current environment, it was best to stay in the palace.

“We have to go to the docks to see them off tomorrow morning, though,” said Jonis, “no matter what anyone says.”

“Yes,” I replied. “And it should be the biggest send-off we can make it.”

Jonis nodded. “To honor them, yes. That will send a message.”

I’d been thinking that it would announce to the Qilarites that the divisive Melarim were gone and things could go back to normal, but if the Arnathim wanted to take it as honoring the Melarim, well, then, even better.

“As soon as they’re gone, we’ll hold a memorial for Coe,” I mused.

Jonis’s fork paused halfway to his mouth. “What?”

“If we don’t, Qilarites will take it as a slight.”

“You want to honor that—”

I abandoned all pretense of eating and stared him down. “If we don’t do something to honor him, it will only feed the idea that we killed him.”

“Or it will make us look like enormous hypocrites.”

That was true, but I didn’t see any way around that. Half the city would probably believe that we were audaciously memorializing a man we ourselves had murdered. But then, people admired audacity in their leaders. That was why Father had been so successful.

“Just one more day,” I said. “Things will settle down once the Melarim are gone.” The Melarim were a disruption, a reminder of all the things we were trying to move away from, and their arrival had ripped off the thin scab that had just begun to form over the wound of Qilara’s past. It couldn’t start to heal until they were gone.

It was obvious before we got halfway to the docks the next morning that something was wrong. Smoke painted the sky, and the driver shouted that we should turn back. Adin agreed, but Jonis and I both demanded to go on. There was hardly any traffic on the road, so when we reached the docks—what was left of them—we had an unimpeded view of the flaming piers, the charred pilings, and two ships burning at their moorings. One of them was Gyotia’s Wrath, the raider ship that had brought the Melarim. The other was the southern vizier’s ship, the Shorebird.

Through the window, I could see the driver fighting to control the spooked horses.

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