Chương 34: Chapter 33 - Brides and Bribes

"The Stone-Sworn present an obvious liability - fanatics are unreliable partners - but the alliance was never intended to be permanent. They possess the access, the manpower, and the motivation to take what we cannot take ourselves. When their usefulness ends so will our obligations. Always have contingencies in place." - From the correspondences of Duke Alastair Thorne, undated ISABELLA The air inside the coach was stifling even in the chill of the mountains.

Mana heaters, expensive brandy, and the metallic scent of my brother's enchanted armor, which he insisted on wearing even while traveling. Outside, the wind howled through the high passes of the Dragon's Tooth, driving snow against the reinforced glass in violent sheets. Inside, the atmosphere was heavy enough to make even the thin air hard to breathe. Victor sat opposite me, his long legs stretched out and invading my side of the carriage.

He was cleaning his fingernails with a stiletto, the blade flashing in the swaying light of the mana-lamp. He looked bored, restless, a razorback panther in a cage. It had been almost two months since our encounter in the ridges overlooking the Serpent's Coil, two months since my organization had gone dark and I'd spirited Kalia away to a quiet farmhouse near the border of the free cities.

I had paid a king's ransom to a life mage to knit Kalia's shattered arm and ribs back together, but the healer had warned that the recovery would be long. For the first time since my return to Eastwatch I had no shield, no muscle, no confidante. I was walking into the heart of a dwarven radical faction with nothing but my wits and a dagger I prayed I wouldn't have to use.

"You're brooding," Victor said, his voice raised to overcome the hum of the mana engine. I didn't look away from the window.

"I am thinking."

"Same thing." He slid the stiletto into the leather of the seat as if objects simply had no value. He leaned forward, his armor creaking.

"You've been distant since the raid on the lower district, Bella. Father thinks you're sulking about the grain distribution, I told him you were just shaken by the violence." Following the fight with my alter ego, a persona the locals had taken to calling 'The Bandit Queen,' my father had cracked down even harder. Krell's betrayal had run deep and many innocent people paid the price in a harsh display that had resulted in more than a dozen executions; most of whom had nothing to do with our operations.

The Duke of Eastwatch didn't care, he needed examples and he found them.

"I am not shaken," I said, finally turning to look at him. His eyes were the same light hazel they'd always been, but where mine were ice, his were fire, burning with an unstable energy.

"I just find it inelegant. Violence isn't the solution to every problem, you're going to create more revolutionaries to replace the ones you killed." Victor laughed, that handsome smile looking more menacing by the day.

"Haven't found a problem yet it hasn't solved, no more shipments have been hit, no more unrest." He pulled the knife free and examined the edge, a strange thoughtfulness sparking in his distant stare.

"Still, she had flare. Most people break when they see me, I almost regret killing her." A stone settled in my stomach, his mix of admiration and lust made my skin crawl with disgust.

"You enjoy it too much." I let a hint of sisterly disapproval bleed into my tone.

"Father needs you to be a general, Victor, not a butcher." He dismissed the criticism with a wave of his hand.

"A general is just a butcher with a map." He shifted, moving from the opposite seat to the bench beside me. The carriage was spacious, designed for four, but he sat close enough that his pauldrons brushed my shoulder. The heat radiating from him was feverish.

"Father sends me to meet a bride," he said, his voice dropping to an intimate register that sent the hair rising on my neck.

"He wants the Stone-Sworn's access, so I must marry their daughter. I hear she shaves her head and wrestles bears."

"She is the daughter of General Borin." I resisted the strong urge to lean away.

"Her dowry is an army that can bypass the the city's main defenses."

"The marriage will never hold." Victor reached out his hand to cover mine where it rested on my knee. He didn't wear gloves under his gauntlets, his blood magic required exposed skin. His fingers were rough, calloused from the sword, but his touch was gentle, disquietingly so.

"Father knows that blood calls to blood, he would not mix our line with these... diggers. When he's gotten what he wants from them, he'll cast them aside as he should." He squeezed my hand, his thumb tracing the line of my knuckles.

"We are the only ones who matter." I stared it his hand on mine, pressure building behind my temples.

"The alliance is necessary," I said, gently but firmly extracting my hand and placing it in my lap.

"If we are to see father's vision through, we need the mountains." Victor sighed, leaning back but not moving away.

"It's a shame, really, if you had been born a man we could have ruled the world together, you at my right side. As it is..." The carriage lurched, banking hard as we began our descent toward our final destination. The engine whined, the rune brakes firing to slow our momentum.

"We're here," I said, grateful for the interruption. The Stone-Sworn main encampment was a pock on the face of the mountain. Carved into the sheer granite cliffs of the outer range, it was a fortress more than a settlement. Huge iron ramparts jutted from the rock, bristling with ballistae and mana-cannons as if expecting an attack at any moment. Smoke poured from a hundred vents, staining the snow grey.

This wasn't the majestic, clockwork beauty of Kaz-Varr but a war machine fueled by radicalism and brutal efficiency. Our carriage passed through the iron gates flanked by dwarves in etched plate armor. They carried scraggy axes and heavy mauls, effective but rudimentary equipment. Their beards were long and unbraided with iron wire laced through them, a rejection of the ornamental styles of the dwarven capital city.

We came to a halt in the central courtyard and Victor kicked the door open before the footman could reach it, stepping out into the biting wind without a cloak. He expanded his chest, breathing in the smog and sulfur.

"Smells like war." He grinned, offering me a hand. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I took it reluctantly, stepping down onto the frozen ground. I pulled my fur-lined cloak tight, scanning the yard. There was no commerce here, no leisure. Every dwarf I saw was training, sharpening steel, or hauling crates of munitions. I saw piles of raw mana-crystals, mined with a reckless speed that ignored stability.

"Lord Thorne," a deep voice boomed. A dwarf approached flanked by an honor guard of four hulking warriors. He was wide as a doorframe, his armor black as pitch, a heavy war-hammer strapped to his back. His face was a map of scars, eyes hard and flinty.

"General Borin," Victor said, inclining his head the barest fraction. Borin sniffed and looked at me, his glance dismissive.

"You brought the diplomat. Your father promised weapons, not words."

"My sister speaks for the Duke's treasury." Victor tightened his hand on his sword pommel, the blade humming slightly in its sheath.

"And the treasury pays for your war. I'd show her some respect, General, or I might forget to sign the next supply manifest." Borin's brow pinched, but he nodded.

"Lady Thorne, welcome to the Stone's Heart."

"General," I said, letting the display of male bravado go unremarked upon.

"Your hospitality is... rugged."

"We do not build for comfort," Borin said, unconcerned.

"Come. Thalia is waiting in the war room, we will dine and then discuss what's next." He turned and marched toward the main keep, a multi-story structure cut directly into the cliff face. As we entered the keep I caught a glimpse of a side tunnel, heavily guarded. Workers were hauling crates marked with the sigil of the royal armory. My father was arming fanatics with military-grade siege weapons.

The war room doubled as the mess hall, a cavernous chamber illuminated by braziers of burning coal that filled the upper air with an stinging haze. The table was a slab of unpolished stone, the chairs heavy iron that leeched the heat from the room. Dinner was a stark affair, roasted mountain goat that tasted of pine resin, a stew of tubers and subterranean fungus that looked like gray sludge, and flagons of ale so dark and thick it poured like syrup.

I sat to Victor's right, picking at the goat with a rusted iron knife. My brother, however, seemed to revel in the barbarism. He tore into the meat with his hands, wiping the grease on a linen napkin. Across from us sat the object of the alliance: Thalia Borin. She was young, perhaps seventeen, but she was built like a boulder. Her shoulders were broad, her arms corded with muscle beneath a sleeveless leather tunic.

Her hair was shaved at the sides, the top pulled back into a complex warrior's braid woven with copper wire. Her skin was etched with tattoos, geometric runes of the Stone-Sworn faith. She stared at Victor with the flat, dead-eyed stare of a sacrifice walking to the altar.

"She'll do," Victor announced, breaking the silence. He didn't look at her, addressing her father while tossing a bone onto the floor.

"She has good teeth, strong hips. She'll give me sons that fight like demons." Thalia's hand tightened around her tankard, the metal groaning audibly. She didn't speak, didn't look up, but her aura was a roiling storm of humiliation restrained by a strong will. She hated him, she hated this, but beneath the hate was a bedrock of fanatical resolve. She would endure this because the cause demanded it. I couldn't help but sympathize with her plight, one I had only avoided by happenstance.

"She is a Shield-Maiden of the Third Deep," General Borin rumbled.

"She knows her duty." Victor smiled, a predatory baring of teeth.

"Good." He reached across the table, his fingers brushing her cheek. Thalia went rigid, eyes fixing on a point on the wall. Victor lingered, testing her discipline before pulling back.

"Submissiveness is an admirable quality in a woman." I took a sip of the bitter ale to wash the taste of bile from my mouth and avoid saying something I knew I'd regret. My father was selling his only son to fanatics and Victor was treating it like he was buying a breeding mare. But then he was probably right to assume our father would never make good on this alliance once the juice had been squeezed.

"The marriage will be consecrated once the High Council is dissolved," Borin said, drawing our attention back to the map spread across the table.

"We do not mix blood until the work is done." I stepped into the role of the restive financier.

"My father is anxious for results, General." Borin looked annoyed to be addressed by a woman on matters of politics, but that only made it more satisfying.

"The crates of mana-munitions you requested have been delivered to the forward camps. The gold has been transferred, he expects the timeline to be respected, there are plans in place."

"The timeline is out of our hands." Borin absently touched the high-quality steel of his bracer, paid for with Thorne gold.

"The dungeon is opening and we must be there when it does. It would be better if we had control of the city first, but we will hold up our end."

"We won't tolerate excuses, general." Victor welcomed any opportunity to belittle Borin, to register a complaint no matter how unreasonable.

"If the dungeon opens before you have taken the city, before we controlled the entrance, that is a problem. You must move up your schedule."

"The High Council has closed the Deep Road in anticipation of the dungeon opening," Borin said, irritation flaring at having his decisions questioned.

"We will take the city, but our vanguard will enter first and take the dungeon, there is no other way. The Clockwork Tomb is a vault and the Titan's Heart beats within it - we need to claim it or your father's 'timeline' will mean very little. It changes nothing but the sequence."

"If the dungeon is opening," Victor said, bored by the theology but interested in the violence, "then the energy spikes will have drawn every mercenary from here to the coast. It's going to be a mess."

"It is a new dungeon, D or C-Rank at most, and will be of interest only to local Guild branches looking to train up their freshest fodder," Borin said.

"Let the Guilds flood the upper levels with their recruits." He tapped a spot on the map, deep within the mountain's roots.

"They will bleed the dungeon's defenses dry and offer a useful distraction while Forgemaster Hek and his shock troopers rush the lower levels without interruption. Soon we'll have the key, the rest is as good as handled." I watched him closely.

"The key?"

"The heretic Flinkgear," Borin spat the name.

"He stole the regulator before he was cast down. We have tracked it to a gnome set to enter Kaz-Varr via an Ironhand caravan out of Carriston." That was new information, though there was little I could do to intervene now.

"Once we have it, Hek will open the vault, the Stone-Sworn will rise, the Council will fall, and your father will have his trade routes."

"And the sole Telviri contract on the steel that the Titan Heart produces," I added.

"A fair price," Borin grunted.

"Just make sure you get the device intact, we can't have any fucks up," Victor said, standing up and stretching. He looked at Thalia.

"Walk me to my quarters, bride, we have things to discuss." Thalia stood, her face stone.

"As you command, my lord." She followed him out, a prisoner marching to her cell. I remained at the table, examining the map. The plan was in motion and there seemed to be little I could do to stop it. My father was funding a coup to secure a resource monopoly but he was using fanatics to do it. Fanatics were effective at starting fires, that much was true, but they tended to burn everything equally.

"You look troubled, Lady Thorne," Borin said with feigned interest.

"Do you doubt our resolve?"

"Not your resolve, General," I said, standing and smoothing my skirts.

"But dungeons are unpredictable, designations can change. If the city was secured first, Hek would meet no resistance, but this is dangerous. I don't like uncontrolled variables."

"We will not fail," Borin said simply.

"See that you don't." I turned and left the hall in desperate need of fresh air. I walked the ramparts of the Stone-Sworn keep, the biting wind a welcome cleanser after the excessive heat of the war room. Below me, the encampment frothed with the restless energy of an army on the brink of deployment, the clang of smiths repairing armor and the guttural chanting of prayers rising into the night air.

I pulled my fur-lined cloak tighter, stopping at a battlement to look out over the serrated silhouette of the Dragon's Tooth range. Somewhere deep beneath those peaks lay the object that had inspired all this madness. The Titan's Heart. My father thought of it as a battery, a First Magi artifact that could power his military revolution.

Victor thought he was buying a monopoly with his gold and his weapons, but looking down at the soldiers below, chanting their prayers in the red glow of the forge fires, I knew the truth: Alastair Thorne had armed a crusade. Men motivated by their gods could not be bought, only aimed. My father knew this, which meant he intended to betray them, just as they intended to betray him. It was reckless, something my father had never been, which scared me all the more.

I pulled my cloak tight and headed back into the stone where Victor waited to debrief. I still had one card to play, and I was running out of time to use it.