First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera, #6)

by Jim Butcher

Varg spent an hour or so on deck, inspecting, offering encouragement, snarling at imperfection. All was quiet, otherwise, which he mistrusted. There hadn’t been nearly enough adversity during this crossing. Ill fortune must be holding its balest bolt until it could be sure it was lethal.

Maybe it would have made a difference. Maybe a lot of things would be different.’ ‘Do you believe that?’ Isana asked. Araris smiled faintly. ‘I don’t know. I think about it often, what I might have done differently. But I suppose we all do that with the important choices.’

‘If it isn’t too much trouble, perhaps you could explain what sorts of problems I might be letting myself in for if I go through with the plan.’ ‘I don’t see why,’ Alera responded. ‘You’re going to do it in any case.’ ‘Perhaps.’

‘After so long helping my family and the Realm, you deserve better.’ ‘In what way is that relevant? What one deserves and what one experiences are seldom congruent.’ ‘When they are, it is called “justice,”’ Tavi said. ‘It’s one of the things I’m supposed to help provide, as I understand the office.’

‘Life is unfair, uncaring, and painful, young Gaius,’ Alera said. ‘Only a madman struggles against the tide.’ She didn’t make a whisper of sound, but Tavi lifted his eyes to find Alera kneeling, facing him, her face level with his. She reached out and touched his cheek with her frayed fingertips. ‘I have always found the particular madness of the House of Gaius singularly intriguing. It has fought the tides for more than a thousand years. It has often failed to attain victory. But it has never conceded the struggle.’

‘Strength is the first virtue,’ Alera said. ‘That is not a pleasant fact. Its distastefulness does not alter the truth that without strength to protect them, all other virtues are ephemeral, ultimately meaningless.’

‘Many things can end lives. Even the lives of Aleran Citizens. Disease. Fires. Accidents. And, in the end, age itself.’ She fed him the piece of roast and watched him begin to chew before nodding approval and beginning to cut another. ‘Death is certain, Aleran - for all of us. That being true, we know that all of those we love will either be torn away from us, or we will be torn away from them. It follows as naturally as the night after sundown.’

Fear was not something she had ever become comfortable with. She had seen others who had - and not simply metal-crafters, either, who could cheat - walling away all of their emotions behind a cold, steely barrier of rational thought. She had known men and women who felt the fear every bit as intensely as she did, and who simply accepted its presence. For some of them, the fear seemed to flow through them, never stopping or finding purchase. Others actually seemed to seize on it, to channel it into furious thought and action.

‘There’s a bond,’ the Princeps said, nodding. ‘I scarcely understand it myself - and she honestly gives me no help whatsoever when I try.’ ‘That is because knowledge given freely to another is not really knowledge at all, Aleran,’ Kitai replied. ‘It is rumor. One must learn for oneself.’

Life, Tavi reflected, seldom makes a gift of what one expects or plans for.

‘Well,’ Antillus Raucus said. ‘There it is.’ ‘Brilliant last words,’ Phrygius said beside him. ‘We’ll put them on your memorium. Right next to, “He died stating the obvious.”’ ‘Ah,’ Lord Placida said. ‘It begins.’ ‘See?’ Phrygius said. ‘Sandos knows how to go out with style.’ ‘You want to go out with style, I’ll strangle you with your best silk tunic,’ growled Antillus.

They were ready, she realized. They were ready. She never consciously decided to shout, but she suddenly felt her voice rising, trumpet-clear in the morning light, as she cried out her scorn and defiance toward the enemy, a simple howl of, ‘Alera!’ The echoes of her voice rolled over the silent land. Sudden thunder shook the stones of the wall, shook the ground itself, as every soul on the wall, every single defender now standing against that dark tide, added their own terror and fury to the air. There was no one theme to the shout, no one word, no single motto or cry - but the Legions spoke in a single voice that sent a violent elation through Amara’s limbs and made the sword in her hand feel lighter than the air she mastered.

She folded her hands in her lap, and said, calmly, ‘And both of you are now worried that I have realized so much about you both. About who you are. About what moves you. You’re both wondering what else I know. And how else I might use it against you. And why I have revealed what I know here, and now. And you, lonely queen, wonder if you have made a mistake in bringing me here. You wonder what Octavian inherited from his father - and what came from me.’ Silence filled the hive. Neither of the two half-women to whom she spoke moved. ‘Do you think,’ Isana asked in a conversational tone, ‘that it might be possible to have hot tea with our dinner tonight? I’ve always found a good cup of tea to be most . . .’ She smiled at them. ‘Reassuring.’

How many times had he been in this position, in front of someone much stronger than he was, knowing that only his wits would keep his skin in one piece. As a child in the valley, and one who had never learned the knack of fading into the background, it had happened frequently with his playmates. But he had also dealt with thanadents and snow cats - crows, even the bloody sheep had been a great deal larger and stronger than he was, and the flocks’ rams had frequently chased him up trees. And all of that before he’d left the Calderon Valley. He found himself grinning. Though worry and terror and rage all burned away at his guts, Gaius Octavian was smiling. This was a game he knew how to play.

History will eventually claim that the appearance of the Vord was a watershed moment, that it was the best thing that ever happened to Alera. The Vord forced us to exceed our limits, to grow after centuries of stagnation - and to look beyond ourselves. It is certain that because of the Vord, we have gained a host of new enemies, in the Canim sense of the word. May we keep them and meet many more. But history is a cold and distant observer. Those of us who must face today have goals far more finite: We must mend our wounds, mourn our dead - and survive the winter. Crows take what the historians think. History will attend to itself.

Still, the basic principles applied - recruit reliable subordinates and delegate authority in accordance with their talents. Help them when they needed it and stay out of their way when they didn’t. Make absolutely clear what you expect from the people working for you and make sure rewards or discipline were consistent and fair.