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It sounded like the changes could help quell rebel activities, or at least make it difficult for them to maneuver. However, the implication that all Qazāli were prisoners would end poorly, like it had with the Verinom city-state back in the ancient ages. She knew enough of history—Balladairan included—to know they would toe dangerously close to breeding further resentment.
If he stayed on the throne, who would stand for Balladaire? Her father’s legacy, their empire, her home would be chipped away by enemies and plague until it fell.
Belatedly, Touraine realized the general was waiting for her lieutenant’s pins, two pairs of golden wheat stalks bound together. Her hands shook, clattering the manacles as she grasped her collar. “Now, Lieutenant.”
As Aimée liked to say on campaign—and in the canteen, and in training exercises—wishes were like assholes. Full of shit.
It helped to go slowly through her fighting forms. To give herself some occupation instead of letting the fear coil into desperate energy that would only chew at her from the inside. It ordered her thoughts.
Similar to gideon
She would never prove she was drugged before trial, and no one would take her word over a Balladairan’s.
Balladaire was a land of gifts and punishment, honey and whips, devastating mercies.
Like the us and uk
For one delusional moment, she’d thought Rogan and his flunkies would pay. Justice was sweet enough to ease the shame of her helplessness.
The young woman’s face was stern and haughty, lips pursed. The elegant woman Touraine had met before looked cold and intimidating.
The princess had lost her stern disinterest. She sat on the edge of her seat, hands balanced on her cane, right leg straight out. When they’d been briefly introduced at Cheminade’s dinner, she had seemed courteous but aloof. Now Touraine saw that she had clever eyes that didn’t miss much.
Catching the princess’s equally cool blue-green eyes felt like catching a sniper that had you in her sights.
“I ask for my life,” she said, as steadily as she could. It was as if saying it aloud reminded her how badly she didn’t want to die just yet. Not here, not without any say in it.
She was a slight woman, wearing simple but elegant clothing tailored close to her narrow frame. A golden horse head gleamed on her black cane. Her lips were pink and parted as she studied Touraine. Touraine’s heartbeat sped up under her gaze.
To condescend, you had to be close enough to have an opinion. The princess held herself apart from everyone.
It took a certain kind of strength to fight for your life when everyone around you had already decided you should die.
As Gil had said, never overlook a good weapon. It would be silly to throw out a sword because it needed sharpening.
The steady strength from Cheminade’s dinner party was buried almost too deep for Luca to see—there were still traces of it in the set of her jaw, her weary but unbowed shoulders. Again, the impulse that Luca did not want this woman to die. Not like this.
Muscle showed in her forearms, too. She had broad, scarred hands with long fingers. Luca wondered—only academically, of course—how much strength it took to bludgeon a man to death with the Sands’ batons.
Maybe Cantic was right, and the soldier would be obedient under—she shuddered to think of the Droitist wording—a kind master.
The princess’s sitting room was full of books. An entire wall was covered by a shelf more than half-full of books and sheaves of paper and even a few scrolls. The table in the corner was messy with paper and writing materials, and a large book lay open on it as if the princess had been studying and called away abruptly.
Gold embroidery shaped like braided wheat grains crossed the torso and met at the black buttons in the middle. A shock of gold lace spilled from each cuff. It told Touraine everything she needed to know about her: stiff, formal, and very expensive.
Then Adile was gone and Touraine was in the bath, fighting the pressure in her chest that squeezed tighter whenever she tried to think. The trial had been only this morning. Squeeze. She wasn’t going to die. At least not right now. Squeeze. She’d been stripped of her rank. Squeeze. Her mother might be out there, in this city. Squeeze.
She was always good at the hard math. Death and nothing out of it, or life and the chance to better the Sands’ lots.
“Tour, you’re missing the point.” His wide hand slashed the air. “You’ve always missed the point. I want to be free of them. All of them. This includes their ‘help’ and anything else that comes with a collar.” “Like their food? Their money?” “Starve me, then. Been close enough to it on campaign. Give me hunger on my own terms.”
"Give me hunger on my own terms"
“That’s not all. It never has been. You want to be one of them. You’re not. You never will be.”
She’d seen the way the woman looked at Cantic—like she wanted to fuck the general, or be her. Or both.
Luca wanted to inspire that kind of devotion. She wished she could ask Cantic how she’d drawn Touraine in.
Make those you would lead depend on you.
Make those you would lead want you.
But Luca wasn’t weak. She also had a rapier inside the cane, thin and flexible but strong.
know a person’s desires, and you have leverage—give a person their desires, and you have an extension of your own will.
“Look at me,” she said with soft menace. Touraine raised her eyes. Luca expected the usual blank obedience. Instead, Touraine’s dark eyes were steady, poring over her, seeing everything, unflinching. There may even have been anger in the cant of her eyebrows—but there was no pity. “May I help you?” she asked, soft enough for Luca’s ears alone. Luca’s heart stuttered like a flame in a storm. She swallowed and nodded.
“Of course, it’s an option,” Luca said in a low voice. “She’s attractive, for a Qazāli.” Touraine was attractive, period. More handsome than any of her previous lovers, men or women. That wasn’t something Balladaire’s queen regnant came out and admitted. “However, as an ambassador in my employ, it’s hardly professional.”
Racist
I’m too busy trying to quell a rebellion started by her people.” “A rebellion started by her people to protest the fact that we came and invaded in the first place. Your Highness.”
“Finding the magic won’t bring them back.” Luca stiffened. “I know that,” she snapped. “It’s not because of my parents.” Probably a lie.
Everyone was waiting for her word, and that thought alone filled her with a secret thrill that straightened her back and eased her grip on her cane. They were here for her.
(Had Luca not purchased Touraine? Was Touraine not useful?)
To be quite honest, Luca imagined Beau-Sang was the kind of man who disdained all books, which was a black enough mark on his record.
“By some standards, that would make me Qazāli, wouldn’t it?” It was laughable, given the contrast of his golden hair and pale, pale skin compared to the native Qazāli.
It made Luca wonder what new boundaries people would have to make in the future—how they would call themselves, what else they would find to separate themselves from each other. Humans tended to do that.
Touraine had behaved abominably. Luca only had time to chastise her with a look before the next guest stepped forward.
Though Qazāli, she spoke in perfectly unaccented Balladairan.
Luca sipped her wine. “Are you familiar with the school?” “Of course, Your Highness. I attended myself. It was a… peerless education.” She smiled, but the words gave the expression an ironic twist.
“And how did you find it?” “Well… I learned much about Balladaire.” Luca’s lips quirked. “I admit, that is the one fault of a Balladairan education. We can only teach so much about Qazāl. I could use a few lessons myself.”
the one fault
She’d felt elegant in her new clothing, felt pride even, at the approving nod General Cantic had given her as she passed by.
still wanting approval so badly
(Touraine secretly thought that Guérin had never had fun in her life.)
Luca barked orders like Cantic, swinging a pen instead of a sword, spattering ink instead of blood.
Ambition and frustration made for a suspicious combination, one worth exploring.
Cantic lowered her mouth to Touraine’s ear to be better heard over the music. “Don’t let me down. You know where to find me.” And then Cantic pulled back, smiling the smile of proud confidence that she had turned on Touraine at the hanging, before everything had gone to shit. Touraine couldn’t help it: it triggered in her the same desire to please that it always had.
Grinding her teeth, Touraine let him lead her to the floor. They gave their wineglasses to a milling servant. Her skin crawled where he touched her wrist and under her jacket where his hand rested on her waist.
ughhhh
