Page 143 of The Tainted Cup

“Because you aren’t done,” said Ana. “You’re still retiring, yes? To thefirst ring.And who lives in the first ring? Why, the rest of the Haza clan, of course. You hate them, don’t you? They’ve been flouting the law here in Talagray for nearly a century. Sabotage, corruption, blackmail, none of which you could ever do anything about. But then…you heard something from someone. A whisper about a greater crime. I’m guessing from Jolgalgan, yes?”

Uhad was silent.

“She became one of Kaygi Haza’s chosen ones,” said Ana. “And I’m guessing that during some party with him, she overheard him say…something. Maybe a comment about the cure. Some tossed-off remark that made her start digging in her Iyalet, asking questions, until she slowly put the pieces together. And then, well—she came to you. A crime had been committed, after all, and you’re an Iyalet officer. But…what could you do about it? Nothing. If you tried to bring a case about this, you’d likely get sidelined by the Hazas, or worse. But by then, Uhad, you wereold.Beset with afflictions. Your days were short. How better to spend them than by eliminating the villains you’d watch carouse and kill and corrupt in your own canton?

“You plotted how to do it. You planned with Jolgalgan and recruited Ditelus—another Oypati. It was inconvenient that Jolgalgan insisted on a most poetic justice, killing them with the same contagion that killed Oypat, but…you made do. You used your sources and resources to track Blas, and you guided Jolgalgan into killing him. Kaygi Haza was trickier, of course, but you helped there, didn’t you? On the day of the party, you attended very briefly—just long enough to toss a blackperch mushroom into the fire and give Jolgalgan the cover she needed to slip inside and poison his bath.”

Ana grinned madly. “But then came the breach. And the ten deadEngineers. And you realized something had goneterriblywrong with your little plot. But then a stroke of mad luck—for you were appointed head of the investigation into your own crimes! How easy it was to send it looking anywhere except at you. Plots to breach the walls, to assassinate Engineers…anything that didn’t lead to the halls of the Hazas, and your brief moment there.”

Uhad exhaled very slightly. “But…but then you came,” he whispered.

“Yes,” said Ana. “You tried to slow me down. At first, I thought you were corrupt, you know. I even had Din test you, with the money. But you weren’t corrupt at all. No, you were quite the other thing—righteous zealot, willing to both tolerate and inflict pain to achieve your ends. But still, I made you worried. You felt me getting close. So you went to Jolgalgan’s little hut out in the Plains of the Path. You sabotaged her equipment. Then asked her to create more poison for you. And when she did so, she breathed in a lungful of contagion. You asked Ditelus to check in on her—and he was exposed to the same.”

A fluttering in my eyes. I remembered Ditelus screaming just before he died:You…you Iudex. You say you want justice. You always say that! Youalways say that!

“You hoped the investigation was done then,” said Ana. “But you werecommittednow, and your mission wasn’t done. You still had dappleglass taken from Jolgalgan, and the elder Hazas had still escaped justice. All you had to do was get to the first ring and continue your murderous work—but then you heard of the reagents key in Nusis’s safe. You realized what itreallywas. And you’re no Apoth, like Jolgalgan was. You’re no expert in dappleglass. An accidental infection wasverypossible. A cure for it would be most useful for your final days. You just had to make sure that I didn’t catch you before you got away. Hence, the teapot.”

Uhad closed his eyes. There was a long, unpleasant silence.

“Would you like to say something for yourself,” said Ana, “orwould you prefer to have Din go to your rooms, and find our missing cure, along with all your horrid poisons?”

“He didn’t even try to hide it,” Uhad whispered. “Can you believe that?”

“Who?” said Ana.

“Kaygi Haza. When…when Jolgalgan mentioned she was from Oypat, the old man, drunk, just said flat-out: ‘Ah, Oypat. Well, Blas fucked that up, didn’t he? Fucked it up for everyone, with the cure.’ Then he forgot he ever said it. Because…it didn’t matter to him, what he’d done. But it mattered to Jolgalgan. And it mattered to me.”

There was a tense silence.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like,” Uhad said softly, “to have so many memories in my mind? So many eternal, endless, everlasting memories of…of corruption, of bribery, of exploitation? All while we imperial officers slaved and worked and died to keep horrors from our shores?”

Miljin’s voice echoed in my ears as I gazed at Uhad:Can’t take too many wet seasons, the engravers. They don’t age well.

“I thought the walls kept the titans out,” said Uhad wearily. “But the more I worked, the more I felt like they caged usin,with the gentry. And no one was going to fix it. It was all broken. Nobody cared. Nobody cared, so long as things kept going on as they were.”

“So you tried yourself,” said Ana. She trembled with rage. “You tried to fix it yourself—and you killedhundreds of people doing it!”

“I had to do something!” Uhad snarled. “I couldn’t stand to just sit by and watch! The Empire was doing nothing,nothing! As was the Iudex! Andyoucould do nothing, either, Ana! Hell, you’d tried to stop the Hazas, and you’d gotten banished to Daretana for it!”

At that, Ana stood up and bellowed, “Are you so sure, Tuwey Uhad?”

Uhad stared at her, bewildered. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“Don’t you think it oddlyperfect,Uhad,” thundered Ana, “that I of all people was put on the doorstep of the Talagray canton? Don’t you think itveryconvenient that of all the investigators in all theIudex, it was me who was placed directly next door to the canton with themostblatant gentry corruption of all?”

“You…you mean…You were sent to Daretana…towatchthe Hazas?” he said, stunned.

“And I barely had to wait four months before they landed in my lap,” she hissed. “But it was because of you. Because the Iyalets failed in their duty. Becauseyoufailed inyourduty!”

“No, that’s…that’s impossible!” said Uhad. “They killed your assistant investigator! I know that! Even the Hazas know that!”

“Haveyouever seen the body?” snapped Ana. She was shivering with rage now. “Have you ever considered that it was very convenient to let the Hazasbelievethat I had been neutralized, so that they could then do something very obvious and stupid? Something that would give the Iudex anexcuseto bring them to heel? But then you had to make your play at justice. And countless people are dead because of it! What a fool you are, Uhad. What an utter, utter fool.” She turned to me. “Din, get out your engraver’s bonds. I am ordering you to arrest this man. You wanted justice, Tuwey Uhad, and it shall be given to you—by a rope and a scaffold, surely.”

CHAPTER 41

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AS EVENING FELL WEgathered in the Trifecta, between the Legion and Engineering and the now-closed Iudex tower. They had built a bonfire there, a four-beamed structure with an ornate woven roof. In the center lay stacks of blackwood, soaked in oil, and atop the stacks rested four wooden figures, anointed in black, purple, red, and blue—a symbolic pyre, for each of the Iyalets that had lost officers.