After an hour, Kaji, Kodak, and the two kats emerged from the entryway of the Three Pearls restaurant.
Minerva watched them from across the street where she'd taken up her post on a settle. Above her head an awning belonging to a bookseller's shop shaded her from the noon sun. She'd made a purchase and flipped through its pages while waiting, but hadn't read a word. Between thinking and trying not to get tipped onto the ground from the seat's three uneven legs, reading mattered only as a pretense.
Kaji's chattering reached across the street. He bounced around Kodak like a manticore cub that wanted to play until Kumiko and Azuki finally jumped to the street stones to walk on their own. When they caught sight of Minerva, the group of four started making their way over to meet her.
Leaving the book behind, Minerva glanced down both ends of the street before crossing. She'd had time to clear her head. Not as much as she would've liked, but enough to regain some self-control and determine her next moves.
During her period of thinking, Minerva realized she'd make a mistake in dismissing Kaolin. If she'd ripped one of her eyes out of its socket, it couldn't have left her blinder. But she also suspected the spy's loyalties were divided. Even if they weren't, she could not help her with this particular problem—their history didn't go back far enough.
Edina and Vren were dead. Her parents could not be trusted and Nola might not possess the right knowledge.
She needed Matsudo.
"We brought you some gyoza." Kaji held up a skewer with half a dozen small dumplings impaled along its length. The white dough looked so soft that the stick would rip through it except Kaji held it straight up with the bottom dumpling resting on his fist.
"Pelmeni, Kaji. Pelmeni. Those aren't gyoza," Kodak said.
Minerva blinked at the unexpected offering and was careful to transfer the stick from Kaji's hand to hers without any dumpling casualties. "Thank you."
"They look like gyoza," Kaji said to Kodak.
Kodak threw his hands up. "But do they taste the same?" he asked in a strained voice.
Whatever they are, eating them like this is hardly respectable, Minerva thought, closing her mouth over one on the skewer and pulling it off. Warmth and savory juice exploded in her mouth. Definitely don't taste the same. She'd ignored the pangs of hunger, but now she couldn't hold back from gulping down the food as fast as she could chew.
"Well no, they don't taste the same," Kaji admitted.
Kodak crossed his arms in triumph. "I rest my case. Now, let's get going."
Minerva burned the empty skewer in her hand, letting the wood curl up like a worm in the heat before dissolving to ash. She dusted her hands off. "Where are we headed now?"
Kaji held up a cloth bundle in the shape of a box. "Bringing food home so my mama can get better. She says good cooking is the best cure." He looked cleaner now; face scrubbed rid of dirt and soft brown eyes free of suspicion.
The boy was fast asleep and Minerva would not be the one to wake him from the dream.
"Don't go too far ahead," she called as Kaji and the kats ran down the street.
She and Kodak followed, keeping their voices low. Their steps synced into an almost militant marching rhythm.
"Are you going to be alright?" Kodak asked.
"Yes, but why are we going with him?" Minerva responded, her eyes trained on the boy.
"You don't need to feel bad about what happened. It wasn't your fault."
Minerva's feet broke cadence but regained it a moment after. "We aren't protecting him. If anything, it's more of a risk for him to be near us. So I ask again, why are we taking him home?"
Kodak sighed. "The drip isn't too far from where Kaji lives. I figured we could ... help him and make sure he and his mother have what they need."
On the surface, Kodak's intentions spoke of compassion. But below, Minerva saw something else. "You feel guilty about his father, don't you? You think we owe him a debt."
Their street merged onto a main spoke of the middle ring wheel. Around the corner, they'd find one of the gates leading to the outer ring of the city. Kaji reached the intersection first, but before Minerva could call to the boy to come back, Kodak turned on her.
"We killed his father, Minerva. I'm not even sure now if he planned to harm us or if he only came to warn you. If I can honor that dead man's last cries for his wife and son, then I'm going to do it." Kodak's eyes watered but his jaw tensed with a dogged resolve. "Don't tell me you don't feel the same. Not when the truth overwhelmed you to the point that you had to leave the table."
You think too well of me, Kodak. Her recollection of Dai painted their situation in a different light. She'd left because Kaji became a liability in her mind. A dangerous one. But she had made a promise to that man that his family would not pay for his crime.
Minerva had not sworn the blood oath against him—a vow to wipe out his bloodline—but she also had not sworn the death oath—a pledge to serve him, or in this case, his heir until she died, thus cancelling out any debt. She believed this middle ground to be just.
Kodak clearly thought otherwise.
"Let's not forget that the madman tried to kill you in a bloody explosion," Minerva said. "He's far from innocent."
Kodak opened his mouth to answer but they rounded the corner.
A crowd surrounded a platform. All silent as if sleeping and not at all like the shouting mass that had watched Dai's execution in the arena. They'd erected the wooden block in the middle of the open gate, halting all traffic on the two sides as both wealthy and poor gathered as witnesses.
On the small platform, chains bound a lone woman to a pole. A gag dug into the corners of her mouth and another rag covered her eyes. A few of the royal guard stood to the side, but the executioner wasn't among them.
She would come when invited.
Minerva took the scene in at a glance and grabbed the Hydro prince's arm. "We need to find Kaji and leave. We'll take another way to the outer ring."
"That'll take too long," Kodak murmured back. "It'll look suspicious to grab him and go. We should wait it out. See what happens." He walked toward the crowd and didn't have to look for Kaji. The boy came to him and Kodak let him climb up onto his shoulders for a better view.
Minerva's heartbeat thundered in her ears. Cold sweat slicked her palms. She could run away now to avoid watching her fears take shape. Instead she gritted her teeth, fingers brushing the scabs on her cheek.
Whatever you say, I'm no coward, mother.
She joined Kodak and Kaji at the edge of the crowd.
One of the guards took center stage. His heavy boots pounded a death knell. His black armor rattled like bones of metal.
Minerva couldn't hear his words, only a dull roar in her ears. In his hands, he held a beautiful sword, curved and resting in its sheath. While he spoke, he drew out the weapon and held it blade up with both hands.
"Today, we summon justice!" he shouted. "We call upon She Who Brings the Night to determine whether there are twenty deaths, to deliver judgment!"
Pyronia would long ago have become a city of assassins if not for this idiosyncratic tradition. As the goddess of retribution, Nemesis would turn a blind eye to nineteen murders in cold blood. But if an individual killed twenty victims then she could no longer ignore the pleas of the dead should an accused stand trial.
The goddess played the role of both judge and executioner.
Guards removed the woman's blindfold, but left the cloth in her mouth tied. Minerva didn't know if fatigue or fear kept Charna from thrashing against her bonds, but her former friend looked half-dead where she stood. Charna must know that there would be no chance of pardon, no mercy.
His address given, the guard turned and knelt facing Charna. Head bowed, he raised his arms and Charna's sword as if proffering it to his liege.
The air stilled, as if they all held one collective breath in their lungs. It was the moment before the knife fell, before the spark caught and set the fortress aflame.
Minerva found she was shaking like a dry leaf in the wind. Kodak's warm hand grasped hers. Startled, she glanced up to find his eyes gleaming beneath his hood. In daylight, it could appear as a trick of the light, except for the slow stream of mist flowing from his eyes to hers.
She looked back to the platform and found three figures where only two had been before. From her position to the right of a center view to the stage, she could see all three in a row. Between the kneeling guard and Charna, a woman surveyed the assembly.
Her raven hair ran in a river down her back, pooling around her hips. Black silk swathed her form, with slits at her shoulders and ankles revealing flawless pale skin. In one hand, she held the tail of a white serpent which curled up around her neck to sit atop her hat.
Not a shadow this time.
Nemesis.
The goddess stretched her other hand out and ran the tip of her forefinger along the sharp edge of the blade. Instead of her blood spilling, her touch drew out a skein of red smoke. It writhed in the air and with it came the first of the whispers.
Even in the hush, individual words could not be distinguished, but soon there were many voices—sibilant hisses and soft entreaties.
When the smoke neared Nemesis' face, she inhaled deep and long. The vicious smile that followed spoke of its sweet savor. Her whisper joined and superseded the rest. "Guilty."
Minerva blinked and when she opened her eyes, Nemesis had disappeared.
The whispers continued, chilling and mocking. Blood rust poured out of the blade in the form of silken smoke—weaving, churning in the air, but moving with purpose. The wind could blow the other way; it still would not deter the blood of the killed from their course.
Minerva gripped Kodak's hand harder with her own.
You could save her.
Kodak's hand returned the pressure.
No. I can't.
If she tried, she would be the next to be shackled to that pole. The death she feared most would take her: death by whisper of blade.
"Goodbye, Charna. I'm sorry." Her lips formed the words without sound.
Aloud, she whispered, "Kaji, cover your eyes."
Kaji slipped down from Kodak's shoulders without protest and buried his face in the prince's cloak.
Charna had started to struggle. She pulled at her chains, screamed through her gag. Her bare feet dug at the pole and came away splintered and bloody.
Years ago, when they witnessed an execution together, Charna had wondered afterwards why no one ever closed their eyes.
"It'd be simple," she'd said, "to keep out the smoke and not let it in. Just shut your bloody eyelids." They'd laughed then.
Yet, hers stayed wide open in panic.
Minerva's vision blurred with tears.
"Didn't we promise we're in this together?" Charna said.
Minerva's voice echoed in answer. "We'll make it out. Together."
Charna hadn't turned her in, hadn't betrayed her in the end. And now she was dying alone.
Minerva forced herself to watch the red smoke engulf her friend's right eyeball first. Charna's body seized up as if struck by lightning. Through the gag, a raw, muffled scream ripped its way out of her throat. It swallowed her other eye and the screams didn't stop. Not until the smoke leaked back out the corners of her mouth and returned to the blade.
After what seemed like hours, Charna's body hung limp against the pole. If she were closer, Minerva knew she'd smell charred flesh and see only empty sockets in the place of eyes.
She sank to the ground, weeping.
Inside her, something brittle finally broke.