The Emperor's Daughter

by H M Angues

  “So? What the hell is going on?” she demands.

  Her father threateningly whispers, “Silence.”

  My gaze falls on Calla’s hands. She’s clenching and unclenching her fingers into fists. I can see the telltale orange glow on her fingertips that appears before she’s about to unleash a mighty burst of flame.

  “Kainan is just a puppet,” she mutters in answer to Fayette. “Everything he’s said and done—all of it has been the will of someone else. Locking him up won’t even make their leader bat an eyelash.”

  I crinkle my brows in confusion. “What? Who’s pulling the strings, then? Who’s the leader?”

  Fayette matches my puzzlement. “That means Kainan isn’t as guilty as we thought him to be, doesn’t it?”

  “He’s still guilty of a lot of things, Fay. Treason being one of them. A crime that hasn’t been committed since...” Calla trails off.

  “Since Emperor Remus' daughter,” Blade finishes. I had forgotten he was in the room. He’d been sheltered in a shadowy corner behind Calla. He steps forward now, moving around the table to stand across from us, between Fayette and the grumbling Overseer.

  “We don’t know that—I was talking about Rysen’s father, King Emeric, executed for orchestrating a fascist political movement and for being behind the assassinations of his rival Rorani politicians who wanted him impeached. Ramsey was a wild card, an anomaly, even for my kind. That didn’t make her treasonous,” Calla snaps, her words jumbling out a little too quickly. She’s hiding something. Whether knowledge of this Ramsey has anything to do with the rebellion, though, I don’t know.

  “Who is Ramsey?” the Overseer inquires, asking the very question that was floating through my own head. Judging by the way Fayette leans in closer, she was thinking about asking the same thing.

  “The youngest daughter of the third Renald emperor, Remus the First, Augustus’ great-great-grandson. She was... different, though we don’t know how. She’s been all but eradicated from the National Archives. All we know about her is that she existed, and her father was so frightened by her abilities that she was disowned by the Renald family and exiled to the continent of Kidar where she wasted away until death,” Blade answers.

  I look to Calla, imploring her with my eyes. She exhales sharply, muttering, “That’s not entirely true, Blade.”

  His head snaps to her, black hair whipping across his face. “What am I missing, then?”

  I see her expression change as she decides not to elaborate. When she doesn’t say a word, his face contorts with frustration. He slams a fist on the stone table, causing Fayette to flinch beside him.

  “How can you expect us to help you when you keep so many secrets, Calla?” he shouts when he catches her glaring at him.

  Her cool and collected attitude snaps. “I’m your emperor now, Captain Blade Galorian, and you will not yell at me like I am anything but your superior. Information about Ramsey Renald is not necessary in any of this, so let it go!” The amber of her eyes burns as bright as her hand, small flames flaring on her fingertips.

  If Blade is shocked or affected by her outburst in any way, he doesn’t show it. He crosses his arms instead, stoic-faced, and takes a step back from the table to put more distance between himself and Calla. “My apologies, Empress Calla.”

  The fury burning in her gaze is enough to make an entire army of men scamper away in fear. Even I take a step back, the heat radiating from her enough to make the entire cavern sweltering. Blade hit a nerve—a very sensitive one. I remember when she had explained just a few weeks ago that she hated that title. She said it implied that she would be different from, or even inferior to, an emperor like her father and grandfathers.

  “Now is not the time for petty squabbles,” the Overseer barks at the two of them. Calla silences him with a stare. He scoffs, grabbing Fayette and leaving the Council Hall, muttering something to Calla about how she better not blow anything up as he walks away.

  “Go,” she whispers to me.

  Blade notices my confusion, my hesitation. “She doesn’t want you to see the kind of person she can be,” and then says to her, “God forbid Ryse knows there’s a bitch under that kind and friendly facade you put up for him. How many years did you lead me on in believing we could be something more, only to turn me away?”

  I don’t leave. I stand there, looking down at her face, analyzing Calla. Blade’s too far to notice the tears welling in her eyes that she continually blinks away before they can fall down her cheeks. She’s pissed off because he’s hurting her.

  “That’s enough, Blade,” I say, putting as much power and command in my voice as I can muster.

  He doesn’t back down. “You act like you’re too good for every man that walks this damn planet, like you’re above even your best friend. I’m sick of your self-righteous attitude, Calla. You rejected me over and over again for the same bullshit reasoning; you needed to focus on Namari. Well, now the country is spiraling downward, and fast.”

  This isn’t about secrets or information. This is Blade’s jealousy, something I’ve seen poke out its head multiple times already. I move up, standing right behind her, resting my hands on her shoulders. I flinch away, her skin so hot is singes my palms, and take a step back.

  “Calla,” I whisper as I feel the temperature of the room rise even more.

  “This isn’t the time to let your feelings for me get in the way of what’s important, Blade,” she growls.

  Rysen, I told you to go,” she snaps, voice cracking, never even turning her head to look at me.

  I make sure I say my next words loud enough for Blade to hear clearly. “I’m not going anywhere, Calla.”

  “Of course not. You’re everywhere,” Blade spits. “You follow her around like a puppy, desperate for evert ounce of her attention. It makes me sick seeing you with her.”

  He starts to pace back and forth along the table. But he doesn’t refute the implied, underlying claim that Calla and I both know to be true: He’s in love with her. It’s written all over the rugged features of his face, the force behind his words.

  Movement catches my eye. Someone had been sitting in a corner, hidden by the shadows.

  Fayette.

  Chapter 11

  Calla

  I can feel the sting of the slap just watching the back of Fay’s hand whip across Blade’s cheek. Neither of us knew she was still in the room.

  I want to go to Blade when I see the blood surface on his split lip, but I stay firmly planted in place. I want to comfort Fayette, too, but I know I’m the last person she’ll want to be near, considering that her lover just silently admitted his feelings are for me, not her. What a wild and uncontrollable thing, emotions.

  Fay launches a volley of curses at Blade before running out of the Hall, her shoulders racked with sobs. I feel my friend’s heart break as if my own has been shattered as well. I sit on top of the cold stone slab of a table, the coolness soothing the heat of my fading anger.

  “Don’t even try to use your feelings as an excuse for what you said today,” I grumble.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing his cheek where Fayette struck him.

  “You deserved that, too.”

  “I know,” he repeats, skin read from the blow his now ex-girlfriend delivered.

  “I can’t be with you Blade, you know that.”

  He finally meets my eyes, his own stare blatantly displaying his heart breaking just as Fay’s had. But I don’t regret what I said. I can’t apologize for the truth. My heart is not Blade’s, and I don’t think it ever will be. I don't think it will ever be anyone's but my own, now that my family is dead.

  “I guess I always thought you’d feel the same for me one day.”

  “It’s not... This isn’t just about how I feel, Blade. This is about the bigger picture. We grew up together. You’re like a brother to me, and I won’t risk that.”

  I jump off the table, making my way toward him. I reach up to touch him, cupping hi
s jaw in my hands, the stubble on his face scratching my palms. “I wish I could help, Blade.” And I mean it.

  ∞∞∞

  After leaving Blade in the Council Hall, I stride through the streets of Drakonis with a purpose. The door across the hangar is locked, but the guards let me inside without question. Rysen lingers behind with no desire to come face-to-face with one of the horrors of his childhood.

  Kainan’s cell is dank, the air heavy and unfiltered, unlike the rest of the city. No other prisoners sit behind the metal bars, making the cave eerily silent, save for his breath and mine.

  He looks younger in person. A scar above his eyebrow stretches to his cheekbone, though his eye is unscathed. His sandy blond hair is unkempt, falling in knotted tendrils around his ears and the back of his neck.

  “Come here to gloat, Emperor?” He lifts his green eyes to meet mine.

  And something... changes.

  I feel it stretching from the top of my spine to my toes, followed by an unwanted warmth unfurling through my limbs.

  No, I think to myself. It can’t be him.

  The utter bafflement on his features is enough to tell me that he felt the sensation too. I shove it to the back of my mind and bury it deep. There’s no way; there has to be another explanation.

  I sink to my knees so that I sit eye level with him, refusing to acknowledge what I just felt; what we just felt. “No,” I say. “I’m here to learn who killed my brother.”

  A bark of a laugh escapes his throat. “I did. Don’t you watch the news in your own country? And to think, you’re the new emperor.” He chuckles again.

  “No, you didn’t. I met your friend Jax. Sweet boy, but he’s got a big mouth.”

  He blinks in surprise, then sighs with... relief? “Is he all right?”

  I nod, not letting my bafflement at his concern for the boy show on my face. “He’s fine, staying in an apartment in the city. You were worried about him?”

  “When I found him, I swear he was the same as my little brother. I took him in, sort of as a way of making up for the mistakes I made with Ry, as a second chance to do things right. I didn’t want to drag him into all of this, but she made me.”

  “Ry. You mean Rysen?”

  His face dims with pain, both physical and emotional. I can almost sense what he’s feeling, and an icy cold feeling moves through my veins at the realization. “Who else could it be?” he murmurs. “He hates me, but you don’t know how good it felt to see him, to know that he’s safe, even if it meant he was the one detaining me. And how cool is it to be able to say my little brother is besties with the emperor,” he adds with a strained laugh.

  I shake my head, rubbing my temple with my warm fingers. “Enough of this,” I snap a little more rudely than I intend. “I came here to ask you a question. Jax told me—vaguely—about a certain she.”

  He sighs, broad shoulders sagging against the stone. “You mean Ramsey.”

  ∞∞∞

  Suffering my father’s death is nothing like Talon’s. Losing my brother was like losing part of myself, whereas losing my father is just that—losing someone else, not a piece of my own being. It still hits hard, though. But I’m able to push it down a little easier, able to ignore the pain with a little less emotional effort.

  I left Drakonis a few hours after my encounter with Kainan. Blade and Ryse stayed. I came home with a very distinct purpose and didn’t want them to interfere.

  Sybella is in the library, in the north wing, reading one of the history volumes on my family’s bloodline, the sunlight pouring in through the windows and setting her dark skin aglow. The particular book she’s reading is volume seven, which has the most information on my long dead, lots-of-greats-aunt, Ramsey Renald.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” I say as I approach. My brother’s widow jolts in surprise.

  “Calla, you startled me,” she gasps.

  “Shut up,” I snap. “Why did you do it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Calla,” she stutters, feigning bewilderment.

  “I met a young boy named Jax. He’s close to Kainan, yes?”

  “How would I know th—”

  “He’s close to you as well. And, if he wasn’t lying to my face, he and Kainan are thick as thieves with a certain other Renald. The one that’s the center of attention in that book.” I jab my finger at the golden letters that spell out the title, History of the Renald Dynasty, Volume VII. She freezes in her seat.

  I told my friends that information about Ramsey was useless to stopping the Uprising. It works out better this way, though. I don’t want them involved, not when Ramsey is far more dangerous than I am.

  “I always wondered how Kainan got in and out of the manor so easily. Then he and Jax explained, and it all made sense. No one helped him because you shot him. You didn’t need to sneak in and out because who would suspect a grieving widow who had married a royal out of love? No one was going to give a second thought to the brokenhearted wife he left behind. And, I must say, using your ‘friend’ as a double to act frightened when you shot his heart with that bullet was a brilliant idea. You even had me fooled. She really looks just like you. What’s her name again? Cressida, isn’t it? According to Kainan, she’s a lot more than just a friend.”

  She leaps out of her chair, the tattered tome falling to the floor. She towers several inches over me, a large woman of staggering height, nostrils flaring as she glowers down at me.

  “You can’t use her to get to me,” she snarls. “You think I’m that dumb? She is far from this place, little emperor.” Several Guardsmen along the walls take gaping strides in our direction, hands reaching for rifles slung over their shoulders.

  I straighten my shoulders, my stare unwavering under her blood-curdling gaze, as I say, “Your friend, Cressida Birman, has fled, yes, but that doesn’t mean I won’t make your life a living hell for what you did. With or without your friend as leverage.”

  It takes a few seconds to register the burning sting as the back of her hand strikes my jaw. I touch a finger to my bleeding lip. Now Blade and I have matching marks.

  “Your brother deserved to die. All of you despicable, disgusting Renalds can burn in hell,” she spits. “If I could go back, I’d only change one thing about that day: I would make sure you were there to witness your brother die firsthand. And then I’d kill you, too.” The threats are whispers, but the Guards hear enough. They’re on us in seconds, wrenching her hands behind her back and chaining her wrists together.

  “Sybella, you’re under arrest for regicide, conspiracy against the Crown, and military treason,” I state regally. The Royal Guardsmen drag her away. She hardly puts up a fight, though I know she could kill all of them with a flick of her wrist. The look in her eyes us clear enough.

  She won’t fight because she isn’t afraid to rot in prison, nor is she afraid to die.

  Because her name isn’t Sybella. It’s Ramsey Renald, and I know enough about her to be aware that she has no intentions of staying in prison, and more than enough means at her disposal to escape.

  Chapter 12

  Kainan

  Sitting alone in a dark and damp cell gives a person a lot of time to think.

  Too much time.

  Calla. The way I felt when I looked into those intoxicatingly beautiful eyes. I wanted to tell her everything in that second, explain myself, make her realize I’m not the monster she sees me to be.

  Rysen. Seeing my little brother again after fourteen years. I left when I was only ten years old, abandoning him, too ashamed of the things that happened in our family to face it, to stay with and care for him the way I should have. So many mistakes. And look at all the chaos they led to. Not just for me, but for the empire I was raised in. It’s all my fault.

  Then there’s Ramsey. Stupid bitch, I curse in my head. It’s also her fault I’m in this situation, her decisions that led to the deaths of so many. Hanging my brother over my head, constantly threatening his life if I didn’t do
as she asked. Using me only because I was pleasing to look at—and to take to bed. A shiver runs down my spine at the memories that plague me, and I have to choke down the bile rising in my throat.

  Every time one of the Underground’s guards comes in to deliver my meals, I hope against all odds that one of the three of them walks through those metal doors instead. I don’t know who I want to see more; the tyrant that stole my life, the brother I miss dearly, or the emperor I’m so attached to.

  Flame.

  I learned a lot about it in Helkyn living in the Primori District where people like the Renalds are treated like dogs; it’s rare, but not completely unheard of. When a person meets their Twin Flame—their soulmate, basically—for the first time, something clicks and a bond that runs deeper than blood is formed. It can’t happen between two humans, and it’s already uncommon that it occurs between two Primori. A mating between a Primori and a human is extremely rare.

  I know she felt it. I saw it in her eyes, in the way she hesitated and then brushed the bond aside, denying that I could possibly be her Flame.

  I can sense her now. She’s scared and suffering. Her pain—it’s buried deep in her mind, but I can still feel it. There’s love there, too. Love for all those around her, and I desire to protect them, even if it costs her her life. So, my brother orchestrated my capture, and my mate is the one woman that despises me above all others.

  I think I’m officially allowed to declare that my life sucks.

  Chapter 13

  Calla

  I shoot out of bed, beads of sweat trickling down my face. My breathing his heavy and I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. My eyes dart around my bedchamber in Stonefire Palace.

  A nightmare, but this time I wasn’t watching Talon die. Instead, it had been a younger Ryse, maybe five or six years old, being beaten by his father. In the dream, I stepped in to intervene, only to be dragged down a flight of stairs in what I knew to be Darinthe Manor. I didn’t just witness the assault, the unwanted sexual contact, I felt it, experienced it from the perspective of an older brother taking the worst of it to protect a young Rysen.