The Slave King twitched, the wolf raising its hackles. I almost imagined a shaggy coat and fangs. I would not laugh at him, as I knew well what kind of beast I’d caged. A man who employed a wizard in his cause was no blundering feral.
“Peace?” I echoed. “Did you also go to Keiost in peace? And Irst and Hertaq? Perhaps you came in peace to countless other places before you tore down their walls, murdered their people, and pillaged their stores.”
“What do you know of it?” he challenged.
Truly I shouldn’t allow him to show me such disrespect, but I found his direct rudeness, the stark impact of his presence almost … exhilarating. For all that I knew well the danger he posed, I was fascinated—and fatally curious. How had he found a wizard when none had answered my calls all these years?
“Clearly I know more than you expected Me to,” I replied, having seen the surprise in his gaze, and in the woman’s. “Also, clear logic tells Me that you acquired your armies from somewhere. There can’t have been all that many of you who escaped from the mines at Vurgmun.”
The court whispered with excitement at this revelation, while a few people smugly nodded. I hadn’t expected the information to stay under wraps for long—and I hadn’t needed it to. Only long enough to wield against this man who presumed to lecture me on hospitality. He didn’t show a reaction to my words, but the woman did, her mouth thinning with some concern.
“Have we killed your people?” the Slave King replied. He turned in a slow circle, as if checking, making a show of scanning the walls and ceiling before he turned to face me again. “Your palace appears to be intact, no tumbling walls. Why should you fear me?”
“I don’t.” I allowed a pleased smile. “You are My prisoners and thus can do no harm.”
“But you assume we meant harm,” he countered, “when you had no reason to.”
“Does one wait for a rabid wolf to ravage one before having it put down?” I reasoned. “A danger need not be experienced personally to be respected and dealt with.”
He smiled then, baring his teeth like that vicious wolf I’d evoked. “Then I’ve caught you in a lie, Flower Queen. You do fear me—and respect me.”
He’d neatly trapped me in my own words. How interesting. A keen mind lurked behind that brutish brow. Of course, he’d have to be intelligent—likely a blazingly good strategist—to have made it this far. Not smart enough to have avoided this trap, however. So ends the Slave King, and his dangerous rebellion with him.
I made a show of yawning, caging it in my nails, then waving the manufactured boredom away. “I weary of this audience. Guards, take them to—”
“What makes you think we’ll go so meekly?” He drew his sword, taking a strong fighter’s stance and sizing up the guards. Echoing the movement, the woman drew her sword also, pivoting so she guarded his back. The wizard, fascinated gaze still on the orchid ring, didn’t move, but the raven on his staff mantled its wings, and the feeling of foreign magic they’d brought with them thickened the air.
Would the wizard have aggressive magics? Surely he would’ve employed them by now. Still, I would conduct this dance carefully.
“You’re gravely outnumbered, Slave King,” I explained, gently, as if to a child. “The three of you cannot win this fight. Better to concede and go quietly.”
“I have a small army on my warship.”
“You mean the warship you stole from His Imperial Majesty? That one is currently controlled by My soldiers. I believe ‘small’ is the operative word there.” I held up my littlest finger in demonstration, allowing my gaze to stray to his groin while I lowered my brows in concern, as if seeing something distressing. My ladies, following the cue, giggled, making mournful pouts.
Interestingly enough, the Slave King didn’t react as most men might. He met my eyes, the clear gold of them full of some insight. I had the unsettling sense that he saw past the formal makeup and practiced regal manner, that he could penetrate my careful masks as no one else did. Nonsense, of course. A relic of that familiarity of him walking in my nightmares, that I fancied he could.
“You who know so much about me,” he said softly, almost enough to smooth the roughness that came in when he raised his voice, “you should know I won’t go down without a fight.”
“Tell Me,” I said. “Is Vurgmun where you obtained the weapon that tears down walls?”
He paused a moment. “What do you know of it?”
“Rumors. Exaggerations.” I waved a hand to dismiss all of it. “My point is that I notice no unusual weapons on you. You threaten to fight, but I’m frankly unimpressed.” From the corner of my eye, I observed the wizard, the true threat in the room, but he seemed disinclined to act. Interesting.
The woman’s lip curled in a snarl and the Slave King’s eyes glittered with the insult. “You have no idea what we’re capable of doing. Don’t test me.”
I shrugged, delicately. “It seems ridiculous that you’d come so far to commit suicide, but so be it. His Imperial Majesty will thank Me for your head as much as for your life. It’s your choice: Go to your cell quietly or die here and now. It’s all the same to Me.” I smoothed a hand down the scarlet silk of my gown, holding his gaze and reminding him that his own spilled blood would look the same.
The Slave King narrowed his eyes. Suspicion? No, testing my resolve. He glanced at the blond woman with him, apparently soliciting her opinion. Surprising, coming from a man like him. The woman, who gazed at me with black hatred, shook her head minutely. The Slave King looked to the wizard next, then flattened his mouth in irritation when the wizard only smiled with what looked like good cheer, and gestured to me. Some significance there.
“What if I go quietly—what then?” the Slave King asked, turning back to me and sounding resigned. “If I’m docile and obedient to your capricious whims, do I earn an audience with you?”
“Another one?” I made sure to sound astonished. “So few men attain even one audience with Me.” I tsked. “The rumors of your greed don’t exaggerate.”
“Don’t they?” He coughed. No—that was a laugh, made strained by whatever corrupted his voice. “Call me greedy then. I beg an audience with you, Your Highness.” He used my title so grudgingly the politeness was lost, then added, “A private one.”
Everybody laughed—but for the three of them—genuine delight in the sound. I allowed it, and indicated the room with a sweep of my hand, in case he hadn’t noticed. “Oh my, you are so out of your depth, King of Slaves,” I needled him. “Allow Me to tutor you in the etiquette you are seriously lacking. No one receives a private audience with Me. Ever.”
“Not even Anure?” he shot back.
I hadn’t been ready for that attack. Clever man. Too bad he’d made such dangerous choices. “Not even His Imperial Majesty.”
“Difficult for a man to woo his fiancée in public, emperor or not,” he pointed out, watching me with that too-astute gaze. “Surely you give him time alone with you.”
I wouldn’t reply directly to that, as I had no intention of discussing the threatening letters Anure sent me in the guise of love. “Difficult for a woman to maintain her reputation as an inviolate virgin if she entertains anyone in private.”
He cocked his head, just barely, the wolf catching scent of its prey, holding still to track the source. “An audience with you and one of your ladies then,” he offered, as if he were in a position to bargain, “and me with one of my advisers. Lady Sondra, perhaps.” He indicated the blond warrior woman. “In exchange, I’ll tell you about the weapon that tears down walls.”
Lady Sondra gave him a glare to melt glass. He’d improvised then, not following any plan they’d made—and correctly discerning my avid interest in knowing more about vurgsten. Too bad I couldn’t afford those terms. And I’d let him draw this out far too long.
“No,” I said simply, sinking the weight of my decision behind it. “To answer your question, if you are indeed ‘docile’ and ‘obedient,’ going with My guards like a
good dog, then you and yours will not be harmed. Those are My terms.”
He clenched his jaw, eyes molten with fury. I’d pushed him too far with that mockery, his anger rising enough to make him foolish, so I threw him a bone. “I’ll even release your people aboard His Imperial Majesty’s warship. No one will be the wiser. They can go free.”
He relaxed slightly, a frown forming between his brows. I’d surprised—and tempted—him with that. Despite the tales and his brutal, uncouth appearance, this Slave King might possess the heart of a true king. He cared about his people. How very interesting. And useful. “And the two with me?”
“They must share your fate,” I informed him, for the sake of our many listeners, though I had no intention of releasing the wizard if I could keep him.
I couldn’t pretend the wizard hadn’t been there. But I could order him executed and then hide him. I’d done so before. Never with anyone who’d interest Anure so greatly, however. And Leuthar would likely want to send their heads along with the imprisoned Slave King. I could find a way around that. If I did, I’d try to save the Lady Sondra, too, if only because I couldn’t stomach consigning any woman to Anure’s horrors.
“And what is this fate you plan?” the Slave King asked, still in bargaining mode. It took me a moment to realize he addressed what I’d said, not my thoughts.
“I am to deliver you to His Imperial Majesty.” I couldn’t pretend to frivolity there. Even my considerable powers of subterfuge couldn’t make that sound anything worse than horrible.
“I think I’d rather die here,” he said, as if confiding a secret. I had to ruthlessly suppress the urge to smile in return. Surely the man couldn’t be flirting with me. This man was my enemy and I’d do well to remember that.
“Your death can be arranged.” I layered ice into my tone.
“I suppose Anure will reward you for my capture?”
“Or your corpse,” I answered, sounding as bored as possible. “He’d be equally pleased with either.”
“Then why haven’t you killed me already?” He delivered the question with a bite. Far too clever by half. “You could have cut us down the moment we stepped off the ship and saved all this … theater.” He waved a dismissive hand at the court.
I resisted narrowing my eyes, letting my lashes droop drowsily instead. He couldn’t possibly know my true reasons. This Slave King simply fished for information. And sought to delay the inevitable. “Your ignorance is showing. My court has been agog to lay eyes on the escaped slave foolish enough to tweak His Imperial Majesty’s nose. This has been great entertainment for us. But now I grow weary of this circular conversation. You will be removed from My presence—walking or on a slab. Your choice.”
He assessed the guards, obviously measuring their distance, then his proximity to me. “Seems I could cut your throat before your guards reached me. If I’m to die, I could take you with me.”
“Don’t try it,” I advised him, keeping an eye on the wizard, who smiled genially at me. “It will not turn out as you imagine.”
He took a deliberate step forward, his unsheathed sword poised to strike. “If you think me an honorable man, that I won’t strike these pretty ladies who stand between us, you’re greatly mistaken. I lost my honor long ago.”
A fascinating man, indeed. I wondered if he truly believed that about himself. It so clearly wasn’t true—but he might think so.
“The blossoms of the Flower Court have thorns,” I replied lightly. “Again, I advise against this foolish—and desperate—plan.”
He growled. Actually growled, like the wolf I’d dreamed him. Surely he wouldn’t.
“Conrí,” the Lady Sondra said, her voice as rough as his. She looked apprehensive for the first time. “Be—”
“Shut up, Sondra,” he bit out, advancing another step. “I won’t wear chains again.” He directed that last at me. His eyes held a world of pain and rage, and my heart pounded in understanding. We both lived as prisoners of the tyrant, even if our lives and the manner of our chains were so very different. It took everything in me to harden my heart—how had I thought it cold?—against the weakening sympathy.
My father had taught me to make decisions based on cool rationality, duty over emotion.
The Slave King took one more step and my two lowest-tier ladies, Zariah and Nahua, shifted their feet. The Slave King likely couldn’t see it in them, but they were poised to intercept him. Still, I’d rather they didn’t have to act.
“I’ll caution you a third and last time,” I told him. “And I promise: no chains.” I wasn’t sure why I added that, unless something about the wild, even desperate glint in his golden eyes reminded me of that wolf, its horrible howling, and how I’d shredded my dream fingers on its manacles. I might have the coldest of hearts, one that will never love, but even I am not completely impervious to another’s pain. I wished I could be so callous that the scrape of sharply defined duty didn’t cut so deeply. “Go quietly with my guards or suffer the consequences.”
“Stop him, Ambrose!” Sondra shouted. I glanced at her, seeing real fear in her face.
The raven flapped its wings, its raw cawing an echo of their harsh voices. The wizard, Ambrose, gave me a long look, then pointedly gazed at the orchid ring. “I think it has to go this way,” he commented, almost absently.
The Slave King lunged. Zariah and Nahua moved in a blur.
Some men simply had to be shown.
16
I woke to a headache worthy of a three-day bender. A sour and bitter dry film glued my stiff tongue to the roof of my mouth, my eyes as gritty as on a windy day in Vurgmun. My body ached as if I’d been slaving in the mines. Had I somehow wound up back there? Panic gripped me—and turned my stomach.
But no. The air didn’t smell like sulfur. It smelled … like flowers. And though warm, I wasn’t baking hot. Not Vurgmun, then, and wrenching relief filled me.
But what the hell had happened?
The last time I’d felt this awful had been in the first village we’d taken after escaping. I’d fought hard, then indulged in a celebration in the tavern, drinking a local whiskey that scoured my stomach like lava. I hadn’t stopped to consider that I’d never had liquor before in my life. Apparently the drunk had led to brawling—of the friendly variety, though no less bruising—and I’d woken up feeling like this. I’d learned my lesson then, so … Oh right.
Calanthe. Euthalia. That beautiful and treacherous viper of a queen.
Ah, Sawehl, I’d lost my temper entirely and moved to attack. I wouldn’t have cut her throat. Not really. I only meant to take her hostage.
And then … I still couldn’t remember.
Concentrating, I peeled my tongue from the roof of my mouth and licked my cracked lips, then wedged my eyes open. I squinted at the bright light of the setting sun. Hours had passed. Hopefully not days. Merle, perched on a bed post next to me, flapped his wings and cawed. Sondra appeared, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear, her expression as sour as my mouth.
“Good morning, Conrí,” she said, sounding anything but genial. “Glad to have you among the living again.”
Morning? That must be the rising sun then. Well, I’d truly fucked that up. That is, Euthalia had fucked me up.
“I told you he’d be fine!” Ambrose’s head popped into view. “How do you feel?”
“I thought you just said I’m fine.” I levered myself up, head spinning, gorge rising. I swallowed it back and swung my feet to the floor. Bare feet. My armor—and weapons—had vanished, and I wore only my pants and shirt. Wonderful. Leaning my elbows on my knees, I dropped my face into my hands, cradling my pounding head. “What the hell did Euthalia do to me—crack my skull?”
“Not her,” Sondra sounded amused. “The Queen of Flowers never moved, even when you were an idiot and charged up the steps of her throne, roaring and waving your sword.”
“I remember that part,” I snarled.
“Do you?” Her rough voice went cool. “Then you re
member that was not part of the plan, Conrí.”
I knew it. But I couldn’t admit to them how I’d cracked at the thought of chains. I hadn’t thought at all. “What then?”
“Two of those ladies-in-waiting took you down.” She said it as if that made sense.
“You did hit the ground pretty hard,” Ambrose noted. Gently he ran hands over my head, prodding my skull. “No knots.” Merle croaked an agreement. “Probably just a residual effect of the magic that knocked you unconscious. Drink this.”
He nudged a fragile-looking vessel under my chin and I peered at it through the heels of my hands. Pale green and foaming. “What is it?”
“A restorative. I concocted it myself, so you needn’t worry about poisons.”
I took it, the delicate mug cool to the touch, but didn’t drink yet. Looking around the room, I took it and our situation in. We seemed to be in a tower, since only sky showed through the arched and open windows, the rising sun framed in one of them. Probably at the top, as the ceiling rose in a high dome above us, making a poor floor for anyone wanting to be above us. No doors, only the single, circular room, a curtained screen on the far side. Three beds—two besides the one I sat on—sat at intervals around the edges, with a table on the fourth side, where pitchers made of the same material as the mug I held sat, along with platters of food.
“This is our prison cell?” I asked. Obviously, but I couldn’t quite credit it.
“Nicest dungeon I’ve ever been in,” Sondra drawled. She’d also lost her weapons and armor, wearing the light pants and shirt she’d had on beneath. Ambrose seemed only to have lost his staff, though he’d gained a walking stick of similar height. He smiled at me, gesturing to the mug I still held.
“You made this from that food?” I indicated with my chin.
“Had to,” he agreed. “They took my staff and satchel—and my focus stone. These people know power items when they see them, Conrí. It was truly unwise to test the queen’s bodyguards. She did warn you. Three times, even.”
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