Heron bent to take a closer look. “They made her look too much like her father,” he said.
“How many casualties?”
“Just one, it seems. The late Lord Archon.” He frowned. “That’s impressive, actually. She was one corpse away from the Crescent’s first bloodless coup. I wonder how long she’s been planning this.”
“A long time, I think,” Senne said grimly. She wasn’t in the mood to be impressed. “Years.”
On the 18th at sunset, Annara of Archon seized power in the Crescentian state of Archon, committing patricide and astonishing all the world’s righteous authorities, the broadside read. Several of the previous Lord Archon’s courtiers and allies were banished at once. What are the new Lady Archon’s plans for the city-state? Does this action violate the three-state treaty? Most importantly, what does it mean for Seichrenese trade?
“What’s the three-state treaty?” Senne said.
“It’s an agreement between Seichre, Alrhen-Xiun, and Pahinvar. It states that the Crescent’s islands are to remain independent city-states, and no empire can conquer them without starting a war with the other world powers. The Crescent used to be hotly contested.”
“And does this violate the treaty?”
“Not yet,” Heron said. “But it will make a lot of powerful people very, very nervous. If Annara decides to conquer one of the other islands, that might violate the treaty. I don’t think anyone wants to let her get that far.”
A young man in a bright red messenger’s uniform jogged up to them, panting. “Lord Wraith and Retired Lord Wraith?”
“Yes?” Senne said.
“I have a message for you. It’s a royal summons.”
Heron reached out to take the envelope that was offered to him. The royal coat of arms glinted against the scarlet paper. “Effective immediately, I assume.”
The messenger dropped to one knee so fast his kneecap cracked against the cold stone. “Yes! I apologize for my tardiness. Respectfully, my lord, you should have been there fifteen minutes ago.”
“The king’s in one of his moods, then. I swear to the Goddess, that man…”
“Heron, that’s the king,” Senne hissed. “Don’t say that where people can hear you.”
“Are you going to accuse me of treason?” Heron asked.
The messenger shook his head vigorously.
“Well, there you go, then. Come on, Senne. We don’t want to be late.”
✽✽✽
Heron had a knack for being in the Inner Palace. He strode calmly along as if he had never lost his composure in his life, completely unawed by the gilded curlicues and deceptive mirrored surfaces. He wore no veil, which attracted whispers whenever they passed a member of the court.
Behind her veil, Senne’s gaze darted about, landing on brocade furniture and expensive ceramics and flitting away immediately. Being around so many breakable things always made her nervous.
Footmen led them through the maze of corridors. They went deeper into the palace complex than Senne had ever been before. Eventually, they made it to a throne room. It was one of perhaps hundreds of throne rooms in the massive building, though it was more private than most. Senne could just barely make out the shape of the king and his throne behind a gauzy red curtain embroidered with bright glass beads.
Heron and Senne prostrated themselves on the floor. The rich carpet was pleasantly soft as it brushed against Senne’s forehead.
“Rise,” said the voice behind the curtain.
They stood, and the king tugged the curtain aside. He was painfully ordinary-looking, with sparse eyebrows and brown hair that thinned at his forehead. Without the jewels and furs and ribbons, he could have been any man Senne had passed on the way to the palace.
He further ruined the effect of his surroundings by petulantly saying, “Are you sure you won’t come out of retirement?”
“Quite, your majesty,” Heron said comfortably.
“But you were so useful,” the king whined. “Ah, well. I suppose everything good goes away eventually.”
“It seems so, your majesty.”
“Have you two heard about that nasty little business in Archon?”
“Yes, sire,” Senne said.
“Your own oath-sister, wasn’t it? Bet you weren’t expecting that.”
“No, sire.”
“I don’t think anyone was,” Heron added lightly.
“Well, I hope you weren’t actually attached to the girl. You weren’t, right?” The king chuckled. “I mean, of course you weren’t. You’re Lord Wraith.”
Senne had a sudden vision of planting one foot on the gilded left armrest of the king’s throne and strangling him with her bare hands. She forced the thought down and stretched her lips into a smile. “You’re correct, of course, sire.”
“Yes, well. You wouldn’t be inclined to do something about her, would you? This whole coup thing is making me rather uncomfortable.”
“I hope it hasn’t come to that yet,” Senne said. “She hasn’t threatened the three-state treaty. The Crescent isn’t like Seichre. Power changes hands all the time, sometimes violently, and this incident was relatively peaceful.”
The king sniffed disdainfully. “I’m not so sure. It would be all very well if the girl was of noble blood...”
“She’s the daughter of the previous Lord Archon.”
“Did you just interrupt me?”
“The Honorable Lord Wraith would never dream of such treason, sire,” Heron said, shooting Senne a warning look.
“Of course not,” said the king. “I must have misheard. I haven’t the faintest idea why you’re hesitating, Wraith. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were getting lazy, lounging about in your Royal City manor. All the comforts you enjoy are merely the result of our royal courtesy, you know.”
“I only meant to suggest that it might be prudent not to escalate the situation in Archon, sire,” Senne said through gritted teeth. “If Seichre assassinates the new Lady Archon, who will take her place? Lord Archon had no other heirs. One of the other island merchant-lords would have to govern Archon, and that might put the three-state treaty in jeopardy.”
“You raise a good point,” the king said mildly. “Although it is not your place to comment on politics, Wraith. Your place is only to carry out the tasks we give you, and you would do well to remember it.”
Senne bowed her head. The king looked away, looking bored with the conversation.
“Still,” he mused, “I suppose you’re right. This matter could become a bother. I’ll confer with my ministers, then, and we’ll decide if getting rid of that child is worth the risk.”
Senne and Heron watched as the king leaned back in his throne, apparently contemplating this. He stared into the middle distance for a while, then snapped back to reality to glare at them both.
“Well? What are you still doing here? Dismissed.”
“Thank you for your time, sire,” Heron said, with his characteristic elegance, and he bowed gracefully. Senne bent, less so.
She was quiet as they navigated the palace’s twisting hallways and emerged into a cold slate courtyard. Her breath hissed out in a steady, frustrated stream.
“I know,” Heron said quietly. “I understand how you feel.”
“Do you?”
“Some people,” he said, “just need to be slapped very hard in the face, but slapping them isn’t worth being executed for. Even if they’re very annoying.”
“I hadn’t seen the king since I was young. I don’t remember him being like that.”
“Charitably, one might say he was a little kinder and more dignified when he was younger. Or it might simply be that you were more susceptible to his title then, and now you have the sense and confidence to see the ordinary, mean man beneath the fancy clothes,” Heron said.
“Shush, someone will hear you.”
Heron gave his customary response. “What are they going to do, have me assassinated?”
Senne didn’t smile this time. �
�Do you think he’ll actually order me to kill her?”
“Yes,” Heron said immediately. “I’m sorry. The Ministers of Trade and Defense might stall him for a little while, but it’s only a matter of time. Even if Annara just sat quietly on the throne and did nothing else— and, honestly, do you think she would?”
“No,” Senne said. “She’s been planning this for some time. Years, maybe. There’s something else in the works.”
Heron inclined his head. “You know her best.”
“I don’t think I knew her well at all.”
Senne shivered against the wind, and Heron took off his black wool scarf and wrapped it around her shoulders. It prickled against the back of her neck, like Senne’s growing awareness of her own discomfort at the prospect of following the king’s orders. Had she known Annara? Was it enough to know someone’s smile by heart, to know her favorite breakfast foods and taste in architecture, if you didn’t know her ultimate goals? Senne didn’t know.
Maybe, considering their shared fate, it didn’t matter at all.
✽✽✽
The royal crypt of Archon was buried below the palace, accessible through a small moon chapel located near the second ballroom. Centuries of Archonian merchant-lords were buried there, including Annara’s father. Or so she assumed. She had let her guards take care of the body without much care for what they did with it.
Her mother, on the other hand, was not buried there. As a traitor to the crown, she didn’t have the right.
Far from the palace, where the edge of the island rose into a jagged cliff above the sea, grass grew long over the potter’s field where the Traitor Concubine was buried. A recent rain had pressed the strands of grass into one green cloth that dipped and rose as it fell over the hollows of the earth. The sea crashed and roared at the bottom of the cliff.
Most graves here were unmarked, since they belonged to beggars and unidentified corpses. The Traitor Concubine was a lucky exception, perhaps as a nod to her former status. Her grave was a small square stone, crudely carved with the swan of Archon. Annara knelt next to it, listening to the waves and feeling the wet grass slowly darken the knees of her pants.
After a while, she opened her satchel and took out a few sheets of thin, colored paper and a pair of scissors. She started to cut six-petaled flowers from the paper. It was an old Crescentian funerary custom, and if she didn’t do it, no one would.
“There you are,” Haol said. “I was looking for you. The Xiunian merchant got in early, and she wants to speak with you. At your leisure, of course.”
Annara kept her head down, gently snipping flowers out of paper. “Thank you, Haol. I’ll be there shortly.”
Haol came to stand next to her, and bowed slightly to the grave. “Do you think she’d be proud?”
“Proud?”
“You finished her work. Lord Archon is finally dead.”
“Our actions weren’t related,” Annara said. “Her failed assassination attempt was an act of desperation, a doomed bid for freedom. My successful one was calculated to gain power. I don’t think I’ve continued her work.”
“You’ve avenged her, then, at least.”
“Vengeance doesn’t help the dead. They’re gone, they don’t see it. It was purely for my own satisfaction.”
“But you’re here, aren’t you?”
Annara tucked the skeleton of the used paper back into her bag, stood, and scattered a handful of paper flowers over the gravestone. A few of them clung to it, caught by the ruffled lace edges of lichen. The thin paper quickly turned transparent with moisture. Somehow, the bright gold and white only made the crumbling gray stone look more forlorn.
“I think I owe her that much.” Annara cast her final handful of flowers out over the rest of the cemetery, for the unmarked graves. The wind caught one of them and lifted it towards the sea. “Say, Haol, do you remember her name?”
“Of course, it was...” Haol trailed off, frowning. “Actually, I don’t think I do. I’m so sorry. It’s just that he would get so angry whenever anyone mentioned her by name, and all of us servants were terrified, and we were so young when she died. I haven’t heard anyone call her by her proper name for years. It started with an S, I think, or maybe it was a W…”
“I don’t remember either.”
“Oh.”
“Mm.”
“So that’s why you’re here,” Haol said.
“Like I said, I think I owe her that much.”
The wind tugged at one of the paper flowers. It trembled in place, but it couldn’t pull itself free.
“They buried the previous Lord Archon,” Haol said suddenly. “In the crypt, according to custom. They gave him the bare minimum of funerary goods.”
Which, Annara knew, was still valuable enough to feed an ordinary person for a decade. She looked out at the potter’s field, where the earth was rippled with centuries of humble burials. A few lone, rotting monuments poked out of the grass.
“I truly don’t care,” she said. “If any of the courtiers feel the need to construct some kind of memorial for him, authorize it on my behalf, but don’t bother telling me. Don’t let them use any money that I’m already using for something else, especially if it’s education or bridge repair.”
“Understood.”
“Your mother’s not buried here, is she, Haol?”
“No,” Haol said. “We somehow scraped together enough money for an actual funeral.”
“Good. That’s good.” Annara patted the stray grass off of her pants. “Let’s go talk to the Xiunians.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Xiunian merchant-captain was a tall woman with a black eyepatch covering her left eye. She wore South Xiunian robes that ruffled elegantly around her ankles and heeled boots that made her tower over Annara.
The sea crashed against the docks. Out in the harbor, a wave burst into a fan of white foam on the breakwater. A cold winter wind blew in from the ocean, tugging strands of the captain’s long black hair across her face and rippling the ermine on Annara’s collar. Behind them, sailors unloaded square wooden crates. Each crate was stamped with the Xiunian word inflammable in bright scarlet cursive.
“Careful with those,” the captain barked in Xiunian. “Don’t get them wet.”
“Ma’am.”
“Perhaps you’d better bring them off the docks,” Annara said in Crescentian. It was custom to speak in the language of the port you were in when dealing in international trade.
“Good idea.”
The captain yelled something to the sailors, and they started hauling crates onto the solid stone lip of the harbor, where the water was less likely to touch them. Annara pulled a small pouch of gold ingots out of her satchel and passed them to the captain.
“Thank you for your business,” the captain said.
“I appreciate you coming all this way, even though the weather is about to turn,” Annara said. “I hope we can continue to count on you in the future.”
“So long as you can continue to afford us,” the captain said dryly. “Shall I show you the merchandise?”
“Please.”
They went over, and the captain pried the lid off one of the crates. Inside, hundreds of little paper cylinders nestled together like books on a shelf. Some were wrapped in black paper, while others were colored red or gray. Each one was labeled inflammable.
“You want to store all of these in a cool, dry place,” the captain said. “Avoid heat or direct sunlight. Try not to… what’s the word? Try not to bump them too much.”
“Got it. What’s the difference between the red ones and the gray ones?”
The captain reached into the crate and picked up a red packet of something. It was tightly wrapped, with the words danger and inflammable and a tiny gold-foil sunrise emblazoned on the paper.
“This one is a flash bomb,” she said. “It does very little physical damage, but it does produce a bright light. There’s no fuse. To use it, throw it as hard as you can at the floor
.” She smiled wryly. “I would demonstrate, but I suspect using explosives on the streets of Archon is illegal.”
“Quite.”
“These gray ones, these are smoke bombs. They work in a similar way, and they serve a similar purpose.”
“Understood. What about these black ones?”
“Those are the heavy hitters, my lady. Unlike the other varieties, these have a fuse you must light.”
The captain lifted one out of the crate. It was larger than the others, about the size of a hand rather than the size of a finger, and a thin rope fuse trailed from one end. The packaging held no words, though Annara assumed it was flammable as well. It only had three silver stars, the international symbol of danger.
“Once you light the fuse, you have about five seconds to get out of range. Due to the short fuse length, we advise you to throw these. The fuse is specially treated so that it will not go out mid-air.”
“Xiunian fire-craft really is impressive,” Annara said.
“We need to have something in order to stand against Seichre’s memory steel.”
“Can I see the item I commissioned specially?”
“Of course.”
The captain reached behind the crate and lifted out a small casket with a hinged lid. Inside, three large cylinders of dark blue paper were nestled in a bed of straw. Each one trailed a long white fuse that had been coiled at its base.
“I have to admit, the technician I work with was absolutely fascinated by this request. A shaped charge, designed to deal as much damage as possible in a highly contained area. A fuse that delays the explosion for precisely one minute and thirty-two seconds. She insisted on making two extra in case one was damaged in transit,” the captain said, scoffing scornfully at the thought of her merchandise being damaged, “since it seemed likely that you wanted to use it for something highly specific.”
“I appreciate it. Tell your technician her service has been excellent.”
“She’s an artist, really,” the captain said affectionately. Was there a light blush on her cheeks, or was Annara imagining it? “Puts her entire heart into her work, no matter what wretched skullduggery it’s meant to be used for.”
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