by Amy Raby
“I fear it’s not what you’d hoped for.”
Vitala’s brow furrowed. “It’s not what I expected. But maybe we can work with it. There are a lot of names in here and some little details that might help us find this woman, wherever she is. She and Bayard are writing to each other in code—at least she’s writing to him; I assume he writes back to her, and those letters will be in her possession, if she has retained them. But if they’re using code, that suggests Bayard doesn’t want her to be discovered.”
“You think she’s aware of the conspiracy?”
“If she’s not, then it’s because Bayard wants to protect her and the children. Either way, we may have some leverage over him.” She smiled grimly.
“Shall I translate the remaining letters?”
Vitala nodded. “Please.”
For several hours, Celeste deciphered letters, occasionally adding a new character to her key. All the letters used the same cipher, the one she’d broken before, and all were from Stina. They were similar in content to the first letter—routine goings-on and various milestones with the children, a lost tooth from the eldest, a new word from the youngest. There were three children, she determined: two girls and a boy. Other names were mentioned, which seemed to be those of friends and neighbors. These might be useful for tracking down the location of the family.
Atella rapped at the door and poked her head inside the anteroom. “There’s a woman here to see the empress.”
Vitala, who was studying translated letters and scribbling notes on a blank piece of paper, answered without raising her head. “Who is it?”
“She says her name is Treva Salonius.”
Vitala froze midstroke, with her quill in hand.
“Empress?” asked Atella. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Vitala swallowed and lifted her quill from the paper. She dipped it in the inkpot. “I don’t know any Treva Salonius. Send her away.”
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.” Atella withdrew.
“Salonius is your surname,” said Celeste. “Is this Treva a relative from when you lived in Riorca?”
Vitala’s mouth was a tight line. “I’ve put those days behind me.”
“Don’t you want to at least find out who she is? I’m curious about her.”
Vitala said nothing.
Now Celeste understood. “You already know.”
“Let’s stick to business,” snapped Vitala. “I’m the empress of Kjall. There’s no reason I should have to show myself to some peasant who shows up claiming a connection. She probably just wants money.”
Celeste returned to the letter she was deciphering. It was unlike Vitala to react with such hostility, or to speak condescendingly of peasants. “You and I have this in common—no family remaining except Lucien and Jamien. My eldest brothers were assassinated, my father is imprisoned on Mosar, my mother passed away when I was a girl—”
“Our situations aren’t the same at all,” said Vitala. “Your family didn’t abandon you by choice; they were murdered or forcibly removed. But my family sold me to a resistance group. For money.”
Chastened, Celeste began filling in letters above the ciphertext. For several minutes, they worked together in silence.
Vitala raised her head. In a milder voice, she said, “I’m sorry to snap. None of this is your fault. It’s just that I’m not in the same position as you at all. You miss the family members you’ve lost—”
“Not Florian,” put in Celeste.
Vitala shrugged. “You miss the others. In my case . . . they were not good to me. They never expected me to amount to anything. And now they come calling, when I’m the empress? Maybe they want money, maybe they want . . . I don’t know. You can tell a person’s character by how they treat you when you haven’t any power. These people showed their colors years ago. I’ll have nothing to do with them.”
Celeste slumped, feeling melancholy. How sad it must be to have living family nearby and want nothing to do with them. She had never realized how much resentment the empress was carrying around. “Have you considered that they might regret what they once did? Maybe they desire your forgiveness.”
Vitala gave an unladylike snort. “Forgiveness is for people who forget your birthday. It’s not for people who sell their daughters.” She looked up. “You know what I mean better than most. Would you forgive Gallus? Would you forgive Cassian?”
“No,” she said softly.
• • •
When Celeste had finished deciphering the letters, Vitala took the translations and left to deliver them to Justien and his team for analysis. The hope was that Justien would be able to locate Stina and the children. Then they could arrest the lot of them and bring them before Bayard, who might be persuaded to talk if his family were in custody.
Meanwhile, Celeste took dinner with Lucien and Patricus. The dog lurked under the table, waiting for choice morsels to fall, while her brother caught her up on the palace gossip. Jamien had learned how to catch a ball. Trenian had read some book by a Mosari philosopher and crowed about its brilliance for days. The Legaciatti were organizing a retirement party for the oldest of their number, a man named Fulvianus.
The guards at the door snapped to attention, and Vitala entered the room. “Celeste, have you got a moment?”
“Sit down and eat, love,” said Lucien. “You’re in no condition to work this hard.”
“I believe I will.” Vitala took a place at the table. Servants rushed forward to supply her with a plate, a glass, and utensils, and then brought the dinner dishes around. Vitala loaded her plate.
“Has Justien’s team found you-know-who yet?” asked Celeste, not wanting to tip off a guard or servant who might, for all she knew, be part of Bayard’s conspiracy.
“No, but they believe they’re close,” said Vitala. “I came to see you for another reason. Justien’s recovered a second packet of letters from Bayard’s residence.” She pushed the packet across the table at Celeste.
This packet was smaller than the other, but the handwriting on the topmost letter looked identical to the ones she’d deciphered before. “More of the same, you think?”
“Probably,” said Vitala. “Still, they might have new information. I was hoping you could decipher them when you’re finished here.”
By now, Celeste had the key memorized. “I could decipher them now, if someone brings me paper and a quill.”
Vitala called for a servant to do so, and when the items were delivered, Celeste settled into the work, snacking on Riorcan wafers as she deciphered the first letter. Within fifteen minutes, she’d handed the translation off to Vitala—it was more daily minutiae from Stina—and begun the second. In this second letter, a familiar name took shape beneath her pen. She bit her lip and finished the translation:
MESSAGE ARRIVED FROM ZOE TODAY SHE LOST AN AGENT AND NEEDS A REPLACEMENT
She pushed the translated letter across the table to Vitala. “Isn’t this curious? Zoe is not a Riorcan name.”
“Of course it’s not,” said Vitala. “Neither is Vitala. The Obsidian Circle gives its people names based on where they will be operating.”
“It’s an Inyan name,” said Celeste.
“Am I supposed to recognize it?”
“Zoe is the name of the woman Rayn had the illegitimate child with. I met her briefly on the Goshawk.”
Vitala read the translation and frowned. “Well, I don’t think it’s the same person.” She handed the letter to Lucien. “Do you?”
He read it. “We shouldn’t discount the possibility. We know that the child may be used as a political pawn if the assassins kill Rayn. What if this Zoe deliberately seduced Rayn with her wards down, hoping he’d sire a baby on her which she could use for political purposes?”
“That still doesn’t explain why Rayn’s wards were down,” said Celeste.
“How so?” asked Lucien.
“Zoe could be a wardbreaker,” said Vitala. “This Zoe mentioned in the letter is one of Bayard’s people. She may be an assassin trained in exactly the way I was—by the same man, in fact. If that’s the case, it’s not necessary for Rayn to be careless with his wards. Zoe can break his fertility ward, using her magic, thus making pregnancy likely.”
“So she produces an illegitimate child . . . ,” mused Celeste.
“And the next step is to assassinate Rayn,” said Lucien. “Someone wants the Inyan throne, but it cannot be Bayard. He’s Riorcan.”
“Someone hired him to produce the child and perform the assassination,” suggested Vitala. “Someone on the Inyan Land Council, perhaps.”
“What could they offer that Bayard would want?” said Lucien.
“Arms, riftstones, maybe even just money,” said Vitala. “These breakaway enclaves have no funding now that the rest of the organization’s gone mainstream. And consider this: if this plan succeeds, he’ll have placed a half-Riorcan on the Inyan throne.”
“If Zoe’s a wardbreaker,” said Celeste, “is she armed with Shards?”
“Of course,” said Vitala. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Don’t wardbreaker assassins typically seduce their victims and kill them in bed?”
“Only if the victim is a war mage. In that case, they need the distraction of sex in order to make the kill,” said Vitala.
Celeste noted her use of the pronoun they. Vitala had once been a wardbreaker assassin. She apparently didn’t include herself in that group anymore.
“And since Rayn is a fire mage,” continued Vitala, “she doesn’t need to sleep with him in order to kill him. She just needs to get close enough to stick a Shard in him without him noticing. Mind, we’re all just speculating. This may not be the same Zoe at all.”
Celeste felt certain they had the right Zoe. “The servants Rayn brought with him to Kjall—where are they now?”
“They came up with us on the Soldier’s Sweep,” said Lucien. “And they’ll have left for Inya with Rayn on the Water Spirit.”
“So at this very moment, Rayn is on a ship with a ward-breaking assassin.”
“We don’t know for sure,” said Vitala. “As the emperor says, we’re speculating.”
“We have to tell Rayn,” said Celeste.
“I’ll dispatch a message at once,” said Lucien.
Celeste blinked. “On the post? It won’t reach him on the ship. He needs to be told now.”
“You ask the impossible,” said Lucien. “He’s on a ship in the open ocean. Even the signal network cannot reach him there.”
“He left this morning,” said Celeste. “If we sent a ship right now—”
“We cannot send a ship right now,” said Lucien. “And if we did, there’s no guarantee we’d find him. The ocean is a big place. There are many routes to Inya.”
The thought terrified her, that Rayn could die on the boat at Zoe’s hands, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. “Then we meet him at the Inyan docks. We can’t protect him on the water. But if he survives the journey, we can protect him when he lands.”
“You’re trading on a very big assumption right now,” said Lucien. “I’m not going to commandeer a ship based on a conjecture—”
“You don’t need to commandeer anything. Send the Soldier’s Sweep.”
“My private ship? Out of the question,” said Lucien. “Give Justien’s team more time. They’ll break Bayard, and when they do, he may confess everything. Then we’ll learn exactly who this Zoe is and what she intends.”
“There’s no time for that!” Her hands trembled. Rayn could be dead inside of a week if they didn’t stop this. He could be talking to Zoe, maybe even following her into her cabin, right this moment. They had to warn him of the danger.
“Rayn is not our responsibility,” said Lucien. “When he was on Kjallan soil, it was my duty to protect him. Now he’s on his own ship, Inyan territory, and he’s got to look after himself.”
“It is our responsibility,” said Celeste, “because the assassin is Kjallan.”
“Riorcan,” said Lucien.
“Riorca’s part of Kjall.”
“Indeed it is,” put in Vitala. “You can’t collect taxes from Riorca and then disavow responsibility for it.”
“I can’t be responsible for the actions of every rogue citizen in my empire. And besides, we don’t even know if it’s the same Zoe,” said Lucien. “Celeste, you’re mixing political and personal desires. You like Rayn and want to protect him. But it’s not your job, nor is it mine, to go chasing after the man every time we think he might be in danger.”
“It may not be our job, but it’s common decency!”
“We are not sending a ship after Prince Rayn,” said Lucien. “And that’s final.”
19
The next morning, Celeste woke to a knock at her door. She didn’t answer it, and the empress was announced. “I’m not dressed,” Celeste called, pulling a pillow over her head.
The door swung open. That was the problem with the empress. She and Lucien could do whatever they wanted, and generally did.
Vitala marched into the bedroom, oblivious to the fact that Celeste was hiding under her bed linens. “Get something on,” she said. “A few hours ago, Justien found Stina and her children—”
“What?” Celeste threw the pillow off her head and sat up, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. But she kept the bedspread pulled up to cover her inadequately clothed body.
“They’re in custody now, in separate cells beneath this building.”
Celeste gathered up the linens, wrapped them around herself, and trundled to the dressing room to fetch her robe.
“And what do you think of this?” called Vitala. “No deathstones or riftstones on any of them.”
In the privacy of her dressing room, Celeste dropped the linens. She grabbed her robe and slung it around her shoulders. “So they can be interrogated.”
“That’s the idea. Are you up for it?”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Of course I’m up for it. After I get dressed.”
“Meet me in the prison,” said Vitala.
Celeste washed and dressed and, though she wasn’t hungry, ate a quick breakfast just in case. While she had never performed an interrogation, she knew they could take a long time. When she felt ready, she headed down the stairway to the underground prison. Vitala and Justien were standing in the aisle, speaking in whispers.
Vitala beckoned. “There you are. We’re ready.”
Justien inclined his head. “Your Imperial Highness.”
Celeste glanced about the prison hallway, curious about the prisoners, but all the cell doors were closed. Since they were made of solid iron with no windows, she couldn’t see through them. “What do you want me to do?”
“Since she’s not magical, I’d like you to try a suggestion,” said Justien. “See if you can get her talking freely. If that doesn’t work—”
“It should work,” said Celeste. She hoped it did. Manipulating the woman with a little mind magic would be far better than having to torture her.
“If it doesn’t, we have backup plans.” Justien gestured to a guard, who pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door nearest them. Justien entered the cell first. Celeste filed in after.
A tall blond woman sat on the prison bench. She was fettered, with some slack in her chains. Her face pinched with worry. “Where are my children?”
“Answer our questions and you’ll be with them again soon,” said Justien.
“I’ve done nothing.” Stina’s voice trembled. “They’ve done nothing.”
Justien nodded at Celeste.
Celeste reached out with her magic and planted a suggestion. I want to tell these people everything I know. “Who is Bayard?”
The woman smiled, and her face radiated warmth. “Bayard’s my husband. He’s so good to me—”
“How can he be your husband?” asked Justien. “He claims to be unmarried.”
Stina’s brow tightened. “It’s a secret.” She put a hand over her mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to tell.”
Celeste sent another suggestion. I can tell these nice people anything, even things that are secrets.
“But I’m sure it’s all right if you know.” Stina’s face crumpled in confusion, but she went on. “He said we had to keep it secret, because he had enemies, and if they found out about me, they might use me against him.”
“Tell me about Bayard’s friends. Did you ever meet any of them?”
“I’ve met many of his friends,” said Stina. “Sometimes I stay at the enclave in the mountains, and I see them there.”
Celeste and Justien exchanged a look.
“Tell us more,” said Justien. “What are the names of some of these friends?”
“There’s Anton,” said Stina. “He’s a war mage, but he’s very kind. He studies poetry in his spare time. Gota takes care of the horses. They don’t have many horses, on account of the grain expense. I think Gota does something else too, but I can’t recall what. And there’s Petronella. . . .”
Stina prattled on, prodded by Celeste’s suggestions, spilling name after name. By the end of the interrogation they had not only a working list of two dozen conspirators but the location of the enclave.
• • •
Celeste was finished with the interrogation by lunchtime. She headed back to her apartment with Vitala on her heels. In the second-floor hallway, they came upon Lucien, who was surrounded by his guards and talking with Governor Asmund.
He called to them the moment he saw them. “Exactly the two women I’ve been looking for.” He disengaged from the governor and gestured for Celeste and Vitala to follow him to the end of the hall for privacy. “How did the interrogation go?”