by Rice, Morgan
“I… I’ll kill you,” Ceres said.
Stephania laughed, then slapped her. It was delicate in comparison to the slaps the men had already delivered, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Stephania was there above her, striking her, and there was nothing Ceres could do about it.
“No, you won’t.” She held out a hand, and one of the handmaidens near her passed her a knife.
Ceres could feel the sharpness of it as Stephania pressed it to her throat. Just a little more pressure, and it would open the veins there.
“Shall I do it?” Stephania asked. “Shall we all see what’s so special about your blood?”
Ceres forced herself not to shrink back, although right then there was nothing she could do, regardless of what Stephania chose.
She saw Stephania smile. “As I said, you are more useful as a bargaining chip. Still, we can… improve things, can’t we? There are always ways to make things… more difficult.”
Ceres cried out as Stephania grabbed her hair, hard enough that Ceres thought she might rip it from her scalp. Stephania traced the knife slowly up her features, hovering over her eye so close that Ceres didn’t even dare to breathe.
Then she hacked down at Ceres’s hair like a butcher, again and again. There was no art or delicacy to it. Stephania probably had well-trained maids who did the most delicate of things with scissors to her own hair. This had nothing to do with that. It was simply a way of showing that she could do it.
She cut away Ceres’s hair then, bit by bit, shearing her the way some farm hand might have sheared a sheep. Ceres cried at that, even though she forced herself to stay still. It wasn’t just at the loss of her hair. It was at the helplessness that let Stephania do it. She held back the sobs only with difficulty. She had no doubt that Stephania could see the tears.
“Today, I wanted to show you how weak you are,” Stephania said. “Tomorrow… maybe tomorrow I’ll just want to hurt you. Either way, it won’t be your choice, Ceres. I don’t care if it’s the rebellion or the stones of Felldust I give you to. I’ll hand you to them broken.”
She stalked away then, and her entourage went with her. They left Ceres. They just left her. She hauled at the ropes holding her and it made no difference. She struggled in the dirt and that just covered her in more of it.
Finally, she cried again. That didn’t make any difference either. Her powers were gone, Stephania was going to keep playing her twisted game, and Ceres was too weak to stop her.
CHAPTER TEN
Stephania practically floated back from the pit on a tide of her own triumph. She’d enjoyed watching Ceres beaten the way she’d enjoyed few other things. It wasn’t just watching her hurt; it was having the power to do it. Before, Ceres had been something untouchable thanks to the blood of the Ancient Ones.
Now, Stephania could prove to everyone who watched that she was more powerful. And it meant that she had a way to keep her followers distracted. That was important too.
Her mind flowed through all the possibilities there were for breaking Ceres, judging them one by one as she tried to balance what would prove entertaining with what would leave too many marks when the time came to give her away.
“I’ll think of something,” Stephania said, but Ceres couldn’t occupy her thoughts completely. She snapped her fingers at Elethe, summoning her handmaiden forward. “Is everything in the castle as it should be?”
Her handmaiden bowed her head. “The guards who were suspect have been quietly purged, my lady. The last rebels have been driven out or captured. There was an attempt by a few to break in through the tunnels earlier, but it was repulsed.”
Stephania nodded. She’d expected them to try something like that. She turned to one of the guards. “Keep watchers there, and set doors within the tunnels, strongly barred. An escape route is all very well, and we may need it if the negotiations do not go as planned, but a castle should keep people out.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Stephania turned to the next of those around her, and the next, taking in information, piecing things together from fragments the way a seamstress might have stitched scraps into a blanket.
“Is the girl prepared?” Stephania asked another of her handmaidens.
In answer, the woman brought forward a girl with golden hair, wearing a dress that had obviously been borrowed from one of Stephania’s clothes chests. To someone who had never seen Stephania, she might have passed for her.
“No,” Stephania said. “She’s standing all wrong. If she stands as timidly as a mouse, First Stone Irrien will know who she is in a heartbeat. She must be convincing for the first meeting, until we can gauge their mood.”
“I’ll do better, my lady,” the girl said in a trembling voice.
“And teach her to speak better,” Stephania added to the handmaiden behind her. “If you can’t improve on this soon, we may have to find someone else.”
The handmaiden nodded, leading the girl away.
One of the guard captains gave her a report on the condition of the castle’s walls, noting a couple of small gaps. It wouldn’t have made any sense without a handmaiden’s report on the noble who was trying to smuggle supplies out of the building. A spy told her about messages for the rebellion they’d taken along with the castle, and the figures in the rebellion that they’d managed to identify from them. Stephania filed that information away for later.
There were reports on the progress of the invasion, of course.
“The full fleet hasn’t arrived?” Stephania asked.
“Some of it appears to have,” one of her scouts said. “The rebellion’s fleet seems to be harrying it as it advances, slowing some of it.”
It was probably the only tactic the rebels knew, although given the size of Felldust’s fleet, it was probably also the only thing that might work.
“Some of it?” Stephania asked.
Another of her handmaidens answered that one. “Parts of the fleet have landed beyond the city, spreading out to burn villages and besiege Delos. A few have made it in, and they seem to be fighting with the rebels in the streets.”
It sounded like chaos, yet it could also be exactly the kind of plan the rebels might favor. Stephania knew better than to think that they were stupid. They knew about fighting against stronger opponents. They knew about traps, and ambushes, and picking off enemies piecemeal before melting away.
“What are the Felldust generals doing to deal with it?” Stephania asked. When no answer was forthcoming, she tried changing tack. “What are they doing with the areas they’ve moved into? The villages, the outskirts, all of it?”
There, at least, it seemed that some of her people had answers.
“They appear to be burning the villages,” one of the soldiers there said. “Or they were. There are fewer fires now.”
That wasn’t necessarily a good thing. They’d obviously been using the fires to drive peasants toward the city. Now, it didn’t mean they’d stopped attacking. It might just mean that they wanted the villages intact afterward.
“We were able to spot some slave lines from one of the districts where they’ve landed,” one of her people said. “We tried to send a watcher to investigate.”
“But you have heard nothing since,” Stephania guessed. It was a foolish risk to take, but she didn’t say that now. Instead, she found herself planning ahead, trying to work out the best way through what was to follow.
“We hold where we are,” she said. “If imperial soldiers seek sanctuary here, contain them until someone can vouch for them. If anyone else tries to enter, anyone else, cut them down. We hold here, no matter what happens.”
If they could do that, they would be able to force terms. They had enough supplies within the castle for a siege, and the potential for escape through the tunnels so long as they controlled them. Their walls would hold while Felldust took what it wanted from the city. They couldn’t hope to run yet, or they would be hunted through the countryside. The better course was to wait.
Let the invasion run out of momentum against their walls.
Then Stephania could start to put her proposals to First Stone Irrien. She would offer him Ceres as a gift to demonstrate his victory. She would offer gold from the treasury. Perhaps, if he was handsome enough, she would offer herself. After all, it was one thing to rule a castle, and still have an Empire to reclaim, but if she could seduce him, she could have two kingdoms at her fingertips.
But she would decide that later. In the meantime, the only real danger was discontent.
“Livinia? Arrange a masque, and see that all pleasures are provided.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Stephania led the way down to the throne room. The guards there raised their weapons in salute, yet what she saw within wasn’t quite so welcome.
Queen Athena sat on the throne there, surrounded by a small coterie of nobles, guards, and servants standing in formal attendance. She looked up as Stephania entered.
“Stephania, did you not receive my command to attend me?” There was a hint of rebuke in the queen’s tone. “I have been waiting here, and no one will tell me what is happening.”
“Whereas I have been out in the castle,” Stephania said. “Looking for myself.”
That earned her a hard look from the queen.
“Careful, Stephania. Your role in taking back the castle has been noted, and I am grateful, but remember your place.”
Stephania stepped forward. “I am more than aware of my place. Currently, you are sitting in it.”
She enjoyed the look of surprise there. Stephania wasn’t normally direct about these things, but there was something wonderful about the moments when she could be. They were the moments when something she’d planned had come to fruition. When she had power, and all that remained was to demonstrate its existence to others.
“Stephania,” Athena snapped back. “You forget yourself! Kneel there before me, and I may forgive you when I am done speaking with the others here.”
There was probably a point in her life when Stephania would have done it. When she would have sought the queen’s favor above all other things. Well, things moved on, and Queen Athena had only ever been useful for the power she could provide to those who pleased her. Stephania had no time for those who clung on to such things longer than they needed through weakness, or some misplaced sense of loyalty.
“The others,” Stephania said, looking at each of them in turn, silently assessing the nobles there and guessing which way they would jump. She looked beyond them, to the guards and the servants. “I wonder if you can even remember all their names, your majesty. I can. Their names, their secrets, the things that matter to them. I remembered enough to give them the titles they have sought for years, the gold you would never give them to help with their gambling debts.” She looked to the nobles again. “You need to ask yourselves what is more likely to benefit you, serving a woman who knows nothing of you, or serving one who understands everything you desire and is prepared to give it.”
“You dare?” Athena countered. She pointed to the spot in front of the throne. “I am the Queen of the Empire and you will kneel, or I will have you slain as a traitor!”
Stephania smiled at that. “You’ve never really understood power, have you, Athena? You think it’s enough to yell that you are the queen, as if that gives you something. As if it is a tool, not a prize. You think people obey just because of the blood in your veins?”
“I think they will obey this,” Athena snapped back, with a wave in Stephania’s direction. “Take her! Hang her from the tallest point of the castle, for all to see!”
Stephania pushed down the knot of fear that came with those words. How could she not feel fear in a moment balanced like that? She’d made her preparations for this moment, having quiet conversations, making promises, occasionally reminding people of things that might come out if she died. If she’d misjudged it even a little, she would quickly find herself executed as a traitor. Only a fool would feel nothing in that moment.
Yet only a fool would show the slightest hint of it. Instead, Stephania stood at the center of the room, looking around at the guards there and the nobles. Not begging for their allegiance, but expecting it. One looked as though he might move toward her, but Stephania stilled him with a twitch of her hand. She filed his features away in her memory, in case she had to have him killed later.
For now, though, she returned her attention to Athena, smiling as gently as she could manage.
“It seems that your commands aren’t worth much here,” she said. “Shall we see how mine do? Kneel, Athena. Kneel, and I won’t kill you outright.”
Athena sat there for a moment or two, looking around as if hoping that this was all some dream. She rose as if she might try to defy Stephania even then. Then she crumpled like a storm-blown leaf, falling to her knees.
“There,” she said. “Are you happy?”
“Yes,” Stephania replied. “Very.”
She stepped over to Athena, reaching down to touch her shoulder the way she might have reached down to a child.
“Power is wherever you find it,” Stephania said. “It is wherever you can convince people it lies. Right now, it is in my hands.”
“Compared to the army invading us, you have nothing,” Athena said. “Felldust will wash through this city like a flood.”
Stephania moved past her, standing in front of the throne, ready to sit. She took a heartbeat to savor the experience.
“Our former queen is right,” she said. “The army invading us will go through the city. But we are not in the city. It is not a flood, but a rising tide. It will break against our walls and fall again, and then they will talk, because the five stones will want a clear victory rather than a muddy drifting away of their forces. We are safe here. You know me, and you know how clearly I plan these things. Do you think for one moment that I haven’t accounted for what might come next?”
She could see some of those in the room starting to relax. This was part of the power she had now. They trusted that she was the one who might have a plan to save them. It tied them to her with threads of obligation as solid as steel. Still, they would need to be distracted from their questions. Stephania was glad of the entertainments she’d ordered. There was power to be found in being the only one thinking beyond their next wine glass.
Athena looked back at her with a venomous expression. Stephania’s smile widened.
“You’ve never been good at disguising what you feel have you?” she asked. “You’ve never had to. Tell me, why should I keep an enemy near me?”
“You promised me,” Athena shot back. “You promised you wouldn’t kill me if I knelt. Look, all of you. This is the kind of oath breaker you serve!”
Stephania looked around to them. Athena had a point. Kill her directly, and the others would cease to trust her. Fail to kill her, though, and she would be leaving an enemy alive.
“You’re right,” Stephania said. “I gave my word. You will not be executed.”
She gestured to two of the guards, who stepped forward without hesitation.
“Take Athena from here. Take her to the front gate of the castle and let her go.”
Athena turned to her in obvious horror. “You’re going to throw me out into the city? If the rebellion doesn’t kill me, the invaders will. No, I won’t leave!”
Stephania nodded to Elethe. “Find a bow. When the guards toss this idiot through the gate, count to a hundred. If she is still in range then, shoot her down.”
“Yes, my… your majesty.”
Stephania smiled at the correction. She lowered herself into the throne, enjoying the fit of it.
She could get used to being a queen.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
If Sartes had known how bad things were in Delos, he would have hurried back sooner. He drove his wagon up onto a rise in front of the city, and from there, he could see Felldust’s warriors approaching it like some great swarm of insects ready to engulf it.
The naval b
attle beyond the city was raging in fire and bursts of violence, ships sweeping forward and then pulling back. Sartes didn’t know how long it had been going, but for now at least, it seemed to be slowing the main bulk of the invasion.
It couldn’t stop all of it, though. Sartes could see fires in the distance where villages had been burned, and lines of tents arranged in a rough crescent in front of the city. There were signs of violence inside the city too, with small figures running together in the streets, the distance rendering it silent in spite of the mayhem of it.
He could see other figures leaving the city, some of them fleeing in bunches, others sprinting alone. Sartes could see one group of figures in the dust-smeared armor of Felldust, bearing down on a group of those fleeing, their intent obvious.
“There,” Sartes said, pointing. “With me!”
He cracked the reins, forcing the wagon forward. He turned to Leyana.
“Be ready to jump.”
The wagon built speed as it thundered down the slope. Sartes steered it toward the fleeing figures and then past them, aiming for the armored warriors beyond. He saw their faces as the wagon bore down, and he forced himself to keep the wagon straight.
“Now!” he yelled to Leyana. “Jump!”
He wrapped his arms around her and leapt with her, making sure that he took the brunt of the impact as they rolled. Sartes came up just in time to see the wagon barrel into the ranks of Felldust’s soldiers, crushing and scattering them.
He rolled to his feet, drawing his sword on instinct as some of the warriors of Felldust continued to rush forward. Some of them wore bright chainmail, but there wasn’t the uniformity among them that there had been in the Empire’s army.
That didn’t matter, though, when they were charging toward him. Sartes braced himself for the attack, looking around at the peasants and townsfolk who’d been fleeing.
“Stand!” he yelled. “Stand and fight!”
They ran, though, and Sartes had to stand there while the might of Felldust’s soldiers bore down on him. The first soldiers were almost on him when another wagon rushed past to slam into them, then another. He realized in a flash of shock that the other conscripts had started to copy his example. He’d hoped they might follow, but he’d never believed that they might do this.