The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  It will be there, insisted Medeoan to herself as she stared at the box and tried to still the trembling in her hands. Of course it will be there. The sorceress who had woven it was long dead. She had been old when she made it, and she had only told her mistress, Medeoan’s grandmother, of its properties. How could Kacha, let alone Yamuna, even know of its existence? Her dream was false.

  Medeoan inserted the key into the lock and turned it. The click of the lock seemed as loud as the clanging of the door that had shut her in here. She lifted the lid.

  Medeoan stood amidst the wealth of her empire and stared at the one empty box with its blue velvet lining. Disbelief came first. It had to be the wrong chest. She had made a mistake. She had only seen it once, after all, and she had been little more than a child then.

  But try as she might she could not make her heart to believe that. Then came denial. Kacha was being deceived. There were traitors in the court, and at the foot of the Pearl Throne. They were using him for their own ends. She would root them out. They would be hanged in chains over a slow fire. They would be torn apart by horses. They would die, slowly and bloodily. All of them who dared to betray her. She would tell Kacha …

  What could she possibly tell him? That she had used her magic to spy on him? That it had shown her … that it had shown her …

  Grief then. Silent tears pouring down her cheeks, all unnoticed as her heart shattered. She could find no more reasons. She could form no more questions. She had been taught to trust her powers even more than she trusted her heart and her reason, and her powers had shown her too much.

  Kacha was the traitor. He did serve his father, and his father’s sorcerer, and their cause. He had lied to her, from the beginning, about everything. Avanasy had tried to warn her.

  Avanasy. Medeoan’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a sob. Avanasy had tried to warn her and she had turned on him, and now only the gods knew where he was. She had severed herself from her loyal servants and her truest friend. Now what would she do? Now that Kacha, her lover, her husband, meant to make her his slave?

  It was that thought that finally brought fear crashing down on Medeoan. She swayed, pressing her palm against her mouth. She could not cry out. She could not let anyone hear. Too many people already knew she had come here. If Kacha heard …

  No. No. No. This was not happening. It could not be. She was wrong. She had made a mistake. Kacha loved her. She loved him. This was wrong.

  Wrong, yes, but this time she had not made a mistake. This knowledge was only the result of her mistakes.

  Medeoan reached out and slammed the box lid shut. The sound echoed around the chamber for a long moment before it faded away. In the silence that followed, she turned away from the box and walked out. She could not see. The whole world was a great blur of color. She moved like a puppet, with some exterior force directing her. She could not even order her own thoughts. A jumble of images filled her mind, memories of her father, her mother, of Kacha, and all his bright promises, his whispered words of love, his warm touch.

  “Imperial Majesty, did you find all in order?”

  Medeoan blinked. Slowly, she forced her eyes to focus in the direction from which the voice came. The first under-minister of the treasury had unusually small eyes, she noted, round and dark like a rat’s. His shoulders hunched up around his ears, probably from leaning over his ledgers. How much had he been given to allow Kacha into the place where only she should have gone? What account did they keep together? Did it even matter now? All that mattered was that he was Kacha’s creature, which now made him her enemy. Her enemy, and Isavalta’s.

  “Imperial Majesty?” The under-minister blinked rapidly several times.

  “Yes,” said Medeoan. “I found all that I needed.”

  Chapter Five

  Hours later, Medeoan slumped, exhausted, into the one chair that waited in the room with the Portrait of Worlds.

  She couldn’t find the stolen girdle. She had taxed her skill and strength to its limits. She had tried every symbol, every word, every prayer she could think of and she still could not find it. Kacha or Yamuna had hidden it from her most searching eye, and she could not even see how that had been accomplished.

  Yet she knew Kacha had it in his possession and at any unguarded moment he might slip it around her waist, tie it tight, and then her mind would no longer be her own. She would belong only to him, unable to think or to act but as he bid.

  She bowed her head into her hands, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes.

  Help me, she prayed. Vyshemir, help me. You also found your husband was your enemy, but I have no knife to use as you did. What do I do?

  “Beloved?”

  Medeoan’s head jerked up. Kacha’s voice sounded from the other side of the door. Her heart hammered in her chest, and for a long moment, she didn’t dare move. How could she face him? What could she say? She needed more time to think.

  But she had no time. Kacha was outside, and she could not sit here with the locked door between them. If she did, he would know something was wrong.

  Trembling, Medeoan got to her feet and opened the door.

  Kacha stood there, the man she had loved so much for the past three years, and nothing about him had changed. He was still tall and strong, his face handsome and caring. He was so beautiful, despite his scars and his mismatched eyes. Even now, knowing all that she did, she yearned to throw herself into his arms and confess everything and ask what she should do. In that moment, she hated herself more than she could ever hate him. Despite all, Kacha was her friend as well as husband, her sole trusted advisor since Avanasy had left her.

  Since I drove Avanasy away. Since I failed to believe in the one I should have trusted above all others.

  “The ambassador from my uncle’s court is safely here, beloved,” he said, not moving from his place in the doorway. Even he would not come in here without an invitation. Not when he could be seen, anyway. “I came to tell you so, and to see how your preparations were progressing for his reception, but your ladies tell me you have locked yourself in here all the day.”

  She had to answer him. She could not simply stand here and stare. She must speak.

  One art had she learned in all its perfection from her parents. Medeoan could lie, effortlessly and without any change of demeanor. Now she found she could work that art against Kacha, to whom she had sworn she would never lie, and from whom she had believed she would never have to hide.

  “I’m sorry, Kacha,” she said, taking both his hands, the one that belonged to him and the one that did not, lifting her face to kiss him softly, and dying inside to find that the touch of his kiss had not changed at all. “I had a working which could not be attended to by the court sorcerers.” Which was true enough. “I wanted to see to things myself.”

  “And what working is this?” asked Kacha, his eyebrows rising.

  She shook her head, smiling a little shyly. Answer him, answer him, she ordered herself desperately. Any doubt, any mystery and he would … he would …

  She could not bring herself to think of the consequences directly, but the fear brought the lie she needed to her lips. “I have been thinking about what you were saying to me the other day.” Medeoan smoothed her skirts down. “That we must be sure of the loyalty of the lords master. I may have found a means to help us in those determinations.”

  “Really?” Kacha sounded both impressed and wary. “How would it work?”

  Medeoan shrugged. “I don’t know that it can work yet, Kacha. I need some study in the library. Come to me tonight, and I will tell you all, I promise.”

  His fingertips brushed her chin. “I shall look forward to it.” He raised one finger in admonishment. “But we must not neglect the ambassador. I will not have it reported back to my uncle that I have forgotten courtesy here in the north.”

  Then, slowly, as she gazed at him, the realization came over her that she did have a knife to use against him. She was the empress of Isavalta. She could
have Kacha arrested and killed, or simply killed, and no one could question her. She could do it this instant, she could raise her voice to the men-at-arms who waited outside her door.

  “What are you thinking, beloved?” asked Kacha suddenly.

  “I’m thinking of you,” said Medeoan honestly. “And how you have surely forgotten nothing so vital as courtesy.”

  His lips were warm, soft, and loving as he kissed her brow. She felt the smile in that kiss and closed her eyes, hoping he would not see the pain that racked her.

  And if she had him killed, what would Hastinapura do? What would his uncle who sat on the Pearl Throne do? Emperor Samudra would surely declare war. He would have to. Could Isavalta withstand such a war? She did not know. She had not spoken with the Master of War in … How long? She could not remember.

  “Let me see to my study and to my wardrobe, husband,” said Medeoan, keeping her smile about her mouth. “We will speak again tonight.”

  “That we surely will.” He reverenced to her with a wink and left then. Medeoan found she had to work hard for several moments just to continue breathing.

  Fool, she cursed herself. Fool! Now you have but a handful of hours, and what will you tell him at the end of them? What can you do?

  She looked around her chamber and the busy ladies, bent over their needlework or their books, pretending not to notice her until she gave an order. Any one of them might be a spy, or all of them. She did not truly know a single one. She was surrounded by strangers. She did not know her own council anymore. She had allowed them all to be taken from her.

  She had to get away from here, from this pit of spies, before Kacha could steal her mind. She had to find a way to hide herself and a place where he could not reach.

  A plan came to her then, formed from old learning and the fog of desperation. A way to escape, a way to hide and a place to go.

  But she could not do it alone. She would at the very least need one other ally. But who? Who was there?

  For the hundredth time, her heart reached out to Avanasy, wishing desperately she had let her anger cool, that she had known he had remained in Isavalta, even to the end, even to the day of her wedding. If she had known, perhaps in her joy on the day she could have forgiven him, and he would be with her now …

  Another memory came to her. A memory of the commander of the House Guard standing before her, and telling her that Avanasy had not only defiantly stayed until the moment of her marriage, but that he had help leaving the palace. A guard named Peshek. Did Her Imperial Majesty wish the man put to death?

  No, no, she had replied, regally. Let him not be punished. Today is a day of amnesty to all.

  Kacha had not been pleased when he heard, but he had let the matter lie.

  So where was this Peshek, this man who had risked death to help Avanasy?

  “I am repairing to the Red Library,” announced Medeoan to her ladies. “Let the commander of the House Guard attend me there.”

  She whisked out of her apartments in their untrustworthy company, silently planning her escape.

  The Red Library was housed in a much smaller chamber than the Imperial Library that stood beside the god house. Its chamber was a blunt wedge lined with oaken shelves. Pillars of garnet-colored marble stood between them. Three arched windows overlooked the courtyard and let in the summer daylight. The ceiling had been painted with a replica of the astrologer’s chart that was supposed to have predicted Medeoan’s grandmother’s rise to empress, and the floor was inlaid with stars in colored woods.

  Like the room that held the Portrait, the Red Library was a place she could enter alone without arousing suspicion. Here she could study in private among the grimoires, the books of shadows, the manuals of necromancy, and the ancient scrolls that the Isavaltan court sorcerers had collected or captured down the years.

  Medeoan lifted a particular volume from the shelves. It was bound in white leather edged in blue ink. She laid it gently on one of the oaken tables. She had studied this book for months, with Avanasy at her shoulder. It was a book of spells that might be worked in cloth and thread. She began to turn the vellum pages, scanning the thick black lettering and the precise drawings for the one she needed.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  “Come,” called Medeoan, hastily shutting the book.

  A man in the blue coat and gilded armor of the house guard marched into the room. One sweep of his eyes took in her solitary presence and at once he reverenced, not merely the soldier’s bow from the waist, but the full reverence to the imperial presence, down on both knees, his head bowed before her.

  Medeoan rose. This was the man she had ordered the commander to find. As he was, however, she could see nothing of him but a pair of broad shoulders under his uniform coat and his bowed back. “Captain Peshek,” she said.

  “Imperial Majesty,” he replied in acknowledgment, but without looking up, as was proper.

  It was a propriety that did not help her at all now. She needed to see this man’s eyes. She needed some hint as to how to judge him. “Stand up, Captain. Look at me.”

  Captain Peshek hesitated, but only for a heartbeat, and then did as he was bidden. He had a good face under his helmet, Medeoan decided. It was lined by smiles as well as by wind and weather, and his eyes were open and cheerful. But handsome looks could blind the observer. She knew that too well now.

  She did not have time to hedge or to engage in any sort of verbal dance. “You are a friend of Lord Avanasy’s, I believe.”

  Would he admit it? His whole face went wary. “Yes, Imperial Majesty.”

  “Still? Despite his exile?”

  He might well be answering for his position, if not his life, and the way he pulled himself to attention said he knew that. Would he deny the friendship in hopes of saving himself? Or would he acknowledge it and accept the consequences of his honesty?

  “Yes, Imperial Majesty,” said Captain Peshek.

  He said it without flinching or hesitation. Medeoan felt at least some of her knotted muscles loosen. “I know he trusted you.”

  Peshek said nothing. He just stood at rigid attention, his eyes straight ahead, waiting for orders, like the soldier he was.

  “Because of that, I also will trust you.”

  Peshek laid his hand over his heart. “I live to serve, Imperial Majesty.”

  Now she had to speak the words out loud, and once the words left her, it all became real and she could not explain away what had happened anymore. Medeoan clasped her hands in front of her to keep them from trembling.

  “I am in danger, Captain Peshek.”

  That startled him. He stared at her, confusion giving way rapidly to anger in his eyes. “How, Majesty? From who? I’ll have …”

  Medeoan shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. The less you know … it’s my own fault … I …” She pulled herself together. “Do you know where Lord Avanasy is?”

  For the first time, Peshek hesitated. Why would he not? She had decided to trust him, but who was she? The one who had exiled Avanasy, who would have had him killed if she had caught him. Peshek had to decide how far he trusted her.

  In the end, Peshek shook his head. “No, Imperial Majesty. I don’t know where he is. I’m sorry,” he said and Medeoan judged his regret to be sincere.

  Medeoan bit her lip. “He told you nothing of where he planned to go?”

  “No, Imperial Majesty.”

  “I see.” Medeoan circled the reading table. It had been a slim hope, but it had been all she had. The white grimoire lay on the table’s polished surface, looking no more nor less dangerous than any other history or poem. Yet, in there lay her salvation, her promise of life. For that promise, however, she must ask for a sacrifice.

  And you must do this now. You have only three days. In three days the household moved to the summer palace of Vaknevos. In three days she would be constantly in Kacha’s company while they traveled, and her hopes for escape would come to nothing. That thought sent a chill through
her bones.

  Medeoan steeled herself. “Captain,” she said as firmly as she could manage. “I need for you to bring me a girl, a drab, one newly brought into service, if possible. This must be done quietly. The Mistress of the House must not know.” No one must know. There must be no rumor, no gossip that can reach my husband’s ears before I can have all my answers ready for him.

  Medeoan watched the question “Why?” form in Peshek’s eyes, but he did not speak it. Instead, it seemed to Medeoan that he turned his mind to the logistics of his assignment. Peshek, she knew, had lived in Vyshtavos for almost as long as she had. He was familiar with its ways, in some areas more familiar with them than she, whose provinces were only great apartments and grand halls.

  “The Mistress of the House spends the first part of every day in her pantry reviewing the inventories,” said Captain Peshek, again laying his hand again over his heart. “If that meets with Her Imperial Majesty’s approval, I shall bring the girl then.”

  “In the morning, in two days’ time,” said Medeoan. “I will be walking by the canal. Bring her to me then. I remind you once more, this must be done quietly. No one must know.”

  “Imperial Majesty.” Peshek pulled himself up to a posture of formal attention in acknowledgment of her orders.

  Medeoan opened her mouth. She wanted to say something of her fear, of her fledgling plans. She wanted so much to have another heart beside her, as she thought she had with Kacha, and as she truly had with Avanasy. But Peshek, for all she must trust him, was not Avanasy, and would never be. So, all she said was, “Thank you, Captain Peshek. You may go.”

  This time, he gave her the soldier’s reverence, a deep bow with his hand over his heart. But he did not leave at once. “Imperial Majesty?”