Their father had this expression: “Always hammer the nails that stick up, down the hardest.” Though the Grand Duchess disagreed with the King of Delmaire on many points, on this one they were in complete agreement.
Yet, despite all that she had done, she’d heard from a reliable source that something might well happen to her brother “in among the roses.” It was probably just more rash talk from among the gentry who had not been hammered quite enough. Still, she ignored no threat. Just as a precaution, she’d informed his personal guard that the Emperor was to go nowhere in the gardens today.
Light from the large windows flickered from gray to white as the clouds outside raced through the sky. The change distracted her opponent for an instant, and deciding that this practice had gone on long enough, Zofiya took an aggressive lunge forward. The training foil in her hand flashed, and the unfortunate Imperial Guard who was her target tried to quickly step back. He couldn’t get his own weapon up fast enough, and she rapped him hard against the mesh helmet.
The snap of the strike echoed down the marble hallway, bouncing off the rows of paintings and sculptures.
“Dearest Sister.” The voice startled her, and she spun around to see the Emperor of Arkaym standing in the shadow of the archway. Kaleva, her elder brother, watched her with dark eyes and a smile.
For an Emperor he smiled far too often, but as always, what he was thinking was hidden. Zofiya took waher own helmet, tucked her foil under her arm and strode toward him.
Years of growing up in their father’s Court had taught them one thing—knowledge was power. Yet she was afraid, afraid that as much as she did love her brother, she didn’t really know him. She might adore and protect him, but he kept his true heart hidden from her.
That lonely thought made Zofiya abandon protocol momentarily. Despite the sweat and that they were, as ever, not alone, she grabbed Kaleva in a tight embrace. For that split second they were children again—the youngest, the most insignificant, yet still required to conform to the rules of their elders. Ignored by their mother and viewed as pawns by their father—no one could ever have expected them to be here now—the Emperor and the Grand Duchess of Arkaym.
Kaleva returned her hug for a moment but then pushed her back. “Sister, I fear you need to go easier on your guard, or they may request a transfer to the kitchens.”
“You don’t mind, do you, Hosh?” Zofiya shot the question over her shoulder.
The guard took off his helmet, revealing that his salt-and-pepper hair was wet with sweat, but he nonetheless sketched a very fine bow. “Not at all, Imperial Highness. It makes the rest of my day seem like a holiday by comparison.”
Laughing, Kaleva drew his sister aside—as far away as an Emperor could, anyway. As always there were his guards, his personal secretary, his current favorites and two members of the Privy Council waiting in the wings. Zofiya missed the privacy they had shared as children.
Over at the window looking down the hill that the palace occupied, they stood for a moment, with their backs to the rest of the people in the room. It was a beautiful city, seen from a distance. The changing light alternately lit up the lagoon and the channels, making them look like mirrors for a short instant, before the clouds once again took over, hiding them in shadow.
Zofiya waited for her brother to speak, untying her hair and trying not to get curious as to what brought him to find her. Finally, Kaleva took out of his pocket three miniatures of three ladies and laid them out on the table in the flickering sunlight.
“So these are the final choices, are they?”
Kaleva nodded curtly. Youngest son of the King of Delmaire, he’d never been expected to rule anything, and now he was learning that there was more to being Emperor than merely dealing with bureaucrats and bickering Princes. An unmarried ruler was not acceptable in any shape or form, and yet picking a bride was loaded with layers of meaning and consequence that could freeze even the most intelligent, commanding man in his place.
“Yes.” Her brother sighed, tucked his hands behind his back and looked down at the images. “One from Chioma, one from Seneqoth and one from Hatar—all beautiful, talented and from families deemed not strong enough to unbalance the Assembly of Princes.”
“Poor Brother”—Zofiya chuckled—“to have to pick from such beauties. It is truly a cruel life you live.” She kept her tone light, though she itched to fling away the images of the women from Seneqoth and Hatar, however she knew that doing so would draw unwanted attention from her brother. Always she had to take care not to remind him of her faith.
The Emperor pressed his lips together. “Perhaps I have been putting this off—but I am sure these ladies are not really pining for me.” He couldn’t help it—he looked over his shoulder. They were thre, in the shadows: Otril and Eilse.
He was a minor Earl from Delmaire, and she a quiet beauty with no aristocratic blood in her veins at all. Yet it was well-known that Kaleva loved them.
The Emperor had taken care not to give them too much power in Imperial affairs, knowing from their father’s Court that the influence of lovers could end with their death or that of the monarch. Yet their very closeness to him was beginning to spread more than a whisper in Vermillion.
Some talked of Otril and Eilse actively working against the Emperor marrying—though Zofiya was sure they were not that foolish.
No, she sighed, it was her brother. Other royals were comfortable with mistresses, affairs, concubines, but not Kaleva. To marry was to deny his feelings—and it was not like the Emperor of Arkaym could act as the Prince of Chioma did—keeping a large harem of lovers. Tradition had it there was one Emperor and one Empress.
Eilse could not be that woman. Her low birth would have been an insult to the role.
“Brother”—Zofiya laid her hand on his arm, dropping her voice to a whisper that would remain just between the two of them—“Father was wrong about many things, but he was right in that the prime responsibility of a monarch is to continue the bloodline. We have a tenuous fingerhold on this continent as it is.”
Kaleva turned his back to the magnificent view, leaned on the table and stared at his lovers. When he looked at his sister she saw him again: that little boy, the one she had perhaps read too many fairy tales to. Romanticism still clung to him miraculously, even after a war, assassination attempts and the machinations of a resentful Court.
Reaching behind him, he blindly picked one of the portraits; then, holding out his arm to Zofiya, he opened his hand.
Both of them looked down into the beautiful dark face of the Princess of Chioma.
Zofiya’s heart skipped a beat. “Random chance, Brother?” The Grand Duchess tilted her head and smiled at him. “Is that really how you will choose the next Empress for Arkaym?” She knew it was anything but random.
Kaleva shrugged. “They are all equally worthy, equally beautiful—if their portraits are to be believed. I think this lady is a good choice. Her father has never—”
The rest of her brother’s words faded from Zofiya’s hearing, because just then the clouds parted. For an instant her eye caught movement in the tower opposite the Long Gallery.
It was an older portion of the palace, made of rough stone and not the smooth marble of more recent additions. What this particular spire did have was a great round stained glass window, the type called a rose window.
When light filtered through this particular rose window, Zofiya caught a glimpse of the figure behind it.
“Protect the Emperor!” she screamed, shoving her brother off the table, sending him flying to the floor just as a shot shattered first the rose window and then the one they were standing right in front of. It hit one of the portraits, exploding it into a thousand porcelain shards. Then everything was a whirl of movement, as Imperial Guards rushed forward, and the small huddle of courtiers scattered like chaff.
Zofiya didn’t have time to notice any of that. Her brother was down, covered by those sworn to protect him, and now she had a job to do.
The palace was a rabbit warren of rooms, passages and hidden entrances—the attacker could be away in an instant.
Zofiya flew down the Long Hall, skidding on the polished marble, but flinging open the latch in the wainscot in an instant. Down a set of stairs she ran, hearing the echo of the second shot dimly behind her. She made no effort to be quiet, but as she was wearing her practice slippers so as not to damage the floor of the Hall, she was considerably more silent than usual.
The Grand Duchess ran through the rough corridor, her arms pumping. In her mind’s eye, the castle opened before her—every corridor, every archway, every staircase. Through the pounding of her heart and her feet against the castle floor, her breath came easily enough. Both Zofiya and Kaleva were studious about not letting Imperial food send them to the way of fat, and now all those laps around the gardens proved very useful.
She burst out of the secret door and into the room at the top of the Maiden Tower with barely a break in stride. The would-be assassin was turning, the length of his rifle only just pulled away from the hole in the window. He was dressed in the red of the Imperial Guard—an insult that Zofiya could not let go unpunished.
However, there could not have been a worse time for the Grand Duchess to go into battle. She wore light linen breeches with a similar shirt and carried nothing of greater length than her ceremonial dagger of Hatipai.
Zofiya was, however, of the blood of kings and beloved of her goddess—she would triumph over some second-rate assassin naked from her bath if necessary.
She yelled, lunged and grabbed the barrel of the rifle with both hands. As the weapon came around, her forearms brushed against the barrel, pushing it up toward the ceiling. Once she felt the scalding metal sear her fingers, she pushed toward the assassin. Even over the sharp discharge of the weapon, she heard the crunch of the barrel slamming into the man’s nose. His scream was a strained, muffled sound as he suddenly found it difficult to breathe. It was most satisfactory when droplets of his blood splattered onto her face—this man had come the closest to killing Kaleva in all their years here.
With a savage snarl, she grasped the butt of the rifle and yanked it toward her. Following its natural momentum, she brought it up, and then back down straight into his groin.
With a labored gasp, the assassin dropped to his knees. Apparently he was unable to choose which was the most painful: his nose or his genitals. Whatever pain he felt, however, was not enough as far as the Grand Duchess was concerned.
Burying her hands in his hair like a lover, she tugged his head forward viciously, directly onto her upraised knee. Now his scream was reduced to a gurgle. Yes, it was gratuitous. Yes, it was unnecessary. Yes, it felt delicious.
The Grand Duchess felt her own blood boil, a heady mix of terrible rage and savage joy. Her right hand wrapped around the hilt of Hatipai’s dagger. Now her hand pulled his head back by his hair. Looking into his confused, pained eyes, Zofiya smiled.
“This isn’t political,” she hissed. “This is very, very personal.”
She needed him to know that, even as she jerked the blade across his throat. The scarlet blood of the assassin was quite impressive on the pure linen of her white training uniform. Looking down at the silver dagger, Zofiya was abruptly entranced by the coating of blood it had now acquired.
Hatipai’s dagger was meant only to show her willingness to s
More than that—it felt warm in her grip. Through the broken, glorious remains of the rose window, Zofiya saw something moving that was not just the clouds. Not putting away her knife, not even cleaning it as was proper, she walked over to the view, broken glass crunching under her nearly bare feet, and peered out.
The Grand Duchess did not look over to the Great Hall to see if her brother was safe; instead she looked up. The clouds were still skidding across the blue of the sky, but something else was moving even faster among them: clusters of shadow, balls of gray smoke were darting south, like a flock of supernatural birds heading for home before winter.
Yet it was not winter, and she should not be able to discern geists. Zofiya glanced down again at her hands, still coated in blood, and then up again, suddenly making the connection between blood, knife and what she was seeing.
They were spirits, and if she concentrated hard enough, she could hear their song. It was a hymn of adulation for Hatipai, and she knew who they were—the dead worshippers of her goddess. It was a revelation—a true goddess-given revelation.
But what could it mean? Where were the true followers of the goddess going so very quickly?
To me. They come to me.
The voice of Hatipai rang bell-clear in her head, and the vision of the angel appeared among the broken remains of the rose window. Suddenly Zofiya was glad of the assassin’s attempt on her brother’s life. Without today’s blood, she would never have been granted this wonderful vision.
Tears began to roll out of her eyes and down her cheeks, as if she were a child again. Her fingers grew numb, and the knife fell from her fingers to rattle among the ruined glass. It was unimportant. Nothing mattered now as much as the clear voice of Hatipai in her mind.
You must come to me. It was the voice of her mother—or rather the voice that she wished her mother had used. Bring me this.
An image flashed in her mind. A grand Temple, with towering red walls, each one carved with scenes from the Holy Book of Beauty—the sacred text of Hatipai. The light that streamed in through the arched windows was yellow, bright and strong in a way that no sun in the north could possibly be. Zofiya saw the font where water was sacrificed to the goddess, and in rare and important moments other liquids. Her mind’s eye watched the font drain clear and a set of stairs grind into place—a marvel of ancient engineering. A cold dread formed in the pit of the Grand Duchess’ stomach—though she had no idea why.
Go down into the earth and bring me what only you can—my royal blood in Chioma has failed me. You shall not. The goddess’ tone grew harsh and angry, enough to make Zofiya quail.
As she trembled, the voice became soft again, bringing warmth to her suddenly cold limbs. I believe in your strength—you will not fail me, blessed child.
“Indeed, Bright One,” Zofiya whispered, her eyes halfshut, “I will not fail you. Whatever you need done, will be done.”
You must bring me what you find in the Temple. You will know it when you see it.
It was strange that the goddess would tell her no more—but it was not the place of even a Grand Duchess to questions. It was ai.
Tell no one what you are doing—there are many in this forsaken kingdom that would try to prevent you going.
It disturbed her to hear her brother’s Empire described thus, but she wouldn’t question what any of it meant. A sword did not question the motives of its wielder. She would immediately take the swiftest Imperial Dirigible south. How many weirstones they broke getting her there was of no account.
When the Imperial Guard found Zofiya, she was kneeling in the broken glass, looking out the window and weeping. She heard them whispering that she was a true and brave sister to cry for the salvation of the Emperor—but Zofiya knew better than they. She was weeping for the gift of sight. Something wonderful was happening to the south, and she would soon be part of it.
TWELVE
The Bond Reborn
“Still no sign?” Sorcha hissed out of the corner of her mouth.
The rest of the petitioners in the room took no notice—or at least pretended not to. The heat in the domed red room was stifling, and the Deacon could feel sweat coating her neck. Her robes had never felt a more foolish fashion choice. She would have been content to wait for Raed in the city, but the Prince apparently had different ideas. He had requested the Deacons from Vermillion be formally introduced to him.
Merrick, who sat opposite her in the room, wiped his own beaded forehead. “Raed is in the city, Sorcha, but I am no more able than you to say exactly where”—he gestured vaguely—“only that he is close.”
By
the Bones, she needed a cigarillo, and it had to be now—etiquette be damned. Several of the other people in the room were already smoking; two beautifully carved pipes in the elegant fingertips of two merchants.
Obviously they were used to all this waiting, because they had the studied expressions of Sensitives at meditation. Actives were taught the very same lessons but were far less adept at it—Sorcha least of all.
Still, she had developed her own ways of coping. She lit her cigarillo, slumped back in her chair and contemplated seeing Raed again. He would not be able to sense they were in Orinthal, so she’d get a chance to observe his reactions. Maybe from them she could decide on what her own would be.
Leaning her forearms on her thighs, Sorcha glared down at the space between her feet, studying the mosaic floor. The question of her feelings for Raed was something she had avoided until now. Sorcha couldn’t decide which was worse: if she had been wrong about the giddy rush of desire, mistaking it for something deeper, or if she had been right.
In children’s stories when the Princess found her Prince, things were simple; they got married and lived that way forever. Life had taught her such things were oversimplifications—wishes that seldom came true in the complicated realities of existence. Most people never got to ride into the sunset with their one true love.
And yet Sorcha could not deny that in their brief time together, as tumultuous as it had been, she had felt more alive than in all her years with Kolya.
The smoke curled out of her mouth slowly, spiraling past her eyes. Through it, she could see Merrick watching her as covertly as the young man was capable of. The Bond was so fickle that she could barely tell what was y weng across to him.
Further thoughts were disrupted when the waiting room door burst open, and Ambassador Bandele strode through with two courtiers following his wake. Though his mission to Vermillion was over, he was not done with the two Deacons.
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