The Seer - eARC

by Sonia Lyris

  Slowly her expression softened. “Tomorrow, you say.”

  “That would be most wise, Your Majesty. A little time to consider, to clear our minds.” In those words he heard his brother, and for a moment the ache threatened to take his attention.

  “Yes,” she said. “You are right. Very sensible.” A deep breath.

  He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

  “The wretched slave said he gave her a last message to give to us. If the rat is to be believed.”

  “What was it?”

  “‘Keep my empire whole.’”

  Plausible; it sounded like something he would say and not much like something a slave would invent.

  “I intend to.”

  Cern smiled. A hard, brittle smile. “It’s not his empire any more, Innel. It’s mine.”

  “Of course,” he said quickly.

  All she had to do was hold it. She would need him for that.

  “I want to talk to your seer, Innel.”

  That took him by surprise, but he hid it. “Of course. If there’s no rush, my lady, I’ll deliver her to you as soon as I can spare her.”

  “All right.”

  Now it was even more important to find out what the seer was hiding, if Cern was going to talk to her.

  Cern’s voice went quiet. “I’m going to my rooms.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Come with me.”

  So much to do. A story to invent and quickly, one to get them through the night until Cern’s decision could be solidified.

  They could not allow it to be said that Restarn had killed himself. A common man might do so, but the empire’s king was another matter entirely. What would the people think of Restarn’s rule, and consequently Cern’s, if they found out that, at the last, he had possessed not even the courage to live?

  Innel needed to find out who had seen the slave dragged through the halls. Cern’s fury had to have been noticed. By whom? What were they saying? Where were the guards he’d sworn to silence? And the doctor? He must speak with a number of people, and quickly.

  But there were priorities.

  “Of course, my lady,” he said, following her.

  After Cern was asleep, Innel confirmed the king’s body was being well-guarded, and told the stunned-looking seneschal to start planning the funeral.

  “Yes, ser,” the seneschal said quietly.

  Not long after, Innel stood in his office, Nalas and Srel before him. “What do they say?”

  Soberly Srel replied: “That the king is dead of his long illness. Killed by his guards. By his dogs. By the doctor, who has fled. By the slave. By you. By himself. Is healthy and well and in hiding, to test loyalties. The queen is pretending his death. Again, to test loyalties. That the queen’s birds killed him, and his eyeballs dangle from their beaks. That’s most of it, ser.”

  “Nalas?”

  “I’ve isolated the doctor, the slave, and the guards, each individually. They’re all eager to comply with your desire, ser.”

  “Good. What else?”

  “New talk about the insurrections in the north. Rising costs of imports. People comparing the old king to . . .” Srel trailed off.

  “The queen?”

  “To you, ser.”

  “Me?”

  “Some say the queen is only doing what you tell her,” Nalas added.

  “Pah. If only that were true,” he muttered. An interesting balance. He needed the aristos and Houses to respect him, but only so far; it was Cern who had the right to rule. If people thought that Innel was the real power, respect for them both would plummet. “What else?”

  “That if Restarn were still on the throne, the insurgencies would be done with. There wouldn’t be shortages. Garaya would be compliant.”

  “How quickly they forget. There were shortages then as well. Restarn nearly exhausted the treasury with his expansions.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Any word from Sutarnan?”

  “A status letter from Abinar Province,” Nalas said. “Mostly he complains about the slowness with which an army moves. And the food. He has suggestions as to improving the latter.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “Instructions, ser?”

  He and Cern had come to an accord that morning in bed. A good place for it.

  “Yes. The doctor and guards—send them away for a time, far from the city, until all this has had time to quiet. Make arrangements for an execution for the slave Naulen. Something simple but visually compelling. Beheading, perhaps. I want everyone to know about it except her.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  A shame to waste such beauty. “I want her heavily sedated. The best of what you’ve got and plenty of it. Be sure she does not know where she is or what is happening to her.”

  They could not make the execution seem too quick or too painless, but they could make sure she didn’t feel it.

  Nalas and Srel gave him uncertain looks. They didn’t understand. Srel shook his head, as if to say his own understanding was irrelevant.

  But it wasn’t. He needed them to be able to make decisions without him.

  “How do you think the old king died?”

  Srel gave him a surprisingly formidable look. “Until you tell me, ser, I don’t know.”

  At this show of loyalty, Innel smiled. “Nalas?”

  “He’s been sick more than two years. Surely that’s answer enough.”

  “Indeed. But what will they say if the queen orders his favorite slave to execution the day before his funeral?”

  “They will wonder what the slave did to gain such royal attention and so formal a death,” Srel answered.

  “And they’ll want to see it. The execution,” added Nalas.

  “What will they say next, do you think?”

  Srel considered. “They will speculate that the slave killed him, while he was ill. Or—” Srel hesitated.

  “Or?”

  “Oh,” said Nalas.

  They exchanged looks.

  “Yes?”

  Srel exhaled in a long stream. “They will wonder if the king killed himself, with the slave as the only witness. Then the queen would be protecting her father’s reputation by maintaining he died of his illness rather than by his own hand.”

  Nalas continued. “The honorable thing to do, executing the slave, thereby implying more than is ever actually said. Protecting the king’s name.”

  “The most immoderate of the stories that might go around, I think.”

  Also, ironically, the true one.

  “Agreed,” Nalas said.

  “Do what you can to quietly give this story a good launch. While the palace is talking about a slave’s execution, perhaps they will talk less about border skirmishes and shortages. That, perhaps, will give us a few moments of quiet.”

  “I very much doubt it, ser,” said Srel.

  Innel sighed. “Probably not.”

  Innel stood in the toilet room at the back of the Frosted Rose, feeling stiffness in his shoulders from the tension of these last days. Much to do and little time. But this, too, was important.

  “I have your final payment,” Innel said into the overhead vent. “With a bonus for delivering the girl alive.”

  “No,” Tayre answered. “It is not my doing that she is here.”

  “So your messenger said. But surely you convinced her?”

  “She came on her own, for her own reasons.”

  “What reasons?”

  “I think she hoped her answers could achieve some measure of peace across the empire.”

  “Those who want peace had better first be ready for war,” Innel said. “Thus far she is not helping much. Would you be interested in another contract?”

  “Perhaps. To do what?”

  “Bolah tells me that when you ask questions, nothing is held back. I want to be sure there isn’t anything she knows that she’s not saying.”

  “You don’t like her answers.”

 
“I think she’s not telling me everything she could. Whatever her true agenda is, mine must prevail.”

  “Surely you have others who can interrogate her.”

  “Of course. But I don’t want to have to explain this to anyone else if I can help it. You’ve studied her, traveled with her. You know her and what she is, or pretends to be. She may even trust you somewhat.”

  “She may. What if her answers to me reveal nothing more?”

  “Then I will know better what she is.”

  “In what condition do you want her after? Scarred? Blind? Missing limbs? Dead? How far do you want me to test her answers?”

  If she had no new answers, would she still be useful to him? Again, best to keep his options open. “Leave her as whole as you can, but do what you must to be certain.”

  “I understand.”

  “How long will you need?”

  “A few days, perhaps.”

  “That fast?” Innel was surprised. He had watched lengthy questioning before. One such famous interrogation had lasted nine years. It was considered an accomplishment as much for keeping the man alive as for any answers it had provided.

  “With complete control and no interference, yes.”

  “I would like to see this.”

  “It will take longer if you are there.”

  For a moment he considered insisting. Then: “So be it. Can you begin immediately?”

  “Payment in advance.”

  “Yes,” Innel said, realizing he could now easily afford this man’s services. What he couldn’t afford was the seer keeping answers from him.

  Chapter Thirty

  Something was coming.

  Amarta wrenched awake, heart pounding, the red and white room around her a momentary mystery.

  She took gulps of air, trying to exhale the shadows that still clung to her from another long night of dark dreams in which she fled from the monster, squeezing through tunnels of knives to escape, looking over the edge of an impossibly high cliff, the shadow right behind. She had been trying to work her courage up to jump to her death rather than be caught when she instead awakened.

  The soft, cream-colored sheets and blankets were soaked in sweat. She kicked them off, got to her feet, realizing as she took deep breaths that each one brought her closer to whatever was coming.

  She paced, trying not to think, looking around the room in which she was locked when she was not answering endless questions. So many marvels, from its sheer size to the delicately painted designs on the walls—white on rust, rust on white—interlocking circles and spirals.

  And the corner fireplace, now quietly banked with coals, lined with alternating red and white bricks, each inlaid with copper and silver. The royal mark of moon, star, pickax, sword. Not enough to keep the room warm, it seemed; it must have the crown’s sigil as well. Each brick must be worth more than anything she had ever owned.

  At the wooden cabinet that held her folded, clean clothes—more than she could ever need—she opened and closed drawers, wondering at the craft required to make them move so easily, stroking the smooth wood with her hand. If only she could show this to Pas. So easy to imagine him delightedly opening and closing them again and again.

  Almost, she asked the question of whether she would see them again. Almost.

  Pushing away, she went to the windows that also did not open from the inside and touched the smooth glass. Dirina would love this, this window so clear one could see four stories down to the tantalizing gardens below, where red and yellow flowers were blooming. She could pick a flower, hand it to her sister. The craving she felt, thinking of them, was a welcome distraction from her dread.

  She took another breath. As if spending another coin.

  Despite the height of the room she had no view of the city, like the glimpses she could catch as she was led from her room to the Lord Commander’s offices and back again. Instead the view was a nearby wall of pink and white stone, the side of another section of this massive palace. Looking up between the buildings she could just see a patch of sunlight, a bit of blue.

  Locked from the outside. Guarded. The Lord Commander did not trust her.

  But where would she go?

  Not that it mattered. She had made a contract. Given her word. She was not going to even try to leave.

  Never had she used foresight so much across so many days as she had these last ten. She had learned that while her vision could be made weary by days of questions, she herself could be brought to exhaustion and tears by relentless examination of her every answer, each word and detail, always ending with the Lord Commander’s frustrated dismissal.

  Yet the next morning she would stand before him again, waiting while he reviewed the previous day’s reports, comparing each to her predictions, asking about every deviation until her head swam.

  Then the questioning would begin anew, her every word studied like a piece of bread on which someone at the palace had found a speck of dirt.

  And still she couldn’t give him the answers he wanted.

  She stripped out of the sleeping gown and pulled on a green and white dress. She had an outfit for sleeping and one for being awake, both finer than any clothes she’d ever worn. When she had said so, Srel had brought her more clothes yet—a day outfit: dark green with white trim, belted, with matching trousers. A servant’s outfit, he’d explained.

  The door clicked and opened, and she started at the sound. But it was only Srel, bringing in a tray of food, a cylinder of tea. Behind him the door locked again.

  Srel was a slender man, with light green eyes, a quick, sympathetic smile. He seemed to enjoy doing things for her. There was something about him that made it seem, for a few minutes each day, as if someone here liked her.

  “I’ve brought the bread sticks you like, with”—he gestured—“a peppered cheese béchamel, hazelnut paste, duck pate. Also mutton sausage and rice pudding. Try to eat some, won’t you?”

  Again he had brought nearly as much food as she used to eat in a single day, if she were lucky.

  She took a bite of the roll and made an appreciative sound. Srel smiled brightly, as if he had been waiting for this. He poured her tea, mixed in honey and set it on the table, then stood as if to leave.

  “Srel, you could stay and eat with me. You always bring so much.”

  He shook his head. “Not today.”

  Of course not. Today something was happening. Something was coming. She put down the roll.

  “One small bite?” he chided gently. “I know you can do that much.”

  “I think I am not going to the Lord Commander today.”

  He gave her a wary look. “Surely you can see such things?”

  She looked down at the platter, with the delicate bowls and small silver spoons. So much. Too much.

  “Sometimes it is better not to know.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  “Srel, will I have long to wait?”

  “A little while,” he said softly.

  “Thank you.”

  “Try to eat, won’t you?”

  A cold fear came over her. Vision warning again, like a keening animal. “Srel,” she said urgently.

  “Yes?”

  She took a breath, looked into his future. Two years, three, then five. For a time, at least, his life would be surprisingly constant, somehow withstanding the storms of violence that crashed around him at the palace and in this city. “You’ve been very kind to me. Thank you.”

  “You are very welcome,” he said with a smile that seemed tinged with sadness. “Very welcome indeed.” For a moment more he stared at her. Then he left, the door locked behind him.

  The food was so beautiful, she could stare at it a while, but dread ruined her appetite. As she paced the room, the morning bells rang, marking an hour, then another. The time she would usually have been taken to the map room came and went.

  Vision warned again. The light was too bright, the quiet too loud, and she saw flickering hints of unlikely escapes
that she could still attempt.

  “No,” she said aloud.

  The lock clicked. The door opened. A shock went through her.

  Tayre entered the room, shut the door behind him. Gone was any disguise.

  Tayre entered the room, shut the door behind him. He was clean-shaven, simply dressed. So very different, but she knew him.

  He walked to her, put his hands lightly on her arms, his touch at once comforting and unnerving. Inside her, dread and hope mixed so tightly that there was no room for reason.

  “I’m here to question you,” he said mildly, without preamble. “To find out what answers you may be keeping from the Lord Commander. Solutions you have not yet offered him.”

  “I have told him everything. He doesn’t like my answers.”

  “I am paid to disbelieve you.”

  She twisted away from his touch and stepped away. “I thought your contract with the Lord Commander was over when you brought me here.”

  “It was. I made a new contract.”

  Her heart sank. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “If I were not here, someone else would be. Someone less careful. I know the Anandynar interrogation style. It lacks precision.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve answered his every question, a hundred times and more.”

  “And if you were anyone else, that might be enough. But you have an ability you do not entirely understand, and the Lord Commander has an important puzzle that needs solving. There may be pieces you can give him that you will not see until you’ve looked harder for them.”

  “You are the dark cloud, come here to hurt me.”

  “Am I? What do your visions show you now?”

  All at once the weight she had felt since yesterday was gone. The room seemed bathed in a calm, gentle light, as if going from night to day in an instant. Her mouth fell open in surprise.

  He smiled a little. “The future of this moment does not hold pain for you, so your fear vanishes. Yes?”

  “Yes,” she said wonderingly, searching his face for understanding.

  He exhaled slowly. He stared at her, then past her.

  Dread tore through her like the teeth of a ravenous animal. She was foreseeing—suddenly, vividly, inescapably. She inhaled, hungry for air, the pain of the future so vivid she could almost feel it all through her limbs.