by Amy Raby
“I am not at all tempted by your offer.”
Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “When the fleet arrives, you will wish you had accepted it.”
Janto shook his head. “No. I think we are done here.” He rose to leave.
“King Jan-Torres,” called Lucien. “The Sardossians loaned you ground troops. Did they loan you ships as well?”
“I cannot discuss such details with you.” Turning his back, Janto headed for the door.
“Are you holding them in reserve? How many ships?”
As he opened the door, Janto turned and smiled at Lucien. He had as many ships as he was going to need if he and Kal-Torres pulled off the plan they’d worked out. “Good day, Your Imperial Majesty.”
* * *
Rhianne had requested from the guard, and been granted, a list of known casualties of the invasion. The list was frighteningly long, but after reading through it, she’d realized it was long in part because it included the Mosari and Sardossians as well as the Kjallans. There were a lot of names she didn’t recognize. But she recognized enough, and they shattered her. None of these people would be dead if not for her treachery.
She’d tried repeatedly to get an update on how Morgan was doing, but her guard didn’t know who Morgan was and did not attempt to locate him for her.
When her door opened and King Jan-Torres strode in, her heart surged with both hope and trepidation. She was not at all eager to hear his self-serving justifications as to why he’d betrayed her to save his own people. But he was in charge around here, at least until the Kjallan reinforcements arrived. He had information, and what he didn’t know off the top of his head, he could find out.
“Princess.” Jan-Torres lowered his arm, letting his ferret scamper down to the floor. He moved about the room, taking in the furnishings and general surroundings, his eye lingering on the food tray that had been delivered an hour ago. Too grieved to eat, she’d barely touched it. The suite his guards had imprisoned her in, one of the palace guest rooms, was smaller than her own, with two rooms instead of three. Jan-Torres, who’d walked past her to peer into the bedroom, spoke again. “Have you been well treated?”
She twisted to glare at his back from her settee. “I am a prisoner.”
“Are the guards kind and respectful? Have they brought you the things you need?”
“I have no complaints about the guards, save that they do not answer all my questions.”
He turned and faced her. “I want to thank you again for setting the brindlecat on Augustan. I’m sure you saved my life.”
“You saved mine by showing up in the first place.” Her hand strayed to her neck. “On that score, I call us even.”
He strode back and took a seat across from her. He looked so little like the Janto she’d known in the Imperial Garden and at the bridge. He’d exchanged his bland, nondescript syrtos for a colorful Mosari tunic and a gaudy three-banded necklace of gold. But it was more than that—he stood prouder and straighter. Taller, even. He looked more commanding, more kingly.
She frowned. Some women would be impressed by that. Rhianne had seen any number of women fling themselves at powerful men like Florian and Lucien. Power was said to be an aphrodisiac, but Rhianne had spent nearly twenty years enslaved to Florian’s tyranny. If the lure of power had ever been a temptation for her, Florian had long ago stamped out any such inclination. Let other women chase princes and kings and war leaders; the only aphrodisiac she wished for was kindness.
Jan-Torres settled himself on the couch. His ferret, which had been sniffing about the room, came running and leapt into his lap. Jan-Torres idly stroked the animal. “I want you to know that both Florian and Lucien are safe and unharmed. Your younger cousin as well, eight-year-old Celeste.”
“For now. Do you intend to execute them?”
“I didn’t come here to execute people. I came to save my country.”
“If you want to save Mosar, invade Mosar. Why come to Kjall if not to spill blood in vengeance? You cannot hold the palace for more than a few days. Reinforcements are on the way.”
“Please trust that I have thought this through better than that.”
She shook her head. “Florian killed your parents, which was horrible and wrong. I understand your desire to strike back. But what purpose does it serve, answering violence with violence?”
“You’re mistaken about why I came. I’m not going to explain why now, but the fact is that I couldn’t save Mosar with a direct invasion. I needed the support of the Sardossians, and to get that I had to avert the attack on Sarpol.”
Her finger brushed the casualty list that lay on the settee next to her. “Tamienne is dead. Did you know?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Cerinthus is dead. You don’t know Cerinthus—he was my friend Marcella’s husband. Justis, Nipius, and Quintilla. All dead.” She touched the paper again. “But perhaps they don’t mean anything to you. They’re just names.”
“They mean no less to me, and no more, than the tens of thousands dead on Mosar.”
She turned away, unable to bear his gaze. “I sent her.”
“Sent who?”
“Tamienne. I sent her to fight at the front gates. That’s why I was alone when Augustan came.”
“I didn’t know.”
She shook her head in sorrow. “They’re dead because of me, Jan-Torres. Because of you. If I hadn’t bargained for your life—”
“Would you rather have sent me to my death?”
“I don’t know.” She stared at her fingers as if they were foreign things. “There was no right answer. There’s supposed to be a right answer!” She shut her eyes, squeezing back tears. She’d always thought that if she just had the courage to make the right choices, even if they were hard choices, then at least she could live with herself, be proud of the person she was. If she had to make choices that made people angry, she could cope with that. But what did one do when there were no right choices?
Jan-Torres leaned toward her, his eyes soft. He tried to place his hand on her knee, the part of her closest to him, but she shifted and moved out of reach. He sat back in his chair, his mouth tightening. “Neither of us wanted this. It’s Florian’s war, not mine. Not yours.”
Rhianne grabbed a pillow from the settee and hugged it to her chest. “I didn’t love Tamienne. She was always reporting on me to Florian, tattling on me. But she was just doing her job. Florian employed her, not I. She was an orphan—all the Legaciatti are. She’d nearly finished her term. She was going to marry when it ended, start a family.”
Jan-Torres was silent.
“And poor Marcella. What must she be going through?”
“When you requested that casualty list”—Jan-Torres pointed at the paper on the settee—“I granted your request, much as it pained me, because from now on, I mean there to be no more secrets between us. Every life lost is a tragedy, but that casualty list is short. We’re counting the dead in the hundreds, and that’s on both sides, my people as well as yours. Do you know how many of my people died on Mosar?”
“No,” she said softly.
“Tens of thousands,” said Jan-Torres. “All of your family members survived this invasion. Do you know how many of my family members survived your uncle’s invasion of Mosar?”
She shook her head.
“One,” he growled. “My brother, Kal-Torres. My parents are dead. My aunts and uncles, dead. My cousins, dead.” His eyes grew hard and his tone more heated. “My anger is not directed at you. You didn’t ask for it to happen, and you were not there. You did not see the horrors that were inflicted on my country, and this very minor invasion is your first taste of war. Of course you find it horrifying; you place a high value on every human life, a trait I admire in you. You have no basis for comparison; you’ve lived a sheltered life here in the palace, away from the realities of war. But I do have that basis for comparison, and I tell you that we have exercised remarkable restraint, and I will not be shamed for what I have don
e here.”
Rhianne let her breath out carefully. She had never seen Janto angry before. He was an entirely different man now that he’d assumed his true identity, and he was a little bit frightening. “What are your intentions?”
“My intentions . . .” He frowned. “They depend on a few things that will happen over the next few days. But no matter what happens, I can assure you that no harm will come to you.”
“Will you let me go?” It had occurred to her that Jan-Torres and his men might flee the palace before the reinforcements arrived, and if they did, they might take hostages. She would be a prime candidate.
He hesitated. “I can’t answer that yet.”
She looked away. This was a nightmare. She’d saved this man’s life twice, once from Florian and again from Augustan. He’d saved her life too, but he had no right to lock her up and set guards over her. “What about Morgan, the man from the infirmary? Has he had his surgery?”
Jan-Torres’s eyes narrowed. “Who is that man and how do you know him?”
“First tell me if he lives!” Rhianne protested.
“I’ll send a runner to find out.” Jan-Torres rose and went to the door. He conferred with someone and returned to his seat. “We’ll have word shortly. How do you know him? He fired on my soldiers in the city of Riat—nearly killed someone.”
“Please forgive him; he was drunk. Morgan is former Legaciatti, forced into early retirement when a Riorcan assassin wounded and disabled him. Florian denied him his pension for failing to kill the assassin. And those pensions are supposed to be guaranteed.”
“Your uncle is a sapskull,” said Jan-Torres, “if you’ll pardon my saying so. If Morgan is disabled and without a pension, how does he support himself?”
“I supply the pension,” said Rhianne. “Lucien and I have been privately pooling our funds, and I’ve been delivering them by sneaking out through the hypocaust.”
Jan-Torres’s gaze softened. “I should stop marveling at how many acts of kindness I stumble upon here that have your fingerprints on them.”
Rhianne looked down at her lap. His words warmed her heart, but they did not change the fact that this man was now her jailer. She had loved the gentle language scholar she’d met in the Imperial Garden, and she’d continued to love him when she’d learned he was a spy collecting information to aid his people. But now he was the king of Mosar and the commander of an invading army. She had loved Janto. She was not sure she could love Jan-Torres.
The door opened, and Jan-Torres went to speak to his runner. “Good news,” he called from the door. “Morgan survived the surgery. He’s conscious but weak. It will take him some time to recover.”
Rhianne leapt to her feet. “Can he be brought here, to my rooms? I could care for him while his strength returns. It would give me something to do, and I wouldn’t be so lonely.”
Jan-Torres’s forehead wrinkled.
“Stop being jealous,” she scolded. “You’ve no right to be. And you know better than anyone that Morgan has never been my lover.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
35
The much-awaited message from the sentries arrived two days later: the Kjallan fleet had been sighted in the Neruna Strait. Janto’s stomach knotted. Here was the moment of truth. Now he would find out whether the plans he’d set in motion would save his country or destroy it.
Signals flew wildly between the palace, the cliffs, and Kal’s fleet in the harbor, as the Mosari and Sardossians made their final preparations.
Janto had commandeered the suite of a high-ranking Kjallan official as his personal quarters. It was on the third floor, with a large marble balcony overlooking the city and the harbor. From the balcony, he watched the mastheads of the Kjallan vanguard as the ships glided closer. “Rosso,” he called to his door guard. “Fetch Emperor Lucien.”
He’d made arrangements for some of the high-ranking Kjallan prisoners to watch the fleet action from balconies and windows in the palace. Seeing it in person would have a bigger impact on them than hearing about it secondhand.
The young emperor arrived on his crutch and false leg, escorted by six guards. Janto beckoned him onto the balcony; the guards waited outside.
Lucien limped toward him. “Now we find out if you were bluffing about that reserve fleet.”
“What reserve fleet?” Janto smiled and held out a bottle of Opimian Valley red. “Wine, Your Imperial Majesty?”
Lucien stared at the bottle. “You stole that from the imperial wine cellars.”
Janto popped the cork. “I compliment you on its quality. My men have been enjoying it very much.”
Lucien gave him a sour look.
Janto poured the dark vintage into twin crystal glasses and handed one to Lucien. “Your ships are forming up.”
The first seven ships had maneuvered themselves into a line and were sailing into the harbor single file, skirting the western edge of the harbor, moving into a position that would allow them to engage Kal’s fleet.
“Wait,” said Lucien. “What happened to the shore batteries?”
Janto gazed at the sad heaps of crumbled stone. “We blew them up.”
“But why? You control them—they give you an advantage!”
“They were complicating things.”
Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “You’re up to something.”
Janto smiled.
As the first line of ships rounded the edge of the harbor, more ships entered, but in a haphazard fashion. They had seen that the batteries were destroyed, so the only threat to them was Kal’s fleet. The first seven ships would engage Kal’s fleet while the rest sailed in behind them and landed troops.
Kal’s fleet, waiting deep within the harbor, looked small and pathetic. Gods, Kal, I hope I haven’t signed your death writ. But Kal had positioned his ships well. He’d stationed them as close to the docks as possible, so that no enemy ships could slip around and attack him from the other side. It negated the Kjallans’ advantage of numbers. The Kjallans would have to fight Kal’s six ships with a roughly equal number of their own; there was no room to bring in more.
Lucien sipped his wine, holding his glass with one hand. With the other, he gripped the balcony railing, his knuckles whitening as the first of the seven ships reached Kal’s fleet.
The first broadsides went off almost simultaneously, producing great flashes of light followed by a terrible roar. Wood exploded. Sails shuddered, riddled with holes, and a Mosari mast came down. The Kjallan ships sailed along the line of Mosari ships, firing as they went, until they’d lined up one-on-one against Kal’s ships. The extra seventh ship tried, without much success, to place itself so it could rake the last Mosari ship’s stern.
“Hold them, Kal,” Janto muttered. His own knuckles grew white on the railing.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Kjallan ships swarmed into the harbor and began dispatching boats full of ground troops. Janto had stationed his own troops, some mounted and some on foot, around the edge of the harbor to engage the enemy soldiers who landed. But most of them were former slaves, some of whom had only just learned how to fire a pistol. Their numbers were small, and the area they were covering immense. They could hold the Kjallans for a little while, but they could not stop a large-scale landing.
Kal’s fleet was locked in a deadly melee with the Kjallans. Masts and spars tangled together; sails ripped and flew free. Cannons roared. From this distance, Janto could not tell who had the upper hand.
When does the battle start? asked Sashi from his shoulder. His whiskers quivered with excitement.
Janto’s eyebrows rose. It’s going on right this moment.
Oh. It’s far away. The ferret retreated, disappointed, into Janto’s shirt.
The first wave of boats hit the shore, where ground troops engaged them. Still more boats were on the way. His forces would soon be overwhelmed.
Lucien smiled. “Where is that reserve fleet of yours?”
Janto ind
icated the point of the harbor, where mountains blocked his view of the sea. The bows of two ships glided into view.
Lucien inhaled sharply, then blew out his breath in relief as it became apparent they were Kjallan ships flying Kjallan flags. He squinted at them. “Those aren’t enemies. Are they?”
Janto was silent. More ships appeared in their wake—Sardossian ships this time, but also flying Kjallan flags. The new arrivals looked for all the world like the Kjallan fleet returning from Rhaylet, with Sardossian prizes in tow. The ruse would not hold under close scrutiny—there were too many Sardossian ships compared to the number of Kjallan ones. But in the chaos of battle, it would take time for the Kjallan commanders to work that out, and that time would make all the difference.
Lucien turned to him with a pained expression. “It looks like our fleet from Rhaylet. But it’s not.”
“No. More wine?” asked Janto.
Lucien wordlessly offered his glass.
By the time the Kjallans realized the new arrivals were not reinforcements but enemies, they were trapped in the harbor. They could not use their advantage of numbers and double up on the new ships in open water, but had to fight them one-on-one from the harbor, where they had no room to maneuver.
“We still have you outnumbered,” said Lucien.
Janto clenched his fists. “Come on, Kel-Charan.”
There it was: the signal. It flew over the palace in exultation, its purples and greens picked up and repeated from one side of the harbor to the other. Orange flashes lit up the eastern and western cliffs. The ships in the middle of the harbor tried chaotically to return fire.
“What did you do?” cried Lucien. “You took the cannons out of the shore batteries and lined them up along the cliffs?”
Janto nodded. “We had to lure your entire fleet into the harbor first. And the batteries were too-obvious a target.”
Soon, the inevitable outcome of the battle became clear. Boxed in by Kal’s fleet on the north, the Sardossians and Riorcans on the south, and the cliffside cannons on the east and west, the Kjallans had no room to maneuver. Many of them couldn’t fire off a clean shot without harming their own ships. One Kjallan ship struck its colors, and then another. Kal’s ships and the cliffside cannons aimed their deadly fire at the boats attempting to land ground troops, sinking many. Janto’s ground forces finished off those that made it to shore.