The Edge of the Blade

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “The question of our marriage can only be entertained before the Emperor. He created it; only he can end it.”

  I gaped at him. “Why did you agree to such a bet, with those kinds of stakes?”

  He watched me intently. “You don’t respect me and repeatedly question my honor. How could I refuse to meet the challenge you laid for me? I would only fall lower in your estimation.”

  “I didn’t mean it to be like that, Kral.”

  He lifted a shoulder, let it fall. “You had a point. I wouldn’t like Karyn’s life. Knowing you . . . it’s made me think. A marriage in name only punishes us both. I won’t divorce her if she doesn’t wish it, but if she does, then that is the honorable thing to do. Perhaps it will go some way to making amends for my role in Lady Mailloux’s troubles.”

  Full of surprises, this man. It would be beyond merely interesting when Karyn—who hopefully wouldn’t be some idiot who preferred being a celibate princess kept on her own lands like some flower preserved under glass—made the right choice, letting me cash in my favor.

  And call upon Kral’s exacting honor to help me escape this place.

  The six horses pulled us into a crescent before more guarded and barred doors, these in the towering blank wall of the main edifice. Above, on a walk at the top of the wall, soldiers stood at severe attention. Even at his worst, Uorsin hadn’t manned the walls with this density.

  “Is Dasnaria at war?” it occurred to me to ask.

  Kral flicked me a glance, face impassive. “Dasnaria is always at war. That is the way of things.”

  I’d be pleased to never hear that phrase again—only three words in Dasnarian, using the command tense—and employed with relentless finality. It seemed to echo everything hopeless about the place. The carriage doors opened, sending snowflakes fluttering in, as if seeking to escape the chill. Guards in a double line between us and the doors, forming an aisle, all bowed deeply, while a group of other men, servants it seemed, in simple gray robes with cowls, knelt in full obeisance, foreheads pressed to the slush-covered stone. Kral stepped out and turned back to offer me a hand. I took it, surreptitiously brushing his palm with my fingers, to make myself feel better, gratified when he closed his fingers warmly around mine, if only for the briefest moment.

  Inside, more servants—all male, making me doubt that women even existed in this dour place—took my cloak, and also the slippers from my feet, giving them puzzled looks. The floors were entirely covered with plush rugs, woven in brilliant patterns in jewel tones, and blessedly soft and warm on my feet. Flowers, animals, abstract designs, repeated themselves and were regularly punctuated by the Konyngrr fist. Pretending to shift aside to allow room for the servants to help Kral with his outer garments, I deliberately stepped on one of those crests. A childish gesture, perhaps, but it made me feel better to grind my heel in it.

  We stood in a long hall bordered with doors that were interspersed with enormous mirrors behind more statuary. Some looked to be replicas, or virtually so, of the ones I’d studied at the landing platform. From the high ceiling hung elaborate creations of faceted crystal studded with white candles. The heat of the flames made the crystals whisper against each other in faint chimes as they bounced the light among themselves, against the mirrors, and back. Stunning that the silence, born of servants who made no noise and the muffling power of the rugs, could be so complete that the cyrstals’ quiet song was clearly audible.

  An older man in an elaborate uniform—same crest and colors, different style and insignia—came down the long hall, his footsteps audible, but barely. I began to feel like a deer in rainy weather, jumpy at not being able to hear the predator’s step on soft, wet leaves. Unlike the guards, this man studied me intently as he approached, before turning his entire attention to Kral, giving him that deep bow.

  “Your Imperial Highness, Prince Kral, welcome home. A grateful empire shall sleep easy this night knowing you keep watch over her.”

  He said more, but I couldn’t catch it all. He spoke Dasnarian, yes, but not the sort I’d become accustomed to with first the Vervaldr, then Kral and the other men aboard the Hákyrling. Some words I recognized, but they had elaborate suffixes added, or extra prefixes. Thank Danu that Dafne had spent the effort to teach me to listen for such things. At the time I’d considered it just revenge for all the knife-work drills I’d put her through. Instead it seemed we’d both prepared the other for impossible situations. The extra embellishments had an overall effect of sounding far more formal, probably adding political subtleties that would escape me entirely. If all the court spoke this way, I’d be in serious trouble.

  “Baerr Lars,” Kral said, and held out a hand to me in a gracious gesture. “May I present my guest, the ambassador from the Thirteen Kingdoms, sent by Her Majesty High Queen Ursula to convey greetings to His Imperial Majesty Emperor Hestar.”

  There was a lot more to it. They spoke to each other about me, and I gathered that baerr meant the equivalent of our “chatelaine” and that Lars, like Lise at Ordnung, ran the physical aspects of the Imperial Palace. In a place this size, that would be like being ruler of a small kingdom, but with none of the glory. Lars finally agreed to pass the word of our arrival, bowed—deeply to Kral and more shallowly to me—and left, leaving us to proceed more slowly.

  When Kral held out a hand to me, he again curled the tips of his fingers around mine, then guided my hand to his rigidly held forearm. “Baerr Lars recommended this presentation,” he told me quietly, in the way of speaking I’d become accustomed to. “I did not give him your name, as it should be given to the Emperor first, and it also occurred to me that I don’t know your family names.”

  Oh, great. I supposed Ambassador Jepp would sound awfully brief in this place. Funny how Queen Andromeda had so recently spoken my full name for the first time I’d heard it aloud since . . . well, since I left home. “Jesperanda,” I told him, my tongue numbly twisting around the syllables, it had been so long. “Jesperanda im Kaja.”

  He dipped his chin, acknowledging, with no inkling I’d handed him a small piece of flesh from the interior walls of my heart.

  14

  I expected something like the throne room at Ordnung. Uorsin hadn’t lacked for ego or grandiose aspirations himself, so the hall that housed his high throne was the grandest I’d encountered in any of my travels. When I’d first seen it, as the Hawks rotated duty being available to then Princess Ursula when she attended court, I’d been hard-pressed not to stare about like a Brynling taken to market for the first time.

  That feeling rushed straight back into me, the old echoes of being that kid overwhelmed by the sight of houses, livestock, people, and goods, all piled on top of each other—overlaid with newer memories of High King Uorsin, center figure in a line of thrones, the golden marble, the fantastically patterned rose window of Glorianna.

  Like that market had been in comparison, the hall at Ordnung seemed dim, dusty, even provincial, compared to the Emperor’s throne at the Imperial Palace in Dasnaria. We moved through several antechambers filled with petitioners, their apparent rank, grandness of costume—and décor of the room—increasing with proximity to the throne room. We waited only a few moments in the final one, empty but for us, as a man in a uniform similar to Baerr Lars’s took my name in advance.

  “He’ll have it whispered to His Imperial Majesty first,” Kral told me in a low undertone, though we were perfectly alone. “The worst that can happen is he won’t see you right away. In that case, I’ll use my influence to get you an audience. So don’t be disappointed if—”

  “Quit worrying. I’m fine.”

  He stiffened. “I don’t worry. Just remember to behave properly and keep your mouth shut. Keep in mind that I can’t help you in there.”

  “Got it. You don’t have to keep telling me.” A solo scouting mission. Something I’d done hundreds of times before.

  The man returned before Kral could admonish me further. He opened the double doors—each inlaid with the
Konyngrr fist—and stepped aside to reveal the near-blinding grandeur of the throne room. I was glad I hadn’t yet blown it with Kral, because I might have stood in stunned shock if he hadn’t stepped forward, bringing me with him. We paused there, on a high platform with no railing, while the entire assembly arrayed below turned to scrutinize us at the announcement of first Kral’s many names and titles, then my brief ones. The herald fell silent, as did the entire room. Unsettling that so many people could be so utterly quiet. If the platform was intended to instill a sense of peril, of the possibility of falling at the slightest misstep, it worked admirably.

  Despite knowing I’d always land on my feet. Bryn never look back.

  Directly across the sea of faces, Emperor Hestar sat on an ornate throne elevated so high that he looked down on our raised platform. Made of white and silver metals, embedded with crystals like more of those light fixtures that crowded the high ceiling above, the throne’s back cupped Hestar in a replica of the Konyngrr fist, as if holding him in the palm, while giant fingers stretched out to curl around him. Sparkling wires, perhaps also encrusted with the crystals, radiated out, a massive spiderweb.

  Each thread ran to some sculpture set in a niche on the towering walls. More of the ones I’d seen already—and now that I’d seen Hestar in the flesh—definitely of him executing heroic deeds, only in polished platinum. Everywhere my eye went, it collided with images of Hestar, the fist, and dazzlingly painful brightness.

  Resplendent in the center, framed by a velvet cloak in a blue so deep as to be almost black, Hestar wore a silver version of the Dasnarian armor, polished to a mirror gleam. A modified helm served as his crown, inset with clear jewels. All the glare made it difficult to look closely at his face—which made me realize I’d forgotten to be meek.

  I stared straight into Hestar’s gaze, and he looked right back.

  It grounded me, though, the hard, dark eyes of Kral’s brother, taking my measure as I took his, one fighter to another. Though he couldn’t be much older than Kral, Hestar’s face carried deep lines from exposure to harsh weather, along with the pale skin of a man who no longer went outdoors. A short beard so white it looked almost as clear as the crystals seemed to be a product of age, compared to the more golden shades of blond of most Dasnarians.

  As it was too late to appear deferential, I held Hestar’s hard stare, thinking of Danu and her unflinching clear eyes.

  “Brother,” he intoned in a voice like a brass gong shattering the silence, without taking his eyes off of me, “you may approach. Bring the ambassador with you.”

  Kral turned to the side, where a flight of steep stairs connected—still no railing—and twisted to the floor below. Barely wide enough for the two of us side by side, the spiral stairs were another clever strategy. Uncarpeted and covered with slickly glazed tiles, they required concentration to descend, even in my bare feet. Kral’s boots clattered loudly. It would be impossible for a force of any size to either steal into or storm the throne room. The sole entrance would be too high to jump from without injury, and anyone who managed to get this far without approval could be easily picked off the stairs by the innumerable guards ringing the hall. I began to see why Kral didn’t worry about my wearing my knives—even if I managed to throw a few, the sheer number of armed guards would swamp me.

  I could have planted one in Hestar’s eye, however, from the vantage of the platform, if I didn’t mind suiciding. An excellent backup plan for future audiences.

  Instead, traveling down a center aisle as at Ordnung, we wended around the side by a path separated from the assembly area by a waist-high wall. The route forced anyone approaching the throne to pass a gauntlet of armored guards. As we made our way to the front of the room, I finally spotted some of the elusive Dasnarian females, distinctive in their bright klúts in a sea of mostly deep blue. I counted five, two so draped in jewelry that they had to be the Imperial Princesses. They all watched me with fascination—and with practiced peripheral vision. I gazed back at them directly, head held high, figuring I’d already blown it with the downcast eyes and unwilling to make it seem like a mistake by changing my demeanor after the fact.

  All were tall, strongly built women with gorgeously creamy skin, of the kind that had never seen the sun, and hair they all wore long, in glistening blond cascades. Under other circumstances, and without that promise I’d made to Kral, I’d have contemplated wrapping myself in that silky hair while I explored all that lovely, soft skin. Okay, I still could fantasize. I’d never vowed to squelch attraction to anyone else. I wasn’t dead.

  Yet. And I very well could be soon, so I might as well be shot for attacking as for cowering. So I smiled at the women, dipping my chin in a kind of female solidarity moment. None of them betrayed their surreptitious observation by reacting, but one of the princesses leaned her head ever so slightly to the other, and I felt sure she said something.

  I really wanted to know what. Which grounded me more than anything else. I was still me inside the klút—wanting to know the gossip, feeling randy, and fantasizing about someone other than Kral. All in all, I felt more like myself than I had since setting foot in Dasnaria. I’d told Kral I’d take his advice, and I had paid attention. But in my own thoughts I kept going back to why Her Majesty had sent me—and it surely wasn’t because she figured me for doing well at acting subservient.

  You are, and always have been, my best scout. I picked you for a reason five years ago. I picked you for good reasons this time, too. Not the ones you think.

  The problem with the “not the ones you think” part was that every time I hit on what reason it could be, it occurred to me that it wasn’t that, because I’d thought of it. Brain puzzles made my head hurt. I thought with my knives, and Her Majesty knew that about me. She wouldn’t expect me to suddenly become a different person.

  It all came down to that I was utterly alone, with only my own wisdom to guide me, meager though that might be.

  Though I also had Kral’s own example. I’d watched him in this same situation in reverse, approaching the High Queen on her throne, bluffing his way through the audience as if he weren’t isolated from all support, trapped in a foreign land with no allies and only a hundred men. He might be an idiot on some things, but he knew how to lead, how to win. He might not recognize it, but he and I were much the same person under the skin. I could do far worse than emulate his behavior, though it would no doubt send him into a frenzy if I told him my reasoning.

  Good idea or not, I would follow that. And my gut. Better than trying to be someone I wasn’t.

  We arrived at the foot of the throne, our heads not even reaching the level of Hestar’s feet. Kral bowed low and I did not do the same, despite his painstaking tutoring. Instead I inclined my head in acknowledgment, more than Kral had done with High Queen Ursula at the outset.

  Even from the remove and with the ambient glare, I clearly saw Hestar raise his brows. First blood. “Why do you not bow, Ambassador Jesperanda im Kaja?”

  Such a booming low voice. I’d thought Harlan’s voice deep—Ursula’s boulder—but Hestar’s rumbled like otherworldly thunder. Were I given to much fancy, I’d almost believe in the semi-divinity. Certainly everything about his appearance conveyed that impression. But deck me out in enough shiny stuff and I’d look impressive, too.

  Okay, maybe not that impressive.

  “I bring you greetings, Your Imperial Highness, from Her Majesty High Queen Ursula of the Thirteen Kingdoms, as her ambassador and as a gesture of goodwill from a monarch of rank. However, I am her subject, not yours. My fealty belongs to her alone, a loyalty I would never betray.”

  A murmur ran through the otherwise astonishingly silent room, almost subvocal. Kral remained in his bent position, his forearm tense beneath my hand. I sent him a mental apology. Though, all things considered, his having to watch me be executed might be upsetting to him, but it wouldn’t be nearly as terrible as my actually going through it.

  If I could take it, he thrice-da
mned could, too.

  I might have only a few people I respected, but my High Queen topped the list and I would not let her down by demonstrating obedience to some guy who thought he was a god because everyone treated him that way. Keeping my back straight and chin up, I held Hestar’s gaze, even though the glare about burned my eyes.

  “I have not heard of these Thirteen Kingdoms,” Hestar finally said. “Only of the Twelve Kingdoms, which are rumored to be small and worth no notice.”

  “Indeed, Your Imperial Majesty, we were once the Twelve Kingdoms, united and ruled in the past by High King Uorsin. Following his death, his eldest and heir, High Queen Ursula, ascended to the throne, adding a thirteenth kingdom to her realm.”

  I sounded pretty good, keeping it simple, direct. No verbal embellishments, but Hestar wasn’t using them either. Kral remained in his bowed position, which seemed ominous, however.

  “Acquired through conquest?” Hestar sounded intrigued.

  “Through marriage. The High Queen’s sister married the king of the newest kingdom, allying the lands.”

  “I’m relieved to hear of a king. I’d begun to think this a realm made up entirely of women.”

  And here I was thinking the same in reverse of yours. I managed not to say that out loud, and simply inclined my head in slight acknowledgment.

  “Rise, Brother,” the Emperor finally said, sounding a bit irritated. “You have been long away. I expected you to bring me treasure, not . . . this person. Explain yourself.”

  “Many unusual events befell us, Your Imperial Majesty,” Kral replied, not shaking off my hand as I’d more than half expected. “Much that you will wish to hear about.”

  “Is that so? I hoped you’d bring me the treasure I seek, not stories.” Hestar’s gaze flicked back to me, considering. “The ambassador’s skin is quite dark—are her people of the Nahanauns? Don’t tell me you never made it to the islands; I will be most displeased with you.”