by Terah Edun
For one thing, the Emperor had seemed to be the sun around which the court revolved. Without Maradian, what was the court of Algardis?
Would they fall apart if he left? Were the holes in the empire’s protection wards even capable of being fixed?
“I guess we’ll find out,” Ciardis muttered as she rounded a corner and rapidly ducked underneath what looked like large sheets of plaster. Palace staff were holding them upright, so she had to practically go to her hands and knees not to be hit by what she assumed was a new piece of the palace walls—manufactured to repair the physical holes in the structure after her go-round with the departed Emperor.
Departed by other people, that is, Ciardis grumbled to herself as she waited for them to pass, trying to surreptitiously wipe her now-dirty hands on a bit of clean space at the edge of her shift.
She had to wonder who would miss Maradian now that he was gone.
There has to be some besotted fool out there. Ciardis thought of courtier flunkies who would do anything to get into the imperial family’s good graces, from murder to simpering platitudes. No wonder the Empress of the Initiate Wars had chosen to entrust her ley-line powers to loyalists rather than flunkies. There was a vast level of difference in competencies there.
Ciardis was well aware.
Popping back up, and looking back at the staff carrying the plaster that had passed over her head, Ciardis had to wonder, which were they?
Could they count on the palace servants to rally to their cause?
Would they scatter like mice at the first sign of conflict?
They certainly did the last time, she thought with uncharitable censure.
But instinctively, Ciardis knew that wasn’t a fair assessment. The staff had been trying to escape with their lives in a massive battle between mages. And not just any mages, but individual members of the imperial family.
Their betters, by class and by magical ability.
Expecting them to fight against either side would have been unfair. More than unfair; it would have been literal suicide. That was aside from the social implications of battling against the man who you saw as judge and jury as well as father and mother. As a man, Maradian had faults. As the Emperor, he was above reproach. Criticism was for mere mortals. Or at least, that was what she had learned as a young girl in the vales. Now Ciardis wondered how much of what she had been taught was myth meant to keep the empire’s established pecking order in place.
Particularly now that she was intimately involved with the man who would soon take on the status of the one who lived above all “mortals” in the empire, regardless of his own very corporeal, and some who knew him as a child would even say humble, origins.
Thinking of Sebastian’s status as head of the imperial bloodline and Maradian’s own perch upon that roster made Ciardis see the servants who had fled in an even more sympathetic light.
From birth, they had been indoctrinated to believe in the infallibility of their rulers. The higher up you climbed in social status, the easier it was to see that was a construct, but unless your eyes were opened, unless you were taught, unless you questioned, unless you lived side by side with those rulers, how would you know any better?
In that moment, the whole system struck her as unfair.
Unfair and rigid, as she thought about its effects on those who served and those who expected to be served.
Especially considering they had no reason to think the Emperor who ruled over all the lands that they could see was anything other than the man they long assumed him to be—the sun around which the court revolved, Ciardis thought.
No matter who sat on that throne, he or she was nothing more and nothing less than the absolute totality of authority within this empire. Which was a good thing, because it assured continuity of the line of succession.
But when it comes down to it, no one really knows the man who rules them, Ciardis thought sadly.
As she stared back down the hall, focused on the broader implications of the social construct of the courts, she had a funnier thought.
They didn’t even see me, she thought, astonished. I’m invisible. Okay, not really.
But the men who’d been carrying the moderately heavy material for the wall hadn’t even looked back to see who or what they’d almost hit.
Looking down at herself, Ciardis wrinkled her nose in distaste. She couldn’t blame them for overlooking her. She was currently dressed in a painter’s smock that had seen better days and a pair of tight breeches.
Wincing at herself, she turned around and kept walking, deciding she’d dismiss the staff’s rudeness as just a side effect of the general craziness about the palace these days and nothing more. It made sense, after all—in the span of two days they’d had an outraged dragon rampaging through their corridors and killing one of their own less than a moon’s pass from the death of their Emperor.
Them being shell-shocked was natural.
In fact, Ciardis knew that the entire palace should be in formal mourning right now. But between their fear of the goddess dropping down on their heads at any second—after all, they weren’t aware of the latest developments in the conclave council—the technical patricide that had occurred as the prince heir had stood by and watched the Emperor’s death, and the Ambassador of Sahalia’s very undiplomatic morning escapades, Ciardis had the feeling the palace staff were a second away from breaking and running.
She had the sneaking suspicion a good majority had already left.
The halls were buzzing with people running back and forth, but not as many as she’d expect on a normal day, and quite a few of those who were present were not in fact dressed in attire appropriate to a palace servant.
Eyes wide, Ciardis watched a boy flat-out run past her at another intersection while wearing a dark leather tanner’s apron over what looked like livery from the falconry—bright colors and all.
Not that I can talk, Ciardis thought while recalling her own attire—hardly befitting the second-most-powerful person in the empire at the moment. I’m thinking Cedric would have been darned useful for getting ready this morning.
Focused back on him as she was, she made a mistake that would have costly ramifications seconds later. She forgot to look where she was going and stubbed her toe hard against a nubbin of marble that had risen up out of its carefully interlocked pattern on the floor like a ship cresting waves.
Ciardis grimaced. “You’d think I was cursed after watching him die.”
It wasn’t that she believed reprisal would immediately be unleashed by the long-lost deities responsible for retribution. But every mage, even one with powers as limited as she had learned hers were regardless of her actual capacity to wield said gifts, knew that dark events left behind dark portents.
For mages who fed on the undercurrents of societies—death, blood, and soul magic—well, that was all fine and dandy, but for someone like Ciardis Weathervane, who fought tooth and nail to ensure the purity of her soul—well, dark events were something to be witnessed sparingly. Very sparingly.
Scowling, she said, “I did not fight the daemoni prince’s bond to my soul for my own amusement. Soul darkness is serious business!”
She wasn’t actually speaking to anyone directly, but the resounding silence of the palace walls around her as her voice echoed outward just annoyed her even more than the actual stubbing of her toe had.
So Ciardis did the only thing she could do.
She yelled louder.
Turning around in circles with her arms spread wide, she looked at the frescos that adorned the untouched palace ceiling and said, “I didn’t kill him!”
She was startled to hear clapping behind her and an amused prince heir say, “Him who? My uncle, or one of the numerous other foes that have crossed our paths? The Shadow Mage, perhaps?”
Ciardis turned in a huff. “Are you mocking me, husband-to-be?”
Sebastian chuckled as he said, “Guilty as charged.”
Then he bowed and added, while
pulling a short-stemmed flower from behind his back, where Ciardis assumed it had been tucked inside his waistband, “Good morning, wife-to-be. Or should I say afternoon?”
Ciardis grumbled, “It could be night for all I know, but I’ll take your flower in thanks.”
Sebastian gravely nodded and handed it over.
Ciardis made a show of putting the single white daisy to her nose and smelling the petals. Smiling in appreciation and finally in a good mood, she said playfully, “They came and took the body away.”
She walked forward and hooked her arm through his.
Sebastian obligingly walked beside her as they moved through the palace together.
“Maradian’s?” he asked.
“Cedric’s,” Ciardis said with a heavy sigh as she rested a weary head on his shoulder, if only for a brief moment.
Sebastian paused, clearly trying to think through his acquaintances to recall who that was. Failing moments later, he finally asked, “Who?”
“My lady-in-waiting,” Ciardis said pitifully.
Sebastian began to unconsciously tap his fingers against her lower forearm in a rhythm. He did that when he was thinking, and she found it kind of cute that he would put so much thought into a death of someone who, at least for him, didn’t matter so much in the grand scheme of things.
“I don’t follow,” Sebastian said.
“That’s all right,” Ciardis said dryly. “Until yesterday, I didn’t either. In fact, when he first showed up, I pulled a knife on him.”
“Is that right?” said Sebastian with heightened interest. “Sounds like you!”
She punched him lightly on the shoulder and bit her lip to stifle her laughter. It wouldn’t do to encourage such mockery, after all.
“The Companions’ Guild sent him and several others to ensure I had a wardrobe befitting a proper Empress-to-be,” Ciardis finally offered up.
They finally reached the famed Rose Gardens of the palace and stood on the steps admiring what was left of the blooms.
“Did he offer good advice?” Sebastian asked, sounding actually interested.
“Yes,” Ciardis said. “But why am I not convinced that is the question you most wanted to ask?”
Sebastian took a single step away to the left and turned back to her, unhooking his arm from hers and staring at her somberly for a moment.
“You know me too well,” he finally said with a sigh of his own.
Ciardis nodded in acknowledgment of the compliment, but she didn’t let the flattery go to her head. She had learned long ago that it wasn’t what a courtier said, it was what they did that proved their worth. A duke could be smiling to your face while wielding a knife sharply upward to slice your belly open from below.
Not that she considered Sebastian interested in such deceptions. She just knew her focus should be on what came next, not on empty pleasantries from moments before.
So Ciardis Weathervane patiently waited for the future Emperor to speak.
Meanwhile, Sebastian Athanos Algardis looked like he was physically gathering up his nerves.
That, or he doesn’t know what to say, Ciardis thought as she studied the twitch of his hands and the almost desperate look in his eyes.
She wondered what he had on his mind.
It would be rude to interrupt and tear it from his thoughts before he spoke.
But as she waited for him to speak, she thought, If he doesn’t hurry up, I just might have to.
Finally Sebastian cleared his throat. “I know a lot of things are happening right now. But I think the most important thing before we go into battle is to put the country at ease.”
Ciardis shifted her feet but didn’t say anything.
Sebastian’s gaze held steady. “One of the most important things to the people is having a ruler they can see lead.”
Ciardis said gently, “I don’t think you’re wrong.”
His lips twitched into a smile. “Then why am I so afraid to utter these next words?”
Ciardis took a slow breath. “Because if I know you…you’re weighing your responsibilities and you see yourself as lacking, am I right?”
Sebastian gave a short, terse nod.
Ciardis shrugged and paced around him in a circle with crossed arms. “I don’t think you’re wrong.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sebastian’s shoulders stiffen in rejection.
“Not about lacking,” Ciardis said quickly. “You have every quality necessary to make a good ruler: you’re intelligent, you’re just, and you are brave. I know that inherently. Everything else you need will come with experience and be tempered with time.”
“But?” asked Sebastian bitterly.
Ciardis stopped in front of him, shook her head and laughed. She put her hands on his cheeks. “But nothing. You are ready. Ready to rule. Ready to show this empire what a true Emperor is like.”
Sebastian searched her face intensely as if looking for a lie in her golden eyes.
But she had none to give him. It was the truth. She believed in him.
And he saw that shining from her face as clearly as he had seen the evil that shone from his uncle’s eyes.
Sebastian let a big smile grace his face.
“Now what?” the prince heir asked.
“Now,” Ciardis said with a relieved smile of her own, “we crown you Emperor.”
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About the Author
Terah Edun is the New York Times bestselling author of the Courtlight, Crown Service, and Algardis series, set in the eponymous Algardis Universe. Her books boast exhilarating adventures, breathless romance, and incredible fantasy for readers of all ages. You can visit her online at www.terahedun.com.
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