Daughter of Ashes (Rise of Aiqasal Book 1)

by Moira Katson

  Alleyne paused, much struck. She had not considered that.

  “What sort of secrets?” she said finally.

  “Everything,” Margery told her flatly. She shrugged when Alleyne only raised her eyebrows. “Secrets that’d break betrothals, maybe—bastard children in the city … or in the palace. A few of the families are trying to bribe the philosophers to take back their agreement on the edict.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Alleyne argued.

  Margery gave her a look. “Ridiculous doesn’t mean they wouldn’t kill for it. And then there’s the ones already sending letters to the Rastegh delegation.”

  “What about?” Alleyne frowned and sat back, the tea cradled in her hands.

  “Trade deals, mostly. Looking for allowances, offering all manner of things in return for the ambassador presenting their ideas as his own—or the their king’s edict.”

  “Who’s doing that?”

  “You haven’t been at court long, clearly. Too many to count, that’s who. The Regent is one—though I only know he sent letters, not what was in them. No one knows what was in them.”

  “It could easily be threats. I told you what he said when I was there with the Truthspeaker.”

  “Aye, but he’s a clever one. Even if he hates them, he might not get what he wants by saying so.”

  “What does he want?”

  Margery grinned at that, unexpectedly. “Aye, and that’s the other question you’ll need to answer. Good luck to you—no one ever knows that, where the Regent is concerned.” She stood, smoothing her skirts. “And ye? Ye looked in a right mood when I came in.”

  Alleyne looked over at the book of poems, left neatly on a side table. Poems about love, poems about …

  “We’re getting nowhere,” she said softly. “No closer to learning who’s behind this plot. If we move quickly we risk them getting away—and you getting hurt.”

  “I’m not scared,” Margery said scornfully.

  “You should be.” Alleyne gave her a look. “You’re the one who said there are a lot of secrets people would kill for. If you go sniffing around for this one, you’re bound to stumble across some of those, too.”

  Margery gave a careless shrug, but her eyes betrayed her unease.

  “And if we don’t move quickly enough …” Alleyne’s eyes locked on a flock of birds leaping into the air outside, swirling in the morning sunlight.

  Margery waited, silent.

  “What if I’m married to him before the truth comes out?” Her voice was tight with worry. She had to force herself to speak, but once she did, the words tumbled out. “What happens then?” She swayed in her seat, terror making her dizzy. “When he learns the truth, he’ll have me killed. He’ll finish what he started.”

  There was a long silence. Alleyne lifted her head to find Margery’s gaze on her. “That’s not what you’re afraid of,” the maid said softly.

  “It isn’t?”

  “No.” Margery shook her head. She picked up the tray and made to leave, stopping at the door to the servants corridors and looking over her shoulder. “You’re afraid that when he finds out … he’ll forgive ye, and ye’ll forgive him, too.”

  She was gone the next moment, and Alleyne’s heart was making a bid to beat its way out of her chest. She pressed her hand over the bodice of her gown, knowing it was a useless gesture and unable to stop herself. Margery’s words had touched off a storm in her chest, as exhilarating as it was terrifying. If she let herself surrender to it—

  She forced herself to sit back in the chair, closing her eyes. She took one deep breath, and then another. When her eyes opened once more, her face was calm.

  She would not surrender—to that, or anything else. She would not ask questions of Darion, and she would not be swayed by pity.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It was the next morning that Margery came running to announce the Emperor’s presence. She fussed over Alleyne, straightening the folds of her gown and making sure the simple pendant, emblazoned with the sigil of Anatolia, lay just so in the hollow of Alleyne’s throat.

  “Are ye unwell?” the maid asked her in an undertone.

  Alleyne only shook her head. She had no words to spare now.

  Margery hesitated. She stepped back to look Alleyne over, eyes lingering on her face, her body. She gestured to her stomach, eyes suddenly wide. “Are ye …”

  “No!” Shock jostled the word free from her lips, and Alleyne shook her head impatiently.

  “Then what has ye looking like that?”

  There was no answer she could give. Alleyne squared her shoulders and made her way into the main room, aware of the maid’s gaze on her back and Darion’s smile. He lounged at ease on one of the couches, a glass of wine in his hand despite the noon hour, but she could see the tension behind the illusion. Almost, she would have said, his face betrayed the same tumble of pain and pleasure she felt to be in his presence.

  “My lady.” He stood to bow to her. He was nervous, a faint tremble in his movements.

  “We are honored by your presence, Your Majesty.” Alleyne felt her body drop into a curtsy, reflexive, as her mind raced ahead. Why was he here? He would not want to walk outside, surely. The rains had come and gone since yesterday, and the gardens were damp. She looked out the screens and bit her lip.

  “You have been trapped inside,” he guessed. His smile was ready. “As have I. When the rains cleared, I wanted nothing more than to share the sunlight with you.” He offered his arm, effortlessly elegant. “Shall we walk in the gardens, my lady?”

  Baradun was a silent shadow at the edge of the room, trying hard to be invisible. He did not disapprove, then. This was the final stretch of the race; Alleyne only barely stopped herself from smiling bitterly. There were no rules any longer. She went to take Darion’s arm, keeping her eyes downcast so that he might not see the mingled triumph and disquiet there.

  “Lord Baradun.” Darion’s voice was wry. “I trust you will stand our chaperone? We will not stray far.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.” Baradun bowed low. At his gesture, the steward pulled open the doors that led out into the gardens.

  Darion did not speak at first. He tipped his face up to the sunlight and took a deep breath of the fresh air. His simple pleasure in the day’s beauty seemed unfeigned, and yet as they walked, he seemed to grow uneasy in the silence.

  Still, he did not speak, and she was determined not to lead the conversation; she would let Darion say whatever he wished. If she spoke, she knew weakness would overcome her—and she would ask the one thing Jarin had warned her against.

  It was not so difficult to stay silent in these gardens, however. If she did not know better, she might even think she was happy to be here, strolling with him in the sunlight. When she forgot to think, her hand curled easily around his arm and she walked at his side without a care. How many more days would this garden see? Hundreds? Thousands? The sun had broken over this palace for the span of three empires. The paths and fountains had seen hundreds, thousands, of summers and winters alike. In the coming months, snow would drift down to dust the cypress gently, the changing of the seasons unswayed even by the turmoil of empires rising and falling, thrones gained and lost. The thought was peaceful and painful, all at once.

  “How did you spend the morning?” The words came too easily from her lips, and she caught herself. “Your Majesty.”

  At least she had not asked him about her family.

  Whatever was troubling him, he seemed grateful for the distraction. “Endless meetings.” She could hear the smile in his voice without looking up. “Having made a peace with Rasteghai, I find myself inundated by advice to break it. One would think my lords had a hunger for war.”

  Her father’s words came back to her. “For all it is a fool’s dream, there is a great hunger in the human soul to march under banners.”

  “That there is.” He sounded surprised, and yet pleased. “Why do you think that is, my lady?”

&
nbsp; “I am not a lady,” she reminded him. It was rare that the lies came naturally to her, and she welcomed this one.

  “Oh?” he asked rhetorically. “And what is a lady? Were you noble, it would be none of your doing. When one examines the chance of such things, it seems ever more ridiculous.”

  “There is no chance, Your Majesty.” She had heard the sentiments a hundred times. “All in the world happens in the only way it can.”

  “And would your sister say the same?” There was a challenge in his gaze when she looked up.

  “My—oh.” She looked down, nearly caught out in the lie. “Perhaps what we perceive as chaos is a pattern only Alogo can discern—but a pattern, nonetheless, and no less fixed than any other piece of the world.”

  “An interesting thought.” He considered it. “But what do you believe? Should I tell my uncle that my impetuous nature was no more than part of a larger plan by the gods?” His smile was mischievous.

  “I never said the gods control it,” she said tartly, equally impish. “I said only that they can see a pattern where we say none.”

  “You’re quite enchanting when you blaspheme, did you know?”

  She could not stop the laugh from bursting out of her. “Do I blaspheme?”

  “’The Four have made the heavens and the earth,’” he quoted. “’All unfolds according to their will.’ Surely that must mean the pattern is their plan.”

  “Perhaps. But I wonder if they understand our choices, for all that they can see them.” The thought came unbidden. “For we see a different world than they do. We cannot see the whole cosmos, we do not know how the world will change, or how it will end. We see only now, we see only the progression of days. How could Alogo understand why we do what we do? How could Anatolia, whose province is not just today’s dawn, but endless dawns?”

  He was silent. “I had not thought of that,” he admitted. “It makes you wonder, does it not, why they chose to create the world as it is.”

  “Why do we make music?” she asked him.

  “Why, indeed.” He had stopped. It seemed that question brought him back to reality. His face seemed almost sad as he stared down at her. “I have enjoyed our talks, my lady.”

  “And I.” There was no artifice in it, nor in her instinctive question. “Your Majesty, what troubles you?”

  He released her hand almost abruptly. They had come to the fountains in the center of the gardens and he walked to stare up at the arc of water catching the sunlight. For all Baradun’s assurances, they were out of view of the windows, and a single layer of cloth covered his back, a poor excuse for armor. If she had only brought the knife …

  “There is something you should know.” His voice was distant. “Something that has weighed heavy on my mind.”

  She said nothing. She could not think of what he meant. In a flash, the thought came to her: he had chosen one of the other candidates. Jealousy surged and she pushed it away. She tried to smile. If this was to be the last time they saw one another, she must draw him closer. It was difficult to kill without a blade, but not impossible. “Your Majesty, the choice of consort is yours, and yours alone. If—”

  He turned to look at her, genuine amusement in her eyes. “No.” His voice dropped. “I think you know where my choice lies.”

  She could not stop the shiver that slid across her skin.

  He swallowed; the amusement was gone in a moment and there was a grief so strong it threatened to pull her, too, into its grasp. “But you should know what I am,” he said quietly. “Beyond a doubt. You should know more than whispers and rumors. You should know the truth.”

  “And what is the truth, Your Majesty?”

  “I am a murderer,” he said simply.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  For the first time in her life, she felt the touch of Alogo. The moments slid past, inexorable, visible for only the span of a breath and then lost in the great river of the past, jumbled against one another like waves crashing amidst the sea. It was as if she had stepped outside the flow of time, itself. It was strangely peaceful, removed from the unending pull of loyalty and vengeance; she floated, a goddess wrapped in the illusion of human form.

  She did not wish to step back into the mortal world, but she was mortal. She did not belong in Alogo’s realm, and so the world pulled her back without a thought. She was herself again, small and lost and overmatched. She could think of nothing to say to him. How could she tell him that she had already known this?

  “Can you say nothing?” he asked her softly.

  Huddled in the darkness behind one of the guild houses, Almeric’s hand over her mouth and her tears tracing down her cheeks, soldiers calling to one another as they searched nearby. A door opened and there was a burst of laughter, a moment of utter fear; but the merchant was drunk, and only stumbled past them on the way to her litter on the main street.

  She knew her face showed the sudden flash of hatred and terrible amusement, and he recoiled. “What is there to say to that?” She had his price on her head, and, of all things, she drew strength now from that. He was the one who had set the terms of this meeting, not she.

  He stared at her for a long moment before he spoke. What lay behind his eyes, she could not say.

  “You know I ascended the throne at fifteen, yes?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” She tried not to let her tone sound insolent, but there was no respect there.

  His face hardened. “I was young, and I was afraid,” he said harshly, “and in my fear I did a terrible thing.”

  Her hands clenched. She would not be led into sympathy. She could not let him do this to her. “Your Majesty, why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you should know.”

  “What will it change?” She was handling this all wrong, and she could not seem to stop herself. Where was the woman who could laugh and lie with ease?

  She could not laugh about this, not even for the purposes of a lie.

  He ignored her question. “When the crown settles on your head, the world shifts. I did not understand it. I was terribly afraid. The shadows were alive, and they hungered for my blood. In every corner there were those who wanted my throne—or so I was told, and I believed without thought. D’you remember being fifteen?”

  Always hungry, always looking over her shoulder. Every day she looked more like their mother, or so Almeric had said, and that stamp of lineage on her face could have betrayed them both at any time. It would be four long years before she found even the glimmer of a plan. Then, she had only anger.

  Oh, yes, she remembered being fifteen. She nodded stiffly.

  “Then you know what it is to trust without reserve, to believe when others speak of danger.”

  The danger that hunted me was real, she wanted to scream at him. The danger that hunted you was a shadow, a child. You wanted to kill a child. “And, Your Majesty?”

  “Do you not wish to hear this?” His voice was almost cold.

  She did not. She knew now just how true Jarin’s warning was—and yet she could not stop this. She would wonder for the rest of her life if she did not hear it from his own mouth. “I do.” She bowed her head. “Tell me.”

  The fact that she commanded him, that a street urchin gave an order to the Emperor, passed without comment.

  “I was not only fifteen,” he told her. “I was also the Emperor. What would have been merely unwise in another was deadly in me.” He held her eyes. “When evidence came to me of a plot against the throne, I acted quickly—too quickly. I had the … traitors … killed.” He looked at her, almost pleading. “D’you understand that I cannot regret that, that I was bound to do that much?”

  “Why ask me?” She took refuge in her disguise. “I am only a commoner, I do not wear a crown.” She spat the words at him.

  He said nothing for a long moment, and then: “Yes,” he murmured. “A commoner.” He looked away with a strange smile on his face.

  She did not understand. “Do you tell me this so I ma
y offer absolution?”

  When he spoke, his voice was like the calm after a storm, where only destruction remained. “Could you? Do you think you could ever forgive me?”

  Anger came in a maelstrom. Her face flushed, nausea grasped her. If she’d had a sword, she would have run him through in a moment. Her hands shook. How dare he ask this of her? How dare he ask the woman who would be his bride to absolve him of this?

  He saw it; he saw all of it. “There is no absolution. It is not a thing that can be given.”

  That caught her off guard. The roaring in her ears seemed to dim until there was only the garden, rain-scented under a clearing sky, with the burble of the fountain and the scent of myrtle in the air. “Then why tell me at all?” she asked finally.

  He opened his mouth and closed it again, hesitated, looked away. “Because otherwise, you would hear the story from others, and you would always doubt.”

  He did not, could not, know how right he was. She watched him gather his courage.

  “It has been much on my mind, as I seek to finish what I sent them to start. Their death is not what I regret. If that blood is on my hands, then it was on theirs first.” His voice was fierce. “Those who plot to overthrow thrones bear the guilt for their own deaths. But there … were two others.”

  She wanted to run, and she could not find the strength to move. Stop, do not say more, I cannot bear it. Her lips could not move even to allow to the protest.

  “Those who plotted against the throne had two children. I was advised to … make an example of them.”

  The breath caught in her throat. This, this most important thing, she had not known. “Who advised you to do so, Your Majesty?”

  “It does not matter,” he said blankly. He shook his head.

  “It does.” She had known that none spoke for her, but that there were those who spoke against her …