by Moira Katson
They would pay as well. It was the only way to end this, burn away the rot and leave only what was good and honorable.
“It does not,” he argued.
“Why?”
“Because I am Emperor. I signed the edict. I gave the order. What matters is that it was my doing; it was the first great test of my reign, and I failed it.”
“You did not hold the knife.” The excuse was like ashes. She did not know where it had come from.
“D’you think I have not been told that? It is not true. Murder multiplies guilt—it is not one of us that is guilty, but all of us. If there is any to be absolved, it is the soldier. A soldier must trust in their commander, in the throne. I betrayed those I sent as much as those they went to kill.”
There was a long pause. “So you have killed children,” she said quietly. Hope beat fast in her heart. Please, let him believe that she had been killed. If he believed that …
“They did not die,” he said softly. “They escaped.”
She went still.
“D’you know the story of Alogo’s army?”
“Spirits caught between life and death.” She could not feel her fingers. She was floating, still trapped in human time and yet powerless.
“Yes. That is what they are now, those two—living under the knife. The edict was never rescinded.” His eyes burned into hers. “The court … tried to forget. It was wrong, but none of them would say it. They feared me. Sometimes I used that fear.” His face twisted, and he drew a deep breath. “You deserved to hear it from my own lips. Whatever you choose to do …” His eyes met hers and slid away. He swallowed. “Now you will know the truth.”
He bowed and left her there alone, and she hardly made it to the rim of the fountain before her legs gave way. Jarin had warned her not to seek out the truth, but in the end it had not been her choice. The truth found her, and with the ache in her chest came certainty.
Darion was right. There was no absolution. There was only justice. She was Alogo’s now, just as Darion had unknowingly named her, and Alogo demanded devotion beyond mortal comprehension. She was no more than a pawn, she could see that very clearly now. She was no more than a hand to hold the knife.
She closed her eyes against the sunshine. If that was her purpose, she would accept it. She would strike down Darion, and bring justice to Aiqasal.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“He admitted it?” Almeric’s voice was low. “He admitted it, and he hoped you would believe his remorse?”
A nightingale trilled nearby, and went quiet again. Moonlight slanted across the grass and golden light spilled from Baradun’s receiving room. She could hear his laughter, forced, and the equally uncomfortable laughter of Lady Dianne. They were making a great show of unity, Baradun and the Mikandros clan, but the gatherings had an aura at once desperate and cutthroat. Alleyne had withdrawn early, aware of their eyes on her, marking her.
She could not bring herself to care. In the wake of Darion’s admission, a storm of anger had taken hold of her, and had not released her from its grasp until she was a husk. She had exhausted herself with weeping. She dug her fingers into her sides and tried not to scream with rage while Baradun and Margery murmured in the next room about what could have been said.
She did not tell them. Furiously, she let them wonder. When the weeping passed, when all that was left was darkness and an exhaustion so complete that it opened the door for weakness, she took what little there was left of her and forged it into an ember, burning the last of herself alive with anger.
It was the only way she knew how to survive.
“Alleyne?”
“I do believe his remorse,” Alleyne said after a moment. She clasped the cloak tightly around herself. She was shivering, though she could not feel the cold. She looked up to meet Almeric’s eyes and could not even feel anything when she saw his anger. “It won’t save him. Nothing can save him. But I believe he regrets it.”
Almeric looked away. He did not seem to know what to do with this quiet, composed sister.
She considered telling him that she did not know what to do, either, but talking seemed like a very great effort, and she let the moment pass in silence.
“What will you do?” he asked finally.
She blinked at him; she had thought the answer was obvious, and all she could feel now was annoyance that she had to explain this to her older brother. “The only thing there is to do,” she said simply.
“Alleyne …”
She summoned all the energy she had. “He, himself, described what he did as a failure in his first test as Emperor, yes?”
“I know that, but—”
“He is no fit ruler.” She interrupted him with only a twinge of guilt. “He is a murderer, by his own admission.” Some part of her tried to struggle to wakefulness and she willed it back to sleep. She wanted to be numb; she did not want to think. “I will kill him,” she said simply, “and before he dies, I will make him tell me every one of them who advised him to kill us—and I will kill them, too.”
“Will you see him again?” Almeric was watching her closely.
Her smile came with a sharp, sudden pain in her chest. “Only the once.”
He embraced her, then, while she stood cold and distant, knowing she should say a better goodbye but without the words or the strength to do so. At length, when he had released her and he stared worriedly down at her face, she reached out to place her hand over his. His seemed burning hot against her own.
“I love you,” she told him simply. Tears pricked at her eyes and she stepped back. “I can’t … they’ll notice I’m gone.”
“Alleyne.” His voice was urgent. “I’ll see you after. I’ll stay close, until … I will get you out of here alive, I promise that. This is not the end.”
She left him in the shadows. At the threshold of the bedchamber, she wiped the tears from her eyes and fixed a smile on her face before she entered.
“My lady?” Margery stood worriedly. “Melisande?” When there was no answer, her voice dropped. “Alleyne?”
Alleyne looked sharply at her at the potent name.
Margery swallowed. When she spoke, her voice was distant, servant to noble. “My lady, are you well?”
“Yes.” Alleyne unclasped the cloak and let it drop from her shoulders into Margery’s waiting hands. “For the first time in weeks, I feel like myself.”
Even if that meant pretending that she felt nothing at all, even if it meant surrendering sunlit dreams of a new Aiqasal. They had been sweet, those moments in the garden. For a few moments, she had dreamed a crown on her head and a nation reborn.
But like dreams of war, those were dreams for fools.
Chapter Forty
The days passed in a haze. Darion did not return. Margery, at first chilled by Alleyne’s indifference, began trying to coax her back to her old self. She told Alleyne each of the rumors: of Darion’s visits to the other contenders; his laughter with the fire-haired Ilina; his philosophical discussions with Jacinta, who was rumored to have left her place as an acolyte of Lycoris for a chance at the throne; and of the music Kalina played so prettily for him on the lyre. She told Alleyne, as well, of Kalina’s carefully-coached words, so supportive of the nobility, and how Darion had not returned to the quarters occupied by the Mikandros clan since then. She told of the steady stream of gifts arriving for Jacinta and Ilina, so many that none could guess what alliances might be formed or broken from day to day, or even hour to hour.
And when she ran out of stories, and Alleyne still would not speak, Margery gave the assurance that both of them knew was unwanted. She could not seem to help herself.
“The odds in the city are good,” she assured Alleyne, twisting her hands in her skirts. “They say there’s none to match you.”
Alleyne clasped her hands in her lap when Margery said that.
Once, only once did Margery push her luck farther than that: “They say … they say the folk beyond the third wall are glad o
f it, that they call you Anatolia reborn.”
Alleyne felt herself jerk as if she had been slapped. It was blasphemy, sparking a revulsion deep in her bones. Anatolia had once been her patron goddess, but mortals did not choose when the hand of a god lay heavy on them.
She did not fill the silence, and Margery left without a word. She did not speak of Anatolia again, and over the days, she stopped saying much at all.
It was more peaceful in the silence. Alleyne could imagine the strikes she had learned, though she did not dare practice them. Over and over she watched her knife arm lash out in her mind’s eye. She practiced pulling up the skirts over her left leg in one swift movement. She had spent thirteen years preparing for this, and though she knew well that it was not her skill that would fail her, she knew as well that the practice calmed her. In her mind, she walked the familiar streets beyond the third wall and heard the cries of the vendors and the gulls and the children. And in time—for time, indeed, did not stop—the day of the announcement came.
Margery dressed her in the silence to which they had both become accustomed. The gown was white as fresh snow, white as diamonds, and it trailed down from a simple bodice to skirts embroidered with tiny crystals and trailing ribbons, so that any little movement caught the light. Margery drew Alleyne’s hair up into a crown about her head and wove myrtle into the curls, the blossoms as lush and pale as the dress. Her skin gleamed warm and dark against the dress, and a diamond glittered at her nose.
The maidservant watched as Alleyne lashed the sheath of the knife to her thigh once more. “D’you think anyone will try to kill you tonight?” Her eyes were sad. “In front of the whole court?”
“I would not put it past them.” Alleyne returned to her work, and heard the small sigh as the maid went to withdraw. “Margery.”
“Yes, my lady?” The words were wooden.
“I’m sorry,” Alleyne said. It was no lie. She was sorry: sorry for her coldness, for what she had not confided, for what she would do tonight and bring shame down on Baradun’s household. But she could not say that, and so she added only: “For everything.”
“My lady—”
“Can you get another message to my—to Michel?”
It was the first thing she had asked of Margery in days, and the other woman looked hopeful. “Aye.”
“Tell him …” Alleyne stopped. Now that they came to it, she did not know what to say. Tonight was of great importance to the court, but it was nothing to her; she had spoken those very words to herself a dozen times, shaping them silently as she looked into the mirror: tonight means nothing. It was an illusion, the macabre joy of a dying court. “Tell him to have faith,” Alleyne said quietly. “Tell him I will not fail.”
It was only then that she wondered if Margery knew her true purpose. For the woman said nothing to that, only inclined her head and opened the door to the main room where Baradun waited to accompany Alleyne to the great hall. Alleyne walked through the door with her eyes downcast and spun slowly as Baradun clapped in approval.
When she looked back at the door, Margery was still watching her, blue eyes grave.
“My lady.” Her voice was light and sweet, all at once the voice of a young merchant girl, and the voice of a court lady.
“Yes, Margery?”
“Go with gods,” Margery said quietly. “May your dreams for Aiqasal guide you tonight.”
Alleyne felt her lips part. There was nothing in it. There was something in it. She ducked her head in an awkward nod.
“Thank you.” She turned and placed her hand on Baradun’s arm, and left his chambers to face the meaningless spite of the court.
Chapter Forty-One
The feast had begun in the early afternoon, but by decree, the candidates for consort did not arrive until evening had darkened the sky and the tables had been cleared. Musicians played for the endless whirl of the nobility, though they stilled—and the music quieted at once—when the doors opened and the crier called the first of the names.
Irena. Alleyne watched the girl descend the stairs, her blazing red hair catching the light. The musicians had begun a stately air, appropriate to entrances, but there was no applause, only the hungry silence of those who wished the woman disgrace and exile from the court. She was frightened by it, that much was clear in the rigid stillness of her back. She had been dressed in green, a vivid contrast to her hair, and her heavy robes made her stumble.
Jacinta. A woman with ebony skin held her head high as she descended. Alleyne remembered her from the Day of Elius. While the others were pale and fraught with anxiety, Jacinta had waited with admirable calm, secure in the knowledge of her own innocence. She, like Irena, walked alone. As the two women from the city, they had no sponsors, and no one had arranged for members of the Imperial Guard to escort them. How would she have ruled?
It was a fleeting thought, it would not matter. Darion would be dead soon—tonight, if Alleyne was not chosen.
But she knew how tonight would proceed. The very surety of it hung heavy over her, weighing her so that she moved listlessly.
Her gaze slid away from Jacinta to travel over the room. The great hall was a blaze of light. For celebration, no one used the steady glow of magelights, but the bright flicker of open flame. Chandeliers as wide as a man was tall, and easily twice as high, had been lit and hauled up to the vaulted ceiling; great beeswax pillars twinkled like stars, illuminating the frescoes and the carvings picked out in gold paint.
Kalina. The last young woman wore her heavy black hair held up in an elaborate headdress. Her white dress, heavy and fashionable, drew grudgingly admiring stares from the noblewomen assembled. She walked with her head held high, and her fingers on the arm of Lord Chiron of Mikandros.
And then Alleyne heard the crier call her name, and everything that had seemed distant and contemptible was at once pressing in on her. There were so many eyes on her, so much hatred; she could tell herself that it did not matter, but that would be a lie, for she felt it in the very marrow of her bones. Her head was swimming with the scents of beeswax and a hundred perfumes, her eyes were dazzled by the chandeliers and the brilliant gowns, and throughout all of it, there was the cold flow of murderous dislike.
Baradun kept up a steady stream of conversation as he led her slowly down the stairs. She heard herself answer, though she could not focus on what he had said, and did not even know what she had said in reply. She could find no words to reassure him, though the worry fairly vibrated through him. She wanted to be sick on the marble floor. She wanted to run. She wanted to turn to him and tell him the truth of who she was.
At the end of the hall sat Darion, and if there was one person in the hall who matched her silence, it was he. He had not been mingling with the guests. He sat back on his throne and toyed with a goblet of wine, and he did not speak even to his uncle, who sat beside him. The Emperor’s black eyes met hers for one moment across the room and she saw the jolt of awareness in him. As she dropped her gaze back to the floor, his face fixed itself into a distant smile.
She nearly stumbled as they stepped onto the floor of the hall.
“My dear.” Baradun’s voice was insistent, but low. As the music started once more and nobles began to dance, he took Alleyne’s hands and chafed them, as he might do if she had been out in the cold. “You are not well. We should take you back to the rooms.”
Alleyne looked at his friendly face and tried to smile. She had not expected to respect this man even in the slightest. He was using her to rise at court, she had no illusions about that, but sometimes she wondered if there was more to his sponsorship, if Darion’s edict had allowed Baradun to take pride in his common ancestry. Almost, she might say, it did not matter, for in him she had found an unexpected friend. He would now, if she let him, throw away all the advantage that was within his grasp, and only to see her comfortable. Impulsively, she wrapped her arms around him in a fierce embrace.
He was startled but he embraced her in return, heedless of cou
rt propriety.
“I am well,” she said in an undertone, when they released one another. She heard the tremble in her voice and lifted her chin. “And you have been so kind to me, my lord. Know, whatever else may come, that you have my thanks for that.”
His smile was bemused. “Of course, my dear. Would you—”
“A dance, Lady Melisande?” The voice was light and amused.
Alleyne turned to meet the eyes of Lord Nicolaides. His pale skin was set off by a tunic of evening blue and his brown hair was gathered back simply with a silver clasp. The elegance his sister possessed ran through every line of him as well, and the same malice lit his gaze.
A strange recklessness came over her. She curtsied, the elaborate curtsy of empress of the blood accepting fealty, and met his eyes with a cold smile. There was a thrill in her chest at such a challenge, the anticipation of a fight to bring her out of this dull half-life. She pitched her voice to carry. “It would be my pleasure, Lord Nicolaides.”
He swept her onto the dance floor as Baradun looked on uncertainly and the whispers rose around them. They made a striking couple, Alleyne knew; her with her glowing brown skin and the brilliant white of her gown, him as her opposite, pale skin and the deep blue of his robes. They moved well, the two of them. He was a child of the court who would shame her if he could, and she … she had learned to fight before she could dance. She read his movements before he made them, and her feet glided across the floor in ever more complex turns. She had never danced like this, but he had never fought for his life. What did he think he could do to her?
“So,” he said, when they had come out of a turn. The other dancers had fallen away from them and they whirled in an oasis of silence. “What have you done to him, that he has been so silent and grim for the past few days?”
She had nothing to say to that. Neither her fierce joy—for should Darion not suffer after such a confession?—nor any courtly response seemed adequate.. She offered only a small, secret smile and saw the lord’s anger rise at that.