Shadow War

by Deborah Chester

  Was that a rumble she heard?

  For an instant she believed she felt the room tremble around her.

  She leaned over the edge of the bed, but already the faint sensation had stopped. Perhaps it was only her imagination at work again. The night was a strange place, and dreams were not safe from intruders. She sometimes felt afraid here, as though the shadows held things unseen that watched her. If she could have had a jinja to guard her from magic, she would have slept deeply and peacefully, but the emperor did not like the useful little creatures and would not allow her to have one.

  Moaning a little, Elandra threw herself back on her pillows. It was barely dawn. Her new room was dark and shadowy, the outlines of the furniture still unfamiliar to her. She needed more sleep, but she was too excited to drift off now that she was awake.

  What had that noise been? She was certain now that she had heard a noise.

  Loud and sharp, as though something had broken. Like the mortal snap of a large tree when loggers bring it down.

  Sliding from her bed, she picked up the long hem of her silk nightgown and crossed the cold floor in her bare feet. One of her ladies in waiting snored gently on a cot by the door. Elandra slipped past her like a ghost.

  In the anteroom, however, she could hear low voices talking outside her door. Her guards were alert and on duty. They did not usually talk, though. Something was amiss.

  She opened the door a crack, only to find her way barred by a strong chest plated in armor.

  “What is it?” she asked, squinting against the lamplight in the passageway.

  “A noise, Majesty,” the guard replied. “In the throne room. Men have gone to investigate.”

  Her puzzlement grew. “The throne room? Is it the emperor?”

  “Nay, Majesty. Wait within until the investigation is complete.”

  The guard shut the door firmly against her. Elandra stepped back, but she was more alarmed than reassured. If something was wrong, she did not intend to sit here in the darkness like a mouse.

  Some ladies might say that courting servants’ gossip was common, but Elandra had survived her difficult childhood by gleaning every rumor, report, and speculation from her father’s servants that she could. Since coming to the palace, she had tried to build a discreet network, and with her new status, information was easier to acquire.

  Thus, she knew why Tirhin was flaunting his father’s wishes. She knew Tirhin was furious with her. He resented her. He felt betrayed by his father. He had been laying plots and sounding out men’s loyalties. Kostimon chose to overlook his son’s activities, but she could not afford to be so generous. Tirhin was rapidly becoming her enemy, and perhaps a coup was being struck right now.

  With her heart beating fast, she hurried back to her bedchamber. She was grateful now that she had taken certain precautions. Pulling on a heavy robe and fur-lined slippers, she opened a box of ebony and took out a dagger. It was a large knife, heavy and curved near the tip. A man’s weapon, not a dainty, feminine stiletto. It filled her hand, and her fingers closed around it gratefully. She felt marginally safer now.

  Gripping it, she went to the wall and ran her fingers impatiently along its shadowy surface. Finally she touched a narrow crack. She found the depression and pressed it, and a section of the wall sprang silently open. She slipped through, taking care to close it quietly after her, and felt along a small table just inside the dark passage. She lit a lamp, and its yellow light drove back the darkness, showing her a cramped, crude passage filled with dust and cobwebs. It smelled of age and damp, but she did not care. It was her own private passage to the throne room, and she hurried along it with the lamp in one hand and her dagger in the other.

  Years ago, when she was a young child, she had listened to her father talking about another warlord who had lost his life and his property to the hands of a rival. The warlord had just hired a new contingent of warriors to replenish his army. He felt secure from his enemies. But the new soldiers felt no loyalty to their lord and were bribed into turning against him. They let the enemy into the palace, and the warlord was slaughtered in his own chamber.

  Elandra thought of the new guards who had sworn an oath to her with their lips but not yet with their hearts. She thought of her stepson, who was her enemy, and as yet an unknown quantity. She thought of what lay at stake in this affair.

  She had no intention of being a fool. Better to be over-prepared than taken unawares.

  Reaching the door that would open behind the curtains at the rear of Kostimon’s ruby throne, Elandra paused a moment, holding her breath as she listened. She decided then and there that she would choose her own protector following the coronation. If she had to, she would ask her father to provide her with a Gialtan candidate of unimpeachable loyalty.

  Voices echoed in the throne room, rising in consternation. She heard no sounds of battle, no shouts, no evidence of danger. Only a hysterical babble.

  Frowning, she opened the door and emerged cautiously behind the curtains. From their concealment, she could recognize not only the voice of some of her guardsmen but also that of Chancellor Wilst.

  “What is to be done?” he moaned, wringing his hands. “What a terrible omen. It is the end of the world. We are finished. The gods have struck us a mortal blow. They mean for all men to die.”

  Suddenly impatient, Elandra emerged from her hiding place, still holding lamp and dagger, her auburn hair spilling unbound down her back.

  “Cease this commotion at once!” she cried. Her voice rang out over the others, and everyone grew silent.

  As one they turned to stare at her, their eyes wide with fear.

  Her frown deepened. “What in the name of the gods is the matter?”

  Then her gaze took in the throne. It had always been a marvel to her since the first time she had seen it. Carved of a single gigantic ruby, it sparkled and glowed as though alive in the torchlight. No one knew how it had been fashioned. Its origins were a mystery. Where such a tremendous gemstone could have been mined was impossible to guess. Kostimon claimed it was given to him by the tribes of Choven, famous throughout the empire for their spell-forged metals. The throne had to have been spell-carved. According to legend, shortly after Kostimon proclaimed himself emperor, the Choven had entered the crude beginnings of his city. They bore the throne, swathed in cloths, upon the shoulders of ten bearers. Chanting in their eerie tongue, they had come before the emperor and unveiled their gift of tribute. The throne had caught the sunlight and turned to fire, dazzling the eyes of all who beheld it.

  It was the seal of Kostimon’s reign, the very symbol of his power.

  And now, within the vaulted throne room at the center of the palace, the ruby throne lay broken in half.

  Elandra stared, her mouth dropping open before she recovered herself. Unable to tear her eyes away from the sight, she walked forward, right up to the shattered ruins. Her slippers crunched lightly over some of the tiniest fragments, and she stopped in her tracks.

  She could see where it had cracked cleanly down the center, the fissure marks bold on either half.

  “What does it mean?” someone asked. “What is to become of us?”

  Was the emperor dead? The thought nearly stopped Elandra’s heart. She looked up wildly. “The emperor! Quickly, someone go to him and see if he is well—”

  “I am well,” Kostimon’s deep voice replied from the other side of the room.

  Elandra saw him coming, robed in crimson and wearing a tasseled cap. His protector Hovet, looking old and grim in plain steel armor, stalked along behind him with a drawn sword.

  People scattered out of the emperor’s way until only Elandra stood there by the ruined throne.

  Hovet snarled something, and with a start she realized she was holding a drawn weapon in the emperor’s presence. Hastily she bent and placed her dagger on the floor, then retreated respectfully with her eyes lowered.

  Kostimon’s face might have been carved from granite, but as he reached the throne,
his shoulders sagged. He touched the polished side of one half, and it was as though he physically shrank. Suddenly he looked old and defeated.

  Pitying him, Elandra would have given anything to see that look erased from his eyes.

  He sighed. “Then it is finished,” he whispered. “All is over. The gods have spoken—”

  She moved before she realized what she was doing, rushing up to stand between him and the ruined throne. Fiercely she glared at him. “It is not finished!” she said, keeping her voice low, but letting all her anger show. “You are not finished. Not yet. Oh yes, Majesty, it was a rare work of art, a thing of surpassing beauty. But you were not born with it. It came to you, to serve you. Had it been otherwise, you would be dead now, at the same time as its breaking.”

  Kostimon’s expression did not change. He shrugged. “I am tired, little one. Let it rest.”

  “No!” she said, daring to defy him for the first time. “I will not let it rest.”

  Anger stirred in his eyes. He glared at her. “Keep your place. This has nothing to do with you.”

  All the breath seemed to leave her body. It was as she feared. In one second he had forgotten all his promises to her. Everything was swept aside, and she might as well be one of his empty-headed concubines. Fear filled her, but she knew that if she backed down now she was truly lost.

  “I am keeping my place,” she said fiercely. “And this has everything to do with me. Have you not charged me with new responsibilities?”

  A shuffle from the people nearby caught the corner of her eye. Without waiting for the emperor’s reply, she turned her head to glare at them.

  “Leave us!” she commanded. Her voice rang out across the room. “All of you. And you, Hovet,” she said, turning on the protector who glowered at her, “go with them to see that they wait in a group outside. I will not have anyone running off to spread the word about this. Guard them!”

  Hovet did not move. Nor did anyone else. In dismay, she saw she had no authority at all. It was all a sham. An empty promise.

  Then Kostimon gave the protector an all but imperceptible nod. Hovet wheeled around and brandished his sword at the others, even the guards.

  “You heard the Lady Elandra,” he said, still stubbornly using her old title.

  They obeyed, although her guards looked outraged at being put outside. Elandra did not care. Alone with Kostimon, she prayed for the strength of her father and the iron will of her mother. The emperor was a capricious man. She had seen him turn on others with little provocation. Right now, in his present mood, he could have her destroyed without a moment’s hesitation. But if she gave way, if she backed down now and sought to save herself, she would lose everything, possibly even her life. She saw that clearly, although what she has to do terrified her.

  “The throne can be bolted back together,” she began, trying to keep desperation from her voice. “It can be mended.”

  Contempt crossed his face. He turned away from her. “Ah, the mind of a woman. Always mending.”

  “What, then?” she shouted at his back. “Would you throw it away? Will you let this tiny flicker of adversity defeat you? Have you ceased to be a man?”

  He swung around, livid now, and raised clenched fists. “I shall have your tongue cut out for that. You impertinent little hellcat—”

  “Yes, I am impertinent, because I speak to you tonight as your equal. Is that not what you wanted from me? Is that not what you assigned me?”

  “Not yet!” he roared. “Not until tomorrow—”

  She chopped across this impatiently. “What do these niceties matter in a crisis? Only a few days past you spoke to me of holding the empire together. If you panic, what choice do the people have?”

  “How dare you?” he whispered, his yellow eyes blazing. “How dare you accuse me of panicking?”

  “Haven’t you?”

  They glared at each other in tense silence. It was the emperor who dropped his gaze first.

  “I have never panicked in my life. I see how greedy you are for power, how swiftly you grab for it at the first opportunity—”

  “You threw it at me!” she shouted, truly furious now. He was unfair, stupidly unfair. She had liked him, believed in him, but in reality he was just a wicked old man who would turn on even the people who loved him. “Did I caress you and whisper to you, begging to be crowned a sovereign? Did I? Did I ever ask for it? Did I ever scheme for it? No! If nothing else, at least admit the truth!”

  “I make my own truth!”

  “Then it is good your throne has broken! Has the weight of your own caprice and injustice shattered it? How can you think only of yourself at such a time? How can you be so selfish?”

  “I am the only one who matters,” he told her. “I am the center of the world. Everything revolves around me. You were a fool to forget that. Hovet!”

  The door opened, and the protector entered. He saw in a glance their flushed, angry faces. He drew his sword, advancing slowly.

  She was too angry at this shortsighted, arrogant man to care about the danger she was in.

  “If you were not so conceited and vain,” she said sharply, “you would understand that I agree with you! Of course you are the center of our world, the center of the empire. It does depend on you. It needs you to stand firm and calm, to look unconcerned by this omen. It needs you to mend the throne so that the people need not know what has happened. It needs you to sit on it and to dispense your justice as you have always done. Sweet Gault, man, send to the Choven to come and repair it, or ask them to make you another, but do not crumple before your own servants and say you are finished. If you believe it, they will also. Then the empire will begin to die. And it will be your fault.”

  By the end of her speech, Hovet had reached her. Grimly, he held his sword ready, awaiting the order to strike her down.

  Breathing hard, spent from her emotions, Elandra raised her chin and glared at the emperor like a true Albain. Inside, her heart was hammering, but she was glad to die in a fight, glad to die with her blood hot and her last words the truth. Kostimon would not see her quail, she assured herself, trying to maintain her courage. He would not see her back down.

  The emperor raised his hand, only to let his fingers curl weakly. Lowering his hand, he shook his head at Hovet, who looked almost disappointed. The emperor snapped his fingers in dismissal, and Hovet trudged out again, sheathing his sword as he did so.

  Elandra thought she might faint with relief. Barely she held herself together and went on standing there, proud and straight, her chin still high.

  “By the gods,” the emperor said quietly. He still looked angry, but he was calmer now. Reason had returned to his eyes. “It is true, my assessment. I said you would go to the wall for what you believe in, and you have.”

  Her anger came back, a flash of white heat in her face. “Was this another test?”

  “No.” He gestured at his broken throne. “Even I would not go to these lengths to test you.”

  She turned her back on him, filled with disappointment so sharp it was like a pain through her ribs. “I believed you,” she whispered. “I thought you meant all the things you said. But it was only a cloud, fluffy and bright, meant to amuse us, nothing more.”

  He did not pretend to misunderstand her. “Yes, I talked to you about ruling for me. I have trained you, raised your expectations. I admit that.” He sighed. “But when you seized the reins just now, I—” He broke off and frowned. “I did not like it.”

  She remained with her back to him, unable to face him now. It was impossible to keep her broken illusions from her face, and she did not want him to see how deeply he had hurt her. “Of course you did not like it,” she agreed softly.

  Silence fell between them. She understood. He had clawed his way to power, then fought fiercely to maintain it. For a thousand years he had fended off every foe, and there had been many. He could not relinquish his throne now, not even to a regent. Not even to her. She had known it in her heart all a
long, had known it was too incredible to be true.

  What she had not known, had not suspected, was how much she wanted it.

  It was as though only in the loss did she see the truth of her own ambitions. She was shocked, and as angry at herself as at him.

  “Will you have me moved back to the women’s wing, Majesty?” she asked finally to break the silence. She even forced herself to turn around as she said it. “Will you send me into exile?”

  He frowned in instant scorn. “Don’t be stupid,” he said sharply. “There will be a coronation, even if it’s only to name you consort. The imperial family always moves forward. We never step back.” He eyed her long and hard, his mouth set in a thin line. “Go and get your rest. You have a long and arduous day ahead of you.”

  Her mouth was equally set. Formally, she gave him a deep curtsy, then collected her lamp and dagger. Clinging to the tatters of her dignity, she stepped back behind the curtains and took her private passageway back to her chambers. Just before she went in, she left her weapon on the table and extinguished her lamp.

  Inside her rooms, she found her ladies in waiting awake now and flustered in their nightrobes.

  “My lady!” one of them cried. “What has come about? We could not find you. We have heard such terrible rumors. We were afraid and nearly sent the guardsmen to search for you.”

  Elandra eyed them coldly. “I was with his Imperial Majesty,” she said in a voice like ice.

  “Oh.”

  Her attendants faltered. Some of them exchanged glances. She saw all of it in an instant, read their minds as clearly as though they spoke their thoughts aloud. A fresh sense of failure twisted in Elandra’s heart. If they wanted to think she had been in her husband’s bed, so be it. That would at least start other rumors that might distract them from the truth.

  After dismissing her ladies, she did not return to bed. Instead, she paced back and forth in front of her window, shivering and clutching her robes around her. Visions of the shattered throne haunted her. It and the dark cloud on the horizon were clear omens. The gods had spoken plainly. The end was near. At least for Kostimon, if not for them all. Swallowing hard, she kept telling herself she should be grateful she wasn’t dead or cast out. But she wasn’t grateful. She found herself growing angrier with every step.