Elandra watched him fall asleep and felt ashamed of herself. How could she worry about the empire when it was her father she should be concerned about? Must she be so selfish? What did it matter if Tirhin kept his ill-gotten throne? She and Caelan could go anywhere they wished, create a life together, find happiness.
Yet even as these sensible thoughts crossed her mind, she felt a sense of urgency drawing her onward to Imperia.
She wiped tears from her face, then tiptoed from the room.
Outside in the antechamber, she paused a moment to draw in deep breaths, trying to clear her lungs of the sickroom smell. While she was questioning the physicians, Lady Lyticia returned.
The woman curtsied, looking eager. “Majesty—”
Annoyed by the interruption, Elandra ignored her. “Can nothing else be tried?” she asked the chief physician.
He frowned, clearly put out by having his methods questioned. “It is not a matter of—”
“Majesty—”
In the palace, such impertinence would have been dealt with summarily on her behalf, but now Elandra had to personally put this provincial nobody in her place.
“Excuse me,” she said to the physician, who bowed.
She turned on Lady Lyticia with a glacial look that did not seem to deter the woman at all.
“Majesty,” she said, “there is a lady who wishes to—”
“You have not been acknowledged,” Elandra broke in, and her tone sent color surging into the woman’s cheeks. “How dare you approach me without leave? How dare you interrupt my conversation?”
Lady Lyticia’s eyes grew very bright, and her mouth trembled a moment. She cast a swift glance around at the watching physicians and guards and tossed her head.
“Forgive me, Majesty,” she said in a tight little voice. “I thought my position as the wife of—”
“Your husband does not own my father’s estates yet,” Elandra snapped.
“In the emperor’s absence, we represent—”
Everything inside Elandra froze. She stared at the woman and had never been so angry before. Rage thundered in her ears, and her hands curled into fists. But at her core, she was brutally, ruthlessly cold. She realized that this woman was treating her as an empress consort, nothing more. Everyone was. She should have determined that from the first moment of her arrival, except the news of her father had been too much of a shock.
In that moment, Elandra finished growing up. She knew she could not be soft-edged and compliant, and accomplish her goals. She had always wanted to please others, to have others like her.
Now, none of that mattered. Her world was in chaos. Her father was dying. She had lost every material possession she owned. She had nothing to lose, no one to please, and only one direction to go.
Her gaze impaled Lady Lyticia’s. She said, “You have forgotten that your sovereign is present.”
Lady Lyticia turned pale. “But—but—”
“Furthermore, that means my father’s estates will revert to me. You may tell your governor husband now to stop evaluating the contents of this household, for he will never put his hands on any of it.”
“But—”
“You are dismissed.”
Lady Lyticia stood rooted in place, livid and wide-eyed, her mouth open and gasping.
Elandra turned her back on the woman and looked at the physicians, who hastily assumed respectful poses.
“You were saying?” Elandra prompted the chief physician.
Holding his beard in one hand, he bowed low to her. “It is our concerted opinion,” he said, his gaze flickering slightly as the guards put a sobbing Lady Lyticia outside the room, “that nothing can be done. When a man is crushed inside, he may live for several days in terrible pain, but his life force cannot be contained.”
Grief stabbed through Elandra. “This is unacceptable.”
The man bowed again. “Sometimes, Majesty, our desires are not sufficient to change the way things are.”
She whirled away from him and swept from the room, barely aware of the guards saluting her. There had to be a way to save her father, some means other than feeding him opium for the pain and saying nothing else could be done. She knew only one person who might know what to do.
An empress did not run, but Elandra was past caring what anyone thought of her actions. Holding up her skirts, she strode through the corridors and down a series of steps.
When she passed a pair of guards standing at attention before a passageway that led to the kitchens, she paused.
“You and you,” she said crisply. “I require your attendance.”
Looking startled, the men approached her. They were much alike in appearance, both wiry and dark-skinned. Both wore sleeveless jerkins with dagger belts crisscrossed over their chests. They carried ceremonial pikes. They looked like brothers.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked.
Her tone was abrupt and harsh, not at all womanly. She had no idea as she stood there, fuming with anger and impatience, how much she sounded like her father at that moment, how her jaw was clenched just like his, and how fiercely her eyes were snapping.
The men bowed low. “Aye, verily,” one replied. “Thou art the daughter of our lord. Thou art the wife of our dead emperor, a woman of full rights and property, unveiled.”
Her chin lifted in satisfaction. “Protect me as you would Lord Albain. I will endure no more insults beneath this roof. I will have no one stand in my way.”
The men straightened. Their dark eyes gleamed with understanding, and before they spoke, she knew she had their absolute loyalty.
“Give me your names.”
“I am Alti.”
“I am Sumal.”
“We are twins,” Alti said.
“You are now my men,” Elandra said. “Let replacements be found for your post. Let the word be passed through the barracks that I need a personal guard from any who will volunteer. When the hour of danger struck in Imperia, the elite Imperial Guard could not protect me from harm. Never again will I go forth without Gialtan fighters at my back.”
Alti and Sumal grinned and looked as though their chests would burst. She knew their type, plantation-born, brought up to hard work, fearless, and incredibly loyal.
“The word shall be given, Majesty,” Alti said.
She nodded. “Let the word also be passed that I want a jinja of my own. A real one, young and unbonded, from the wild. Not one retrained in the sorcerer’s market. I trust my father’s soldiers to find this for me. I will not ask a nobleman to perform this service.”
Alti and Sumal exchanged glances, and their grins faded away. Somberly they nodded, understanding her meaning, respect increasing in their eyes. After all, she was Albain’s daughter before anything else, and like Albain she understood that the true strength of Gialta lay in the hearts of its common fighting men.
“It shall be done, Majesty,” Alti said.
Elandra smiled briefly. “Come, then. I wish to find Lord Caelan, the tall man who came here with me.”
They frowned and again exchanged glances. “That is a difficulty, Majesty.”
Impatience surged through her. “Why?”
“No one said he was a lord. There was trouble in the gallery, and now he has been taken to the whipping post.”
Chapter Nineteen
Forgetting dignity, she whirled around and ran down the steps all the way to the gallery.
But the long room stood empty except for a trio of women gossiping in one corner and a pair of elderly men. The crowd of warlords and courtiers had vanished. She did not have to ask where they had gone.
Sickening anger at their caprice and cruelty filled her, but she wasted no time indulging her emotions. She could be disgusted with them later; it was more important now to stop them.
How?
If she ran outside to the courtyard, she might be able to shame them into stopping the flogging. But she might not. Dear Gault, if her own father perceived Caelan as no more than a l
over tagging along in her wake, these dolts of his court must think exactly the same.
She could wait, gather allies from within the troops, and reprimand them later.
That would be very dignified, but it would not save Caelan’s back. She needed Caelan to go to her father now. She hoped he might even know how to heal Albain. Caelan’s father had been a healer. Caelan himself had studied the arts for a time. He must know something.
Beyond that, she could not bear to think what a public flogging would do to Caelan’s spirit. He was just now beginning to believe in himself, just now beginning to reach out to all the possibilities before him. Being whipped would knock him back to his days as a slave, would bring back all the shame and humiliation he had endured before.
She would rather they whipped her than have Caelan go through something like that again.
Her hesitation lasted no more than a few seconds. Faintly from outside, she could hear people shouting and cheering in the mindless way of a mob.
“Fools,” she said angrily, and headed for the portico.
Before she reached it, however, a woman stepped into the doorway to block her path.
She was a tall, fierce-eyed woman, slender despite her middle years. Her henna-streaked hair was expertly plaited and coiffed. Expensive rings glittered on her long fingers. Her gown was of straw-colored silk, full-skirted with a sheer green gauze overlay. She smelled of costly ambergris perfume.
Elandra stopped in her tracks, jolted by a sense of recognition although this woman was unknown to her. “Let me pass,” she said with scant courtesy.
The woman did not step aside. “We will talk, you and I.” Her gaze flickered past Elandra to Alti and Sumal. “Dismiss your dogs, and let us go the balcony gardens where we can be private.”
Another, more boisterous roar rose from the crowd. Elandra glanced at her guards. “Move this woman out of my way.”
They stepped forward, and alarm flickered briefly in the woman’s face.
“Elandra!” she said. “I am your mother.”
It was yet another shock, coming on top of too many. Elandra refused to deal with it. She couldn’t. Caelan needed her more.
“Stand aside,” Elandra said. “This isn’t the time.”
The guards gently moved the woman out of her path, and Elandra hastened on, fearing already from the jeering laughs and catcalls from the crowd that she was too late.
For Caelan, struggling with all his might to keep himself from being strangled, humiliation warred with his pride. All his tremendous strength and fighting skills availed him nothing as long as the air kept being shut off from his lungs. One quick twist of the noose, and his vision would fade. Then he would be helpless, gasping on his knees, sweat pouring off him, his strength gone from his limbs.
Each time he was allowed to draw in air until he could stand again. Then they would propel him forward in a halting, awkward progress down the innumerable steps. Whenever he felt stronger and started to think about what he might try, the man controlling the noose about his throat would jerk it hard, and the world would go black on him again.
The courtiers followed them in a stream, calling out merrily and laughing at the entertainment he provided. They seemed oblivious to the rain soaking their finery.
Caelan despised them, and wondered how Gialta had ever gotten its reputation for powerful armies when it had an aristocracy such as this.
But then, he would have despised anyone who came to laugh at his shame.
The noose around his neck reminded him of the slave chain he had worn for so many years. The public humiliation was like being marched to the auction block all over again. He would never forget the first time he was sold. But it had burned him no worse than what was happening now.
His ambitions and Moah had made him believe he could reach for the throne. But it was a delusion, one fed by Elandra’s love and acceptance. Reality lay in the merciless faces surrounding him.
The rain poured into his eyes, drenching him and pounding on his breastplate.
When he reached the bottom of the steps, they took him across a courtyard to the edge of a parade ground. Near the barracks stood a whipping post, stout and scarred, heavy iron rings bolted to it where he would be bound.
The rain slackened, and men surrounded him to unbuckle his armor. For a moment the air felt cool against his sweat-soaked tunic, then he felt a tug at his collar and heard the ripping of cloth.
A cheer rose from the crowd, and Caelan closed his eyes against a raw surge of anger. He had no fear of the lash. Rage continued to build in him until it was an explosive force. Gritting his teeth, he held it back, knowing it would do him no good to struggle and yell curses. It would only make the crowd laugh more.
But he did not deserve this. He had done nothing worthy of this. He had taken no action against these people.
Gazing around at their excited, jeering faces, Caelan saw them caught up in the madness of the moment. He remembered the screaming spectators in the arena, how blood-crazed and wild they were, the frenzy of their cheering, their joy at witnessing death. Surely darkness ate the souls of such people. Worst of all, they were Elandra’s people. He could not unleash severance on them.
Lord Pier stepped forward. He held a coiled whip in his hands. “Bind him to the post.”
Caelan had planted his feet well, and it took four men to manhandle him over to the post. They bound his wrists securely, and only then did the noose come off his throat. He winced, feeling a warm trickle of blood slide down his neck.
Pier handed the whip to one of his minions and gestured. The men ripped Caelan’s tunic away, and an appreciative gasp rose from the crowd.
“Gault above! Look at those muscles.”
“He’s bigger than I thought.”
“He’s a giant.”
“He’s very handsome.”
“No wonder she brought him with her.”
The comments ran on, growing freer and more ribald. Caelan closed his ears, feeling his rage pulse against his throat. He jerked against the iron rings, ready to yank them out by the roots if he could. He budged them not at all, but the violence in him and the loud rattle of the rings startled everyone. Even the man with the whip stepped back.
Caelan looked over his shoulder and met Pier’s gaze. “This is not worthy of you,” he said.
“You are an arena champion,” Pier replied. “You fight well in the ring. You should have stayed there. Challenging your betters is not worthy of you.”
Caelan stared at him in disbelief. Was that all this was? A reprimand to a man Pier thought was a slave? Did he think he could insult Elandra by publicly whipping her companion?
The rage boiled hotter, until Caelan felt his bones would melt. His fists clenched with the violence he could not unleash.
“You will regret this,” he said to Pier.
The warlord turned away with a little shrug, unimpressed. “Forty lashes for his impertinence. Begin.”
At that moment, the clouds parted overhead. Sunlight slanted down upon Caelan alone, isolating him from the crowd, which murmured and shifted back in wonder.
“Look at his back!” someone shouted.
“Look at the imperial mark!”
“His brand is glowing.”
“It’s glowing!”
Some fought their way clear, running and shouting for their jinjas to come. The rest stood there and stared, open-mouthed.
Caelan could not see what they were pointing at, but he could feel the place on his shoulder blade where his slavery mark had been canceled. It burned like fire, as hot as the moment the hissing brand had been pressed to his skin. His rage boiled inside him, burning him from the inside out.
They had no right to do this. No right to commit this act.
And he would not submit to it.
He strained against the ring bolts until the muscles in his arms and shoulders bulged and the cords in his neck snapped taut. A shudder went through him as he poured all his rage into this effort. Th
e sunlight seemed to feed him its heat and strength.
The wood groaned, splintered, and cracked. The bolts pulled free suddenly, sending pieces of wood flying. Shouting aloud, Caelan dropped his arms and whirled around. He broke the ropes that fastened his wrists to the rings and slung them away. He was free and savage, his pulse pounding in his ears, his vision a blur.
Men cried out and fled from him, pushing and shoving each other in panic. Pier and his men stood fast, looking wary and frightened, but holding their ground.
The sunlight broadened as the clouds parted more, and Pier now stood illuminated also. For a moment his light brown eyes changed to black, and he stood revealed as a skeleton. Black tentacles curled about his bones, thrusting out through the empty eye sockets in his skull. Then Caelan’s vision faded, and Pier was a man again—intelligent and dangerous. His hand was on his sword hilt, but he had not yet drawn his weapon.
He glanced at the man holding the whip. “Hit him. Drive him back.”
The man shook out the whip expertly. Seconds later, the braided leather came whistling at Caelan. Caelan’s gaze was locked on Pier. He didn’t even bother to duck.
But when the lash struck him, it charred instantly to ashes that blew away in the wind.
More people screamed, calling on their gods for mercy. They trampled away, and even Pier’s men backed up.
“Lord, come away. This is surely a demon.”
But Pier apparently did not listen. He drew his sword and charged Caelan.
A quick glance to the side showed Caelan his sword belt lying on the ground. He reached for it, and Exoner almost seemed to leap into his hand. Caelan turned and barely managed to parry Pier’s sword.
Metal clanged loudly, echoing off the stone buildings and silencing the cries of those fleeing. Many ran all the way across the courtyard to the base of the steps, but went no farther. Silence gradually fell over everyone. Even the soldiers kept their distance.
Caelan and Pier circled each other in the strange circle of sunlight. Pier’s eyes were still black and unworldly, as though something unnameable had taken possession of him. Caelan felt only heat and fury. The sunlight burned his skin and seemed to fill his thoughts until he knew nothing else.
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