Embers of Empire

by Michaela Strauther

  “My mother’s, yes. I found it years after her death.” He set the oil lamp on a desk in the corner. “Those books that she kept about the kings . . .” He glanced over at Sathryn, who was still standing at the entrance, entranced by the number of weapons lining the walls. He walked over to her, grabbed her hand, and pulled her inside.

  His hands were warm.

  “Those books she kept are all in here. It’s the secret people need to overpower the kings.”

  Sathryn looked at him. He was still holding her hand. “Then why don’t you give all of those books to these armies risking their lives to fight them?”

  He shrugged. “They will never get close enough to the kings to use the tactics in the books properly. My mother talked about physical weak spots—the base of their spine, for instance—but you must get close to them for the knowledge to be useful. Understand?”

  She didn’t understand. “Yes.”

  He rolled his eyes. Letting go of her hand, he walked away from her near the corner of the room. “Say you’re the kings, and I’m—”

  “I’m all five kings at once?” she teased.

  Julian rolled his eyes again. He did that a lot. “Yes. Anyway, you’re the kings, and I—”

  “But I can’t physically be five people at once.”

  He snorted. “It’s just a demonstration. I’m the army. Now, if I try to attack you from afar, what will you do?”

  She shrugged. “I will send out my Beastmen.”

  He rolled his eyes. Again. “Or you will just morph into a dragon and kill me, yes?”

  She frowned. “What?” A dragon? Was he teasing her?

  Julian frowned too. “You didn’t know they could do that? Where do you think they got the name Dragon Kings?” Sathryn had always thought that it was because they were so powerful, like dragons. But the way Julian was looking at her, she was the only one who hadn’t known.

  “Oh.” Sathryn felt like an idiot. She didn’t think that was physically possible, and she wanted to ask Julian how they were able to do that, but he was getting impatient. “Okay then. I’ll crush you.”

  He nodded. “Exactly. So me knowing that stabbing you in the back—literally—weakens you is useless, yes?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m too far away to reach you, yes?”

  She nodded.

  “And an army is too conspicuous, yes?”

  She nodded.

  “But . . .” Julian walked toward her. He circled her so that he was behind her, then he gently poked her back. “If it were only a few people attacking—let’s say, two, maybe three—they have a better chance of sneaking up on the kings and attacking that weak spot. Yes?”

  His hand was on her back. As he turned to look at her, she turned away to hide her warm cheeks. “Yes.”

  He laughed, wandering toward the bookshelf. “They wouldn’t listen to me. I have told them all before that large armies are what the kings expect now. They have guards all over their castle and then some, watching for armies. I’ve told them if they split up, build smaller groups, think, plan, be smart—they might get somewhere. But they don’t want to listen to someone like me.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “You aren’t at all too young.”

  He turned to look at her, his eyes hardening. “It’s because of these.” He flashed his teeth. “I unnerve you, Sathryn. You can’t hide that from me.”

  “You don’t anymore.” Was that the truth? She didn’t know.

  He shook his head. When he spoke again, his voice was sorrowful. “They all say that people respect me. Sure they do. Of course they do. I’m an Ajasek. But they don’t see me as having my own character because of my teeth and my father. So they will respect me, but they don’t listen to my suggestions. I’m not saying my suggestions will save the world, but they won’t even take the time to listen.”

  It was quiet again.

  Sathryn couldn’t look at him—was too humbled to look at him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Anyway,” he said, his voice brighter, “that’s what all this is for.” He gestured around at the walls, the bookshelves. “I want to fight them myself.”

  Her eyes widened. “You can’t do that yourself.” She paired it with a laugh, hoping he would join her, hoping he would admit that he was joking.

  The look on his face suggested otherwise. “Why can’t I? The armies that you would think would kill those kings haven’t done it yet, and they’ve been trying for hundreds of years.” He grabbed a little white box from a shelf and took out a pair of gloves.

  “What are those for?”

  He took a sword off a wall. “So I don’t burn my hands off with the power in these things.” He held up a shiny longsword. It had a crystal-clear blade with a bright-red handle. “All of the weapons are also infused with the venom from dragons.” He sank the blade into a wooden table, and a chunk of table sizzled and burned away. “Lucifer’s Phoenix. The real ones are giant things—so rare that very few have seen one. They don’t roam near civilization . . .”

  “No, the Faerie lady was selling Lucifer’s Crystals on the street.”

  Julian had the decency not to ask who the Faerie lady was. “They’re fake. Probably a common dragon egg that she painted red.”

  Sathryn sat in a chair and listened while he showcased his swords. The longer he talked about them, the more excited he became, and it made her happy just to watch him.

  But the longer he talked, it also made her tune him out. His voice became white noise; her attention drifted to her father. Julian said he wanted to fight the kings himself. If he won, maybe she could find her father, get him out before he went to trial. But she still didn’t know where he was now—when the trial happened. She didn’t know how a trial worked or if it was fair or not. But she knew that she wasn’t going to let those kings tie her father up and burn him.

  “How does a trial work, Julian?” she asked.

  She’d interrupted him. He was holding a set of daggers and in the middle of saying something, but she didn’t know what that something was. She didn’t care either. “How do they work?”

  He set his daggers down, disappointed. “You ask a lot of questions, did you know that?”

  She stared at him, waiting.

  “Okay. Fine. The trial. You go in front of the kings and a jury at a place called Kings’ Court. The kings sit there and accuse you of things you may or may not have done in front of a brainwashed jury, and together, the kings and the jury all decide the nature of your execution if you are found guilty. Which you will be. You don’t have a say. Any rule you break, you are executed. I don’t know all the details, but—”

  “Where do they keep people before the trial?” Sathryn asked.

  “Prison. They wait for their trial in prison, and then after their trial, they wait in prison until their execution. Then . . . they die. That is, if they don’t die in prison first.” He placed all the weapons back on the wall, then peeled off his gloves and placed them back in the little white box. “I’m sorry, Sathryn.” He sat on the ground in front of her and stared up at her.

  “How would they die in prison?”

  He sighed. “They torture you. They hardly feed you. You share a large chamber with at least fifty other people, and you all use the same bathroom in the room you sleep. There are rats and bugs crawling around everywhere, you barely have clean-enough water, and the mattress you sleep on is the same mattress the person before you slept on, and they don’t wash it.”

  Sathryn’s mind, almost against her will, was building the image of her father, thin and dirty, curled up on a thin and dirty mattress and infested with whatever diseases were cultivating in the small, damp prison cells. “Oh.”

  Julian stared at her for a long time afterward, then stood back up and slid the little white box back on the bookshelf.

  “I have to go now.” Sathryn stood and grabbed an oil lamp. “Is there a way out that doesn’t involve your father?”

  “Yes.” He glanced back at her. �
�Follow me.”

  He led her deeper into his chamber, turning and winding around walls and shelves. At the back, she saw a small iron door just big enough for her to crawl through. “This is it,” Julian said.

  Sathryn looked up at him. “Where will it lead me?”

  “Outside the back of the house. No one will notice you.”

  She handed him her oil lamp, thanking him for everything. She couldn’t decide if she had gotten all the information she wanted—needed—but it was all she could take for tonight. But for some reason, she couldn’t leave yet.

  “Something wrong?” The oil lamps glowed on Julian’s face again, changing the color of his hair and skin and eyes.

  She didn’t know. “No. I just wanted to thank you again.”

  He smiled, but did not reply. She knelt and pushed the iron door open.

  Sutra

  n the first rebel raid, almost everyone had died. The land outside Kings’ Castle was littered with bodies, charred from fires or mauled and bloodied by the kings themselves. When Sutra killed all those people, he’d felt so powerful and unstoppable, and shared the joy with his brothers, who felt the same. Iryse was the one who let a handful of the rebels go back to where they came from—all wounded, but well enough to ride their horses back to their regions—and spread the word that they were a force to be reckoned with.

  Richarta and Deluma—now called Deadland—were poor regions. They were overcrowded and filled with nonhumans—Spades, Lynots, Faeries, the lot—and crossbreeds, so they were less wealthy. But after the kings had become the Dragon Kings, the poor regions were the main ones rebelling against them, so Iryse proposed they receive less money than other regions. It became the ideal then: people who were gracious to the kings and on their side got money and food and warmth and anything else they desired, including living in wealthier regions. Those in rebellion stayed in their squalor and were punished.

  A sound on the library door shook Sutra from his memories. “It’s open.” He prayed it wasn’t Iryse.

  It was.

  Iryse smiled. “Hello, brother. I was looking for you.”

  “Were you?” Sutra looked away to pour himself another glass of wine. “I didn’t realize.”

  Iryse laughed, his booming voice destroying the beautiful quiet of the library. “Apparently not.” He sat in the sofa chair across from Sutra and grabbed Sutra’s wine bottle, taking a swig from the glass jug. Sutra frowned. “We were discussing the Phoenix Arena and you left for the bathroom but never came back.”

  The Phoenix Arena. Iryse’s new idea, or perhaps it had been an idea for a long time, but Iryse had been waiting for an acceptable reason to put it to action. Now was the reason. There were rumors that an army would be invading soon, and Iryse’s idea was that instead of killing the armies off, they take the men and hold them as prisoners. But not in prison—no, that was too simple for Iryse. He now wanted to throw all the army hostages into a large arena and make them fight like gladiators against a Lucifer’s Phoenix—the fiercest dragon there was—until either the dragon or the gladiators were dead.

  It was yet another creative way of showing the regions how much their kings cared.

  “I’m not feeling too well,” Sutra lied—although it wasn’t quite a lie considering Iryse’s presence made him ill.

  “That might just be because you haven’t taken the drug in almost a decade, brother.”

  Sutra tried not to look alarmed, instead trying to give Iryse the “What do you mean?” face. But it was hard considering Iryse was right. Ever since Anya—

  “What, you thought I wouldn’t find out?” Iryse paired his haughty tone with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. “You think I didn’t notice your withdrawal? The way your face lightened, the way you were always out of breath? You think I didn’t see?”

  Sutra considered lying, but what was the point? Once his brother’s mind was set, there was no changing it. “Quitting the drug didn’t change much.” That wasn’t quite true. Ever since he had quit the drug those ten years ago—it was a wonder it had taken so long for Iryse to mention it—he had become more rational, less brash and angry all the time.

  “Oh, it changed you.” Iryse wasn’t storming around and shouting yet, which was more so a bad sign than a good one. It just meant that something was silently brewing instead of brewing aloud. “It made you weaker.”

  Sutra shrugged. He was done with his second wineglass, but Iryse was holding the bottle, which meant he wasn’t getting it back anytime soon. “Not much weaker.”

  Iryse took a swig from the bottle then slammed it on the table. His storm was boiling now. “That’s where you are wrong again. As far as I’m concerned, much weaker and a little weaker are still weaker.” He pulled a little vial from his pocket and a short, sharp knife. “Take it, Sutra.”

  At the sight of the knife, Sutra’s hand inched toward his belt, where he had a knife of his own. “No.”

  “Why not?” Iryse hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Because I no longer feel the need to take it. It’s an addiction, and I weaned myself off it.”

  Iryse stood, holding up the knife. Iryse was older by two years. Sutra was the second oldest—just as big, just as strong, just as fast. He just wasn’t as aggressive—never had been, but on the drug he was almost as much. “I don’t want to have to force this.”

  Sutra stood as well, setting his glass on the table. “Why do you care so much?”

  Iryse lunged at him. Right before Sutra jumped out of the way, Iryse’s knife nicked his arm. A cut that small would heal on its own in seconds—thanks to his immortality. “Because you have always done this.” Iryse crept around Sutra now, a lion stalking its prey. “Have always tried to undermine me in some way.”

  Sutra’s eyes never left the knife. A big-enough gash wouldn’t heal so quickly, and he’d need the medic. But long before the medic arrived, Iryse would dump the contents of that little glass flask into his wound so it could seep into his blood. “How am I undermining you by not taking the drug myself? I’m not preventing you from taking it, nor am I preventing my other brothers from taking it.”

  Iryse leapt out again, but Sutra was ready. He sidestepped him and drew his own knife.

  Iryse smiled a dark, wild grin. “Is that what you want to do?”

  Sutra shrugged. “You pulled the knife on me first.”

  Iryse leapt forward again, this time swerving so that Sutra couldn’t dodge him. The knife would have caught in his torso, but Sutra blocked Iryse’s arm with his own and nicked him with his own knife. He made sure not to make it too deep, only deep enough to throw him off a bit.

  “I’m not going to fight you, Iryse.” They had never fought like this before, none of them. All their fighting was verbal, and occasionally escalated to fists if they felt motivated, but it was never that bad, and it was never with a blade.

  “If you would just take the drug—” Iryse’s anger made his actions sloppier and uncoordinated. He swung his arm around again; Sutra blocked it.

  Before he knew it, Sutra was exhausted from trying to knock away his brother’s blows. Why hadn’t the noise alerted the others? Books scattered the floor, knocked down by Iryse, and Sutra, trying to block Iryse’s attacks. They wove in and out of bookshelves and were running down the last row of books, Iryse lunging and Sutra blocking, when someone entered.

  Tyru.

  Sutra, glancing for a second at the door before returning to defending himself, glanced just long enough to see Tyru running toward them at the sight of the brawl.

  Tyru tore Iryse from Sutra and pulled the knife from his grip, throwing it to the floor. “What is going on here?”

  They were both too winded to answer him. Sutra dropped his knife. “I haven’t been—”

  “Feeling well,” Iryse interrupted. “He hasn’t been feeling well.” What? Why was Iryse covering for him?

  Tyru was confused. “But why would that—”

  “I told him that fight training would make him fee
l better,” Iryse said. “And it did, didn’t it?” He glanced up at Sutra.

  Sutra cocked an eyebrow at Iryse and nodded. “Yeah. It did.”

  Tyru released Iryse. “Okay . . . well . . . we’ve been up for a while, so why don’t we just head to bed. We can talk about the Phoenix Arena in the morning.” There was a lilt of excitement in his voice as he said it. Tyru left the room then, leaving Sutra alone with Iryse once again.

  “Don’t think, not for even a second, that you got away with this,” Iryse said as soon as the door to the library closed. “I just don’t want the others getting any ideas.”

  With that, he stormed out the library’s doors.

  Sathryn

  athryn hadn’t been gone long—the sun was lower in the sky, but at least it wasn’t night—yet by the time she had again pushed through the masses and navigated around houses to find her own, her mother was wide awake, Etzimek was gone, and the Lynot and her children were back. One of the children was crying. Loudly.

  “Where’s Etzimek?” Sathryn tried to sound as casual as possible, like she hadn’t been gone long.

  At the sound of Sathryn’s voice, her mother’s head snapped up. She rose from the bed, tears streaking her cheeks, and wrapped her arms around Sathryn. Too tight.

  “Where were you?” Her mother asked.

  “I was just looking ar—”

  “Do you know how dangerous it is for you to be out there like that? Some of those people out there have evil intentions, especially for a vulnerable girl like you. You can’t just leave without letting us know.”

  Sathryn nodded. She was never going to tell her mother where she actually had been unless she wanted her mother to skin her alive. “Okay. Fine. Where’s Etzimek?”

  Her mother again sat on the bed, pulling Sathryn down beside her. “Out searching for you. Can you promise me that you won’t sneak off again?”

  Sathryn nodded even though she wasn’t sure she could keep that promise. What if she wanted to see Julian again? “Promise.”