by Devin Madson
Empress Miko was holding court in a large, central room of the manor. A silk divan sat at one end, but although her guards were present she was not. Dozens of eyes watched me enter, not all of them friendly. I had grown used to Minister Manshin’s scowling presence, but many of these were new faces. Lords, soldiers, and to my surprise, Levanti.
Lashak e’Namalaka stood to one side of the room with a young, unmade Levanti woman and a Kisian lady, her soft, elegant features carefully moulded into an expressionless mask.
“Captain Rah,” Lashak said as I approached, saluting though she owed me no such respect. The unmade woman saluted as well, while the Kisian just stared, something in the slight widening of her eyes seeming to look deep into me. “I think perhaps you have not met Nuru e’Torin and Empress Sichi e’Torin.”
My heart thudded hard in my chest. Gideon’s wife. I wanted to stare at her as she was staring at me, but I couldn’t ask any of the questions that sprang to my tongue. Instead I uttered an inane greeting. At least I hoped I did.
“I need to see the empress,” I said after saluting them both. “The… other empress.”
Lashak grimaced. “She’s meeting with Whisperer Ezma.” She nodded toward a door behind the makeshift throne. “You’ll have to wait. There are a lot of people here to see her, I understand.”
I wanted to say Miko would see me now if I asked, but in the short time I had been gone, everything seemed to have changed. Perhaps I’d already worn out everything we’d had.
Empress Sichi spoke, her voice quiet but sure, like something finely wrought from steel. “Sichi wishes to know how her husband is,” Nuru said.
I thought of the way his breath raced in panic, the way he had stared at unseen monsters around me, and the strength in his hands as he fought to end his own life. Unexpected anger bubbled. Stiffly, I said, “He’s as well as can be expected.”
The lady maintained her mask, but Nuru’s brows rose. Shocked at my words or my tone, I couldn’t tell and found I didn’t care. They had been there. They could have helped, have stopped this, had they tried.
“I am very pleased to hear it,” Nuru translated the lady’s reply, and my anger festered all the stronger. Had she really cared, it would have been her, not me, who had forced her way into his room to look after him. I was probably being unfair, but I didn’t care about that either.
We stood in silence a time, surrounded by the whispered susurrus of the court. I wanted to talk to Lashak about Ezma, about what had happened at Kogahaera, about the feeling everything was poised to tumble down at a single wrong word, but Nuru would have translated it all for Empress Sichi, so I said nothing.
The door opened. The chatter quietened as Ezma walked out, tall in her jawbone headpiece but made all the taller by her proud, upright stance and triumphant smile. She turned it my way, four long strides all it took to bring her before me.
“Rah,” she said, savouring my name, the suppressed joy in her voice sending fear trickling through my skin. “I do hope you will be joining us for the ceremony tonight. It is important for us to show unity.”
“Ceremony?”
“The Voiding.”
My stomach dropped. A Voiding. There was no greater punishment for any Levanti, reserved for the very worst of crimes against a herd. The disrespectful death.
Bile burned up my throat, sick and hot and angry. I didn’t need to ask who it was for.
“Empress Miko has been wise enough to give Gideon’s justice into our hands,” Ezma went on, the our a cruel barbed edge. “His fate is a Levanti matter, and if she wants Levanti support…”
The suggestion we were united on this, that no one could question Gideon deserved such a fate, sickened me still more. I wanted to spit in her face, and but for the watching audience and the hiss of Nuru translating behind me, I would have.
Ezma stared down at me, her very stance a challenge. She wanted me to argue, but a horse whisperer was the final arbiter of justice, and whatever the empress might have thought she was doing, giving Gideon’s life to the Levanti was giving it only to Ezma.
A fierce whispering had broken out behind me. Perhaps Nuru was explaining to Sichi exactly what Ezma would do to her husband. His branding scratched and sliced off. His death ensured in the darkest of places so he went unseen by the gods. His head left attached to his body so he was never to be free. I wondered if she would understand how terrible a fate it was.
“Two hours after sunset,” Ezma said. “Here. Tonight. We have permission to shutter the windows against the moonlight.”
Having gotten no previous reply, she seemed not to expect one now and, with a pleased little smile, walked away.
“Rah,” Lashak began, but I was already halfway to the door Ezma had emerged from and didn’t stop. It had closed behind her, and two imperial guards watched my approach with wary looks.
“I want to see the empress,” I said, and gestured at the door. “Tell her it’s Rah e’Torin and I need to speak to her.”
They looked at one another, and seeming to understand my meaning if not my words, one opened the door a crack and spoke through while the other watched me, a hand near his sword. I might have tried to barge through had Miko refused, but despite the number of others waiting to see her, I was ushered in.
I had expected to find her sitting with her head minister, or at least a pair of guards or General Ryoji, but Empress Miko was alone. She had donned ceremonial armour, all flowing silk surcoat and gold fastenings, but despite her grand appearance her lips split into a broad smile at sight of me.
“Rah!” she exclaimed, and threw her arms around my neck, pressing close. Having barely expected a polite welcome, let alone a warm one, I was thrown off balance, no time to decide how to respond before she kissed me. The ferocity of it made my knees weak. So much had changed and yet nothing had. The smell of her hair, the feel of her against me, the strength and determination of her like a drug I could consume again and again and never be sated. I had not thought desire could make its way through the fear and anger and disgust Ezma had left me with, but it did. We had come so close to being together too many times, and I wished this could be that kind of moment, that I could give in to the yearning of my body in celebration of all we had won, but I couldn’t.
Though I had taken her face in my hands, though I wanted her with every inch of my skin, I gripped her shoulders and set her from me. She broke from the kiss with a breathless gasp and stood looking up, still and unsure, her hands hovering between us.
“Rah?”
“It’s Gideon.”
“Gideon?”
“You can’t give him to Ezma.”
She frowned, and for the millionth time since we’d met, I wished we better understood each other’s language. How could I explain? How could I appeal to her mercy? How could I even express how I felt without words that mattered to her?
I signalled for her to wait and hurried back to the door. Nuru was still standing with Lashak and Empress Sichi, and I beckoned. “Please come and translate. This is important.”
The long-haired saddlegirl glanced to her companion for a nod of permission, which only deepened my dislike of the soft Kisian woman Gideon had married.
Wary, Nuru followed me back inside. Empress Miko hadn’t moved.
“Tell her she can’t allow Ezma to decide Gideon’s fate.”
Nuru bowed to the empress and began to translate, but where I had been vehement, she was respectful and moderate, Kisian in her tone as well as her words.
“I don’t understand,” was the empress’s reply. She stood where I had left her, hands frozen. Hands that had pressed against my back and held me close only moments before. “Is it not right the Levanti decide his fate?”
“It would be if a true horse whisperer led us. If her judgement could be relied upon. If—” I huffed a breath, frustration overtaking me. How could I make her understand, whatever words I poured forth?
Nuru translated, but there being no end to my sentence, Miko l
ooked to her in question. Nuru answered in her own words, and I wished I trusted her enough not to have to ask what she had said.
“I merely explained about Ezma having been exiled, which she knew, and a horse whisperer being the arbiter of law, which she understands,” was Nuru’s pettish reply. No doubt like Tor, she was sick of finding herself caught in the middle of such conversations, valued only for her ability to translate. “Now she asks whether you disagree with the decision Ezma has made regarding Gideon’s fate.”
“Yes.”
Miko finally lowered her hands, the movement an acceptance of sorts that this stood between us now, though I could still taste her on my lips.
“I know he is your herd brother,” Nuru translated. “But he took over my empire. My people—”
“And rid you of the entire Chiltaen army. Has he attacked you since? Or has he tried to make peace with your people?”
Empress Miko looked away, a scowl cutting between her brows that I wished I hadn’t caused. Wished I could smooth away. But she had to listen to me.
“Nuru, please explain a Voiding to Her Majesty.”
Hesitantly at first, Nuru began to explain. I watched Miko’s face, wondering if she had spent enough time with us to grasp the depth of its dishonour. Her gaze flitted to me as she listened, a wariness in her expression now as Nuru seemingly spared no detail.
“Can you not speak to her about it?” Miko said when it was done.
I laughed, the sound full of bitterness, and said, “She sees me as a threat and will do anything to hurt me, even if it means using others.”
For a full minute, Miko said nothing. She stood there in her glorious armour, her hair held up in delicate pins, and she looked at me as I looked at her, wondering if this was the end.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the Levanti words ones I had taught her, ones I had taken such joy in hearing on her lips.
“Sorry?”
Anger was all that lived inside me now, anger at everything and nothing. At Ezma and Leo and the Entrancers, but also at Sichi and Miko and Dishiva, at Nuru, at a world that kept tearing at my sense of who and what we were.
“She says the decision has been made,” Nuru translated. “There is nothing she can do.”
“Nothing she can do?” The words were wrenched from me upon a seething tide. “Nothing she can do? You’re an empress! This is your empire. These are your people. You gave his fate to Ezma and you can take it back. You can do anything!”
Nuru had been translating along, and at that Miko launched her own fury back at me, her teeth bared. “I wish that were true, that any of it was true. I have no position but the one I am allowed. The one I hold because I am difficult to get rid of, not because I am held in respect.” She had pressed her hand to her chest, emotion ringing in her words. “We are not like you.” She looked at Nuru, her meaning clear. Here, she was lesser for not being born a man.
Turning away, Miko drew a deep breath and let it out, the face she turned back as expressionless and mask-like as Sichi’s had been. “The decision has been made,” she said through Nuru’s lips. “There is nothing to be gained from discussing it any further. You may take it up with Whisperer Ezma. If you explain your concerns, she may listen.”
I stared, sure these couldn’t be the words I was hearing.
“If there is nothing else you wish to discuss, I have many other matters requiring my attention. I’m sorry, Rah.”
Her words stole the fire from my fury. I understood the politics of her position as little as she understood the issues between Ezma and me, or the severity of the punishment that had been chosen. Shouting would change nothing. Nor would pleading. Her apology was sincere, as clear in her eyes as her words. She didn’t want to hurt me. She wanted to reach across the distance between us and touch me as I wanted to touch her, to be with her, but our moment had been lost, leaving us alone in our different worlds—worlds that had brushed against one another for a time but could never truly be one.
It was pointless to stay. Painful. So, I bowed. Saluted. And spoke the only words left for me to say. “There is nothing else, Your Majesty. Goodbye.”
That word she knew, and her hand twitched as though to reach for me, and I had to look away. “Thank you for your help, Nuru. We can go now.”
Together we walked toward the door. Miko did not call us back.
I strode back toward Gideon’s room, seeing and hearing nothing but the raging of my thoughts. Some terrible part of me wondered if Ezma was right, if he deserved Voiding for what he had done and I was just too close to him to see it. Or too angry with Ezma to accept it. I asked myself if I would have abided by the decision had someone else made it, but the answer was no. I would not let anyone do it.
I found Amun once again waiting for me outside Gideon’s room. I grabbed his arm. “I can’t stay here. No, let me finish. I don’t expect you or anyone to come with me, but Ezma has condemned Gideon to Voiding, and I can’t let her do it. I won’t.” Amun gasped and I hurried on. “I know you don’t like him, but I’m begging you to help me. Me, not him. He would probably be happy to die right now, but this isn’t his fault and I won’t let Ezma kill him just to hurt me. We have to get him out of here.”
“And then what?”
“I’ll meet you somewhere as soon as I can. I’m taking him home.”
“Home?”
“Home,” I said. “You’re welcome to come, or you can finally be free of me.”
“No.” Amun shook his head, his arms folded over his chest. “That’s not how this is meant to go. You’re meant to stand up to her. Protect your people from her. You’re meant to help us, not run.”
“What can I do? I can’t stay here and fight her if it puts Gideon in danger. I can’t. I just… I can’t do it, Amun. I can’t lose him again.”
“Then don’t stay. But take us with you.” He gripped my shoulders. “You know about the Entrancers now. About the shit that Leo has been doing. We could find out more. Could go home and fight them. Fix this before the city states destroy us. But first you have to stand up and tell them.” He flung an arm in the direction of the gathered Levanti. “Remind them we have our own home to fight for. You won’t convince them all to walk away from a whisperer, but you can try!”
I met his furious stare, and it could have been any one of my lost Swords glaring at me through time. Instead it was all my guilt over their deaths concentrated into one remaining pair of eyes. Perhaps I could do it. Perhaps I could do both. Not all of them would come, would even listen, but enough might. Enough to undermine her plans. I thought of Empress Miko. I would be stealing away Swords that might have fought for her if this had played out differently, but it hadn’t, and there was no way to change that now.
“All right,” I said. “As many as I can. But you have to get Gideon out of here well before the ceremony tonight. Take him somewhere safe and wait for me. If I don’t come…”
I couldn’t finish that sentence, wasn’t ready to consider what might happen if Ezma turned against me. “It’s a deal,” Amun said. “I’m going to need help, but I’ve got something of a plan.”
While my plan, I thought as he saluted, could well be called more of a death wish.
30. MIKO
I paced the length of the room. Up and back. Up and back. A dozen times I had been on the verge of sending for Rah, and a dozen times I had stopped myself. Twice I had even considered pardoning Gideon e’Torin, but if I did it would be the last thing I did as empress. The only reason I still held any power was because the Levanti whisperer was my ally, not Manshin’s.
I went on pacing, wearing myself out. Could I talk to Ezma myself? Was there another way to give her what she wanted? And if not, would Rah ever forgive me?
“I just… please help me understand.”
Tor leaned an elbow on the table. I’d asked him to drink tea with me, to talk, but I hadn’t been able to sit down. Every time I tried, anxiety set me pacing.
“They don’t like each other
,” he said, shifting his tea bowl rather than look at me.
“But why? It does not seem to be this one incident.”
He sighed and, in a bored voice, said, “She is worried he commands enough respect with the Levanti to threaten her position. He is angry because she shouldn’t have a position. Horse whisperers aren’t leaders, and she was exiled. And she left him to die.”
My steps stuttered to a halt. “Left him to die?”
“He was injured. It’s… a thing we sometimes have to do on the plains, but she didn’t have to, she just—look, it’s hard to explain.”
“But they still follow her? I mean, you still follow her?”
His look was sardonic. “If your emperors are bad at their job do people still do what they say?”
“Sadly, yes. An emperor is a god.”
“It’s about the same. It’s hard to convince people who have had respect for a position drummed into them that now that position means nothing.” He shrugged. “She shows them all a respectable face. What reason have they to doubt her?”
I groaned, causing Shishi to look up from where she lay stretched upon the floor. “What can I do?” I said. “I need her support, but Rah is upset about Gideon’s fate.”
“A Voiding is… more extreme than I expected. I have more reason to be angry at Gideon than most, but I would not have chosen that fate. Even though he is the reason I don’t feel—”
He shut his mouth upon the words, teeth snapping. Never had he come so close to admitting how much it hurt him not to be a member of his herd the way he ought to have been, but rather than finish the thought or meet my gaze, he sipped his tea. Well did I know that method of avoidance.
“Is there anything else you require?” Tor said, finally pushing the tea away. “I have things to do.”
“Things other than educate me about your people?”
“Things other than talk about Rah.”
I reddened, hating what he must think of me. Did he look at me like my generals and see only a foolish girl torn by love? I fell back on stiff pride. “If you wish to leave, do. But tell Rah—”