Heretic Spellblade 3

by Robertson, K. D.

  “His Majesty wishes to have morning tea with you, Lord Nathan,” the Champion told him.

  “Even the Champions call you Lord,” Alice teased.

  He left and followed his escort to the Emperor’s bedroom. The crowd from the other day was missing. Instead, the Emperor sat outside in a large courtyard. Heaters glowed around him, ensuring that he didn’t feel the chill, and Nathan felt the power of countless wards and barriers in the air.

  “Ah, Nathan, join me,” the Emperor said, waving the Champion away. “I figured we could chat over some coffee. Help yourself to the food.”

  The Emperor sat beside a large table which contained a steaming pot of coffee and a serving tray loaded with food. Various breads, pastries, sausages, and extravagant desserts met Nathan’s eyes. Despite being winter, the Emperor wanted for nothing.

  Nathan doubted this was normal. He ate with Alice every morning, and her meals had as much preserved food as what he served at Gharrick Pass. While much of this food was also preserved, it was also a show of respect for the Emperor by his staff. They had likely raided their food stocks for him.

  Unlike last time, the old man was properly dressed. He didn’t bother with the cloak, however.

  “No beastkin?” Nathan asked, looking around for the women he knew attended to the Emperor.

  Chuckling, the Emperor said, “I’m spending time with them elsewhere in the palace. Things have been difficult lately. I don’t want their last memories of me to be of a gaggle of mages waving their hands in the air and shouting strange words. A man can have his pride, can’t he?”

  When the Emperor raised his mug of coffee, Nathan clinked his against it in return. They drank in silence for a short while.

  “I’m sorry that we never had the chance to have that chat I wanted,” the old man said.

  “Isn’t that what this is?”

  “Hah. True.” A sigh. “I can trust you with Alice. You’ve proven that. Everything you’ve done so far speaks greatly of you as a man and a Bastion of Omria. I wanted the goddess to provide me with a path, when everything seemed shrouded in darkness. While my path may remain dark, yours and Alice’s is brighter than I ever imagined.”

  Once again, Nathan felt at a loss for words.

  What do you say to a man who is facing death? Especially when he is passing his legacy on to you?

  “I doubt I need to tell you what to do, or give you objectives, or any such nonsense,” the Emperor said. “Truthfully, you’re moving with an alacrity that suggests you know more than I do. Today is simply a way to talk with the man that my beloved granddaughter fell in love with.”

  Nathan nearly choked on the slice of apple turnover he was chewing. The Emperor chuckled in response.

  “It is fairly obvious,” the old man said. “I’ve always been worried about her. Such a tomboy. Refusing to wear dresses. Sticking to her grandfather despite all the political problems it causes. Hans and I tried to find a suitor for her, but she chased them all away. Then she bumped into you while rampaging around like usual, and transformed into a princess overnight.”

  “Maybe,” Nathan said.

  “There’s no maybe about it. It’s a good thing. I had Leo for my reign. But while we were friends, I feel that I burdened him with too much and gave him too little. You can be Alice’s equal, in a way that Leo never felt he was.”

  “And? What of the constitution?”

  “Burn it,” the Emperor said simply. Then chuckled. “Well, maybe don’t go that far. But the Empire has changed over millennia. It can survive the granddaughter of an archduke becoming empress. Sometimes, the rules get in the way of the best solution. And nobody wants Tharban on the throne, or one of his patsies. No offense.”

  “None taken. He might be my father, but it doesn’t mean much,” Nathan said.

  “I’d say you take after your mother more. An excellent countess, who made a single foolish mistake,” the Emperor said suddenly. “Do you still have her mirror?”

  “Mirror?” Nathan froze.

  It came back to him. When he first arrived in this world, he had found a small hand mirror in his belongings. That same mirror still sat in the bottom of a drawer in his bedroom back in Gharrick Pass.

  He had always felt that Alice’s mirror felt familiar. No wonder. He had seen the exact same mirror almost a full year earlier.

  “I do.” Nathan frowned. “Do you know who has the other one?”

  “Ah, you only have one of the pair? Unfortunate. Those mirrors are rare. If they’re not responding to it, I imagine the other half is in Tharban’s possession. Or perhaps somewhere else entirely. When your mother passed, he sold most of her estate in a rage. Such a petty man.”

  A memory came to Nathan’s mind. Tharban had been forced into the marriage with Nathan’s mother, and her death had enraged the man. His response had been to destroy and sell off as much of her legacy as possible, despite the attempts of her family to intervene.

  “I’ll need to look into the sale records,” Nathan said.

  “Good. You should focus on your mother’s legacy, not Tharban’s,” the Emperor said.

  They chatted about this and that. At some point, Alice’s childhood came up, and the Emperor did what doting grandparents usually did by bringing up embarrassing stories. Nathan stored these away in his mind, aware that Alice must never know that he knew about them.

  The coffee pot ran empty, and Nathan realized he had whiled away over an hour here. A comfortable silence settled over them.

  Questions ate at Nathan, some of them deeply discomforting.

  Why had he never experienced anything like this in Falmir? Had everything he thought he had with Charlotte been insincere?

  More pertinently, he needed to ask one thing of the aging ruler in front of him.

  “Your Majesty, I have a rather serious topic to raise,” Nathan said.

  “Hmm. I can imagine a few. Go ahead. I doubt there is much meaning to remaining silent, even if Leo might believe otherwise.”

  “Did you have any connection to the cascade in the Spires?” Nathan asked.

  The Emperor chuckled, deep and hearty. Too deeply, even. He coughed, and slapped himself on the chest. No guards stood nearby, so Nathan rose to help him, but was waved off.

  “I’m fine. Goddess, you surprised me. So blunt. Ambassador Sureev made an interesting comment that you were fearless. Did you ask the Council something similar?” The Emperor’s eyes twinkled.

  “I didn’t waste my time.”

  “So you would have, if you felt they’d answer truthfully. Impressive.” After finishing a slice of pumpkin pie, the Emperor gave an answer, “Yes and no. I am connected to the web through the Council. Councillor Veleria is an old friend of mine. Like you and Alice, we have our own pair of mirrors. I was leaning on her for support against the Federation.”

  “And the cascade?” Nathan pressed.

  “While the goddess may have provided it to us, I had no direct role. My suspicion is that my intervention triggered opposition in the Spires. The Empire is an age old foe of the Spires, after all. Although we are all believers, we once aspired to control all of Doumahr.” The old man grimaced. “I doubt it was divine intervention, however. An intentional cascade is true heresy, beyond what you accused Torneus of. Divine providence protected us from evil, and Leo nearly died for it.”

  Divine providence, huh. Nathan didn’t correct the Emperor.

  After all, the true reason the Empire and Federation had been able to resist the cascade was the opposite of divine. If even someone as devout as the Emperor couldn’t tell the difference, did Omria even matter?

  To Nathan, the only thing that made a difference were his actions. Right now, those were to protect the Empire and all of Doumahr. His enemies would strike soon and he planned to be ready.

  Chapter 29

  Leopold arrived at the palace several days later, along with his closest Champion, Mae.

  “Has word leaked?” Nathan asked him, surprised to see the
old Bastion.

  They strode through the empty grand hall. Water ran down the outside of the ceiling and windows, as the wards of the palace melted the falling snow upon impact with the palace.

  “Unfortunately. I had hoped to buy more time by staying away. The Princes College has arranged to speak over the wireless,” Leopold answered.

  “Alice mentioned that something had been arranged. She planned to have the Emperor step in, but if they already know then I’ll tell her not to bother,” Nathan said, gesturing a royal knight over.

  After he relayed the message for Alice, he and Leopold headed for the inner throne room. It was empty now. Maylis spent most of her time in the castle overlooking the city, leaving the defense of the Emperor to hers and the Spymasters’ Champions.

  “How did they find out? The mages?” Nathan asked.

  “Your absence was noted.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a very popular man. When you up and vanish, many people take note. Some of us already suspected that anything involving you might create waves, given the movement the beastkin are creating across the Empire.” Leopold chuckled and slapped his arm, where a beastkin might wear Nathan’s crest. “After the Spires incident, that theory was confirmed.”

  Damn. Nathan knew that would come back to bite him.

  “In other words, my army mobilized and people noticed,” he said drily.

  “Not this time. Your knights are already very active, given the weather. Instead, it was your little movement of beastkin.” Leopold gestured to his arm, where someone might display a crest. “Which has made things both better and worse. Better, because nobody can accuse you of preparing for civil war, as you didn’t take action yourself. Worse, because everyone noticed.”

  “Is that what they’re discussing over the wireless?” Nathan asked.

  Leopold shrugged. “I doubt it. They need to consider whether to recall the Princes College. Tharban is already returning.”

  “What happened to defending the Houkeem Desert?”

  “Like he cares,” the old Bastion growled. “Plus, you convinced Terrius and Ilmarn to send additional Champions there.”

  “Then all we can do is wait.”

  And wait they did.

  Narime brought Fei and Sen to the palace in the time they had, in anticipation of something going horribly wrong. If the Nationalists tried something, it would be here.

  While Maylis defended the palace, Nathan didn’t trust her to stop a coup attempt if the Emperor wasn’t directly threatened.

  Things finally came to a head nearly two weeks later. Winter held strong, but it was now well into January. Nathan had returned to Gharrick Pass for days at a time. Creating a gateway to Aleich had been on his mind, but he needed a suitable location for it. Fortifying one hadn’t been possible. Maylis held both suitable locations, and had vetoed his request.

  So he relied on Narime, and kept his movements limited.

  But Tharban eventually arrived in Aleich, which meant confrontation approached. Nathan shifted to the palace again.

  He passed the time by training Sen, and continuing to do his paperwork. Alice had given him room in her obscenely huge office. The only condition was that he wasn’t allowed to have sex in it.

  Later, she added the condition that he wasn’t allowed to play with the tails of his Champions, after she spent an hour listening to Narime’s moaning.

  “Do you think Tharban will try to remove Grandpa?” Alice asked one day.

  “Didn’t you already head that off?” he replied, busy reading through a proposal to add a massive hot spring below Gharrick Pass. Apparently Narime wrote it.

  “It wasn’t unanimous. The Amica dukes don’t see the point in starting the election process in winter, when the spring session is so soon,” Alice said. “But Tharban might want a declaration from Grandpa.”

  “And? Let him try. The Emperor’s hatred for Tharban is public knowledge.”

  “But if they meet—”

  “They won’t. Maylis will turn Tharban into a pancake before that happens. While she’ll stand by and let everyone squabble over the throne, she won’t let Tharban touch the Emperor,” Nathan said.

  Footsteps thundered down the hall outside the office. Both of them paused. Fei looked up from where she lounged on the sofa, before rising and walking to the door.

  Someone knocked, then entered. A royal knight poked his head in, and two more stood behind him.

  “Your Imperial Highness, Count von Straub is approaching the palace with an armed retinue,” the knight said. “We are here to—”

  “Thank you. Nathan, let’s go,” Alice said, rising from her seat.

  Nathan joined her after a moment. His mind didn’t instantly recognize the name, as very few people called Tharban by his surname or title.

  The knight turned and stared at Nathan. He felt the pressure from that stare, but shook his head at the knight.

  “Where’s Bastion Leopold?” Nathan asked the knight.

  “He’s already in the grand hall.”

  “He knows?”

  “Yes. He informed us after the Spymaster’s agents spotted the count,” the knight said. Then he paused, and glanced at Alice surreptitiously.

  Nathan got the point. “Fei, give Alice a hand. You’ll stick to her like glue.”

  The look he received from Alice was murderous, but she allowed Fei to chase her to one side of the office. Fei would keep her safe.

  The knight leaned in and said, “Bastion Maylis’s orders are to avoid confrontation. But I can gather those knights loyal to you, my lord.”

  Something about the intonation of “my lord” threw Nathan off. Very few people called him that. Everyone called him Nathan, sir, Bastion, or Lord Nathan.

  But there was one horse beastkin who insisted on calling him “my lord.” Nathan glanced past the royal knight, and spotted the telltale signs of a tail swishing under a tabard.

  “His Majesty’s safety is paramount,” Nathan insisted. The knight stiffened. “But I’ll take everyone you can spare so long as you can remember that.”

  “Yes, my lord!” the knight shouted, straightening and snapping off a noisy salute. He turned to the other knights. “Escort Her Imperial Highness to the grand hall. I will see you there shortly.”

  He rushed off.

  Nathan and the others began their walk to the grand hall. Word spread quickly despite the size of the palace. The clerks and servants kept to their stations, giving the building an eerie feel. Each footstep they took echoed down the palatial stone and steel halls.

  “What was that about?” Alice asked.

  “Tharban’s potentially going to pull a coup. We need to be ready,” Nathan replied.

  “I see.”

  By the time they arrived in the grand hall, their guests had already arrived.

  A dozen finely dressed men stood at the far end of the hall, accompanied by a handful of female Champions and a single noblewoman. Nathan guessed her to be one of their wives, although he didn’t know if she had dragged her husband here or if it was the other way around.

  Nurevia stood next to Tharban. She grimaced when she spotted Nathan enter the hall, and looked away. Tharban had one other Champion with him—a blonde sorceress in an elegant white robe with two sapphires.

  Leopold and his Champion stood in front of the throne. The duogem catgirls from the Spymaster accompanied him, their short swords bared. Royal knights and guards formed a rough circle in the hall, roughly centered on Tharban’s group.

  “Bring him out!” Tharban shouted.

  The crowd nodded along with him. Nathan recognized most of them from the Diet he had attended earlier in the year. Two of the others wore Bastion uniforms, and presumably controlled the other Champions. Nathan recognized one from his world, although only vaguely. None of the Champions jogged his memory.

  “His Majesty is recuperating,” Alice declared as she stepped forward. “You will be able to speak with him once he has recovered.”<
br />
  “So you admit that he’s unwell? Then he’s unfit to remain Emperor,” Tharban shouted.

  Jeers rose up from the Nationalists. They pointed and shouted. Nathan imagined they had practiced this, but they didn’t have the mass of angry followers they likely expected to have with them.

  For once, Nathan felt thankful for this bitter winter.

  “Stop wasting everyone’s time, Tharban,” Nathan said aloud. “You don’t lose your county every time you hit yourself in the face with your own sword and need a week off to recover. His Majesty will be fine.”

  “The fuck was that, you little shit?” Tharban growled, stomping forward.

  Nurevia and the blonde sorceress physically stopped him. The blonde shot Nathan a dirty look, and he simply returned it with a raised eyebrow.

  “Was I wrong?” Nathan asked.

  “The Empire needs strength right now. Not a shriveled prune who can barely walk and lets this pathetic slut run things for him,” Tharban said after he straightened up. “Gorthal needs to admit he’s done. For once in his life, he should use his spine and step down.”

  This time, the Nationalists didn’t jeer. They watched the knights and Champions warily.

  In turn, they were glared down. The knights clenched their weapons tighter and the Champions in the room bared their teeth.

  “Calm down,” Nathan said to the beastkin Champions. Only Leopold’s Champion, Mae, had kept her cool.

  “But—” Fei mumbled.

  “The words of a dumb asshole don’t hurt anyone. Let him say stupid shit all he likes,” Nathan said. “What will hurt is reacting to them as if he does matter.”

  “I can hear you,” Tharban shouted.

  Nathan rolled his eyes. This was becoming genuinely juvenile.

  Unfortunately, that was exactly Tharban’s intention. By forcing a confrontation like this, Tharban dragged everyone down to his level. They all became covered in mud. Tharban reveled in it, because he spent every day mired in muck, but it would cling to Alice and Nathan.

  Before Nathan could deescalate, footsteps thundered behind them. Too late, he realized his mistake.