Red Tigress

by Amélie Wen Zhao

  And finally, the Admiral, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, delight dancing in his eyes.

  Fury rose in her, white-hot, threatening to spill over. He’d done it on purpose, to test her. There was nothing more she wanted to do than to shake some sense into this man, who’d drawn his own daughter’s blood for naught but a game. A negotiation.

  Ana straightened. This was a show, she was beginning to realize, a demonstration of power. And she would give them one.

  With a sweep of her hands, she gathered the blood spilled on the polished searock floor, the droplets that had splattered on her boots. She spread her hands and the blood snaked over her palms, twirling into ribbons that glittered like rubies in the light. She was aware of the entire hall’s eyes on her, watching in fascination.

  Ana smoothed her voice, sharpened her words. “King Darias, Three Courts of Bregon, I thank you for your attention. We face a common enemy, one that grows in power day by day. One that sits on the throne of Cyrilia, murdering my people. And now, she has turned her attention to the Kingdom of Bregon—to an artifact that would make her powerful beyond our imagination. One that would destroy both your world and mine.”

  Her words reverberated across the hall, echoing in the utter silence of Godhallem. The officials of the Three Courts held their breaths.

  Ana brought her hands closer together, the twisting strands of blood arching to close the gap between them. She drove her point home. “I stand before you, as the rightful Empress of Cyrilia, to negotiate an alliance with the Kingdom of Bregon.”

  The Three Courts burst into an uproar as courtiers began to talk over each other, their voices rising into a crescendo. Amid it all, movement at the side of the hall caught Ana’s eye. A young, dark-haired man in white robes and a set of spectacles had risen from his seat at the end of the hall, parchment in hand, taking notes. His outfit was collared with teal edges that rippled with each step he took. He paused at the back of Godhallem and, as though sensing Ana’s eyes on him, looked up.

  For a moment, their gazes met. Then, he blinked and disappeared through a set of doors leading out through the back.

  Admiral Roran Farrald held up a single hand. Almost immediately, silence fell across the Courts. Finally, Ana felt their eyes on her, their gazes alert not in skepticism or mockery but in interest, and in fear.

  Yes, she thought, lifting her chin a notch so that the sunlight caught the fading crimson of her eyes. Power was, indeed, a double-edged sword.

  Roran Farrald tilted his head, his eyes narrowed. “I think, Blood Empress,” he said slowly, “that we have something to negotiate after all.”

  Ramson stood at the open-air doorway to his chambers. It was almost evening, and even in the southern kingdom of Bregon, the sun hung over the unsteady sea, twilight unfurling overhead.

  He had been placed in a guest suite in the Ambassador’s wing of the Blue Fort several courtyards away from Godhallem, with Ana and Linn being shown to their respective chambers. Ramson’s was a large room with pillars of searock and a balcony that overlooked the Whitewaves to the east, finer than any of the dormitories he’d known at the Naval Academy.

  A set of steps led down from his balcony to a veranda below. This was the courtyard that stretched between the various towers in the fort. Winding streams of water flowed where crevasses had been carved into the ground, like veins that held the lifeblood of the structure. And interspersing the winding streams were the alder trees of his childhood.

  The sound of wind and water and trees filled the air with a susurrus that washed over him like an old lullaby, dragging him back to a place of memories.

  Bregon. Home. Seven years he’d been away from this place, yet it felt like a lifetime ago that he’d hidden on the back of a supply wagon, heartbroken and drowning in his grief.

  He shut his eyes and shook his head to clear the memories. He was no longer the boy of seven years past.

  He’d washed and dressed in the crisp white shirt and pants that had been laid out for him on his bed. As he fastened brass buttons and straightened his ironed cuffs, Ramson felt more like his old self than he had in a while.

  Yes, he thought as he caught his reflection in the window glass, sharp-cut and sleek-haired, this was the man he’d been made to be. The type of person he’d been trying to become: smooth and polished with a heart carved of stone and secrets.

  When the door to his room slid soundlessly open, he turned and realized that a lifetime of preparation could not have readied him for this moment.

  His father had aged in the years Ramson had been gone. Yet time wore well on Roran Farrald in the way it did with leather or fine wine. His jawline had broadened, his entire frame thickened so that he looked even larger and more powerful than he had when Ramson had been a boy. He was still clean-shaven, his hair short and now threaded with silver that gleamed in the torchlight.

  They stood, staring at each other for several moments, and Ramson realized that he’d grown to be the same height as his father.

  The Admiral’s face broke into a smile. That unsettled Ramson more than any dagger or poison. “Well,” Roran Farrald said, spreading his arms and swaggering in. “I have been waiting for this moment for seven years.”

  “You’ve a funny way of showing it,” Ramson replied drily. He felt shaken in a way he’d never felt when he’d made Trades for the Order of the Lily. Dealing with his father felt akin to trying to understand the motives of a wild animal. “Were you truly going to arrest me?”

  “Oh, that was merely a test.” The Admiral’s teeth shone bone white. “I wanted to see what I could push that girl of yours to do.”

  Something hot and loose uncoiled in Ramson. He held very still, reminding himself that he had been through this many times before; that his father possessed the unique ability to hide threats in the most innocuous words to undo his enemies.

  “I always knew you’d be back,” Admiral Farrald continued, moving to the cherrywood cabinet by the wall. “You’ve always loved yourself too much and been too cowardly to die, I reasoned, and whatever you’ve been through in the past seven years can’t be worse than the scars from here—that boy Jonah, your mother, what-have-you.” His father flashed him a smile from across the room and held up a bottle of Bregonian liquor, the large gold ring on his finger scraping against the glass. “Brandy?”

  To hear his father talk of his past so casually—each word felt like a cold knife against his skin. Ramson’s voice sounded distant to his own ears when he said, “No, thanks.”

  “Shame. It’s very good brandy.”

  The smell of liquor wafted across the room, and memories came flooding back: the slip of an arrow, the sigh of a lost life, the explosion of crimson against a wall. It had been hot chocolate mixed with brandy, Ramson suddenly remembered, in the cup the Admiral had handed him after Jonah had been murdered. His father had attempted to buy him off with a cup of hot chocolate and brandy.

  He would not fall into the same trap again.

  Ramson narrowed his eyes. The hot, molten anger flowing inside him just moments ago cooled. “I imagine you’ve had your fill of it since I’ve been gone,” he said. “The Kingdom of Bregon is quite different from the version I left seven years back.”

  There was the clink of glass, the sound of liquid pouring, and then the thud of a bottle. Slowly, deliberately, the Admiral turned. “I couldn’t have Bregon sit still and watch as Cyrilia grew powerful beyond our control.”

  Ramson thought of the new searock walls, the ironore doors, the trained magen in the Royal Guard. So his father had been behind it all.

  What else had he done?

  “You judge me,” the Admiral said softly. “But someday, when I am gone, look from the sky to the shining sea, across the magnificence of this kingdom our ancestors have built from the ground. And perhaps, then, you will know a little of how it feels.”<
br />
  Ramson looked at the man who was his father, twilight shadows cutting his face into sharp edges. For a moment, he tried to imagine Roran Farrald as not the cruel father he had known but a man who helmed a great kingdom and had to make difficult decisions.

  But the raven-black eyes of Jonah Fisher came back to him. The soft hazel ones of his mother. All gone now, not out of necessity but out of greed. Out of a lust for power.

  Ramson swore to himself to never become like him. “Why are you here?” he replied tonelessly.

  The Admiral raised his tumbler to Ramson. “I have a proposal for you. It’s about that girl of yours.”

  Cold spread through his veins. “She’s not my girl,” Ramson said quietly.

  “I see the way you look at her. The way you communicate with just a touch, or a glance. I have, after all, experienced it myself.”

  Something drew taut in Ramson. “Don’t speak as if you’ve ever loved anybody in your life.”

  The Admiral’s smile was indecipherable. “You can hide nothing from me. As much as I despise it, you are, after all, my son. My creation. And you seem to have forgotten the most important lesson I’ve taught you.” He swirled the brandy in his glass. “Love makes us weak, boy.”

  Ramson forced his face into the cold, cruel mask he’d worn so often that he wondered whether it had become a part of him. “Fitting, then, that I’ve never loved anyone but myself,” he said. “It seems I am your son, after all.”

  “Oh, good. Then perhaps you’ll do what’s logical for our kingdom.” The Admiral’s gaze sharpened. “It seems this Blood Empress has quite a talent. A rare magek.”

  Ramson kept silent.

  The Admiral set down his glass. His next words surprised Ramson. “I am prepared to accept her offer of alliance. Undoubtedly, she will make a bid for Cyrilia’s throne, and I am prepared to negotiate. The Cyrilian Empire has shown itself to be a threat of increasing magnitude. Even more so, with the latest events and the current Empress, I want to hedge against that threat. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the trite saying goes.”

  Ramson’s mind spun. His father was not one to give without taking, and most often, his offers came with a steep price. “And what do you get from this alliance?”

  The Admiral paced to the open-air doorway. The evening light struck his lined face, his eyes distant like cold black waters. “The magen, Ramson, are the true lodestar to our developments and defenses. You’ll have noticed their addition to the Navy, to the Royal Guard. I aim to create a generation of magen more powerful than any. I aim to harness their power as the world has never before seen.

  “In return for our alliance, I will ask the Blood Empress to let us study her magek.” He turned to Ramson, and at last, the full meaning of it all blossomed on his face in a smile. “I want you to speak to her about it, before the official negotiation. Persuade her, if you will. My alliance—for her power.”

  Ramson studied his father, considering. Roran Farrald wanted something from him—and Ramson had learned to never give without taking. Perhaps there was a way for him to get information for both his and Ana’s missions. Two fish with one hook.

  “So you’ll work with her to protect the artifact she spoke of today?” he asked. “She won’t agree to any deal without that. And don’t even try denying it,” he added as his father opened his mouth to respond. “We have good information on its existence. I’ve heard of the magen with multiple powers.”

  It had been a gamble—they didn’t even know whether the artifact Tetsyev had spoken of was in the Blue Fort, or whether the Bregonian government was aware of it. Yet as the Admiral’s eyes narrowed, Ramson felt a spark of delight deep inside. He’d hit gold.

  “You, of all people, should know that we guard our secrets closely,” his father said coldly. “It is why Bregon has remained one of the strongest military powers in the world. If we gave our weapons away to everyone—”

  “And she has no interest in taking it,” Ramson interjected. His mind was already spinning a narrative, layering it within the murky web of motivation he’d glimpsed from his father. “Think about it—her people are dying, her empire is burning. She came all this way to ask for an alliance. The last thing she wants is to turn Bregon against her, too.”

  His father watched him, clutching his glass of brandy. “You mean to say that she will not cede without information on the artifact?”

  Ramson shrugged. “I’m just laying the groundwork for the deal. I’m not interested in your politics, but if you want me to persuade her, this is the only way. To me, it sounds like two fish with one hook for you. She lets you study her blot magek, you work with her to protect your artifact from the Cyrilian Empress. She has good information on the Kolst Imperatorya Morganya’s plans to seize it.”

  It sounded as though he were backing down, but really, Ramson had gotten precisely what he wanted. Roran Farrald had all but directly confirmed that the artifact with the ability to bestow multiple Affinities to its bearer lay right here, within the walls of the Blue Fort…in possession of the Bregonian government.

  Admiral Farrald took a sip of his drink. “Very well,” he purred. “You can advise her that, on behalf of the King and the Three Courts of Bregon, I am prepared to make such a deal with her.”

  Any ordinary person might have stepped away from this conversation with their gains, but Ramson Quicktongue had been Deputy of the most notorious Cyrilian criminal network for a reason. “My…loyalty doesn’t come without cost,” he said. “If you want me to whisper in the Blood Empress’s ear, then I want something in return.”

  A glint of caution mixed with amusement in his father’s eyes. “You’ve learned well,” he said. “What is it that you want in return?”

  “Information.”

  Admiral Farrald waved his tumbler at Ramson. “Go on.”

  Ramson parsed the facts that he had, which bits to reveal to his father and which to keep to himself. “As I said, I didn’t return to Bregon to play politics. I came back to kill Alaric Kerlan.”

  It was satisfying to see his father’s face tighten. Roran Farrald had exiled Alaric Kerlan from Bregon many years ago; it seemed that Kerlan had built his criminal empire in Cyrilia, biding his time, waiting for the day he could take down Roran Farrald.

  Ramson pushed forward. “I have it on multiple sources that Kerlan is back, and that he is running a magen trafficking scheme, kidnapping them from Cyrilia and bringing them here.”

  “Impossible.” Roran Farrald’s voice had grown cold. “The trading ports are tightly guarded. Sorsha is in charge of them, as Lieutenant of the Royal Guard. We would never have accepted any trade agreement with him.”

  With him. Ramson watched his father carefully. “Are you denying that Kerlan could be back, or that Bregon could have trafficking activity?”

  A pause, and then there was the thud-thud-thud of boots against searock as his father crossed the room to him. Ramson knew he had pushed too hard, too far, but he stood his ground as Roran Farrald drew within a hand’s reach of him. He could hear the rumble of his father’s breathing, the smell of brandy bringing him back into memories that strung him taut with terror.

  The Admiral clasped a hand over Ramson’s shoulder and squeezed, digging his fingers into Ramson’s collarbone. Pain bloomed. “Don’t mistake my hospitability for generosity, boy,” his father gritted, and Ramson finally saw a flash of the man who had killed a child in cold blood, who had let his lover die out of convenience. “Who do you think you are, wandering back here after seven years living as a lowlife, demanding answers to topics you can’t even begin to fathom?”

  Ramson couldn’t breathe; he clenched his teeth to stop himself from making noise. It was all that he could do to keep upright when his father let him go. Ramson massaged his throat, aware that the Admiral had moved away. There was the sound of another drink being poured; heavy footste
ps, the clink of two glasses against the coffee table. Admiral Farrald stood before him and bent close. The pungent scent of liquor hit Ramson. “I should remind you that your beggar of an empress doesn’t seem to have many choices,” he said, his voice growing dangerously soft. “If I refuse this alliance, then where will she go?”

  Ramson kept silent. This was the danger of playing both sides: your opponent could use the information you’d given them against you.

  “Counsel your Blood Empress to accept my conditions, and I’ll continue our negotiation with whatever else you wish to have,” the Admiral said as he handed the other glass of brandy to Ramson. His gaze was gripping, and Ramson remembered the sensation of plunging into an abyss whenever his father looked at him like that. “What is it that you want? Gold? Power? An army, to help you on your quest for vengeance?”

  After all these years, his father still thought him unchanged from the desperate, lost boy who had run from this place. Thought that, with a simple offer and a cup of brandy, he could buy Ramson once again.

  Ramson leveled his gaze to the Admiral’s. He had absolutely no desire to have anything to do with the Bregonian government.

  But for now, he had to let Roran Farrald believe that he’d won. That Ramson had been bought. “Actually, that doesn’t sound half-bad,” he said, swirling the liquor in his tumbler. “But if I convince the Blood Empress to agree to your conditions, then I don’t want just an army. I want to be captain.”

  Slowly, the Admiral smiled. “Now, there’s the son I know,” he murmured. “If the deal goes through, Ramson, I’ll have you reinstated in the Royal Navy as a captain.” He raised his glass. “Drink…my son.”

  Ramson looked at the man before him, tan-skinned and brown-haired and cold-eyed, and saw traces of himself, of what he might have become, in that face. But he said nothing, only curled his lips in a semblance of a smile, as he raised his glass and pressed it to his lips.