The Will of the Empress

by Tamora Pierce

  Briar filled the seeds in the ball with green magic and called them to wakefulness. Weaving the shoots as they thrust up, he gripped them in an iron hold and kept them from sinking roots. All of their strength had to go into growing up, not down. He needed this cage to move.

  The plants shot through the cloth of the ball that held them, weaving. They were as high as Quen’s knees before he saw the danger. He turned his shield on them, but Briar was ready. The vines, thick with thorns, spread out and over the shield, still growing.

  Watching Quen’s sweaty face, Daja pulled a spool of fine wire out of her sack. She sent the wire’s end snaking toward the base of the vine cage, where it began to weave itself in among the vines. As it climbed she called light to it, making Quen blink and shield his eyes. It was a distraction, something he could not afford. While he tried to shield his vision, vines and wire finished a globe of a cage.

  Briar had prepared the seed ball to withstand the magic of mages and hill shamans alike, both hazards of the road to Gyongxe. It was why he had brought it downstairs. Daja had made this spool of wire to handle and contain power, her own or that of others. Bearing down with their wills—Briar’s forged in the streets, in epidemics, and in war; Daja’s, in forges and mammoth blazes—they tightened their cage on Quenaill, crushing his last shield.

  Briar and Daja joined hands and fed their cage a last surge of power. The gaps between wire and vines blazed, sealed against magic from within. The pair let go.

  For a moment they could hardly see Quen inside the cage. Magical workings rayed out from the man like sunlight, connecting him to every spell he still had in place—those on the inn, and those that served Sandry’s kidnappers. They blazed with silver fire in Briar’s and Daja’s vision.

  “Once more,” Daja said, panting. “Drain him, so his other spells break.” Her knees wobbled; her thighs felt loose. They touched fingers this time and hammered the cage with the last of their strength. At first they saw no difference. Then the first fiery strand vanished. Another followed, then three, then more. All winked out inside the cage. At last Quen stood inside, naked of power.

  All around them, the inn stirred. Briar could hear the inn’s staff moving in the private room. He sat down on the kitchen table and began to eat chunks of carrot. Daja took a seat on a stool and leaned against the wall.

  Will it be enough? she asked him wearily. Their bond to one another remained even when their power was as weak and floppy as a dead fish.

  We cut off all he had. Sandry was at the end of some of it. We’ll hear her soon enough. “Can we get some food in here?” Briar yelled. “I’m starving!”

  Sandry was moving. That was the first thing she noticed. The second was that a man sat with her in his arms, one easy tan hand holding a horse’s reins. She saw the reins, and the hand, when she opened her eyes just a crack. Little weights struck her lightly all over her body, clinking when they hit one another. All around her she heard men talking and joking. Someone asked if he could actually bring himself to wait three days, and the man who held her laughed.

  “I want her in my little love nest, all nice and cozy, where I won’t need all these charms Quen put on her to keep her tame,” a too-familiar voice said.

  Charms, Sandry thought. That’s what the little weights are, and the clinking noises. Someone has tied a basket full of charms all over me, as if I were some nomad’s bride to be protected from spirits.

  “With the potions I have for her to drink, and the spell patterns he gave me, she won’t be able to lift a finger against me once we’re inside.” Lips kissed the back of her neck, making Sandry’s skin crawl. Shan added, “She’ll get accustomed. She was half in love with me before some idiot gossiped to her. I just have to convince her that Her Imperial Majesty was a relationship of convenience, while she is my own true love. Trust me, you tell a woman things like that, and she’s putty in your hands.”

  “Her Imperial Majesty won’t kill you when she learns?” someone inquired.

  “She needs every copper this lady’s lands provides. All that adventuring along the Yanjing border has stretched the imperial treasury very thin,” Shan explained. “If I make a big enough present to Her Imperial Majesty, she’ll let me be.” The confidence in Shan’s voice made Sandry want to scream. Instead, she continued to flop in front of him, limp and supposedly well asleep.

  It’s morning, if not afternoon, she realized, hearing birdsong and feeling the sun’s heat on them as they rode. There’s a river nearby, and lots of echoes. We’re in the canyon people spoke of, I think.

  They rode on for some time. Shan had just called for a break to rest and water the horses when a thin magical voice filtered through the spell that still lay on Sandry’s skin like a film. Can you hear? Daja asked. It’s taken hours for the workings to wear off enough for me to find you. We’ve been trying since dawn. Why do those charms even have magic still?

  Maybe he bought them from someone else, Briar put in. We undid all his spells to keep us all under wraps, but it didn’t touch the extra charms he used.

  I’m waking up, Sandry replied. Yes, there’s still a bit of power in these charms.

  Shan let Sandry drop into another man’s arms. This captor placed her gently on a patch of grass. Don’t worry about me, she told Daja. The charms are on my outside, but I’ve all my magic still, and the pig-swiving bleat-brain tied the charms to me with ribbons. I suppose it didn’t occur to him ribbons are made of cloth. I’ll come to you when I’m done. Quen did all this magic?

  Our little friend Quenaill, Briar said with contempt. He spelled us asleep. If I hadn’t been wary, thanks to Zhegorz…We owe old Zhegorz a big apology. He tried to warn us, and just because he talked crazy, we didn’t listen. He paused for a moment, then asked gruffly, Do you need our help? We know you like Shan—

  Used to, Sandry interrupted. I used to like him. She sank into her magic, and spoke a word of command. The knots that tied those carved-stone charms to her clothes and body came undone at once. They slid to the ground with a soft series of clinks.

  She waited for a moment until she knew that she had the strength to stand, then did so, lashing out with her power. The six men and one woman lingering on the riverbank dropped whatever they held as their sleeves flew together and fused, binding their arms from wrist to elbows. Before they could do more than blink, their riding breeches did the same thing, the thread of each leg weaving itself with the opposite from knee to lower calf. They fell forward helplessly.

  The woman and one of the men began to mutter. Silvery tendrils rose from their bodies.

  Magic, Sandry thought disdainfully. Try mine.

  Threads shot from the mages’ collars and jackets, darting into their wearers’ open mouths. Their upper garments continued to unravel into their mouths until they couldn’t even close their jaws. Sandry relented at the last minute, making sure that the thread inside their mouths simply wove itself into a tight ball rather than choke them. It then attached itself to a strap wound around the mages’ heads. She didn’t want to kill them. She just wanted them silent and out of her way. A hard gag would do the task.

  Sandry heard a thud. Shan was fighting to get to the knife in his belt. A twist of her will sent his sleeves down over his hands and into the fabric of his breeches, weaving them together.

  Sandry gathered up a blanket of her power and flung it over them all. It separated as it draped over each person, trickling down into that man’s or that woman’s clothes. Threads in their garments broke free and linked themselves together. With her magic to shape them, the fibers sped as garments unraveled and rewove. She was so angry that her will did not falter once, even when the people on the ground began to spin in place. Seeing that her cocoons were coming along nicely, Sandry looked for appropriate places to display them.

  I have to be careful with the trees, she reminded herself. I don’t want a bough to drop someone on the head. And Briar would never forgive me if I hurt a tree. But I do want to make them the laughingstock
of the empire when I’m done.

  She chose her trees, and her display place for Shan, then checked the progress of her spinning. The two mages were done first, their shoulders and heads bare, the rest of them completely embraced in thread. Sandry called the man’s cocoon to her first, holding out her hand for the rope that trailed below his feet. Once she had it in her grip, she threw it at a solid oak’s branch. It whirled up and over the bough, drawing its human burden up until the man dangled several feet above the ground. She directed the rope to wind itself around the branch five times. Then she rewove the loose end into the human cocoon. The weavings and the cocoon itself were more than strong enough to hold the gagged mage until help should come. She appraised her work, hands on hips, testing it to make sure there were no fatal weaknesses in her work. Satisfied, she turned to do the same with Shan’s remaining companions. All along they tried to fight, as Shan did, but their efforts were useless. She had practiced her craft hard and long: They were gagged before they even knew to make a sound, secured before they understood she was awake. By the time Shan and his followers understood they were cocooned so tightly they could neither squeak nor move.

  Shan himself she placed on a large, table-like rock near the spot where the horses were picketed. Using her power, she commanded the rope that ended in his cocoon to drag him onto the rock. As he bumped across the grass, she rewove three saddle blankets to make a second rope. Gently she placed one end on Shan’s chest as he cursed her to Blaze-Ice Bay and back—she had left his mouth and head uncovered—then gave both ropes their orders. They wove themselves together and went flying, as if they ran on invisible shuttles around the rock.

  When she finished, Sandry patted Shan’s chest. “You can tell all Namorn this is what happens when I’m vexed,” she informed him softly.

  “Little bitch,” he snapped.

  Sandry looked him over soberly. “If you had understood that earlier, we could have avoided this unpleasantness,” she replied.

  Ignoring his curses, she helped herself to apples, bread, and water from someone’s supplies. I’m coming back, she told Daja and Briar, who sent her a wave of relief in answer. She took Shan’s horse. The gelding was a fine animal that deserved a better master than Shan. Mounting it, she realized she was still wearing her nightgown. Cursing Shan for the indignity, she hauled the thin garment up around her thighs to get her feet in the stirrups and her behind, where it should be.

  It’s not how I envisioned the kidnapped woman’s return after triumphing over her would-be captors, she thought angrily. Why is the real thing always so much more ordinary than the vision?

  She had no fear she would be lost. The tie that bound her to Briar and Daja stretched, thickly silver, down the road. There was one last thing to do before she followed it, however.

  She urged the gelding over to Shan, whose face was purple with rage and helplessness. “Now you know,” she said hotly. “When I say I don’t like you, it really means I don’t like you!”

  The 4th – 11th days of Mead, 1043 K. F.

  The imperial hunting lodge, the Carakathy Mountains to the Olart border crossing, the Imperial Highway South, Namorn

  The empress of Namorn and her escort were always given the right-of-way on the roads. They passed Deepdene Road not long after Sandry and her party turned down it in search of the Canyon Inn. By the time Sandry had escaped Shan’s trap, recovered, and returned to the road for two days, Berenene had taken up residence in the imperial hunting lodge near the Olart border.

  With the empress came imperial business, including her spies’ reports. Reading them, Ishabal learned that Quen had been left in a cage of wire and thorns, while the imperial Master of the Hunt had been found, with his companions, trapped in thread cocoons. She took these reports to Berenene, who had been a difficult companion since they had left Dancruan.

  “So the children have power,” the empress snapped, tossing the papers to the floor. “We knew that. Do you know what the gossips will make of this? The wench spurned two of my favorites—never mind that Quen is no longer a favorite and he wasn’t trying to marry her. That’s what they’ll say. Two! And they’ll whisper that perhaps my favorites are not so devoted to the old woman as they pretend to be!”

  “Imperial Majesty, I am old,” replied Isha gently. “You are in your prime.”

  “I’m sure the Yanjingyi emperor will see it just that way!” retorted Berenene. “No, Isha. I cannot afford even the appearance of weakness. You of all people know that. When they get to the border, I want you to raise its defenses against them.”

  Isha gathered up the reports, trying to think of a tactful way to speak her thoughts. She could think of none. “Imperial Majesty, what if the borders fail?”

  Berenene’s eyes bulged. “What?”

  “We must consider the possibility,” Isha went on. “Two of these children bested Quen, who has spent six years defending Your Imperial Majesty with his power. He has been tested by great mages and succeeded, but a girl and a boy wrapped him up in a neat bundle. Lady Sandrilene did the same with seven people, two of them mages. Not great mages, but good ones. The possibility of failure must be considered.”

  “If you approach it with that attitude, you open the door to failure,” snapped the empress.

  Ishabal sighed. “All of our work in recent years has gone to the barriers in the southeast and the east, where our greatest enemies are. We have had neither the funds nor the mages to reinforce everything. I know that, given time and preparation, Quen and I could walk through the protection wall at Olart. We must ask ourselves if these three young people might now manage it as well. Majesty, Quen could not break out of the cage Briar and Daja made without a mage’s help.” Isha watched nervously as Berenene took a chair and sat in it. Calmly she continued: “You are angry because you fear you’ll be seen as weak, Majesty, but it need not be so. All we need do is announce that your cousin and her friends are returning home. It is earlier than planned, to be sure, but stories can be spread that our court is far too sophisticated for them! There are still ways to make it seem as if they fled with their tails between their legs.” She took a deep breath. “But if you raise the border against them, and they break through, that will be far worse than stories that say they fled our men. All of your neighbors will know you tried to keep them, and failed. You will have exposed a weakness.”

  “I do not believe the border will fail,” Berenene said flatly, her mouth a hard, tight line.

  Isha shrugged. “Nor do I, but I must examine possibilities and damage if you will not. The chance of failure must be considered. I beg you, let them go.”

  “I will not be defied.” The refusal was a quick one, but she had not ordered Isha out of her sight. There was an opening in the empress’s thinking.

  Isha rushed through it. “Then let me go, alone, to do it,” she said. “You remain here. If they fail to pass the wall, I shall bring them here to you. If I fail to hold the wall against them, you can say I am weary from travel and the wall needs work. It has gone neglected and now it will be seen to. No one will know this was in any way a matter in which you were involved. They will speculate, no doubt, but they will not prove.”

  Berenene looked down in thought at her perfectly cared for hands.

  Isha pressed. “You have always said it is far better to appear innocent while others take the blame.”

  Berenene rubbed her temples. “You ask me to surrender my pride.”

  Isha bowed her head. “Only when it is a liability, Imperial Majesty.”

  “You are willing to take the blame if the border fails.”

  “If this traditionally safe border fails,” corrected Isha. “If this seldom renewed border fails. If older, weary me fails against three powerful young things who just tied my best assistant in a knot.”

  Isha knew that remote look on Berenene’s face as the empress smoothed her fingers over her sleeve. She was always glad to see it, because it meant that her mistress was turning a thousand thoughts ov
er in her mind, seeing a multitude of outcomes and weighing them all. Few people glimpsed this cold calculation on the empress’s beautiful features. She didn’t want them to. It suited her that people thought of her as a passionate creature delighting in love and money. Few realized that Berenene cooled off far sooner than she let on, and that she did nothing that would not enhance her standing in the eyes of her people and the world.

  Finally Berenene shook out her cuffs and got to her feet. “Very well, Isha. Do what you must. And I’m going to change. I’ve a mind to ride along the lake today.”

  Sandry refused to stay a second night in the Canyon Inn. I don’t trust them, she told Daja and Briar. If Shan had their help, I don’t want to punish them. I know how hard it is to refuse a noble. But I don’t want to stay here, either.

  I have potions. I could find out, offered Briar.

  They’ve had enough magic, said Daja, who had watched the staff skitter around the caged Quen. Let’s just go. If you’re feeling so energetic, grovel to Zhegorz some more.

  Briar winced. All three of them were doing some serious apologizing to Zhegorz. Sandry even invited him to ride beside her as they left the Canyon Inn. Strangely, the whole mess seemed to have calmed Zhegorz down. Even when they passed the next imperial fort, he kept warnings about palace matters to himself. He was learning to sift images and his words more.

  Since they were only two riders, Ambros and Tris had an easier time on the road in some ways, despite Tris’s weakness. When Tris felt she could stay in the saddle not another moment, she wove ropes of wind to bind her to it and her mare, and trapped two more pads of air to keep her upright. If she grew vexed at traffic, she sent winds ahead to drive those in the road to its sides until she and Ambros passed by. When those attending the horse fair did not respond to wind, she reddened and began to play with balls of lightning. The people scattered. She, Ambros, and Chime passed through the meeting of the highway and Deepdene Road far more quickly than had Sandry and her companions.