Lostras straddles the last length of the Aramtesh River before the waters that flow through every province in the Empire plunge over the Cliffs in a mile-wide tidefall. It’s said that the mist that billows up gives the Losian capital a climate unto its own. As the barges pull in to the wealthiest of the merchant docks, I’m rather charmed to discover the effusive descriptions do the place justice.
The plan was to disembark without pomp. But alas, even the most well-trained of the Prince’s uncle’s household guard can’t help but gape at their surroundings. Where the bulk of the Province is a sulphurous hellscape, the neighbourhood stretching up from the river is lush and verdant. Wooden houses with roofs of palm-thatch and open, wraparound verandahs nestle in a haven of greenery and blooms. The flowers are a cacophony of colour – lilies and clusters of tiny gem-like buds that look like falling tears, hibiscus and bromeliads clinging to coconut palms, and everywhere the smell of something sweeter and more intoxicating than jasmine fills the air – frangipani.
At almost every corner we pass there’s one of the leggy trees, bunches of leaves flaring out like the points of a star, pink-orange flowers blooming at their centre. Ferns with fronds as long as barge paddles line the streets and drape from the roofs providing welcome shade. Fountains bubble at major crossroads, fish with blue, purple and flame-orange scales darting through the water and occasionally leaping for a mosquito that buzzed too close to the surface.
A city like none other in Aramtesh.
Proud of it, too, judging by the straight-backed walk of the people who stride the boulevards, so much so that it takes me twice as long as the usual glance to determine servant from aristocrat. It doesn’t help that they all dress similarly. Where I would have expected a clash of garish rainbow fabrics to reflect the flora, almost everyone is dressed in well-made but unadorned sleeveless robes in various shades of beige, belted at the waist. Near-identical sandals laced to the knee. The only way to tell guard from regular citizen is that their robes are augmented with scaled leather kilts in the same fashion as Aphorai. Though unlike their western neighbours, I’d venture more than a few of the civilians here have a similar level of military skill to the guards, if anything I’ve heard about the Losians has truth at its essence. Though for a city to forgo fortifications to this extent seems to err on the arrogant side of confidence.
Our travelling boots and caravan guard leathers aren’t too out of place. And I’ve grudgingly slicked the parts of my skin exposed to the sun with Kip’s coconut oil. I’ve worn countless scents to blend in over the turns since I was recruited by Sephine. But I’ve never felt more like a walking confection than now. I can’t justifiably abstain when the Emperor-elect has done the same. And though he rides in a litter, it’s not of a quality that would be incongruous for a successful merchant.
He’s playing his part. I must play mine.
The guard at the gate to the inner city is the same height as Kip, with sleek black braids and a deep gold complexion. Her comrade sports a red beard bisected on his left cheek by an even redder slash of scar tissue. He’s a head taller.
“Is everyone here a giant?” I mutter.
“Only those in military service. Others are an inch shorter. Sometimes two.”
It’s the same deadpan tone I’ve come to expect from her. I can never fully decide if I’m rankled or charmed.
Kip knows how to fit in here. Little doubt about it. Even less when the guards look straight through both of us as if we’re invisible.
“Let me take care of this,” she says it as if it’s a military command. I’m about to object when she steps forward, squaring off with the guard.
“Ranger.” The redheaded guard acknowledges her badge of office grudgingly, the bronze medallion in a stylized version of the map of Aramtesh. Despite everything that’s happened, she still hasn’t relinquished wearing it. I’m not sure whether it is wise or dangerous to have in one’s possession given the present political situation – the guard’s tone was even, but it’s the tight-grip that comes from discipline, not a mild temper.
“Los first,” Kip salutes.
“Always Los,” the guard replies, visibly relaxing.
“Step aside. We’re here on imperial business.”
By the Primordial’s grace. I hadn’t expected to dive naked into a diplomatic nightmare quite so swiftly. “Ah, perhaps we should—”
“This is a local concern, stranger,” the bearded guard snaps.
It’s like that then. Delightful.
The curtains on the litter stir. I move closer, where they part just enough for me to get a glimpse of the Emperor-elect’s silhouette. “Is something amiss?” It’s the barest whisper.
“Do you trust her?” I ask. My gaze flicks to where Kip and the guards glare at each other, the silence a veritable battlefield between them.
“With my life. I would have thought that was obvious by now?”
I wonder if he’s truly factored in how deep homeland loyalties can run. Have we walked into a trap, after all? Travelled all this way just to hand over a bargaining chip for Los to leverage a deal with the Regent?
Kip faces off with the guards, unflinching. No further words are spoken but, finally, the redheaded Losian gives an almost imperceptible nod.
“How did you convince them?” I ask her.
“It’s not their role to be convinced. Now, keep up. There’s honourable notice, and then there’s giving the enemy enough time to strategize.” She lengthens her already considerable strides.
“They’re not our enemy, that’s the point.”
“We’ll see,” she huffs.
Once we’re through the gate and out of earshot, I sniff. “Lax.”
“Eh?” Kip grunts.
“They’re not taking our weapons.”
She chuckles at that. “When you’re trained to be a weapon from the time you can walk, taking away your blade isn’t going to disarm you.”
“Is that so?” I raise an eyebrow.
“You know where I am if you’d like to try.”
“Perhaps when all this is over.”
She grins. “I’ll hold you to that.”
As per the plan, we’re to seek out the Province Commander first. We arrive at what must be the barracks. Losian architecture is most assuredly not my forte, but if it’s not the barracks, we’re about to find ourselves incarcerated. In my experience, armouries and prisons are usually the only buildings with barred windows.
We’re led by a quartet of leather-kilted giants through a series of corridors and into a room that is open from waist height along one side. Some barracks. The view is breathtaking, I’ll give them that – an uninterrupted vista across azure ocean to the distant horizon. Tree trunks angle up through the floor and out the top of the roof, forming part of the very structure itself. Orchids cling to the boughs with a tangle of silver-green roots. Birds with feathers that glow blood-red in the sunset perch along the balustrade. Firebirds. At least the supposed descendants of the mythical, man-eating version. Far less problematic as house pets.
Despite its wondrous features, the room is devoid of furniture. Not exactly a comfortable reception area.
A man enters through the opposite door. He’s dressed in the same smock and kilt as everyone else, carrying himself with the same proud bearing. His black hair is streaked with silver and trimmed soldier-short. Nothing else belies his age – dark brown skin barely creased by time, limbs corded with muscle.
There’s something itching at me about him. Something vaguely familiar in his high cheekbones, and the clean-shaven pointed chin.
“Sir.” Kip snaps her heels together and thumps her fist to her chest.
“Los first.” He returns the salute, though with far less commitment. In the Losian cultural context, this denotes Kip is of a lower rank. But not knowing either of their standings means I can’t work out if it’s more than simply recognizing her junior rank – an insult or mark of disdain.
“Always Los,” Kip replies, thou
gh unlike with the guards, hints of a pained expression lurk behind her usual mask.
“Why have you returned, niece?”
Niece? Niece?
The older Losian rubs his temple. “When your father hears you are here, I will not shelter you from your shame.”
What in the Primordial Divine’s name have I walked into? It’s so rare I’m genuinely caught off guard. I was hardly expecting such entertainment. And being ambushed by the omission of crucial information is certainly not a style of entertainment with which I’m enamoured.
“I don’t plan on staying.” She glances around the room. “Can the walls be trusted?”
“All eyes and ears are my own.”
She gives a grunt of approval. “I work for the Emperor-elect. He’s alive. He’s the rightful heir. And he needs Los under his banner.”
So much for pleasantries.
“Ah, Lostras?” I attempt to intervene before this gets out of hand.
“Not now,” she snaps.
The older man shakes his head. “You chose the Empire over your own, and now you would have us do the same? Appeals from you do not fall on sympathetic ears.”
“War is coming.”
“To Aphorai, the last I heard. Los stands apart. We were our own kingdom once, there is no reason we cannot self-govern again.”
She motions for the Emperor-elect and his mother to remove their cowls.
It’s the first look of surprise on the Losian’s face as he takes in their features, recognition dawning.
“This army,” Nisai begins, “will not stop at Aphorai. They will continue eastward. My brother will not let Los secede from the Empire without a fight.”
“And we shall deal with that if it becomes a problem. Until then, I’m not sure why you’re here. You’d be better off requesting the Eraz serve you a banquet and being on your way.”
Kip turns to me. “Give me the dossier.”
I narrow my eyes. “I appreciate your desire to—”
“The dossier. Now. I’m not asking.”
I reach into my robe and hand her the packet of parchment that I had ready for this moment. Redacted of details that are of the need-to-know variety, but with enough valuable information to make a compelling case.
“Take your time to consider these, Uncle.” Kip says. “Consult with Father if you must. But read them on their own merit. Los cannot afford to be on the wrong side of this. We’ll adjourn to the Eraz’s estate and await your reply.”
The Province Commander takes the packet. Gives his perfunctory bow.
It’s shallower than when he greeted us.
Lovely. We’ve somehow managed to depart on more tenuous terms than when we arrived. I make a mental note never to go on a diplomatic mission with Kip again.
We’re summarily escorted from the barracks. When we’re clear of earshot, I round on her. “You didn’t tell me your uncle is the Province Commander of the Losian Army.”
She shrugs. “He’s not. My father is.”
“You didn’t tell me that, either.”
Her lip curls. “Didn’t I? Must have slipped my mind.”
Oh, that’s magnificent. I’ve been well and truly outplayed. Apparently it’s possible to be equally thrilled and appalled. “So, in your informed opinion, will they help us?”
She returns to stone-faced gruffness. “Only time will tell.”
“You will have my army on one condition.”
From the head of the banquet table, the Eraz of Los Province, tall and lean with dark, wiry curls, doesn’t deign to use honorifics. Given the circumstances, he knows he can get away with it.
The Emperor-elect doesn’t let it ruffle his feathers. Or, he doesn’t let any ruffling show. Nor does his mother. The two other members of the Council of Five present – Galen, the Regent’s mother, and Daprul, the Losian former imperial wife, look on with practiced decorum.
Nisai gently puts down the three-pronged scoop the Losians favour for cutlery and finishes chewing the mouthful of pulled dodfruit and blue-claw crab, before replying. “Name your price, Prusah.”
“This.” The Eraz gestures expansively to the feast – tender fish and mollusks glistening in their half shells, crustaceans and crisp-toasted kelp, savoury palm fruit stew and kuslai melon with its pale-green flesh crushed to a silky puree – and out to the vista beyond. The banquet has been laid out on the manses’ viewing balcony, built to take in the best view Lostras has to offer – the tidefall, where the Aramtesh River plunges more than five-hundred feet over the Cliffs of Los to unite with the ocean below. So wide is the river and great the drop that a fine mist drifts back over the entire city, supporting its unique microclimate and the several rainbows that arc over the palm-thatched roofs from dawn until dusk.
In this evening’s sunset, from where I’m sitting, the nearest rainbow hovers behind the Emperor-elect, so that he appears to wear a crown of coloured vapour. One can only hope it’s not the closest he’ll ever come to wearing a crown.
Nisai reaches for the bowl of lemon water to rinse his fingertips. “I’m not sure I fully comprehend your meaning.”
Wise move, forcing the Eraz put all his game pieces on the table.
“Then let us be direct. You can have all of my province at your disposal if, when this business is all done, you reward such loyalty with the recognition we are due. If we win this war for you, Lostras will become the new capital of the Empire.”
“What you ask,” Nisai begins, “will fundamentally change the composition of Aramtesh and the Founding Accord.”
“Exactly.” The Eraz smiles, all teeth and no mirth. “We shall no longer be on the outer fringe, at best mocked, but more usually forgotten.”
The Emperor-elect reaches for another helping of flaked white fish. Splendid to see this stand-off isn’t affecting his appetite.
“It could very well work,” he muses.
“It will work. If we draw this zealot’s forces into our province, it’s on our territory. Nobody knows Los or how to survive the Wastes like the Losians. It’s the only strategy at your disposal that affords you a fighting chance if we end up at war against the larger force.”
Nisai looks up and down the table. “May I remind you all that there have been several reports now that Zostar has found a way to control the powers of several Children of Doskai, that they will do his bidding. It may not be so, only tales born of fear. But if one Doskai-possessed man can level a city’s walls, what do you think an army of them can do?”
Daprul, the former imperial wife from Los Province, leans forward. “Make Lostras the new capital and I shall grant you the information you need.”
I almost drop the fresh-shucked oyster that was halfway to my mouth. She’d actually consider withholding at a juncture like this?
Everyone regards the Emperor-elect, but nobody objects or offers counsel. Not his mother or Galen, Iddo’s mother. Not Kip. And certainly not I.
We all know there is no other choice.
CHAPTER 30
RAKEL
The last time I smelled the sea, that peculiar tang of salt and seaweed left to rot in the sun, was when Ash and I found ourselves in Lapis Lautus, the smuggler city off the east coast of Trel Province. Now, as we near the northern edge of Aphorai Province, it rushes up on the wind to greet me again. And once it does, it’s everywhere, as if it wants to consume the land.
In Lautus, the calm, azure waters – protected by a cove and the marinas – seemed to welcome the city’s visitors. Here, at the edge of the Empire, it roars a warning.
“How can it be so … fierce?” I murmur.
“The cliffs plummet to open ocean from here at the border,” Ami explains. “They get steeper along the north coast, and the waves crash against them, with such insistence that they erode the rock over the turns, altering the coastline so significantly in some places it needs to be updated on maps every few turns.”
So it is trying to devour us.
We continue down the last of the slopes. I
n the distance, outlined in the light of the sunset, the last remains of the ancient temple site cowers against the coastal wind. A handful of columns of fluted stone still stand, like those at the top of the Aphorain temple. Three arches bear up alongside. The rest is jumbled piles of chiselled rock.
As we near, I discover something about the ruins I never expected – they stink. There’s the brine and weed of the ocean, but something much more nose-wrinkling, too.
Scat.
Layer upon layer of white bird markings that must have built up over countless seasons. Where the birds are now is anyone’s guess. Maybe out over the waves fishing for their supper. Or roosting somewhere that the seas are calmer.
Wherever they are, this place remembers them. Too strongly. I hope we can find what we’re looking for and move on quickly.
I slide from Lil’s back as Ami and Barden dismount from their camels, leaving them to rest with their feedbags – there’s nothing in sight for them to eat.
We begin wandering through the ruins. I don’t expect to be the person who spots what we need – my distant vision still isn’t exactly eagle-eyed – but even the others don’t find anything obvious. No carvings. No enclosed spaces. Just columns. Arches. A flat area. All covered in white bird scat.
I don’t know what I was expecting. A sign?
Ancient weapon stored here.
Hardly.
“We’ll wait until morning,” Ami decides. “There could be something we’re missing in the low light.”
She’s doing her best to sound optimistic. But her smile is pinched and close-lipped, not the gap-toothed grin she gives when at ease. She’s worried.
So am I. What if we don’t find anything? We would have wasted more time while Zostar gets closer and closer to realizing his own plans. The Empire will erupt into civil war. So many will die. And if Zostar wins, even those who survive might wish they hadn’t. Even Ash. At least, that’s what I tell myself: if he left because he didn’t want to hurt us, then he can’t begrudge us looking for a weapon to stop those who would deliberately cause harm on a massive scale.
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