Chapter 9
Nine
T allu turned, leaving the unconscious soothsayer behind, and I scrambled up, following him into the narrow staircase, my eyes slowly adjusting to darkness again.
At least my hands still glowed, my clothing spattered with the bioluminescent liquid. Ahead of me, Tallu was only visible by the hand covered in the liquid and his long emperor’s robe, the hem soaked in glowing blue.
The noise from the river rose until it roared so loud that I couldn’t hear Tallu, even though I could see his mouth moving. Annoyed, I stepped close, shouting, “What?”
“You should cross first,” Tallu said.
I frowned at the long stretch of darkness. “You know, pushing me off a bridge is a foolish way to begin hostilities with the north again. My mother doesn’t care for my mouthy nature. She would likely send you a gift in gratitude.”
“I mean to watch your back,” Tallu said dryly. “If you fell off, I would better be able to see it from behind.”
“And then the emperor is going to, what? Jump in after me?” I pretended to examine him. “Are you that good a swimmer?”
“No, then, I would send one of my guards after you and perhaps send your mother a condolence gift.” There was a flash of white teeth, reflected by the glowing blue light that still clung to both of us.
I found it shocking that I had been able to pull him out of his dark mood so easily. Was this what he was like with his consort? If he was this easy, it would be simple to keep up the flirtation so I could get close and slice my blade through his throat.
I turned, reaching out with my foot first to find the bridge, then crossing with just as much care as I had the first time. He might joke about saving me from the water, but I had no doubt that he was not coming in after me, nor would he send any of his men to follow.
Halfway across the bridge, I froze. In the darkness ahead, I felt movement. Squinting, I saw gray on the shore a good twenty feet ahead.
The monk who had brought us here had collapsed on her side, dark liquid staining the collar of her shift. A flash of metal in the dark and a shout told me where the Emperor’s Dogs were.
I turned and found Tallu too close behind me. Grabbing hold of him, I hissed, “Turn around. Go back to the island.”
He stiffened in my hands. His whole body was rigid, as though he was holding himself back from me.
“There is someone on the other side. Your Dogs are fighting them off, but if the attackers got inside the cavern…” I didn’t have the heart to finish it. I struggled to remember which group Sagam had been with. Had he been left outside to guard the carriage, or was he there in the dark, fighting for his emperor’s life?
Tallu turned immediately, his feet sure as he crossed the bridge. I took more time, and halfway across, felt something slice through my pants. The weapon clattered on the island, and as soon as I was on solid ground, Tallu grabbed me, pulling me down into the stairwell.
We gasped in the darkness, and I frowned at him. “Someone is trying to kill you.”
Tallu’s face seemed carved from metal, his expression impossibly dark.
“Yes.”
“Who?” I demanded.
He shook his head, either unsure or unwilling to share. Something inside me tightened in frustration. He should have walked first. He could have walked into whatever trap had been set for him, and if his assassins didn’t kill him, I could have finished the job.
And then what? Was I sure that whoever was coming after him would have enough opposition to create the chaos we needed? What if it was Rute? Popular among the nobles and backed by a military general?
“They saw me in the dark,” I said quickly. “Take off your robe.”
Tallu drew back, but the stairway was so narrow that there was nowhere for him to move. We were pressed against each other, and I could feel the long, muscled lines of his body.
“They can see us. The liquid from the soothsayer’s cavern is all over us.” Maybe there was still a way for me to rescue this. I could grab whatever weapon had been sent after me in the dark. I could kill Tallu with it, then blame the attackers.
I struggled out of my jacket, loosening the ties and pulling it off my shoulders. Then I scrubbed my palms, rubbing hard until there was only a faint trace of the blue liquid left.
Tallu did the same, and I bundled up our clothes and threw them down the stairs. Then I squinted. We were both in shadow and as clean as I could get us, although some of the liquid still spattered our pants.
“Is there any other way off the island?” In the dark, pressed against him, I could feel the steady beat of his heart, the push of his chest against mine as he took a deep breath.
“There’s another bridge,” Tallu said. “It goes to the monastery.”
“We’ll try that. I’m going back for the weapon,” I said. The plan was coming to me slowly. I could stab him, throw him into the water. Then he would flow downstream, and I would…
To be honest, it was less of a plan than an idea, a hint of something like a plan. It was a concept .
“What weapon?” Tallu asked, but I didn’t answer him, darting out into the darkness, keeping myself low. A scream echoed in the cavern, audible over the rush of the water. I came close to the bridge, then began feeling on the ground, searching for whatever had sliced through my clothes.
It had scratched me, and I felt the burn on my calf, but it hadn’t gone deep enough to do real harm—likely a blade or maybe even a spear. My hands encountered metal, a long pole. Footsteps moved across the bridge.
They were quiet, but I was crouched in the darkness, close enough to hear. I knew with a glance they weren’t the Emperor’s Dogs.
They weren’t wearing gray, and the cut of their pants wasn’t imperial. I didn’t wait. Yor?mu had taught me that. Waiting was how you got killed.
Swinging the spear up, I slammed the butt of it into the first man’s chest. He grunted, falling backward, scrabbling with both hands to stay on the island, but the rock was slippery, and he was falling.
The other man lunged at me, and I brought the spear up, blocking his attack. He had a long sword, curved and heavy enough that it sliced into the shaft of the spear. I pulled back, but it was too late. I was left with two halves of a spear, and he pulled back, slashing across.
At the last second, I rolled. Why was I doing this? I should lead them directly to the emperor. I should let them kill him.
There was a shout, and then someone hit my attacker. He fell back, pulling out a second blade—this one more narrow, smaller, able to fit up between a man’s ribs. This was an assassin’s blade.
Tallu stood panting, his fists clenched at his sides. The assassin moved in close, the blade flashing in the darkness.
Let him kill the emperor , part of me said. Let Tallu die here and then…
The assailant I had nearly shoved in the river pulled himself out of the water. He was on me as soon as his knees hit dry land, landing hard and pressing his arm against my throat. I could feel the ridges of his armor, and my eyes widened. In the dark, he felt like nothing more than a stocky man, short and portly with age.
But the ridges… Were these men from Krustau? Was Krustau making a move?
We grappled with each other, my hands trying to grab on, but his water-slick armor gave me nothing to grip onto.
My vision went spotty, and I clawed desperately at the hand, but his weight was pushing me down, the weight of a mountain man whose bones were said to be made from solid rock. I managed to get a knee up underneath, shoving at him hard, and just barely rocked him to the side, but it was enough to slide out from underneath him.
Then, I slammed half of the spear across his face, hearing the crack of cartilage and bone, hearing him yelp. With my other hand, I took the blade of the spear and shoved it straight under his chin, feeling his soft palate give.
Warm blood coated my hands, and I found it difficult to keep hold of the two halves of the spear, and the Krustavian clawed at me, his sharp nails digging into my arm, raking across the expensive fabric of my clothing.
Desperate, I shoved the blade further, hearing him choke. In the dark, it reminded me of another time, another murder, and suddenly, I was back there, on a swaying ship in the middle of the night, blood on my hands, death given to those who deserved it.
The great northern bear showed no mercy. So I would show no mercy.
The man collapsed forward, and I managed to get out from under him. It was impossible to loosen the blade from his throat, so I grabbed hold of the hilt as best I could.
It was heavy, and now that I recognized its wielder, I knew it was metal from the Key Mountains. Heavy Krustavian ore would smash through a man’s skull before denting.
Once on my feet, I looked around, but there was only one man standing, panting inaudibly over the roar of the water. I tensed, gripping the spear hilt with both hands, readying myself for an attack.
“Assassins from Krustau,” Tallu said.
My shoulders slumped. Was it relief? Was I relieved he was alive? Why?
“Let’s go. Where is the other bridge?” I asked.
Tallu raised his hand, pointing. His finger trembled, and I wondered: was this the first time he had killed a man? Impossible. He was the son of the most violent emperor the Imperium had ever seen. My mother said that he had been nursed on the blood of his father’s defeated enemies.
There was no way that this was his first kill.
Tallu stumbled across the island, avoiding the entrance to the soothsayer’s secret cavern. I followed behind. When he stopped, reaching out with one foot, I thought, Push him off .
Instead, I followed him into the dark.
When my foot found the first stretch of bridge, I automatically reached out, blinking in surprise when I touched a rough rope that linked the island to the other side of the cavern.
Under my hand, the rope vibrated where Tallu clutched it. It was as though the two of us were tied together. I could feel every twitch of his hands, every jerk of his arms as he made his way across. Halfway across the bridge, the rope stilled, and I thought, He’s fallen off the bridge .
I jerked forward, reaching for him, and froze when my hand encountered him only a few feet in front of me, the soft fabric of his shirt wet under my touch.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
“What if they’re on the other side?” Tallu asked.
“Then we both die,” I said. “But I just found out I’m getting married in two weeks, and dying is bad luck before the wedding.”
“Be serious,” Tallu said. “We need a plan.”
“If they are on the other side, then we risk the river. I have half a spear and hope that I’ll survive this. What weapons do you have?”
Tallu tensed, his back muscles tightening, and I could feel him turn his head to look at me, the muscles shifting under my fingers. “None.”
“So we risk the river. Agreed?” I waited, and the darkness seemed to close around both of us. There were no lights on the other side of the cavern, no indication of anything other than the trembling sway of the rope we both held on to.
“We risk the river,” Tallu agreed.
He began walking again, slower this time, and I followed behind, dragging one foot along the solid rock to make sure I was never off-balance. Ahead, Tallu stepped down onto the riverbank, and I followed behind him.
We didn’t wait long. With a guttural scream, something launched itself at us in the darkness. I slammed the hilt of the spear across its head, and there was a grunt, the sound of metal hitting metal. I’d missed his face, hitting instead the helmet made from the same material as the hilt I bore.
Tallu grabbed my wrist, sliding his hand down until his fingers wrapped around mine. Then he pulled us, and we both fell backward into the water.
It was colder than I expected. My entire body seized up from the chill, and I struggled to find my footing, but there was none to be found. The water pulled me off-balance as soon as my toes touched anything. The only thing I had to hold on to was Tallu’s hand.
We tumbled, slamming into each other and hitting rocks, going underneath a series of bridges, each lower than the last. The merciless river dragged us underground, the darkness inescapable, and all I could do was feel, feel the tight walls carved by eons of water rushing past rock, feel the impact as my body hit the hard surfaces, but too fast to grab hold. Blind, using only one hand, I desperately tried to seize anything, but the walls were too far to reach sometimes and so close others that I was sure we would bash our heads against them.
I gasped in mouthfuls of sweet water, struggling with one hand, the other clutched tight to Tallu. Finally, when my muscles ached and my back strained from keeping my head above water, the river slowed.
I got my feet under me. The water was still as high as my neck, but I was able to push across, grab hold of one of the walls.
My fingers were entirely numb, and I struggled to grip the slick stone. I yanked with my other hand, bringing Tallu close. In the dark, I couldn’t see his face, and his body was slack.
Had I been holding on to a dead man? I remembered bodies in the ocean, the white corpses disappearing under the crests of waves as sea serpents and whales tore into the dead flesh.
When I put my face close to his, I felt uneven breaths on my cheek. The emperor lived.
Slowly, I began to loosen my fingers. If I let him go, if I let the water take him, would it pull him under?
What a terrible death. Shaking my head, refusing to think about it, I dragged us both along the wall until I found a crevice, a small raised bit of rocky earth, flat enough that the water still lapped at it but high enough that we were no longer pulled along by the flow of the river.
Just as I got him out of the water, only his legs dangling in, Tallu rolled over, coughing violently.
I slapped my hand on his back, something like relief blooming in my chest as cold river water flowed out of his mouth. When he stilled, he leaned against my legs, his free hand wrapping around them tightly, desperately.
“Do you know another way out of here?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Just the entrance on the mountainside and a second exit through the monks’ quarters.”
I nodded, closing my eyes, and then I leaned back against the wall. “We’ve gone too far downriver to make our way back. We need to follow the river. It exits the cavern somewhere.”
We needed to move before my muscles froze up entirely, before we both died here in the middle of the dark, impossible to find. When I opened my eyes, colors floated in front of my face, lights in the darkness. I blinked rapidly and realized it was in my head. Somewhere along the way, I had hit my head hard enough to do damage.
“If you die here, what happens?” I asked suddenly.
The answer was important. If he died here, without the Emperor’s Council to pick at the bones of the Imperium, what would happen? Would it be enough to let us both die here?
“Rute Sotonam would become emperor,” Tallu said. “He’s in the pocket of General Kacha, and he already has a child by one of his consorts. The war of imperial expansion would begin immediately, and as long as his grotesque appetites were fed, he would be happy to let General Kacha control the Imperium.”
“Why is he your heir?” I asked. “He’s House Sotonam, not House Atobe, like you.”
“He is the closest cousin I have on my mother’s side. With my younger brother’s death, House Atobe is just me. I had to choose from all my cousins, and I thought perhaps I could win him to my side. However, I underestimated his loyalty to General Kacha.” Tallu coughed again, and I felt the splatter of liquid on my hand. I turned my palm, and he rested his cheek against my fingers.
A shiver tensed up my arm. I thought of Rute, the gleam of amusement in his eyes, how easily he came to heel at General Kacha’s short word. The way he’d wanted Piivu to himself for private entertainment.
“Loyalty, or perhaps General Kacha provides some benefits that you are not willing to.” Because that had to be it. If Tallu was willing to provide Rute with whatever grotesque entertainments he wanted, then he would have him.
“So, you’ve met my cousin.” Tallu didn’t sound surprised. “I thought he might be more discreet, but I suppose he thinks now he doesn’t have to be.”
There was a hint of something under the words, as though Tallu was planning something and hadn’t quite put it to words yet. The cave was so dark I couldn’t see anything, only feel the press of Tallu against me, the heavy way he was breathing as though every gasp was painful.
“Why hasn’t he had an ‘accident’? Surely he could slip and fall and cut off his head.” I clicked my teeth. “Or a poison could make its way to his morning breakfast. If he’s such trouble.”
Tallu made one of those gasping sounds that now resembled macabre laughter. “You will not believe this, but he is the best of the options.”
I exhaled. “Because he’s your closest cousin? There aren’t any by-blows wandering around? No bastards that you can help to the right side of the blanket?”
“No, all of the emperors have been careful to kill anyone who could challenge their position. That’s the trouble with getting rid of the dragons. If blood is all that determines who inherits, well, anyone who has blood could claim the throne. It’s normally the first act of an emperor: kill his siblings and any of their children.” Tallu wheezed again.
My body was going numb, and I was too tired to be any less blunt. “Is that what happened to your father and brother?”
The silence stretched, and when Tallu spoke, it was quiet, almost inaudible over the water. “Someone poisoned them. Someone made sure that my father, his wife, and my infant brother were far enough from the Capital that there was no hope for them. That even if the emperor himself begged, no one could save them. Their deaths were without mercy, without even a hint of humanity.” Tallu’s voice was soft in the dark, and I shivered, but not from cold. “I hope whoever is whispering such rumors in your ears remembers that my father died choking on his own blood.”
“Perhaps someone should inform your cousin about that,” I finally said.
“I’m not surprised he suggested such a thing to you,” Tallu said. “In the family tree, Rute is my closest cousin, but I would have chosen him even if he wasn’t. If I hadn’t selected him, the situation would have been worse.”
“Why?” I asked. The sparkles of light in my vision were coming in and out of focus. “If he’s such a sadist, what are the rest of your cousins? Into necrophilia? Do they drink the blood of infants? Sleep on the bones of their enemies?”
“If I hadn’t chosen him, Rute would have killed all of them until he was my only option. Or… he might not have killed them, but it would have happened on his behalf.” Tallu sounded tired. “If Rute dies, then the cousins will fight among each other. They will devolve into backstabbing.”
“But they aren’t House Atobe,” I said. “What will the empire be if one of your house isn’t the emperor?”
The river splashed against the small piece of land we were sitting on, and suddenly, I saw a way through. If Rute died and then Tallu died, the chaos we needed would happen. Everyone would think the empire was up for grabs. Tallu’s mother’s nieces and nephews weren’t House Atobe, and that meant anyone loyal to the old council might try to put one of them on the throne. At least the old council had the benefit of experience, while Tallu’s cousins just had the pride of birth.
“As long as Rute lives, it is not an issue,” Tallu said finally. “He has the support he needs should the worst happen to me.”
“No one would challenge him,” I said, but it was more to myself.
I couldn’t let Tallu die now, I couldn’t. I needed to make sure there were enough challenges to the throne that whoever wanted to sit upon it would not find it a smooth transition of power. The Imperium needed to eat itself alive.
My chest hurt, a bruise on my rib cage spreading until it felt like my heart clenched, my lungs refusing to expand.
I had to keep Tallu alive long enough that his death meant the death of the Empire. How impossible was it that I had spent my entire life training to kill this man, and now that it was within my grasp, I needed to keep him alive?
Swearing, I stood. Drying my hands off as best I could, I began feeling around, searching for a way out.
“Can you climb?” I asked. “We need to get out of here to make sure that the right man sits on the Imperium’s throne.”
“Climbing might be hard. The first attacker sliced through my leg. The water numbed it; I might be able to use it now.” I heard Tallu push up onto his hands and knees, then stand with a groan.
That tremble on the island… how wrong I had been. That wasn’t his first kill—that had been an injury that would take a lesser man to his knees.
Next to me, silent in the darkness, threat seeped from every part of him. He was angry, his fury a living thing that kept him upright. Someone had insulted him by attempting to kill him. It didn’t bode well for relations with Krustau.
Finally, my hands found some grips, and I pulled myself up until I found a narrow strip of flat ground carved into the cavern wall just above the river. Who knew how long it would go, but it was better than hoping the river took us somewhere safe.
Without complaint, Tallu followed me, and we made our way in the darkness, my hand on the wall, my feet testing each step before I put my foot down. At first, I was sure the glimmers of light were more evidence of head injury. Shaking my head, I waited for my vision to clear, but the lights were still there. Only when we finally reached a gap between the rocks did I believe what my eyes were telling me.
We had found a way out.