Chapter 19
Nineteen
T he room was entirely silent; even General Kacha seemed unsure about his footing. He shifted, just slightly, glancing at General Saxu before returning his gaze to us.
“I would never want imperial soldiers to go up against your consort, Emperor Tallu. He has just declared himself one with your house, has he not?” General Kacha tried for a pleasant smile, but I could see in the white of his teeth that he was hungry for northern blood. If he wasn’t going to get the war he so badly wanted, I was the next best thing.
“I think my consort will demonstrate the weapon’s use well.” Tallu turned his eyes to me, and I couldn’t read anything in his gaze but benign disinterest. “Unless you would prefer not to?”
“It would be an honor to show imperial soldiers how to use a wolf’s claw.” I stepped back, away from his throne, tugging at the ties of my jacket. Asahi silently stepped to my side and helped me pull it off. I took out the box with the dragon’s egg inside and handed it to Asahi.
“Please take care with this. It’s my wedding gift from my husband.” I waited for Asahi to nod before letting go.
Free of my jacket, I rolled my shoulders. My body still ached from Rute’s assassination six days earlier, but I hadn’t lost any functionality. I briefly bounced on my toes, thinking about the number of times that Yor?mu had trained me for a situation like this. Only she had never had the grace to tell me I was about to battle multiple attackers.
One day, I would just be walking back to my rooms from dinner, and four masked men would descend on me. Most of the time, I was able to beat them, but occasionally, it had been proof that no matter how much I trained, there were still things I couldn’t prepare for.
The court murmured amongst themselves, and I couldn’t hear anything specific, but I understood the tone. All of them thought I was about to be beaten. All of them thought this was Tallu’s revenge on me, or maybe that was just in my head, the buzz of their gossip tainting my mind.
Well. Tallu had never met me as a warrior. And he had certainly never met Yor?mu, who was the sort of woman that my mother liked, meaning she had definitely been a sea serpent in a previous life.
My eyes trailed over the court. Strangely, I saw a few foreign faces that I didn’t recognize from dinner in the crowd. They weren’t wearing the yellow typical of the imperial servants. Instead, they wore ragged red. Perhaps they were outside servants? Or a variety of laborer I hadn’t seen yet? Field hands or kitchen servants, perhaps?
Had they snuck in, wanting to see the northern consort get murdered? It would certainly be more entertaining than doing the mountains of dishes from the wedding feast.
One of the soldiers stepped forward, holding three wolf’s claws in his hands. He offered them over to me, and I picked up the first one experimentally. It was well-made, the heavy bone hilt carved in a symbol I recognized. This was from the Bulwark Clan. Frowning, I handed it back, taking the next one, checking the hilt. Great Seal Clan.
When I took the third, I already knew what I was going to see. Silvereyes Clan. I hefted it in my hand. One of my mother’s people—one of my people—had wielded this against the Imperium.
Then, when some imperial soldier had killed them, the Imperium had stripped them of their weapon rather than returning it to their clan as any true northern warrior would. Weapons belonged with the clans that had made them. It was a sign of deep disrespect to steal one.
And they had five that they had used in their little charade. How many more pieces of my people’s history were locked away somewhere in the Imperium?
Turning away from the soldier, I swung it through the air, doing a basic practice move that any young northerner learned. It was still weighted well, the blade smooth, but when I ran my finger along the flat of it, I felt my heart pull tight, a fist ready to strike an opponent, pure fury rolling through my chest like a scream I couldn’t let out.
The blade was dulled.
In an even worse atrocity than stealing weapons intended to be heirlooms, they had filed the edge down so that the blade was no more than a practice toy. Twenty years or more in the south had turned it into a very awkward doorstop.
It took me three long breaths before I knew my next words wouldn’t be a scream of incoherent rage. When I could speak, I turned back to General Kacha.
“I am happy to face whoever among your soldiers you think can best me unarmed.” I tried to keep the bite out of my words, thinking of Velethuil and his warnings.
This whole thing seemed like a foolish plan and, more than that, an opening for Kacha to claim his revenge under the cover of accident. Or perhaps he and Tallu were teaming up, and my death was inevitable now.
Kacha barked out three names, and out of the long line of soldiers, three stepped forward. I wasn’t sure who was who, but in my head, I could see what kind of fighters they were before they even took their positions.
The large one was a bear, his weight and strength putting him in a class of his own. The middle one was a wolf, used to hunting in a pack, used to having his unit with him in battle. The last was a hawk. Sharp-eyed and used to hunting on his own. He was a sniper or… an electro mage?
I just needed to get through this fight, to find a way to succeed.
“Are you ready, Consort Airón?” General Kacha’s voice broke through my distraction, and I turned back to the three men.
I had been observing them, but they had also been observing me. What did they see in me? Hopefully, it was only a helpless northerner. A child too far out of his depth in the ocean: someone ready to drown.
Three on one weren’t odds I liked, even when I was the only one with a sword.
“Ready,” I said.
“Begin.”
At General Kacha’s order, the men leapt, their empty hands ready for me. The bear was the fastest, and he came at me with the force of a true bear in the forest. I didn’t let him get close enough. Instead, I spun to the side, using the flat of my blade to slap against his knee.
He grunted, turning to face me. This was why our blades were shorter. A longer blade had better reach if you were attacking from a distance.
Two armies facing off against each other needed longer blades, more reach.
But northerners were hunters. We set traps. We got close. It was no wonder that while the southern emperor had thought of the marriage as a way to politically destabilize the Northern Kingdom, my mother had only seen it as a way to get her own assassin into the Imperium.
The bear rushed at me again, aiming one fist at my face. I dodged it, whirling straight into his other fist. It struck me hard in my solar plexus. Still, now he was in my domain. I brought the blade up, slicing it across his stomach.
He growled again and didn’t fall.
I stumbled back, trying to keep all three of them in my eyeline. I had effectively sliced my dulled blade across his exposed stomach. If we were playing fair, even he would have had to admit he’d been mock-gutted like a fish ready for a dinner plate. It was a death sentence if the blade was sharp.
But he was still coming at me.
From the glint in his eye, this was no farce to him. He intended to end my life, and all I had was a toy sword to defend myself. They weren’t planning to obey the rules of their mock fight.
In three steps, he was on me again, and this time, I didn’t hold back. I slammed the blade up, the dull edge smashing into his nose as he wrapped two hands around my neck.
With a shocked scream, he loosened one of his hands, and I twisted free, grabbing at his other hand still on my collar. I pinched between his thumb and forefinger, stepping back until I had his arm fully extended. Then, I twisted back toward him, bending his arm until I heard a snap.
Blood poured from his nose, and one of his arms hung limply at his side. I released it, turning too late to realize that the wolf had circled around my back. He punched me hard in my stomach, in almost exactly the same place as the bear had.
I crumpled over, gasping, but I didn’t have time.
Turning it into a roll, I somersaulted out from between them. Once I was free, I caught sight of the hawk just outside the circle. He’d been about to come up behind me, and I didn’t want to see what the sniper had in store for me.
I rushed forward, slamming the hilt of the blade into the back of the wolf’s head. He fell onto his hands and knees, reaching back to touch his skull. As he gasped, I saw the bear come forward, swinging his good arm at my head. I wasn’t going to let him have a second chance to knock me out. Using the wolf’s back to jump off, I leapt forward, kicking the bear’s knee out from under him.
He fell hard, his weight making the impact even more brutal. The ground shook, and I struck the hilt of my blade into his temple. He collapsed forward, and I turned just in time to catch the wolf before he got off the ground. With a kick at his face, I danced to the side, swinging my gaze, searching for the hawk.
At the last moment, I caught him before he wrapped an arm around my throat. I used the flat of the blade to push his arm away from me, sending him off-balance.
Then I ducked low, spinning a kick that got his legs out from under him, laying him out flat on his back.
Time. I needed more time.
The wolf pushed up, surprising me with a tackle. I tumbled down, the impact waking all of my aches and pains from the assassination. My back seized, making it almost impossible to move for a second as my head spun, aching where it had slammed into the floor. He was on top of me, legs around my waist.
Blood from his head dripped onto my face as he wrapped two hands around my throat. I got one last gasp of air before he cut it off.
But I was from the north. I could hold my breath when I swam in arctic waters. And Yor?mu had trained me to hold it for even longer, long enough for guards to pass, long enough that most would think I was dead.
Bringing my blade up, I sliced it across his neck. The blade had been dulled, but the skin there was sensitive, and he choked, loosening his grip just long enough that I could bring one of my legs around, kneeing him hard in the side.
He whimpered, screaming when I rammed the blade into him again. Even a dull blade hurt when shoved directly into your stomach.
Then I was on top of him, elbowing hard against his throat. He choked, and I didn’t have time to check if I had crushed his airway. Instead, I was up on my feet, ready when the hawk dropped on me.
He wrapped an arm around my throat, pulling me back and off-balance, but that was also his weakness. I let my body go lax, and he stumbled forward at the sudden weight. Holding my breath again, I waited until he tried to right himself, tried to get his feet under him, and then I shoved upward, the top of my head slamming directly into his chin.
I saw stars, my vision dancing with them as I turned and sliced the blade across his throat before using it to drive him back.
It was his turn to stumble, and the rage in his eyes built when I blocked his punch and kicked easily with the flat of my blade, knocking them aside like children’s toys.
Normally, a hand-to-hand session against someone capable of wielding a wolf’s claw would have been quick work. As it was, it was hard for me to break the habit of crouching down, slicing across the back of his leg. With a real blade, that would have severed his tendon. Then I brought it back up, stabbing backward into his spine.
It should have pierced him through, but this was a pretend blade for my very real murder.
I turned at the same time as the hawk. The glint in his eye told me that he was far from done with me.
Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth—he must have bitten through his tongue when I headbutted him. Then, he lunged forward, and I saw a second too late that he had a coil of electricity in his hand, ready to find its home in my chest.
My eyes widened, and I glanced at the throne, where I expected Tallu to be smirking. What a perfect revenge. He had fulfilled the bargain his father had made with the Northern Kingdom—he’d married me. Now, he was going to watch me die.
Only Tallu wasn’t there.
I blinked, stumbling down to one knee, my vision spotty, my back still barely able to move. Tallu stood in front of me. The hawk gaped, his bolt of electricity flying true. It was going to hit me in the chest, except Tallu plucked it from the air.
His hand made contact with the bolt of lightning, and he spun his hand in a slow circle before closing his palm, absorbing the enormous shock like it was nothing.
The hawk dropped to his knees, mouth hanging open, eyes wide as he realized that this was going to be his very last action. In the Imperium, one did not try to kill the emperor, even by accident.
The Emperor’s Dogs swarmed him, and I smelled blood when Tallu turned to me. Looming over me, I couldn’t see his eyes, his entire face in shadow.
“General Kacha,” Tallu said slowly. “I was under the impression this was no more than an exhibition. Why did your men not yield when my consort made contact with his blade?”
“Your Majesty—” General Kacha’s voice trembled before he swallowed, shoulders going back. “Obviously, they were merely answering Consort Airón’s incredible military skill. They never would have?—”
“Leave.” Tallu’s word was sharp, his own blade across General Kacha’s throat.
Tallu finally looked away from me, and I felt the relief of it enough that my whole body collapsed forward. His eyes swung around the room.
“ Leave !” Now, his voice was a roar, a tsunami that swept the entire court into motion. For a few moments, it was pure chaos, and then the room was empty except for me, Tallu, and two of his Dogs.
“So.” I panted, sitting back on my heels. “Am I finally going to get my answer about what the wedding gift meant?”
The light that came in through the windows was a bright orange. Sunset. It cast Tallu in deep shadows, and I had to squint to even see a hint of his face.
“Bring him to my rooms,” Tallu said to his Dogs. He turned away, and I smelled blood coming off him. “I have need of your services, Consort Airón.”