Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Aurelia
I move through the parlor of the Ubettan imperial palace, smiling and exchanging bright words with the gathered nobles, but apprehension weighs on every step. The small bit of lunch I forced down sits in my stomach like a lump of lead.
Raul stands by the unlit hearth, accepting patronizing compliments on his “victory” with a grin that looks increasingly feral. It must be taking more strength than he applied to the earlier skirmish to hold himself back from snapping.
As soon as the mockery of a battle was over, medics hustled into the hall of entertainments to help revive the other princes and lead them off to the recuperative room for additional tending. I can’t imagine Raul hurt his foster brothers any more than absolutely necessary, but every passing minute without their return sits heavier on my gut .
What got into Marclinus that he thought pitting the princes against each other in front of the court was a good strategy? What was that strategy even supposed to accomplish?
I thought he was aiming to integrate them more among the Darium nobility, diffuse any conflicted loyalties. Did he somehow think that ordering them to fight each other to the point of unconsciousness would make them feel more friendly to the court egging them on than to their fellow hostages?
He even brought Neven into this morning’s cruel display—making the teenager fight with the men he sees as his older brothers.
I don’t know how to explain it, but I can’t ask my husband either. Any hint that I disapprove of his choices, especially when it comes to the princes, could be disastrous.
And I’ve already seen that he can be brutally callous simply on a whim. He just… He’d started to seem almost reasonable during some of our recent conversations.
One shift in mood, and he’s swung to the opposite extreme again.
I’m ambling toward the spot where he’s laughing with several of his noble friends when High Commander Axius steps into the room. He catches Marclinus’s eye and makes a quick gesture to indicate he needs the emperor’s attention.
My husband has at least enough sense today to decide discussing military matters in front of his entire court would be unwise. He parts ways with his conversational partners with a few jovial remarks and claps on the back before strolling out of the room after the high commander.
My stomach lists uneasily. Has there been more news from Lavira?
An empress has a right to know what’s going on throughout her empire, doesn’t she ?
I amble over to the doorway as if I’m in no particular hurry, not wanting to stir gossip, and slip out into the hall. Marclinus and Axius are already veering around a bend up ahead, talking in lowered voices. Marclinus’s guards trail several paces behind.
My husband’s snicker carries down the hall, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
I set off after them. I’m not sure where this palace’s meeting rooms or imperial offices are located, but it doesn’t appear to matter. Just as I reach the corner, the two men duck into one of the smaller sitting rooms, which I suppose they consider private enough.
Marclinus’s guards draw to a halt by the doorway. One glances my way, but he doesn’t move to stop my approach. Perhaps he feels I have some right to join the conversation as empress.
I walk slowly but steadily, keeping my ears pricked. When their voices become clear enough for me to make out Axius’s words, I slow even more, gazing vaguely into the distance as if pondering some other concern.
“—more than a hundred executed, and twice that in custody,” the high commander is saying. “The raids and interrogations will be continuing as we speak.”
My pulse hitches, and then stutters harder at Marclinus’s answer: “Oh, I think Tribune Valerisse can hit the wretched traitors even harder than that. Everyone in those cities needs to know they can’t get away with so much as scowling at the representatives of their empire.”
Axius hesitates before going on, his next remark more halting. “The local forces still haven’t been able to determine who the actual conspirators are, or?—”
Marclinus snorts. “I’m sure we’ll wipe them out along with a bunch of the other rats who simply haven’t taken the gamble yet. If they aren’t betraying us, they’re hiding the ones who did. Let them all die.”
I can’t linger here merely listening any longer. Lifting my chin, I stride into the room.
A step over the threshold, I stop and raise my eyebrows. “So this is where you wandered off to, husband.” I slide my gaze to Axius and then back to Marclinus. “What’s pulled you away from our gathering? Is there urgent news?”
My husband’s tone stays as flippant as when he was ordering the executions of hundreds moments ago. “Only an update from Lavira. Nothing that needs to concern you.” He nods to the high commander. “I think you know where to take it from here.”
Axius dips his head lower in respect and leaves the room, his mouth set tight. I get the impression he isn’t all that pleased with his orders.
I step closer to Marclinus, pushing my mouth into an adoring smile that feels utterly hollow. “What was the news? It sounded as if you were talking about Lavirians dying—has their royal family identified the culprits?”
I’d rather not admit how long I was eavesdropping.
Marclinus lets out a dismissive huff. “As if I’d trust those incompetent fools to crack down on their own people. Our soldiers are getting done what needs doing and teaching the lessons needed.”
“Oh,” I say carefully. “When we discussed it before, you seemed eager to put responsibility for the sanctions on the local royals.”
When did he go back on his seeming agreement? Did he have that conversation with me and immediately turn around and pass on instructions to do the opposite, or did his opinion change sometime during the days afterward?
Marclinus tugs a lock of my hair free from its upswept style, winding it around his finger. It’s a seemingly playful gesture, but something has hardened in his cool gray eyes. I feel as if I’m staring into irises of polished limestone.
“I’d imagine it seemed that way to you , wife, with all your Eloxian devotion. Did you really think I was going to go along with your soft-hearted nonsense?”
My words catch in my throat. I’m not sure he’s ever spoken quite so disparagingly toward me, even when I was only vying for our marriage.
I summon a cautious remark. “Involving the Lavirian royal family and their own soldiers—you came up with that idea.”
“I could see that your poor nerves needed soothing, so I presented some bullshit to set your mind at ease. You should be glad I know how an uprising actually needs to be quelled. Give them one inch of compassion and they’ll be razing everything they can to the ground. But we’ll smash them first.” With a feral grin, he smacks his fist against his palm.
So everything he said to me during our conversation last week… The consideration he offered me, his curiosity about my opinions, his pensiveness while he thought the dilemma through… All of that was a lie? The whole time he was mocking me in his head?
When I can’t come up with an immediate response, Marclinus clucks his tongue at me as if I’m a child he’s chiding. “You really thought I cared what you’d make of the situation. You , a minor princess from far off Accasy who’s spent barely a month in Dariu?”
I restrain a wince. “I’m always open to learning what I lack. If I’m going to serve the empire as well as I can?—”
He snaps his fingers in my face. “That is your mistake. You don’t serve the empire. You serve me , while I give the empire what it needs. Did you figure performing the confirmation rites proved you were meant for more? All it’s done is show what a pathetic figure you are. Going out of your way to hand out the fruits of the rite to commoners, as if you’re some kind of almsgiver rather than the wife of the emperor?”
Marclinus’s lips curl with a sneer, his gaze cutting into me.
He’s not just dismissing my contributions. He’s angry.
Because I stole some small part of the attention he felt was his due? Because the people of Ubetta reacted so enthusiastically to my offering?
My fingers itch with a spurt of my own anger. I have a brief vision of snatching the small knife in its sheath behind my belt pouch and plunging its blade straight into his heart.
But I have more strength than this man will ever give me credit for. I will not be baited.
I let my head droop, willing my shoulders not to slump in turn. I refuse to outright abase myself before this man unless I have to. “I simply wanted to remove any doubts about my place by your side.”
“It’s not their opinion that matters.” He waves his hand toward the walls. “They’re all imbeciles. And if you want to impress me, you’d do well to behave less like one yourself.”
“Yes, husband. My apologies for disappointing you.”
“Hmph.” He ambles away from me, running his fingers over the top of a nearby armchair, and then spins back around. “Your presence does remind me—I’ve been thinking we should add to our fleet of ships faster than we have in recent years. I’m going to call for significantly more breamwood from Accasy going forward. They’ll be happy to supply to both their emperor and their formerly Accasian empress, I assume?”
The bottom of my stomach drops right out. More wood from the bream cedars—that’ll require more local workers doing the dangerous work of felling the trees and conveying them along the precarious route down to Darium. More men and women crushed beneath the trunks and drowning in the rivers, never to return home.
“Of course they will,” I say, steadying my voice as much as I can. “You’ll get the best results if you ramp up production gradually.”
Which might give me time to distract him with some other acquisition?
Marclinus simply laughs. “Why should I wait? I’d like to see twice as much arriving in a matter of months. If they can’t keep up, you’ll need to deal with them like the empress you’re so keen to show you are.”
He stalks out of the room without another word.
It takes all my strength to stop my legs from outright crumpling under me. I wobble over to a chair and sink into it, gazing at the room but not really seeing its contents. Every part of me feels numb except the queasy churning of my gut.
Marclinus is punishing me by lashing out at my country—demanding so much more of my people when they’re already stretching themselves thin to cater to the empire.
He’ll force me to impose the demands on them myself if they fail to fulfill his request quickly enough.
All to put me in my place and remind me how little I matter to him.
I bring my hands to my face. I thought I’d started to make a few gains with him. I thought I’d earned some small bit of respect. But it was nothing more than another game.
I came all the way from the wild north to secure a better future for my kingdom, and it turns out I’ve only encouraged the new emperor to make my people a target. How much more will he bully them if I disappoint him again?
No matter how many times I breathe slow and deep, my nerves keep jangling. My store of inner calm has shattered .
No one in the empire will know real peace while that pompous, sadistic asshole still rules.
The thought floats through my head, expanding until I can’t focus on anything else.
It’s true, isn’t it? How many times does Marclinus have to prove that he’d rather ruin lives than raise them up, torment his people rather than cultivate them, crush my spirit rather than celebrate it, before I fully believe him?
He couldn’t rule while his father still lived. I never will while my husband still does.
My throat constricts around my next breath.
I might have brought about Tarquin’s death, but I didn’t relish the act. Every particle of my nature would rather guide those around me toward kinder decisions through sympathy and understanding rather than violence.
Back when my parents, my sister, and I murmured in secret in the private rooms of the palace, obtained my ring and worked out the best ways of using it, we never discussed disposing of anyone other than the old emperor. We assumed Marclinus would be at least a little open to influence, with his youth and his lack of experience.
How could we have imagined just how awful he’d be? That he’d become a terror worse than Tarquin?
How could I get rid of him? I can hardly pass off a sudden death as another bout of illness in a man still in the early years of his prime, especially after his father just passed under similar circumstances in my presence. And even if there was a way to free the empire of his awfulness, his people would hardly accept me as their new ruler in his place.
I’m not even Darium. I’ve only been empress for a matter of weeks. Nothing except a marriage ceremony and the gold band fitted around my wrist tie me to the imperial family.
Perhaps farther down the line, when I’m mother to his heirs, when I’ve fully established myself in their minds… But, gods help me, the thought of lying with him for real after the insults he just hurled at me makes every particle of my body recoil.
My gaze drifts across the room again. Sunlight beams through the window.
The warm brilliance gleams off the ruddy wallpaper, and a memory of Bastien’s dark green eyes beneath his auburn hair rises in my mind. The shine on the dark wooden cabinet brings Lorenzo’s image swimming up after it. The glint in the bluish crystal of a vase in the corner summons Raul’s pale gaze.
The men I actually want are right here.
My heart skips a beat. I hold perfectly still, unsure whether this is a godlen-driven vision or simply fanciful thoughts.
The starkest rays of sunshine dwindle. The images fade with them, but the swell of longing in my chest remains.
Perhaps… Perhaps there is a way.
The jolt of that inspiration sends me to my feet. I waver there for a moment, the implications of what I’m considering so huge that I’ve lost my breath completely.
Do I really dare? Would such a plan be outright madness?
Marclinus’s sneering face and vicious words come back to me, and my hands clench at my sides.
What am I consigning myself and everyone else I care about to if I don’t take action?
It’s so much, so big… So far beyond what I originally planned…
Resolve unfurls inside me, grounding me. I head out of the room and through the halls to my chambers.
My maids have come through and tidied the room, but it’s empty now. I settle cross-legged on the rug and tap my fingers down my front in the gesture of the divinities. With each inhalation and exhalation, I give myself over to the meditation.
Elox, you’ve led me well before. Be my shepherd. What if another murder is the only way to peace? What would you have me do now?
The light plays across my closed eyelids, filtering through the pear tree leaves rustling outside the windows. The breeze tickles across my skin.
The field I’ve seen before in dreams and visions forms behind my eyes. I’m kneeling in the grass, the green blades splattered with crimson.
A lamb stands before me. As I study it, it steps forward and rests its muzzle on my shoulder as if embracing me.
A sputter of a laugh bursts from my lips and breaks the scene.
If that’s supposed to be Marclinus, he’s never going to come to me like that. He sees everything I do, everything I am as pathetic.
But of course, there is no clear answer. I lean back to lie on the rug, peering up at the ceiling and puzzling the image over.
Was the lamb meant to be the emperor? The field was bloody too, as if battles had been fought there. The animal could simply represent the peace I’m striving for, indicating that it is within reach.
It could represent a child I’ll one day hold in my arms.
I know my godlen has never approved of violence unless it was absolutely necessary. Elox might be telling me to be patient—but what if I end up sacrificing both my country and the men who’ve won my heart because I bided my time?
I sit up again, my jaw setting firmly. I can be patient for a little while, because I’ll need to be anyway. My monster of a husband will have at least nine months to prove himself to me .
First things first. I need to concoct a potion that’ll flush the mirewort from my body.
I open my trunk and take out my brewing equipment.