Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Lorenzo
A urelia moves through the parlor all smiles and bright words. She joins a game of darts at Vicerine Bianca’s cajoling and laughs as her unpracticed throws miss the mark. When a couple of the baronissas claim the empress to show off their new shoes, she exclaims over them as if she’s never seen anything lovelier.
It’s an incredible performance. Even a couple of months ago, when I thought I’d already gotten to know her well, I don’t think I’d have caught the signs that something’s wrong.
But for most of the past two months, I’ve had no choice but to watch her from afar as surreptitiously as I can. With every passing week, the subtle patterns to her movements, her intonation, even the angle of her smile have worked their way into my understanding.
Here and there, her shoulders slump just slightly, only for an instant. The light that dances in her eyes shines a little too glassily. My honed ears catch the faintest brittle edge to her laughter.
She’s struggling, like I don’t think I’ve seen since she was in the midst of Emperor Tarquin’s trials. Something has shaken the nearly impenetrable determination I’ve watched carry her through so much torture.
Raul mentioned that Aurelia asked for his help with a minor scheme involving the hounds this morning. I haven’t heard any talk among the nobles about an incident.
I’m not sure what she’d have been hoping for, but at least it doesn’t appear to have had any horrifying effects.
Who knows what Marclinus might have said or done to her away from our watchful eyes, though? I knew he could be cruel, but I’ve never seen him jerk around any member of the court the way he has his wife.
By a small mercy, he hasn’t seemed all that interested in her since dinner. He’s prowled around the room with a few of the nobles he’s chummiest with and made occasional wry remarks with a vaguely distracted air.
I drift closer to the emperor, my ears pricked. It’s safer to pay attention to him than to Aurelia, and he might say something that paints a clearer picture of what I’ve missed.
He’s just getting up from a cards table, clapping one of the viceroys on the shoulder. “Good game. Maybe next time you’ll lose less catastrophically. But it’ll have to wait at least a day, because I’m ready to turn in for the night.”
Is he? As I track him from the edge of my vision, he says his good nights to a few other nobles and then heads out the door without a word to Aurelia.
A glimmer of possibility flutters up in my chest. If he’s gone to bed without calling on her, presumably she’ll be safe from his overtures for the rest of the night.
We can find out what’s gone wrong and come up with whatever plans we need to set it right again .
Aurelia lingers in the parlor for several minutes longer. I’m not surprised to see that as soon as it’s not obvious she’s leaving because she knows her husband isn’t around to monitor her, she bows out of another game of darts and ambles toward the door.
I position myself where I can carefully catch her gaze and ask a silent question with my hand. Going to Marclinus?
She responds as briefly as she’s able. No, my room.
Perfect.
I seek out my foster brothers across the room, spotting Raul’s dark ponytail first. As I ease toward him, a trace of hesitation passes through my limbs.
I haven’t had Aurelia to myself in weeks. I was the first of us she turned to, the first she trusted. Maybe it’d be best if I approach her on my own before making a full meeting of it.
If my motivations for wanting a private interlude aren’t entirely unselfish, I don’t think Bastien or Raul would blame me for it.
The tenth bell can’t be far off. When Raul glances over at me, I signal to him. Aurelia’s room, eleventh bell, all of us.
He tips his head in a hint of a nod. I can count on him to pass the message on to Bastien.
I wait a few more minutes before wandering out into the hall myself. My route takes me in the opposite direction from where Aurelia—and her escort of guards—will have gone… at least at first.
Instead of heading into my chambers, I slip into the abandoned bedroom that we use as an access point to the palace’s hidden passages. It doesn’t take long to stride through the stuffy wooden corridors in the walls and up a cramped flight of stairs to the section outside the empress’s apartment.
I lean close to the panel, listening as hard as I can for any sign that she has company. After a moment, a meow reaches my ears, followed by a soft laugh. A smile touches my lips .
In an abundance of caution, I propel my illusionary voice toward her with my gift, keeping it focused entirely on her. “Is it safe for me to come in?”
There’s a rustle of fabric as Aurelia stands. Rather than answering with words, she opens the panel for me.
Her unbound hair tumbles down over her tanned shoulders like it always did when I first met her, but her deep blue eyes are shadowed with the worries she couldn’t show in public.
Seeing her beautiful face right there in front of me, I can’t hold myself back. I step out of the passage and pull her into my embrace.
Aurelia hugs me back, ducking her head against my shoulder. A tremor runs through her breath.
I press the spot on the wall to slide the panel back into place and guide her over to the bed. She sprawls out on the covers next to me, cuddling so close my heart swells with joy.
It should be like this every night.
“The others will be coming later,” I say, keeping my illusionary voice at a murmur even though no one could overhear it anyway. “I wanted to see you by myself first. What’s bothering you?”
Aurelia doesn’t ask how I know, just presses her face deeper into the crook of my neck. “Everything’s a mess. I don’t know how I’m going to do… anything.” She lets out a short laugh that’s too raw to reassure me. “Toppling a five-hundred-year-old empire is fucking hard—who would have thought?”
My arms tighten around her. “You’re trying to do something incredible. Of course it’ll take time to figure it all out. I know you’re strong enough to.”
“But what if I’m not? What if I’ve reached so far and now I’m going to stumble and fall in a way that ruins everything? ”
I brush my fingers over her hair and pull back just far enough to see her expression. “What happened?”
Her mouth tenses. “I’ll explain when you’re all here. But I don’t see how there’s any getting out of it.”
“We’ll find a way. We always have so far.”
Aurelia makes a noncommittal sound that wrenches at me even more, but then she nudges me onto my back. “I don’t want to talk about it now. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to feel anything but you.”
She nestles onto my taller frame, letting me support her completely.
The feel of her weight on me sets off all sorts of other sensations it’s hard to rein in, especially with the wild, sweet scent of her filling my lungs at the same time. I brush my lips against her forehead and stroke my hand down her back.
“I’m here. Whatever you need.”
A sigh slips out of her. “I wonder what it would have been like if none of us had been sent here. If we’d met under different circumstances, like regular royals rather than hostages.”
The corner of my mouth curves upward. “I’d have had no reason to distrust you, so I’d obviously have fallen for you that much faster. And then Bastien and I would have had to fight it out with Raul for your hand, and that would have gone badly for me.”
“Hmm. Maybe I wouldn’t have wanted whoever was best in a fight. Maybe I wouldn’t have been willing to choose even then.”
She scoots a little higher on me, the friction sending a pulse of need through my groin, and angles her head for a kiss. There’s nothing in the world I can do except kiss her back.
The press of her lips is all sweetness and heat, but there’s something unnervingly tender in the way her mouth lingers against mine. As if she’s drawing out the moment, afraid that it might be the last time we do this.
As if she’s saying goodbye.
My heart skips a beat, but Aurelia eases herself a little higher so she can meld her mouth to mine more deeply. Her legs splay to either side of my thighs. The gasp she emits when her sex presses against my straining erection through our clothes only makes me harder.
Even with the rush of lust, I can’t shake the impression I got. Willing down my hunger, I cup her cheek and peer up at her. “Are you sure ? —”
She frames my face with her forearms. “I need you.”
Those three words undo me. Then she’s kissing me harder and I don’t know how to do anything but answer the plea she’s making.
I trail one hand down her side to caress her ass, and she rocks against me with torturous pressure. When she tears her lips from mine next, her voice is so ragged it nearly undoes me. “Lorenzo, can we— Do we have time?—?”
Before the others get here? The bells have only barely rung ten. But I don’t know if I could refuse her even if I expected my foster brothers five minutes from now.
“Take whatever you need, Rell,” I say, and groan as she rubs herself even more emphatically against me. It manages to occur to me through the growing haze of desire that I should probably clarify something else. “I’ve been taking mirewort, so you don’t need to worry about those potential consequences.”
For a second, her stance over me tenses. “It’d have been fine anyway—it should be too late for anything to happen this time around.”
I reach up to caress her jaw. “Maybe it already has.”
Her smile looks sad, but then she dives in to kiss me again. I tangle my fingers in her hair, wanting to give her everything I can.
Through our ravenous kisses, she hitches up the skirt of her gown around her waist and fumbles with the fastening on my trousers. I help her loosen them and take the moment to stroke her through the dampened silk of her drawers.
Aurelia’s breath quavers against my mouth, and then she’s tugging my cock free from my own underclothes with a glorious pump of her fingers around the straining length. Before the pleasure of her touch has finished sweeping through me, she’s yanked her drawers to the side so she can guide me up into her.
The feel of her hot, slick channel closing around my cock brings another groan to my lips. I kiss her again and again, fondling her breast through her gown, massaging her ass, bucking up to meet the rocking of her thighs.
Aurelia whimpers. The needy sound somehow spurs my desire even farther. I lock our mouths together, thrusting up to meet her.
“I love you. So fucking much. No matter what happens, no matter where you have to go or what you have to do, you’ll always have me.”
The swaying of Aurelia’s body becomes more frantic, her kisses wilder. “Love you too,” she mumbles in the fleeting breaks for breath. “Always. Everything.”
What voice she has left breaks into a moan she tries to stifle against my jaw. I buck into her harder, faster, and then she’s shuddering over me, gasping and clamping around my cock with a bolt of bliss.
I clamp my teeth against the groan of my own release. As I spill myself into her, our swaying slows to a halt.
Aurelia lowers her head next to mine, her lips brushing my shoulder. I hug her close like I did when we were only cuddling, but suddenly the gesture feels hollow .
What have I really offered her with this act? How does fucking her fix any of her problems?
I’ve told her I love her again and again, promised to be here for her, but what have I actually done ? What can I do?
It hasn’t been enough. She wouldn’t be faltering under the weight of all her troubles if I’d managed to give her what she actually needs.
The familiar gloom that’s so often haunted my mind settles over me, dampening the afterglow of pleasure. I hide it as well as I can, but an ache forms at the base of my throat.
When Aurelia rolls off me after a few minutes, I set my clothes in order and grab a cloth from her bathing room to clean her up. She thanks me with the tenderest of kisses, and damn if I’m not half-hard again by the end of it.
But the uncomfortable sense that I’ve failed dogs me even as she smooths out her dress.
It doesn’t help that a melancholy cast has returned to her face as well. She drifts over to the window and eases back the curtain, gazing out at the darkened grounds and the glittering lights of the city beyond the palace walls.
“There are so many people right there , but it feels so hard to reach them. Nothing I do really matters until most of them are happy to see me on the throne.”
I slide to the edge of the bed, not daring to join her when someone might spot me from outside. “If the three of us could realize how wonderful you are even with all our reservations, they will too.”
“Not if Marclinus has his way.”
Before I can decide how to answer that remark, the temple bells throughout the city start to peal for the eleventh hour. I motion for Aurelia to close the curtain. “We should have company in a minute or two.”
I go to open the hidden panel so my foster brothers don’t have to wonder whether it’s safe to reveal themselves. As it whispers to the side, I make out the scrape of footsteps farther down the passages.
Maybe one of them will know how to tackle Aurelia’s concerns better than I do, though even that thought makes my throat constrict more.
Raul emerges first, giving us a crooked smile that’s just shy of a grimace. I understand why when Bastien steps out… with Neven right at his heels.
Aurelia blinks at the lot of them. “You all came.”
Raul jabs his thumb over his shoulder toward Neven, his tone wry. “The kid figured out we were up to something and insisted. After the other night, I thought it was better having him here than leaving him to go make friendly with the imperial army. He knows plenty already.”
Neven glowers at him. “I wasn’t trying to be friends with the high commander. I thought I might find out something useful from him, especially since the bunch of you hardly tell me anything.”
He steps past Raul and dips his head to Aurelia, giving her due respect as empress. “I told you before that I felt like I need to figure out a real purpose. After the things you said, and thinking about everything that’s been happening in court, and praying to Sabrelle—it seems like the most important way I can contribute is helping you like my foster brothers are. Protecting you when I can, since you sometimes need it.”
A gentle smile touches Aurelia’s lips. “I don’t want you to put yourself in danger, but I appreciate your support.”
Raul folds his arms over his chest. “As if we haven’t been offering enough protection—as much as anyone can around that fucking prick Marclinus?”
Bastien presses his knuckles to the other man’s arm. “At least Neven’s got the right idea. We’ve gone too long without giving him a real chance. ”
He shifts his attention to the youngest of us. “You know you can’t breathe a word of anything we discuss here—or the fact that we meet with Aurelia at all—to anyone.”
Neven draws his substantial height up taller. “Of course. I’m not an idiot. I didn’t tell anyone about the waystation, did I?”
He aims a shy smile at Aurelia. “We have someone who actually cares about people outside of Dariu in the imperial family now. Obviously we should do whatever we can to keep you there and see that your influence grows.”
So now even the teenager among us is taking stands bigger than mine. Was I just wasting Aurelia’s time by having them come later and keeping her to myself for the past hour?
“I can’t argue with that,” Raul mutters, giving Neven a playful cuff to the head, and turns to Aurelia. “How did your experiment with the hound go?”
The sag of her shoulders tells me immediately that’s part of the problem.
She sinks down on top of one of her trunks. “It didn’t go anywhere. I don’t think we can use that tactic—working with animals.”
Her new kitten trundles over to her with a mew as if it thinks she’s dismissing it. With a tight smile, she scoops it onto her lap and starts rubbing its back to enthusiastic purrs.
“His guards noticed the hound coming and used magic to block it before it got all that close to him,” she goes on. “And it was running at him quickly. I can’t see how anything would be able to reach him while they’re around, and they always are.”
Bastien walks over to set his hand on her shoulder. “Now we know that. We have lots of time to think of other strategies.”
“I know. That’s just the only one I had any hope for so far.” Aurelia sucks in a breath. “But I don’t even know if I’ll have the chance to make other plans. I—I asked Marclinus for ideas for proving myself to the rest of Dariu. They all love him for whatever reason, so I hoped he might give me something useful. But instead…”
Her mouth twists. When she lifts her gaze, she’s looking at Raul.
His forehead furrows. “What is it?”
Her free hand balls where it’s resting on the trunk beside her. “The army is sending several of the main Lavirian rebels to the capital. Marclinus and I are each supposed to fight and kill one as part of the Sabrellian confirmation rite.”
Raul’s gaze darkens, but he steps closer too. “It isn’t your fault. It wasn’t your idea. And they’ll all be executed anyway.”
“But it wouldn’t have been me doing it. I wouldn’t have ended up making a display of crushing the other countries of the empire as part of my rise to the throne. If I even manage to.” Aurelia’s head droops. “I don’t know if I can just push through like I have the trials before. I can hardly stand the thought of doing it. If I falter, for all I know, Marclinus will let me die. Not that surviving the failure would be much better.”
Panic skitters through my veins. “Of course it’s better. As long as you’re with us, you still have a chance to win some other way.”
“I’ll have looked pathetic in front of thousands of citizens, so many soldiers, the court… and my godlen. What if this is my punishment for going against Elox’s urging in the first place? He wanted me to peacefully accept the lot I’ve been given, and I refused, and now...”
“It isn’t hopeless,” Raul insists. “I’ll train you as much as I can. Every night, all night, if we have to. This is his sick idea, not yours.”
“That’s not how it’ll look. Or how it’ll feel.” She swipes her hand past her eyes. “It seems as if every time I make a move, I set something in motion that’s even more awful than what I was trying to address.”
Bastien gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “In a situation this complicated, setting things right is never going to be a straightforward path.”
“I’m just not sure—even if I survive this—what if I never get on the right path at all? What if the sum of everything I do for the empire makes everyone’s lives worse instead of better?”
Her voice has gone rough by those last few words. The ache in my throat spreads down to my chest. “Rell…”
Raul breaks in before I can go on. “There’s absolutely no way that’s possible. You have made things better already. You’ve gotten the three”—he pauses with a flick of his gaze toward Neven—“the four of us back on track. You’ve healed people. You’ve helped people.”
Aurelia grimaces. “But how many have I hurt on the other side of that balance?”
He lets out an incredulous sound. “I don’t see how you should take responsibility for that prick’s choices, no matter what you said to him, no matter what role he makes you play. And anyway, what if you have to get right down in the awfulness before you can find the ways to cure it? Like… Like the empire is a bathtub full of muck, and you’ve got to wallow deep down in it before you can reach the drain and release it.”
Bastien shoots our foster brother a bemused look. “That’s the best comparison you could come up with?”
Raul huffs. “So I’m not a poet. Have you got a better metaphor, oh brilliant one?”
Our older foster brother appears to consider the matter. He lifts his hand to trail his fingers over Aurelia’s hair. “If someone had a broken leg or a dislocated shoulder—you wouldn’t be able to simply bandage it and expect it to get well. The injury would only fester. You have to deal out more pain setting the bone or the joint right before it can really begin to heal, don’t you?”
“Okay, that’s a better one,” Raul grumbles. “I still like mine, though.”
Aurelia gives a choked laugh. “I understand what you’re both getting at. You could be right. I wish I knew for sure. I had a set path in mind, and it’s completely fogged over. I’m stumbling all over the place. And there’s so much at stake.”
Hearing the doubt in her voice and seeing it etched all over her face sends a discordant twang through my heart.
This is the strongest woman I’ve ever met. In the past few months, she’s fought through ten times more shit than the rest of us have.
So maybe it’s our turn to be the strong ones for a little while. To take on as much of the burden as we can.
Because we can. I can.
The weight of the gloom still drags at me, but I shove it aside with a clenching of my jaw. I can’t wallow in my own doubt and grief when she needs me.
It doesn’t matter what I’ve been able to accomplish in the past. I can push harder, and harder still, just like Aurelia has over and over.
If a princess dedicated to peace can be a fighter, so can a prince who’s never offered much other than music.
We’ll get her out of this awful task or shift things so she can stomach it. We’ll make sure the people of Dariu see just how incredible an empress she is.
My gaze slides to the curtain covering the window she peered out of earlier. Her words come back to me—all the civilians out there she needs on her side.
The idea that hits me makes my pulse wobble. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. As it takes hold, my enthusiasm blooms alongside it .
“We’ll come up with a plan,” I say abruptly, letting my illusionary voice reach all of my foster brothers as well as Aurelia. “This time it isn’t on you to figure out how to fix the problem. We’ll get you on the right track.”
Aurelia blinks at me. “I don’t think there’s any changing Marclinus’s mind. You shouldn’t stick your necks out. I’m the one who took this responsibility on.”
“And we’ve decided to shoulder it alongside you, so it’s time we did our part. You’ve set so much in motion already—we can build on that. Keep thinking about it, but you don’t have to do anything at all. Give us a chance to come through for you.”
I glance at my foster brothers. Raul is staring at me, which I suppose isn’t surprising, considering I’m not sure I’ve ever spoken up quite that forcefully before. Then he grins. “And we damn well will.”
A soft smile crosses Bastien’s face. He leans over to kiss Aurelia’s temple. “I’ll trust Lorenzo’s inspiration ahead of anyone else’s.”
Even Neven is watching me, waiting for me to go on.
Their reaction solidifies my resolve. I jerk my head toward the hidden passages. “We can get started right now. No time to waste.” I clasp Aurelia’s hand briefly. “There are things only you can do—and there are things we can do that you can’t. Let us fight for you.”
The worry hasn’t left her eyes, but her answering smile looks brighter than before. “All right. Just don’t do anything too risky. If I can get through this battle, I still want you with me when it’s over.”
We push into the passage and slip through the palace toward the vacant bedroom.
As we hurry along, Neven speaks in a low voice. “I’m going to be part of whatever you’re doing too.”
“I assumed you would be,” I reassure him .
“What exactly are we doing, Lore?” Raul asks, still sounding amused by the fact that I’ve taken charge.
It’ll be easier to explain—and to convince them—when we’re already in place. “Follow me. And keep quiet.”
Once we’ve left the passages behind, I lead them out the doors to the gardens. As soon as we step into the cover of the orchard, I cast a larger illusion around us, giving the impression to any patrolling guard who glances over that there’s no one among the trees.
Thankfully, my foster brothers heed my request for quiet. They walk alongside me in silence. It’s easier to hold the illusion when it’s only visual rather than needing to alter the impressions of sound as well.
I bring us to a halt when we reach the wall around the imperial grounds. Staring up at the immense stone surface, my stomach drops.
It's at least half again as high as the wall that separated the inner gardens in the Rexoran palace. Have I been overly ambitious?
Raul is watching me with one eyebrow cocked while Bastien and Neven wait more patiently. I drag in a breath.
I shouldn't assume what they're capable of when I never thought I'd be suggesting an idea like this to begin with.
There’s no one else around. I let my concealing illusion fade for long enough to explain myself.
"We've been supporting Aurelia's cause in bits and pieces where we can. I think we need to start making a bigger effort. We can't go through the gate without the guards catching us, but they can't monitor for magic all along the walls. So we go over, and then we head into the city and do everything we can to convince people of our empress's greatness."
Raul lets out a sputter of a laugh. "Gods above, when did Lore take over as the bold one?"
"When he took over as the idea man too, apparently." Bastien gives me a crooked grin that turns more hesitant when he considers the wall. "I don't know... Lifting all four of us that high without any falls will be hard."
Raul is already swiping his hands together. "Not a problem. I'll get us up and you can just cushion us on the way down. That's the easier direction, right?"
"I suppose, but?—"
Raul reaches into other shadows along the wall, and Bastien's mouth snaps shut. The three of us gape in awe as the swath of darkness quivers and hardens into an immense, lumpy shape that looks almost like?—
"Stairs!" Neven says with a trace of a gasp. "That's incredible, Raul."
None of us have been able to test our powers to their full potential before. Raul smirks, but his eyes have widened with a little awe of his own.
He keeps his hand braced against the step at waist height. "I need to be touching it to hold the shape. You three go up first, and then I'll follow. Less risk of me dropping you."
I summon the illusion of the untampered wall again. Neven starts up the steps first without hesitation. Bastien follows him, no doubt flexing his gift with the air, ready to catch any of us if we take a tumble.
I start up next, running my fingers over the wall beside me as I climb. The hazy darkness beneath my feet stays perfectly solid, as if I'm walking on smoked glass.
When we reach the top, I find myself gaping again. We're standing on a span of stone only a couple of feet wide, a little higher than the nearby treetops. Beyond the parklands beside the palace and stately buildings of the nearby noble homes lies the sprawl of Vivencia proper.
The people Aurelia's fate depends on.
Raul steps onto the top of the wall next to us and releases his grip on the shadows. When Bastien glances at us, we nod .
The air whirls in front of us with a whoosh of sound. I focus on my own gift, still projecting the appearance of a bare wall to anyone who glances this way.
Bastien motions to us, and we step onto the cushion of air.
It's more pliant than Raul's shadowy stairs, my feet sinking a few inches into the blustering surface. But it stays stable, carrying us down to the ground on the other side.
As we hurry over to the road and begin the hike into the city, I glance around at the others. "I'll project voices speaking support for Aurelia and pointing out her accomplishments, as I have before. Raul, you can shape the shadows into "omens." Maybe we should swing by a couple of temples where that tactic will be most effective."
Bastien nods. "I can make omens of my own, harassing anyone who speaks against Aurelia.And Neven…”
We all pause to study the youngest of us. Neven makes a face at us in return. “As long as Lorenzo can hide me with his illusions, I can shake things up a little when we need it. I’ll be able to reach higher and push harder than any of you.”
Quite literally, from what I know about the gift he sacrificed more than half of his teeth for. I’m not sure how his skills might come into play effectively, but it certainly can’t hurt to have the option of calling on him.
Bastien gives Neven his most authoritative look. “Stay cautious. Check with us before doing anything, all right? We’ve been working on this problem for a while.”
“Yeah, of course,” the kid mutters, but his gaze sweeps warily over our surroundings as we continue.
I don’t bother hiding us more than the darkness already does while we walk into town. As we reach the narrower streets with their tan and dun buildings packed closer together, I extend my illusionary power again to tweak our facial features and turn our clothes drabber to fit the regular civilians around us.
It’s actually less difficult than convincing the entire court that I’m playing the most breathtaking music they’ve ever heard, and I can keep that up for a couple of hours. I don’t think we should push my limits too far, but we do need to return and get some sleep if we’re going to be of any use to Aurelia tomorrow.
Bastien points out a temple of Estera, its tall spires poking above the nearby rooftops. We find lanterns still smoldering on either side of the entrance and a few petitioners to the godlen of wisdom praying inside.
As the cleric passes through the room with a book tucked under her arm, Raul dips his hand into a shadow that courses all the way along the wall. The shapes in an alcove shift into an image of a crowned woman spreading her arms as if offering herself to those watching.
The cleric halts in her tracks with a sharp inhalation. Raul releases the shadow, and the image flickers away.
The woman hustles over and starts murmuring to one of her devouts, no doubt spreading the word of the “sign” she witnessed.
The temple is too quiet for me to conjure voices in supposed conversation for a more overt message in Aurelia’s favor. We retreat and find a bustling pub a couple of streets over.
The tang of alcohol tickles in my nose, and a puff of hazebloom smoke blurs my vision on the way in, but the packed tables offer plenty of opportunity. As Raul obscures our forms with his shadows, I aim an illusionary voice to carry into one of the densest knots of customers with a gossipy lilt.
“Isn’t it good to see the emperor and empress back at home? Did you hear that Her Imperial Highness carried a man twice her size up a tower to complete Creaden’s rite?”
I ease closer to make out the eager and surprised responses before adding another remark in a different cadence from a different direction. “She cares enough about us to show her dedication—and the gods must think she’s worthy too!”
A few people glance around briefly, but then they continue chattering like the others, just assuming it’s all part of the regular bar conversation. It wouldn’t occur to them that someone would be adding to the din with magic. They hear what sounds like a fellow patron speaking and don’t analyze the fact any further.
That’s how illusion works best, really. You give people something they wouldn’t be surprised to see or hear anyway, and it takes no effort at all to?—
I freeze in place with a skip of my heart.
Bastien catches my expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, my heart starting back up at a pace that’s almost giddy. “It might be very right. I think I know how we can spare our empress from that last awful rite.”