Chapter Eleven The Villainess and the Evil Chancellor #2
In the other clawed gauntlet, the Emperor now held the hand of his promised dark bride, who wore the second God’s Eye burning around her throat.
Key had altered the gauntlets, Rae presumed, at the same time he re-forged his sword.
What had been metal joins over the fingers and the backs of the hands were smoothed with enamelled bone and gold, so the Emperor’s gauntlet felt almost like a human hand.
Except for two things. The gauntlets were cold as death, and the ceremonial claws at the fingertips had been sharpened to wicked points.
The curved tip of each claw slotted into the delicate notches between each of Rae’s fingers.
The faintest pressure would tear her skin like tissue paper.
Heedless and wanton, Rae crossed her legs, swung one ruby-studded slipper, and leaned across the arm of her throne to find the Emperor already leaning to meet her. Their shadows arched towards each other, silhouetted like black swans limned against red fire.
Were they playing Evil Slut Chicken?
A black leather collar, studded with spikes and encrusted with rubies, snaked around the Emperor’s throat and hid his scar. Rae reached up and ran a red-tipped finger along the jewels.
“Does it please you?”
“Very much.”
The Emperor said, in a tone she found difficult to read, “I thought it might.”
He must mean he was hiding the scar for her, so she wouldn’t feel guilty when she looked at it. Rae had assumed he wore the collar for the same reason he hid the scars on his hands, having worn gloves long before the clawed gauntlets.
He didn’t have to hide the scar for her sake, but perhaps he had several reasons for doing it. Or perhaps he was lying.
When the Emperor pretended to woo the woman who deceived Lia to her death, he set up many romantic scenes.
The Emperor picked up the lady’s handkerchief and slipped it in his pocket, and the lady saw and believed she had his heart.
Rae had yelled at the pages for the Emperor to realize the lying bitch didn’t love him.
Then she realized the Emperor was manipulating the lady to her doom.
If the Emperor was lying, Rae should play along. “Thank you. Is that the collar you wore when we went to the Night Market together?”
The night of their first kiss. Spinning on the edge of the abyss, sparks flying, and she knew the mouth on hers was cruel and didn’t care.
It was only because Rae was watching that strange face so closely that she caught the slight hesitant curve to that cruel mouth.
The whole time the evil lady in the books thought she was playing the Emperor, he was playing her. Rae’s knowledge of the books was a cheat code that would keep her safe. She must not forget.
Still, for a moment Rae wished they were an ordinary couple in her world, and he’d worn something so she would tell him he looked hot.
Even if they were transported to her world this instant, all the horrors between them forgotten, it wouldn’t work.
Now that Rae looked at him properly, without making assumptions, many details were subtly off.
His scars, showing he survived what mortals could not.
His teeth, not fangs or needles but each one slightly too sharp.
The red colour of his eyes and their strange shine in the shadows: Tapetum lucidum, a reflective glow found in nocturnal animals.
Even the way his face was constructed, every angle slightly wrong.
Blood sacrifice and the magic of the abyss had created an almost human form, but the Emperor was not born of mortals and he did not look entirely human. After the abyss, even less so.
He would not fit in her world, and she didn’t want to change him.
“The imperial jeweller begged me to let them put jewels on the collar before I wore it,” the Emperor remarked lightly. “I chose rubies for blood.”
To remind everyone of the scar beneath.
Heartless and greedy, Rae ignored this. “Now you’re the Emperor, do they give you a whole room heaped with treasure? Is that what a treasury is? Please say yes.”
“Of course it isn’t,” said Prime Minister Pio loudly.
Apparently Pio could tolerate a woman making a lascivious display upon the imperial dais, but mischaracterizing a treasury went too far.
“Oh.” Rae was genuinely disappointed to hear it. “If I suddenly had a palace, I would fill a room with gold and swim in it like Scrooge McDuck.”
The ministers of the court regarded her strangely. Rae guessed only a villain would want to do weird fun stuff with a big pile of money.
A lord Rae didn’t know whispered, “Who is Scrooge McDuck?”
“No doubt one of her many lovers.” General Nemeth hardly bothered to whisper.
Rae didn’t have long to be amused; she clamped her hand on the Emperor’s arm when it tensed.
Key shouldn’t judge others for making assumptions about her love life. Due to a misunderstanding, Key himself once told the Cobra she was sleeping with Batman. It was possible he still thought Rae was sleeping with Batman.
Of course, if the other option was Scrooge McDuck…
The Emperor fixed the prime minister with a baleful stare. “My lady wishes a room filled with gold and gems. See to it.”
Pio visibly weighed the pros and cons of arguing with the Emperor. Rae gave a tiny, firm shake of her head.
“As you command, my liege.” Pio’s frustration was as well hidden as an elephant under a footstool. “Though our funds may soon run low, with the army of Tagar at our gates.”
“Better at our gates than inside them, my evil chancellor.”
Rae caught the Emperor giving his evil chancellor an amused sidelong glance. Key seemed to be enjoying himself.
The prime minister was clearly not enjoying himself.
“Restoring the walls was well done, Your Imperial Highness, but while an undead army is impressive, they cannot be described as tactically gifted. Sentries informed our commander general the ice raiders cut through your dead outside the walls like wheat. While raiders wait to pounce, none dares venture in. Or out. Our supply lines are cut. The city is under siege.”
“Annoying,” the Emperor agreed. “Silly to start my reign by dragging on a war I didn’t start.”
A very old lord croaked, “It is imperative we end a war we cannot win.”
Rae leaned forward. “I read the future. I have seen the Emperor on a battlefield of ice turned red. Each of his dead fought with his own skill, and none could be cut down. Unstoppable, invulnerable, and all-conquering, the Emperor will win this war.” She leaned back.
“Still, better if we can come to an agreement with the raiders for now.”
In a few years, the Emperor would have perfect control over the dead and the weather. Rae was the reason the raiders were at the gates too soon. She couldn’t think of a foolproof way for the hero to win, but she could buy him time.
How many people felt that way? This was meant to happen to a future version of me. Someone better, wiser, more able to handle it. Maybe nobody was ever ready.
“We must discuss what concessions we should offer to bring Tagar to the table for peace talks,” said Pio.
The Emperor blinked. “Concessions? No, I don’t think we’ll offer any of those.”
The throne room filled with blankly dismayed silence.
“Did I not mention?” The Emperor yawned. “I sent my guard under a flag of truce to the ice raiders’ camp. The raiders already agreed to peace talks.”
The prime minister’s head came up, a hound on the scent of the prey he was born to catch. “How did you get them to agree?”
The Emperor rested his chin on the spiked points of his gauntleted fist. “Personal charm.”
Nobody seemed to know how to respond.
The Emperor’s red eyes danced. “Don’t you want to pat me on the head and tell me I’m a very good Emperor? King Ivor declined to come within our walls, but the commander of the Tagar army and their ambassador will both attend our court.”
This was great news.
“The commander, the count, is a reasonable man,” Rae offered with cautious optimism.
The prime minister winced. “The champion of the raiders is a butcher of men known as the Beast of the West. Count Merac wields an enchanted axe, the only magical weapon not of Eyam’s make and metal in the world, which his men boast his ancestors stole from a god.
Count Merac is, famously, the least reasonable of men. ”
Oh no. That guy was still alive?
Rae was thinking of the wrong count. The Ice Queen had a coldly reasonable commander, a count from the east. Since war with the raiders had come years too early, not only King Ivor the Heartless but Count Merac, Beast of the West, still lived.
Count Merac, the raider commander, had only one scene in the books. It was a notably badass scene in which he single-handedly held off the army of the dead. After the count’s heroic deed, the Emperor himself was forced to travel on the night wind across the Bittersea and conquer Tagar.
The count was a popular character for someone with just the one scene, but he was a popular type.
The young bravo, the fearless barbarian, a warrior’s warrior who sang and laughed as he swung his axe.
Readers still discussed how a battle between the Emperor and Count Merac would have gone.
Most agreed the count would be defeated, as he was only mortal, but a few readers wondered what might happen if the count got in a lucky blow with his axe?
Rae didn’t want to find out.
In the books, Count Merac never came to Eyam. Rae wished he hadn’t come now.
Pio gathered his patience like a man gathering needles in hay. “I fear you don’t yet understand the delicacy of the situation with Tagar. Sire.”
The dark jewel clicked against the Emperor’s metal claws, facets catching red fire beneath the cold surface as if blood beaded beneath frost. The Emperor flipped the jewel between his claws as though dancing a coin through his fingers.
Then he placed the gleaming God’s Eye on the arm of his throne as if setting out a piece in a game.