Chapter Eleven The Villainess and the Evil Chancellor #3
“Correct me if I get anything wrong. My lady prophesied to Princess Vasilisa of Tagar that her brother the king would soon die. The princess sent off a message warning her brother of danger, and King Ivor’s raiders attacked, in retaliation for what he saw as an assassination attempt by Eyam.”
Pio’s mouth was a sliver of its former self. “A fairly reasonable assumption by King Ivor.”
Rae winced. Once more, the volleyball of prophecy rebounded and hit her right in the face. If raiders defeated the Emperor and burned the city, it would be her fault.
“You can’t be implicated in any plot against King Ivor, Your Majesty.
” Pio chose his words carefully. “But the army of Tagar hurled its forces upon our shores and breached the walls of our capital. They expended wealth and lives. Most of Tagar’s forces are not soldiers but raiders from Tagar’s western shores.
Raiders are vicious, violent and unrestrained.
These raiders, who take captives, take treasure, take everything and burn what they don’t steal, are baying at our walls for blood and gold.
We must offer Tagar an incentive to leave our shores. ”
“Believe me, I will.”
The Emperor picked up his jewel again. He seemed more interested in its dark light than Pio’s words.
The two jewels called the Great God’s Eyes each conferred power on its wearer, while ultimately utterly corrupting them. As was standard with evil fantasy jewellery.
Being a villain, Rae embraced the opportunity to gain more power. She wasn’t worried about the corrupting influence of wicked jewellery on herself. Corrupting evil was like adding black dye to ink.
In the original Time of Lies, both jewels were summarily got rid of.
Sweet Lia convinced the Emperor to throw away the Abandon All Hope Diamond necklace which contained one of the jewels.
Under Lia’s influence, the Emperor killed his father as soon as he met him, and never accepted the other gem as his dark gift. That was true love for you.
She remembered the words of the goddess: One day, my son will love somebody truly. It could never be you. As a hero, Key needed a true love who would persuade him to give up evil. Rae needed to act immediately.
The Emperor tossed his cursed gem up into the air and caught the priceless stone one-handed. The twin of his jewel, hanging around Rae’s neck, gave one quick throb against her breast like a second heart.
“Think we’re done here.” Key sounded bored.
From the expressions of the assembled courtiers, nobody would dare disagree.
Rae said, “No.”
A flutter moved across the court, half whisper and half wince.
“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” Rae continued. “Many believe our betrothal hasty. My Emperor, you deserve the best of women.”
The flutter throughout the court turned to surprise. Rae remained focused.
“You haven’t even met most of the ladies-in-waiting-to-be-queen. Consider the tradition of the Queen’s Trials, where your prospective brides prove their devotion to you, by—”
“Hiring knights to fight monsters in an arena?” the Emperor sneered. “Touching.”
Key had already seen a Queen’s Trials organized in the new, civilized way, when Lia won the right to marry the king. Key had been extremely unimpressed.
Rae might not be able to convince him on this.
As carefully as dropping pebbles while trying not to disturb the surface of the ocean, Pio added, “Lady Rahela makes an excellent point.”
Rae had misjudged the prime minister. Despite his sinister facial hair, this was a kind and helpful man.
Prime Minister Pio continued. “But Your Imperial Radiance speaks truly as well. We have strayed far from the old customs. You deserve a bride both loyal and sincere. In ancient times, a lady would risk her own life in the Queen’s Trials.
We should hold a true Queen’s Trials, as in days of old, and find a true queen. ”
That wasn’t what Rae had meant. In the ancient Queen’s Trials, women died.
What was wrong with romantic strolls on the beach, so Key could get to know these ladies and find his true love among them?
Possibly if Key liked a lady he could give them a rose, and the maidens who didn’t get a rose must depart.
In the land of Eyam, love was displayed not in roses but with blood. In the books Rae had read, the prime minister suggested the old Queen’s Trials. Rae should have known Pio would do it again.
Perhaps the Trials was an event that must happen. No matter how the story changed, the Emperor would always hold the bloody, ancient form of the Queen’s Trials. The maidens meant to compete in the Trials would always fight. Those who died in the Trials would always die.
If Rae needed to fight to save Key, she would fight. If Pio helped Rae keep her bargain with the goddess, she would be thankful.
A young minister whose name Rae didn’t know contributed: “Your Imperial Majesty, if this woman doesn’t like you, there are a dozen fair maidens who will love you with all their pure hearts.”
It had seemed such a good idea to suggest the Queen’s Trials in court. She’d tricked Octavian and got out of execution in precisely this way not so long ago. It was just wicked scheming and strategy, it wasn’t personal.
She had failed to consider how it looked.
Get a guy killed, then reject him in public. At this point the court must think her reputation as a seductress was highly exaggerated.
With an effort, Rae unlocked muscles that wanted to stay frozen. She turned towards Key but saw only the Emperor, his unholy cathedral of a face with its stone facade and excellent cheekbones. His blood-in-the-night stare found her.
“Hey. I didn’t mean it like that. Your whimsical nature and infinite homicide charges have captivated me, body and soul.” Rae bit her lip. Making jokes was her only shield against terror. She tried to drop her guard for a moment, and be sincere. “I only want the best for you, Key. I swear.”
She wasn’t lying. She was intentionally misleading him, in true villainess fashion.
The Once and Forever Emperor had always been an anti-hero, walking the line between good and evil but ultimately redeemed.
Without redemption, he would become a villain protagonist, the kind of hero whose story was about ultimately failing to be a hero.
His whole character arc would be a fall from grace.
From bad to worse, every potential corrupted. In the end, he would be doomed.
Key needed to be rescued, and Rae knew the rules. The goddess was right. The best chance for a morally ambiguous hero was to be saved by the love of a good woman.
Rae didn’t qualify.
People said about their favourite character, I can fix him, but Rae knew better. She was no good at DIY. She couldn’t even put together IKEA furniture. She’d already done the equivalent of trying to put together a chair and accidentally creating a throne of skulls. She had made Key worse.
Someone else should fix him! Rae needed to find a heroine. The Queen’s Trials were the only way.
In a soft, bitter echo, the Emperor asked, “You only want the best for me?”
When he swallowed, the ruby choker glistened like fresh blood over his black armour. The proof of her treachery had been etched on his body.
Rae determinedly ignored the evidence. “I think you should see other people. Better people. The best people.”
The Emperor laid his head back against the jewelled wings of his throne and gazed at her. His eyes were flat, black mirrors reflecting lines of red lightning.
Low and furious, he said, “I don’t need to see anyone else. I see you.”
Such a simple thing to say, as sweet as his tone was sinister.
Rae searched desperately through her billowing skirts for the item she’d brought from her chambers to court.
It was a fan, edged with red. The Cobra had taught Rae the language of fans, spinning the pretty object carelessly in his clever hands.
Rae gripped the fan tight for courage, holding on to the memory of her friend as if it were his hand.
If he were here, the Cobra would shield her.
The Cobra would play any part he needed to play to save those he cared for.
Sometimes the only way to love somebody was to lie.
Rae snapped open the fan and beckoned the Emperor.
He leaned in, so both their faces were screened.
She couldn’t meet his eyes. She set her gaze on his ear, circled by an unruly strand of black hair and shining with a tiny gem; he still wore the earring Rae had given him, a garnet, as small and shining as a droplet of blood, suspended from the mouth of a tiny snake.
For a little while, Rae had the ear of the Emperor.
“For years everybody whispered that I was a villain unworthy of love, scheming for a throne and a marriage that would never be mine. I want to show them all how wrong they were. Let me beat every maiden in that tower, and prove I’m the best at a wicked game.”
The Beauty Dipped In Blood leaned across the carved bone of her throne’s arm, lowering her voice not into a plea but a purr.
“Grant me my vicious desire.”
If she were a good person, Rae would hate deceiving him like this.
Instead, she discovered wicked harlotry was fun.
When his eyes finally met hers, the ominous lightning in his gaze made Rae think of when they first met and conspired together.
The moment of terrible, thrilling recognition between them.
You’re awful. Just like me. Her stomach gave a flip like a coin in a toss she’d rigged.
As if this were a game she could cheat at, and win.
“Let me answer your every impossible desire,” the Emperor murmured back. “Let the Queen’s Trials begin.”
Before Rae lowered the fan, the Emperor reached out, claw tip as sharp as a blade beneath her chin, and turned her face to his.
“Go your wicked way, my lady. Any hero who stands in your path, I will cut down.”
The instant of understanding between them died with her fear, lightning blown out like a candle flame. He was the hero she’d betrayed. She didn’t want him cut down again.
His eyes narrowed. “But remember the bargain we struck, my lady. Be the most cunning traitor in the palace, weave tales to enchant and deceive.”
Even though all the king’s ministers could see their shadows move behind that fragile snow-and-blood screen, Key leaned in and kissed her.
Rae reached for him and found only cold armour.
The touch of his lips was like the claw under her chin, a breath away from pain, a threat she would ask for again.
“Make me believe,” the Emperor commanded.
His gauntleted hand moved like a strike of silver lightning, tearing the silk and splintering the wooden struts of the fan in his fist. The remains of the fan fell like a crushed dove to the ground between their thrones.
Rae faced the court. She didn’t know how much they’d heard of her wicked whispers, or the kiss. From their carefully blank countenances, enough.
“Let the will of the Emperor be known,” announced Pio. “We will hold peace talks with Tagar and hold a Queen’s Trials to seek a true bride.”
Rae sat upon her throne of marble and bone in triumph, and nodded her thanks to the prime minister. She had succeeded in setting up the plot perfectly. The hero would find true love, the enemy would be defeated, and the story would fall back into place.
“Stop,” commanded the Emperor.
Everyone, Rae included, braced themselves for the storm.
“Has anybody seen the Cobra?” asked Key. “I want him.”
From the startled glances exchanged, Rae saw many of the court had believed the Cobra dead with the rest.
“The Marquis of Popenjoy, sire?”
“Tall, dark and bedecked in ornaments. Almost as funny as he thinks he is. I’ve sent my dead searching for him. I wish him to have a high place on my council.”
Pio made a complicated expression, which reminded Rae there was no love lost between him and the Cobra, but he wisely stayed silent.
“Whose place?” asked a minister Rae didn’t recognize.
The Emperor favoured the minister with an evil smile. “Thank you for volunteering yours.”
“His Imperial Majesty is joking.” Rae grinned. “Probably.”
Prime Minister Pio beckoned and conferred with a guard who wore on his breastplate the mace insignia of a sergeant-at-arms. Several emotions crossed the prime minister’s face as the guard whispered in his ear, all swiftly repressed.
Rae had to respect someone who wouldn’t let feelings stop him from getting shit done.
Pio rubbed a spot between his eyebrows as if trying to ease a painful headache. “Your Imperial Majesty, I sent spies to locate Lord Marius Valerius, and it appears Sergeant Ronen has a report.”
The sergeant stepped up. “Sire, reports say the wicked Marquis of Popenjoy, also known as the Golden Cobra, laid a spell of dark enchantment on the noble and valiant Lord Marius. Even he, the truest knight among us, was corrupted. Once bespelled, Lord Marius massacred the Cobra’s enemies.
Murder done, the Cobra and Lord Marius fled the city with a retinue of wicked mercenaries and harlots to lay waste to the countryside. ”
The silence that followed had a deeply startled quality. It seemed nobody had been expecting that.
“Laid a spell?” Rae repeated.
“Of dark enchantment, my lady, yes.”
To the amazement of his court, their Emperor threw back his wild uncrowned head and laughed.
“That’s great. I didn’t know the Cobra could do that.”