Chapter 11
Eleven
I had always imagined that a blood mage would be a filthy, hooded man who lived in a house made of bones. The stories we told around the campfire of blood mages were of the horror of their work.
My mother only said that the Imperium also told stories about us from the Northern Kingdom, how we slept in the snow and were so large because we mated with the animals we hunted.
But when the last of the blood mages was killed, it was simply one more crime committed by the Imperium for the sake of magical purity and a united continent. Now, I wished I had asked my mother more, asked her if she had ever met a blood mage.
Miksha closed her eyes again, and the blood from the bird floated into the air, pulsing in wavering lines that looked like rivers or veins in the air. She brought her hands together, cupping them, and blood dripped down into her palms.
Then, she reached out, grabbing hold of Tallu’s leg.
If I hadn’t seen what happened with my own eyes, I would have found it impossible to believe. The blood flowed into the wound, stitching the flesh together as though it were a needle and thread.
Miksha was murmuring the entire time, speaking in a tongue that I didn’t recognize. Liku stood on the side of the room, arms crossed. Occasionally, he would reach up, touching his hand to the lights, shooting another bolt of electricity into them to keep them bright enough for her to work.
The bowlful of blood was nearly empty when she finished. All that was left was a scattering of bloodied feathers and the corpse of a bird.
Her last words were an up-and-down rhyme that echoed in the cabin. On the ground, Tallu’s leg was healed, the flesh unbroken. There wasn’t even a scar where he had been wounded.
His color was healthier. Rather than a matte gray, his skin gleamed golden brass in the light. Instead of gasping as though there was liquid in his lungs, he breathed with the regularity of sleep.
My shoulders slumped, and I stared at his face as Miksha cleaned up, handing the bowl and bird to Liku and rinsing her supplies in a washbasin. When everything was put away, she came and sat next to me.
“And now that he will survive?” Her words were careful, and I glanced at her, worried.
“The Northern Kingdom has no more plans for war,” I said finally. “I’m here to keep the peace.”
“I saved him from his wound, but I can’t save him from what his father did.” Miksha looked around the cabin, her eyes catching on things that I couldn’t see. “And you can’t either.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Did you put a curse on him?”
She’d been inside him. Had she done something to him while she was healing him? For a blood mage, it would be the work of an instant to do something so terrible. Or at least that was what the rumors said.
No one had seen a blood mage in fourteen, maybe fifteen, years since the Imperium had slaughtered every last one until they said the soil in the Blood Mountains was permanently stained red. They said none had survived, none had crawled from the graveyard that had once been their home. So who knew if what they could do was more rumor or myth. For all I knew, everything I’d ever heard about the blood mages was fabrication.
Miksha’s eyes went wide, and she held up both hands. Blood had caked under her nails, drying brown underneath.
“I didn’t curse him.” She leaned forward, grabbing at my hands desperately. “You need to believe me. I didn’t curse him.”
A blood mage living with an ex-imperial soldier in the middle of the forest. There was no way that the story that led here was anything short of horrible.
“I believe you,” I said. When she stared at me uncertainly, I squeezed her hands where her fingers held tight to my palms. “I believe you. When Tallu wakes, we will tell him that his wound was not that bad. He was struck in the dark, and they hit him so hard that it bruised but didn’t tear the flesh.”
The door opened, Liku framed in it. He stared at me, and I looked back. Shutting the door quietly behind him, he glanced at Miksha, and she nodded her head.
“We need clothes for the emperor and then a way back into the city.” I ducked my head. “I’m sorry to be taking whatever extra clothing you have.”
“I have some of my clothes from a past life.” Liku went to the wooden chest on the side of the room and opened it. He dug through it for a moment before pulling out clothes. When he brought them over to me, I felt the fabric of the shirt between my fingers. Expensive. Silky. The jacket was embroidered with the markings of a high-ranked officer in the electro mage corps.
Powering the lights had been no more than a thought for him.
When I turned to glance at him again, he looked away, taking the clothing back and beginning the more difficult process of redressing Tallu. Tallu was taller than him, but Liku was broader. The clothes worked for the most part. I put aside the jacket, wetting my lips.
“It will mark the clothes as coming from you. I don’t imagine that many from the mage corps leave service.” At least not alive, I assumed.
Liku’s shoulders slumped, and the relief was a palpable thing on his body, a breath let out after being held too long. When we had Tallu mostly dressed, Liku picked him up again.
“We have a cart. It will be difficult to drive it in the dark, I’ll need a light.” Liku frowned at me, and the question he was asking was one I was still asking myself.
What was safe? How far did the assassination attempt go?
“The safest place for the emperor is inside his palace,” I said decisively. And if it wasn’t, well, then at least I would be saved from Tallu’s blood on my blade.
The thought struck me, strange in its exactness. Why did it matter how clean my blade stayed?
Outside, Miksha held the mule as Liku prepared the cart. It was filled with hay and some space for boxes that now sat empty. He put Tallu on one of the piles of hay, and I clambered in, awkwardly sitting next to the emperor.
Miksha handed Liku an electric light, and he lit it, hanging it from a post on the cart. Then, with a click of his tongue and a soft flick of the leads, we began moving.
The uneven movements of the cart soon had me lying next to Tallu rather than trying to stay sitting. After a jostle due to the dip in the road, Tallu rolled, lying next to me, his whole body pressed against mine.
My stomach clenched, skin hot and tight. This was fine.
Just as I was beginning to be lulled to sleep, Tallu murmured, his breath hot, “What happened?”
I jerked, tension returning to my body, my heart pounding fiercely in my chest. “I found a woodsman. He was able to clean us up. He’s taking us back to the city.”
“Does he know who I am?” Tallu asked. He was whispering, and with the groan of the cart’s wheels, I doubted Liku could hear him.
“Yes.” Tallu tensed next to me, and I grabbed hold of his wrist before he could do anything. “He’s a retired soldier. I think we should trust him.”
“I cannot trust anyone,” Tallu murmured.
“No one?” I asked, finding myself searching Tallu’s face. I wondered how terrible that would be, to be able to trust no one. The intimacy of nearly dying in the cave was gone, and Tallu’s face was cold and calculating.
“No one,” he said. Then, strangely, he looked at me, and something in the corner of his eyes softened. “Perhaps one person.”
My whole stomach tightened, and I regretted every choice in my life up until this moment. No. Don’t trust me. I am only here to kill you. As soon as I get rid of your sadist of a cousin, I will murder you in your sleep.
But then I was imagining how I would share a bed with Tallu, what I might do to have him relaxed and trusting in my arms. I was imagining the curve of his smile, the press of his lips…
I cleared my throat. “Me? Are you implying you trust me? I should warn you, according to multiple sources, I’m incredibly untrustworthy. My sister says that I take more than my share of dessert, and my mother definitely believes I was the one who burned her favorite tapestry.”
“Did you?” Tallu asked, and when his whole face softened even more, I wanted to shove my words back into my mouth. He couldn’t soften around me. I couldn’t handle that; I couldn’t handle the way that this cold man who’d casually threatened to restart a war that would end my people was gentle when he turned his hand so we were palm to palm.
“Did I burn the tapestry?” I opened my eyes wide, trying to look as innocent as possible. “Absolutely not, I would never hide behind it while holding a lit candle in order to escape morning lessons. That does not sound like me at all .”
“I can see why your mother suspected you,” Tallu said, his voice quiet in the dark. I could feel the brush of air from his lips as they stretched into an unexpected smile. “You are incredibly suspicious when you lie.”
“I am not. I am a consummate liar,” I said. “No one would ever know when I lie.”
“I know when you’re lying,” Tallu said, the smile on his face disappearing and something quieter taking its place. How had I forgotten that I was lying next to a predator? How had I forgotten that this wasn’t some boy I was flirting with in the back of a cart? This was the man whom the entire Imperium bowed to.
“Do you?” I asked. “And what am I lying about, Emperor Tallu?”
Tallu regarded me, his russet eyes piercing me through as though he was the assassin and his weapon of choice was arrows. He could kill me as though it was nothing; I wouldn’t even feel the wound. When he leaned forward, breath warm on my ear, I shivered.
“You are lying that you do not need me as desperately as I need you.” His words were layered, and I tried to make sense of them, but he’d rested his hand on the flat of my stomach as he spoke, and I could barely think beyond the warm press of his palm on me.
Need. I needed him so I could kill him, and he needed me for some political reason I hadn’t figured out yet, but the way his hand was hot on my stomach, the way that he was looking at me was like ice melting, like I could see every part of him that had never learned how to trust another human being and yet, somehow, he trusted me because he thought we needed each other.
It was impossible. He was impossible.
“Do you need me, Emperor Tallu?” I asked, my words quiet over the squeak of the wagon wheels, over the grunt of the mule.
“Yes,” Tallu said, and he leaned in, making his next words hard to hear. “More than you know.”
His mouth was so close, and everything in my body was alive, as though I was made of the electricity he wielded. He needed me, and I knew that he meant it in a political way, in a way that didn’t mean?—
I kissed him. Our lips crashed together, two pieces of ice on the open sea breaking apart as soon as they touched. His lips were everything; he was everything. Maybe that was enough for me to drown out the impossible guilt I felt. I had already known what I’d have to do to get so close to him, but this felt right in a way I didn’t expect and wasn’t sure I wanted.
His mouth was soft and desperate against mine, his lips tender where they met mine, and I wished we weren’t in the back of a cart but back in the palace in bed . He pulled away, looking at me with eyes that were wide with surprise.
He brought a hand up to my face, brushing a lock of hair out of my eyes. “You are unexpected, Prince Airón of the Northern Kingdom.”
When he lay back on the hay, I wished that I had enough of Eona?’s training to curl up against him, but instead, I held myself stiffly, unsure if I could lean against him, unsure what the kiss meant to him and why exactly it meant so much to me.
The light around us grew brighter, and over the edge of the cart, I saw more houses—shacks, really. They clumped together until we were driving down what might be called a street.
Liku pulled to a stop and looked over his shoulder. “How close do you want to get to the palace?”
Tallu sat up, looking around. “Head that way. Stop before you reach the palace.”
Liku tugged on the reins again, and the mule plodded in a slightly different direction. After a long stretch of time, Liku stopped again.
We were in a small grove of trees, the path rocky and unkept. Through the trunks, I could see the lights high up on the palace walls. Would we need to avoid guards? How often did they patrol?
Tallu stood, hopping out of the cart with more grace than I managed. He came around to the front of the cart, nodding his head at Liku.
The soldier jumped down, dropping to his knees and pressing his forehead to the ground.
“I will send recompense for your service,” Tallu said.
“No need, Your Imperial Majesty. It is a pleasure to serve the Imperium.” Liku kept his face down, shadowed in the light from his lamp.
“It was a service, nonetheless.” Tallu frowned. “Compensation is deserved. What is your name?”
“I already gave him compensation,” I said.
Tallu turned to stare at me, frowning. “What?”
“My mother gave me a purse before I left. We weren’t sure what money we would need, if Eona? might need new clothing. I gave it to him.” I willed myself to look honest. And, in a sense, I had given Liku payment. I had lied about his wife, and as far as Tallu knew, there was no woman in the forest practicing forbidden magic.
“It was more than enough,” Liku said, his voice thick. He coughed, clearing his throat.
“Very well. We are grateful for your service.” Tallu nodded his head, and Liku pressed himself further into the ground, his fingers twitching into a triangle.
Tallu gestured me forward with a nod of his head, and we stalked through the trees, hiding ourselves in the foliage until we heard the creak of springs and the snap of leather, Liku’s light bouncing as he made his way out of the trees. When the sound of his cart was long gone, Tallu stepped closer to the edge of the trees where the palace walls were visible.
He looked up, waiting for something, and when I inhaled to ask what, he raised his hand. I quieted just as light moved along the top of the wall, a different shade than the light on the lamps set into the stone. Two guards chatted quietly, their voices growing distant as they passed by.
As soon as they passed us, Tallu crossed the gap between trees and wall, touching his hand to the stones.
A spark of electricity danced from his palm, so bright in the evening light that it left an afterimage on my eyes. The wall opened without a betraying sound, and we stepped through.
The grounds were silent, and Tallu led me forward, both of us walking as quietly as we could. He cut left when we saw lights coming toward us, the guards holding their lamps up as they searched.
Tallu pulled me into a chapel, a stone dragon presiding over it, holding a flame in one paw and a lightning bolt in the other. Before I could ask what we were doing—if we were going to hide from his guards the entire way back to his rooms—Tallu pressed both hands to the floor. Another bolt of electricity sparked from his palms to the ground, and the floor underneath us twisted, opening into a set of spiraling stairs.
When I inhaled sharply, my questions nearly spilling out, Tallu shot me a look, holding up his hand. I followed him when he walked into the darkness, reminded of our visit to the soothsayer. How many hours had it been since we’d walked together into a dragon’s mouth? We had left mid-morning, and now, it was the in-between time of night after midnight but before dawn. Perhaps closer to the latter than the former.
At the bottom of the stairs, we were in a labyrinth of underground tunnels, the lights here already bright with electricity.
“Only the Emperor’s Dogs know the full extent of these tunnels,” Tallu said. “We should be safe here.”
“Unless your Dogs are in on it,” I said.
“If the Emperor’s Dogs have been compromised, then we have no hope.” Tallu’s voice was flat, and he looked to the side, as though listening for something. His shoulders relaxed. “This way.”
“What did you hear?” I asked sharply, following him down the tunnel.
“Nothing. It was—nothing.” He was lying, but I wasn’t sure what even to ask.
Instead, I said, “Who do you think it was? The men in the temple were from Krustau. Do any of your enemies have ties to them?”
“Krustau?” Tallu asked, turning to me. The glowing electric lights bleached his skin. “You’re sure?”
“Positive,” I said.
He sighed sharply. “Krustau. I thought perhaps it might be General Kacha on behalf of Rute, but he wouldn’t use foreign warriors.”
“So who?” I asked.
He shook his head, his strides lengthening. “We will have more information once we reach the court.”
“Into the vipers’ nest to see which one has bloody fangs?” I asked.
“Haven’t you heard? I’m the viper in the court.” Tallu’s words held no amusement.
“So, what? Into the mongoose den doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.” My mouth was running away with me again, but I couldn’t stop it, the nervousness making me talk. “Perhaps your court is owls? Those eat snakes. Hawks do, as well. Most birds of prey will consume a snake if they can.”
“There is not a single person here who deserves the honor of the moniker of a hawk,” Tallu said. “It is too bad hyenas do not eat snakes. That is a more appropriate analogy.”
I laughed, then caught myself, cupping a hand over my mouth. “Well, so long as we are all clear on it.”
“Whoever it was, they dared to challenge me. They endangered you. They will not survive it.” His expression was slowly becoming fiercer, as though he was putting on a mask of the man I knew him to be, as though maybe the softness in the cart wasn’t just because of exhaustion and a likely head wound.
After we had been walking long enough that my muscles reminded me of our trek down the mountain, we found another staircase, mounting it until it leveled out, opening into a doorway that Tallu accessed with a press of his hand.
When we stepped through, it was darkness. Only after a moment did I realize we were behind one of the tapestries in his throne room. The voices on the other side were clear.
“Then we send more men,” someone said.
“Not more men. More Dogs. How many are left?”
“All of the Dogs have gone, except for us.” The voice was quiet and low, and I immediately recognized it. Sagam had survived.
“We need to ready the ships for war. If my soldiers instead of mere Dogs were guarding the emperor, this never would have happened. How dare the Northern Kingdom provoke us like this?”
“Provoke? General Kacha, you provoke a bear when you poke it with a stick. If what the Emperor’s Dogs say is true, the north has declared war.”
I inhaled sharply. This was worse than I’d expected. They were going to kill my country not for the assassination attempt my mother had endeavored but for the one we hadn’t .
“You correct my words when the empire is at stake! The Imperium cannot stand for this. Someone has killed the emperor?—”
“Attempted to kill the emperor,” Sagam broke in. “We have no body.”
“And how likely are we to find one? You may remain loyal to your master even in death, a Dog to the end. That does not negate the fact that if Emperor Tallu was swept away by the river, he will not be found. Even the monks of the temple have no idea where the water goes to.”
“What the Imperium needs now is stability.” I recognized the voice. So, Rute was here.
“You overstep, Prince Rute. Unless you have some reason to be certain of the emperor’s death?”
Beside me, Tallu’s breath shortened, and then he exhaled. He pushed through the curtain, and I stepped behind him.
We were in the throne room, empty of everyone but a handful of people. General Kacha stood near the throne, and Rute was already halfway up the dais, looking between the other men with narrowed eyes. His makeup had been applied perfectly—dark kohl lined his eyes, and his skin gleamed like metal in the light. He turned to High General Saxu, whose black seemed appropriate, as though he was preemptively mourning his dead emperor.
Lord Sotonam was standing as far away from his nephew as he could while still being considered in the conversation. Beside him were three other ministers, each dressed in formal robes, the stitching identifying their ranks and positions.
The only one seated was Sagam, bleeding through the bandage on his arm, one of his legs extended out straight as though he couldn’t bend it. A black eye and a swollen cheek marred his face. Next to him was another of the Emperor’s Dogs, standing with his arms crossed. With his mask on, it was impossible to tell what expression his face wore, but from the way his shoulders were pulled back and the tightening of his fists, the other Dog was furious.
“Well, luckily, Emperor Tallu was not swept away,” Tallu said.
All of the men turned, and only General Saxu looked unsurprised. Sagam threw himself on the ground, the movement reopening a wound on his abdomen. Blood pooled underneath him.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Sagam said roughly. “My life is yours. My failure deserves retribution. Give me leave for my sword to find its calling.”
“Rise, Sagam. You are not given leave to end your service to me.” Tallu approached, his bare feet quiet on the wooden floor.
Sagam shook his head. “I failed you. I only returned here to ensure that we found you.”
He ended there lamely, and I could hear the unspoken caveat. He had only returned to ensure that they searched the cave long enough to find the emperor’s body.
“You have not failed me. I stand here before you, alive because of the sacrifice that you and the other Dogs made.” Tallu looked around, and his eyes caught on General Kacha, whose proximity to the throne was a threat in itself.
Silently, Tallu stepped forward, his eyes fixed on where Rute stood, ready to claim the throne. Tallu mounted the few stairs up the dais, pausing when his shoulder brushed Rute’s. I heard the murmur of words, but it was too far away. Rute’s whole face flinched, and he dipped his head, descending down the stairs.
Tallu settled himself on his throne.
“Well?” He looked around. “Who tried to kill me?”
A man wearing a pale green coat with stitching that marked him as a doctor managed to forcefully lever Sagam off the floor. Sagam’s head still hung low, but he answered. “We aren’t sure. Ten men overwhelmed the two Dogs left at the entrance to the cavern. They came in silently—they must have learned the layout ahead of time because they had no guide and no light. They attacked us, and we managed to kill all of them, but by the time we finished, you were gone.”
“What do you mean we don’t know who it was!” General Kacha pointed at me. “They were northern. They wore northern clothes! Clearly, this is an assassination attempt by the Northern Kingdom. Arrest him!”
Two soldiers lurched from the doorway, rushing toward me, and all I saw was their weapons and the spark of electricity one held in his hand. A single bolt of it could stop a man’s heart.
Desperately, I glanced at Tallu. I should have killed him in the mountains. I should have left him to die. I was going to be killed here, and my mission would never be accomplished.
Tallu stared back at me, face as still as a bronze statue. He turned to the guards. “Stop.”
They stumbled, pulling up short.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” General Kacha said reproachfully. “I understand that you hold your intended in some affection, but we must be realistic?—”
“Show me the evidence,” Tallu said.
A tense silence settled over the room. Finally, General Saxu nodded. He turned to the soldiers. “Bring in the bodies.”
The men turned, striding quickly to the doors. As we waited in silence, the second of the Emperor’s Dogs moved to stand behind the throne. His eyes fixed on me, as though I was the most dangerous man in the room.
After a few excruciating minutes, there was grunting in the hall, and six soldiers brought in three bodies. The corpses dripped fluid onto the floor—water and blood—and they landed with heavy thuds so loud the wood under my feet vibrated.
Then, the soldiers backed away.
The attackers had been dressed in northern furs. They even wore the grays of my mother’s clan. From a distance, they would make passable copies of her soldiers. Only the Northern Kingdom didn’t have soldiers. Not like the Southern Imperium did.
In the north, the men and women were warriors, each belonging to their own clan. They had joined together under my mother’s banner when the Imperium had attacked, but at no other time would these men I didn’t recognize wear my mother’s colors.
“See? There can be no question that these are northern assassins! They pounced as soon as he told them that Your Imperial Majesty was alone!” General Kacha pointed at me again.
The silence in the room stretched, and just when I couldn’t stand it anymore, Sagam said, “He had no chance to tell anyone anything. General Saxu, did he speak with anyone when you walked him from General Kacha’s party to me?”
“No.” General Saxu approached the bodies, staring down at them. Frowning, he bent and tugged on one of the hoods.
The face he exposed was scarred. Both ears had been removed, and some of the flesh had clearly been carved away, growing back mottled and pink.
“This is no northern soldier!” I snapped. “We do not mutilate our warriors. He’s even wearing the jacket wrong.”
“Clearly, Prince Airón is trying to save his own skin.” General Kacha sniffed. “Let some of my interrogators at him, and he will confess the whole scheme.”
“How do you know they are not northern soldiers?” Tallu asked quietly.
“The ears. Someone is trying to cover up that these men are from Krustau. They cut away the ears so that you won’t notice that they’re pointed.” I gestured to the jacket. “He’s wearing a cold-weather jacket. The ties aren’t right, but more than that, it is hot here for a true northerner. This is a jacket you would wear in the dead of winter outside the gates of the Silver City. And when I fought one of these men—while trying to save your life, just as a reminder—his bones were thick and heavy with the ore of the Krustau Mountains.”
“You cannot believe him,” General Kacha said.
“I might believe one man was scarred by an accident.” General Saxu loosened the hoods of the other two men. “But all three scarred by the same accident? And before you say it, if these are northerners who agreed to be mutilated in order to pretend to be Krustavian soldiers, why wear their own clothes , which make them look like northerners rather than Krustavian armor?”
General Kacha strode over to the men. He peered down, frowning.
“No, it is too convenient. The moment he has you alone, you are attacked by men wielding northern blades. Your Imperial Majesty must see how suspicious this is.”
“They weren’t northern blades. We might use Krustau’s metal, but we haven’t traded with them in twenty years, not since Ristorium fell. Our weapons are merely plated in Krustavian ore. These men fought with blades heavy from it.”
“Sagam?” General Saxu asked.
“Their weapons were heavy. They cut down three of us with them.” Sagam looked down at his hands. “They could easily have cut down four.”
“So, I suppose the question comes down to whether the Northern Kingdom would send assassins after me. Whether the man who is promised to me intends to kill me.” Tallu leaned back in his throne, raising his chin, his eyes looking down at all of us. Then, he turned to me, and I felt pierced through by his gaze. He saw into me.
“Well,” Tallu purred, “Prince Airón, do you intend to kill me?”