Chapter 5
Five
Empress Koque didn’t run. Instead, she walked with grace and calm, her speed entirely due to the length of her stride.
If I hadn’t seen the way one of her hands kept clenching and then opening, as though she was reminding herself to at least approximate calm, I might not have even been able to tell how anxious she truly was.
When we reached the doors of her chambers, she waved the servant aside. They eyed me suspiciously but opened the door for her.
Inside, another two servants stood outside closed bedroom doors, the wood vibrating as something pounded against it. Koque stopped, and I glanced at her. Her eyes were screwed shut.
“His Highness, Prince Hallu, has not been well.” The imperial tendency toward understatement made me wonder how bad it truly had gotten.
“Emperor Tallu offered to help,” I said quietly.
“I have known Tallu most of his life,” Koque said.
She opened her eyes and glanced at the servants, who were doing their very best impressions of Krustavian statues.
She was not about to bring up the fact that Tallu had alluded to the fact that he and his half-brother could see things that weren’t there.
“The emperor and his brother are quite different. Emperor Tallu might not know how to help his brother.”
So, it was that bad. Koque had once said that she hadn’t been afraid of Tallu, meaning that she had probably guessed he could hear things that weren’t there, or at least things that no one else could.
So it wasn’t anxiety but fear on her face when she looked at the wooden door.
Whatever was happening to Hallu went beyond hearing voices of dead blood monks.
“When you are here, does it help?” I asked.
“I am not sure,” Koque whispered. She swallowed, and continued, stronger, “But what else am I supposed to do?”
I turned to the servants. “Open the door.”
They glanced at Koque, and she nodded once. One of the servants reached for the handle, while the other held his arms out, as though readying for an attack.
As soon as the door opened, Prince Hallu tumbled out. He was small, his prolonged illness having stunted his growth, and his face was as white as marble except for the shockingly red, long, straight scabs on his cheeks; those marks showed he had scratched himself over and over again.
He wore mittens on his hands that had been tied and knotted tightly with rope, likely to prevent him from scratching even further.
His forehead was bruised and turning purple. That had been what he had been pounding against the door.
Koque made a choked sound and stumbled forward, wrapping her arms around her son. They both fell to the ground, their knees hitting the stone floor. She cooed, stroking her fingers through his hair.
I glanced at the servants, all staring in different directions, giving the Empress as much privacy as they could. I cleared my throat then made a gesture of dismissal. They took the excuse, closing the door to the Empress’s quarters behind them.
Koque made a hushing noise. “You’re fine, my love. I’m here now. I’m here.”
“Don’t ever leave me,” Hallu said.
I frowned. Was it one of the blood monks? They had been keeping their distance from Prince Hallu at Tallu’s request. He had been afraid of frightening his already traumatized brother.
“I can’t sleep or he’ll come, that creature. I can feel it in my chest.” Hallu coughed violently, his chest racking as he spit up blood onto his mother’s silk dress. “It hurts.”
His whole body twitched and convulsed, moving uncomfortably. “Mother. Mother.”
I crouched down next to Koque and Prince Hallu, where they were wound around each other like snow clinging to the wide branches of a pine tree.
“Prince Hallu, I must ask you some questions. Can you try to answer me?” I kept my voice soft, the way I might speak to a wounded wolf who didn’t want to let me near.
When wolves were injured, they held their paws close, whimpering and whining and snapping at anyone who dared to try to help. Hallu looked at me from under his lashes, his face still tucked against the empress’s chest. He moved his head in what might have been a nod.
“Is it the voice of Centipede or just an echo of it?” I asked. His illness alarmed me, but if he was still host to Centipede, we needed to prepare for a fire dragon attack.
Prince Hallu turned further into his mother’s chest, but she pushed him back. With a quick motion of her hand, she told him something that I couldn’t quite translate, but he immediately straightened, sitting on his legs with his hands positioned politely in his lap.
He raised his chin, his back a straight arrow. When he spoke, it was with perfect diction, each word precise. “I know it’s not real. But I hear what he said. He said… he said he could save me and mother. He said that he could save me from my brother.”
“The horror of that creature was almost too much for me to bear, and if I were able, I would also wish to forget what it whispered to me.” I tried to smile. “And your health?”
Prince Hallu turned his face into his mother’s chest. “I am well.”
“Are you?” I asked quietly. “Are you truly well?”
“I’m fine,” he said sharply. “You don’t need to worry, Mother.”
Koque crooned wordlessly, stroking her fingers through hair that curled like Tallu’s even if the shade was lighter. She looked at me, helplessly. “I have known Tallu and he was never like this.”
No, but he hadn’t started suffering the effects of the curse until later. Was Hallu’s curse so virulent because of his youth? Had it even been at work in Koque’s womb?
“What does the doctor say?” I asked. The only doctor nearby was an elderly man who made compresses from dried leaves. Neither Irad?o nor I had a high opinion of him after he’d diagnosed the smoke inhalation she’d suffered as “a woman’s hysteria.”
“He has not seen Hallu,” Koque said. She stroked her son’s hair again. “We require discretion. Such an illness in the emperor’s heir would only create chaos if it became public knowledge.”
And that was the Imperial Court all over.
“Prince Hallu, if you will allow me, I might be able to help. I’m not sure anything can help with the nightmares, and the cost of what Centipede did to us is something you and I will both have to pay, but I might be able to help with the physical illness you have.” I waited for Hallu to nod.
It would be fine. I had been practicing with Na?, although I was not nearly as good as her yet. Perhaps it would be better to wait and ask the dragon to come do it herself.
No. I could do this myself. I could.
Leaning forward, I touched my hands to Hallu’s small chest, calling on ice. When I drew it to me, the thrum of lava hit me suddenly, a vibration under the palms of my hands. Fire magic was always waiting, and it was a great temptation to let it out, let all of my emotions free.
Instead, I called unfamiliar ice, remembering how Na? had taught me to use its healing abilities. I reached out with the ice, wrapping it around Hallu, inside and out. I could sense the fractures inside of him, like cracks in a sculpture.
And there, ever present, were the thin threads of fate, the curse the blood monks had given him and Tallu. Those, I couldn’t do anything about.
But I imagined the ice flowing into Hallu, patching the broken spots, finding the holes in his lungs and filling them. Water would flow into any spot available, filling in cracks. If the ice froze it, then even a broken surface could be as smooth as glass.
The healing began to work, the ice layers going on more smoothly with each repetition. Hallu’s chest expanded, and he gasped deeply without a cough. When I opened my eyes, a thin sheet of ice covered him.
I sat back, and Hallu shivered, the ice cracking off him and falling to the floor, melting almost immediately in the heat of the room. Koque stared.
“I had heard, in the north, the magic practiced was animal speak,” Koque said delicately, which was the politest way of demanding to know what I had done to her son.
It hadn’t even occurred to me that she might be a magical purist. She had become lovers with a Krustavian miner. They were known for singing the metal out from rocks, gems and jewels falling into their hands because of a single note of song.
“The dragon that chose Emperor Tallu offered to teach me some of the magic left behind by the One Dragon.” It was true, after a sense, and Koque hesitated for only a second before nodding.
“I am sure anything taught by the dragon that granted Emperor Tallu its favor is a blessing,” Koque said. “And I saw you do something similar in the caves beneath Mountain Thrown City. I was grateful then, as I am now.”
“Prince Hallu, it is very important that you tell me the truth,” I said, thinking of the horrors that Tallu had feared before we set off for the Lakeshore Palace. “Do you ever see anything else? Anything that wasn’t because of Centipede?”
If he were going to see ghosts of those murdered by the Imperium, this would be the place to see it, in a palace that had once been seat to the Shadow Throne.
Prince Hallu shook his head, and I could see from the gleam on his skin that already he was looking healthier. His skin had begun to take on the quality natural to most Imperials, a soft shine that made him look as valuable as any of the precious metals Vostop could pull from Krustavian mines.
I stood, feeling slightly unsteady on my feet, and Empress Koque joined me. She eyed me with some concern before stepping closer.
“I care for both my sons a great deal. Please assure me that you are only showing this gift left from the One Dragon to Emperor Tallu and myself. I fear that anyone else might be confused as to the origin of your magnificent powers.” Her gaze was firm, and she had survived enough time in the palace that I knew it was better to listen to her.
I had been so desperate to save Hallu that now I realized I had just given someone who might be my enemy a secret that could force Tallu to reveal too much about his intentions.