Chapter 15 #3
“It should be close. Can’t you feel—” He stopped, looking around, seeming to realize that he was practicing the most forbidden of magics in front of His Imperial Majesty.
“We appreciate what you have done to save our lives,” Tallu said.
“You have saved His Imperial Majesty by risking your own soul,” I said loudly. “You have saved his chance at putting the Imperium back on course and fulfilling the promise.”
Sagam’s back straightened, and around us, the trees shifted backward, moving away from us.
Slowly we came out of the darkness, the trees spreading and clearing until, seemingly at random, our ship hit shore. Soldiers scrambled out of the boat, but Tallu paused to pick up Na?, who grumbled unhappily, before he allowed himself to be escorted off the boat.
One of the oarsmen directed it to the side, tying it on a nearby branch. We had started with ten boats and close to a hundred men—soldiers and servants both. We arrived with only four, and barely half of the loyalists we had started with.
By the time everyone had disembarked, I was able to see that both Homisu and Nohe had survived, although their expressions were horrified. They continually glanced at the forest around us as though searching the trees for whatever had destroyed the rest of the boats.
“Why didn’t you try talking to them?” Irad?o whispered next to me.
“Why didn’t you?” I pointed out. “You don’t try to talk a bear down from its bloodlust when it is already attacking you.”
“Still.” Irad?o frowned, looking over what remained of those we’d started with. “Perhaps it would have saved some.”
I raised both of my eyebrows, and she flushed when she looked at me, seemingly becoming aware that she had just suggested saving imperials at the risk of my own life.
It was one thing to loudly proclaim that Sagam had saved all of us.
It was entirely another to openly practice Animal Speak with the monstrous creatures that inhabited the Tavornai swampland.
How better to prove that foreign magic was evil than to make the terrible creatures appear to bow to my whim?
As though to risk my life further, Terror squawked and flapped down from the branches of a nearby tree, landing on my shoulder. “Those creatures in the water didn’t share their kills. You will make it up to me.”
I stroked his breast feathers, shaking my head in amusement as Irad?o rolled her own eyes.
“You were supposed to find us House Chaliko,” I muttered.
“Well, how could I when so many human livers were being consumed! And I didn’t get a single one,” Terror sulked.
“Your Highness,” Commander Rede bowed in front of me, “we are moving this way.”
With everyone accounted for, the soldiers formed a protective circle around Tallu and his servants. I could tell which servants had been trained to fight, and which were simply hoping not to get killed.
Homisu had a small sword strapped to his waist, and Nohe held a heavy stick as a cudgel.
Before Tallu and I had left the Mountainside Palace, she had told me her family lived near the border with Krustau.
They were adept at fighting mercenaries and criminals who used the uncertain peace between the two nations to hide from both.
I glanced significantly at my two servants, gesturing them closer to me. Neither argued, following me as I stepped closer to Tallu, sliding between the layers of servants until I was next to him and Empress Koque, each bearing a precious burden.
Na? remained in his arms, having shrunk to the size of a small cat. She eyed me, clearly wondering if I was going to force her to walk on her own. However, I had larger concerns.
“It will be just as dangerous on land,” I murmured to Tallu. He nodded, clearly having come to the same conclusion.
“Still glad you insisted on coming?” Irad?o asked Empress Koque.
“Alligators and snakes, creatures that live in the trees… Those are the enemies you can see. I am not fond of those who hide behind the faces of men.” Empress Koque tightened her grip on Prince Hallu, cradling him against her chest.
She was dressed in dark fabric, an ashy color that would blend in well with the shadows. She had been wearing it under her expensive robes, and it made me wonder if she planned to slip away in the shadows here, disappear with her child.
The rumors would explode. Empress Koque had disappeared in the forest, eaten by a monster no one could see. I supposed there was more than one way to escape an unwanted fate.
Moving by foot was slower going than by boat. General Saxu sent scouts ahead and insisted on waiting to hear their reports before moving forward. He was smart, a cautious general, and I understood why he had frustrated my mother in battle. He was not one to fall for well-placed traps.
Soon enough, we reached a mostly dry clearing, the thick marshland grass giving way to barren soil.
General Saxu ordered a halt, and food was distributed from the heavy packs some of the soldiers carried.
Many of the supplies were at the bottom of the swamp, but enough had survived that there was food for everyone.
Nohe and Homisu waited to consume theirs until they were sure I had enough of my own. Koque slipped Prince Hallu some of her share, and Irad?o ate hers quickly, swallowing it down.
Tallu watched the forest around us, his servants growing increasingly alarmed as he ignored the food they presented him with.
Finally, one of them looked pleadingly at me and I stepped forward, touching Tallu on the arm to get his attention.
Startling, he jerked his head to look at me, and I raised both eyebrows.
“Husband, are you well?” I said each word carefully, waiting for him to nod before significantly looking down at the plate held by one of his servants.
He took a piece of stale bread, placing it between his lips to wet it before tearing a piece off. As he chewed, his eyes returned to the strange trees around us, roots from branches rather than deep in the ground, vines twisting around tree trunks so that whatever bark they bore was invisible.
“Tallu?” I kept my voice low, a whisper, and the servant standing next to Tallu looked into the distance, as though I hadn’t spoken at all.
“Where is Sagam?” Tallu asked quietly, his eyes moving back and forth, searching the trees around us.
Frowning, I turned in a slow circle, searching the groups of servants clumped together, the soldiers standing around the perimeter, some with their hands on their weapons, some shoveling their portion of food into their mouths.
Asahi had his head bent close with the Kennelmaster’s; Gotuye stood only a few feet behind Tallu.
The other soldiers that had been quickly inducted into the rank of Dogs followed Gotuye’s lead.
They still wore their military uniforms, but they had been dyed a dark gray to mark them as different from Saxu’s soldiers.
I swept my gaze over our small number. Sagam was missing.
“I don’t see him or his sister.” I shoved the rest of my dried fruit into my mouth, washing it down with a swig of stale water from a pouch. “When did they leave?”
Tallu shook his head, and I fixed my gaze on the Kennelmaster and Asahi. Was that what they were whispering about?
Tallu looked at me, and I nodded. Striding across the camp, I found Irad?o at my shoulder, the owl she was fond of gliding above our heads before disappearing into the dark canopy above.
When I reached the Kennelmaster and Asahi, I didn’t mince my words. “Where is he?”
Neither man was surprised to see me. Asahi’s expression was hidden by his mask but I could see when his eyes dropped down to the ground. The Kennelmaster answered for them. “He went ahead, scouting a route.”
“That’s what Saxu’s men are doing. What is he doing?” I emphasized the word, because we all knew that more often than not, the Kennel had different goals than the military.
“He awakened magic he didn’t know he had while saving His Imperial Majesty,” the Kennelmaster said. “He took his sister to make sure she was not a danger to the emperor.”
“Because she was more familiar with her powers?” I asked.
“He believes so,” Asahi said.
I noticed his phrasing. “You don’t?”
“I believe they are both loyal servants of Emperor Tallu and the Imperium.” Asahi finally looked up, his eyes fierce, and I knew his first loyalty would always be to his lover, even ahead of the emperor; I empathized with him there.
“Go find him. Given that they both saved all the people here, I agree with your belief. It would be a pity if, in his confusion and worry over his new abilities, Sagam killed someone as loyal to His Imperial Majesty as his sister.” I waited to see how my words landed. Asahi was gone before I finished them.
“Such a sympathetic read of a complicated situation,” the Kennelmaster said.
“I love my sister dearly,” I said. “To save his sisters’ lives, Sagam stayed when he could have left. I believe he loves them just as much as I love Eona?.”
“What if he has run away with her, to prevent His Imperial Majesty from ordering Sagam to kill her?” the Kennelmaster asked.
“Then at least three people will survive the traitors’ coup.” I kept my eyes fixed on the Kennelmaster. “I know what happens when a dog is whipped into obedience. I have no need to see what bite Sagam would give me for risking his sisters’ lives.”
Lerolian approached from his position at the edge of the camp, where he had been listening to the soldiers talk among themselves.
He raised his eyebrows at me, clearly surprised, even as a soft smile lit his lips.
I wasn’t the only one who wished someone in this mess was going to get a happy ending.
But I had to know for certain, because I knew Tallu was concerned about the same thing I was.
“You’re sure Sagam took his sister himself?” I pressed. “It wasn’t some overeager soldier, all too willing to prove his loyalty to the Imperium by killing anyone wielding foreign magic?”
“I’m sure.” The Kennelmaster’s face was fixed. Without his mask, I could read the pain in his expression. He was pale and sweating more profusely than even the swampy heat could account for. Every so often, he coughed, a heavy, phlegmy sound as loud as the screams of the birds in the distance.
I nodded at him. “His Imperial Majesty is lucky to have two such loyal Kennelmasters at his disposal.”
“At his disposal. I suppose that’s true.
We are all at His Imperial Majesty’s disposal.
” Despite his illness, his words were clear.
He was a man who read his own gameboard just as easily as General Saxu could read the battlefield map.
The Kennelmaster turned his head when Asahi came jogging out of the tree line, snapping, “What is it?”
“Sagam and his sister have found a way through.” Asahi’s eyes were wide, although he controlled them a second later. “We are nearly right on top of House Chaliko’s residence.”