Chapter 23 #2
“So I should sell Tavornai and hope that that is close enough to the prophecy offered?” Tallu looked at me so fiercely that he may as well have been a hunting hawk.
I gritted my jaw, knowing he was right. “If I am to unite the continent I will not do so by selling out those who my family has already wronged. Would you melt the walls of the Silver City just to save your own life?”
“No,” I agreed, even though I knew I might to save his life.
“But we need to defeat the generals. If you come to my mother or King Vostop of Krustau and say you want to be allies, they will think it is only because you cannot defeat the generals on your own. They won’t believe that it is anything more than desperation. ”
“They will believe I am the snake who bites the milkmaid once she carried him across the river, because it is my nature,” Tallu agreed. “But if we defeat Bemishu and Kacha, and go to them in true power, then we can make peace.”
I clenched my fists. Who knew how long that would take? Would Tallu even survive to see it, could he survive to see it? What about Hallu? Could either of them endure to see the united continent that would save their lives?
“Tallu,” I heard, the word so broken that at first I thought I had spoken it.
Tallu’s head whipped around, his eyes wild when they landed on Lerolian.
The blood monk looked tired. Three more came through the wall, the last of Tallu’s spies, the last of the army he had used to defeat the Imperium.
Tallu didn’t speak, but I could see from his expression that he knew something was wrong.
“Kacha or Bemishu is burning what is left of the Tavornai forests.” Lerolian shook his head.
“Saxu and Empress Koque wait to tell you the news on shore, but your enemies have found you. Saxu sent men to the ships we brought, but the forest has consumed them. If the sailors or soldiers left behind survived, they are gone.”
Lerolian looked at Namati, his expression freezing, jaw clenched. For a moment, I wondered what he knew of the ex-imperial general. What had Namati done to him?
But then Lerolian spoke, and it was with the finality of someone who had already convinced a child to destroy their own empire piece by piece, regardless of how many people were hurt in the process.
“You will need Namati and his men,” Lerolian said.
Tallu’s face froze, and I nearly opened my mouth, but Tallu grabbed my hand tightly, squeezing it. He had so much experience with the ghosts. He knew that we could not respond to them.
Tallu needed to be the source of whispers, not the cause of them. And if a single person turned to another and murmured their questions about Tallu’s sanity, then he had already lost.
Tallu inhaled deeply, and I wondered what he was going to do. I wondered what I wanted him to do. My heart broke into pieces.
The terrible thing was that Tallu was right.
He could not offer over Tavornai as the sacrifice for Namati’s help and still claim to have united the continent.
Betraying those last surviving elves might help subdue Bemishu and Kacha, but it would not save Tallu.
We needed another way to secure Namati’s support.
One of the sailors knocked on the captain’s door, opening it when Spider called out for him to enter.
“Imperials are on the shore. The empress is with them. They’re waving a flag of armistice.” He looked at Spider, fixing his gaze on her, as though he could declare his loyalty most firmly by avoiding glancing at Tallu. “There’s smoke on the horizon. Do you want us to kill the imperials?”
“General Namati,” Tallu said, then stopped, turning to look at me.
I could see the same conflict that ran through me mirrored in his expression.
Then his jaw clenched, and I knew that he was going be the man his entire life had sharpened him to be.
“I intend to rid the Imperium of Kacha and Bemishu. Will you be my ally in this?”
“Did your people set fire to what’s left of the Tavornai forest?” Namati asked.
“No. I offer you the chance to put it out. Once and for all. Help us, and Tavornai will be free. I will not give you rule of it, but the Imperium will never again violate its borders.” Tallu’s face was so still that it was only the slightest twitch in his jaw that told me he wasn’t comfortable with the direction we were now forced to take.
In another world, maybe he would have lied to Namati and then stabbed him in the back for his loyalty.
Even now, we’d have to be careful. All those soldiers willing to throw their lives into the fire for us, would they be so eager if they knew Tallu wanted peace and not conquest?
“So, will you finally succeed as heir of House Atobe?” Spider asked, her tone rising and falling curiously.
“I will free the Imperium from the leeches that would destroy everything good about it. I will fulfill the second prophecy given to Emperor Wollu.” Tallu looked between Spider and Namati.
“This alliance you have built, this freedom to love and protect what is important to you will not be at odds with the future I see.”
“Then let us go to war, Emperor Tallu.” Namati drank down the last of his alcohol. “Let us burn so brightly that anyone who would rise against you knows it is futile.”
Tallu rose, glancing at Spider. He nodded his head, and she clicked her tongue against her teeth again.
“So stubborn to think that you need to try to trick me,” Spider said.
“I would not dare, not when you have given me back a future.” Tallu looked at me, and in his eyes I saw a promise. The corners of his eyes turned up just slightly as though to tell me that the only person he needed to be was the man at my side.
I nodded back at him, then stood myself, striding out onto the deck. Tallu would succeed in the promise, but he might not be fast enough to save himself. I couldn’t save him, but I wouldn’t let the rage that built in me catch fire.
Na? and the forest dragon were still in the rigging of the ship. They turned to look at me, Na?’s smile turning toothy as she saw the expression on my face.
“I need a ride,” I called up to them.
“I am no pack horse,” Na? sniffed. She looked away.
The forest dragon came together slowly, a thousand small leaves dropping out of the rigging and landing on the deck, linking together and becoming a massive body.
When it was large enough, I reached to hold tight to its crest just between its wings.
Swinging myself onto its back, I saw Namati and Spider come out of the captain’s quarters.
Tallu lingered in the doorway, Lerolian at his side, whispering in his ear.
Tallu’s face was shadowed, but he didn’t ask what I was going to do. He didn’t need to.
“Let’s go,” I said to the forest dragon. “Take me to where it’s burning.”
The dragon pushed up into the air, and I felt it tense under my legs, shifting not unlike a Borealis wolf.
We sped over the beach, Saxu and Koque raising their hands against the bright sunlight to catch sight of me.
Then we swept over what was left of Tavornai.
The swamp where we were had been filled with trees, and I was so used to them that when we reached the hollowed-out areas, it was a shock.
Massive mudlands stretched out, thousands of stumps where there had once been forests.
Charred ghosts of trees where one emperor or another had ordered the forests and villages razed.
I looked over my shoulder, relieved to see that the enormous elder trees I had just finished growing were still standing. The smoke was far in the distance, where Tavornai met with the Ariphadi desert.
We crossed patches of trees, the land drying out as we approached the desert. The trees shrank, growing wider, their branches protecting the earth from the hot sun. And then I realized they hadn’t shrunk, exactly. Instead, they had been replanted, carefully.
These were young trees. Planted since the last war with Tavornai. I was reminded of the forests we had passed through on our way to the Lakeshore Palace, filled with trees all the same age, planted in anticipation of House Atobe needing more lumber for its war machines.
Half the fresh forest had already burned. And through the intense smoke, it was impossible to see the imperial forces that had lit the tinder. The forest dragon hovered, just out of reach of the hot wind the fire had caused.
I extended my hands, knowing deep in my heart what I wanted, while at the same time I could feel the regret, the grief at the loss of what Tallu and I might have had.
In a different world, Spider had simply snipped the threads that bound Tallu to his curse, the fate that had yoked his family for generations. In a different world, he and I could now head north, confident that eventually Bemishu and Kacha would turn on each other.
I could see the future that we had hoped for and knew that it would never come to pass. Thick clouds formed over the flames and snow drifted down, becoming rain as it reached the burning air.
And under that, I could feel the forest itself, answering my grief, vines dragging burning trees into the dirt, suffocating the flames.
“This is not how you put out a fire,” Na? said. She hovered to our left, ignoring the tears collecting in the corners of my eyes.
I grimaced. “Then show me how to do better.”
“Gladly.” She preened, then swung her body in a wide arc, dropping an avalanche of snow on top of the flames. I used the pause to dig deep with forest magic, calling on the trees themselves to grow anew.
I added my magic to Na?’s, having the trees drink in the melted water, making themselves so wet that the embers couldn’t catch.
The flames subsided, then disappeared.
In the distance, Kacha’s flag whipped in the ash stained air, and battalions of troops formed together as they began to march.
“Should we kill them?” Na? asked.
“No.” I shook my head. They had been waiting. Waiting for Tallu. Which meant they would be prepared for Tallu’s weapons, including the dragon Kacha had watched me ride.
A massive spear headed toward us, the catapult hidden behind the vanguard forces. Na? dodged just in time, pulling her teeth back in a hiss.
“Let’s go.” I nudged the forest dragon with my knees, and it spun, its wings spreading wide as it headed back toward Namati’s fleet. “We will have plenty of time to fight them. We’re going to war.”
By the time the Pirate King’s fleet rose up in front of us again, I had come to a decision. Tallu and Namati were on the shore, talking to Saxu. Empress Koque stood back, observing the ships.
“The fire is out,” I said, after swinging down from the forest dragon.
“We must still prepare. Was it Kacha or Bemishu?” Saxu asked. He phrased it as a question, but his eyes were staring into the distance, seeing a war board that none of the rest of us did.
“Kacha’s forces are coming. But we must act before they arrive. We are going to bring the war to him. And we’re going to use forest magic to do it.” I looked at Tallu, and he nodded slowly.
There was no hiding anymore. Tallu would fashion himself into the bloodthirsty tyrant he had fought against becoming to create peace and alliances that no one in the Imperium wanted to see. And I would help him do it.