Family
A scream shrill enough to shatter glass echoed across the courtyard as Mudiya and Iduan slammed into Math like twin whirlwinds.
Seconds later, Satu and Taris burst outside, followed by Jaiik with Hamu in his arms, and then Yasib and Fahura, carrying Shavru and Jura.
Math ignored the screaming girls and did a quick head count. Who was missing? The twins.
He spotted them under a canopy with his sister Tanxi, whispering feverishly to another girl. That was fine—they were out of the sun and not causing trouble. But …
Wait.
That was one child too many. Where had they picked up an extra?
Then Math swallowed as Tanxi rose and bowed to the seven-year-old before heading his way.
Oh. They hadn’t picked up a stray.
That was the empress.
No wonder the hairs on his skin had been raised the whole way across the courtyard. Archers had probably been trained on him the whole time.
His more immediate concern, however, was his older sister, whose expression was darker than the woods outside Sounalla at night.
He looked down at the children. “What can I pay you to say you never saw me?”
Iduan grabbed his belt and shook it. “Where have you been!? We were worried sick about you. Hamu wouldn’t stop crying!”
As if to underline the point, Jura burst into tears and Fahura started crying too. Math suspected Jaiik might have cussed him out if he wasn’t holding Hamu, but an arc of electrical energy played over both boys. Math couldn’t tell which of them caused it.
“There’s no need for tears. Really. It’s okay. I was fine,” Math lied. “Now, quick, hand me a baby so Tanxi won’t punch me.”
Yasib obediently gave him Shavru, who immediately declared, “No! Not safe!” and slithered out of his grip like she was buttered.
“My fault for teaching her to avoid danger,” Math said amiably, smiling at Tanxi. “Please remember that I am your baby brother and you love me.”
She still looked ready to summon her sword—right up until he was close enough to see the tears. Then she threw her arms around him. “Like I would ever forget! You gravef—”
“Language,” Math growled.
Tanxi tightened her hold, made a sobbing sound into his shoulder, then released him and shoved him back. “What happened? Why are you even here? They said you were arrested!”
Oh yeah. That.
“Some stuff happened and—”
Cries of “Tell us what happened!” rang through the courtyard. The young empress watched—and likely listened—with interest from under the awning.
“I will—I promise I’ll tell all of you—” He raised an eyebrow at Jaiik. “Have you grown? How are you taller? I haven’t been gone that long.” Math shook his head. “What I mean is, I’ll tell all of you the story, but first I need to speak to the regent. It’s important.”
The children—at least, the ones not crying—looked at each other, then at Tanxi, visibly confused.
Tanxi pressed her lips together. “She’s not here.”
He felt like a fool. “No, of course she’s not here. She’s probably still at the cenobium. But I need to talk to her the minute she comes back tonight.”
“She won’t be back tonight,” said a small voice.
Empress Asali.
Math wasn’t sure of the protocol. Should he bow? He felt like he should probably bow.
He bowed. “A pleasure, Your Majesty. But uh … what do you mean, she won’t be back tonight?”
The little girl continued her sharp-eyed appraisal. “What I said. She won’t be back tonight. She’ll be back tomorrow.” She paused. “Maybe the next day.”
Math fought down panic. “… Where did she go?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
Math inhaled. “I kind of do.”
She made a face and turned to Ayiad. “Are you sure about him?”
Ayiad nodded emphatically. “He’s good. He really is. It wasn’t his fault he had to leave—I don’t care what Jaiik says.”
Math gave Jaiik a sideways look. Jaiik crossed his arms and glanced away.
“Yeah, don’t listen to Jaiik,” Math said. “But I need to stop something bad from happening, and I can’t do it without the regent’s help.”
The little empress gave him a look both guilty and worried before motioning everyone under the canopy. Someone had set up a sitting area with cushions and rugs, and a bright, glittering crystal floated at the highest point, casting pretty sparkles across the ground.
Math eyed the crystal suspiciously. Fahura and Mudiya both had Sun resonance, but there was no way either of them had been maintaining a spell here while crying and hugging him on the far side of the courtyard.
Tanxi was Sun resonant, too. She must have created it.
He turned his attention back to Asali, who motioned for him to sit on a pillow.
He did. The others followed, setting up a protective circle around the little girl. Clearly, in the short time they’d been here, the children had established a hierarchy—or rather, they had taken to heart that this was their empress, who they were sworn to protect.
She was not an adorable child. Her eyes were a little too close together, her nose slightly too long, and even at seven, she struck him as gangly. Her stare was sharp, intelligent, and unsettling in its intensity—a much older person trapped in a child’s body.
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” Asali said, “but that I can’t. According to rumors, she…” The empress rolled her eyes. “The gossips say she gets so sick of the Idalliks that as soon as she’s done with them, she heads to a brothel or something and doesn’t surface for two days.”
“Oh,” Math said.
“That’s…” Tanxi shook her head. “I don’t believe that. She’s an Idallik Knight herself. She’d never break her vows like that.”
Math raised an eyebrow at her as he started counting on his fingers.
“Never break them so openly, I mean,” Tanxi said. “She seems far too smart for that.”
“What’s a brothel?” Iduan asked.
Math gestured in her direction. “And there we go.”
“Math! Do something!” Tanxi looked more horrified than she’d been fighting creepy animated trees.
Math smiled at the eight-year-old. “Iduan, darling, we’ll talk about it when you’re older.”
“Truthfully, Imar always checks in with her spies after meeting at the cenobium,” Asali said. “It can take a couple of days, but I don’t know where she goes. No one does.”
… And Math stopped smiling.
“Now, Your Majesty,” Tanxi said gently, “the leader of the entire empire doesn’t just disappear for days with no way to reach her. There must be someone who can contact her.”
The little empress nodded. “There is. Commander Liradda.”
“Right,” Math murmured. “Right.”
Commander Liradda—who was going to be absolutely no help whatsoever, because he’d already signed off on this nightmare of a mission.
Math found himself wondering how much common knowledge it was that the regent always checked in with her people after these meetings. Clearly, she’d also agreed to the attack, but he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d understood how soon that attack would be happening.
No. He was being paranoid. The only reason someone would have scheduled the attack while she was gone was if they wanted to make sure that she couldn’t stop it.
Doubt scratched at him.
“Math,” his sister whispered. “What’s going on?”
He started to tell her—but as he opened his mouth, he remembered who he was talking to. She was worse than he was, in many ways. If she found out about the mission, about how completely messed up it was, she would do something.
Something foolish. She would try to take his place or claim the children needed him more than they needed her.
“It’s Talu,” he said instead. “He’s…” Math pulled his hand back from patting Satu’s shoulder.
He couldn’t bear to look at the children just then.
“He’s convinced the commanders that I’m insane—he said…
” Math paused, swallowed, and tried again, his voice barely a whisper so the children wouldn’t hear. “He said I killed our parents.”
Tanxi said nothing at first. She just stared at him for a long, torturous span of heartbeats and then turned to the children. “I need to speak with my brother alone. Will you lot of absolute ruffians—not you, Your Majesty—promise to behave until we return?”
Math tried to retain some semblance of composure, even as he felt like he was suffocating. “Now you’ve done it.” Math pretended to smile as he pointed a mock-stern finger at the group. “That was not an invitation to misbehave once we’re back, understand?”
His instructions were met with giggles and at least one eye-roll from the older kids. Too many of the children gave him worried looks, however, to convince Math that he’d fooled them.
Tanxi grabbed his hand and pulled him through a side door—not the one the guards had led him through earlier.
The room beyond was all plush carpets, gilded tile, and the fanciest woodwork he had ever seen.
Heavy silk curtains and jeweled beadwork framed archways overlooking the courtyard they had just left.
Wall sconces shaped like glass tulips lit the hall with soft gaslight, glinting off an arched ceiling of gold leaf.
The air smelled of incense and fresh flowers.
Brass doors shimmered behind silk curtains, leading deeper into the palace.
“Wow.” Math swallowed as he scanned the interior. “You could lose your feet in this carpet.” He glanced down. “Feels criminal to wear shoes on it.”
“Probably,” Tanxi agreed. She was wearing velvet slippers. “Funny how quickly it stops feeling special. It hasn’t even been a week.” She fetched a bottle from a cabinet, poured something gold into a glass, and handed it to him.
He looked at the drink, then at her. “Now you’re scaring me.”
Tanxi didn’t look great. Physically she was fine, but the look in her eyes—not fine. She chewed her nail for a moment, not meeting his gaze.
“Tanxi.”
“You’re not insane,” she said.
“Yes, thank you. I’m aware.”
“But you did kill our parents.”
He couldn’t breathe. Math set the glass on a side table, pushed it away.
“Math—”