Chapter 7
Seven
Tallu’s eyes were wide, and a single stream of blood flowed down from his nose. He raised a hand, his fingertips catching it. I rushed forward, using my towel to stanch the bleeding.
He tilted his head backward, and I got a view of the long line of his neck, the delicate, dark copper skin that usually would have enticed me to kiss it. Now, I worried.
“You are ill,” I accused.
Tallu closed his eyes, his breaths slow and steady coming in through his mouth.
Finally, he said, “This trip has been more taxing than I thought. I sleep, but it feels uncomfortable, as though I’m awake but unable to move, unable to even breathe, as though I can hear voices just beyond my ability to understand them. ”
I startled, the guilt rising in my stomach immediately. Was it possible Tallu was somehow feeling the effects of Na?’s ice magic? Had her magic trapped him awake?
“Tallu—” I stroked a hand over his shoulder, down his arm, linking our fingers together. I squeezed his hand.
“It will pass,” Tallu said.
“Has this happened before?” My words came out sharper than I intended, the worry and guilt mixing together into something like anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Not the feeling of being frozen while I sleep. But I used to get the same headaches and nosebleeds.” He shook his head. “When I was a child on the road with the military. I never told anyone. I already assumed they thought I was weak. It would have given my father one less reason to trust me.”
As though that monster’s trust ever meant anything. I reached up, finding Tallu’s damp hair and nudging his head forward just enough that we could see if he was still bleeding. He removed my stained towel, and, other than a trace of red around his nostril, there was nothing.
Tallu’s eyes searched my face, and he shook his head. “Come.”
He took my hand, and we stepped outside. I was suddenly aware of the chill in the air that hadn’t been there when we’d entered the inn.
Outside, the bath was lined with large stones, a small set of stairs leading down into the basin. On top of the wall, a carved dragon spilled steaming water from his open mouth into the bathing pool. Not an ice dragon, then.
“Where does the water come from?” I asked.
“If they don’t have their own hot spring, likely it comes from a heater deeper in the building. They would need an electro mage to run it,” Tallu observed. “An injured soldier or a child too young for service.”
His eyes were fixed on the bath as he stepped in, tossing his towel on the bank behind him, and then I was watching his lean body, his muscles so perfect that I could almost believe he was a dragon reincarnated as a man.
He sat in the water, settling on an invisible bench along the edge, and I followed behind him. If the shower after so long on the road had been a relief, this was bliss. Even my first bath after arriving at the Mountainside Palace had been nothing in comparison to this, relaxing next to my beloved.
Settling on the bench next to Tallu, feeling the warm, smooth stone at my back, I closed my eyes. I drowsed, so much at ease that my mind swirled with hope and fear at the same time.
Miksha had told me that whatever Kacha had ordered Fimo to do had scrambled me, left me impossibly broken. But Na? told me that my loss had allowed her to teach me magic—old magic, magic that no human had ever learned before.
And I had to believe that if I could learn impossible ice magic, I must be able to relearn the magic that had been with me for so long.
When a young child first stared up at birds, their head cocked, listening as though they heard something not quite there, how did their mothers teach them?
What was it my mother’s second wife had said when she caught me whispering to a new litter of puppies?
Above me, I heard a familiar voice, as though echoing from a great distance. “…food. I saw what he ate today, and he won’t even leave us scraps of that…”
“Airón?”
I blinked open my eyes. Tallu stood, not quite looming above me, his dark hair curling around his face. His russet eyes stared at me, searching my face.
I blinked, looking around. The light had changed, going pink, hinting at the coming sunset.
“I’m sorry. I guess I fell asleep.” I tried a smile and felt something crack on my face.
Tallu reached out and tugged something off my cheek. In his hand, the shard of ice melted almost immediately.
He frowned at me, his questions clear, but he glanced behind me. Sagam said softly, “The horses are rested.”
He retreated, and Tallu looked down at me again, rubbing a thumb across my cheekbone, now clear of frost.
Bending low, Tallu whispered into my ear, “You will tell me later?”
The words were an order, but the question at the end turned them into an admission of trust. Tallu would never demand of me, would never require, would never insist. He trusted me, the way I now trusted him.
I nodded, and we rose out of the bath, dressing in silence. I pulled my hood up high, hoping no one would notice that I now missed the sheen common to all imperials. The innkeeper provided us with a traveling meal, and when we got back into the cart, Topi glared at us pointedly.
“Did you enjoy your bath?” Her words were venomous, and I shot her an amused smile.
“My dear lady,” I said as the drivers snapped the reins on the horses, “I did. It is a pity you could not join us; I’m sure you would have been a great addition to our party. How was yours?”
“Cold,” she huffed, looking away, cheeks bright with anger. She opened her mouth, but then shut it, her glare turning into a tightened jaw, and she worked her mouth for a moment before shaking her head.
I raised an eyebrow, glancing at Coyome. “Was the bath secretly torture? Did they submerge her in ice? You know in the north, that is a normal part of our bathing ritual and considered an honor.”
Coyome faced me, but his eyes slid to Topi. Finally, he said, “It was not the same quality as the baths at the palace.”
Topi flushed, looking at him accusingly. “No. It was not.”
We stopped in the shadow of the mountain for the evening meal, pulling far enough off the road that some large boulders once atop the mountain hid us from view of any travelers who might be using the road.
“We’ll put more men on guard tonight,” the Kennelmaster said.
Tallu nodded. We had seen more vehicles and people passing us now that we were back in a more inhabited area of the Imperium.
“Why don’t more people take the forest road?” I asked.
“It is illegal without a special pass, so that no one might take the trees we need for the imperial expansion,” Tallu said. “Luckily, the emperor gave us special dispensation to travel through it.”
“Luckily.” I smiled at Tallu. “How very generous to our small bands of armed merchants.”
When he smiled, there was almost no shift in his expression, just the slightest crinkling in the corners of his eyes. Even among his Dogs, Tallu was careful. He was still the emperor. A week on the road couldn’t change that.
The Dogs set up camp as the sun fell behind the mountain. In the shade, the land was nearly cold, a soft sort of chill that made everything seem quieter, every soft snort of the horses as loud as thunder.
“We’ll stay in a town tomorrow, and then it’s only five days until the Lakeshore Palace,” the Kennelmaster said.
“Will that be safe?” I asked, thinking of the cabins we’d stayed at so far, well equipped despite their apparent abandonment.
“I have people in cities who know House Vakuri and owe us some favors.” The Kennelmaster glanced at Topi. “We were lucky this last time. But Lady Bemishu is a smart girl. She knows the consequences if she steps out of line or makes a fuss.”
“Ah, yes, my very dear friends the Dogs will kindly remove my head from my body if I endanger His Imperial Majesty by opening my mouth.” Topi smiled sweetly, her expression hiding the sour twist to her lips. “What a gracious host you are, Your Imperial Majesty.”
Tallu watched her from his seat, and his expression was so still that Topi’s own contracted in terror.
The seat Tallu sat in was no throne, having none of the high backing or carved dragon bones that made the one in the throne room so daunting, but the chair was so distinctly his that when he lounged in it, he still looked the part of the cold, calculating man they all expected him to be.
The Kennelmaster always had the seat taken out first, Tallu given the first serving of every meal, and I thought again of what he’d said.
His own fate was tied to Tallu’s. He depended on the emperor just as much as we depended on his men to help us safely cross the Imperium.
“Your Imperial Majesty…” Topi was afraid, the raw fear so palpable it permeated through the guards.
They might know what a threat she posed, but most of them were not monsters who enjoyed the torture of women and children, and her fear made them wonder what came next, what Tallu’s next step could possibly be.
“Lady Topi,” I said, interrupting the tension. “Walk with me.”
I gestured to the wide field bounded by a few sparse trees.
On my shoulder, Na? shifted, her small claws digging in.
I usually only let her out in the cart or when we’d settled into tents for the night, but she was particularly vocal about her freedom the closer we got to the more traveled roads, as though she knew her days of being let out at all were growing limited.
The tall grasses came to nearly my knee, the ends tipped by small, tufted flowers. I let my fingers drift over them, not saying anything. They were sharp despite their soft shape, catching on my fingertips like nettles. Beside me, Topi’s rapid breathing slowed.
I heard a swish through the grass and glanced backward to see Asahi a few yards behind us, his eyes trailing around the field, darting from invisible danger to invisible danger, as though he was convinced some assassin had been lying in wait and was ready to leap out at the first opportunity.