Chapter 19 #2
“Centipede is not a tale many would know,” Vostop said.
“After delving deep, King Inor came back strange and with stranger powers. He said that the reason we have not seen badgers in so long is that now they bow to Centipede and do as he says. He said that Centipede taught him the true manner of stone magic, and he would teach all of us, if we would follow him.”
Small claws climbed down my shoulder, and Na? lowered herself into my pocket, pressing her face into my hip.
I had a sudden uncertain feeling. Na? had promised to teach me magic that no human had ever known. She had given me powers beyond what men could do.
“And did the people of Krustau follow him?” Tallu asked.
“He is our king not by birth but by right of his supreme skill,” Vostop said.
“Of course we followed him. And we tried to learn from him, but we did not do so well. Then he said he could not teach us, inapt pupils that we were, and invited Maki to our palace, and now… well, you have seen him. I worry that the reason none of us could learn from him is that Centipede has done more than whisper in his ear.”
“Centipede has taken him over,” I said, thinking of Asahi and the insect that had grown in his neck.
“Yes.” Vostop nodded. “But his powers are too great now. And we cannot stop him. He could bring the entire mountain down if he wished, crushing us all.”
“But he doesn’t want that,” I said. “He wants to hunt, to maim in the dark, to frighten. Centipede does not injure to win quickly. He injures to torture.”
Vostop did not meet my eyes. “The other guilds have been losing members. More members than they should. More members than they usually do.”
“You think he’s doing something to them,” I said.
“I know that my cousin was a good man.” Vostop looked up, his eyes fixed on Tallu.
“The Imperium has tried many times to conquer Krustau. They tried twice under my cousin’s reign alone, and my cousin led the fight against them.
He has been king for so long that I do not know what the throne will look like without him sitting on it, and yet… ”
“I know what it is to have a mad king sitting on your nation’s throne,” Tallu said calmly, as though Emperor Millu had belonged to some other family and been someone else’s burden to bear.
Tallu looked at Koque and she looked back, the pair of them accepting that they had shared the burden of Millu, even if they might never have explicitly spoken of it.
They both owned that Millu had only been propped up because Tallu had been unable to take that final step and kill his own father, no matter what the court whispered.
“Why did you do it?” Tallu asked, his eyes fixed on Koque.
The room was so silent that I wasn’t sure anyone in it was breathing. She sighed, looking down at her hands, clasped in her lap. I shifted on my pillow, unable to take the silence, but Tallu just waited.
“Your consort was not wrong.” She glanced at me, tilting her head as if acknowledging a point I had just made and not one from the day before.
“Even when your father first started paying attention to me, I understood my time with him would be limited. You knew your father’s interests.
I knew your father’s interests.” She grimaced.
“The entire continent knew your father’s interests.
But if I bore him a child, if I gave him another son, then he would have to acknowledge me, even when I was too old to fit his very specific desires.
Even when his promised empress came from the north, he could not make me disappear. ”
“If you had guaranteed your position why kill him rather than stay and fight?” I asked. Eona? never would have yielded to this woman, but, by the same token, I didn’t see Koque giving in when faced with competition.
“Because of you, Tallu.” Somehow, Koque managed to say the words calmly, her hands resting in her lap.
“Because you and I both understand exactly what your first act as emperor would have to be. And I could not bear it. If I were to survive after the northern princess came, if I were not forced to relinquish my position to this young girl who had been trained to meet Millu’s every desire, then I would have to watch you kill the son I bore when you ascended your father’s throne.
I could not do it then, not even to save my own neck. And I cannot do it now.”
If she had been from the north, she would have drawn a blade, but instead, she raised her chin, staring Tallu down with all the force of someone raised in the imperial capital.
Tallu didn’t look away, and Koque nodded.
“I thought of seducing you. I thought I could do it. I told myself I would have to. But…” She flattened a hand on the silk of her dress, her long fingers extending before she pulled them back into a fist. “I could not do it. Even for Hallu’s sake.
I had… my father told me what to do with Millu when I was so young my monthly courses hadn’t even come.
And I had done that to help my father, to give him benefits no one else in court had.
I could not make myself do it again, even though I was older and wiser. Perhaps because I was older and wiser.”
Tallu swallowed. He opened his mouth just enough to draw a jerky breath.
“We could have pretended. You could have been my empress, and we could have claimed Hallu as my son. Knowing how my father’s…
interests wandered, no one would have doubted it was possible that I warmed your bed while he took his pleasures elsewhere. ”
This time, she did reach out, cupping his cheek, her silk sleeve hanging between them, exposing a delicate pale wrist. “Do you truly believe that?”
Tallu went silent and shook his head.
“For four generations, every emperor has killed all of his brothers, all of his sisters, anyone who might claim the throne in their own name. Some other faction at court would have taken Hallu and tried to use him.” She dropped her hand, and Tallu’s head tilted as though trying to follow her touch.
“You and I both know how many enemies you made in court. I could not ask you to do that. I could not risk Hallu like that. With my sister banished and my brother acting as my servant, to put my son at the mercy of the court? To know that he would become nothing more than a pawn so some other man could rule? And once you were disposed of, once Hallu wore the golden crown, how long would my son last? What end would he find when his—and my—usefulness as House Atobe heirs came to an end?”
“But why my father? Why not poison me with him? If you had disposed of us both, then you could have acted as regent for Hallu, and you would have avoided being anyone’s pawn.
” Tallu fixed his gaze on her, and she bore it like the heavy burden it was.
“It would have been so easy to slip something into my food as well, and I had no reason to doubt you if you served me tea in your rooms.”
“Do you truly think I could have poisoned you?” Her words were curious, no sadness, no blame, not even a hint of guilt.
“I think that to save your son, you were able to poison my father, and I cannot see how it was different.” His words seemed to be from a separate conversation, as though he was listening to things she hadn’t said.
“You say you wanted to keep your son from being a pawn, but you walked him into Krustau, where the king is now holding him over my head. I believe he wanted the four generals standing against me to fight amongst themselves for Hallu, as stray dogs fight for a scrap of food. The one to win him will win a legitimate claim to the throne.”
“Tallu, I know you cannot believe this because you were raised in the court, but I love you. We were two children, and we both had to do horrible things to survive. I saw you as my son.” She stopped, but when Tallu showed no reaction, she repeated her words.
“I saw you as my son. I may have borne Hallu with my body, but I raised you after your mother died. I tried my best to be the mother you needed. You taught me how to mother Hallu. When I suffered your father’s touch, I thought…
I thought there is one good thing I can make from this.
I can save Piivu, I can save my sister from dying with her traitor husband, and I can save Tallu. My son.”
Watching Tallu was watching a mountain crumble to a relentless tide. He shook his head, frowning, and I realized that even though he had taken such comfort from her, he had assumed that Koque saw him as a pawn, a piece to be moved on a game board.
“But I was responsible for the fall of your father and Lord Dalimu—your sister’s husband. I am the reason that she was exiled to Forsaith.” Tallu seemed to struggle over his next words, swallowing before saying, “I could have stopped my father for what he did to you. To all of the girls he took.”
“Is that what you think?” Koque asked, her hands clasped gracefully in her lap. “It took me years to work up the courage to kill the emperor, and you think I would not give you, the man’s son, more grace than me?”
“I should have done it myself,” Tallu said, his voice thick. He cleared his throat. Despite all his anger and hate toward his father, I could see the hesitance. “It would have saved many the misery of his attentions.”
She looked down, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together so hard the nail beds were white from the pressure. “It is done now. It is done. And I am not sorry for it. I am not.”
Her voice broke on the last word. She cleared her throat.
I tried to see the woman we had faced the day before in her, and it was impossible.
She was gentler. She was the mother that Tallu had tried to tell me about.
The black stones, I realized. Before, she had been speaking for the benefit of the Shadow King, so his dark rocks could echo back whatever she said to his ears.