Chapter 19 #3
After the performance, servants came and removed the chairs to allow us room to mingle and speak to one another.
Emperor Altair remained on the throne, so I did the same.
We watched as the people kept stealing glances at me before talking behind their sleeves.
“They’re looking at your outfit,” he said.
I looked down at the outfit in question, one of my most elaborate ones that I only wore on the rare occasions Ama held court.
This one was the pink of a sunset, which set off the golden tones of my skin beautifully.
The bodice was cut low and trimmed in braided gold with rubies that glinted along the neckline.
The skirt was separate, though the bodice covered most of my torso, and it was of a voluminous silk chiffon, split down the middle for ease of movement.
A golden belt with bangles was secured around my waist, and there was a matching golden collar that fanned out in the same dangling rubies that fit flush around my neck.
My dark hair was secured with a silken headscarf in the same sunset pink.
A golden diadem had both rubies and diamonds that hung in delicate chains along my forehead.
This was as regal and elegant as I could muster, especially after having just ridden on an eagle for hours. “Why?”
“The color, for starters. All that skin,” he said, glancing away. “Black and white are the shades of choice here. Maybe gray. I can have tailors sent to your room, fit you for a new wardrobe.”
“That’s kind of you, but no thank you. I prefer my own clothing.”
“They will judge you harshly for it.”
“I cannot be anything other than what I am,” I said unapologetically, and he watched me closely for a moment, as though turning my words over in his mind.
“That is…a radical way of thinking here,” he said finally. “I can’t say you’ll be rewarded for it, though. And you may end up regretting it.”
“I would think it would be even stranger if I came here and immediately started dressing and behaving as though I were a Zephyrian when it’s obvious to everyone that I’m not.”
He let out a small laugh. “That’s true, though that’s exactly what they expect of you.”
“Well, I can’t control other people’s expectations of me,” I said, and he looked at me again like I was speaking an unfamiliar language.
When he was quiet again and seemed like he would remain that way indefinitely, I said, “What do we do now that you’ve made your announcement to the court, and we’ve listened to the zither player? Shouldn’t we go talk to the nobles?”
He leaned back in his throne. “If anyone wants to speak to me, then they must approach me here.”
I looked at the dais, raised high enough that anyone who wanted to approach the emperor would have to crane their neck to look him in the eye. I didn’t see that happening. “I’m going to go and see if I can speak to any of them.” Surely not everyone was cold and removed.
“Be my guest,” he said dismissively.
When I climbed down the steps of the dais, Shazeera came over to me. Each echo of her hooves across the cavernous room made the nobles look at us like she was a rodent who had scurried into their midst. It made my blood boil.
I’ll wait here, she said with a little shake of her mane. I have a feeling they’ll never talk to you if I’m by your side.
Absolutely not, I said. We are a bonded pair, and where I go, you go. If I show weakness now, they’ll never accept us.
She swished her tail, which was what she always did when she disagreed with me, but when I walked away, she stayed by my side.
We moved toward a group of women who were talking, at least. That seemed like a good sign considering that most of the room held a heavy silence.
Although the emperor had spoken in a common tongue—no doubt for my own benefit—the other nobles were speaking in their own language, of which I had only a cursory knowledge.
As monstrous as they’d always seemed, I was surprised by how innocuous their language sounded.
It was smooth, even monotonous, without emphasis on any of the syllables.
I tried not to think of my own people, how any of us would have turned and welcomed a newcomer—even an enemy.
Hadn’t I even shown Commander Talon to the food table myself?
But though the women behaved politely, bowing when they saw me walk close to them, they kept their shoulders turned in such a way that I couldn’t join their circle.
I noticed their gazes dart toward Shazeera many times, too, but instead of it being a potential opening for conversation, they refused to speak to me at all—much less about the horse in the room.
Here, though I was surrounded by people, I had never felt more alone.
We wandered throughout the room, but it was the same treatment no matter which group we came close to. So when Lord Heron approached us of his own accord, I watched him warily.
“We haven’t formally met. I am Lord Heron,” he said with a stiff bow, “one of the emperor’s oldest advisers.”
His expression was deliberately even, so it was hard to tell what his intentions were, but I doubted he was trying to make friends. “Pleased to meet you, and I’m sure you already know my name, but allow me to introduce my bonded sister, Shazeera,” I said, and she bobbed her head at Lord Heron.
He looked at us both how you might regard manure on the bottom of your shoe. “I’ll refrain from introducing myself to a horse.”
“Then I have no use for you,” I said, turning away from him dismissively, while a red rage flushed my cheeks. “I don’t know how you became adviser to the emperor since you obviously know nothing.”
“I know that somehow the riders have convinced the emperor that you have an undefeatable power,” he said in a low voice. “But no one is invincible.”
I turned back toward him. He didn’t have a sneer on his face, and his tone was even, but I knew a threat when I heard one. Even though the hair on the back of my neck stood on end, I couldn’t let him see my true reaction.
“Are you sure of that, Lord Heron?” I asked with a careful smile.
His expression darkened like a cloud suddenly blocking the face of the sun.
“Our emperor is known to be eccentric, but even so, none of us will accept this.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice so that he could fully unleash the venom of his tone.
“We won’t accept a filthy-blooded horse girl to be our empress. ”
Shazeera let out an affronted whinny, ears pinned back against her head. How dare he speak to you that way!
I smirked at Lord Heron, taking advantage of the fact that my face could make the normal range of expressions. “I don’t need your or anyone else’s approval. I signed the treaty to save my people, and no pathetic attempt at intimidation can dissuade me from that goal.”
Did he think I wanted to be here in this cold place? To chain myself to the emperor in marriage? Energy crackled over my skin as anger took hold.
Lord Heron opened his mouth to say something else equally provoking, but suddenly, Commander Talon stood beside him. There was a tightness around his jaw that made me wonder if he’d heard what Lord Heron had said. I hadn’t even seen him return to the throne room.
Lord Heron’s eyes widened just enough that I thought he might be wondering the same. “Commander Talon,” he said with a little bow of his head.
“Be careful, Lord Heron,” Commander Talon said. “Like it or not, First Daughter Zara will be your empress…with the power to strip anyone of their noble title, no matter how old their family line.”
This got his attention. I was rewarded by seeing his face pale at Commander Talon’s threat.
“May the wind carry you far, Future Empress Zara,” he said with a bow before moving stiffly away to the other side of the throne room.
Commander Talon turned back to me. “The nobles may attempt to intimidate you with their words, but as you can see, they are easily reminded of their place.”
“I can stand up for myself, but I haven’t forgotten I’m an outsider here. It will be hard for them, I think,” I said as I put my hand on Shazeera’s neck.
But Shazeera was no longer listening. I could tell by the way her ears were pricked toward a far corner of the room that her attention had been captured elsewhere.
“What is it?” I asked.
I sense something strange, she said.
As if it felt us looking, something shifted just behind the thrones. Though I couldn’t make out the details, what I saw was enough to freeze me in place. A shadowy figure lurked, half man and half beast. A malevolent miasma surrounded him, like smoke wafting from a fire.
Shazeera, whose senses were much stronger than mine, snorted violently and half reared. What is that thing?
Through our connection, I saw the creature through Shazeera’s eyes. The humanlike form it had taken was nothing like its true self. It radiated darkness and wasn’t just standing in the shadows but was the shadows. It peered back at us with hungry red eyes.
Shazeera let out a scream that caused the eagle on the dais to raise his wings and shriek in answer.
Powerful talons scraped across the marble, the sound so loud and piercing it made me cover my ears.
Something snapped in that moment in Shazeera’s mind.
The fact that a giant eagle, mere feet from her, had made such a threatening noise, along with whatever demonic creature cloaked itself in shadow, was too much.
She reared and plunged, tossing her head as she pranced.
Everything in her demanded that she run.
Fear had pushed her over the edge, and now her natural instincts were taking over.
Her mind was nothing but a red wall of terror.
Shazeera, you have to get control of yourself!
And though I tried many times to calm her, she ignored my pleas. I reached out for her, my hand brushing her neck futilely as she reared.
I was jerked back, away from her flinty hooves, and Commander Talon pulled me into his body.