“The air mage? Singular? You are the only one here?” I asked. On my shoulder, Terror clenched his feet once, but I didn’t need his warning to understand this was a dangerous conversational path.
“As someone who was once new here myself, I thought perhaps you might enjoy a tour. Lord Sotonam is not known for thinking of others, and I often found asking him questions only led to mockery.” He had the mild smile of a monk, and I was glad for the warning he gave. Not that I needed it, but it showed that he knew the situation I was in and was willing to help.
“He wants something,” Terror croaked in my ear. “Humans always do. In that way, ravens and people are the same. Only you couch your wants and greed in friendship. Ravens have no friends.”
“I would appreciate a tour,” I said.
Velethuil might want something, but at least he was offering to help, and finding out what he wanted would give me a much better understanding of the court. With another smile, Velethuil led us out an exterior door and onto the broader expanse of the Mountainside Palace.
“The palace is, in its own way, a smaller version of the Imperium.” Velethuil gestured to the lake. “Have you ever seen a map of the Imperium? Or, that is, the older Imperium, before the war of imperial expansion?”
I nodded, remembering the shape of it, the two major bodies of water: Heron Lake and Mountain Thrown Lake. Heron Lake, north of the Capital City and the Mountainside Palace outside it, was fed by rivers from the Blood Mountains. The emperor’s second estate, the Lakeshore Palace, was to the east, on the edge of Mountain Thrown Lake, practically touching the border with Krustau.
“The lake here is meant to represent Heron Lake.” Velethuil gestured to the water. “There is a larger one at the edge of the property that shares a shape with the Mountain Thrown Lake.”
Lord Fuyii had said something similar, but in the north, it had been impossible to imagine. Now, I looked around and realized that there were green buildings representing the forests that surrounded the Capital City and tall purple buildings representing Dragon’s Rest Mountains and the Krustau Mountains to the east.
“Interesting,” I said thoughtfully. “So, I am sleeping in one of the buildings representing the forest. Where does the emperor sleep?”
Velethuil pointed to one of the tall purple buildings representing Dragon’s Rest Mountains next to Turtle House and the public rooms. “The Imperial chambers are at the top of that building. They are locked every night when the emperor goes to sleep, and no one can get in or out until he wakes in the morning.”
The building was windowless up until the very top. The rock exterior was smooth, as though it had been polished to a slick shine. Nothing would be able to climb it. No trees reached the top.
So, catching the emperor while he was asleep was impossible unless I was in the room with him when it was locked for the evening. If I couldn’t seduce him before our wedding, even theemperor couldn’t hide from our wedding night. Not that he had seemed towantto hide from it or from me.
I wished I’d been trained in seduction like Eonaî. My only experience with lovemaking was a few quick fumbles with one of the boys my own age who had been invited into my father’s hunting party. There was little chance that theEmperor of the Southern Imperiumwas going to be impressed by a rough handjob and some desperate kissing.
What would the emperor expect instead? Or would he expect to take what he wanted from me, leaving me pleasured and used?
My distraction was unremarked upon by Velethuil, who continued his tour as though I was paying attention to which of the buildings had been built during the reign of which emperor and which noble families lived in the massive buildings inside the walls of the Mountainside Palace and which were relegated to houses outside the walls.
“Each of the generals is granted rooms in the palace. All of the ministers. The council was once granted rooms second only to the emperor’s until… of course, you know.” Velethuil gestured to a set of buildings that looked as though they could have been a palace themselves. The buildings were layered around each other, green with pointed roofs like trees in a forest. Now that I looked, various bridges stretched between the buildings like vines or branches.
The Mountainside Palace was called a palace, but from my view, it acted like a small city, containing several kitchens, laundries, three separate bathhouses, a jeweler, the seamstress and her workers. There was a legion of servants who lived and worked in the palace. If the Imperial Capital were to burn down around it, the Mountainside Palace, with its high walls and private farmland, would easily survive.
“Thank you for the tour,” I said thoughtfully. My mind was mapping all the different ways I could get into and out of the buildings and coming up with one cold fact: none of this meant anything if I was unable to find out where the emperor would be and when he would be there. “I am grateful for your help. I do have one question: how did you get here?”
Velethuil’s smile twitched and he turned his face into the slight breeze coming off the lake. “Well, that’s a story best told by my patron.”
“Your patron?” I asked. Terror clenched his claws tight on my shoulder, and I winced, turning toward him, but saw what he was trying to indicate. In the middle of the lake, a low building was illuminated by electric lights. Music and laughter from partygoers carried over the water. Velethuil had been circling the lake as we spoke, leading me toward one of the four bridges that led to the center.
“Yes. General Kacha.” Velethuil indicated the party. “Look, there he is.”
“There he is,” I said, glancing slightly at Velethuil. So. This general wanted to meet me, but he either wasn’t willing or wasn’t able to approach me directly, so instead, he sent a bait I wouldn’t be able to resist: an air mage also trapped in the Mountainside Palace.
Now, I had a choice of whether to spurn him or see what he wanted. Father said in hunting, you always knew what the predators wanted, but in a court full of them, I knew they didn’t want territory or food, not in the way a borealis wolf did. So, I would see what this predator wanted with his carefully laid trap. And then, I would see if what he wanted and what I wanted were in line and how I could use that to survive.
After all, I had promised Eonaî that I would try to.
“I suppose I can’t get out of meeting him, can I?” I asked. I turned a smile on Velethuil, but his expression was grim.
“No, you can’t. As one prisoner to another, this is a task best finished quickly.” His lip peeled back from his teeth. “He is asking you nicely now to meet.”
“And I don’t want to see how he asks when it isn’t nice?” I turned back to look at the distant party.
“No. You don’t,” Velethuil said. “Are you going to play his game?”
Six
