“What a delight! Are you taking him on as well?” Pito covered her mouth with a delicate hand. “General Kacha, you are too generous! First, the air mage, and now, the northern prince!”
“It is practically a community service, given that he will be marrying our emperor!” Topi chirped.
“What does she mean, ‘first the air mage’?” I watched General Kacha’s face. His round cheeks were shined to silver with powders.
“I almost forgot you wanted that story!” General Kacha’s voice rose over the crowd, and I watched who turned immediately and who waited a moment. The party seemed equally split between those who wanted to curry General Kacha’s favor like dogs desperate for the last scraps of cooked meat on the bone and those who he was trying to win over with the party. “Velethuil!”
The air mage had been circling through the party, keeping close enough to his patron that I imagined he’d been able to hear most of what had been said. At the same time, he’d jumped between groups, leading a few besotted courtiers with him like a mother duck trailed by her ducklings. If General Kacha had used his seated position to demand people attend on him, Velethuil had used his gregarious nature to draw people along in his wake, two different ways of proving power.
“Yes, General?” The air mage came close, finding a spot on my other side. His followers managed to grab cushions and lie behind him, their eyes fixed on him.
Rute looked unhappy, his congenial grin slipping as he stared at the air mage. Then, he fixed his eyes back on General Kacha.
“This must have been nearly thirteen years ago,” Kacha said. “What was it, Velethuil?”
“Around that,” Velethuil agreed.
“It was after we’d broken the back of the Blood Mages, managed to exterminate the last of them, and had made our way north to Ristorium. Are you familiar with the territory?” General Kacha looked at me, his dark eyes sharp and his smile sharper.
“No,” I said. “The Inner Passage separates us.”
“Yes, yes, and I suppose you’ve only been aware since it went to flames. Well, we’d driven most of the Ristos as north as we could. Our scouts reported those who couldn’t fly to their islands were throwing themselves off the cliffs. Sad business—we’d always said that as long as they agreed to come under our rule like the other conquered territories, we’d take care of them.” General Kacha got a distant look in his eye, and I didn’t dare look away. He had the expression of one who’d eaten one sour grape in a bunch of sweet ones. A single regret after all that delight.
Velethuil shifted and glanced at him. His expression was as blank as the table’s. He might as well have been listening to a story about someone else, about someone else’s people throwing themselves into a freezing northern sea in order to escape the horrors of what Imperial subjugation entailed.
“Well.” General Kacha shook his head. “You can’t save all barbarians from themselves, I suppose. We’d cornered the last of them. Their air mages were too busy ferrying citizens up to the islands—they float, you know? Nearly at cloud level—which left no one to fight our ground forces. Except this man!”
He laughed, slapping his hand on the table and raising his finger to point at Velethuil.
“He sent two whole companies straight into the ocean! Took a tank and launched it back to us with a gust of wind.” GeneralKacha shook his head. “It was only luck we knocked him out. When he woke, he tried to escape again, but at that point, we’d won. There was nowhere to escape to.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Surely you could still have flown.”
Velethuil’s lips tightened. “No. I couldn’t. If I’d thrown myself into the air, I’d have crashed into the sea like thethreebattalions I sent to the bottom of the sea.”
I looked between them, and General Kacha’s smile only widened. “The Imperium wouldn’t last long if we didn’t have a way of subduing forbidden magic. Velethuil had been neutered. He wanted to die, but I said, why give up your life because you don’t have your magic? I have no electro magic, and yet I live a full life! I brought him back to the capital, civilized him, and now, he is a loyal supporter of the Imperium! He’s given us quite the information on Ristorium and even the Krustau. They’re next, you know. Once the imperial expansion is back on with your help.”
“What do you mean back on?” I asked, frowning. “We get no news of anything south of Dragon’s Rest Mountains.”
“It’s been on pause while…” He trailed off, eyes wide.
I glanced back and saw another man had come across one of the bridges. His outfit was a deep black, although the stitching in gold on his jacket indicated he was part of the military. His face was unpainted, but his skin was a pale gold, luminous even without makeup.
He began speaking quietly with someone at the edge of the party, and General Kacha cleared his throat. “Well. We were supposed to continue this year, but with the wedding, Emperor Tallu has declared that we cannot start again until after his marriage ceremony.”
I felt my skin flush, my nerve endings light up. This was why I was here. This was why General Kacha wanted me under his thumb.
I was the key to imperial expansion, the war that would conquer the continent. Until I married the emperor, the war that had subjugated and slaughtered three nations was off.
“Well, certainly puts a lot of pressure on you, doesn’t it?” Rute said cheerfully. He shook his head playfully, mock frowning at General Kacha in consideration. “Prince Airón, youmustthink of what wedding present to demand of General Kacha in exchange for restarting his precious military conquest. General Saxu, too.”
He raised a hand, indicating the man dressed in black at the edge of the crowd.
“Oh, no,” General Saxu said. “You know I have no care for politics. I’m glad to have the rest. My soldiers needed it, and it left me here, where I was most needed when His Imperial Majesty ascended. I’m an old soldier, loyal only to the imperial vision. I will be loyal if the imperial expansion starts tomorrow or if it has ended forever.”
“You are too modest, Saxu,” General Kacha said. “Far too modest.”
“I leave the immodesty to you, Kacha,” Saxu said, his smile grim. “Either way, Lord Sotonam has sent me and every other servant he can find in search of Prince Airón. The emperor desires his presence.”
