Seven
Istood, nodding to General Kacha. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a smile. “I’m glad to have met you, Prince Airón. I’m sure we’ll have plenty to talk about, and I’d be happy to show you some areas of the palace that you might miss otherwise. May we meet again soon.”
And I was sure if we didn’t meet again soon, General Kacha would engineer it so that we would. For all of his friendliness, I hadn’t missed the way he’d controlled Rute with a single word, the way every member of the party had danced on him, even the ones who didn’t seem to like him at all.
As I walked away, I glanced over. Terror was still observing everyone, and he tilted his head to look at me. I’d leave my window open later and see what he had to say.
We passed someone dressed in yellow, and I recognized the servant that Prince Rute had threatened earlier. I hesitated. What was the prince going to do to him in private? The way Rute’s face had turned vicious so easily… the way he’d seemed cruel with a careless ease… I couldn’t let him do whatever he planned for this boy.
“What is your name?” I asked.
The boy’s eyes went wide, and he said, “Piivu, Your Highness.”
“Piivu, go to Turtle House and tell Nohe that I want you employed there. I’m sure there’s room for a servant somewhere. I expect you to stay there until I see the quality of your work and decide if I want you in my household after my marriage.” I waited for him to nod. “Go now.”
The boy jerked into a bow, his fingers forming a triangle above his head, and then he trotted down the bridge in front of him. Hopefully, he was smart enough to hide in Turtle House and to use that as an excuse not to see what torture Prince Rute had planned for him.
General Saxu observed this with a small smile on his face. As the boy ran down the pier, he nodded his head, hands clasped behind his back, as he led me away. In all black, he looked imposing, but when he turned to me, his eyes crinkled in the corners, his lips pulling into a slow smile.
“It is a great pleasure to meet you, Prince Airón.”
“Many people have said that to me today, General Saxu.” I kept my own expression neutral. I’d already had one member of the military try his hand at manipulation today, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what exactly General Saxu would try. The bluntness of General Kacha’s attempt was only a reminder of why my mission had to succeed.
“Well, my gratitude is honestly come by.” He gestured to the water lapping at the edge of the wooden bridge we walked across. “I was in the north twenty years ago. I remember the carnage of the arctic waters turned red from blood. I saw one of your whales tip a warship into the freezing water and the sea serpents eat the men alive. Their screams would echo in the night as they froze in the water or were eaten limb by limb.”
Control yourself, Airón.I kept my mouth flat, eyes unfocused. The war couldn’t matter to me. I couldn’t react to the image of men freezing or snow painted with northern blood.
“Of course, we were no better. I remember the whales we slaughtered. Their carcasses floated in the water. The stink of them as they bloated and rotted from within… Well. Forgive an old man his gratitude that the war has been held for so long.” General Saxu let out a long sigh, his eyes tracing over the water once more. “I have great respect for your mother. We would have lost too many ships and men taking the city. Of course, we would have won, but the cost for both our people would have made any victory pointless. It was to her honor that she found a solution that left us both able to claim victory.”
“You mistake. My father brokered the peace,” I said carefully. The south could not find out that the true power in the Northern Kingdom was Queen Opûla; it would make her too vulnerable.
Lord Fuyii had lived in the north for over a decade and still had no idea that my mother was more than my father’s wife. It could not even begin to occur to him that a woman could rule.
“Yes. He did. With your mother at his side. Well, most are like General Kacha and see what they know. The trick to surviving a long time in service to the Imperium is to know who are the true power brokers.” At the edge of the bridge, General Saxu gestured back in the direction of Turtle House.
“And who is the true power brokerhere?” I asked thoughtfully.
General Saxu’s face broke out in a real smile, transforming it instantly. Despite the wrinkles from age, he looked younger, not like a warrior who’d crossed swords with my father twenty years prior.
“That is an astute question.” He lifted his chin in thought, raising his right hand as though he was going to place it on the hilt of a weapon, but it fell through the air, and he startled—he was not wearing his sword. Blinking down at the missing weapon, his smile turned melancholy.
For a few steps, we walked in silence. General Kacha had spoken too much, told me too much, and every word had been a warning. He had been explaining to me the immense power of the Imperial Army, with a not-so-subtle threat at the end.
General Saxu said nothing, which told me more about him than all of General Kacha’s bluster.
Now, how to convince such an honest, righteous man to spill Imperial secrets? Eonaî would have had him singing like an opera diva, with gentle questions and her unyieldingEonaî-ness.
I only had my own desperation.
“I would think the Imperial Council would hold some power.” I glanced at General Saxu, but his face still held the hint of melancholy.
“Not anymore.”
“Not anymore?” I kept my words careful, as though I hadn’t already heard from Lord Fuyii’s and Lord Sotonam’s gossip that the councilors had fallen from grace.
Eonaî had known it as soon as we’d heard it while waiting to see the emperor. Twenty-three years of planning gone. The Imperial Council was a cornerstone of my mother’s strategy. When deep in his cups, Lord Fuyii had been more than happy to tell us all the details about his fellow councilors, to talk about the infighting and backstabbing that went on.
If the emperor were to fall, they should be picking at his corpse, each desperately vying for power. It was what we had counted on. The previous two emperors had only barely managed to contain them and their avarice, their rivalries spilling into bloodshed in territories far from the capital. They fought over acres of un-farmable land just to spite each other.
