“Well… I cannot say your time in the barbaric north increased your intelligence.” Lord Sotonam must have moved away because the room was quiet for a long beat. Long enough that I pulled back and raised my eyebrows at Eonaî.
She looked thoughtful, a frown on her face marring her perfectly smooth brow. She nodded back toward the table. I rose to follow her, but there was a loud crash in the other room. Fuyii cursed, his sneer obvious in his words.
“No,” he hissed viciously. “He cannot take it from me. Hecannot. I took that brat and made her an empress.”
Eonaî’s hand closed over my arm and drew me back to the table. She served me a few tastes from the dishes before taking some for herself, as gracefully as any imperial mistress.
There were soft, steamed breads and a small sampling of fried seafood with a tangy dipping sauce. A tray of fresh and pickled vegetables spread out appealingly. I sampled some of the fried squid.
“What do you think?” I whispered.
“It changes nothing.” Eonaî lowered her eyes. I could see the tremble of terror that shivered up her spine, only to be controlled a moment later. She had been trained to meet Millu’s preferences, preferences we did not know if Tallu shared. “Itmustchange nothing.”
When she looked up, I knew it was like looking in a mirror. We both shared our mother’s pale coloring, her high cheekbones, and the sharp blue eyes of our father. And we both knew all the possibilities, all the outcomes.
We ate in silence until we finished the tray of vegetables, Eonaî being careful of her silk sleeves, which would have been much less forgiving of spills than the leather and fur I wore.
“Do we ask Fuyii?” Eonaî asked, pacing across the room to the tall statue of a tree, nearly brushing the ceiling.
“No,” I said. “It’s too much of a risk. How could we trust his information, knowing their history?”
Fuyii had left the Imperial Court in disgrace, losing his dukedom as well as the money and land that went with the title, and Mother had only been willing to take him on because he had been so high-ranked before he’d been banished. If he and the new emperor had bad blood between them, he was even less reliable than he’d been when half-drunk and angry.
“Airón.” Eonaî looked up at the tree. “This tree lives.”
I blinked at her, shaking my head. “No, it’s…”
Frowning, I took a few steps closer. Someone had taken the time to gold leaf every inch of it. The entire thing had been gilded, but at the very top there was a hint of green leaves, necessary for the plant to survive.
This was how it was in the Imperium: they consumed everything. They would consume us if we let them. If we didn’t manage the task we’d been born to do.
The side door opened, and Nohe stepped in, bowing low, her triangled fingers showing respect. “Emperor Tallu is ready to receive you, princess.”
“EmperorTallu?” Eonaî was so good thatIalmost believed she hadn’t known. “I’m confused. Is it not Emperor Millu?”
“Emperor Millu passed last winter.” Nohe didn’t rise, so I couldn’t see the expression on her face. “Emperor Tallu asks for your presence.” A line of tension tightened Nohe’s shoulders. She straightened and opened large doors on the other side of the room that led to a hallway. “This way.”
Raising her chin, Eonaî followed Nohe’s direction. I was more cautious because it was her job to distract and my job to make sure we survived long enough to destroy the empire. The hallway was lined with carved panels and wall hangings that stood out in bright colors, massive tapestries depicting the rise of the empire, the Imperium’s full history stitched by hand, no doubt blinding the weavers who’d worked such fine stitches in the cloths.
Ahead, two guards dressed in an orangish yellow opened double doors, revealing a darkened room beyond. Eonaî didn’t glance at them, but I noted the sharp double swords they both wore. Dangerous, but I had trained to fight those blades.
The hall had no obvious exits, and the room we stepped into was so dark it took my eyes a moment to adjust.
At first, I thought we were surrounded by metal statues. Then, one moved, taking a sip from the decorative cup in her hand. She turned, her voice inaudible, as though the darkness had taken her words and eaten them.
From polished gold to a high brass, even a shimmering nickel color, the Imperial Court wore their powders and paintswith such grace that they looked carved from metal. Only their smooth movements and unpainted eyes revealed them as flesh and blood. In such dim lighting, they looked even more like the precious metals they aspired to be.
So this was the Imperial Court. The colors and stitching on their clothes indicated the various families they belonged to. Other than the servants, no one here was less than a lord.
The only chair in the whole room was the throne. Carved from black stone, it sat atop a raised platform under a bower of metal flowers. And there was my target.
Emperor Tallu’s skin was somewhere between gold and brass, and it gleamed in the light, although without makeup, it didn’t glitter. Russet-brown eyes followed me as we made our way forward. The gold circlet glinting on his head marked his rank, as though it were possible to look at him and think he was anything other thanHis Imperial Majesty, Emperor Tallu. On top of a typical imperial shirt, he wore a long robe, its hem pooling on the ground around his feet. On each finger, he wore a set of three patterned gold rings, that covered his skin nearly to the first knuckle.
At the bottom of the raised platform, Eonaî stopped, raising her chin.
“My lord,” she said, using the intimate form of address that implied a close relationship, “I am Princess Eonaî, daughter of King Rimáu. This is my brother and protector, Prince Airón. I come to fulfill the agreement forged by our father with”—Eonaî barely paused, likely realizing that mentioning the dead emperor was a bad decision—“the Imperium.”
Emperor Tallu blinked. His eyes raked over me, and it felt like thrusting my hand into open flame. “Yourbrother?”
