Tallu turned to me. “How was their use of the wolf’s claw?”
Tallu knew the name of our weapon, knew it with an intimate curl of his lips around the words, but I thought of long arctic nights. I thought of a boat on the ocean, its whole crew swallowed by monsters hungry for their corpses once I had finished the deed.
I thought about my mother, sending me off to the south, knowing that I would never, ever come home.
“A travesty,” I said. The words came out before I could bite them off, before I could tell a lie that would let General Kacha save face.
“And you think you can do better?” General Kacha said. “My men are the best trained in the world!”
“Are they?” Tallu said. “Then I’m sure you won’t mind a rematch. My husband can show them what a real northern warrior can accomplish. What do you think, Airón? Three on one? Is that fair?”
I swallowed, realizing that I’d been too worried about General Kacha and forgotten who had given me a dragon’s egg. Having his soldiers kill me at our wedding was much more of a statement than letting his Dogs murder me in the forest. “Of course, husband. That is fair.”
Three imperial soldiers against one of me. Totally fair.
Nineteen
The room was entirely silent; even General Kacha seemed unsure about his footing. He shifted, just slightly, glancing at General Saxu before returning his gaze to us.
“I would never want imperial soldiers to go up against your consort, Emperor Tallu. He has just declared himself one with your house, has he not?” General Kacha tried for a pleasant smile, but I could see in the white of his teeth that he was hungry for northern blood. If he wasn’t going to get the war he so badly wanted,Iwas the next best thing.
“I think my consort will demonstrate the weapon’s use well.” Tallu turned his eyes to me, and I couldn’t read anything in his gaze but benign disinterest. “Unless you would prefer not to?”
“It would be an honor to show imperial soldiers how to use a wolf’s claw.” I stepped back, away from his throne, tugging at the ties of my jacket. Asahi silently stepped to my side and helped me pull it off. I took out the box with the dragon’s egg inside and handed it to Asahi.
“Please take care with this. It’s my wedding gift from my husband.” I waited for Asahi to nod before letting go.
Free of my jacket, I rolled my shoulders. My body still ached from Rute’s assassination six days earlier, but I hadn’t lost anyfunctionality. I briefly bounced on my toes, thinking about the number of times that Yorîmu had trained me for a situation like this. Only she had never had the grace to tell me I was about to battle multiple attackers.
One day, I would just be walking back to my rooms from dinner, and four masked men would descend on me. Most of the time, I was able to beat them, but occasionally, it had been proof that no matter how much I trained, there were still things I couldn’t prepare for.
The court murmured amongst themselves, and I couldn’t hear anything specific, but I understood the tone. All of them thought I was about to be beaten. All of them thought this was Tallu’s revenge on me, or maybe that was just in my head, the buzz of their gossip tainting my mind.
Well. Tallu had never met me as a warrior. And he hadcertainlynever met Yorîmu, who was the sort of woman that my mother liked, meaning she had definitely been a sea serpent in a previous life.
My eyes trailed over the court. Strangely, I saw a few foreign faces that I didn’t recognize from dinner in the crowd. They weren’t wearing the yellow typical of the imperial servants. Instead, they wore ragged red. Perhaps they were outside servants? Or a variety of laborer I hadn’t seen yet? Field hands or kitchen servants, perhaps?
Had they snuck in, wanting to see the northern consort get murdered? It would certainly be more entertaining than doing the mountains of dishes from the wedding feast.
One of the soldiers stepped forward, holding three wolf’s claws in his hands. He offered them over to me, and I picked up the first one experimentally. It was well-made, the heavy bone hilt carved in a symbol I recognized. This was from the Bulwark Clan. Frowning, I handed it back, taking the next one, checking the hilt. Great Seal Clan.
When I took the third, I already knew what I was going to see. Silvereyes Clan. I hefted it in my hand. One of my mother’s people—one ofmypeople—had wielded this against the Imperium.
Then, when some imperial soldier had killed them, the Imperium had stripped them of their weapon rather than returning it to their clan as any true northern warrior would. Weapons belonged with the clans that had made them. It was a sign of deep disrespect to steal one.
And they had five that they had used in their little charade. How many more pieces of my people’s history were locked away somewhere in the Imperium?
Turning away from the soldier, I swung it through the air, doing a basic practice move that any young northerner learned. It was still weighted well, the blade smooth, but when I ran my finger along the flat of it, I felt my heart pull tight, a fist ready to strike an opponent, pure fury rolling through my chest like a scream I couldn’t let out.
The blade was dulled.
In an even worse atrocity than stealing weapons intended to be heirlooms, they had filed the edge down so that the blade was no more than a practice toy. Twenty years or more in the south had turned it into a very awkward doorstop.
It took me three long breaths before I knew my next words wouldn’t be a scream of incoherent rage. When I could speak, I turned back to General Kacha.
“I am happy to face whoever among your soldiers you think can best me unarmed.” I tried to keep the bite out of my words, thinking of Velethuil and his warnings.
This whole thing seemed like a foolish plan and, more than that, an opening for Kacha to claim his revenge under the cover of accident. Or perhaps he and Tallu were teaming up, and my death was inevitable now.
