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The presence chambers were huge. Ornate crystal windows gave a sweeping view down upon the city and the harbour beyond. Tall Terrarch guards stood by the doors and hordes of courtiers flocked in the antechambers. Tamara sensed a brittle tension as she entered that had not been there on any of her previous visits. She studied the Court-uniformed Terrarchs surrounding her, picking out familiar faces and noticing the changes in them. Here was old Zhal, the Court Chamberlain, silver haired, silver bearded, subtle and languid. He nodded to her and smiled, warmly. His glittering teeth were porcelain and starmetal. Nearby was Lady Usquoth, unusually plump for a Terrarch, her ringed fingers stained with the sugar of the sweetmeats she munched delicately but ravenously. In the corner a group of her father’s old friends and rivals huddled in conversation, plotting no doubt.

She smiled again at the guard captain, feeling a sudden warm nostalgia, happy to be standing once more at the centre of the world, at least as far as the Empire was concerned, and more than a little disturbed by the unease on the faces looking at her. She flicked her fan open and smiled at each of them in turn, not letting the coolness of certain responses discourage her, or diminish for a moment the warmth of her greeting.

The guard captain moved his head slightly, and touched her arm, letting his hand rest there for longer than was strictly necessary as he indicated that she should keep moving into the inner audience chamber. She moved to the door where Zhal stood waiting. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

“Be careful. Her Majesty is in no good mood.”

She giggled as if he had made some small joke for their private amusement, and he smiled as if appreciating her simple sense of humour and swept the door open for her to enter the Imperial presence.

Arachne sat on the Purple Throne, tall and beautiful as ever, her face still youthful despite her centuries, her hair purple-black, her lips full and red and startling against her pale skin. She was more beautiful than any of the ladies-in-waiting surrounding her, who had all been chosen for that exact degree of loveliness. For a moment, under Arachne’s cold, hawk-like gaze, Tamara felt self-conscious, a child being studied by watchful adults, a gawky adolescent under the eyes of her sophisticated elders. The Empress always made her feel that way. She fought to keep down the surge of loyalty she felt. She could not help it — it was almost bred in the bone to all subjects of the Sardean monarchy.

She made the full Court curtsey, waited to be recognised and told to advance, and then proceeded through the intricate quadrille of Imperial protocol till eventually she stood, head bowed before the throne, looking exactly like a properly submissive subject of the Empress.

“Lady Tamara. It pleases me to see you once more.” The Empress’s voice was low and thrilling but it had a falseness in it, a lack of warmth or empathy, a brittle quality that at this moment was somehow emphasised. “You have our leave to speak freely and without awaiting our permission.”

“I thank you, Majesty. It pleases me to stand within the radiance of your august presence.” The surprising thing was that she did feel that way. Old habits died hard.

“There are matters I wish to discuss with you. Step out onto the balcony with me.”

Tamara waited for the Empress to pass through the doors onto the great balcony and then followed her. The platform was massive and decked with flowers, a greenhouse with a fine view of the city and sea below, a place protected by the strongest warding spells, where things might be discussed in utter privacy when the crystal doors were shut. Tamara was suddenly acutely aware that she was alone with the Empress, as she had not been since she was a child.

Arachne turned to look at her, her face no longer a rigid mask, fear written in her eyes. “I am sorry to hear about what happened to your father,” she said.

“I am not entirely certain I know what happened to him,” Tamara said.

“He is dead, or so Xephan tells me. Asea killed him.”

“She was always his enemy.”

“Not always. Only in the struggle that emerged after my mother died.” There was an odd stress on the word mother. Arachne was about the same age now as Amarielle had been when she was murdered, Tamara thought. No wonder she was sensitive about Kathea’s death.

“I know he feared her.”

“He was right to do so. She is the most formidable sorceress the Terrarchs ever produced and even here on this sadly diminished world her magic is deadly. Apparently she has a new tool now — some renegade half-breed killer she plucked from the gutter and made her apprentice. I understand you have met him.”

Was that what this meeting was about? “His name is Rik. I believe she has been teaching him sorcery — he is very powerful.”

“Is it true he killed your father?”

“Rumour would have it so.”

“Then he is to be feared indeed. Your father was a very dangerous Terrarch.”

Tamara sensed she was being watched closely and her reactions weighed in the fine scales of the Empress’s mind. Caution whispered soft warnings in her mind. She had been away from Court too long, and she was not able to judge things as well as she once had been.

“I do not think your Majesty has anything to worry about from him,” she said.

“From him, perhaps. The ones I fear lie closer to home.” The Empress’s nostrils flared and her stare was intense. Her lips were compressed into a thin tight line. Be very careful, Tamara thought.

“What do you mean, Majesty?”

“Why did you go to see the Prime Minister before you came to see me?”

“Lord Xephan sent a note requesting I attend him.”

“Is it necessary for the Empress to request her subjects attend her?”

“Of course not, Majesty. But your Majesty is busy and I had no idea that you had any interest in your most humble subject.”

“Please Tamara, we are alone. Neither you nor your father were ever humble.”

“I cannot contradict your Majesty’s judgement.”

“And please dispense with the false humility. It smacks too much of mockery.”

“I do not understand what your Majesty means.”

“Perhaps I should make myself clear then…I want to know where your loyalty lies. To your Empress or to the Prime Minister.”

To myself, thought Tamara. Her lips said, “To my Empress, of course. I am shocked that your Majesty could think otherwise.”

Arachne’s smile was mocking and, what was worse, contained a hint of fear. It was the nervous grimace of one counterfeiting humour in the face of terror. Tamara had seen the look on the faces of some of the people she had killed as they had tried to talk her out of it. Was the Empress really afraid of her? Did she know the truth about her Shadowblood upbringing? What had Malkior told her?

“Your father and Xephan were not friends,” she said eventually. “Not at the end, at least.”

“That is a fair judgement, your Majesty.”

“Then it is one of the few I have made of late.” Tamara let the silence hang, tempting the other woman to speak. The Empress cleared her throat and continued. “I was not a friend to your father in the last few years of his life. I think that was a grave mistake.”

“My father never doubted that you had his welfare at heart,” she said, knowing full well that her father had cursed Arachne’s fickleness every day when she was the only one around to hear.

“That was kind of him,” said Arachne, as if there had been no irony in Tamara’s statement. “I feared your father, you know. I feared what he was capable of. I feared the power he held. I feared that his subordinates were more loyal to him than to me.”

And that is why you slowly promoted his rivals, Tamara thought, eroding the power base he had built up subtly and over the years. She said, “None of your Majesty’s subjects could possibly feel that way.”

Arachne smiled again and there was humour there this time. Perhaps I let a little too much irony show in my voice that time, Tamara thought. The Empress was not a fool after all, merely a Terrarch whose judgement had been warped by being the centre around which the world orbited for far too long. “I am afraid that there are those who do.”