The kenarang smiled. “I’m in the Chronicles, Adare. I wrote two of them. The great emperors of Annur were great because they did what they needed to do. Whatever they needed to do. Of course, you’ll be putting your own life on the line.…”
Adare waved a dismissive hand. He was right enough about the risks. It would be easy to arrive in Annur, present herself to the council, then be hauled off promptly to her own execution. The thought made her palms sweat, but there was no point dwelling on it. She’d visited the front, traveled to villages just after Urghul raids, seen the bodies carved open; the corpses spitted on stakes; the charred remains of men, and women, and children, some still sprawled over makeshift altars, others tossed into haphazard piles-the horrifying remnants of what the Urghul called worship.
Annur-imperial, republican, it hardly mattered-all of Annur was teetering at the edge of a bloody abyss, and she was the Emperor. She had taken that title, had demanded it, not so she could primp atop an uncomfortable throne to the flattery of courtiers, but because she’d believed she could do a good job, a better job, certainly, than the man who had murdered her father. She’d taken the title because she thought she could make life better for the millions inside the empire, protect them, bring peace and prosperity.
And so far, she’d failed.
It didn’t matter that Kaden had made an even worse hash of things. It didn’t matter that she was the first emperor in centuries to face a barbarian invasion. It didn’t matter that even her father had failed to predict the chaos that enveloped them all. She had taken the title; it was her job to set things right, to mend the rents dividing Annur. Kaden’s council might have her torn limb from limb if she returned, but they might not. If she returned, there was a chance-and the chance to save Annur, to save the people of Annur, to push back the barbarians and restore some measure of peace, of order, was worth the possibility of her own bloodless head decorating a stake.
“There is something else,” il Tornja added. “Something you will discover when you reach the city.” He paused. “Your brother has made a friend.”
“We do that,” Adare replied. “Humans. We form attachments, develop feelings for people, that sort of thing.”
“If he had befriended a human, I wouldn’t be concerned. The third Annurian representative to the council, the man who goes by the name of Kiel-he is not a man. He is one of my kind.”
Adare stared stupidly. “Kaden has a Csestriim?”
Il Tornja chuckled. “Kiel is not a horse or a hunting dog, Adare. I have known him for millennia, and I can assure you, if anyone has anyone, it is Kiel who has your brother, who has possessed his mind and poisoned his will.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Adare demanded.
“I only just realized the truth myself. When I didn’t recognize the name of the third Annurian delegate, I asked for a painting and description. Unfortunately, the fool responsible sent back a gorgeously inked parchment depicting the wrong person-one of the Kreshkan delegation, evidently. I discovered the error only recently.”
Adare scrambled to make sense of the revelation. Il Tornja was a weapon, an instrument of destruction. She had him collared and brought to heel, and still she worried that she’d overlooked something, that one day she would give a tug on his leash only to find it gone terribly slack. Learning that there was another Csestriim in the world, one allied with her brother, one over whom she had no control whatsoever … it made her stomach churn.
“Kiel was the one who drafted the republican constitution,” she observed.
Il Tornja nodded. “He has never been a lover of your empire. In fact, for hundreds of years he has labored to destroy it. Every important coup, every plot against Malkeenian rule-he was behind it.”
“Except for yours, of course. Except for the coup when you killed my father.”
He smiled. “Yes. Except for that.”
Adare studied him, hoping again to read something in those unreadable eyes, to see the gleam of a lie or the hard light of truth. As usual, there was plenty to see. As usual, she couldn’t trust any of it.
“You’re worried that Kaden knows who you are,” she said.
“I am certain that Kaden knows who I am. Kiel has told him.”
Behind her, Sanlitun twisted in his crib and cried out. For a moment, Adare had a horrible vision of the Urghul pouring over the bridge, the pale-skinned horsemen shattering the castle walls, smashing into her room, seizing the child.…
She stood abruptly, turned so that il Tornja couldn’t see her face, and crossed the room to the crib. She watched her son a moment, watched him breathe, then lifted him gently into her arms. When she was certain she’d mastered her expression, she turned back to the kenarang.
“I’ll go,” she said wearily. “I’ll try to mend the breach. I can’t promise more than that.”
Il Tornja smiled, teeth bright in the lamplight. “Mending first. Later, perhaps, we can see to more … permanent solutions.”
3
“They wanted you,” Maut Amut said. “The attackers wanted you.”
Kaden paused in his climb, leaned against the banister as he caught his breath, then shook his head. “You can’t be sure of that.”
Amut continued on, taking the stairs two at a time, indifferent to the gleaming weight of his Aedolian steel. He reached the next landing before realizing that Kaden had fallen behind.
“My apologies, First Speaker,” he said, bowing his head. “My shame makes me impatient.”
The guardsman fixed his eyes on the stairs, settled a hand on the pommel of his broadblade, and waited. Even at his most animated, the First Shield of the Aedolian Guard was a stiff man, marmoreal, all right angles and propriety. Standing there motionless, waiting for Kaden to regain his strength, he looked like something carved, or hammered out on an anvil.
Kaden shook his head again. “You don’t need to apologize for the fact that I’ve gone soft.”
Amut didn’t move. “Intarra’s Spear is a daunting climb, even for hard men.”
“It’s only thirty floors to my study,” Kaden replied, forcing his legs into motion once more. He made the climb almost every day, but always at a leisurely pace. More and more leisurely, he now realized, as the months had passed. Amut, on the other hand, had pushed hard since they left the council chamber, and Kaden’s legs had begun to burn by the tenth floor. He put from his mind for the moment the grim fact that he planned to climb well beyond the Spear’s thirtieth floor.
“When I lived with the monks,” he said, pausing again when he reached Amut’s landing, “a climb like this would have been a rest, a respite.”
“You are the First Speaker of the republic. You have more important things to do than tire yourself on the stairs.”
“You’re the First Shield of the Aedolian Guard,” Kaden countered, “and you find the time to run these stairs every morning.” He’d seen the man training a few times, always well before dawn, always in full armor with a bag of sand across his shoulders, hammering up the steps, his face a mask of determination.
“I run them every morning,” Amut replied grimly, “and still I failed in my duty.”
Kaden turned away from the stairs above to face the guardsman. He made his voice hard.
“Enough of your shame. I am alive. The council is safe. This self-reproach is an indulgence, one that will shed no light on what happened here.”
Amut glanced up at him, ground his teeth, then nodded. “As you say, First Speaker.”
“Talk while we climb,” Kaden said. There were still fifteen more floors before they reached the study. “More slowly, this time. What happened up here?”