The old woman had understood that. To all others she had been a madwoman, but Pyrust had recognized her. Delasonsa, the Desei Mother of Shadows, had come in disguise. Others had seen her yank his chains, but she’d managed to slip a small garnet-and-silver ring onto his smallest finger. The talons clasping the edge of the garnet were sharp and poisoned. A casual scratch at his throat, and he’d die inside a minute.
Painlessly, too. She would not have me die an ignominious death.
She’d have rescued him, too, were that possible. Pyrust knew better than to think it was. Any effort to rescue him would doubtless kill loyal Desei agents. He would not reward their fidelity thus. With his comment to her, he’d turned Delasonsa over to Empress Cyrsa, to serve her as faithfully as the assassin had served him.
Prince Nelesquin might not have transported him to Kelewan to kill him, but it certainly wasn’t to let him go again. Having Pyrust brought to heel would make for a great show, and would sow doubt among the opposition. Only by escaping could Pyrust salvage any victory from his defeat.
Nelesquin could not let that happen.
By dying when he wants me to be kept as a pet, I defy him.
Pyrust smiled grimly. His defeat hardly warranted a death sentence. In retrospect, Virisken Soshir’s strategy would have been more effective-and might yet be. Even with reinforcements from the south, Nelesquin’s army would be hard-pressed to lay siege to Moriande. Bleeding the army, hitting it where it was weak, these things could blunt the attack.
He’d fought on the plains because the Empress had ordered him to do so, but he could have easily overruled those orders. The fact was that he’d wanted to fight there. He had believed he could win. And he could have, save for a certain confluence of circumstances.
They did not defeat me, really, I defeated me.
Up to that battle, his southern campaign had been conducted flawlessly. He had used the superior intelligence and training of his troops to outwit the enemy. He’d crushed the Helosundians. He’d tricked Vroan. He’d overwhelmed Cyron.
But while his flooding of the plains had mirrored the tactic he used against the Helosundian Council of Ministers, it had actually worked against him. It narrowed the battlefield, which gave the kwajiin an advantage by allowing them to concentrate their troops.
Marching through the city, he ignored the catcalls and curses. Instead, he once again envisioned the battle. He should have contested the enemy’s entry into the plains. His cavalry could have made countless grazing attacks, raking the kwajiin with arrows. It would have made the invaders fear the cavalry, and that fear would have slowly killed them.
Weakened, the kwajiin would have had to choose battle or withdrawal. Pyrust could have retreated before them, then hit their supply lines. The invaders would have fallen apart.
So the question is not why did I lie to Soshir, but why did I choose to believe the lie?
Pyrust hesitated for a moment, then stumbled forward when pushed from behind. He had his answer and for that answer he thought he might, in fact, deserve to die.
Doing what he should have done was not the work of a warrior. Cyron could have run that kind of a campaign. It would not have been a military victory, it would have been a victory of logistics. He would have been doing to the kwajiin what Cyron had tried to do to him. Pyrust would have controlled the invaders by denying them supplies-a shopkeeper’s war.
Victory was what they required of me, but I wanted a specific type of victory-a military victory. More the fool, I. Never buy with blood what can be won with words, time, or rice.
The parade of soldiers stopped at the Imperial Palace. Kwajiin warriors pulled Pyrust from the midst of his companions and forced him up the stairs. At the top they allowed him to turn and look back. The crowd of Virine dwarfed the soldiers. As miserable as his men looked-Desei, Naleni, and Virine combined-they possessed more nobility than all the residents of Kelewan.
As the warriors marched Pyrust into the palace, he could not help but smile. He’d never seen the place before, but it lived up to even the most fanciful of descriptions. Nelesquin’s new statue glared down at him, but did not inspire fear. In fact, Pyrust took heart in seeing it.
He filled that niche very quickly. The man clearly suffers from vanity.
The trek up the stairs and to the throne room confirmed Pyrust’s assumption. Already murals had been repainted, rewriting Virine history. Nelesquin’s face replaced those of legendary heroes-no matter that the events depicted occurred after the Cataclysm.
The guards stopped him at the throne room’s entrance. They unlocked his chains. They stripped off the soiled robe and replaced it with a plain red one. They looped a gold sash around his waist and even tucked a short dagger in a wooden scabbard at his right hip.
Then the doors opened. Along strip of red carpet edged with purple connected the entrance to the foot of the throne dais. Nelesquin sat in the Bear Throne, backed by a huge stone disk with all the signs of the Zodiac carved into the edge. It transformed the Bear Throne into an Imperial throne and its presence did not surprise Pyrust.
What did surprise him was the fact that the disk was taller than any door or window in the room. It had no seams. How did he get it into this room?
Tales of his vanyesh and their power tightened Pyrust’s guts. If his forces are backed by xingna, is there a strategy that will defeat them?
Pyrust lifted his chin and began the trek along the carpet. A side from Nelesquin and himself, only two others occupied the room. One, a slender man in an emerald-and-black cloak, stood to Nelesquin’s left. The other man knelt at his right, on the floor, with a golden chain connecting his collar to the foot of the throne.
Nelesquin stood. “Of you, Prince Pyrust, I have heard much. My field general praised you and your effort. As you can see with your brother, Prince Jekusmirwyn, I am not without mercy. A man of your skills and standing could be of use in my Empire.”
Nelesquin’s rich, warm tones filled the room. Jekusmirwyn twitched at the sound. The man’s eyes did not quite focus in the present. Pyrust had seen that look in the eyes of those Delasonsa had tortured. He understood the quality of Nelesquin’s mercy.
Pyrust stopped shy of the throne and chose not to bow. “It has not been my custom to subordinate myself to a prince.”
Nelesquin smiled slowly. “I am an emperor.”
“A pretender. Empress Cyrsa sits on the Dragon Throne in Moriande. Her claim predates yours and is stronger.”
The larger man’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you were a warrior, but you speak like a bureaucrat. Tell the truth. You chafe beneath her orders.”
Pyrust rubbed his raw wrists. “I would chafe beneath your orders as well.”
“Brilliant.” Nelesquin looked to his companion. “I told you, Kaerinus, there were men of this age that yet had steel in their spine. The worthy did not all die in Ixyll.”
The cloaked man said nothing.
Nelesquin stepped from the dais and waved Pyrust over to a window. He slid a panel open. Down below, in the square before the palace, the eighty men who had marched in chains with Pyrust stood surrounded. Visible from that height, eighty wooden crosses were being erected on the city walls.
“I have need to show mercy to the people of Kelewan. I will pardon eighty men and women to celebrate our victory, and have your men crucified in their place. It’s a most unpleasant way to die.”
Pyrust nodded and fingered the ring. “I am not a stranger to crucifixion.”
“Freeing the Virine will build loyalty, but I need them less than I need a man like you. If you join me, then Deseirion and Helosunde will come with you. This makes eliminating Nalenyr much easier. Cyrsa will be deposed and the rightful order can be re-established.” Nelesquin rested a hand on Pyrust’s shoulder. “You will be much rewarded and your men will be spared.”