The wolf could.
His ears went up. Down. He shook his head and whined.
Kirstin kept talking, convincing him to do…what?
He shook his head again, and his lips drew back exposing impossibly large, white teeth. His head swung slowly back and forth as he sniffed the air. Then he stilled, nose pointed directly at the mage. He growled and saliva splattered on the floor.
Nothing about his reaction looked sexual.
“Majesty, how long since he was fed?”
“He ate recently. Probably not as much as he would have liked, given his size, but the food is divided evenly among them.”
What did he eat? Reiter wanted to ask. Didn’t have the courage to ask. Was afraid the question wasn’t what, but who.
“And when he last ate makes no difference, Captain. The mages both attract and control the wolves with their power.”
Reiter closed a hand around the bars, his knuckles white. “She has no power, Majesty. The tangle has suppressed it!”
“Suppressed it. Not removed it.”
Kirstin raised her head and looked directly at Danika, ignoring the two men so completely, Reiter felt invisible. Under the cap of dark hair, she had a pair of gold hoops in her ears. “It would have happened anyway,” she said. “Better fast than slow, yes? This is my choice, Danika. I cannot suffer as you can, and suffering is all the future holds. We are none of us getting out of here.”
She unfastened her dress and let it drop to the ground, a puddle of blue cloth around her feet.
“My choice.”
“Good girl,” the emperor murmured.
Reiter had barely enough time to notice the smear of blood, dark against the pale skin of an inner thigh before toenails skittered against tile.
Blood.
And a starving wolf.
Kirstin raised her chin. “I wish I could have said good-bye to my boys.”
Red spattered against white. It sounded like rain. And branches breaking in a storm.
“No!” The emperor actually sounded surprised.
As the wolf bent his head to feed, ripping the belly open for the organs, Reiter shuddered, clenched his teeth, and looked to Danika who watched…no, witnessed, silently. As though aware of his gaze, she turned her head, tears running down her cheeks, and said, “He didn’t want to. She convinced him to do it, to take her strength, to survive.”
Then she closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and threw up. Half-digested porridge and biscuit spattered out through the bars.
Reiter looked at a slender leg and a pale foot against the blue fabric of the discarded robe and remembered that he’d once believed science could do anything mage-craft could do. Science couldn’t have done this.
Down below, the door opened and two guards charged in, boots slamming against the tile. They wore packs and carried metal staffs, thick rubber handles gripped in heavy leather gloves. Wires ran from the staffs to the packs and sparks jumped from the staffs’ blackened upper ends.
Two steps.
Three.
They stopped in tandem.
Apparently, guards who were able to torture a man who looked like an animal drew the line at approaching while he tore bloody chunks of meat off a woman’s body. They hesitated long enough for him rip off an arm and gulp it back, fingers fluttering as her hand disappeared between his jaws, larger bones cracking, smaller crunching. One guard took a step back, the other jackknifed forward and spewed vomit all over the tile. The end of his staff hit the wall.
A tile smashed, and a drift of smoke that smelled almost like gunpowder momentarily covered the scent of blood and guts and puke.
Perhaps these guards had never handed out the wolves’ food. Perhaps Cobb had only been removed from the palace. Perhaps the old man sent to the north wing back on Reiter’s first day in the palace had been sent to scrub tiles. Those tiles were going to need scrubbing.
I should do something. I need to do something. He couldn’t save the dead mage. He couldn’t even save the live one.
Neither of them had screamed.
“Just a reminder, Captain…”
Reiter looked down to see the emperor staring up at him.
“…that what happens in the north wing is not spoken of. My privacy is very important to me.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Who could he tell?
Reiter had hoped he’d be dismissed when they returned to the palace, but the emperor kept him close for the rest of the day. He stood behind the emperor’s chair—behind Tavert and the distant cousins and whoever the flame else those people were—and wore the expression officers wore when they knew a battle had gone to shit but they didn’t have the rank to stop it, and all they could do was send more solders out to die.
Fortunately, those officers allowed into the emperor’s presence had been trapped in the palace for so long it wasn’t an expression they recognized.
At supper, Reiter found he’d been moved to a higher status table. His new companions were more obsequious, but better at it. He pushed his food around on his plate and drank more than he should have. It didn’t help.
As the platters emptied of fruit and nuts were cleared away, it was announced there would be dancing in one of the smaller ballrooms. The appropriate pleased response ran through the crowd.
“Her Imperial Majesty loves to dance,” the woman seated next to Reiter gushed. “I’m sure tonight’s affair is to welcome back the Talatian ambassador, whom she adores and missed greatly while he was gone.”
A quick glance at the head table showed Her Imperial Majesty laughing with a dark-skinned man in a deep green uniform.
“The ambassador always seems to enjoy these small family gatherings.”
“Family?” Whatever he was now, Reiter wasn’t family.
She smiled, hand over her mouth to cover a bad tooth. “All of us, of course.”
Those who ate with the emperor, regardless of how far away they sat, were expected…required to attend.
Waiting with the others in the anteroom outside Their Imperial Majesties’ apartments while the emperor changed into evening wear, Reiter wondered if he’d been looking forward to dancing with his wife while watching a young woman torn apart by a starved wolf.
Reiter didn’t dance. He stood. He stared at nothing. He kept his thoughts from showing on his face.
“Walk with me, Captain.”
It took a moment to pull himself out of his thoughts and focus on the man beside him. Reiter blinked at Major Halyss’ father, realized that hadn’t been a request, and unlocked his knees. Given that he’d taken Major Halyss’ rather specific position at the emperor’s side, it had been a moment’s work to discover the major’s father was Lord Coving, Duke of Barryns, and one of the ten most powerful politicians in the empire.
“His Imperial Majesty prefers you to circulate so Her Imperial Majesty doesn’t ask him later why you weren’t having a good time.” Lord Coving’s mouth curved into an approximation of a smile as they began to make their way around the edges of the room. “Her Imperial Majesty would prefer you to dance, but realizes not everyone is as skilled as she is.”
“Her Imperial Majesty is a very accomplished dancer.”
“Yes, she is.” He waved off a clump of approaching courtiers, and they continued uninterrupted. “If you’re going to remain at court, you’ll have to learn.”
“I’d rather be returned to the front. I’m a soldier, sir. This isn’t for me.”
“Dancing?”
“Court.”
“Ah.”
It was a simple, noncommittal sound that managed to express solidarity while admitting nothing. It was so noncommittal, Lord Coving had to be aware of what was happening in the north wing. Maybe not the exact particulars but enough. After all, the wing had to be built and equipped. Guards and scientists paid. Reiter had no idea where the money came from, but the emperor definitely didn’t dole it out himself. Coving knew and had arranged to have his son sent away before the mages arrived. Before something like today happened and the major, who was a gentleman and not just a soldier, protested too vehemently and got himself killed.