Anais felt a chill run to her core. She heard Rudrec breathe an oath. Durun cast an accusing glance at Lucia, but Lucia was not looking at him; she was gazing at the birds.
'What should we do?' Yttrys said, addressing Durun.
'Heart's blood!' Durun cried. 'They're just birds.' But he sounded less confident than he would have liked, and it came out as bluster.
He took Anais's arm and pulled her ahead with him, leading the group out towards the centre of the bridge. The hot breeze plucked at their clothes as if searching for a grip to throw them off and pitch them to their deaths. To their right, Nuki's eye was a bright, glowering ball, peering malevolently through wispy, slatted clouds.
Durun had evidently been hoping the ravens would scatter at their approach. They did not. They bobbed and shuffled, preened themselves or flexed their black wings, but always they watched.
'This is your doing, isn't it?' Durun growled, throwing Anais roughly aside and grabbing Lucia's tiny wrist. 'These are your accursed birds!'
Suddenly he snorted, released Lucia and drew his sword, plunging it into Rudrec's breast before the Guard Commander had time to react. Hutten and Yttrys drew their blades at the same time, but while the former was readying himself to strike at the Emperor, the latter drove his sword under Hutten's ribs. He cried out in surprise and pain, but his voice turned to a gargle as blood welled in his throat, and he slid to the ground with sightless eyes.
The birds began to caw, setting up an almighty and terrifying racket; but Durun had swept Lucia into the crook of his arm, with the point of his sword at her throat.
'You call them off.' he shouted. 'The first bird to take wing will cost your life, you Aberrant monstrosity.'
The ravens' cawing died, and they did not move, but it seemed that the searing summer day suddenly became chill under their baleful regard. Yttrys stepped over to Anais, guarding her with his blade. The other four Guards watched dispassionately. It was evident they were on Durun's side also. Only Rudrec and Hutten had not been in on it, and they had died for their ignorance.
Anais's eyes were fixed on her husband, hate shining through a salt-water sheen. It had happened in only a moment, but now the evidence of her senses had overcome her shock and was pummelling her with the truth. The raw betrayal, the disbelief…
Durun. All this time, it had been him. Her own husband.
And she had invited his troops into her city.
Her legs went suddenly weak, and she staggered back a step, her gaze never leaving that of her husband. She saw the whole picture then, and the extent of her ruin crushed her. Barak Mos and his son, working in unison with…
'Vyrrch,' she whispered. 'You were working with Vyrrch.'
Durun allowed himself a slow smile. 'Of course I was,' he said. 'The Weavers were most unhappy when you insisted on keeping Lucia in the line of succession. He was only too willing to help. But don't think it started there, wife. How long do you expect it took to find so many men loyal to Blood Batik, to integrate them into your Imperial Guards without anyone finding out? Eight years I've been planning this, Anais. Eight years, since this thing was born.' He squeezed Lucia tighter in his grip.
Eight years? Anais felt dizzy, as if the bridge were yawing wildly beneath her, threatening to tip her off. The immediacy of the situation clutched at her, pressing the breath from her lungs. The sheer scale of his bitterness, nursed for eight long years, bled through every word.
'I knew how you felt, Durun,' she said, bewilderment in her voice. 'I knew how you felt. An Emperor in name only, wedded to me for your family's advantage, part of a deal. I knew how frustrated you were, but this…'
'This isn't about me, Anais,' he replied, glancing at the ravens and then back to her. 'This is about our empire. You'd let us tear ourselves apart for the sake of your little girl.'
'Owr little girl!' she cried.
'No,' he said. 'Yourlittle girl. Don't you think I have wenched my way around enough? Strange, then, that there have never been any bastard offspring to bother us, to make their claims to the throne. Strange how we tried so long for an heir, yet you became pregnant only once.'
'What are you accusing me of?' she cried, shamed that this should be aired in front of their subjects, terrified at what would happen to her and Lucia now.
'I have no seed, wife, nor ever had!' he spat. 'This monster in my arms is someone else's spawn, and every sight of her reminds me how I have been cuckolded.'
There it was, then; and suddenly it made sense. Anais felt her eyes welling, angry at herself that she should be weak enough to weep. Nuki's eye glared accusingly at her from behind the thin scratches of cloud in the east: he knew what she had done, and here was the long-feared retribution. So long ago, and she thought it had passed into the shadows of history and been forgotten. But Durun had known. And it would cost her and her family dear.
She wiped away the tears, defiant. She had suspected, always suspected… but never been sure until now. Well, she would not lie or beg forgiveness; not from him. 'Yes, I slept with another!' she shouted. 'Did you think it easy for me, that the whole castle knew my husband consorted with whores and maids? How was it that I was expected to tolerate your scabid antics, while I was to remain pure and for you only on the occasions when you decided to notice me? I am Blood Empress, curse you! Not some half-educated, placid little fishwife!'
'So who was it?' Durun snapped, silencing her. 'A salesman? A travelling musician?' He looked down at Lucia's face. She was calm, like a doll. 'No, she has noble features. A Barak, perhaps? Someone of high birth, surely.'
'You'll never know,' she sneered. But she did, and Lucia did too.
By some instinct she had recognised her father the instant she saw him in the roof garden. And he had recognised her, she believed. The Barak Zahn tu Ikati. A brief affair, a tempest of lovemaking, ended all too quickly. It was as if her womb craved a child, desperate with malnourishment from Durun's empty issue; despite the herbs she had taken to prevent it, she had become pregnant almost immediately. She broke it off as soon as she knew, terrified by the implications. Was it really Zahn's? Or could it be Durun's, for she had made bedplay with him intermittently during the early stages of the affair, driven by a misplaced sense of guilt at deceiving him. What if it was Zahn's, and grew to resemble him? What if he tried to lay claim to what was his?
And yet, for all the magnitude of her mistake, she would not end the pregnancy. After trying for so long, a child – any child - was too precious to give up, whatever the circumstances. How could she dare to think it was not her husband's? Easier to believe it was his, and say nothing to Zahn. Against the subsequent discovery that the child was Aberrant, her lineage paled into insignificance; and it was surprisingly easy to convince herself that Durun was the father, even to the point where she had forgotten about the other possibility. She resembled her mother, and not Zahn or Durun.
'It does not matter who you prostituted yourself to,' Durun said, and she heard again in his voice the depth of his spite. 'Your polluted bloodline ends here, Anais. A treacherous attack by Unger tu Torrhyc's men, and the Empress and heir lie dead. As the only survivor, I will reluctantly become the Blood Emperor, true ruler of Saramyr.' He was beginning to enjoy himself now. The ravens were checkmated; Anais was at last his. So many years as the puppet on the throne, so many years in the shadow of a woman, a cuckolded husband without power. He would not let her die before she knew how totally he had outmanoeuvred her. 'By nightfall, the Imperial Guards will owe their allegiance to me as the only surviving member of the Imperial family, and my family's troops will have the city. Grigi tu Kerestyn can batter himself senseless against our walls, but he'll see it's a hopeless task. The council will accept me as Blood Emperor because they will have no choice. Truth be told, I think they'll be relieved that this whole debacle with you and Lucia is over.'