“Did they, truly? Or is some other foul thing afoot? You heard your mother’s creature the night Agos died. They don’t care. It is enough that he is my son.”
He fell silent, a shadow over his face.
We came up to the gates, where the guards saluted at the sight of us. Ikessar soldiers—the falcon crest was clear even in the dark. The bastards had invaded the castle from the ground up. They allowed us through and followed us down the path and into the great hall before they dispersed.
I lingered at the entrance. The doors still showed signs of last week’s assault—bent rails, splintered wood, shattered glass laced with black soot. The blood had been scrubbed clean from the floor, but the cuts from Agos’s sword as he tried to kill Rai were still there. Even without closing my eyes I could still see them both, phantoms in that dreaded dance. My heart clenched yet again over the outcome. If I had stopped it before the Ikessars arrived…
I heard Khine curse under his breath. Ozo stood in the middle of the throne room like a statue.
“Wondering if you could steal that, too?” I called to the old man. I nodded towards the throne. “You’re welcome to try.”
Ozo placed his hand on the hilt of his sword before he turned to face me. For a moment, I caught a glimpse of the general he had been. He was one of the youngest during the War of the Wolves—celebrated, feared, admired by men and women alike. They said that he cut quite a stunning figure: tall, long-haired, strong enough to wield a war club with one hand and crush his opponent’s face with one blow, helmet and all. He still stood straight and tall, and the withered muscles of his tattooed arms remained formidable, but he looked exhausted now, an old man who seemed just about done with life even before it was done with him.
He took one long breath, considering my words like they were genuine. “I wouldn’t want it,” he said at last. “The Oren-yaro never needed it, as far as I was concerned. The squabble for the damn thing cost us more than we gained.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
He gave a quick burst of laughter. “You would, pup. You never did understand our people. You carried the name, but the very essence of the Oren-yaro… childish scribbles on the wall, as far as you were concerned. Perhaps we were all to blame. Maybe we neglected you. We should’ve never let you grow up under Magister Arro’s care. What did a half-Xiaran know about our ways?” He sniffed. “I knew something was up when I heard the Ikessar guards out and about. Did you try to escape?”
“I accompanied Lady Talyien to the gardens,” Rai said. “She needed the exercise.”
Ozo looked like he wanted to take a fist to Rayyel’s head. “At this hour? What is she, a hound to let loose and piddle on the leaves? You Ikessars go too far.”
“You could do with some exercise, you bloated eel,” I said. “If the Ikessars bother you so much, why don’t you do a damn thing? I suppose you’re too busy trying to enjoy your privileges as warlord now. If my father was alive, he’d have had your head mounted on a spike already.”
“He would have!” Ozo’s face grew dark. “But he’s dead, Lady Talyien. And if you had lived up to his name and not allowed yourself to become distracted with your ridiculous whims, we wouldn’t be here today.”
“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying—” I snarled.
“You snap at enemies where there are none. I have served your family all my life. The least you can do is give me the benefit of the doubt.”
“You refused to grant your queen assistance and then took control of her lands. Are these good enough reasons for me to think maybe—just maybe—you don’t have my best interests at heart?”
“You were gone for a year, and then returned at the heels of disgrace,” Ozo replied evenly. “Someone had to rule.” He cocked his head to the side. “I asked you not to go to the empire, if you recall. I advised you to stay in Oren-yaro and stake your claim on the throne as Yeshin’s daughter, not as Rayyel Ikessar’s wife.”
“And you may well recall what I told you: I have no desire for civil war. Remind me again how I have ruined your plans, Ozo. You wanted me to ride against the Ikessars. I have the bigger army, after all, and the Ikessars are pathetic. You’ve told me that for the better part of five years. And you know if I had done it, the rest of the land would have come roaring to their defense. Was that when Prince Yuebek was supposed to sweep in to save me? I was never supposed to meet him in the empire, but amidst the blood and fire of my own lands. And you thought—what? That I would somehow be so grateful I would both marry him and somehow gift you Oren-yaro along the way?” I smiled. “I’m close to the truth, aren’t I?”
“You know nothing of the truth,” Ozo said, eyes blazing.
I gazed back at him, unflinching. Nothing the old man did had ever intimidated me, and the gods know he had tried all these years. Less so, when my father was alive; when Yeshin still stalked the halls of Oka Shto, Ozo was nothing but a scowling, skulking shadow in the background, a general who would only show his face to receive orders before riding off to disappear for the rest of the year. After my father’s funeral, I had expected to see even less of him. His lands were along the river to the south, with some of Oren-yaro’s most prosperous towns—he had no reason to grace the city itself with his presence.
Instead, he was in Oka Shto Castle nearly every week, poking his nose into the guardsmen’s affairs and arguing with Arro over every little thing. And for long stretches at a time, he would live in the Oren-yaro barracks at the base of the mountain, becoming as much of a fixture in the city’s politics as Magister Arro. I didn’t mind his presence back then—my soldiers were always more disciplined when he was around, and he seemed to have taken a personal interest in making sure I knew how to fight properly. But now I had to wonder if he had been slowly poisoning my people with his influence instead. I was just about done with old men and their ambitions.
He crossed the room with his arms crossed as he considered the tapestries and banners on the wall. My wall, his colours.
“They wanted you dead,” Ozo remarked.
I smiled. “Who, exactly? There’s a long list.”
He snorted. “I must confess, you’ve done an impressive job making enemies and adding to it yourself. No—after your father died, many of the warlords wanted you gone. We don’t want a trace of Yeshin in this land, they told me.”
“They told you,” I repeated. “Ah. They asked you to sell me out.”
“Their terms were very good,” Ozo laughed. “At least one offered to have you lured away in exchange for fifty rice fields. Your conscience will be clear. You’ll never know what really happened. But even if I had been tempted—”
“Were you?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“I’m so very grateful you decided not to sell me out then, Ozo, it really gladdens my heart,” I drawled.
Beside me, I heard Rai sigh. But he had always been intelligent enough not to butt in to Oren-yaro affairs and seemed, at the very least, glad he wasn’t on the receiving end this time.
“I had no desire to be indebted to those bastards,” Ozo said. “They wouldn’t even sign their letters—too afraid to be found out, the damn cowards. I don’t deal with men playing it safe.” He turned to me, pulling down his sleeve to bare his arm. There was a scar down to his elbow, a gash concealed beneath the mass of curly hair and tattoos.
I remembered Warlord San showing me his scar, too. “Yes,” I said impatiently. “You signed a blood compact during my father’s war. So did everyone else. It’s not half as impressive as you all think it is. A scar is a small price to pay for peace.”
“You’re mistaken,” Ozo said. “This wasn’t done when your father was alive.” He lowered his arm. “It was after. A second blood compact. I wasn’t there for the first, but I made damn well sure that I was for this one.”
“And was this second one for my head?”
He laughed. “Enough! You’ll bark at your own shadow if you’ve got nothing else, Yeshi
n’s child. I will not sink to this level.” He turned to Rai, as if noticing him for the first time. “You will return her immediately to her quarters, Prince Rayyel, if you don’t want your mother’s representatives to catch wind of this. It was you who called for this trial. If you were so concerned for your queen’s health, perhaps you should’ve thought twice about what you did in the first place. You don’t throw someone into the fire to save them.” A shadow crossed his face, and he suddenly looked like he regretted what he’d just said. Without another word, he heaved himself up the stairs.
I watched his shadow disappear from the walls. “I hate that man from the very bottom of my heart,” I whispered under my breath.
Rai gave a soft sigh. “You hate them all. You always did.”
I cleared my throat. “He was at Agos’s funeral.”
“What would he be doing there?”
“We should have breakfast first,” Khine broke in. “It’s not safe to talk out here.” I glanced at Rai, who nodded. We followed Khine to the kitchens. Inzali and Namra were at the main table, bent over a pile of books and steaming cups of tea. Such dedicated scholars, the both of them; I could see why my husband respected their counsel.
“About time you got back,” Inzali said without looking up. “We were getting hungry.”
“Yes, Mother,” Khine grumbled. He strode over to the curtained-off section of the kitchens. I heard him grab a pot and step out through the back door.
“Where’s the rest of the staff?” I asked, taking a seat on the bench beside Namra. I glanced at the books spread out in front of her and immediately grew nauseated. I could barely get through a history book without dropping it on my face and snoring, and these women were reading two or three at once.
“You don’t know what’s happening in your own castle, do you?” Inzali asked.
“People have been deliberately keeping me in the dark.” I threw Rai a sideways glance. He simply shrugged.
“They’ve been leaving one by one over the last few days,” Namra said. Her face was ringed with shadows of exhaustion. “I believe Warlord Ozo has called for servants from his own holdings. He didn’t trust yours, I suppose. Speaking of which—” She excused herself and stepped out to the adjoining hall.
“I must confess,” Inzali said, “that I find all of this odd. Servants who abandon their masters, lords who neglect their queen. Such things are unimaginable back in the empire.”
“They’ll explain it all away as simply being Oren-yaro,” Khine called over the sound of crackling oil.
Inzali frowned.
I gave a small smile. “I can see what Ozo is doing and why the people support him for it, but I don’t have to like it.” I glanced away. “Maybe that’s why he accused me of not being a very good Oren-yaro in the first place. Maybe he’s right. I could keep this illusion of power so long as I danced to their music. But now that I openly rebel against their ways, I am no longer one of them. Never mind that I am still my father’s daughter, or that I love this land as much as the rest of them claim.”
“His presence at Agos’s funeral…” Rai began. “It’s curious why he would take such a risk. He could be seen either as a sympathizer or, at worst, as someone concocting a plan to betray you. I’ve never taken him to be so careless.”
“And I’ve never taken him as a traitor before. I wish I could just call him senile and have it done with.”
Khine returned with a plate heaped with fried fish and a hunk of cold rice.
“Have you been cooking the meals they’ve been sending me?” I demanded.
“Since yesterday, after Hessa’s replacement went off and left. Ozo’s been eating with his men in the barracks down at the square.”
“Everything’s falling apart.” I broke off a fin and popped it into my mouth. It was salty. Apt, I supposed, for everything to taste like tears lately.
“And about to fall apart even more,” Namra said, returning with a grim expression. “The rest of the Ikessar council are at the gates. Princess Ryia is with them.”
I would have never believed Rai capable of fear, but all the colour immediately drained from my husband’s face. Ryia Ikessar—the Butcher’s Bane, the Witch Who Defied the Wolf—had come at last. I would have laughed if I didn’t know any better.
I followed my husband to the great hall in silence.
CHAPTER THREE
THE WITCH AND THE WOLF
At the time, as far as Jin-Sayeng was concerned, Queen Talyien had never met her mother-in-law.
Princess Ryia had only visited Oka Shto once after the war, during the betrothal ceremony when I was an infant. The Oren-yaro believed that her fear of Warlord Yeshin kept her away. But even after his death, she chose not to leave her mountain domain, and we saw neither hide nor hair of her. The only reasonable conclusion was that she cared nothing for the land she had fought my father for; almost as if, not having won it for herself, she would rather see it crumble into dust.
And yet here she was. I couldn’t really blame her; her son was neck-deep in conspiracy after years of being away… surely a mother’s concern eclipsed disdain for an enemy long dead.
We waited for her by the throne. I could hear Rai breathing deeply, could see his hands clenched into fists. Anticipation, dread? Expressions I never imagined he was capable of. His face was still very pale. He hadn’t spoken a word since Namra’s announcement. I tried to imagine what he was thinking. If my father was still alive, knowing he was on his way right after I had made a terrible mess of things would be enough to tear my spirit from my body. Rai had every reason to fear his mother. Even if they never openly acknowledged it, his actions had brought just as much shame to his clan as mine. Princess Ryia had swallowed her pride and allowed her son to be betrothed to her rival’s daughter to save the land. To save his life. For our parents, two of the fiercest figures in recent history, to lay down their arms for our marriage would have required a remarkable amount of patience.
And I was willing to gamble it took more for her than my father. Yeshin had been an old man, fading fast and consumed with nothing but hatred over what was taken from him. He was convinced the Ikessars lured him into causing his own sons’ deaths by fooling him into taking that first mad dragon into Oren-yaro and releasing it there. But Ryia wasn’t his real enemy. He hated her family, what she stood for, and the incompetent governance of monarchs too weak to turn Jin-Sayeng around. He hated what she represented, but the woman behind the mask would’ve been just a passing concern.
Ryia, on the other hand, had been young, at the prime of her life when the war broke out. My father massacred her family, including her two elder sisters. The War of the Wolves was a personal affair for the youngest and only remaining daughter of her line. She had been raised a priestess; my father’s actions forced her to become a warrior. That a woman of a dying clan could stand head-to-head with a powerful warlord was a feat in itself. She had Kaggawa’s family to thank for that—they supplied the assassins and spies that made the Ikessars a clan to be feared once more. For her to give up the chance to rule, after all of that…
The doors opened. I straightened myself as Ryia strode in—no pomp, no ceremony, no announcement. She was dressed in simple red robes, unadorned save for jade earrings that reached down to her shoulders. I was surprised to see how young she looked. She was close to Ozo’s age, but they would seem twenty years apart if you had them side by side—the sort of person for whom age was simply an inconvenience they could brush off. Her hair, which reached all the way to her waist, only had the faintest streak of silver—a stark contrast with her son, and strange for an Ikessar.
I was even more surprised, however, by her beauty. A failure on my part to realize that the books in our library were written by her enemies, who would at turns call her a hag and a witch, a woman more hideous than an anggali with half its body cut off. Perhaps men wouldn’t write poetry about her—they didn’t, as far as I’m aware—but an aura of power emanated from her, one that could turn heads just
as well as beauty. Were the historians so threatened they failed to mention this?
“Beloved Princess,” Rai said, reaching to take her hand. He pressed it on his forehead.
She allowed the gesture of respect, but when I tried to do the same thing, she pulled her hand away, as if I didn’t exist at all. My newfound admiration dissipated. Her mouth was a thin line as she regarded her son. “Is this how I raised you, Rayyel?”
“Mother—”
“Your envoy arrived after you made such a remarkably careless announcement. You never consulted me beforehand. Years, you said—you knew this for years. I should’ve known your ridiculous refusal of the Dragonthrone was more than a religious crisis. Jeopardizing everything because of your damn pride—are you trying to get us all killed?”
“Mother,” Rai repeated, drawing a deep breath. “It was a necessity. The Zarojo were headed this way. I was hoping it would stop them.”
“Did it?”
“I—”
“A no, then. I expected better from an Ikessar. I expected better from my son.” She turned away from him to glance at me for the first time. “And is it true? This woman was unfaithful to your marriage bed?”
Rai turned red. “Beloved Princess—”
“Answer me, Rayyel!”
“The trial—”
“A pointless trial,” Ryia finished for him. “You dare rouse the whole nation for a problem easily solved. I can kill her for this now while we search for that bastard child of hers.” She drew a sword from her belt and rushed towards me.
“Beloved Princess—!” Rai screamed.
Ryia stopped a foot away, the blade on my neck. I thought I felt a trickle of blood down my clavicle. “What do we need a trial for?” she asked, looking into my eyes. The softest of smiles flitted across her lips. “You’re guilty. You would have fought back if you weren’t. That is your reputation, isn’t it, Bitch Queen? Yet look at you standing there. So straight, not a shred of shame in your eyes. Like you’re just begging me to put you out of your misery.”
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