by Karen Miller
Alasdair shook his head at her. “One of these days you're going to sit down through a privy council meeting. You're queen whether you're on your feet or your arse, you know.”
She gave him a look. “I'm not certain it's proper to use words like ‘arse’ to your sovereign.”
Eyes glinting, he pushed away from the council table and joined her in front of the window. Kissed the tip of her nose, and then her lips, lightly. “Neither am I. Do you care?”
She rested her hand flat to his chest. “Not in here, Alasdair. Never in here.”
The playful, loving light in his face dimmed. He stepped back. “Majesty.”
It nearly broke her bones not to throw her arms around him. “Alasdair, please. Don't be like that. In every other room in this castle, in every room of every house in this kingdom, I can forget who I am. What I am. But if I forget that in here, in my privy council chamber, if I once let the woman rule the queen…” She shook her head. “I can't. You mustn't ask me.”
He clasped his strong, gently ruthless hands behind his back. “Edward's right, you know. You will have to fight them. You'll have to surrender this fantasy, that men like Damwin and Kyrin will see reason if only you give them a little more time.” He laughed, unamused. “Even this ploy with Helfred. It won't succeed. Do you truly think they'll kiss the hem of his robe weeping penitent tears, and ride back to Kingseat with him so they can pledge their public loyalty to you?”
She folded her arms. “No. Of course I don't.”
“Then why—”
“Because it gives me some time, Alasdair! Time to think, time to prepare myself for what has to be done! Just because I recognise a harsh reality doesn't mean I'm ready to embrace it like a lover!”
Breathing hard she stared at him, willing him to understand. After a moment he nodded. “I can see you'd want time. Sound decisions are rarely made in haste.”
And what did that mean? Was there a secret message coded into his seemingly harmless statement? She'd shown up on his doorstep, a fugitive exile, and they'd hastily married. Did he regret the decision? A duke in his own duchy was like a little king. Did Alasdair wish he'd remained in Linfoi, a duke, instead of condemning himself to a life as her consort, a life in her shadow, a life in which his crown would never be the same as hers?
Don't think about that now. You can't afford to think about that.
“What are you going to do, Rhian?” he said. “When Damwin and Kyrin push you to that last step, and you know they will. They're not sensible men. What in God's name are you going to do?”
“You know what I'll do,” she said, suddenly so tired. Tears were too close. “I'll fight them, Alasdair. I have no other choice.”
“I could fight them for you,” he said. “I could be your king consort commander. I could…” And then he sighed. His plain, bony, beautiful face was sad. “Except I can't.”
She'd never dreamed it would be so hard. Could be so hurtful. He doesn't deserve this. It isn't fair . “No,” she whispered. “At least…not yet. One day you'll fight my battles for me, Alasdair, and nobody will think it makes me weak. But that day is a long way off. I need you, my love. You know how I need you. But for now the world must believe I need no man.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“I want to walk alone a while. When I'm ready I'll find you, and you can tell me where my thinking shows itself too womanly. Would you go to Ven'Cedwin, and let him know I'll need him after noon? Perhaps we could compose the dukes' letters together. If you're not taken up with other commitments.”
He offered her a brief bow. “Majesty, I am, as always, your obedient servant.”
There were times…last night, for instance, in their marriage bed…when he said such things and made of them a loving tease.
And then there are times he makes of them a fist, and strikes me with it.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I'll find you later.”
She was barely aware of the servants and courtiers who acknowledged her passing as she left the castle. They bowed, she nodded, no words were exchanged. She refused a cloying coterie of attendants and discouraged hangers-on at court. If she wanted company she called for it, otherwise everyone knew she was to be left alone.
The weight of their gazes as she walked by was as heavy as any crown devised.
Outside, in the privy gardens overlooking Kingseat township and the harbour, the sunshine was mellow. Warm as a mother's breath against her skin. Rhian let her fingertips touch drooping, perfumed blossoms. Resisted what she knew she must consider and flirted, for a little while, with memories of simpler, happier times.
And then she stopped, because she was no longer alone. The eldritch sense that had served her all her life told her who it was. Without looking over her shoulder she said, “Emperor Han. I know for certain this time there was no invitation.”
The emperor laughed. “I took it for granted you would be pleased to see me.”
“Did you indeed?” she said, and turned to confront him. “Well. That was very presumptuous of you.”
He bowed. “It was, Queen Rhian.”
Head to toe he was dressed in black silk: high-throated, long-sleeved tunic, narrow trousers. His long black hair was tied back from his extraordinary, ageless face. His dark brown eyes were watchful and amused. He wore no jewellery, no trappings of power…but even a blind man would not mistake him for a commoner.
She considered him. “How did you gain access to my privy gardens?”
“Does it matter? I am here.”
“Are you an emperor or a witchman?”
His eyebrows rose two beautiful black arches. “Perhaps I am both.”
“And perhaps you could answer me like an honest man, instead of playing silly word games!”
That surprised him. “You are bold, Queen of Ethrea.”
“And also quite busy. Was there something you wanted, Han? Or are you simply bored, and seeking a diversion?”
He hadn't given her leave to address him as an intimate. She'd committed a breach of protocol.
So we stand evenly matched. Witching himself here was just as rude. If that's what he did, and I can't think of another explanation. He's hardly inconspicuous.
Instead of answering, Han looked her up and down. His dark eyes gleamed, but whether in appreciation or condemnation she couldn't tell.
“I have known many queens, many empresses, many…” He smiled. “Women. Do you dress like a man in the hope other men will accept your rule, or is it that being a woman isn't enough for you?”
She looked down at her not-very-queenly clothing: leather huntsman's leggings, a leather jerkin, silk shirt. On her feet, leather low-heeled half-boots. Strapped to her left hip, a knife once cherished by her brother, Ranald. Its hand-polished hilt was set with tigereye, his birthstone. Her fingers often found it, and touched it, remembering.
“Han,” she said, looking up again, “you must think me witless if you believe I believe you're here to comment on my choice of attire. What do you want?”
He plucked a fragile pink ifrala blossom from a nearby flowerbed and held it to his nose, delicate as any lady-in-waiting. Breathing deeply he smiled. “Your mother had a sweet touch in her garden, Rhian. I remember she made ifrala perfume every spring.”
She blinked. “You knew my mother?”
“Briefly.” He opened his fingers and let the blossom drift to the grass. “Rhian, why have you not convened a meeting of the trading nations? Do you think this Mijak will change its mind? Or, like a little girl, do you hope that if you close your eyes tight the spirits and demons will not see you in the dark?”
Spirits and demons. There are no such things . “If you're so certain I'm wrong in waiting, Han, why haven't you summoned the trading nations yourself?”
“If I were the ruler of Ethrea, I would.”
She folded her arms. “Why should I trust you, Han? Why should I trust your witch-man Sun-dao? I don't know you. I only know your reputation, and the reputation o
f mighty Tzhung-tzhungchai. You swallow nations as I swallow a plum. Perhaps I'm the pit you think to spit out in the dirt.”
“Rhian, Rhian…” Han sounded sorrowful. “Don't disappoint me. The Tzhung empire has swallowed no-one for nearly two hundred years. You know that. And you know my witch-man speaks the truth. The truth rots in your dungeons. It yearns for the light. It dreams of a dead wife. Zandakar is the key to defeating Mijak. How long will you leave him a prisoner when your life, and my life, and as many lives as there are stars at night, depend upon him? How long will you deny the only truth that can save us?”
“Zandakar is my concern, not yours,” she said, turning away.
Han sighed. “Before Mijak is tamed you must tame your disobedient dukes. The dukes are why you do not convene the trading nations. Until they are tamed your crown is in danger. Zandakar is also the key to their downfall, and you know it. There is so little time until there is no time at all, Rhian. Will you let pain and pride waste these brief moments?”
“Be quiet!” she snapped, spinning round. “Who are you to come here uninvited and tell me how I should rule and who I should see? If time is so brief, if I am so helpless, take your Tzhung warfleet and sink Mijak on your own!”
Han smiled. His eyes were flat and black as obsidian. “If the wind desired it, girl, then so it would be and my empire would flood with the grateful tears of the saved. The wind does not. It blows me to you.”
“I never asked it to! I never asked for this!”
“The wind does not care,” said Han. “And neither do I. Deal with your dukes, Rhian.”
Still fuming, she glared at him. “How?”
“You ask for my help?”
“I ask for your opinion! My father taught me there's no shame in seeking counsel of a wise man. You're an emperor. I assume you've had some experience of – of – uncooperative vassals.”
His cold eyes warmed with amusement. “Yes.”
“Well, then?”
“Rhian, there is nothing I can tell you that you don't already know. The wind has made you a warrior. No breathing man can fight the wind.”
Perhaps that's true. But this breathing woman can certainly try.
“You can,” said Han. “But you won't.”
Was he inside her mind now? Or was her face less schooled than she liked to imagine? He infuriated and frightened her like no-one else she knew. “I don't want to shed their blood, Han.”
He shrugged. “Want means nothing. Need is all.”
Tears burned her eyes, then, because she knew he was right. Hand on her knife-hilt, she blinked them away.
“Go,” said the Emperor of Tzhung-tzhungchai. “Do what you must, Rhian. Do it quickly. And when you are done, I will be waiting.”
CHAPTER THREE
The prison cell was too small for hotas , but Zandakar tried to dance them anyway. There was nothing else for him to do. No-one to talk to, he was the castle's only prisoner. Sometimes the guards watched him when they weren't gambling for coins, they watched him with their unfriendly eyes, their eyes with promises in them. They would hurt him if he danced too close.
His cell was made of three stone walls and one of iron bars, a ceiling and a floor. No windows. No fresh air. No light, except for a burning lamp hung on a hook outside the bars where his fingers could not reach it. A bucket for piss and shit which his guards did not empty as often as they could. A wooden bench for sleeping. They gaye him one blanket, but only because they had to. The guards of this castle did not like him, it was in their silent stares and their fingers on their clubs how much they longed to beat him. Hurt him. Avenge the wrong he had done their queen.
Aieee, god. A dog in this Ethrea lives better. When I was Vortka's prisoner I was treated like a man. Will I rot down here, will I die in this dark?
He had been in his cell twelve highsuns. The guards did not tell him that, he counted time in his head. He visited Mijak in his memory, laughed with Lilit, rode with Dimmi, danced the hotas with his mother.
Sometimes he dreamed of her, of Hekat. He dreamed she had found him, dreamed that she loved him, dreamed there never was blood and pain and misery between them.
Stupid dreams, Zandakar. Zandakar, you are stupid.
His knuckles on both hands were scraped raw where he had struck his stone prison walls trying to dance his hotas . His blood was on the walls of this place, in the rank air his hisses of pain. Once he would never have noticed such small hurts, now he felt as though his body was flayed. Everything hurt him. The world was a scorpion wheel, he could not escape. Crippled, he danced his crippled hotas , remembering Mijak and its wide open skies. The chanting of his warhost. The power in his blade.
Along the prison corridor he heard a door open. His gambling guards scrambled to their feet, small coins clinking to the flagstones.
“Majesty!”
“Your Majesty!”
Rhian.
He stumbled sideways out of his hota , one shoulder striking the nearest stone wall.
Rhian.
She stared at him through his cell's iron bars, her blue eyes shining like chips of ice. Her lips were straight and thinly pressed, no smile to see Zandakar, no pleasure to be here.
“Open the cell door, Evley,” she said to the older of his two guards.
Both men gaped at her. “Majesty?” said Evley. He had enough years to be her father. Like a father, he was concerned. “Majesty, I—”
“Evley.”
The guard Evley fumbled a key into the lock and turned it. Then he hauled the heavy iron-barred door open.
Rhian's chin came up, her eyes so blue, so cold. “Zandakar. With me.”
He followed her out of his lightless stone prison, down the corridor, through the door at its end, up stone stairs and more stone stairs into the light.
It hurt his eyes, he welcomed the pain. Sun on his underground skin, hot like the god's wrath. Grass beneath his bare feet, birdsong in his empty ears. Breathing was hard. Believing was harder.
I do not think I will be free for long.
She had brought him to a garden beside the tall stone castle. There was salt in the breeze blowing into his face, the sweet scent of flowers, the ache of regrets. They were alone.
Hands fisted on her slender hips, sheathed in leather like the finest snakeblade, Rhian looked at him. “Why is your hair blue?”
Bemused, he stared back at her. Why was his hair blue? Why did it matter?
“We're told your brother's hair is blood red,” she said impatiently. “And your warriors' hair is black. Why are they different, Zandakar? What does it mean?”
“Ask chalava ,” he said. “I wei know.”
“Were you born with blue hair? Was your brother born with red?”
He folded his arms. “You free me to talk hair, Rhian?”
“I haven't freed you.”
Aieee, the god see him. She was still so angry. He could not tell her his truth, that the colour of his hair changed the first time he killed with the god's power. She feared him too much as it was. But he could not lie to her, not outright. Lies were poison. He could stand between the truth and a lie, that would keep him in her company for now, for a little while.
“My hair born black,” he said. “ Chalava make hair blue when it make me chalava-hagra .” He frowned. “I think you say hammer.”
“Yes, Zandakar,” said Rhian. “I know what you are.”
There was a knife on her left hip. He nodded at it. “You dance your hotas ? You wei forget?”
“No. I dance them.”
“Show me.”
“What?” She half-turned from him, the heel of one hand pressing to her forehead. “Zandakar—”
“Show me.”
She turned back. In her eyes he saw her hunger, saw how she missed the glory of hotas with a fellow warrior. They were only complete if they were not danced alone.
I miss dancing them with Rhian. Aieee, god, I miss Rhian.
She unsheathed her knife. On the green grass, be
neath the blue sky, his dirty blue godtouched hair combed by the salt breeze and without his own blade, he danced the hotas with Rhian and felt the scorpion wheel world fade away. She was the falcon, the sandcat, the scorpion. He was her shadow, her mirror, her foe. In her eyes all the pain he had caused her, in her blade the desire for his blood.
Twelve highsuns in captivity, his muscles were sluggish. Her blade did not touch him but many times it came close. Her angry eyes laughed, then, her teeth bared in a smile. She had not lied, she did not forget her hotas . She was Queen of Ethrea and did not forget to dance. Lithe and supple, flowing like water, like liquid gold, she gifted him with every dance he had taught her. She tasked him with every light blow of her fist. No tasking on the godhouse scorpion wheel had ever hurt his flesh so much.
Distracted by sorrow, by the pain in her because of him, he let her leap behind him. Her leg scythed out, catching him hard behind the knees. He fell to the green grass and then she was on him, thighs straddling his heaving chest, knees clamped to his ribs, one hand fisted in his hair. She was straining his head back, her sharp blade pressed against his bared throat. Was that sweat on her face or was his queen weeping?
He waited, waited, for her blade to drink his blood.
On a wild cry she released him. Her knife sank point-first into the soft ground and she sprang to her feet. Her eyes as she stared down at him were violent with pain.
“Why didn't you tell me? Why did you lie?”
“You lost in my land. In Mijak,” he said, meeting her tempestuous gaze. “You afraid. Alone. You have killing secrets. What you tell me, king of my land?”
“You could've trusted me, Zandakar. I trusted you.”
He smiled. “You learn my secret, Rhian. You put me in prison.”
“I put you in prison because – because – tcha !” She bent and snatched her knife out of the ground, then stepped away from him. Her knuckles on the knife-hilt were white. “You made me a fool before Emperor Han!”
Emperor Han. The tall amber-skinned man. His servants were demons, they summoned the wind.
“Emperor Han is gajka?”
