The Orchid Throne

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Barely a woman, I’d been terrified of the loathsome Anure and the way his gaze crawled over me. Even then I’d worn the elaborate gowns and makeup, but he’d made me feel naked and helpless. Only my father’s repeated explanations and reassurances helped cool my panic, and I locked my fears away with my girlish heart. If I stayed smart, Anure might own me and my island paradise in name, but he’d never fully possess either. Not while I lived.

  Could the manacled wolf in my dreams represent the emperor and the danger he posed? The blood could symbolize the loss of my carefully guarded virtue, the breaking of my fingers on its chains my attempts to resist the captivity I could never escape.

  Somehow I didn’t think so. Anure had cast a chilling shadow over my fate and Calanthe’s for most of my life. The nightmare of the chained wolf was much more … acute. Violent. Disastrous. Full of terrible omens. Especially coinciding with Leuthar’s return.

  I had to consider that the portents might be connected to the rumors of the rebellions. They thickened in the air like a hatch of flower flies—equally irritating and without substance, easily batted away until they returned to buzz in one’s ears. I was keen to discover how much truth the rumors contained, which was one positive of Leuthar’s return. His ships brought information more detailed than dream images, small compensation for his insidious presence.

  Usually Tertulyn would have mentioned gossip to me by now, cloaked in niceties to spare the Glory dangerous or upsetting information. Tertulyn’s reports helped me calculate what the day ahead would hold, as she heard what I could not at the late-night parties I couldn’t attend, not and maintain the reputation of virginity that protected me. I still allowed the more licentious customs of the Flower Court to flourish. Another of the concubine’s costumes, Calanthe’s abandoned revelry. We appeared carefree. Surely we kept no thoughts of resistance in such frivolous hearts, no secrets in such empty heads.

  We had our rules for daylight, and other rules for night. Once I, the eternal virgin ever faithful to her betrothal, retired to my apparently innocent bed, the court cut the bonds of propriety. The wine flowed, sensual games commenced, and tongues loosened. As I possessed my network of Calanthe’s denizens who reported to me on the doings of the realm and the lands beyond, Tertulyn had formed her own web of informants among the courtiers. At her own waking rituals, the ladies who dressed her reported on the nocturnal events of my palace, which she faithfully related to me.

  That she’d said nothing so far that morning could mean there was nothing to say … or something else. If the dreams were true portents, I needed more insight into what news Leuthar would bring to his audience with me. He liked to catch me by surprise. I liked to make sure he didn’t.

  Surely Anure hadn’t decided to send for me and make me his bride in fact. The thought sent a shiver up my spine, and Tertulyn noticed.

  “Your Highness?” she inquired.

  “I hope the entertainments were enjoyable last night,” I remarked, as if in idle conversation.

  “Not so, Your Highness,” she replied immediately. “Many hostesses were quite deflated to have their parties poorly attended without their guest of honor.”

  Aha. No wonder she hadn’t yet shared the gossip with me. Leuthar hadn’t made it in last night. They must have arrived too late for the tide and anchored beyond the barrier reef. My dreams had been too dominated by the cries from far away for Calanthe’s waters to speak to me of that. Also, a ship at the reef or in our harbor seemed much the same to the vast and shifting seas.

  “Has the emissary’s ship yet docked this morning then?” I pretended I didn’t know he’d brought more ships with him. What Calanthe confided in me I kept to myself.

  “It hadn’t when I woke You, though it might have by now.” Tertulyn briefly met my gaze as she drew the rose-pink lines for my lips and cheekbones. Reading my intent, she flicked a glance at Calla, who curtsied and glided out of the dressing chamber. Tertulyn switched to a brush to black my eyebrows. Wielding her palette of precise tools, she painted in all the definition the alabaster paste concealed.

  Calla returned with several folded letters and the news that not only had the emissary’s ship docked, but three others with it. Surprise, surprise. The former meant court would begin on time. Not that they could start without me, but I’d rather tweak the emperor’s nose with something more important than keeping his emissary waiting while I dallied with primping. The latter … I didn’t know what it meant except that more ships meant more of the emperor’s men, and another indication that the tides of events had shifted. I couldn’t have gone on forever at my precarious stalemate, but I snarled internally like that nightmare wolf at feeling the bite of my chains.

  Sorting through the intricately folded letters, Tertulyn set most aside, for her or my royal secretary to deal with, but one she gave to me. That was something. One of my spies in the emissary’s party had sent news in the guise of a letter from a friend.

  Tertulyn proceeded apace with the rest of my cosmetics while I read, and the other ladies distracted Glory with trimming flowers for my gown and wig. The letter rambled on about the romantic intrigues of the emperor’s court, before settling on a long description of the fashions imported from Keiost. An involuntary murmur of unhappy surprise escaped me. The portents positively rained down.

  Tertulyn’s gaze snagged mine in mute question. Now was not the time for outside ears.

  “Thank you, Glory, for your service to Me.” I raised my voice, keeping my tone as kind as I could, even as my heart beat wildly, assimilating the impossible. Never had the long-distance wails of foreign lands proved to be so accurate. Time to send the girl away. “Will you stay awhile in the capital?”

  “Your Highness, yes.” She curtsied again, deeply, speaking barely above a whisper. “My family is with me. We hope to visit the map room and see other sights.”

  “Enjoy some on Me.” I nodded to Calla, who gave the girl a gold coin stamped with my likeness. Anure had “gifted” me with a treasury of the things. I would’ve commanded her to spend it—the price it would fetch could likely feed her family for a full year—but many of the girls kept them, along with their souvenir scarf folded in the queen’s style, on my specially dyed paper, with a personal note of thanks from me. My ladies penned those for me, but each evening I affixed my signature for the next morning. Another of my little rituals, planning for the sun to indeed rise once more.

  And that Calanthe would still be whispering harmoniously when sunrise came.

  Calla led the Glory out of the chamber to hand over to the guards to be escorted away. As soon as she was out of earshot, I relieved their suspense. “It seems that the latest styles from Keiost are all in shades of red.”

  Tertulyn’s hand trembled, pausing in her task of gluing the tiny jewels to their proper places at the corners of my eyes and mouth. She closed her eyes, lips moving in a prayer for the family she had in Keiost, the other ladies falling into furious whispering, relaying the information to Calla when she returned. They were intimate enough with me to understand the codes. Red for blood. The rumors of uprising were true. And as always, it was the common people who died.

  My father had taught me this. The emperor didn’t suffer when war ravaged his empire. He stayed lazy and overfed on his throne while we tore one another’s throats out fighting to get to him. Why trouble himself if we killed one another? Another of the many reasons that rebelling against him harmed only ourselves. My father’s untimely death only proved that point.

  I touched Tertulyn’s hand to steady it, for a moment seeing an overlay from the dream, of my own fingers, broken and bloody from the chains. An escaped wolf leading an uprising. It couldn’t be coincidence. But who could this mongrel leader be? For he had to be common. None of the old royalty were left outside their genteel captivity in the emperor’s citadel at Yekpehr. Besides me.

  “We’ll find out more,” I told Tertulyn. She nodded, her face, clear and lovely as a doll’s, showing no concern. All of m
y ladies were exemplary, and Tertulyn the best of them.

  Her hands steady again, Tertulyn finished, then invited me to stand. Even with the Glory gone, we observed our ritualistic formalities. The ladies all gathered round, fastening the structures to support my gown onto the rigid corset. Six ladies assist my toilet, and not because I love having a crowd around me. It takes four of them to support the jewel-encrusted material while two sew it into place—one on each side, to ensure symmetry.

  A courtier attempting to rise in prominence through his wit once jested that my court gear weighed more than a soldier in full armor headed into battle. I hadn’t found it at all funny. Let him wear my gown for even an hour. There’s a reason my parade steed is the same stalwart breed as those the armored warriors ride.

  And though my armor consists of jewels and flowers, I am no less resolved than those dandies in metal shells. It protects something precious to more than myself. What happened to Keiost would never happen to Calanthe.

  As the final step, the ladies lowered the day’s wig, white to match my gown, onto my bare scalp. Tertulyn added spots of glue to hold it in place, although most of that would be up to me—and to the years of posture training ingrained in me. The other ladies circled me with baskets of fresh flowers, studding the elaborate ivory tresses with blossoms of all kinds.

  Then they affixed the crown of Calanthe. Fortunately for my neck it was remarkably light for all its jeweled glory. With sapphires, aquamarines, and diamonds set in a frame of shining loops and arcs of purest platinum, the crown evokes the sea that surrounds Calanthe. It is the waves and the light upon the water, and all who live within.

  My ladies presented me with the looking glass and I surveyed their work, though I hardly needed to. I looked as I always had, preserved like a blossom under glass, perfectly groomed to present the perfect image. The Flower Queen of Calanthe. This set of five ladies had been with me for nearly three years and knew their business well. Tertulyn had been with me for over twenty years—ever since she came from the court at Keiost to foster with us at the beginning of Anure’s rampages—and we knew each other like the insides of our own hearts. I’d have been lost without her. To show it, I plucked a flower from my hair and tucked it into her canary-bright wig.

  She produced a smile for me, perfect in every way. Good girl.

  Suitably clad in my flower-strewn and jeweled armor, I descended from my chambers to battle to keep at least my small, unspoiled paradise in the light.

  4

  “Good morning, Your Highness,” the young squire blurted. “I’m pleased to report that Keiost is yours. General Kara asks me to inform you that our wounded are being tended, their wounded dispatched, and the survivors assembled, awaiting your arrival. Victory is ours,” he added unnecessarily. Clean and wearing a fresh set of clothes, General Kara’s squire grinned with the cheeky triumph of one too young to understand the cost of war.

  I nodded at him, not yet ready to test my voice, scanning the camp and the battlefield beyond. What did I hope to see? Confirmation that the bloodshed had been worth it, perhaps. Now that I’d come down from the battle rage—and up from the sleep of exhaustion—seeing what we’d wrought only sickened me. I’d rather feel the glee, the savage satisfaction. Vengeance tasted best hot. In the unflinching light of what should be a beautiful morning, I had no stomach for such a cold dish, or for celebration.

  But Keiost was mine, at long last. Hopefully it would hold the information the wizard promised.

  “Your Highness?” The squire made the question a reminder. The boy’s name escaped me at the moment. Brad? Bard? Names mattered, but I’d passed the point of being able to keep track of everyone in my growing armies. And today I’d more than double that by adding the people of Keiost.

  Depending on how many chose not to be added.

  Enough of dark thoughts. Kara and the others waited on me. Stripping off my shirt, I dunked my head in the waiting bucket. The cold water helped wake me, too. Dragging a hand through my hair, I tried to dislodge the worst of the blood and grime. Not easy. This was the price of not bathing before exhaustion claimed me.

  Of course, it was also the price of refusing to cut my hair ever again. Call it pride. Call it superstition. When I’d been Prince Conrí, I’d worn my hair as I pleased until the day Anure’s soldiers clapped me in chains, shaved my head, and dragged me off to the mines. I’d promised myself—the vow of the boy I’d been, with all the certainty and passion of childhood—that one day I’d break the chains and never again cut my hair.

  That boy had seen and suffered so much, I owed him that much, to keep that promise.

  I made quick work of dunking my head—the icy water clearing the dregs of dead sleep from my brains—and splashing water over my face and chest, then donning the clean garb Kara’s squire brought me. No time to shave, but my grizzled appearance would likely go a long way toward hammering home the message I must to deliver to the people of Keiost. At least no one expected a king of slaves to be pretty.

  Slicking back my wet hair, I tied it into a queue with a strip of leather, then snagged my “crown” and donned it. Finally I slung my cloak over my shoulders. I looked like no king of old, by any stretch. But then, I wasn’t one. I’d lost Oriel, lost the land of my father, forever, both of us cut adrift.

  “Let’s go,” I said, my voice gruff from sleep and not speaking, throat sore from pushing out shouts of command. Even at my best, though, I sounded like a dog chained so long that its manacled collar had strangled its voice into a hoarse parody. “You did well yesterday,” I added, to sound less curt, though the words snagged, burning, and I couldn’t suppress a cough. The boy’s grin widened, happy to be so honored, unperturbed at being unnamed. A good lesson there, that what I considered important didn’t always matter to everyone else.

  Or often, to anyone else.

  Soldiers sprang to their feet and saluted as we passed, the tang of vurgsten hanging still thick in the air, and my lungs tightened with familiar pain. Surely this would be enough. With possession of Keiost—and its famed tower—no matter what the wizard Ambrose did or didn’t find, this victory should at least give us the forces, and more important the ships, to get me to Anure. The emperor sat fat and greasy on his stolen throne beyond that sea, and so that’s where I would go.

  Take the Tower of the Sun,

  Claim the hand that wears the Abiding Ring,

  And the empire falls.

  Ambrose’s words—albeit obscure and poetic—had become my mantra these many months. Another irony, as I distrusted magic and disliked poetry. My father, King Tuur of Oriel, like so many kings and queens that fell before Anure’s might, had believed in and followed the advice of his wizards.

  It hadn’t saved us or Oriel. That’s the problem with prophecy—too much is left open to semantics. The court wizard of Oriel had seen death in the cards, but not how or when. And my father … maybe he simply couldn’t envision the fall of his kingdom. Certainly not to the upstart would-be emperor. King Tuur had been convinced that the “death” the wizard saw represented transformation.

  Instead it had meant our utter destruction. I’d been only a boy then, not privy to political discussions, particularly ones that dire. But my father had spoken of it often enough in the mines, hashing and rehashing every wrong turn and least decision that led to that terrible day we lost everything. My father had no throne to leave me, but he did have his stories still.

  So I never—almost never—argued with Ambrose. The wizard had attached himself to me, begging physical protection in a world where wizards no longer existed, in return for his advice and guidance. No one but Ambrose had predicted I’d see this day. Keiost of all places. And yet here I was, guided by poetry and magic. How my father would laugh at his recalcitrant son.

  How I wished I could hear him laugh—or remember my sister’s face smiling instead of contorted in those last screaming moments of horror and pain—just once more.

  I shook off the dark thoughts. No one w
ould be laughing if the “Tower of the Sun” turned out not to be the one here at Keiost. Once Ambrose had spoken those words, I’d been sure of it—at least in that moment—and the memory had come back to me, the poetry read in my tutor’s voice during that childhood when I’d been privileged enough to be soft and bored. Built entirely with marble as golden as the sun.

  Like most memories of that brief and shining boyhood, however, I’d taken them out and pored over them so many times that they’d become worn, tattered, and full of holes. They’d also taken on a sheen I didn’t trust. Surely I hadn’t been that happy and carefree.

  Sometimes it was easier to tell myself I’d made all of that up. Otherwise remembering what I’d lost became more than I could bear. And I had promises to keep before I crumbled.

  Spotting us, Sondra strode up. Her hair streamed, defiantly unbound, pale gold in the sunlight. Like so many of us, she’d relished letting it grow, so I hardly blamed her the indulgence. But it made for an incongruous effect, the rippling hair of a young maid around her ravaged face.

  The sight never failed to stab at me, though I’d never tell her so. The mines had left their stamp on all of us, leaving us dark and pockmarked like a permanent burn corroded into our skin. Sondra had been a lovely girl. Older than me by five years, the daughter of one of our nobles and my sister’s best friend, Sondra had ruled all the hearts at court with her sweet face and sweeter voice. She’d lived through that terrible day, surviving when so many, including my sister, died from their injuries.

  Sondra had knelt beside me to have her glorious hair shorn, her delicate limbs placed in manacles, to work in the mines with us. Now those elegant bones, which had once portended that she would become one of the great beauties of Oriel, had sharpened into blades threatening to pierce her leathery complexion. Even her eyes had toughened somehow. No longer softly full of laughter, they’d hardened like the rest of her. As we all had.