That apparently innocent appearance didn’t fool me. It helped that his eyes, those of someone much older and stranger, revealed his nature. Far from sweetly blue, the wizard had eyes green as an ancient forest, twisted, old, and shadowed. Ambrose was like one of those treacherous flowers of the Mazos jungle my tutors had told me about. With their sweet perfume they lured creatures of all types—and then trapped them in the sticky vines beneath, slowly consuming their hapless prey.
I often knew how that must feel, though Ambrose, for whatever arcane reasons of his own, had revealed his nature to me and asked to be our ally. He’d set out on the prompting of some foresight he’d never explained in detail to find us in those roadless swamps, offering his advice and guidance. We would have been lost—literally and metaphorically—without him. The physical protection our swords offered wouldn’t have been needed if he’d only stayed where he’d hidden all those years. No, he wanted something else, and when the day came that he finally named his price, I only hoped I could pay it.
“Conrí!” Like Sondra, Ambrose refused to call me anything else. He bobbed his head and rose—then hastily grabbed a book he’d nearly toppled from the pile. Merle the raven spread his wings, cawing caution from his nearby perch. Ambrose continued speaking without pause. “I’m not often wrong, as you know—”
“That is, never,” Sondra supplied, and Ambrose winked at her.
“Well, and I’m technically not wrong now, so my reputation is intact, but there’s even more here than the portents foretold. I could happily study all this library holds for years and never finish. And the notes left behind! You should see this incantation.” The rapid movement on his withered leg giving him a sideways scuttle, he hurried to a workbench littered with dusty glassware, and rummaged through a pile of scrolls.
“About the Abiding Ring?” I asked leadingly, trying not to make the question too abrupt or pointed. Sondra glared at me in exasperation anyway. After that first meeting, and not killing him, she’d developed a soft spot for Ambrose. Not romantic. I wasn’t sure Sondra was any more capable of wanting that than I was, both of us so profoundly broken. Sometimes she acted almost maternal toward the wizard. Protective. Equally surprising, as I’d have said she wouldn’t have the heart for that, either.
But for all that Ambrose wielded powerful abilities beyond understanding, he was also hapless. Sondra had assumed the responsibility for ensuring the wizard stayed out of trouble. Which apparently included shielding him from me.
“No, but so interesting!” Ambrose stabbed a finger in the air, seeming entirely unbothered. Still, he gave the incantation a last longing glance and set it aside—and picked up a bound set of documents. Returning to the desk he’d been working at, he tapped a page, turning it so I could see.
It looked like a bookkeeper’s accounts, with rows and columns of figures. I raised an eyebrow, trying to be patient. “Mathematics are the new runes?”
Ambrose chortled as if that were a fine joke. “I wish! The currents of the future would be considerably more clear via that method. Imagine if I could determine a way to weight the probability of a potential event occurring and factor that in with the probability of other events. I could then derive an indicator value that we could apply to current actions to create a risk-versus-benefit ratio for decision making. Hmm.” He dragged over a scrap of parchment and scribbled a few quick numbers.
Sondra and I exchanged glances. She tucked a stream of golden hair behind her ear with a frown for my obvious impatience. I cleared my throat.
Ambrose glanced up, eyes distant. “What? Oh right. Not this just now. This! This thing.” He tapped the ledger again. “The Abiding Ring is as good as yours.”
Disappointment hit me hard as battle rage. “‘As good as’? It isn’t here then.”
“No.” Ambrose focused on me. Looked confused. “Whyever did you imagine the Abiding Ring would be in an abandoned alchemist’s tower in Keiost, of all places?”
I set my teeth against the grinding frustration at him echoing my own thoughts about Keiost. “‘Take the Tower of the Sun,’” I quoted slowly, “‘claim the Abiding Ring.’”
“Ah-ah.” Ambrose waggled a finger in the air, and Merle made a chiding series of chuckles. “‘Claim the hand that wears the Abiding Ring.’ In prophecy, as in poetry, exact wording is key.”
“Fine,” I bit out. No wonder I hated poetry and prophecy in equal measure. “Show me the hand wearing it and I’ll cut it off and claim the fucking ring already.”
Sondra put a hand over her face, but Ambrose only laughed at me. “There will be no dismemberment necessary, Conrí. This will be another battle entirely. A more delicate form of claiming.”
“Unless Anure is wearing the Abiding Ring and claiming it along with his hand will result in him dead at my feet, I don’t really care about some piece of jewelry.” Harsh perhaps, but the crash of disappointment and frustration had sapped me of what little energy I had left. This was clearly a waste of time that I could be using to wash and sleep.
“It’s not ‘some piece of jewelry,’” Ambrose corrected, as if I’d tracked shit on his fine carpet. “It’s called the Abiding Ring because it’s actually alive. Rather than a jewel, this text describes it as an orchid, a living blossom, affixed to a ring and never removed while the bearer lives. I don’t think I should have to explain that this strongly implies a magically enforced bond.”
Sondra and I exchanged wry glances. Ambrose tended to wax dogmatic on the subject of magic, as if anything associated with it should be self-evident and any ignorance on our parts came from deeply personal failings. We came from very different worlds. Of course, none of us understood where Ambrose had been before he found us—and likely wouldn’t even if he hadn’t refused to discuss it.
“They could simply harvest a new flower each day, to perpetuate the myth,” Sondra pointed out, ever pragmatic—and just as suspicious of magic. “People will look the other way, as most love an enchanting story more than tepid truth.”
“Or”—Ambrose drew out the word with significance—“it’s the same blossom, magically sustained. The Abiding Ring.”
Somehow I’d thought that the “abiding” part of the ring had to do with conferring immortal powers on the bearer. Maybe that had been wishful thinking, as indestructibility on my part would be useful in killing an emperor known for not stirring his corpulent ass from the security of his well-padded throne, deep within a purportedly impregnable compound.
That the ring itself might be immortal … Well, fuck it all. The fury and frustration I’d so far kept leashed swelled up. How under Sawehl’s gaze could such a thing be even remotely useful? For this I’d killed, suffered, and ordered the deaths of countless others? How the gods laughed at me, a broken and foolish king with no kingdom, reaching an inevitable dead end in a golden tower overlooking the sea, my real enemy an unreachable distance beyond. I needed an object of power, something to lend me the magic I lacked, to supplement the brute force and a meager gift for strategy that were all my father had to give me.
Rage, like on the battlefield, turned my vision red.
“Con.” Sondra gripped my shoulders with one hand, for once dropping the title from my name, calling me out of the rage. I should remember that Ambrose wasn’t the only man among us she nurtured, even though she kicked my ass in equal measure. “We’ve come this far. Farther than we ever thought we could. We’ll find a way to kill him.”
She understood. Probably she felt the same.
“Will this flower ring help me kill Anure?” I demanded of the wizard, managing to sound relatively sane.
Merle croaked at me chidingly, but Ambrose held up a hand as if in solemn vow. “Would I lie to you?”
An interesting dodge, as I fully expected that Ambrose would lie—and cheerfully—if he thought it served his purposes. Whatever they were.
“Since the ring isn’t here,” I tried again, “do you now know where it is?”
Ambrose grinned, face suffused wi
th delight. He spread his hands at the array of documents.
“Calanthe.”
9
I finally returned to my chambers after a day of the usual court activities—must keep up good appearances, after all—followed by endless conversations and meetings with my advisers. Exhausted and beyond grateful to begin the process of shedding my colorful shell, I moved through the corridors, flanked by Tertulyn and trailed by the vee of my junior ladies. The sounds of revelry unleashed in the wake of my retiring poured through various doorways to private halls, and portals to the pleasure gardens.
I ignored them, as always, but the music, laughter, and other noises were like forbidden liquor leaked from a cracked vessel onto the table. It would be so easy to dip my finger, just a dab of a brush, and taste it.
Of course, I could not—and the force of my wanting to took me by surprise. I enjoyed my small rebellions, mainly with Tertulyn or a few of my other ladies, those who seemed pleased to minister to my well-being in that way. Tertulyn brought me tales of the more exotic diversions of the Night Court, and sometimes demonstrated those she could, to our mutual delight. Any that didn’t involve stretching my sacred hymen, that was. Anure, in his male blindness, might assume me to be a virgin so long as I was never alone with a man, but I wouldn’t put him past having me physically inspected if it came to an actual wedding.
As the current balance depended on his belief in my chastity, and my endgame depended on making it to his marriage bed, I didn’t dare risk compromising my apparent virginity. That also meant I could never be sighted at the Night Court games. That night, however, I wanted far more than the sweetly therapeutic attentions of my ladies. What, I didn’t know.
At the time, I put it down to the trying day. Later … well, I wondered if that unaccustomed temptation was my first warning of things to come. Or one of the many, rather.
Once secluded with me in my quiet rooms, Tertulyn and Calla immediately relieved me of the crown, setting it in its niche with reverence. Ibolya and Zariah took my wig and carried it to the anteroom for cleaning. As soon as Nahua and Orvyki had the biggest pieces of the gown off me—fortunately for my crumbling patience, the undressing takes far less time than the dressing—I collapsed in my favorite chair with a groan, scrubbing at my itching scalp.
And that’s when I felt it.
My wedding finger burned excruciatingly hot, the orchid’s petals going from their usual violet and orange to fuchsia threaded with black. Had I been able to, I might have stripped off the orchid ring and flung it across the room. Instead I snapped up straight, holding my arm rigidly away from my body, staring at it. The burning ceased—thankfully—as if it had only done it to seize my attention, and now it seemed to be flexing its elaborate petals, almost like a sea creature moving in a tidal pool, far more violently than it had earlier in the day.
It had been unusually active lately. Another bad sign. That moment in court, it had fluttered like this while I was parsing Leuthar’s elaborate lies. I might’ve put the movement down to a wayward breeze if the room hadn’t been still as death. It was very real, though I didn’t know how to interpret the messages. Oh, Father—so many things you never bothered to teach me. If only Anure hadn’t been so thorough in exterminating the wizards and other magic workers.
“Your Highness—are You all right?” Tertulyn sounded alarmed and I nodded to reassure her, though I wasn’t certain at all. My gaze fell on the carved wooden box sitting on the table.
The candied dates from Anure. I’d always hated the cursed things. The one time I tried them, the sugared crust made them hard as rocks and so sweet my teeth ached even without the impact. I had never been certain if the imperial toad made a point of sending them to me because he didn’t know how much I loathed them—or because he did and enjoyed taunting me. See? Even my tokens of affection will bring you misery.
Most days I found strength in hating him for it, in the knowledge that I saw through his poisonous games, no matter his intention. But this time … perhaps it had been the arguing with the scholars and advisers, their implicit accusations of my cowardice and assumptions of my youthful—or female—lack of intelligence, or the simple headache of wearing the wig and crown so long, but the presence of this gift made me feel ill and weak. Get it gone. My gaze snapped back to the orchid. Had it … spoken? No. Surely the orchid would speak in a voice like Calanthe and Her other creatures. This must’ve been my own thoughts. I listened anyway, but heard nothing more.
“Euthalia.” Tertulyn lifted my other hand, taking my attention from the orchid. “Who should I send for? Castor? Healer Jeaneth?”
“No,” I breathed. Even as brilliant a scholar as Castor wouldn’t know how to handle the ring. He’d long ago told me no one knew much about the orchid ring, corroborating my childhood impression that my father had been secretive about it. And of course, Father hadn’t expected his death, so he’d had little time to tell me about the ring and its properties, even if he’d been so inclined. He’d sent the wizards of Calanthe away before Anure arrived, and perhaps he’d thought one or more would return. He’d died before Anure showed his worst face and ended that hope entirely.
No, I was on my own in this. I should stop hoping for things to be otherwise. “Open that box.”
“The dates? But You hate them,” Tertulyn protested.
“Do it. Open it, then stand back.”
She did as I asked, first setting aside Anure’s pink-ribboned love letter she’d put with it for me, then opening the box, automatically facing it away from her so the hinged lid protected both of us. Never open a container facing you. Another old superstition, and one that served us well in this instance. Nothing happened, however, except that the ring fluttered on my hand, like an anemone filtering tainted water into clean.
The knowledge entered my head, as if I’d thought of something, or remembered an old lesson. Not a voice, exactly, but not my own thoughts, either. I knew it this time with certainty. The dates are treated with a potion to encourage passion and obedience.
How so very interesting: an enchanted dust to control me from the emperor who declared magic did not exist. And one that I detected, not through science, but through my magical means. Ah, the circles of the real and imagined we travel, round and round, getting nowhere. “It’s poison,” I said flatly, deciding no one needed to know the details—especially in my court where such a potion would be irresistible to those less principled. “We must get rid of it.”
“I’ll send them to the compost, Your Highness,” Tertulyn replied, perfectly obliging, and not at all betraying that she might think I behaved oddly. Though I knew by the set of her lips that she did. Of all my ladies, only Tertulyn wasn’t Calanthean. That made her a good companion for me in some ways, but deaf and blind in others.
“Not the compost.” I had no idea how to dispose of a magical thing. What if the taint could spread? I imagined the magic perfusing the compost, and thence everything fertilized with it. Plants sucked up nutrition via their roots—why not magic? “Close it up and send it to Castor. I’ll pen a note.”
While my confused ladies waited, I wrote instructions for Castor to investigate with caution and keep the box quarantined. Then I sent all of it away with Calla, trusting to her sensitivity to Calanthe’s murmurs to keep her safe, beyond relieved to have the thing gone from me. The orchid on my hand settled into its usual static loveliness, quiescent again with the departure of the cursed dates. Tertulyn and my remaining ladies finished removing my remaining garments and makeup. The lashes are the worst, requiring a solution to dissolve the glue, which stings my eyes unbearably. Washed clean and blessedly unencumbered but for my robe and ring, I dismissed them all but Tertulyn.
She sat and smiled, pouring us both some sweet wine. “Time for our bedtime story?” she asked.
“We may need something stronger than wine.” I grimaced, picking up the loathsome love letter. “I’d rather burn the vile thing.”
“Shall I fetch the brandy?”
Darling Flower of my Heart,
How I long for you, my innocent rosebud. With every day that passes I dream of your fair skin and how I might mark it as my own. I’ll plant violet blossoms to bloom where my hands have gripped your flesh. Roses will flower pink and crimson from the touch of my teeth. How you’ll writhe and cry for me as I wring my pleasure from you, my virgin bride. It must be soon. I cannot wait any longer to possess you. With every day, every dream of you, I grow afraid that another will pluck the blossom that is mine alone.
Are you true to me?
You must be, for my disappointment if you are not will be a rage to burn all the empire and sink your pretty island into the sea.
Thus is my love for you, darling rosebud.
I have a plan—a special surprise—to at last bring us together, to make you my empress, mother of my heirs. Capture the rebel dogs for me. Do not fail me in this or I shall have to deal with you personally, and without the honor of marriage.
I will summon you soon and we shall come together in eternal bliss—one way or the other.
Don’t make me come after you. I wouldn’t want to mangle my pretty prey in chasing it down.
All my love,
His Imperial Majesty
I drained my glass and Tertulyn refilled it. “So poetic,” she commented. “He puts Brenda’s sonnets to shame. Of course, hers are considerably less brutal.”
I laughed, needing the release of the tension around my heart and lungs. “I don’t know—he’s so inventive with the flower analogies.”
“So many rosebuds for him to violate!” She snorted and sipped her own wine.
But our usual humor fell flat in light of the viciousness of the missive. This letter, like the potion on the dates, represented movement. The dates must have been intended to reinforce his instructions in the letter, the third blow to seal the other two. Anure’s final, most poisonous threat.
The Orchid Throne Page 8
