by S. C. Emmett
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Lilith Saintcrow
Excerpt from The Wolf of Oren-Yaro copyright © 2017 by K. S. Villoso
Excerpt from The Mask of Mirrors copyright © 2020 by Bryn Neuenschwander and Alyc Helms
Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio
Cover illustration by Miranda Meeks
Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Map by Charis Loke
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Emmett, S. C., author.
Title: The poison prince / S.C. Emmett.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, 2020. | Series: Hostage of empire ; book 2
Identifiers: LCCN 2020015577 | ISBN 9780316453424 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780316453417 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316453400
Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3619.A3984 P65 2020 | DDC 813/.6— dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015577
ISBNs: 978-0-316-45342-4 (trade paperback), 978-0-316-45341-7 (ebook)
E3-20201003-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Author’s Note
Epigraph
A Strange Pair
Submit, Regardless
Heaven Wills
Safest Course
Fairly Enough
Much Less Unlucky
A Question of How
Poor Beast
Snag in Silk
A Gift, Mustn’t We
A Comfort
A Prince and a Wolf
A Clear Pond
Growing Up
Some Little Bloodshed
Disposed Of
Small Pleasures
Creature Needs Taming
World, Ordered
Cautious Maneuvers
Choices
Grandfather
A Blameless Life
What You Came Here For
Unremarked for Long
Reworking
Realize Consequences
Say the Word
The Wurei Boy
Prince You Prefer
Fine Strategy
Witness
Hrebao Tea
The Insulted Maiden
Marrow from the Bones
Heaven Unassisted
So Little
Product of Merit
Work Without Food
Dry Lightning
Thrifty Stock
Smooth Another Temper
A Festival Roast
Anger Not New
Consequences
Spilling Secrets
Uncomfortably High Estimation
The Great Bell
A Holy Task
Deeply Wanted
Whatever Material Available
A Smooth Transition
Words for Satisfaction
Could Have Been Cruel
A Good Wife
Safe as a Foal
Earning Extra Slivers
Cease Such Accounting
No Waiting Gaze
Lovely Girl
Upon Our Consciences
Uneasy Dreams
Understand Each Other
Long-Ear, Flushed
Corrections and Chastisement
Bring Our Messenger Home
Small but Definite
Yala’s Ride
Pinned Jewelwings
Longtail and Kitten
The Return
Ten Thousand Years
A Delicate Time
Ascension in Peace
Pity or Revulsion
None of Your Antics
The Moon Wishes It
A Message
Acknowledgments
Discover More
Extras Meet the Author
A Preview of The Wolf of Oren-Yaro
A Preview of The Mask of Mirrors
Also by S. C. Emmett
Praise for The Throne of the Five Winds
For Sarah, Nivia, and Angeline, with thanks.
Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
The reader is presumed to have read Book One of these adventures; certain matters will otherwise be somewhat opaque. Many terms, most notably in Khir, are difficult to translate, and much effort has been made to find the correct, if not the prettiest or simplest, overtones; footnotes have been discontinued due to uncertainty over their utility. Any translation errors are of course the author’s, and said author hopes for the reader’s kind patience.
Now, let us return to the center of the world, great Zhaon-An…
I must go,
My sleeve is caught.
— Zhe Har the Archer
A STRANGE PAIR
Outside the ancient westron walls of Zhaon-An’s bustling old city, a foreign princess was the second to be laid in newly built, bone-white tombs.
The traditional crumbling mausoleum of historical petty princes and ambitious, likewise historical warlords was to the north of the city’s simmering, its borders hard pressed by ramshackle temporary dwellings spreading in that direction. The Emperor Garan Tamuron, however, had decreed a new, more auspicious site for the Garan dynasty just outside the walls facing the setting sun. His long-dead first wife’s urn was sealed in a restrained, costly tomb-wall, and any in Zhaon could have reasonably expected that another imperial wife or concubine would follow— or, in the worst case, the Emperor himself.
Instead, it was Garan Ashan Mahara, daughter of the Great Rider of Khir and new bride to the Crown Prince of Zhaon, whose restrained and beautifully carved eggstone urn was immured next to the Emperor’s memorialized spear-wife, and the interment had proceeded with almost unseemly haste but great pomp, honor, and expense.
It was considered wise to show a princess’s shade, as well as her home country, a certain respect.
Thunder lingered over distant hills as a slight woman in pale, well-stitched mourning robes of unbleached silk put her palms together and bowed thrice. A small broom to sweep the tomb’s narrow, sealed entrance and the dimensions of a Khir pailai was set aside in its proper alcove; the carved stone showing the name and titles of a new addition to the ranks of the honorable dead was marked first in Zhaon characters, then in Khir. Each symbol had the p
ainfully sharp edges of fresh, grieving chisel-marks.
The mourner’s black hair held blue highlights and a single hairpin thrust into carefully coiled braids, the stick crowned with an irregular pebble wrapped with crimson silk thread. Neither ribbon nor string dangled small semiprecious beads or any other tiny bright adornment fetchingly from that pebble, for Khir-style mourning did not admit any excess.
At least, not in that particular direction.
Komor Yala’s chin dropped; her breath touched her folded hands. The hem of her pale silk overdress fluttered, fingered by a hot, unsteady breeze. It was almost the long dry time of summer, but still, in the afternoons, the storms menaced. The lightning was more often than not utterly dry as well, leaping from cloud to cloud instead of deigning to strike burgeoning earth. At least the harvest would be fine, or so the peasants remarked— softly, cautiously, in case Heaven overheard and took offense.
A bareheaded man in very fine leather half-armor waited at a respectful distance, his helm tucked at a precise angle under his left arm and a dragon-carved swordhilt peering balefully over his shoulder. He stayed motionless and patient, yet leashed tension vibrated in his broad shoulders and occasionally creaked in his boots when his weight shifted.
For all that, Zakkar Kai did not speak, and if it irked him to wait for a woman’s prayers he made no sign. The head general of Zhaon’s mighty armies had arrived straight from morning drill performed on wide white Palace paving-stones to accompany Crown Princess Mahara’s lone Khir lady-in-waiting outside the city walls, and his red-black topknot was slightly disarranged from both helm and exertion.
Finally, it could be put off no longer. Komor Yala finished her prayers, her lips moving slightly, and brushed at her damp cheeks. She had swept the pailai clean before Mahara’s wall, and gave another trio of bows. Her clear grey eyes, feverishly aglitter, held dark sleepless smudges underneath, and her cheekbones stood out in stark curves.
The Zhaon would say grief is eating her food; a Khir proverb ran a slight woman carries poverty instead of sons.
She backed from the tomb’s august presence, pausing to bow again; when she turned, she found Zakkar Kai regarding her thoughtfully, deep-set eyes gleaming and his mouth relaxed. He offered his armored right arm, still silent.
The absence of sweetened platitudes was one more thing to admire in the man. Her brother would have liked a fellow who could refrain from polluting a serious visit with idle chatter; a slow smolder of hidden unforgiving fire, that had been Komori Baiyan.
But her damoi was struck down at Three Rivers, where so many other noble Khir sons had fallen. Yala could not decide if he had likely faced Zakkar Kai upon that bloody field, or not. She also could not decide how to feel about either prospect. It was not likely Kai would speak of battle with a foreign court lady, even if he had noticed a particular Khir rider during the screaming morass of battle.
Yala placed her fingers in the crook of his right elbow; the general matched his steps to hers. Finally, he spoke, but only the same mannerly phrase he used every other time he accompanied her upon this errand. “Shall we halt for tea upon our return voyage, Lady Yala?”
“I am hardly dressed for it,” she murmured, as she did every time. Near the entrance to this white stone courtyard, in the shade of a long-armed fringeleaf tree with its powdery scented blossoms, her kaburei Anh leaned against the wall like a sleeping horse, leather-wrapped braids dangling past her round shoulders. “And your duties must be calling you, General.”
“They may call.” He never left his helm with his horse, as if he expected ambush even here; or perhaps it was merely a soldier’s habit to carry gear. “I am the one who decides the answer.”
A man could afford such small intransigence. Yala’s temples ached. She made this trip daily; it was not yet a full moon-cycle since her princess’s last ride. Yala herself had attended her princess’s dressing upon that last day, grateful to be free of the dungeons.
Had she still been imprisoned, or had she not avoided the shame of a flogging, would Mahara still be alive?
“And I am not dressed for such a visit,” Kai continued, levelly. “We make a strange pair.” He halted inside the fringeleaf’s shade as Anh yawned into alertness.
“Very.” Yala’s throat ached. The tears rose at inopportune moments, and she wondered why she had not wept for Bai so. The grief of her brother’s passage to the Great Fields was still a steady, silent, secret ache, but Mahara…oh, the sharp, piercing agony was approaching again, a silent house-feline stalking small vermin. Yala forced herself to breathe slowly, to keep her pace to a decorous glide, to keep her unsteady limbs in their proper attitudes.
“There is a cold-flask tied to my saddle,” Kai said almost sharply, his intonation proper for commanding a kaburei. “Our lady grows pale.”
“I am well enough,” Yala began, but Anh bowed and hurried off down the long colonnade. It would take her time to reach the horses, but her mistress and the general would still be in sight.
Zakkar Kai was careful of Yala’s reputation, though it mattered little now. With her princess reduced to ash and fragments of bone by a pyre’s breath, what did matter?
Nothing much. Except perhaps the small idea growing in Yala’s liver, a painful, pricking consciousness that her duty to Ashan Mahara was hardly done.
Zhaon’s great general fixed his gaze forward as if upon parade and set off for the horses, which meant Yala accompanied him at the mannerly pace of nobles retreating before the august dead. They walked silently through bars of sunlight and shade; Yala kept herself occupied with counting the columns, the numbers pushing away a black cloud seeking to fill her skull. When her escort halted between one step and the next, half-turning to face her with a sharp military click of his riding boots, she did not look at him, studying instead the closest carven pillar.
So much room, so much stone dragged step by step from so many quarries, so many carven edges; Zhaon was a country of wastage and luxury, even with their dead.
Kai’s gaze was a weight upon her profile. “Yala.”
“Kai.” Her hand dropped to her side, hung uselessly. What now? Was he about to observe that he could not after all accompany her here every morning? He had been silent well past the point of politeness, today.
“I must eventually ride to the North.” His jaw tightened; the breeze played with his topknot, teasing at strands pulled free by the morn’s activity. “The Emperor…”
No more need be said. “Of course,” she replied, colorlessly. Khir, hearing the news of a princess’s death, had reoccupied the border crossings and bridges; no wains of tribute had reached Zhaon from its conquered northern neighbor, and merchants both small and large were uneasy. The entire court of Zhaon was alive with rumor, from the lowest kaburei to the princes themselves; even the Emperor must hear the mutters upon his padded bench of a throne high above the common streets. “He is your lord.”
Obedience was due no matter how the heart ached, in both Khir and Zhaon.
“He is also my friend, and he is dying.” Kai did not glance over his shoulder to gauge who might be in earshot, but here among empty apartments meant for shades and incense, who would gossip?
“Yes.” There was no use in dissembling; the entire palace knew the Emperor’s nameless malady was fatal. The rai gave up its fruit for eating and next year’s crop, children died of fever or misadventure before their naming-days, men rode to war and women retreated to childbed; every street was paved with thousands of smaller deaths— insects, birds, beasts of burden, and cherished or useful pets.
Death had its bony fists wrapped about the world’s throat, and its grasp was final.
“I may speak to him before I leave, should I find opportunity.” Kai’s gaze, usually a jewelwing’s weightless brush, was unwonted heavy today. “But not unless you tell me plainly whether or not I may hope.”
What was there to hope for, with Mahara gone and unavenged to boot? Yala blinked, her gaze swinging in his direction. His fe
atures came into focus, swimming through the heavy water in her eyes. A single traitorous drop slipped free, tracing a cool phantom finger down her cheek.
She studied him afresh— long nose, deep eyes, the usual hint of a sardonic smile absent from full, almost cruel lips, mussed topknot. His half-armor was in the Zhaon style, meant to provide both freedom of movement and some small insurance against bolts or sharpened edges; it was stiffened leather and waxed cords, buckles and straps, any lack of ornamentation belied by the quality of the materials. The heat-haze of a male used to healthy exertion tinged with a breath of leather enfolded her without touching the chill streamlets coursing through her bones.
She had suspected he might require some manner of answer today. “Should I ask you to be plainer in turn?”
“I’ve been exceedingly plain.” A faint ghost of a smile touched one corner of his mouth, but he continued in a rush, cavalry with leveled weapons sweeping all before it. “I can offer you protection. I have estates; they are modest, but I could well and easily acquire more.” The wad of pounded rai in his throat, meant to keep a man from choking on truth or its cousin— what he must say to survive— bobbed as he swallowed. “And…there is much affection, Yala, upon my side. Even if I am loathsome to a Khir lady.”
Was that what held him back? She could not ask so plainly, even if he was paying her the high honor of directness. “Loathsome is not the term I would use, General Zakkar. Even if my Zhaon is somewhat halting.”
“Your Zhaon is very musical, my lady.” The compliment was accompanied by a slight grimace, as if he expected her to bridle at it. Faint amusement lit his dark gaze for a moment before vanishing into somberness. “Dare I ask what term you would?”
“Kind.” She thought for a moment; the complexity of her feelings demanded a balancing of one quality against another. “And deadly, when you see the need.”
After all, who had killed the first assassin she had seen in Zhaon? This man, and no other. It was perhaps unfair to wonder whether he might be induced to move against a later attacker, one who had so far escaped justice.
“Another strange pairing.” He did not look away, no surrender accepted or considered. “Yala, will you marry me?”
