by Callie Bates
And I refuse to let Eren and Caeris be a consequence of his entitlement.
Nevertheless, I did come here to achieve peace. Eren and Caeris can’t afford for this war to escalate because Queen Sophy’s ambassador antagonized the emperor and his ministers.
“Lord Euan,” I say, more moderately. “Perhaps you would be more satisfied serving Queen Sophy as her ambassador here in Ida. You wouldn’t have to endure Eren, then. And as everyone knows, one’s foreign ministers determine policy as much as a monarch.”
“We can discuss this,” he says, in such a way that he implies sitting down to a table with me would be utterly distasteful.
Why does he even want to go back? I suppose it’s the only purpose to which he’s ever put his life. The way he defines himself: the rightful king of Caeris.
But that doesn’t entitle him to a crown.
The emperor snorts. “You will not discuss any such thing.” He waves a hand at me. “Paladis does not recognize you as Eren’s ambassador royal, Lord Jahan. You have no authority in this discussion.”
“What?” I feel as if I’ve been socked in the gut. Phaedra and Augustus exchange little smiles.
“Paladis doesn’t recognize your ‘queen’ as the true ruler of Eren,” the emperor explains, slowing down his words as if educating a child. “Therefore we do not recognize your position as ambassador royal.”
“But I have papers—”
“From a bastard daughter.” The emperor chuckles. “A bastard queen!”
Everyone else laughs obediently, except for Euan Dromahair, who just looks dourly at us all.
I grind my teeth. “If you think she will stand for this—or that Elanna Valtai will—”
Augustus laughs aloud. “I don’t think you’ll find she has the authority for much of anything, anymore!”
No, no, no. I fight to breathe; to stay calm. What’s happened to her? I can’t make myself ask. I won’t put myself at their mercy.
The emperor is watching me, bright-eyed, taking in the panic I can’t conceal any longer. “Well, Korakides, as it turns out we don’t need you after all! Off you go. But”—he wags a finger—“don’t miss the public court.”
The public court. That has to be his plan. He’s going to send a message—and it must be that he’s captured Elanna.
I manage a smile and a bow. I can feel Euan Dromahair watching me; the hair stands up on the back of my neck. Phaedra takes his arm. “I am quite sure Lord Jahan did not intend for Finn to die,” she murmurs, pitching her voice just loud enough for me—and everyone else—to hear. But the tone of her voice, the look in her eyes, says the opposite. That I am callous and careless. That I let Finn’s life slip through my fingers as casually as dust.
My chest burns. Euan Dromahair fixes me with a look that says he knows just how despicable I truly am. But we both know perfectly well how much affection he held for his dead son. It’s not Finn he mourns, but the loss of his own rightful crown.
And why the hell does Phaedra care to console him?
I tear my gaze away from them. The emperor is watching me, too, smug, nearly smirking.
Of course, he thinks he’s won.
He hasn’t. Not if I have anything to do with it.
CHAPTER TEN
I retreat through the doors, perfectly obsequious despite the panic pounding through me. But once I’m in the corridor, I stand frozen. Maybe I should have sacrificed my pride to demand what they’re doing with Elanna, because now I don’t know where to look for her. The public court isn’t happening for another hour—is it? I rustle through my waistcoat, but my pocket watch isn’t there. The corridor is empty of clocks, but full of footmen and guards, all watching me.
I pick a direction and stride away from them as fast as I can. Is El here, being held prisoner? Or still on her way to Aexione? All I know is I need to find her before they parade her before the court. Before the witch hunters can completely unhinge her mind.
I’ve come blindly to the formal staircase, which leads to the Grand Court. My mind keeps stuttering. If I haven’t talked to her in five days—it’s three days or more from Eren to Ida by ship—they won’t have brought her in before this morning’s meeting, will they—?
Maybe I can meet them yet on the road and make a plan as I go. I need a horse. The imperial stables won’t supply me anymore, so I’ll have to go back to Aunt Cyra’s and get a mount. Make some reasonable excuse for racing out onto the road when I only just returned. The failure of my alliance should be enough. I’ll tell my aunt I’m going back to Eren—which, I realize, is what I must do. If I can save El, we have no choice. It’s abundantly clear we can’t stay here. We’ll return to Sophy and the others and fight the war there, like I should have from the beginning.
If I can find El. If we can commandeer a ship. If the witch stones haven’t ruined her mind.
I run out into the sunlit day. The Grand Court is thronged with people, a practical river of humanity I have to shove against. Not just courtiers, but shopkeepers and restaurateurs and innkeepers and maids, all dressed in their finest for the public court. All the gods, it must be happening sooner than I thought. If I can get through the palace gates, perhaps I can stop them in Aexione town or just outside it. With a little more room, I can befuddle the witch hunters, compress space, break El’s chains, free her—
Snatches of conversation fly past me as I push toward the main gates.
“—the emperor holding court—”
“—a special guest—”
“—special, all right! I heard—”
I stop. The movement of the crowd shoves me backward. I stumble, almost fall. I can’t seem to catch my breath.
“That sorceress—”
“Elanna Valtai,” someone says at my left elbow.
I stare toward the speaker, but they’ve already been jostled away from me. But I don’t need to find them. The courtyard is full of her name, now that I pause to hear it. Elanna Valtai. The witch. The sorceress.
They all know. The emperor’s made it public knowledge. While I slept, word must have spread through town.
But maybe there’s still time. Hang on, El.
I fling myself forward again like a stunned salmon who doesn’t know any better than to swim upstream. My heart is beating too fast, the air shallow in my chest. I’m almost to the gates. The crowd is, if anything, packed tighter still here. It’s not every day the good people of Aexione witness a renegade sorceress brought to her knees.
The gate rises, mere feet away, but I bounce off the crowd. A woman yells at me to mind my manners.
And then, over the din, I hear it. The rattle of bells. A man’s voice shouting, “Make way! Make way in the emperor’s name!”
The crowd slowly parts. I’m pressed back against the wrought iron of the gate even as I struggle to push myself forward. I whisper for people to move, but they’re too preoccupied by the spectacle even to respond to my magic.
I elbow my way through, fighting for the gates’ opening, just as horsemen come pounding through. Imperial guardsmen, their colors bright, their faces impassive. Twenty of them, at least.
The clamoring bells draw closer. Then a coach bursts through the gate. It’s black, reinforced with iron bars, and the small square windows are dark.
“Elanna!” I shout, and then I clap a hand over my mouth. I meant to cry out only with my mind. So many guards—they’ll hear me, seize me—and with the mood of the people—
But no one seems to have heard me. The crowd has already started chanting, “Witch! Witch! Witch!”
Now a cavalcade of witch hunters follow the coach through, ten of them on horseback, more than I’ve ever seen in one place. Yet more imperial militia ride in their wake. So many men bringing one young woman to “justice.”
I already know I’m too late to stop them.
There�
��s a gap behind them. I break from the crowd, running after the horses, but everyone else seems to have the same idea. I’m rapidly surrounded, jostled by shoulders and arms. More imperial guards await us at the palace entrance. If I could get closer…
What would I do? I can’t spirit El away from here by magic. I can’t let all these people—all of Aexione, then all of Ida, all of Paladis—know I’m a sorcerer. If the emperor won’t treat with me, I have to at least maintain my secret until I find both my brothers and take them to safety.
The coach stops. So do the horsemen. The crowd eddies. I rise up on the balls of my feet. All the gods—
There she is. The witch hunters are pulling her from the coach. She looks small. Her hair is bare and matted. Manacles clank at her wrists and ankles. She shuffles. My Caveadear shuffles onto the shining marble flagstones like a common criminal.
El! I shout, with my mind this time. But she gives no sign of hearing me. The witch hunters close ranks around her, and I can no longer see her shape.
The crowd shouts with renewed vigor, “Witch! Witch!”
The witch hunters are moving toward the palace. Toward the audience chamber, the Hall of Glass. I’ll never catch them.
A thought strikes me. If I can move through walls, why can I not move through people?
It sounds unpleasant. Dangerous. But I have to be there. I have to save Elanna.
There’s a man in front of me, square and heavyset. A cook, judging from the stains on his apron. He’s next to another man, almost shoulder-to-shoulder. If I pick the point between them…
I launch myself forward. I pass through. The buzzing particles of skin and bones and blood part for me in a hot rush. Fabric snags at me. If either man notices someone just walked through him, I’m already too far ahead to hear their astonishment. But I’m betting they don’t even know I did it.
I pass through the crowd, through wrists and elbows and shoulders, hats and gowns and coats. I’m trying to run. My breath is so ragged. My foot hits the lowest step into the palace. The witch hunters are halfway up the grand staircase, Elanna invisible in their midst.
I race up the steps, ordinarily now, pushing aside courtiers and fishmongers. At the top of the stairs, I burst through a door into largely empty antechambers, and then through a side entrance into the Hall of Glass. Courtiers stand packed in silk and velvet, their bodies heating the room to stifling. I push through them, not daring to use magic. No one’s chanting in here, but the room practically hums with whispers of anticipation.
Then the herald shouts, “The criminal Elanna Valtai, so-called Caveadear of Eren and Caeris!”
I shove past two last courtiers, and I see her.
She shuffles down the long, long carpet toward Emperor Alakaseus, seated on his throne at the opposite end of the room. Her face seems hollowed out. She’s filthy, her Ereni coat and trousers crusted with dried mud and even a spot of congealed gore. Is it hers? She seems uninjured. But her gaze is dark and empty. Her lips are cracked.
It takes all of my power not to lunge onto the carpet and seize her. But what would I do? I can’t sweep her away like a prince in a fairy tale. Not in front of the entire imperial court. Not with all the witch stones and bells.
And Alcibiades Doukas is leading her—by a chain attached to a manacle at her throat. Like a dog. Her witch stone, the one she transformed in Caeris, the one that protected her, is gone.
My hands curl into fists.
The grand inquisitor sees me. His eyebrows lift slightly in recognition.
I glance to my left. I’m in the middle of the vast chamber, surrounded by courtiers whom I know too well. The emperor’s gaze has marked me. He looks much too pleased. Beside him, Empress Firmina’s eyes are wide, but there’s a blankness to her expression. Maybe I should have agreed to her offer of help. Maybe I shouldn’t have thrown off Pantoleon, and Bardas.
But it’s too late for that now. The entire chamber seems to be fixed on me. I realize I’m obvious—sweating like a pig, my chest heaving, my gaze no doubt wild. I’ve even, unconsciously, taken a step forward, out of the crowd, toward Elanna. Phaedra and Augustus are whispering, flashing their twin daggerlike smiles. Across from me, buried in the crowd by the window, Aunt Cyra watches me with her fingertips pressed to her lips.
Only Leontius, seated beside his siblings, doesn’t look at me. His gaze skims over Elanna’s head, bored, as if he’s thinking about irrigation plans, not sorcery and treachery. Not us, here and now.
I must compose myself. I wipe a hand over my forehead, trying to dry the sweat. I take a step back.
Elanna’s seen me now. Her lips part. Her mind must still be her own, somewhat; there’s recognition in her gaze.
“Jahan,” she whispers.
To hell with composing myself. The fear in her eyes sends a spike of pure rage through me—and fright.
What have they done to her?
The bells ring and ring. They must be deafening her, driving her mad.
But not me. I draw in a breath. Maybe there’s still something I can do. One last thing to try.
I reach with my mind, fumbling for the chain binding El’s throat. The witch hunters have embedded humming stones in the shackles at her wrists and ankles. I can try to break them off her, but even if I succeed, to do so will be obvious. Everyone will know a sorcerer is working magic, and if they don’t suspect me, they’ll suspect El. Of course, she already stands accused. Not only accused, damned.
Yet if I can break the witch stones’ grip on her, she can perform her magic. She can wake the earth and terrify Alakaseus Saranon and his miserable court into submission.
No witch stones hum in her collar. I take it in my mind and find the weak point where it fastens. Perhaps my plan will work.
I press down. The collar snaps and slides off El’s neck, thudding to the floor.
The crowd gasps. Alcibiades looks back in surprise. El’s gaze flashes to mine.
Wood, I think at her. For all the gilt in this hall, it’s made of wood! Like the scaffold in Caeris that she transformed—wood!
But I can’t project thoughts so clearly into her mind. She doesn’t understand—or doesn’t agree. She shakes her head minutely.
Alcibiades’s gaze flashes to me. It seems, in fact, that the entire court is staring at the sweat trickling down my neck.
Then Alcibiades seizes Elanna by the shoulder and pushes her down the carpet. They approach the emperor; he nudges her to her knees. I hear her slight gasp, as if in pain.
My ears start to throb. They’ll pay for this.
Emperor Alakaseus is considering Elanna with calm, infuriating satisfaction. “Witness a sorceress, a witch, brought low by the might of Paladisan justice,” he proclaims. “A criminal who flouted our laws, now to be rightfully punished.”
I’m holding my breath, scrambling for the fastenings on her wrists and ankles. Elanna’s power is immense; the small, spitting witch stones shouldn’t be enough to stop her. Now, El. Reach into the earth now. Take the wood of his dais and imprison him in the cage of his own throne.
But again, she does nothing.
Only her voice rises, faint and hoarse. “I am the Caveadear of Eren and Caeris. Your laws do not govern my nation. I have been unlawfully abducted and I demand you release—”
“We did not grant you permission to speak!” the emperor thunders.
Silence stretches taut in the room. My fingertips are pulsing now. The emperor and Elanna have locked eyes.
Then, with slow, deliberate malice, Alakaseus Saranon says, “The criminal Elanna Valtai must be made an example of. Our glorious empire does not tolerate the abomination of sorcery. So this criminal will be sentenced to death tomorrow morning, in the Grand Court.”
“No!”
I don’t realize I’ve shouted aloud until people turn to stare at me. Whispers rustle throug
h the court. I’ve moved, too, unconsciously, out onto the carpet. I’m panting. I need to control myself. I need moderation. Charm. Poise. I need to make them laugh.
But the only thing in me is this pulsing rage.
“Lord Jahan, we did not invite your opinion,” the emperor begins.
I interrupt him. “As envoy from Queen Sophy of Eren—whether you recognize her or not—I demand to be heard. Elanna Valtai is not a Paladisan subject. You have no right to sentence her to death.”
I stop, my chest heaving. People are staring. The whispers are growing. I interrupted Alakaseus Saranon, emperor of Paladis. I reprimanded him.
“As the greatest empire in the Two Seas, it is Paladis’s obligation to be the arbiter of justice on this occasion,” the emperor says coolly. But a certain triumph lingers in his eyes.
“Eren objects.” Now I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. “Eren is governed by its own laws, and Paladis has no right to enforce their laws on an independent nation.”
“But, Korakides, your loyalty is not to Eren,” Emperor Alakaseus says calmly. “You are a subject of Paladis. A subject who has defected from its own laws by playing both sides. You are a traitor to our empire.” He smirks. “A man who fired a gun on his own people.”
I freeze. Word finally reached court, then, of how I shot at the witch hunters in Eren.
The emperor snaps his fingers. “Guards, seize this man!”
I remain there, stunned, even as the guards come running.
He planned all this. From the moment he summoned me this morning. He wasn’t just rubbing my face into my own failure; he was playing with me. He’s been planning to arrest me all along. He was just waiting for the right moment.
Hands seize my elbows, my shoulders. I don’t throw them off. I can’t seem to move. Phaedra is openly smirking. She whispers something to Augustus, who laughs. Empress Firmina stares, wide-eyed. I can’t see Aunt Cyra, though surely she’s trying to blend into the wall coverings.
But it’s Leontius whose gaze I seek.
He doesn’t look at me. He stares at the ceiling, his face as blank as a wooden post.
