Empire of Shadows

by Miriam Forster

  Tamas pulled back, frowning. “Of course. I forgot. How is she working out?”

  “Wonderfully!” Revathi said, her tone sticky-sweet. “It’s such a comfort to have someone with me everywhere I go.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Tamas said, but there was still a faint frown on his face. He looked Revathi up and down. “What are you wearing?”

  “Sleepwear,” Revathi said. “I haven’t managed to get dressed yet.” She gave him a flirtatious smile. “You shouldn’t call on me so early. It hurts my vanity that you’re seeing me in such a state.”

  Tamas’s frown mellowed into an indulgent smile. “It’s not that early,” he said. “The men have been awake for hours. I even saw the Emperor wandering around.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “He really looks like a ghost these days. Does he even go to see the princes anymore?”

  Revathi frowned. “Tamas, you know I don’t gossip about the Imperial family. And you should be kinder. Emperor Saro is really grieving.”

  “He needs to get married again, that’s what he needs to do,” Tamas said. “A pretty young noblewoman would cheer him right up. As it is, he doesn’t even go to the Council of Lesser Princes half the time—”

  “Tamas!” Revathi’s voice cracked out like a whip. “Stop it!” She took a deep breath, controlling herself with an obvious effort. “It’s dangerous to speak that way. It could be read as treason.” She stepped closer. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” Tamas said, smiling down at her. He brushed a strand of loose hair out of her face. “I promise.” He leaned in to kiss her, but Revathi turned her head so that he only caught the corner of her mouth.

  Tamas pulled back and cleared his throat. “I spoke to my father. He’s very anxious to have you and your grandmother over.”

  “So he said yesterday,” Revathi answered with a neutral smile. “I told him we’ll let him know a suitable time.”

  “What about tonight?”

  “Tonight?” Revathi said. “No, Tamas, I’m with the princes today, and Grandmother has meetings and things to do and we have dinner plans already . . .”

  “These plans aren’t more important than me, are they?” Tamas’s hands came up to rest on Revathi’s shoulders. His fingers brushed her collarbone, and Revathi stiffened. “I mean, I’ve hardly seen you at all lately.”

  Revathi didn’t answer.

  “I want you to come tonight,” Tamas said, his voice coaxing. “I went to the Clothing Fair with you, didn’t I?”

  Servants’ voices floated in from the hall, muffled and low. Revathi swallowed.

  “Mara, could you please guard the door?” she asked. “I don’t want anyone to walk in.”

  “Of course,” Mara said, glad to be able to do something. She slipped out of the room and stood in front of the curtain, her arms folded. She stared at the inlaid wall of the hall, trying not to eavesdrop on the murmuring voices behind her. At one point, Tamas’s voice sharpened, angry.

  “Why won’t you listen?”

  Revathi’s answer was too low to make out, and Mara shifted, wondering if she should go back in. But Revathi had asked her to stand here. . . .

  Finally Tamas came through the curtain. He was smiling.

  “It’s all settled,” he said. “Will I have the pleasure of seeing you at dinner as well?”

  “If Revathi brings me,” Mara said. She watched Tamas walk down the hall, then turned and went back into the room.

  Revathi stood in front of the long square mirror on the wall. She’d wrapped a robe around her practice clothes and was busy combing out her black hair. It hung long and thick between them, obscuring Mara’s view of her face. Her voice was bright.

  “So it looks like we’re going to dinner,” Revathi said. “I would have preferred to put it off longer, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”

  “Why did you want to put it off in the first place?” Mara asked. She felt oddly uneasy, as if some danger had brushed by her, but she couldn’t pin down the feeling at all.

  “Oh, just to keep us on an equal footing,” Revathi said, running the ivory comb through the ends of her hair. “Sathvik u’Gra wants to use my family’s influence to strengthen his position in the Lotus Court. And he’s been pushing to move the wedding date up. I’m sure that’s what this dinner is about. Putting him off is a way of reminding him that we’re just as powerful as he is, even if we aren’t as rich. Plus, it’ll be a lot of really civil arguing, and that’s never my idea of fun.”

  She shook her hair back from her face. “Sorry about the interruption,” she said to Mara. “I really wanted to finish that lesson.”

  Mara bent down and reached under the cushion to retrieve the knife Revathi had kicked there “We can do it again tomorrow,” she said. “And you’re learning quickly. I think you’ll do well.”

  Color rose in Revathi’s face, the first time Mara had ever seen her blush. “Thanks,” she said. “You’re a good teacher.” Her fingers tugged at her sleeve, and she wrapped the robe closer around her. “We’d better get ready. I wasn’t lying when I said I had to attend the princes today. Do you want to come?”

  Mara shrugged. She really needed to start looking for her charge, but one more morning wouldn’t hurt. And she was curious about the Imperial family. “Sounds like fun,” she said.

  Revathi laughed. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  Mara glared down at the boy in front of her, resisting the urge to cuff him like a naughty kitten.

  “Highness,” she explained for what must have been the tenth time, “I’m not going to change to animal form for you.”

  Prince Sudev, Paithal’s younger brother, stuck his lip out and scowled at her. He was a plump boy of about six, with large, dark eyes and a habit of hiding behind his older brother. Unlike Prince Paithal, who was quick to smile and always full of questions, Sudev was shy and serious. And he had a very firm idea of his own importance.

  “Garen does it,” Prince Sudev said. “He lets us ride on his back.”

  “Really?” Mara asked, giving the small boy a level stare. He shifted from one foot to the other. “Garen changes for you?”

  “Well, sometimes. If we’re really good.”

  Mara stifled a sigh. “Well, that’s nice of him. But I’m not going to change for you, I’m sorry. Is there another game you’d like to play instead?”

  Sudev’s scowl deepened; then he abruptly gave in. “All right,” he said. “Let’s play the hiding game!”

  Mara eyed him, suspicious. That had been too easy. “I don’t know the hiding game,” she said.

  “I hide and then you look for me. If you don’t find me, then you lose.”

  Mara looked over at where Revathi and Paithal were playing a complicated-looking game with a checked board and ivory statues of animals and people.

  “What happens if I lose?” she asked. Sudev was intelligent, and very stubborn, and she didn’t trust him.

  “You’re not supposed to ask me direct questions, you know,” Sudev said. “Asking direct questions to royalty is very rude. It implies that I have to answer it, and I don’t. I’m a prince. Also, you shouldn’t look me in the eye. I’m above you.”

  Mara controlled her expression with an effort and moved her eyes to Sudev’s chin. “All right, I would like to know what happens if I lose. And you have to tell me, or I won’t play.”

  “You have to,” Sudev said, stomping his foot. “I command you.”

  Mara looked him in the eye again. If he was going to be obnoxious, so was she. “No.”

  A dark flush stained the prince’s face. “If you spoke like that to my father, he’d cut off your head,” he said, raising his voice.

  “What’s going on?” Paithal called from his seat at the gaming table. “Sudev, you can’t cut off heads. I’ve told you that already.”

  “Paithal,” Sudev said, a distinct whine entering his voice. “This new companion is very rude. She won’t pla
y with me or stop asking me questions, and she keeps looking me in the eye when she’s not supposed to.” He flopped down onto a huge nearby cushion, rubbing at the white lotus mark on his neck. “I don’t want her anymore. Send her away.”

  Paithal exchanged a glance with Revathi, then left his board to kneel down beside his little brother. “Sudev,” he said, and his voice fell to a gentle murmur.

  Mara sat down next to Revathi. She felt an unaccountable urge to stomp her foot and pout, just like the younger prince.

  Revathi shook her head. “Sorry about Sudev,” she said. “Ever since the Empress died, it seems like Paithal is the only one he’ll listen to. Don’t worry, though. Sudev knows asking a Sune to change is very rude, and he shouldn’t be asking you to follow court manners, either. Those rules are only for formal audiences and things like that.”

  Mara tilted her head up, studying the mosaic ceiling. The princes’ room was huge, with two wide, soft beds and a door leading to their private bath. The carpets were thick woven cashmere, and the golden pillars and arches were inlaid with red and green jewels in an intricate flower design. It made Revathi’s room look like a fisherman’s hut.

  Everything was so complicated here. It made Mara homesick for the life she’d given up, the simple round of eating and sleeping and play. Not this tangle of human relationships and manners and politics.

  For a moment she pictured Emil in her mind, remembering their last conversation. Thinking about him was becoming almost habit, a way to center herself when things got overwhelming. Human life was all she had left.

  Revathi patted her arm in silent understanding. “Paithal,” she called. “Come and make your move, or I’ll hide one of your pieces.”

  The older prince stood up. “Coming, Lady Revathi,” he said. Then he poked Sudev in the arm. “Go on,” he said.

  Sudev frowned, but he got up and came to stand before Mara.

  “Paithal says I’m being rude to demand formal manners, and to ask you to change,” he said. “He says if I keep being rude, no one will want to play with me. I apologize.”

  Mara bowed to him. “I accept. How about we make a bargain? I’ll play whatever game you like, so long as I don’t have to change.”

  “Do you know how to play goat and tiger?” A wistful look passed over Sudev’s face. “My father and I used to play goat and tiger all the time.”

  “I don’t know that game,” Mara said, smiling at him. “But I’d love it if you taught me.”

  “ANY LUCK?”

  Emil didn’t look up from where he was drawing aimlessly on the ground with a stick. “No,” he said, hearing the sulk in his own voice. He gestured to the pallets and people surrounding him. “Esmer, we spent all yesterday looking. I’ve been sitting here most of the morning. Most people just walk by without even looking at us. It’s like we don’t exist. And the ones who are looking are usually trying to find someone with a specific skill. The merchants in the Wind Market aren’t hiring, and to everyone else, I’m just an uneducated goatherd.”

  He stood, ignoring the protests and curses as he stepped over bodies. Esmer followed, gracefully slipping through the crowd. Her hands were curled into her tunic, hiding the mark on her hand, but people still looked at her suspiciously. Emil quickened his step.

  “I don’t know how anyone finds a job this way,” Emil continued, when they were a safe distance away from the transients’ area. He threw his stick into the canal and watched it swirl away. “It’s hopeless.”

  “I think it’s supposed to be,” Esmer said. As usual, she looked neat and clean, hair pulled back, face washed. There was a fresh purpling bruise on her jaw.

  “What happened to you?” Emil said, forgetting his own problems for a moment.

  Esmer shrugged. “Some Wind caste boys and I had a little . . . disagreement.”

  “What?”

  “It’s all right,” Esmer said. “I won.” She smiled, showing all her teeth. “They’ll think twice before going after a Sune in the future.”

  Emil stared at her, torn between pride and horror. He wanted to take Esmer in his arms and tell her he was sorry. He wanted to go looking for those people and punch them himself.

  But there was a fierce gleam in Esmer’s face that warned him pity would not be welcome. So Emil merely nodded.

  “Good.”

  Esmer gave him a warm smile. “It doesn’t really hurt,” she said, answering his unstated worry. “Sune heal fast. I’m just sorry it was for nothing. There’s not a sign of Stefan in the Wind Circle or the Hearth Circle so far. And I haven’t so much as smelled a mercenary either. I might be able to widen my search, but I need time.”

  “Which I don’t have,” Emil said, frustration making his voice sharp. “I’ve only got tonight and tomorrow to find a work permit.”

  “You know,” Esmer said, and her words were gentle. “I always figured that someday Stefan would get into trouble not even you could get him out of. Maybe it’s finally happened.”

  Emil felt his shoulders sag at the thought. He slumped to the ground, putting his feet over the edge of the canal. “I have to keep trying, Esmer,” he said, staring out over the gray, swiftly flowing water. “I have to. I just know if I leave now and something happens to him, I’ll never forgive myself. But you don’t have to stay.”

  He felt Esmer’s hand slide into his hair, stroking the unruly strands into place. She touched him lightly, scratching his scalp with her nails, as if he were a kitten she were cleaning.

  “Idiot,” she said, and her voice was fond. “Then who will get you out of trouble? If you stay, I stay.”

  Emil leaned into her touch. “I suppose I could go farther into the city,” he said. “Try to find a job in the Hearth Circle. I’m not getting anywhere here, that’s for sure.”

  “I’ll start searching the Inner City,” Esmer said. “I don’t need a work permit to do that. I’ll start in Bamboo and work my way farther in to Jade and Flower. If I stay in cat form, I can catch my own food and find small corners to sleep in.”

  “Just be careful when you’re sneaking around, all right?” Emil said, still staring into the canal. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”

  “I’m always careful,” Esmer said. She poked him in the arm with a sharp finger. “But if I get caught, you had better come get me. I’m not going to be some noble’s pet with a jeweled collar and a golden cage.”

  “I don’t know,” Emil said, looking up at her. His despair was rapidly leaking away now that he had a plan for the rest of the day. “You’d look pretty fancy with a jeweled collar.”

  Esmer hissed at him. Emil grinned.

  “Of course I’ll come. I’d be lost without you.” He said the words jokingly, but he knew they were true.

  “I’m counting on it,” Esmer said. Then she took a graceful leap, changing in midair to cat form. The black tip of her tail vanished behind a nearby building.

  Emil stood up, stretching his stiff muscles, and pulled his red scarf out of his tunic, where he’d tucked it that morning. If he was going to look for work in the Hearth Circle, he’d need to look the part. He tied it around his neck and headed over the Hearth Bridge.

  The Hearth Circle felt more like home to Emil than the Wind Circle. Fruit trees grew in small yards, white cattle lowed from pens, and there were even a few goats. Like Wind caste, Hearth caste sold only what they—or their home villages—grew, raised, or made themselves. Some booths sold milk and cheese, vegetables, and fresh-baked bread. Other booths displayed lengths of sturdy cloth, raw precious metals mined by Hearth workers, and reed mats woven in the village style. There were fresh water fountains and the road was wider, with channels to wash away human and animal waste and grates to send it deep underground.

  Emil had managed to keep his Arvi clothing pretty clean, so he didn’t stand out much in the crowd of chattering Hearth folk. The men wore simple shirts and head wraps, the women dressed in bright, solid-colored asars. Everyone wore the bead-and-wire collar that marked the Hear
th caste. Many of them had worn, tired faces, and there were dark circles underneath their eyes.

  Emil quickly figured out why when he started to ask around for a job. They would love to hire another person, he heard over and over again, but they simply couldn’t afford it. Most of the Hearth booths seemed to be family-run affairs, open from Firstlight to Darkfall. Families with older children fared better, but he saw a few booths run by a single couple where the owners looked like they were about to drop. It was hard not to compare them to the Hearth caste folk he knew in the villages. Those people worked hard, but also had times of rest, like Earthsleep. In the city, it seemed, there was no rest.

  But none of that helped him find a job, and Emil was starting to get discouraged again. He stopped at a fruit cart and examined the mangoes on display. Maybe he could dip into his small amount of coins and buy one for lunch. . . .

  His thoughts were interrupted by a familiar bellowing laugh. Behind him, bargaining with a nearby bread seller, stood Rajo the Black.

  The mercenary was wearing a rough brown tunic, and his sword was conspicuously absent. He looked like an ordinary Wind caste worker, but Emil could see the gleam of his throwing circles on his hip. He seemed to be alone.

  Rajo finished bargaining for the bread and moved away, munching on the loaf. Emil bolted after him.

  He wasn’t hard to follow. Rajo walked like he owned the street and made a wide trail through the colorful crowd. Emil followed him along the canal, being careful to keep a safe distance. If he could follow Rajo without being seen, Rajo would lead him to Stefan.

  Just before he reached the bridge that led to the Bamboo Circle, Rajo seemed to sense someone watching him. He swung around, examining the crowd with suspicious eyes.

  Emil ducked behind a nearby spice cart, his heart thudding. The scents of garlic, cardamom, and ajamoda seeds almost made him sneeze. He rubbed his nose until the urge passed, then peered around the cart edge, just in time to see Rajo crossing the Bamboo Bridge.

  Emil scrambled to follow. He was so intent on not losing Rajo that he didn’t hear the guard call him until a rough hand snagged his arm.