Empire of Rust Complete Series

by V. J. Chambers

  “Right.” Gabriel cocked his head to one side. “Well, that does sound like a problem.”

  Zachariah made a face. “Don’t patronize me, you jackass.”

  “Don’t insult me. I’m trying to be nice to you.”

  Zachariah just laughed.

  “I’m interested in your ideas,” said Gabriel. “You’re right. The empire can’t continue the way that it has been. There are injustices that need correcting.”

  Zachariah hadn’t been expecting that. He furrowed his brow in confusion.

  Gabriel smiled. He liked the confused look on Zachariah, he realized. “How about this? You and your men stop your protest, and I’ll put you up in quarters in the mansion. As soon as I’ve dealt with clearing the city of revenants, I’ll grant you and audience and hear your demands. We’ll see if we can’t come to a compromise.”

  “Compromise. We want the empire demolished.”

  “You want the people to be part of the government?” said Gabriel. “How about a council that is chosen by the people, then? By voting? How about a new charter that expands the council’s power and limits the emperor’s? Those are just my opening proposals.”

  Zachariah scrutinized the other man. He was silent for several seconds. “He was right about you, wasn’t he?”

  “Who?”

  “Nathaniel. He said you were different. He said you wanted to change things.”

  Gabriel sighed, looking around. “Well, things have changed all right. Not necessarily for the better yet, but I’m really hoping the rest of my reign as emperor goes a bit smoother.”

  “Is he still with you? Nathaniel?”

  Gabriel looked down, shaking his head. “No, he didn’t… The revenants… There was a battle. He wasn’t the only one we lost.”

  Zachariah nodded slowly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  It was quiet.

  Then Zachariah nodded again. “All right.”

  “All right?”

  “Yes, we’ll agree to your terms. We’ll bring demands to you after the city has been cleared.”

  “Good.” Gabriel offered the other man his hand.

  Zachariah grasped it.

  * * *

  In the days afterward, Leah did her best to be helpful. She was still the emperor’s wife, as far as everyone in the capital knew, and they looked to her for guidance. Even the other nobles, who had shunned her before were more cordial, because they had been so traumatized by the events that had happened, and they needed someone to look to besides themselves. Leah found herself in the center of reorganizing court.

  While Gabriel and the men of the city made it their business to round up and kill revenants, getting rid of any trace of the monsters that had lived in their city, she was busy with planning events and dinners. With discussing redecorations for the receiving room, because it had been rather destroyed when it housed a great deal of revenants.

  She couldn’t count the number of times that someone said to her, in awe, “Oh Lady Leah, I don’t know how you keep this up. You’re so strong.”

  But she didn’t feel strong.

  She felt crushed.

  It was worse now, she decided. Before, when Nathaniel had abandoned her, she’d been able to tell herself that he’d left for her own good, for her own safety. But now Nathaniel was really gone. And there was no good reason for it to have happened. It had been a horrible accident, a senseless tragedy.

  And it was worse too, because she hadn’t understood what it was like to love Nathaniel, not before. Her love had been immature and half-formed, a girlish wish predicated on lies. But what she and Nathaniel had together now—then—well, it was so boundless. She had lost him, lost the father of her child, lost the love of her life, lost everything.

  She thought of him every morning when she woke up.

  She thought of him every night as she went to sleep.

  She felt empty and hollow.

  But still, she did what she could for the court. She helped as best she was able. It was all she could do, even if it everything seemed gray and ashen without Nathaniel with her.

  Gabriel was imposing swaths of change on the empire, but the nobles were too shaken to protest. They were so happy not to be in a city overrun with revenants that they barely protested when Gabriel expanded the council to include an assembly of common people, or when he installed three consuls to run the council—two of common birth and one of the nobility.

  They hardly made noise when Gabriel set up a laboratory and observatory for the study of the natural world. He had men and women working with electricity and doing experiments within months.

  She told Gabriel that the nobles were happy enough not to be eaten.

  But he told her differently. “No, Leah, it’s because of you. You’ve kept them quite distracted with your banquets and balls and decorating. That’s what they’re used to, after all. They’ve been paying so much attention to you, they haven’t noticed what I’m doing.”

  She appreciated the sentiment, but she didn’t really think it was true.

  “It is,” he assured her. “You wanted to be a magician like Nathaniel, but magicians only do trickery. You’ve mastered the first trick, misdirection. While they were busy watching you, we sneaked progress on them.”

  She smiled at that, but it was hard to hear him talk about Nathaniel. He almost never did. Likewise, she didn’t bring up Ezekiel.

  The months passed. Her stomach swelled. She began to feel the baby moving inside her, tiny kicks and somersaults when she lay down to sleep at night.

  She wished that Nathaniel was here to feel it.

  He wasn’t.

  She felt empty and hollow.

  For a few moments at a time, anyway… but it was hard to feel empty when there was life inside her, a child growing and moving within her body. She wasn’t empty. She was full.

  One morning, she saw a young man leaving Gabriel’s apartments in the morning light.

  She teased him about it over breakfast.

  He was quiet and serious. “Leah, you mustn’t speak of such things,” he said. “I’m already in a tenuous position, bringing in so many changes to the empire. If they found out about me—”

  “Everyone knows, Gabriel,” she said. “They like you. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  He sighed, seeming to accept this. Then he turned to her. “But it must be frustrating for you, I suppose?”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Well, you are married to me, but you and I don’t have that kind of relationship.”

  “Oh, well…” She gestured at her belly.

  “That won’t always matter.” He stroked his chin. “Listen, I won’t stand in your way. If you find someone, we’ll make it work.”

  She laughed. “I’m not going to find anyone.” All she wanted was Nathaniel.

  * * *

  Gabriel paced the floor in the emperor’s study. His old study had been converted into a library, and his equipment for experiments moved elsewhere, so that the best and brightest minds of the empire could focus on making new discoveries and duplicating old ones from before the Scourge. The progress they’d made on electricity in just a few months was stunning. There were already a few electric light posts in the city. And they even worked most of the time.

  “Sir, you do have an audience waiting for you in the receiving room.”

  “And I told you to send them away, didn’t I?” Gabriel glared at the servant. “I can’t concentrate on things like that right now. And why are you here? Do you have news?”

  “Well… no, sir.”

  “Then perhaps you should run off and find out if there’s anything to be discovered, hadn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.” The servant bobbed his head and scampered off.

  Gabriel sunk into his chair and rubbed his face. He’d never been quite so nervous in all his life. There were so many things that could go wrong, and he found that he was terrified of each and every one of them. He kept thinking about how destroyed he’
d be if anything happened. He didn’t think he could handle it.

  He didn’t want to lose anyone else for the rest of his life.

  He knew that he couldn’t escape loss, of course. It was a fact of life. He was going to die, and so was everyone else. But he felt as if he had drowned in loss. Nathaniel dead. His sister exiled. Even Simon, who he’d hated, killed horribly.

  And Ezekiel.

  He’d had men since, but it hadn’t been the same. There was something about Ezekiel. The way the other man challenged him. The way he responded to him. Ezekiel had been stubborn and stupid, of course. He’d been maddeningly annoying on occasion. But when he lay down at night, he couldn’t help but feel lonely, thinking of the nights he and Ezekiel had spent together as they came south to storm the capital.

  He’d been so certain back then that he would have time. He thought that he and Ezekiel would have years of arguing over the existence of God and the divine right of kings. He would have years to convince Ezekiel that their love for each other wasn’t a sin.

  Because it had been love. He’d loved Ezekiel. And he’d lost him.

  He didn’t want to lose anyone else.

  The servant banged on the door. “Your Eminence!”

  “Yes?”

  The servant smiled. “It’s a girl.”

  Gabriel let out a breath, and then he let a smile settle over his face too. “A girl? And she’s all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Leah?”

  “Yes. You can come to see.”

  Gabriel hurried through the mansion to the women’s section of the mansion, where the birthing happened. He found Leah reclining on a pillow-strewn bed, gazing down at a tiny bundle with wonder in her eyes.

  He simply stood and stared at them for a while, waiting until she looked up and saw him.

  “Gabriel,” she said, when she did, and she was happy to see him.

  He approached, feeling nervous. It was strange, all of this. He wasn’t her child’s father, not really. He and Leah weren’t romantically entangled, and they didn’t have that kind of relationship.

  And yet…

  He cared about her, and he felt a surge of emotion for the child as well. He wasn’t really the child’s father, but he was the closest thing now. And he wanted this. He wanted this closeness.

  “You want to hold her?” she murmured.

  He held out his arms.

  She set the tiny little girl in them. He gazed down at the baby. She was perfect. So tiny. Red and pinched and tired, but healthy and alert. She flailed her tiny limbs, and his heart hurt. “She’s amazing,” he breathed.

  “I know.” Leah was crying.

  He sat down on the bed, looked down at her.

  She smiled back at him.

  “I love you, you know,” he said. “Maybe it’s not the same kind of love that a man traditionally feels for a woman, but it’s strong.”

  “I know,” she grinned, holding out her arms for the baby.

  He handed her back.

  “I love you too.” She touched the baby’s nose. “And so does the next empress.”

  “Empress?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Your heir.”

  “But there’s never been a woman on the throne,” said Gabriel. “Not in the history of the empire.”

  “I know,” said Leah. “But you and I aren’t likely to have another child.”

  She had a point.

  “And besides, you’ve changed everything else. You can change this too.”

  He let out a chuckle. She was right. The future was bright. For the first time in his life, he thought that things might get better. The empire wasn’t mired in superstition anymore. Things were changing. There was knowledge now. Inquisitive minds discovering new things every day.

  He rubbed the baby’s head, hoping that the changes that they had started would ripple throughout her lifetime, bringing the promise of progress to the world.

  Outside their walls, the revenants still wandered, pawing at the fences and seeking human flesh. But inside, the empire was a beacon, shining out over the darkness, offering hope.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  At first, after being left on the island, away from all the people, all Darius felt was relief. Now, he was away from temptation, and away from the stress of protecting the empire from threats. He was no longer a danger to all of the people he had ruled, drawing revenants to them. He was glad of all of these things, and he barely even noticed how far he had fallen—from the ruler of the entire land to exile.

  But it wasn’t so easy for Michal. She had lived a pampered and easy existence her whole life. She had never had to live in the wilderness—no comforts like shelter or beds or blankets. In some ways, those things weren’t strictly necessary. They didn’t feel cold, after all. But she was out of sorts, and he could see it.

  She spent the first few days crying off and on. Always quietly, always when she thought he wasn’t looking. She was trying to put a brave face on everything.

  He hated it when she was sad. He never wanted that for her. He loved her deeply, and he had no other desire as strong as the one to keep her happy and protected. When he heard her soft sobs, it tore his soul in two. He did his best to comfort her, but he didn’t know how.

  He knew that it was impossible to go back to the empire, and he explained this to her. He told her that they were disastrous to the people living inside those walls, that they only brought terror and death down on them.

  For her own part, she knew this. She even confessed that she was relieved to be away from them as well. It was good not to have the constant smell of them, to not have to fight her hunger for them. She said that she didn’t want anything to be different, that she accepted the way things were.

  He knew she wasn’t happy, though. And it bothered him.

  As the weeks passed, she would often go out to the shore of the island and look across to the mainland. The empire and its walls weren’t visible from here. It all looked unspoiled and unpopulated. He wondered what she was thinking of.

  To cheer her—or at least to take her mind off of it—he suggested they explore their surroundings, walk around the island.

  She accepted the idea but seemed listless.

  He didn’t like her demeanor. It was as if she was fading away, and all the fierceness and determination that had attracted him to her in the first place was slipping out of her body.

  Still, she came along, and they began their exploration. The island had once been inhabited before the Scourge and there were ruined buildings everywhere, some taller than the mansion, crumbling stone and concree, now taken over by vines and foliage. Sometimes, they hacked their way inside the buildings to spend the night.

  And then one day, they found the bridge.

  It was a long bridge, stretching out as far as they could see. Twin bridges, in fact, both side by side, extending over the water into the distance. The bridges didn’t look stable. They were cracked and water worn, relics of another time.

  But when Michal saw them, her eyes lit up.

  “He must not have known,” she said. “He took us as far away as he could get us, but he didn’t know there was a bridge.”

  “Michal,” said Darius, “I thought we’d agreed that we couldn’t go back.”

  She nodded. “Yes.” Her face fell.

  There was no more discussion of the bridges.

  But the next morning, he awoke alone. When he went looking for her, he found her standing in the morning sunlight, the clear turquoise water rippling out ahead of her as she stared at the bridges.

  He knew they’d be going across them then.

  “We’ll go past them,” said Michal. “Past the empire. We’ll walk up the shore all the way until we get past the last fences.” She turned bright, excited eyes towards him. “Haven’t you always wondered what else was out there?”

  He shook his head. He hadn’t. He hadn’t even know there was anything out there.

  As they crossed
the bridge, Michal told him all about the history of his land. That it had once been called America, and that it was vast and huge, much larger than the empire itself. There was land north and west, and there might even be other survivors.

  “Gabriel always wanted to go and look for them,” she said, smiling. “Well, I’ll beat him to it. I’ll get one thing that he can’t have.”

  It only took a day to cross the bridge, which was treacherous in spots. Some places were completely crumbled away, and he and Michal had to gingerly walk around the holes and cracks.

  Their situation was made more precarious by the revenants that followed them. All the revenants from the island seemed to be attracted to them, and they streamed behind, like baby ducklings following their mother.

  Darius knew there was no way to get rid of them, and Michal seemed to willfully ignore them.

  Once they were back on the mainland, they began their trek.

  They passed Sarrasarra one night, and Michal looked wistfully at the lights of the city. But then they kept going, passing the city by.

  And as time passed, they worked their way further and further north, until they left the empire behind entirely.

  Then they were really in the wilderness—no fences, no cities, nothing but revenants and ruins from the Scourge.

  Even given the lack of comforts, Michal seemed in high spirits. She was fond of saying that they were having an adventure, that they were explorers of a new land. She was convinced they would find other people out here somewhere, but all they ever seemed to see were revenants. And every revenant they saw joined their entourage, so behind them, there was a tail of the dead, scraping along wherever they went.

  One night, they sat together against the trunk of a large, gnarled tree. They didn’t need to rest, but they sometimes did. They enjoyed being close to each other. She was tucked under his shoulder, her body small against his. Sometimes he missed her heat, the smell of her, remembering how badly he’d hungered for her. But now, she was just like him, just like the revenants—familiar and dead. He was glad of it, in the end. He loved her steadily, like the way the moon shone, not dangerously, like the way the strong wind tore at the trees.

  Her small hands fluttered over his chest.