The Empress of Xytae

by Effie Calvin

  “I am sorry,” said Vitaliya. “I think I know what you mean. I’ve endured a few of those myself—people wanting to be friends or lovers, and then the moment I get to trusting them, they start telling me about some matter my father ought to change his mind on, or they’ve got some debts that need repaying.”

  “Oh!” Ioanna had never experienced that before. Her blessing prevented things from ever reaching such a point. “I’m sorry. That must be awful.” Far worse than knowing about it in advance and being able to prevent it. Now she felt guilty for ever pitying herself. Did she think she was the only one in the world who had to endure scheming, manipulative people? Of course, she wasn’t. It happened to everyone with a title, wealth, or anything worth having.

  “Don’t worry!” Vitaliya smiled again. “It’s nothing, really. Rain off my back, as they say. Besides, even if it’s not real, it can be fun.”

  I would not know, Ioanna did not say because she was twenty years old and surely Vitaliya would find that odd. “I wish I didn’t care.”

  “I don’t blame you. It’s tiresome.”

  “I think there must be something wrong with me. That the only way people can say kind things to me is when they’re trying to manipulate me.”

  “Well, maybe not all of them were,” urged Vitaliya. “You don’t know—”

  “Yes, I do.” Should she tell Vitaliya? Would Vitaliya even believe her? Or would she think Ioanna was delusional and call her a liar, and Ioanna would be forced to prove it by making Vitaliya tell stories of her childhood and identifying the false ones like some sort of fortune-teller at a festival?

  It was not how Ioanna wanted to spend the evening.

  Or what if, even worse, Vitaliya saw the potential of Ioanna’s blessing and turned ambitious and deceitful and…

  No. That was not Vitaliya.

  “Well—” Vitaliya squeezed her hands, and then released them. “—I can say kind things to you too. And I swear I won’t lie.”

  “You don’t need to—”

  “Yes, but I want to. You were the first person at the Imperial Palace that I thought seemed like a good person. I’d been there for weeks, and you were the first. What do you think of that?”

  “You only spent time with my sister and her friends.”

  “It still counts. It counts. I like that you’ve never once hit me. Your sister always—I think I’ve said that before, haven’t I?”

  “When we first met,” Ioanna recalled.

  “That’s right! Oh, that feels like years ago, doesn’t it?” Vitaliya smiled.

  “How much of it do you remember? You were quite ill.”

  “I remember you found me…where was I?”

  “In front of my door.”

  “What!” Vitaliya burst into laughter and fell back upon the bed. Her long hair splayed out across the soft blankets. “Was I really? I don’t think I ever realized!”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh, I’m such an embarrassment.” But Vitaliya did not sound at all ashamed. She was still smiling, and Ioanna felt herself smile too, so widely that it made her face hurt. “Oh! And I told you not to trust your sister. And I was right!”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “I was hoping I’d see you again after you left.”

  “I think I was too,” Ioanna admitted. She felt awkward, towering over Vitaliya, and so she lay down beside her. There was more than enough room for both of them. “I’m sorry it turned out like this.”

  “It wasn’t your fault! And besides, this isn’t so bad.” Vitaliya leaned in toward her to touch their foreheads together, just as she had before. “You can kiss me again if you want to.”

  Ioanna hoped she was not as clumsy and unpracticed as she felt. But Vitaliya’s lips were soft and yielding, and she pulled Ioanna closer, so close that their bodies were pressed against each other. Ioanna wondered if Vitaliya could hear her heart racing.

  “I’m so glad we’re done with wearing robes. I like you in the shorter dress,” Vitaliya murmured in a voice that sent a pleasant chill through Ioanna’s body. “We don’t have those in Vesolda.”

  “I hardly ever wear them. My legs are so thin—”

  “I know. I wish mine were that thin!” sighed Vitaliya. She rested one hand on Ioanna’s hip, then slowly drew it downward across her thighs and came to rest on her knee.

  “I like how you look. I wish I had more of a shape.” Ioanna stared at Vitaliya’s hand, wishing she would move it up back up again. Should she ask?

  She settled on resting her own hand over Vitaliya’s, which was a little difficult given her position. Ioanna had to bend her knee to bring it within arm’s reach, but that had the added benefit of drawing Vitaliya’s hand into hers.

  “What are you thinking about?” asked Vitaliya.

  “You, mostly,” said Ioanna, guiding Vitaliya’s hand higher. This time, when they came to the fabric of Ioanna’s skirt, Vitaliya slipped her hand underneath.

  “Do you want—” Vitaliya began.

  “Yes,” interrupted Ioanna.

  Chapter Eight

  VITALIYA

  Vitaliya woke to a few thin shafts of morning sunlight filtering through the shutters, and the weight of Ioanna’s body pressed against her own. One of Ioanna’s arms splayed across Vitaliya’s chest, and her face rested against Vitaliya’s shoulder.

  After a few minutes of deliberation, Vitaliya decided she did not need to hide in a wardrobe or sneak out the window. She probably shouldn’t be here, but logic dictated Ioanna could do whatever she wanted. Who would reprimand the future empress? Maybe her grandmother. But Vitaliya could not bring herself to worry about an old lady, even if she’d once been one of the most powerful women in the world.

  Ioanna always appeared so solemn and thoughtful, but in sleep she seemed happier. She did not quite smile, but she was relaxed, and her breathing was soft and deep. Vitaliya played absently with Ioanna’s dark curls, winding them around her fingers.

  Soon enough, the pattern of Ioanna’s breathing changed, and she opened her eyes. Vitaliya smiled at her.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  “I’m a Truthsayer,” said Ioanna.

  Vitaliya blinked at her lazily. “You’re supposed to say, ‘good morning’ or something like that.”

  Ioanna stared at her for a long moment. Finally, she said, “Good morning, then.”

  “And there’s no Truthsayers in Ioshora.”

  “Yes, there are. They have one in Ibaia. An old man. And there’s me.”

  “Oh.” Vitaliya rubbed at one of her eyes, not awake enough to be impressed by this yet. “It’s a secret, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s too bad. I’m terrible at secrets.” She rotated her wrist to rub at her other eye. “You should not have told me.”

  “I can’t believe I did.” Ioanna’s face was difficult to read. “I don’t know why I did. I wasn’t planning on it. It just happened. Are you upset?”

  “About what?”

  Ioanna shrugged, a bit awkwardly since she was still resting on her side. “You don’t feel like it’s an invasion of your privacy that I can tell when you’re lying?”

  “It’s not like you asked to be blessed with—oh, wait!” Vitaliya brightened up as an idea approached her. “That’s why the Order of the Sun likes you so much, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That makes sense.” Vitaliya closed her eyes again and pressed her face into the feather pillow. The sheets on this bed were so wonderfully soft and smooth against her bare skin. “Is that all?”

  “I think so.”

  “No other secrets to tell me?”

  “None that I can think of at the moment,” said Ioanna. Still, from the way she bit her lower lip and refused to meet her eyes, Vitaliya could tell she wanted to say something more.

  “What’s the matter?” she prompted.

  Ioanna moved her fingers, brushing them across Vitaliya’s skin. “You stayed.”

 
; “Was I supposed to leave?”

  “No!” Ioanna cried, surprising Vitaliya with her vehemence. Then, perhaps realizing most of the residents of the villa were probably still asleep, she lowered her voice. “I just, I thought you might.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Just a…a feeling I had.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” In Vitaliya’s opinion, nobody in Xytae spent enough time talking about their feelings. “It might help.”

  “I don’t want…I don’t want you to feel like you need to, to—” Ioanna struggled for the words. “—to coddle me. To treat me like you care for me, or we’re courting, if that’s not how you really feel. I know you think I’m some delicate thing that needs love and protecting, but I don’t want that out of pity, or because you feel guilty—”

  “I don’t feel guilty,” Vitaliya said calmly. “Maybe I do pity you a little bit, but I’d feel sorry for anyone in your place, and it’s not why I came to you or why I stayed afterwards. I don’t do that sort of thing.”

  “What do you want, then?”

  “I told you last night. Chickens. And my dresses back.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  Vitaliya shrugged. “What are you offering?” When Ioanna only blinked at her in confusion, she laughed. “Why don’t you tell me what you want?”

  Clearly Ioanna had not been expecting Vitaliya to turn the question on her. As she struggled to come up with a reply, Vitaliya said, “If you want me to come back tonight, and the night after, I will. If you want me to stay in my own room, I will.”

  “So, this was meaningless?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Temporary things can still be meaningful. Meaningful things can be temporary. It doesn’t cheapen them.”

  “I don’t want to be…to be temporary,” said Ioanna. “And maybe that’s a ridiculous, impossible thing to want. But—”

  “I don’t think so. Plenty of people prefer long courtships.”

  “Yes, but our situation is different. Now isn’t a very good time for—and besides, I’m meant to be empress.”

  “You worry too much,” said Vitaliya. “Why don’t you just let it happen? And see where it leads?”

  “Maybe,” whispered Ioanna. Then she gave a little sigh. “I should get up.”

  “Empresses get up when they feel like it,” said Vitaliya.

  “I’m not an empress. And besides, we have a lot of work to do.”

  “I find the act of working to be morally indefensible.” Vitaliya paused. “Do you think I could get some new dresses made? I’ve only got the one.” And it seemed she’d lost track of it. She shifted to peer over the edge of the bed and spotted a bundle of mostly white fabric crumpled on the floor. When she reached out to pick it up with her little finger, she noticed how dirty it had become in the last few days and grimaced. She really did not want to put it back on.

  “Some of Netheia’s should be in the next room. You’ll probably fit better in hers than mine until you can get new things.” Ioanna gestured vaguely at the wall in the direction of the next guest room. Then her hand fell back down to the soft mattress.

  “So you’re really a Truthsayer, then? That’s not a joke?”

  “I wouldn’t make a joke about something like that.”

  “Why haven’t you told anyone? People would be very impressed. I’m already very impressed.”

  “I’m not sure,” murmured Ioanna. “My parents didn’t want anyone knowing. They always told me if people found out they’d hate me, and I’d be in danger. More danger than usual.”

  “Why would anyone hate you for that?”

  “Reygmadra is the patron of my family and has been for as long as anyone can remember. It’s bad enough I don’t have her blessing at all. Iolar is very nearly her opposite, and I have the most powerful magic he grants. It would upset people.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Being a Truthsayer is—it’s one of the most impressive blessings that exists! If I was a Truthsayer, my father would try to make me his heir even over my brother. And he would have a good chance of succeeding because at least half the court would agree.”

  “Well, my blessing only tells me if someone is lying on purpose,” said Ioanna. “So maybe it was only my parents’ opinion. Or maybe people in Xytae are different from people in Vesolda.”

  “Does Netheia know about your blessing?”

  “Yes, she realized it when we were both very young. But she’s never told anyone, I don’t think. Aside from her, the only ones who know are my younger sister Iulia, my grandmother, and the priests of Iolar in Xyuluthe.”

  “And the Order of the Sun.”

  “Yes.”

  Vitaliya sat up and stretched her arms wide. Her upper back made a satisfying noise. “Tell people. Tell everyone. They won’t hate you; they’ll make you empress. They might make you empress even if your father was a farmer.” She paused. “Was that a lie?”

  “No. Like I said, it doesn’t catch opinions. Or jokes, or figures of speech. I think it’s more about intentions than words.”

  “When someone does lie, what happens?” asked Vitaliya. “I mean, how can you tell?”

  “I can feel it in my mind,” said Ioanna, touching a finger to her forehead. “Small lies are softer like a pinch. Big lies can feel like being struck in the face. When I hear too many all at once, I start to get sick. That’s why I don’t like large crowds.”

  “That’s terrible. Blessings shouldn’t cause you pain.”

  Ioanna shrugged. “I don’t know. But I understand why most Truthsayers join the Order of the Sun. I’d love to live among people who are forbidden to lie. If this all goes badly, and I don’t end up dead, I’ll probably join them.”

  “It won’t go badly. Don’t think like that,” said Vitaliya. “If you’ve got a blessing like yours, Iolar must mean for you to be empress. There’s no way around it.”

  “And Reygmadra means for me not to be empress.”

  “Oh, who cares what she thinks? We all know Iolar is more important.”

  “Maybe in Vesolda.” But a smile pulled at Ioanna’s lips, and she sat up as well.

  “Oh!” cried Vitaliya. “There’s a bath in here!”

  “What?”

  Vitaliya nearly fell out of bed to approach the enormous square basin in the corner of the room. It was full, and when she dipped one hand in, the water was surprisingly warm—probably heated from below by pipes, something Xytan architecture was famous for. “Was this here last night?”

  “No,” said Ioanna flatly. “They installed it while we were asleep.”

  Vitaliya tried to splash Ioanna, but she was too far away for the water to reach, and so it just landed uselessly on the tiles between them. “You’re meant to be a Truthsayer! How are you able to lie?”

  “My blessing doesn’t prevent me from lying.”

  “Then why are you called a Truthsayer if you don’t have to say the truth all the time? You should be called…” Vitaliya paused to think up something really good. “Truth…determiner.”

  “Shall I pass your suggestion along to the temple?”

  “Yes, you’d better!” Vitaliya slid one leg into the water. “Oh, this is so nice. How did I manage to not spot this?”

  Baths in Xytae were different than baths in Vesolda. Instead of free-standing tubs, they were enormous, sometimes as big as ponds, and usually sunken into the floor. Apparently Xytan people did not care very much about being seen without their clothes on because whole groups of people would use them at once without caring. Vitaliya found this very strange, but the baths in the Imperial Palace had been far more private than the ones in the city, and so she’d taken hers at odd hours when she knew very few people would be around, and never spent too long in them for fear someone might come along. Vitaliya could not really be called modest, and she certainly was not ashamed of her body, but going around in public without any clothes on simply was not done in Vesolda, and she didn’t think she’d ever be comforta
ble with it.

  She submerged her head beneath the water, imagining the grime and sweat of the last few days coming loose and drifting away. When she came up again, Ioanna was watching her.

  “You should come in too,” said Vitaliya. “It’s so nice.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “Don’t have time to get clean? Aren’t you supposed to be convincing people you ought to be empress? It will be easier if you’re not covered in dirt.”

  Ioanna gave her a look. “I have time for a bath but nothing else.”

  “I will sit on my hands,” promised Vitaliya.

  Ioanna stepped into the bath. She was thin and willowy, a stark contrast to most of the Xytan women Vitaliya had encountered, who were all lean and muscular. Vitaliya supposed this fit with everything she’d heard about Ioanna and her lack of interest in athletics, but she had the sense, though, Ioanna was a little bit unhappy with her body. Perhaps it was just one more thing to set her apart from her family.

  Vitaliya’s mind went to her own family. She had certainly not forgiven her father, but she would admit he came out ahead of Ionnes, at least when it came to paternal instinct. And while she sometimes felt distanced from her brother, she could say with complete confidence that he had never seriously contemplated murdering her, and if he had, she’d done something to deserve it.

  As for their respective mothers…Vitaliya had only caught glimpses of Enessa during her time in the Imperial Palace. This wasn’t entirely unexpected since she was essentially running the empire in her husband’s absence, but Netheia had barely mentioned her except to complain. Ioanna hadn’t said much about her either.

  Vitaliya’s own mother, Queen Isabetta, died when Vitaliya was fifteen. Her illness had not been a plague or something the priests of Adranus could easily heal. Vitaliya still didn’t completely understand it even though the priests had done their best to explain.

  They’d kept her alive for as long as they could, burning out the disease wherever they could find it in her body. But nothing could prevent it from rallying and re-growing. In the end, Isabetta had announced she no longer wished for the priests to treat her, for the daily infusions of magic were leaving her just as weak and disoriented as the illness.