Kral claimed he wanted nothing more than to get home, but the brittleness in his eyes reminded me of the sound in Harlan’s words when he referenced his family and homeland. Something I understood all too well. When I went home, I’d take Harlan a bottle of mjed and we could drink it between us and commiserate on the misery that was the Dasnarian Empire.
If I got home.
Kral had fallen back into the brooding silence that had increasingly overtaken him as we drew closer to Dasnaria. I twitched aside a bit of the curtain, angling to see what I could of Jofarrstyr. We traveled down a broad main thoroughfare with traffic going in both directions, fancy carriages—though none as ornate as Kral’s—all drawn by those enormous horses. None, of course, as perfectly matched. Men walked along raised paved pathways separated from the stone-inlaid streets by deep gutters that appeared to carry sewage.
“Why is it all gray stone?” I asked.
“The province of Bjarg provides stone for the empire. Their granite is the strongest to be found anywhere in the world. Rough or polished, it lasts through the freeze and thaw cycles. And you shouldn’t be looking out the window—you might be seen.”
“I know how to look without being spotted,” I replied in a mild tone. A five-year-old among my people knew how to do that much. “So, are these your horses, your carriage? Or do they belong to the Emperor’s household or some such?”
“Assessing my wealth?”
Assessing escape routes, actually. Not that it would do me much good to talk Kral into giving me his carriage—or for me to steal one of his horses—if I couldn’t leave Dasnaria itself. Perhaps there were other countries connected by land that weren’t part of the empire. Seemed unlikely, given what I knew, but that might be the only solution if I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life in this place.
On the flip side, all of this made the possibility of getting myself killed on this mission look like an absolutely cheery prospect.
“I apologize,” Kral said, apparently taking my reflective silence for offended sulking. Then he blew out a long breath. “I am on edge contemplating breaking the news to Emperor Hestar of the barrier and all that’s transpired with the Nahanauns, including my failure to find their treasure. Yes, this carriage and the horses are mine. As the second son, I received considerable wealth and several estates from our father.”
“Lots of houses to live in.”
His lips twitched. “Which I don’t, as I’m sure you’re poking at me for with that remark. I’m always at the Imperial Palace or traveling, it’s true.”
“Why is that?”
He shifted, looking away from me. “My life is not my own. I must do as the Emperor commands me.”
“The Hákyrling is as much home to you as anything, it seems.”
He considered me with some surprise. “I’d never thought of it that way.”
I shrugged. In truth, I missed the Hákyrling more than I would have predicted. The carriage jolted, the sudden jarring movement so unlike the rocking rhythm of the sea I’d grown used to. Part of me kept listening for the creak of the wood, the wind snapping in the sails, the water singing its song of good weather and bad. I’d never thought I’d care much for the ocean or sailing, but somewhere along the journey it had gotten into my bones. Could be just apprehension of what lay ahead for me feeding that emotion.
“I like the Hákyrling,” I told him. “It’s a lovely ship.”
“Thank you,” he replied gravely. “I designed and built it. It was the . . . the one thing I could call wholly my own, that I made instead of inheriting.”
“Cleverly designed, Your Imperial Highness,” I told him, struck by the sorrow in his gaze and kind of sorry I’d ascribed his earlier remarks about it to boasting, instead of to simple truth.
“That might be the first compliment you’ve ever paid me.”
And I hadn’t thought of it as a compliment to him. Hmm. Mostly I figured his ego didn’t need any more stroking. “Well, you have a very nice cock, too, Prince Kral.” I blew him a little kiss and he laughed, relaxing more.
I probably should have realized he’d be concerned about the news he brought to the Emperor, brother or no. I’d never forget that headlong journey from Windroven, when the Hawks accompanied Ursula to deliver news we all knew the High King would greet badly. Some of the Hawks even started a betting pool that she’d find a way to divert us, to avoid going before her father on what could have been a suicidal audience.
A bet I happened to win because I knew she wouldn’t shirk her duties. Just as it wouldn’t occur to Kral to gloss the news. Or to take the Hákyrling and sail off somewhere entirely new. For an unhinged moment, I nearly suggested it to him. Pictured myself climbing onto his lap, kissing him the way he liked, and whispering it in his ear. Let’s go. Turn the carriage around and take us away from this horrible place. We’ll sail around the world and find out if granite really is the hardest stone. We’ll battle fish-birds, have wild sex, and be only ourselves. Let’s go.
“What did you say?” Kral frowned. “Let’s go where?”
I hadn’t meant to voice that last and cleared the whisper from my throat. “Have you considered what you’ll say to the Emperor?”
A line formed between his brows. “I’m hoping inspiration will strike.”
“We’re stuck in a carriage together for a long ride,” I pointed out, “and I’m pretty sure you won’t agree to whiling away the time the way we usually prefer to. I might be a commoner and a simple mountain girl, but I lived at Ordnung with a . . .” Remember who you’re talking to. “A sometimes difficult High King. I’ve observed some here and there of how to present uncomfortable information if you want to talk out a strategy.”
Kral shook his head, mouth in set lines. “It’s not possible to predict how the Emperor will react to most anything. I have a certain amount of power, support within the court, so he’ll be careful of that. Otherwise, I can only tell him the truth.”
We rode in silence after that.
13
We finally left the seemingly endless city behind and entered a forest. It looked old, the trees towering to great heights, gnarled with thick bark and sporting dense moss on the north sides—I verified the direction with Kral, who seemed bemused that I asked. It reassured me to see that some things held true no matter where in the world I might be. In a land where I’d not yet glimpsed the sun, it helped to know I could guide myself with familiar tricks.
I couldn’t decide if it was a mark of unreasonable paranoia, smart planning, or force of habit that I watched our route so closely, marking in my mind the direction we took and the roads that branched away. All paved with stone, as Kral had promised, even in this deep forest, which felt . . . odd, I supposed. Certainly the smoothed stone made for a faster journey, but something about it seemed soulless to me. And I was not a woman to fret about soulfulness.
Maybe I simply hadn’t been so before this because I’d never encountered the feeling.
Shifting restlessly, I reached to check my drying slippers, using the opportunity to stretch my limbs. I hadn’t sat still this long since the fish-bird injuries. If I’d been on foot or horseback, I’d have peeled off from the group to climb a tree and take a look around, then enjoyed a bracing run to catch up.
“Did you climb trees as a boy?” I asked Kral.
“Hmm?” He blinked at me, clearly distracted from deep thought.
I gestured at the forest. “Trees, you know. Did you climb them?”
“No.” He seemed entirely baffled. “Why do you ask?”
I didn’t know, so I shrugged it off. The sleety weather had at last converted to full-on snow, which fell in thin, sparse flakes, but at least looked prettier. “Passing the time, I guess.”
“We’re nearly there. I don’t much like riding in the carriage either, but it adds a certain important pomp to our arrival. You’ll have your first glimpse of the Imperial Palace in a moment.” He drew back the curtains on one side.
“No worries about being spotted?”
“It’s traditional to stop and enjoy this view,” he said. “It’s quite famous in all of Dasnaria—and a badge of honor to be able to say you’ve seen it for yourself.”
Oh, well then! If it was a badge of honor to brag about, how could I resist? I drew back the curtains on my side also, while Kral knocked on the carriage ceiling and called out to the driver that we’d stop to show the ambassador the view.
We rounded a curve up a slight incline, and the trees thinned, then parted entirely, giving way to an immense circle of immaculate snow. A glassy lake sat in the middle, and inside it, a palace. The reflection in the water made it look bigger, I realized quickly, a clever trick to fool the eye into believing the edifice to be enormous. Really, it was only huge. I mentally snorted at myself for that one, because the Imperial Palace exceeded Ordnung by four times, at the very least.
Ordnung, with its many tall towers, was a vertical fortress. Some of that came from Uorsin’s strategic intelligence—a smaller area for attackers to besiege made for better defense. Above a certain height, any fortress simply couldn’t be effectively assailed. Even flight-capable shape-shifting enemies couldn’t wreak as much damage as a ground-level siege engine. So, with its moat and external and internal walls, plus the inner castle, which could also be sealed up, along with being crowded onto a plateau hemmed by mountains rising around it, Ordnung boasted a fairly small footprint.
Of course, more than one joke had circulated about the thrusting towers compensating for Uorsin’s manhood. Spoken very quietly, among discreet groups.
On the other side, King Nakoa KauPo’s palace by the sea had been mainly flat, rambling over the terraces with as many of the rooms open-air as not. The sheer lack of secured doors and accessible balconies should have made it completely insecure, and yet the very openness of it meant I’d never devised a way to get Dafne out with no one spotting us. That would have been the case even if the Hákyrling hadn’t been closely guarded and our only viable way off the island.
The same bottleneck to escape I still faced.
And now this.
“Is . . . is the palace in the lake?” My voice came out awed, though I truly felt terrified for my own future. The tone pleased Kral enough to run a hand over my hair, cupping my skull with affection.
“Yes. The most impressive feat of Dasnarian engineering ever accomplished. It sits on granite pilings sunk into the lake bottom and is inaccessible unless the single drawbridge is lowered. A marvel of impregnability.”
I could see that as I surveyed the sheer walls that rose out of the water, polished to a high gleam. Not unlike Ordnung, no windows, doors, ledges, or other features interrupted the flawless rise of the walls for an extraordinary height. Anyone jumping into the water would be killed or at least maimed to the point of wishing for death.
Rising from above and behind those walls, the palace itself sprawled both outward and upward. Towers worthy of Uorsin speared the sky, and lower, longer portions looked like barracks that could house thousands of fighters. And likely did.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Kral prompted.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life,” I said, glancing at him and adding a smile to cover the fact that I hadn’t exactly agreed. It wasn’t beautiful, no. It was cold, forbidding, and . . . well, soulless. I hated it on sight. “Is the lake natural?” The clearing around it, for easily a league in any direction, surely wasn’t.
“Spring fed,” Kral replied. “Then dammed and maintained at a consistent level by judicious release of water during high season.”
Interesting. Could be the dam would be an exploitable weak point. Destroy it, drain all the water, and—what? Storm the even taller walls by slogging through lake mud? A strategy that wouldn’t do me any good if I was inside those walls, regardless.
“Ready to storm the castle?” Kral’s voice had a teasing note, but the way his eyes held mine made me feel like a fellow warrior about to do that very thing.
Although I feared I’d never see the outside of those walls again, I simply sent a fervent prayer to Danu for strength and agreed that I was ready.
It took longer than I expected to make our way around to the drawbridge, which had been positioned at the farthest distance from the first glimpse point. The road followed the boundary between the forest and the cleared area around the lake. Though Kral gave me a quizzical look, he didn’t stop me from drawing the curtains on the other side of the carriage.
“It’s only forest on that side,” he noted. “Not much interesting to see.”
Forest, indeed. Ancient, overgrown, thick with dense underbrush. Even if someone were to somehow escape the walls of the palace, swim the lake, then manage to cross the snowy expanse without being felled by a dozen arrows, the forest would be nearly impassable.
For most anyone but me. Get me to the forest and I could hide forever. Not that it would get me home, but I felt better to know that much. The Dasnarians might regard that overgrowth as daunting. For me it promised refuge.
Really too bad I’d never learned to swim. If I survived this, acquiring that skill went to the top of my list.
All along the road, guard posts faced both inward and outward, with men stationed to both scrutinize our approach—followed by deep obeisance to His Imperial Highness—and face steadfastly away to constantly scan the pristine clearing. Other outposts ringed the lakeshore, no doubt similarly manned to observe both water and snowfield. The walls would have guards also, either stationary or patrolling.
An interesting flaw in the security, though—not one guard challenged Kral as to my identity. Either His Imperial Highness could do as he pleased without question or they cataloged me instantly as female and therefore beneath notice. I sorely wanted to ask Kral which it was, but that would be tipping the direction of my thoughts too much. He worried about my revealing myself as a less-than-demure woman; I worried about his realizing I’d been sent as a spy who planned her clandestine escape.
One thing had become hugely apparent, however: Unless the practitioners of Deyrr visited the Imperial Palace, I would have to find a way to get out and go to them or I’d never find any answers to the High Queen’s riddles. It made me tired to contemplate it.
“Almost there and you can rest,” Kral told me. “I know it’s been a long journey.”
I opened my mouth to retort, then closed my lips over the words. No sense mentioning this hardly counted as an afternoon excursion to me. The closer we drew to the center of the fist of Konyngrr, the more Kral seemed to fall into his mental rut of seeing me like all females instead of the person he’d come to know so thoroughly. It would have annoyed me if it didn’t work so well for my plans. I needed his help, yes, but not for him to suspect my true agenda. So I smiled. “It will be lovely to rest, yes.”
“You need not attend court immediately. There’s not much left of the afternoon’s session. I’ll present myself to His Imperial Majesty, then likely meet with him privately, at his discretion. You can be introduced at dinner. Or tomorrow, if you prefer to be fresh.”
Oh, no, no, no. I definitely wanted to be there when Kral gave the first indications of his visit to the Thirteen Kingdoms. That would tell me a great deal, those initial moments and honest reactions before political masks could be re-created and donned.
“I’d feel much better sticking with you, Your Imperial Highness, and having you introduce me. That way I can be sure everything is handled according to proper protocol.” I indicated the guards who waved us onto the freshly lowered drawbridge. “I can’t help but notice that your rank and obvious importance pave the way for so much.”
Too thickly applied? Perhaps, because Kral studied me, a slight line between his golden brows. “I’m relieved to see you shed some of your overconfidence. You’ll proceed more wisely, being more cautious now. My rank and importance only go so far. I cannot defy the Emperor, much as I’d wish to. It would mean my death, too, or banishment. Please r
emember the stakes and keep your mouth, fond as I am of it, closed more than not.”
With a shiver, I tucked my feet into the still-damp slippers and nodded.
We progressed across the drawbridge in fits and starts, as the guards lowered sections immediately before us, then raised them again behind us. At each stopping point, the guards hailed His Imperial Highness, bowed, and let me pass without a single question. I began to suspect Kral bringing an unknown woman into the palace wasn’t unprecedented. The thought didn’t make me jealous exactly—though before that moment I would have said I didn’t have a jealous bone in my body—but it added to my unease.
“I think you were wise, Prince Kral, to clarify and disguise our relationship,” I said quietly as we traveled a section between posts and couldn’t be overheard.
He caught my eye and nodded slightly, fervent agreement and more of the man I had come to know in the look. Reassuring to know he still lurked somewhere inside the forbidding Imperial Prince.
We finally reached the walls, guarded by smooth metal doors that swung slowly outward over a ledge far too narrow for a siege engine. Presuming one could even get that far. They closed with a resounding boom behind us.
“What do you do with groups of more than one carriage?”
A flicker of grim humor at that. “One by one, Ambassador. One by one. Fortunately, the occasion rarely arises. Very few people come and go from the Imperial Palace. They either come to stay or never make the journey in the first place.”
That explained some of why Karyn had never been to the palace. I didn’t blame her a bit. She’d certainly hate me for having her dragged from her orchards to this grim prison. “Perhaps you should write your wife a letter,” I said, abruptly enough that Kral raised an eyebrow.
The Edge of the Blade Page 17
