The Unbound Empire

by Melissa Caruso

  The efforts to discover what Ruven had done on the Night of Masks kept my mother busy late into the night. When she came home exhausted from the Imperial Palace with her hair straggling down from its pins, she always took the time to give me some small handful of carefully gleaned jewels of advice on whose support to seek for my law or how to win over this or that influential lord. But the one thing I wanted to know most, she never so much as hinted at.

  I gathered up my courage to ask Ciardha, when she’d finished giving me my breakfast briefing and was laying out my schedule on the third morning since my meeting with the doge.

  “Ciardha, do you know…” My question caught in my throat. It wasn’t the sort of thing I’d usually ask her. But I had never known Ciardha to tell me anything but the truth.

  “Yes, Lady?” she prompted gently, as she laid a neat bundle of letters beside my cup of chocolate.

  “Do you know what my mother thinks of my Falcon law?” More words tumbled out, my face growing warmer all the while. “She’s given me so much advice on how to pass it, but she never says whether she thinks it’s a good idea in the first place, or talks about it when other Assembly members are around. I don’t even know if she’s planning to vote for it.”

  Ciardha’s brown eyes lost their customary cool distance, their focus sharpening. “I have never known La Contessa to vote against justice, Lady,” she said, with quiet conviction.

  I let out a tremulous sigh. “She has so much influence. I wish she were more willing to show public support.”

  “One of the pillars of La Contessa’s power is that she has the doge’s confidence,” Ciardha said. “His Serenity has made it plain that he does not favor your law. So La Contessa must step carefully in public, lest she seem to stand against him.”

  I ground two pieces of roll together until they shed crumbs like snow. “I suppose she must do her dance. But still, it would be nice to see her make a stand on a moral issue like this.”

  “If you think she is doing nothing to help you, then you need to look closer. Who is La Contessa’s closest ally in the Council of Nine?”

  “The Marquise of Palova,” I responded automatically. “And she declared open support for some of my ideas, so… oh.” My cheeks burned.

  Ciardha nodded. “La Contessa prefers to keep her hand hidden when she pulls the strings, Lady. And besides, she wants this to be your law, and your victory. Not hers.”

  I frowned. “This isn’t some power play to secure my future. It’s about the Falcons’ freedom.”

  A small smile pulled at Ciardha’s lips. She offered me a slight bow. “Of course, Lady. But you may have noticed that La Contessa rarely does anything for only one purpose. There is no reason it cannot be both.”

  The morning of the vote, I woke at the first gray murmuring of twilight. I lay awake, staring up at the silk canopy above my bed, running lists of names who might or might not support my law through my head like a string of beads through nervous fingers. It was impossible to know who would truly vote for reform and who had merely made polite noises of agreement to avoid alienating La Contessa’s daughter. Graces, what if when the votes were counted, only a handful had taken me seriously? How could I cross the lagoon to the Mews and tell Zaira and Foss and the others that we’d never had a chance?

  Slowly, the light in my room grew; at first I could barely pick out the colors in my bedcurtains, or the gleams of gold from artifice devices perched on top of my wardrobe, but soon enough I could read the titles of the volumes on the bookshelf across from me. I wished I could sleep a little longer, to be refreshed and sharp-witted when I faced the Assembly, but the endless clamor in my mind kept me awake. This is the day. The day you either let down all your friends, or change history.

  I wasn’t entirely certain which outcome terrified me more.

  At last, I rose, took my elixir, and opened my wardrobe, staring in blank horror at the acres of silk and velvet and lace within.

  A firm knock barely preceded my mother through my door. She glided up beside me, already perfect in a gown of midnight velvet, her auburn hair loose about her shoulders.

  “I’ll pick something out for you myself,” she said. “We can’t have you showing up in some mismatched coat and breeches you happen to think are comfortable to read in.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” I objected.

  “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. Not anymore.” She ran her fingers through my hair, pulling out tangles. “But I’ll pick your outfit for you today anyway.”

  I turned to her, panic beginning to bubble up in my chest. “I can’t do this, Mamma. They’re going to laugh me off the Assembly floor.”

  “Of course you can do it.” Her stern tone left no room for argument. “Good Graces, child, you’ve spoken before the Conclave of Witch Lords. I think you can handle an assortment of tedious windbags like the Serene Imperial Assembly.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” I took a deep breath and shook out my hands, trying to cast off the prickling in my nerves. “It’s easier, somehow, when everyone is a potential enemy, rather than a potential ally I could be alienating forever.”

  “You’ll do fine.”

  “That’s nice of you to say, but, forgive me, you are my mother.”

  “Yes, I am.” She turned me to face her with firm hands, staring into my eyes. “And you may have noticed that in all your life, I have never once given you praise when you hadn’t earned it.”

  My ears warmed at the haze of a hundred commingled memories of criticism and disappointment. “That’s certainly true.”

  “Then believe me when I tell you that I have every confidence in you. I’m proud of you, Amalia. You’ll do fine.”

  My throat thickened as if I’d swallowed a cup of almond paste. I’m proud of you, Amalia.

  I straightened my spine and turned to face the wardrobe, so my mother wouldn’t see me blinking furiously.

  “All right, then,” I said. “What do I wear to change history?”

  Chapter Eleven

  When it was empty, the Imperial Assembly Hall held a profound hush, like a theater or a temple. I’d walked through it when the Assembly wasn’t in session, and the vastness of the space with the hundreds of blue-cushioned chairs all cleared away made me feel tiny, my footfalls sounding with brash impunity in a room that cherished the echoes of three hundred years of history. The Nine Graces looked down from the vast central ceiling mural, painted dancing on luminous clouds in the starry night sky, surrounded by gold medallions framing more frescoes of proud moments in Raverran history. Their stares always seemed more accusing to me than benevolent, as if perhaps I hadn’t been using their gifts well enough.

  Now the hall was far from empty, and a thousand murmuring conversations rose up to the ceiling like a flock of fluttering pigeons. Rows of hundreds of chairs for Assembly members filled much of the floor, most of them occupied, and the balcony gallery above was full of spectators. I’d seen votes taken with less than a third of the Assembly in attendance, and no audience at all, but it seemed my attempts to tamper with the fundamental order of Raverran power were ambitious enough to attract a crowd. I paused inside the great oak doors, among other milling Assembly members who had not yet taken their seats. I tried to breathe calm into my lungs and still my hands, which wanted to fret at the fabric of the crimson-and-gold gown my mother had selected for me. To evoke the colors of the Falcons, she’d said.

  “This is your last chance to reconsider, my lady.”

  It was Lord Caulin, and there was no forgiveness in his eyes for my victory over him at Lady Aurica’s party. He bowed, necessitating that I bow lower; he was, after all, on the Council of Nine now.

  “I assure you, Lord Caulin, I have given it a great deal of consideration already. You should know by now that I am not a feckless girl acting on some impulse of sentiment.”

  He permitted himself a small, humorless smile. “You are a student of history, are you not, Lady Amalia?”

  “I have studied his
tory, yes.” More than he had, I’d wager.

  “Then you must know that the Falcons once were kept under much tighter control than they are now. Every time the Empire has experimented with giving them more freedoms, it has later found it difficult or impossible to take those freedoms away.” He shook his head. “What you do could have consequences lasting a thousand years.”

  “If you have studied history,” I said, with some heat, “then you must realize that these additional freedoms for the Falcons do not appear to have in any way hampered the Empire’s growth, power, or security. And indeed, if you are so fond of history, I challenge you to show me one society that has ever existed in Eruvia that has gained any enduring benefit from the oppression of its people.”

  Lord Caulin lifted a cautionary finger. “We are speaking of individuals with the power to destroy entire cities, my lady. You cannot consider them simply as people.”

  “On that, Lord Caulin, I fear we fundamentally disagree.” I gave him a short bow. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some legislation to introduce.”

  I felt his eyes on my back as I walked up the long aisle between the rows of chairs toward the front of the hall. He wasn’t the only one; conversations fell to whispers as I passed, and heads turned to watch me. A few Assembly members gave me supportive nods or friendly waves, which I returned with what grace and enthusiasm I could muster.

  At the far end of the hall, Doge Niro da Morante sat in his gold brocade state robes upon the imperial throne. His black eyes gleamed at me from beneath iron-gray brows as I approached. His face betrayed nothing. What he said here today could have a considerable impact on my law’s chances of passing; there were many who looked to him for guidance on how to vote. I could only guess whether my efforts to persuade him not to block me had had any effect whatsoever.

  The rows of chairs ended before a square of open floor large enough to accommodate dancing, had the Assembly decided to give up on governance of the Empire in favor of a festive gala. An imperial seal inlaid in rare woods centered this space, fifteen feet across and ringed by a rune-scribed amplification circle so that anyone who spoke before the Assembly could be heard throughout the hall. A row of ten chairs lined the end wall: the doge’s throne stood at the center, with the Council of Nine flanking him. My mother caught my eyes from her seat at the doge’s left hand and gave me a minute nod.

  Rows of gold-cushioned benches flanked the speaking floor, parallel to the right and left walls, for Assembly members with special status or official positions in the imperial court. I headed to my usual seat in the back corner of one of these, smiling a greeting to the elderly lord next to me.

  More Assembly members kept arriving, and conversation filled the hall, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone. Caulin took his seat among the Council of Nine, and not long after, the doge called the Assembly to order. I sat through the initial proceedings without hearing a word of them. In the coming moment, I couldn’t be nervous or flustered; too much depended on my ability to convince the Assembly. I closed my eyes, slowed my breath, and dug deep within for what I needed: serenity.

  My time came, and I was called to the floor at last.

  I rose, and a thousand eyes turned to me. I walked toward the great seal inlaid in the floor; when I crossed the border of runes around it, my footsteps echoed unnaturally loud across the hall. I strode to the exact center, standing on the wing joint of the flying horse rearing in the imperial crest, and turned to face the room.

  This was it. I took in a deep breath.

  “I put forth before this august and serene Assembly the Falcon Reserve Act, making active military duty elective for mage-marked citizens of the Serene Empire and updating some of the more archaic regulations governing Falcons.” They all should have received copies of the law, and I could only hope they’d read it; all that remained was to take the brief moment granted me to convince them to vote for it. “We are a civilized society, and it is time to end the practice of conscripting children and taking them from their homes against their will and that of their families. Let us entice the mage-marked into active service rather than compelling them, and thereby earn a far greater share of their loyalty by showing them basic human respect.”

  Murmurs of reaction grew in the crowd, and I saw some in the front rows shift in their seats. I wished I knew if that was good or bad. “This law does not discontinue the requirement that every mage-marked child born in the Empire must have a jess and a Falconer, though the Falconer no longer need attend their Falcon at all times,” I added. “After some basic training, to be completed anytime at the mage’s leisure, it will be up to the discretion of the Falconers whether each individual Falcon in the civilian reserve should have their power sealed or unsealed by default.” I’d worked out that compromise with Colonel Vasante and her officers, since what might be safe for, say, a well-trained adult artificer might not be for a mage with poor control, a warlock, or a child. “By allowing mage-marked people to decline active military duty, we simply weed out those who are unwilling or unsuited, either of which makes for a poor soldier. By giving them the basic freedom to choose where and with whom they live, we allow our mage-marked citizens to have homes and families, which can only increase their desire to protect the serenity of the Empire.”

  I saw some nods in the watching crowd, but also some scowls and shaking heads. I couldn’t let my resolve weaken now. I summoned a clear passion to fill my voice, letting it ring to every corner of the hall. “Mages without the mark are already part of our society: they make our luminaries and symphonic shells, mix the cures for our daily ailments, and grow us fruits and flowers out of season.” I spread my arms. “How is a mage-marked artificer who can make a courier lamp more of a threat than an unmarked one who can make a luminary? How is a mage-marked alchemist who can cure the wasting sickness more dangerous than an unmarked one who can cure a cold? These are our friends and family and neighbors, our fellow citizens! They are not criminals, to be locked up behind warded walls.”

  By my count, my time was nearly up. I reached out to the sea of faces before me, imploring them. “I urge you to end the injustice of taking innocent children from their homes, and restore the honor of the Serene City. Let our mage-marked brethren show us what they can do for the Empire if their service is freely given, rather than compelled. If we trust the Falcons to protect our borders from invaders, we can trust them to live beside us. If we ask them to risk their lives to defend the Empire, the least we can do is make that Empire not their prison, but their home.”

  I bowed to the Assembly, and then, more deeply, to the doge and the Council of Nine. My hands trembled at my sides. My mother gave me a slight smile; Lord Caulin’s face was flat as a drawn knife, and the doge regarded me with heavy deliberation, as if I were a troubling puzzle.

  “Thank you,” I said, my throat gone suddenly dry at last, after holding up fine through my speech.

  A strange sound, like spring rain, rose up as I walked to my seat. I recognized it with wonder: applause.

  “Very good,” the old lord murmured as I sat down beside him, smiling encouragingly. “We’re all so impressed, by the way, at what you did at the Conclave in Vaskandar, and how you got those demons off our border in Loreice.”

  I smiled back, uncertainly. Was that why they were clapping? Not because they supported my law, but because I’d helped avert disaster from the Empire? Or perhaps he was merely expressing wonder that I’d managed to survive negotiations with the Witch Lords at all. If I’d heard a year ago of someone attending a meeting of all seventeen Witch Lords and even going so far as to court one, I’d have assumed they had nerves of pure steel and were perhaps a bit mad.

  The doge called for any who would speak for or against the proposed law to do so, and I turned my attention to the floor, my hands clenched on my knees.

  An old woman with a small grandson in the Falcons spoke passionately in favor of the Falcon Reserve Act, tears standing in her eyes as she told her story of want
ing her grandson to spend his childhood at home. A middle-aged woman spoke vehemently against it, claiming it spat on three hundred years of proud Raverran history and would destroy the military power of the Empire. One man warned it would inevitably lead to the rise of mage-marked overlords like they had in Vaskandar; a rotund, bearded fellow declared that he didn’t see that it much mattered where the mage-marked lived, and the Empire could still order them to do whatever it wanted, so what was the fuss about, anyway? His speech drew laughs; but then a scholar from the Imperial University delivered a stinging assessment that the mage-marked would be in too much danger outside the Mews, without Falconers to protect them from kidnappers and the violence of the ignorant, and my insides plunged.

  And so it went on. I watched the faces in the crowd anxiously, but I heard murmurs of approval and grumbles of dissent alike in response to arguments for both sides. Eloquence and passion seemed equally matched, more or less, in arguments for and against. Applause after each speech varied, from none at all to a polite scattering to enthusiastic cheers, but didn’t seem to favor one side over the other. This vote would be close.

  After hours of debate that left my muscles sore from sheer tension, at last there were no more from the general Assembly who wished to speak. Tradition held that the Council of Nine and the doge had the last word, and all eyes turned toward the row of thronelike chairs that faced the Assembly. I held my breath; the Council had immense influence, and if they came out largely against my act, it was doomed before the vote started.

  Lord Caulin rose to speak first, and delivered a series of dire warnings about the consequences of giving up military power when we needed it most. He gentled his stark pronouncements outlining the terrible threat we faced with assurances that, of course, we could consider such compassionate measures later, once we faced no imminent threat from Vaskandar. His speech garnered more than its share of applause, and I saw a lot of nodding heads; my insides twisted queasily as he returned to his chair.