by M. J. Scott
His father didn't seem to know either. Andre hesitated a moment, then shook his head. "Don't force my hand, Jean-Paul. Use your brain. And go in there and clean up the mess you made."
Chapter 24
Invisibility was tiring. Imogene, having endured close to a week of it already, was growing thoroughly sick of the whole thing. She'd taken the lectures on her stupidity, she'd taken being temporarily removed from any duty other than her continuing lessons with Ikarus and the rest of the time was to stay in the barracks, and she'd taken the not-so-subtle avoidance of her classmates who only now spoke to her if it was part of one of the lessons, as though they were worried that screwing up might be contagious.
The army, apparently, had decided that the best place for her was out of sight. Colonel Ferritine had given her a lecture on responsibilities that made her ears ring. But he'd followed it up with more gentle advice to just wait for things to pass.
Which she was doing. For the second time. The first time, after the mission to Andalyssia, her disgrace hadn't been her fault. This time, it was. That didn't make it any easier to bear. She wondered if it had been the sheer boredom of being punished that had led Alexei Berain to resign after Andalyssia.
She could take that option. Give up her commission. Go and work with her father. Build a different life. Ikarus would be useful to her as an ingenier, too. They couldn't take him away from her, at least, though she was under strict orders to keep him under control. Which was unfair. He had done precisely as she had asked in the ballroom and then stopped and left as soon as she had asked again. Her control over her sanctii was fine. It was her control over herself that was the issue.
Jean-Paul, too, it seemed, had taken her at her word. He hadn't contacted her. Which left her in the increasingly irritating position of being annoyed by getting exactly what she'd asked for. She would have to make the first move. Which she might do if she was surer that he hadn't just wiped his hands of her entirely, thanking the goddess for a lucky escape from a bad choice.
Even if she hadn't been full of doubt, she hadn't been given permission to leave the palace grounds.
So she was dutifully making her way back from the training halls to her quarters once more, thinking of dinner in her room and more study before she slept, when she passed the gate to one of the palace gardens. One that was technically not off-limits to anyone living within the palace’s boundaries. And technically still on the way back to the barracks.
Surely no one would begrudge her a few minutes’ peace admiring some flowers and drinking in the afternoon sunshine before she returned to her punishment? If they did, they could hardly make things worse unless they did decide to kick her out. She'd never heard of anyone being cashiered over flowers, though. So she grasped the gate and pushed it open.
She was admiring a bank of bright pink roses when a voice from behind her said, "Lieutenant Carvelle?"
A female voice. One she recognized. Heart sinking, she turned and saw her suspicions confirmed. She sank into a curtsy at Empress Liane's feet, cursing her luck in her head. The empress was the last person—except perhaps the emperor himself—she wanted to see.
"Get up. It's too hot for that," Liane said. She fanned herself with one hand. "Don't have babies in summer, Lieutenant. I've done it twice. Learn from my errors."
"Do you need to sit, Your Imperial Highness?" Imogene asked, alarmed. Bad enough that she had run into the empress—an encounter that would no doubt bring her more lectures if anyone from the barracks saw them—but it would be worse still were she to have some sort of complication to her pregnancy with Imogene in her presence.
Liane grimaced, still fanning. "I've been sitting half the day. I wanted to stretch my legs."
"Where are your guards?" Imogene scanned the garden. The empress was alone. Not so much as a lady-in-waiting accompanying her. That had to be rare.
"I told them to leave me alone. I'm sure there are half a dozen sanctii nearby"—Liane waved a hand at the air irritably—"but apparently I was fierce enough to chase everyone else out of eyesight. Rank is useful sometimes. And rank plus pregnancy is also useful. Remember that, too." She rubbed the pale blue silk of her dress where it stretched over her belly.
"I will leave you alone," Imogene said, taking a step backward. The empress had private gardens she could walk in, of course. But if she wanted this one, well, Imogene might be willing to risk the wrath of her commanding officer but not her empress.
"No, stay. I keep asking Aristides about you. To make sure you were being treated fairly. So far the only answer I get is 'it's an army matter.'" She shook her head. "Men. They are irritating when they get pedantic about stupid rules." She linked an arm through Imogene's. "Walk with me. And tell me they haven't been too hard on you."
"I'm fine, Your Imperial Highness. I did break the rules, after all. I can take my punishment."
"You acted to protect my husband and myself," the empress retorted. "I would prefer to see such behavior encouraged in the court. But I will not interfere if you prefer to play by their rules." Bright green eyes twinkled at her. "But if they grow tiresome, you are welcome to let me know."
Imogene imagined how well that would go down with Colonel Ferritine. Having strings pulled in her favor would probably ensure she got sent to the dullest post in Illvya for a year. If not two.
"I am fine, Your Imperial Highness" she repeated. "Let's admire the flowers."
Chapter 25
They walked, the empress moving slowly, her movements awkward when she bent to sniff a bloom here and there. "What about Jean-Paul?" Liane said. "Aristides said he thought you might be our next Duquesse of San Pierre. Before all this fuss. Jean-Paul is a good man. Don't let this nonsense scare you off if he is the one you want."
"It's a big decision to take on something like that," Imogene said slowly. "We still have only known each other a short time."
Liane laughed. "Well, I can understand that. I almost ran away before my wedding. But I'd known Aristides a long time. And I loved him. So I stayed. And became an empress. Which sometimes seems ridiculous, even now. But we adjust. And love is worth the adjustment, my dear." She rubbed her belly again. "And a little discomfort." She paused, pressing her hand into her back. "I swear this boy is kicking my kidneys on purpose."
"It's a boy?"
"So the healers tell me." Liane smiled. "I wouldn't have minded either way." She squeezed Imogene's arm. "I think he's telling me that I’ve walked far enough for now. Come, walk with me back to the rose garden. We can have tea. It's nice to talk to someone new."
"I'm supposed to return to my barracks."
The empress grinned wickedly. "Imogene, I outrank every one of your commanding officers. Tell them to come and see me if they wish to complain about you being late."
Put that way, she couldn't argue. "The empress made me do it" was an excuse no one could argue with. She laughed at the thought of the look she would get from Colonel Ferritine at that one. "Thank you, Your Imperial Highness. Tea would be lovely."
When they reached the rose garden, there was already a small table set for two, a linen half tent set to shade it from the sun. It seemed the sanctii guarding the empress could also relay her desire for tea to the palace servants.
Liane sat with a grateful sigh. "At least the Andalyssians are leaving the day after tomorrow," she said. "That will stop all the tedious dinners we've been holding for them. I don't mind the balls—I can avoid them at the balls—but the Ashmeiser Elannon is not my idea of a sparkling conversationalist at dinner."
"No," Imogene agreed. "He is not."
"You've been to Andalyssia, I understand. What's it like?"
Imogene told her about the court and the country while they waited for tea.
Liane listened and asked intelligent questions in the right places with an ease that made Imogene feel envious. The empress had obviously honed the skill of making people feel at ease and welcome as well as any diplomat. But then the nobles had to work the tools of politi
cs too. Imogene might not have been born to be a duquesse but maybe—if indeed she was still to be one—her training in the corps would give her some small grounding on which to build.
By the time the servants arrived with a tea service and a trolley laden with more food than the two of them could possibly eat, Liane had deployed her charms so well that Imogene was halfway to forgetting Liane was the empress and just enjoying her company.
The servants moved everything to the table with efficient grace, then faded back out of eyeshot.
Imogene reached for the teapot. It was her place to serve the empress. Her hand brushed the silver and her nose filled with the scent of moss-laden smoke. She jerked her hand back instinctively.
"Imogene?" Liane said, "Is something wrong?" She reached toward the teapot, and Imogene knocked her hand away.
One of the servants sprang forward but Liane said. “Wait.” The servant stopped by the empress’s side. Both of them stared at Imogene, who was frozen with horror.
Goddess. She'd laid hands on the empress. She was ruined. But she had gone this far. She had to see it through. Salt ash stung her throat and filled her nose and she fought the urge to call Ikarus, to get him to take the teapot away. "Don't touch that."
"Why not?" Liane’s gaze was sharp.
"You might think I'm crazy," Imogene said. "I may well be crazy. But it smells like Andalyssian magic to me. There's something wrong with it."
"My food is tested," Liane said, in a tone that was too calm. She sat farther back in her chair, moving cautiously as though afraid the teapot might explode.
"Their magic is strange. It’s hard to notice for an Illvyan. It can blur things. It's..." She struggled to find the words. "Imagine air and earth magic mixed somehow. It always felt odd to me."
Liane sat back in her chair, looking pale. Then she turned and said to the servant, "Fetch me my husband, Major Perrine, and Healer Terrisse." She paused a moment. "Send someone to find Major du Laq, too. And tell the guard to keep the Andalyssians in their quarters for now. They are not to leave the palace." She smiled at Imogene, the expression sharp and fierce, though she was still pale. "Let us get to the bottom of this once and for all."
It probably took no more than ten minutes before Aristides, the healer, and the major arrived. But it felt like an eternity as Imogen sat and stared at the teapot, wondering if it was about to ruin her entire career. But the healer held a hand over the pot, and her polite interest turned to alarm. "Poison," she said. "An especially deadly one. Brewed from an herb that only grows in cold countries, Your Imperial Highness." She leaned over Liane, studying the empress’s face. "You didn't touch the pot, did you?"
Liane had pushed her chair farther away from the table at the word “poison.” She was nearly as white as the cloth covering the table. "No, Lieutenant Carvelle stopped me. She saved me."
Aristides reached for his wife's hand, held it tight, both of them staring at Imogene.
"Did you touch it?" The healer's worried brown eyes fastened on Imogene, too. "Let me see your hand."
Imogene's mouth dried as she realized why the healer was concerned. "I only brushed it for a moment." But she held out her hand obediently. It shook slightly. "It feels fine." Would she feel it, though?
"It would. The poison doesn't burn. It’s dangerous because it does little until it enters your blood stream. Then you die quickly." The healer bent closer and peered at Imogene's hand. She cocked her head. "How long has it been?"
"Ten minutes, maybe?" Imogene said, heart thumping. Was that too soon to know?
"You're still alive. I think you are in no danger. It acts faster than that on the skin." Terrisse swung back to the emperor and Major Perrine, who both looked grim. "I suggest you send for a Truth Seeker. Start with the servants, though I doubt this is a poison anyone would find easy to obtain in Illvya. So I'd be speaking to the Andalyssians. The lieutenant here just saved the empress's life. And your son's."
Chapter 26
"I suppose you will want to marry the girl after all now," Andre du Laq said to Jean-Paul the next morning as a servant poured coffee into their cups. The invitation he’d received from his father asking him to join his parents for breakfast had been written more as a command. Jean-Paul, who'd been caught up in the interrogations all night and had been planning on sleeping for an hour and then bathing and going in search of Imogene, had instead presented himself at the duq's townhouse.
The breakfast, he knew, would be excellent. Normally, it wouldn't have been enough to convince him to appear. But learning what his father's current stance on Imogene might be was necessary if he was to go to Imogene and convince her to give him another chance.
He hadn't gotten near her yesterday. A servant had found him at the barracks and brought him to the emperor's audience room, where a young blond Truth Seeker Jean-Paul hadn't recognized had already been asking questions of the Andalyssians.
Imogene had been standing with the empress, who looked pale and furious, and she had barely spared him a glance before focusing back on the Truth Seeker.
Who was very good at his job and had soon made it clear that the Ashmeiser was in the plot up to his neck despite the Andalyssians' strident protests to the contrary.
At that revelation, the empress had stepped forward and said, "I've heard enough. I believe you all owe Lieutenant Carvelle an apology. But that can come in due course. You can all clean up this mess." She'd waved a dismissive hand at the Andalyssians. "The lieutenant can come with me. We never did get tea." She paused, one hand on her belly. "I will deal with her colonel."
Then she'd looped her arm through Imogene's and left.
Jean-Paul had had the mad urge to run after them before Aristides had said, "She will wait. This will not." Which was true but truth had not made it easier to force his mind to duty rather than Imogene.
But sitting with his father and mother both smiling at him, he wasn't at all certain that Aristides had been right. Or that Imogene would forgive him. He gazed down at his coffee, unable to summon any appetite though he knew he needed food to make up for his lack of sleep.
"Well, Jean-Paul," his mother asked, "am I to have a daughter-in-law at last?"
He grimaced. "I think, Mother, that that is yet to be determined." He swigged coffee.
"She had the right stuff, that one," his father said with a sly smile.
Jean-Paul paused mid sip. "That's not what you said after the ball."
"I've changed my mind. Your mother always tells me the ability to change one's mind is a sign of wisdom. She is loyal to the crown. And brave enough to speak up, even though if she'd been wrong, she would have ruined her career, most likely."
More likely his father's ability to adjust his opinion with a smile and act as though he'd never felt any differently came from years of diplomacy and politics. Would he end up like that, too? He'd prefer the wisdom-based kind of decision-making himself. But he was, at least, not wise enough to try to dissuade his father from his newly found approval of Imogene. He merely rolled his eyes at his father.
"Poison. Cowardly, if you ask me," Andre continued. "If you want to kill a man, shoot him or stab him or something. More cowardly still to go after a pregnant woman." His expression twisted in disgust. "We should set half their damned country on fire."
Andre was clearly fully informed about everything that had happened at the palace. As he usually was. Luckily, Jean-Paul didn't think Aristides would choose violence as revenge. More likely, he'd just make the Andalyssians pay through the nose while he rooted out the heart of the discontent in their country via more subtle means. Diplomacy wasn't always gentler than war.
"But back to your lieutenant," his father continued. "Loyalty, bravery and magic. That's a start. You say she has a brain. We can teach her the rest. And the court will become used to the sanctii, I guess. She's not the only water-mage about." Andre sat back, looking satisfied. Then he smirked at Jean-Paul. "So all you have to do is get her to say yes."
Chapter 27<
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Imogene was half asleep when the empress's carriage drew to a halt outside the barracks. Liane had insisted on calling a carriage to deliver Imogen back to quarters—which was ridiculous when it took as long to drive through the winding palace roads to get from the palace to the administrative buildings as it did to walk through the grounds. But Liane, Imogene was learning, didn't take no for an answer often. Perhaps that came with being an empress. She'd insisted Imogene spend the night at the palace. Not that a luxurious bed in a palace guest suite had made it any easier to sleep. Imogene had been too overwhelmed by everything that had happened to rest.
Ikarus appeared at one point to sit with her, as though keeping watch. He'd gone again when she'd climbed into the high bed an hour or so before dawn. But she hadn't slept long. Which was why she was yawning now. Colonel Ferritine has asked her to come see him at eleven after Liane had finished telling him that Imogene's punishments were to be over and done with immediately, and she was to be given all due consideration for her next assignment, and the empress would be writing a commendation for her bravery.
It was nearly quarter to eleven now.
But as she stepped out of the carriage, she spotted Jean-Paul looming on the steps once more, looking like a storm cloud in his uniform.
Her heart lurched, and had it not been for the firm grip of the driver who had insisted on offering her a hand to help her down, she may have stumbled at the sight of him.
