by Sarah Ash
Before Elysia could reply, the door opened. Elysia whirled around—but it was only Lukan.
“What happened?” He hurried to the windows and gazed out. “Two of the men-o’-war are going down in flames, and the others are heading out of the bay. And the Tielen soldiers—”
“Brandy,” said Elysia, handing him a glass. Lukan swallowed the generous measure she had poured him, in one gulp.
“I’d best go down to the citadel.” He gave her back the empty glass. “They’ll need me there.”
“Not with your head gashed open!”
“Your brandy has magical restorative powers, Elysia,” he said, flashing her a smile.
“But that creature. Suppose it’s still out there?” cried Palmyre.
“Creature?” He stopped, seeing Elysia’s expression. “You don’t think it could be—”
“How could it be? He’s imprisoned so far from here.” Tears clouded Elysia’s eyes, tears of sudden hope. The thought that he might be free again glowed like a bright star in her breast.
“Nonetheless . . . Gavril come back to defend his countrymen?” said Lukan. “There’s only one way to find out. Keep all the doors locked and barred, ladies. Don’t let anyone in but me.”
“Why is there no word from Janssen?” muttered Eugene. He had delayed the departure for Swanholm, unwilling to leave until he had official confirmation that the siege of Colchise had been brought to an end.
He started to pace the polished boards of his study again. From time to time he stopped and gazed out to the broad Nieva. Ships passed to and fro on the fast-flowing river and the sight of their masts reminded him only too vividly of his own Southern Fleet, engaged at this very moment in a bloody battle with the insurgents in Smarna. He spun the great painted globe he had brought from his palace at Swanholm until his fingertip rested on Smarna.
Such insubordination had to be quelled—and swiftly.
His agents assured him that the leaders of the rebellion were academics, mostly artists and philosophers. Idealists, all, with little or no military experience. So when he dispatched the fleet, he had expected a few minor skirmishes—and a swift, contrite capitulation. Not a full-blown siege.
“Imperial highness.” Gustave appeared in the doorway.
Eugene swung around.
“News from Smarna, highness.” It couldn’t be good. Gustave, who usually maintained an inscrutable expression, looked shaken. “The Southern Fleet . . .”
“Tell me!”
“It has been destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Eugene repeated. He stared at Gustave’s blank face. “Impossible!”
Gustave proffered a paper. His hand shook. “I took down every word from Admiral Janssen over the Vox Aethyria.”
“ ‘Tell—the Emperor—attacked,’ ” Eugene read the missive aloud. “ ‘Regiments ashore—wiped out. Few survivors. Three men-o’-war holed, three more on fire—two sinking. Retreat?’ ”
“Let me speak to Janssen.” Eugene crushed the paper in his hand and pushed past Gustave, making for the office where several Vox Aethyrias were monitored, each device tuned to a different part of the empire.
Two undersecretaries were working in the office; both leaped up and bowed as Eugene strode in and seated himself at Gustave’s desk.
“Janssen? Janssen! This is Eugene. Answer me. What in God’s name is going on?”
“—highness—it came—from nowhere—swooped down over the bay—”
Eugene felt his skin chill as if a draft had seeped in from off the river.
“ ‘It’? What do you mean ‘it’?”
“—great, dark-winged—” The admiral’s words came indistinctly and Eugene had to crouch close to the device to catch them. “—sheet of blinding light, like blue flame—”
Eugene’s skin suddenly burned with a shiver of fire. The terror he had experienced on that wintry escarpment outside Kastel Drakhaon returned, as it did still in the dead of night. He felt his scarred face and hand tingle at the memory of that cleansing blue flame.
“No,” he murmured, “it can’t be. He told me it was destroyed. He gave me his word!”
The sunlit glitter of the sea below dimmed. Suddenly all the power drained from Gavril’s veins. He began to spiral down toward the surging waves far beneath. His mind, his will, was being torn in two.
“What’s wrong?” he gasped.
Mortal terror overwhelmed him. He heard the roar of the rolling waves, felt the sting of the cold seaspray on his skin as he hurtled helplessly downward.
“Don’t let me drown!” he cried. “Save me, Drakhaoul!”
“Don’t fight me . . .” At last the Drakhaoul’s voice crackled to life in his brain. “Drained . . . don’t know how long . . . can sustain . . . Make for land.”
He felt his fast-tumbling body hit the waves. He shut his eyes tight, dreading to feel the sea clutch at him, pulling him under. Saltwater filled his throat and lungs. Down he sank, too weak to strike back up toward the surface.
CHAPTER 21
“Karila!” Eugene cried, running down the candlelit passage toward his daughter’s bedchamber. His heart beating erratically, he flung open the door and went in.
“Imperial highness.” Marta, Karila’s governess, rose from her chair and curtsied. Her face was pale, her eyes dark-shadowed as if she had not slept in a long while.
“How is she?” Eugene heard his own voice as if from far away. “I came as fast as I could.”
“The doctors think she is past the crisis.”
Karila lay in her golden swan bed, fair hair spread in a tousled aureole about her head. Eugene knelt beside her. He watched to see if the sheets rose and fell regularly with her breathing, as he had watched so often before.
Yes, she was still breathing. Thank God.
How many times, in his worst imaginings, had he come to her bedchamber to find her lying cold and still, his child, his only child, all that Margret had left him? His heart was torn between the impulse to pick her up and hug her close, and terror lest such an action should disturb her healing sleep and provoke a relapse.
“Eugene?”
He blinked away the tears that misted his vision to see Astasia in the doorway.
“She’s sleeping,” he said softly.
There was a rustling sound as Karila moved her head.
“Papa . . .”
“Papa’s here, Kari.” Eugene took Karila’s hand in his own, feeling how hot and damp it was.
“Papa.” The sticky fingers clung tightly to his. “I saw it. I felt its breath.”
“Hush, now,” Eugene said, smoothing a strand of hair from her forehead. “Nothing to worry about. Papa’s here now. And Tasia.” He glanced up at Marta accusingly. “She’s still feverish. Rambling.”
“It called to me,” whispered Karila. “It called me its child. Drakhaoul’s child . . .” And then as if the effort had utterly exhausted her, her eyes closed and she fell back onto the silken pillows.
“Kari!” Eugene still clasped hold of her hand, pressing it between his own. “What do you mean?”
“Eugene.” He felt Astasia’s hand touch his shoulder, a gentle yet firm pressure. “Eugene, she doesn’t know what she’s saying. We should let her sleep.”
“Yes,” said Marta sternly, “she needs her sleep.”
“I’ll stay with her,” said Astasia.
“No need for that, imperial highness, I’m well used to caring for the princess.” Marta spoke with a certain chilliness, which did not escape Eugene’s notice. Marta had been Margret’s maid and confidante; it was inevitable, he supposed, that she should resent anyone he chose to supplant her mistress—even though Margret had died in childbirth eight long years ago.
He slowly let go of Karila’s hand and stood up.
“Call for me if there’s any change in her condition. No matter what hour of day or night.”
“Have I ever failed to do so before, highness?” Marta said. But there was no resentment in her voice this time.
Eugene went to take Astasia’s arm, but she drew away from him and walked swiftly from Karila’s bedchamber.
“Astasia?”
She did not reply, but kept on walking. She was obviously upset by Marta’s snub. He knew he should go after her and soothe her hurt feelings, but first there was the matter of the Drakhaoul.
Astasia hurried into her dressing room and locked the door behind her. She stood, back pressed up against the door, angrily sniffing away tears. She poured cold water into a bowl and splashed her face, dabbing at her reddened eyes with the corner of a dampened handkerchief.
What’s the matter with me? Why do I cry at every little slight, every insignificant upset? I knew this was not going to be easy.
She untied her cloak and sat down at her dressing table.
Eugene had not come after her. But what had she expected? He probably thought she was being petty and childish, and he had far weightier matters on his mind. Why should he notice if his wife’s feelings were wounded?
Besides, it was not so surprising that Marta had acted coldly toward her. Hadn’t she cared for Karila since her mother died? And she suspected Marta had never forgiven her for sneaking Karila out of the palace on that illicit sleigh ride—
Marta’s protective feelings toward Karila were understandable. But Eugene’s reaction—
Astasia’s fingers strayed to a pot of sugared almonds: vanilla, rose, and violet. She selected one and popped it in her mouth.
When the news of Karila’s collapse had come, Eugene had abandoned everything. They had traveled day and night to reach Swanholm as fast as possible.
At least he cares for someone. She looked up and caught the shadow of a wry grimace in her reflection.
“Yes. He cares for her daughter,” she whispered.
The flower-perfumed sugar coating the almond, usually her favorite sweet, tasted odd. Sickly. She spat the almond out into her palm.
A horrible thought entered her mind. Suppose someone was trying to poison her?
“No, no . . . I mustn’t think this way. I’m just tired after all the traveling.” Why would anyone hate her so viciously as to want her dead?
Drakhaoul’s child? Eugene hurried toward Linnaius’s laboratory, not even seeing the salutes of the guards he passed at each doorway. His thoughts were in ferment. Was she just in the grip of a vivid fever dream? Or was she still linked in some inexplicable way with the Drakhaoul?
“Oh Kari, Kari,” he muttered as he crossed the outer courtyard. “What did you mean?”
As he approached the Magus’s apartments, the lanternflames suddenly glowed with an intense brightness and the outer door swung slowly open to admit him.
A large telescope was positioned at an open casement window. On the desk, star charts had been unrolled: maps of the heavens, with the constellations marked out in silver and gold on a background of rich cobalt-blue.
“Welcome home, imperial highness.” The Magus appeared from behind the telescope.
“Gavril Nagarian swore to me that the Drakhaoul was dead!” Eugene cried.
The Magus nodded.
“And Director Baltzar reported that Gavril Nagarian was killed in a freak storm that struck the Iron Tower last week. So how is it that our fleet has been destroyed by something that—judging by the reports—is the Drakhaoul? What’s happening, Linnaius?”
Linnaius gazed at him, his expression disquietingly calm.
“Has Baltzar furnished you with any physical proof that Gavril Nagarian is dead? Surely there must have been some fragments of charred flesh, bone . . .”
Eugene leaned over the star charts toward Linnaius. “You said the Drakhaoul could not survive without a human host.”
“I still know too little about this aethyric daemon that calls itself Drakhaoul. Karila said it was dying when it passed over Swanholm. I can only conjecture that it may have bonded with a new host.”
Did Linnaius not understand what was at stake here? The pride of his navy had been destroyed. He felt the defeat as acutely as if a limb had been blown off in battle.
“And if my Southern Fleet had not been decimated, I could have let matters rest. But hundreds of men—good men—have died in Smarna. It has to be the Drakhaoul. Karila said so herself, tonight.”
The Magus looked at him, all attention now. “What precisely did she say?”
“She said it called to her. It called her its—” he stumbled over the word, not knowing until then how much it had disturbed him, “its child. What in God’s name does she mean? My own daughter!”
“So she is still in communication with it?” The Magus stroked his chin with spindle fingers. “Then who better to tell us who is behind this Smarnan business? Let me search her mind—”
“She has a high fever!” This plan had already occurred to Eugene and he had dismissed it. He could still feel Karila’s hand clinging trustingly to his; it would be unpardonable to force a sick child to use her nascent powers while she was so weak. “There must be another way to determine if Gavril Nagarian is dead.”
“Then there is no alternative but to look in the Ways Beyond,” said Linnaius.
Chiefs of staff were waiting for Eugene in the Walnut Anteroom. Spread out on the desk was a detailed map of the continent. An old map, Eugene noted wryly, showing each country in a different color: Tielen pale blue, Muscobar mustard yellow, and Smarna, rebellious Smarna, in an inappropriately innocuous shade of rose pink.
Little lead models of battle tents and ships marked the positions of the New Rossiyan armies and fleets deployed around the empire. Colonel Soderham, a silver-haired veteran who had lost a leg in Prince Karl’s Francian campaigns, was moving the models about the map.
“What are these forces here?” Eugene pointed to two model tents close to the border between Smarna and Muscobar. One was painted with the Tielen swan, the other with Muscobar’s two-headed sea eagle.
“That’s General Froding’s Light Infantry, imperial highness,” said Soderham.
“Froding?” Eugene looked puzzled. “What’s he doing in Muscobar? I thought he was supposed to be down in Southern Tielen on maneuvers.”
“Ah, but if you recall, highness, Colonel Roskovski asked if we might hold a joint exercise on Muscobar territory. To get the men used to working together.”
Eugene remembered Roskovski’s reputation rather too well; when the Tielen army invaded Mirom, the irascible Muscobar commander had put up a disastrously ill-planned defense. He suspected that a man of Roskovski’s arrogance would not listen to advice, even from the experienced and genial Froding.
“Pull Froding’s men out of there. Leave Roskovski guarding the border, if he must, but send one of our dragoon regiments garrisoned in Mirom to keep an eye on him.”
“Straightaway, highness.” Soderham saluted and murmured to one of his adjutants, who immediately sped off.
“And Froding?” Soderham asked, leaning over the map, ready to move the Tielen tent on Eugene’s command.
It was time to test his theory. If he had learned one thing about Gavril Nagarian in their last conflict, it was that his instincts to defend his people would override any concerns about his own safety.
“Let’s give the Smarnans something to keep them busy. Little forays and retreats—take a town here, a village there.” Eugene felt a sudden yearning to be back in the field with his men. He relished this kind of cat-and-mouse strategy, keeping the enemy guessing where he would strike next. “Tell Froding to split his men up into raiding parties. And keep them on the move.”
Astasia was still staring at the bowl of sugared almonds when there came a discreet tap at the the door. She hastily dried her eyes.
“Come in.”
A Tielen lady-in-waiting appeared. She had the translucent complexion and ice-blond hair of those born in the far north, and her eyes were of the palest grey-blue.
“Where is Nadezhda?” Astasia asked, surprised not to see her own maid.
“His imperial highness has asked me to attend to yo
u while you are at Swanholm,” answered the woman. “I have assigned Nadezhda tasks more appropriate to a lady’s maid.” Even though her manner was polite, there was a frostiness about her that did not endear her to Astasia in the least.
It would have been considerate to have consulted me about this first, Eugene, thought Astasia, as the tears threatened to flow again.
“And your name?” She tried to stop her voice from wobbling.
“Countess Lovisa. I am cousin to his imperial highness on his late father’s side.” Her tone of voice grew frostier still. “I was presented to you at the coronation.”
“Of—of course.” But there had been so many Tielen courtiers presented to her that day, she could not possibly be expected to remember them all!
“I’ve come to tell you that the musicians from Francia have arrived, highness.”
“Musicians?” Karila’s sudden illness had completely put the musicians from Astasia’s mind. She had, in a moment of presumptuousness, it now seemed, taken it upon herself to invite them to Swanholm to perform for Kari’s birthday. She had been planning to tell Eugene of her little surprise, and now events had overtaken her.
“Where are they to be accommodated?”
“Accommodated?” She blinked her tears away, determined not to show any weakness in front of the countess. “Surely the lodging of our visitors is not my responsibility.”
“Indeed, no. But for Fredrik, our majordomo, to make appropriate arrangements, it is essential for him to know who is expected and when.”
Now her abilities to manage a great house were being openly criticized!
“And Demoiselle de Joyeuse asks if she might be granted a few moments of your time to discuss which of the various programs they have prepared you think would be most suitable.” Countess Lovisa handed her a paper sealed with an ivory ribbon.
Astasia opened the paper and saw not the expected list of songs, but a brief message:
If your imperial highness could vouchsafe me a minute or two in private, I have some news of personal significance to impart.
