by Devin Madson
Darius gripped my elbow, but I pulled free, backing across the landing. ‘Don’t touch me. I’ve come too far to leave now. You’ll have to kill me if you want to stop me.’
‘Hana–’
He stopped, ears pricked at the sound of distant footsteps.
‘Go! Get out of here,’ he hissed, pushing me toward the stairs. ‘I’ll deal with them.’
Seeing my chance, I turned, and instead of taking the stairs down, I sprinted to the next flight. I leapt up them, the stairs disappearing in pairs beneath me. There were two doors at the top, and one final flight of stairs. One of the doors surely led to Kin’s private apartments. Pick a door. Pick a door.
‘Last chance.’
Darius had followed. He stood on the top step, his eyes flashing like he was his old self come back to life. ‘Get out of here.’
‘No.’
Left door. I turned, but he gripped my wrist, yanking me back. ‘Leave, Hana.’
‘No.’
He let me go, but halfway to the door the sound of his voice froze my blood.
‘Guards!’ he called. ‘Guards!’
His shout seemed to rouse the palace. Doors slid and running steps rose like thunder, all converging upon us. I did not turn, but I heard the steps slow and felt the eyes on me as guards gathered. Swords scraped in scabbards. Then a terrible silence rose; dozens of eyes pinned to the back of my head.
‘Wrong door,’ spoke a harsh voice.
Not Darius, yet the authority was hard to mistake. I turned. A ring of lowered weapons surrounded me, light glinting off sharp blades. From the group of guards a tall man in crimson watched unsmiling. Only one man was allowed to wear a crimson robe.
Emperor Kin.
He stepped forward, leaving the safety of his guards. ‘A boy,’ he said, his head tilted to the side as though examining something unpleasant. ‘Forty-seven failed assassination attempts and the great rebel masterminds send a boy.’
He circled slowly, dark eyes looking me up and down. ‘Then again, you are small, you are slight, you eat men in the night. The rebel captain, Regent, perhaps? We have heard you described very well.’
Darius had not moved.
‘You are silent, I see,’ Kin went on. ‘If your friends were at all intelligent they would have cut out your tongue before you came, because I can assure you we know how to make a man talk. A boy should pose little difficulty.’
He took a step closer, seeming to own no fear. A few more steps and I would spit in his face. How dare he stand there so proudly? The commoner who became a soldier. The soldier who became an emperor.
‘Tell me, how were you planning to have me leave this world?’
Again I said nothing, trying to keep my mind from dwelling upon the vials strapped to my wrist.
Emperor Kin nodded and one of his guards came forward. He gripped my right hand and twisted, looking for concealed blades in my sleeve. Finding nothing he tried my left. I thought then he must find the vials, but seeing my remaining cat claw, he ripped it off my hand and held it out to the emperor. Kin took it, turning it over. ‘I see. Would you tear my throat out like an animal? Or perhaps slit my wrists and let me bleed out upon the floor? Not very elegant. I expected better of you.’
Kin paused, giving me a final chance to speak. When I did not, he sighed. ‘Very well then. Perhaps you will feel more like talking in the morning. A few hours to consider your situation might loosen your tongue. Take him away.’
A rough grip closed around my arm and I was thrust toward the stairs, the guards barely parting to let me through. They jeered at me. One spat in my face, but I clenched my fists and walked on, lifting my head proudly as the spit ran down my cheek.
Chapter 7
Hana was as good as dead. She went with the guards without a fight, but as her short curls disappeared down the steps, I knew it was true.
Activity flowed around me. People spoke to me and I must have given answers for they went away again, satisfied, but the world felt disjointed, like a nightmare. From every shadow, Malice laughed.
‘Excellency. Excellency?’
A man touched my shoulder, the pressure pulling my attention. I turned, looking straight into the stern lines of General Ryoji’s face. ‘Yes, General,’ I said, my steady voice belying the headache that crippled my thoughts.
‘What happened?’
‘We caught Regent,’ I said. ‘Why? Where were you?’
‘Here. I want to know what happened before we arrived. I have upwards of thirty men lying unconscious and it seems you are the only witness.’
Summoning my more derisive look, I said: ‘Are you accusing me of something, General?’
‘No, Your Excellency.’
‘Once again, I think you mean “not yet”.’
‘I don’t have time for your games. Tell me what you were doing, and what you saw.’
Around us, all was noise. Kin barked orders, servants bowed with placating croons of ‘yes, Your Majesty’ and ‘no, Your Majesty’, and the Imperial Chancellor buzzed around like a lost fly. Pairs of Ryoji’s guards trooped past, supporting unconscious comrades like a group of actors removing props at the end of a bad play.
‘I could not sleep,’ I said. ‘How could I when our emperor was in danger?’ I cringed behind the mask. I had told Kin I would have no trouble sleeping. ‘Having work to finish, I was on my way to the archives. There is nothing more soporific than a late night dose of dust, don’t you think?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘No, I suppose not. Reading is not your forte.’
General Ryoji ignored this. ‘And you just happened across an assassin creeping up the stairs?’
‘What else? I saw him. I shouted for the guards. And here you are milling around making a great noise in the hope His Majesty will not notice your failure; a failure that led to a rebel boy being able to make it unchallenged into the very heart of the palace.’
The general was not one to be so cowed. ‘And the unconscious guards? How do you account for that?’
‘I think you would be better off posing that question to Regent,’ I said, praying to any god who might listen that he wouldn’t. Hana had the Otako temper. Given the opportunity, she could have me executed. Her knowledge of my past was enough to take me down with her, although with my head throbbing fit to burst, I could imagine beheading might be pleasant.
Kin stalked the floor, his crimson skirts caressing the sea of wet footprints. ‘Wake the Council,’ he ordered, stopping the buzzing chancellor in his tracks. ‘I want them gathered in ten minutes, even if you have to pull them out of each other’s beds and drag them here by their night-robes.’
He didn’t look at me, but moved on, his gaze searching the thinning audience. ‘Where’s the chamberlain?’
No one answered.
‘Someone find him. The Council will need breakfast.’
Emperor Kin strode away on the words, leaving the remaining servants flustered. Through the shuttered windows a pale glow began to light the sky. I had been awake all night waiting, a dozen times on the verge of retiring to bed, but Malice was not one for idle threats.
I turned back to find the general gone. When had he left? I felt like my mind was slipping away, seeping out through holes I could not plug.
Councillor Ahmet slithered up the steps, an embryonic slime just oozed from his mother’s womb. ‘Laroth,’ he drawled. ‘You must allow me to send compliments to your man. Never have I seen a servant capable of turning a gentleman out of his bed at such an hour looking as though he never went to bed at all.’
‘Haven’t you heard, Councillor? Monsters require very little in the way of sleep. In fact, we are capable of going without it for weeks at a time.’
‘But your beauty sleep! Positively, I see a wrinkle forming between your brows. And those cuts, so disfiguring. Troub
le with your woman, Laroth?’
‘Hardly, Councillor.’
Still fretting around like a startled hare, the chancellor stopped and bowed to us, rather too low, but one could forgive him his nerves. He was a man of routine.
‘Your Excellency, Councillor,’ he said. ‘His Majesty is awaiting the Council.’
‘Then by all means let us go in.’
Ahmet went ahead, his gaze resting a moment upon a guard lying unconscious in the corner. In profile I saw his eyebrows lift.
The original Scroll of War hung outside the council chamber, its small lantern-lit figures watching us pass. Ahmet seemed not to feel their gaze. He made his way toward the open door and went before me, his shoulders thrust back as though to emphasise the large stomach that preceded him through the doorway.
Inside, the chamber was almost full. Kin knelt at the head of the long table, his face a picture of scorn. Bamboo slats criss-crossed the open windows, letting in the morning air. It held a chill after the heavy rain, every breath scented with damp moonflower grass from the Inner Garden.
I knelt at Kin’s side. This was the place where Kun had knelt, his lifeless body slumped onto the table. The thought made my headache worsen, like hands were pressing in upon my skull, trying to splinter bone.
The talk continued. Half a dozen maids entered with the breakfast Kin had ordered. A little army of teapots clinked as a tray slid onto the table. Steam rose in billows, the scent of dried jasmine on the air. Another long tray slid in beside it, holding a dish of grilled fish, twelve individual bowls of rice, and pickled plums. It was not the breakfast many councillors were used to, but Kin was the emperor and he could please himself. Chiltaen bread and sweetmeats had become popular in Mei’lian over the last few years, but Kin would not have them at his table.
While the girls served, I watched Kin. He waved away his bowl, taking only a cup of tea. Though he might not eat it himself, only Kin would have thought to order breakfast. A general has to be sensitive to such things, practical and organised.
‘You stare.’
‘I am marvelling at your composure, Majesty,’ I said.
‘I am not in the least composed,’ he returned. ‘A boy. They send a boy to kill me.’ The others broke off their conversations to listen. ‘Why?’ he went on. ‘Why would Katashi Otako send a boy to kill me? Does he think I will not torture a boy? Not kill a boy? Does he think I would make the same mistake twice?’
‘Perhaps the boy has some hidden skill, Majesty,’ said Councillor Ren placatingly. ‘You yourself were once called the “Boy General”, so perhaps it is best not to underestimate this Regent based on his age.’
‘Thank you for the reminder, Councillor,’ Kin said coldly.
‘He must be more than just a boy,’ Governer Ohi said, leaning in to give his opinion, his teacup halted halfway to his lips. ‘Assuming this “Monarch” is Katashi Otako, he would not take just any waif as a captain.’
Councillor Ahmet let out a little snort of air. ‘General Ryoji informed me that the boy had golden hair. Some Otako by-blow, perhaps.’ He looked to me as he spoke, a smirk tilting the corners of his lips.
‘It is a common enough colour in Chiltae, Councillor,’ Kin said. ‘And as that is most likely where Otako has been living for these last sixteen years, I find it in no way remarkable.’
A gentle tap sounded at the door, and the Imperial Chancellor entered, bowing on the threshold. His face was white, his hands shaking. Beckoned in by a hand free of all ornamentation, he knelt beside the emperor and whispered in his ear. With no other clue to the man’s words, we all watched Kin’s face. His scowl darkened, but only I was close enough to see his fist clench upon his knee beneath the table, buckling the stiff silk.
‘Out,’ he said, the order delivered in an even tone. ‘All of you. And someone send for Father Kokoro.’
The Imperial Council looked at one another, but Kin did not retract his order. Councillor Ahmet was the first to put his cup down and stand, instigating a chorus of clinking porcelain and a rustling of silk as the rest of them followed his lead. One after the other they bowed and left, muttering and whispering before they had even made it to the door. I was glad to escape and prepared to stand, but Kin stopped me with a touch to my sleeve. ‘Stay a minute, Darius,’ he said.
‘Majesty,’ I murmured, sitting again, my head throbbing.
Kin waited until all the others had gone, leaving bowls of rice and fish in various states of messy incompleteness. In Councillor Ren’s place half a dozen grains of rice scattered the black lacquered table.
‘They stole the Hian Crown.’
I heard the words, but they didn’t immediately penetrate my head. All I could think of was the jar of peony root on my desk. My mother had believed there was nothing better for easing a headache.
Kin kept talking. ‘They got in through an old cellar that connects to the waterway.’
‘They, Majesty?’
‘The guards say there were some half a dozen, including Regent. They killed one and followed the others, only to lose them in the tunnels.’
‘Do you mean Regent was a decoy?’
‘An expensive decoy, unless for some reason Katashi wanted to be rid of him.’
The Hian Crown.
‘Would Katashi have known we took the crown with us?’ I said.
Kin shrugged one shoulder in an oddly pettish gesture. ‘No doubt. Emperor Lan took the tour every year and carried it to Koi.’
‘Were any of the other strongboxes robbed?’
He turned an ugly sneer on me. ‘Worried for your jewels, Darius? Or is it fine robes you keep in there?’
‘Both, Majesty,’ I said mildly.
‘You know it’s an unpardonable offence to dress better than the emperor.’
I looked down at my robe and then at his. ‘Planning to have me executed?’
Anger and amusement sought possession of his face before he settled for pursing his lips. ‘Your impudence is your only redeeming feature, Darius.’
‘Not my intelligence?’
‘To someone who needs it perhaps. You seem to forget that I am the one who has kept this empire together.’
‘I don’t forget, Majesty. You are a formidable opponent. Witness our current Errant game. It might yet go to you, the last nearly did.’
‘There is such a thing as too much impudence.’
‘Is there, Majesty?’
‘I don’t think you understand. Without the crown–’
‘You aren’t the true emperor,’ I said. ‘“And the gods did give the Hian Crown to the First Emperor of Kisia and blessed it for a year of moons, not to be renewed until that emperor once more sat upon the throne at Koi and took the Imperial Oath”. A vow you are due to take in three weeks.’
Kin looked annoyed, as though he would have preferred stupidity. ‘Katashi with the Hian Crown,’ he said. ‘There will be bloodshed for this. The northern nobles have been recalcitrant of late. They have a claim to the throne, and now they have the crown. If we cannot get it back, if that little kasu will not talk, there will be war. I swear to the gods I will squash this rebellion and I will mount every last one of their heads outside the city walls, starting with Regent’s.’
‘And so?’
‘I will request Councillor Ahmet to bring in his man. He has ways and means that get results. I need information and I need it now.’
‘I’ll talk to the boy,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘I said I’ll talk to Regent. You know how persuasive I am. Half of your councillors are afraid of me, as are half of your generals and all of your subjects.’
Kin turned his dark eyes on me. ‘My other councillors don’t trust you, Darius.’
‘Then by all means let Ahmet have his fun, but let me talk to the boy first. My methods of extraction don’t kill weaklings
before they can utter a single word.’
For a long time he stared at me, barely blinking. There were dark rings beneath his eyes and new lines upon his brow.
‘Very well, do it,’ he said at last. ‘But Darius, if you betray me, I won’t just have your head. I’ll cut you into a thousand pieces and scatter you to the winds a nameless traitor. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Majesty. I regret that I have given you cause to doubt my loyalty.’
‘You haven’t yet. That’s what I told Ahmet. Don’t make me wrong.’
Taking that as my cue to leave, I stood, smoothing the front of my robe. ‘I will find out what I can,’ I said. ‘But I must make one request.’
‘I thought you already did.’
‘One more then. No guards.’
His thin lips pressed together. ‘Why?’
‘Because an audience only makes it harder to persuade a man to talk. If you were being questioned with a dozen men watching, wouldn’t you be thinking more about your honour than your skin?’
‘Very well. But remember what I said. Hallan has had him moved to the Pit. You might want to change out of that robe before you go down there.’
‘And into what?’
‘Something more ugly and less expensive.’
‘Apologies, Majesty, but I own no such thing.’
His lips twitched. ‘Impudent! Go, before I change my mind. You have until Ahmet’s man arrives.’
I bowed and made my escape, slipping out into the gallery. Father Kokoro was there, examining the Scroll of War while he waited. ‘Ah, Minister,’ he said, making no sign he remembered our previous meeting. ‘You are always the first summoned in troubling times, are you not? I could wish our beloved emperor would be as reliant upon the gods. He who neglects not his faith shall never grow old.’
I opened my mouth to retort, but the old man merely smiled and went on: ‘Yes, your witty tongue would remark that I am old. It is, as you well know, a figure of speech.’
‘Isn’t all religion?’ I said, feeling I had a score to settle. ‘Metaphor and moral, dictated by man through the lips of gods?’
