His gaze meets mine as I struggle to reach him. The emperor steps in between us, planting himself so we can no longer look at each other, twisting the invisible blade deeper into my back.
“Sound the horn,” Emperor Sun says to Rayce. “Tell your people to stop fighting.”
“Let me…” His breathing is labored at best. “See…her.”
Before I can move, the emperor reaches down, grabbing me by the collar of my robe, and he picks me up like I’m nothing more than a sack of rice, my shirt pushing up high on my stomach. He throws me the last few feet to Rayce.
“You want to save her,” the emperor says. “All your people? Then do as you’re told.”
The cobblestones come for me hard, rattling my insides on impact. He’s using me against Rayce, our love for each other the final bargaining chip. But as long as it spares us both our lives, I don’t care.
Pushing past the stars in my vision, I look up and reach out for Rayce with a trembling hand.
“It’s okay.” I force my lips to smile when all I really want to do is scream. The center of another performance, acting out a romance in the middle of a tragedy. “Everything is going to be okay.”
Rayce clenches his eyes shut, his breathing uneven. “Sound the horn. I’ll…tell them…to surrender.”
The emperor flicks his hand at the Sun soldier nearest us. He unstraps a horn and begins to blow it, the echo of other horns wailing through the battlefield, freezing both soldier and rebel alike. They turn curiously toward the source of it, and nearly every rebel’s face grows dark, seeing their leader in his pitiful condition. It becomes clear what is about to transpire and the loss of hope is devastating.
Rayce bows his head, his sweaty hair slipping into his face to cover his eyes, even from me, as his uncle’s voice booms out around us.
“After brief negotiation talks,” the emperor says, looking out over the carnage of war. “Your shogun and I have agreed on a temporary truce in this pointless war. Zareeni rebels, look around you, there’s no way you can win, even with your odd contraptions. You’re outnumbered and your only source of exit has been cut off. Surrender now and your lives will be spared, but continue to resist my men and you will be slaughtered. There is no way out, the gates have all been secured. Surrender to spare your own life and that of your leader, or die a bloody death for a nonexistent cause.”
I sit up, blinking through my haze, and catch a few specks of green jumping out from the crowd. Among those faces, I’m able to pick out Suki turning wide eyed as she takes in the scene before her. What must we look like, Rayce on his knees, more blood than flesh, with me crawling toward him and the emperor standing proud?
The emperor kicks Rayce, nearly knocking his knees out from under him. “Now, nephew, it’s time to play your part.”
The struggle to even take a breath causes all of the gashes covering Rayce’s limbs to pool out, and one particularly nasty wound in his stomach to gush blood, but somehow, he finds the will to speak.
“Lay down your weapons.” He takes a deep gasp of air, aiming to project once more. “That’s an…order. I want to…spare your lives.”
Since the moment I began to believe in Rayce’s cause, I always thought the civil war between the Zareeni rebellion and the great empire of Delmar would end with Rayce ascending his uncle’s throne in a chorus of cheers, but as I look at the rebels dropping their weapons and being ushered to their knees at the command of the emperor, my heart sinks. No matter what is recorded in the books to come, I will always remember the truth, remember the cry of the hawk flying overhead because the rest of the world went silent. I look up at the bright blue sky, knowing it’s the only place I have left to hide, but I find no comfort there. There isn’t a place to hide.
So I rush for Rayce, for the only home I’ve ever known, kneeling next to him to caress his bloodied cheek, holding up his weight with my own so he doesn’t sink to the floor. His hooded eyes comb over me like he’s trying to take in every last detail and my heart clenches, knowing this is the last time we’ll be this close. The scar on his face ripples, but I’m unsure if it’s from the pain of his countless wounds or the fact that he realizes the same thing.
“I love you,” I whisper. “And I’m sorry. I had to do it.”
His eyes reflect back my sorrow as his forehead knits in a grimace of pain. He opens his mouth to respond, blood and spit bubbling out onto his lips.
Hands on my shoulders wrench me from him before I can hear what he might have said, rob me from ever hearing him repeat those three simple words back. I swing around to fight against the unfamiliar soldier as he yanks me away from Rayce, who falls face forward into the cobblestones without me to support him, unmoving in a puddle of his own blood. As the soldier drags me away, pressing into the wound on my side, the sound of my own screaming spills over from my head to echo in the air.
“Let me go!” I yell.
Tears stream down my face as I thrash and twist, trying to get back to him so that I can patch his wounds, find comfort in the sweetness of his arms, but the soldier doesn’t care about any of that.
The weight of our predicament crushes me as they drag me back toward the Imperial gates, back to the courtyard where I escaped so many months ago. The irony that now I’m being forced back through them, back into captivity, isn’t lost on me. As the door shuts behind us, I catch peeks of the square, of the carnage and blood spreading everywhere, of my friends kicked to their knees as soldiers pick through them. In the last second before the door shuts, I see two men heave Rayce up from the ground by his arms, his eyes shut, unseeing, and then the gate shuts, ripping me apart from my own heart.
And my world darkens.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It takes four days for the emperor to mostly unravel everything his nephew built. Four grueling days watching ants crawl around in the tanks covering the emperor’s office wall while I try not to squirm in the stringent wooden chair a soldier pushed me down into. The emperor has drilled me for hours about the rebellion, how it works, where he can find the base, about how the stunners operate. On the first day, I remained mute, staring stubbornly at a golden triangle pattern on the ceiling in the corner of the walls, but when he had Rayce dragged in bloodied and half alive, words flowed out of my mouth like water. Even more so when he threatened Marin, Calla, Lily, and Clover, who were overwhelmed on the wall after I left.
In his beaten state, Rayce heard his uncle and encouraged me to talk in order to save his people. And so I spoke, revealing everything I knew until my throat was sore and my mouth was dry.
A pair of older men sat on either side of the emperor in front of tiny tables, their scratching quills a constant harmony to the melody of my voice. The large doors scrawled with ornate silver latticework that I escaped through last time have been locked closed, barring the gardens outside from tempting me into an escape, and all books have been secured in locked cases. Not that I have anything to go back to. Wax paper blocks out so much light that it’s necessary to have a fire roaring at all hours of the day. I lose track of time, often walking in when it’s light only to leave in the odd hours of the night.
There are no breaks for me, no food, no hope for escape. Just the constant stream of questions and fear that one wrong answer might lead to someone I love paying the ultimate price.
The only thing worth risking my own safety for is healing Rayce so that he has a chance to survive. The vial of Borenite I took from Piper presses cold against my chest. After this latest round of questions, I’ll get into his cell somehow and deliver it to him, and face the consequences later.
Today, the emperor tends to a new collection of bugs that look just like white and pink cherry blossoms, and though their long, front hooked legs look dangerous, he handles them without gloves. He studies a large pink one, more flower than bug, while it seems to be praying, something the emperor clearly hasn’t done, judging by the dust covering his shrine for summer.
“And this mineral is found withi
n the base?” The emperor no longer finds it necessary to study me to decide whether I’m telling the truth. I am defeated. “If I send men there to excavate it, I can utilize the strange crossbolt weapons for my own campaign into Varsha? I’ve already cleared out the base and expect my men back in precisely three hours with the inventor and the rest of your rebel trash.”
I grip the edge of my chair, silence hanging nearly as heavy as the long red robe draped over my body, trying to weigh me down to the floor. The sleeves alone are made with more fabric than what I usually wear for a single robe. Every day it’s been another outfit of equal grandeur, like he believes drowning me in my body weight’s worth of silk will keep me grounded.
The scratching quills come to a stop, waiting for my response. He speaks about tearing down my entire life like it’s nothing.
“Are we having another fit?” the emperor asks, not even bothering to look at me as he studies his new pet.
I grit my teeth, glaring down at my hands to keep them from trembling. The last five nights of no sleep have worn me to the bone, making forming even the simplest of thoughts harder.
“No, I’m just thirsty.” My voice comes out raspy, confirming my statement.
“Then you know where the tea is, princess,” he says.
The oolong tea he poured me this morning sits cold in a small white-and-blue cup on his desk. A long dragon delicately painted in blue swirls around the surface, its tail making up the handle. The strong stench of the tea assaults my nose, reminding me that I’m in this room again because I lost.
We lost.
Sitting abandoned next to the teacup is the emperor’s seal, an ornate thing made out of pure silver with the imperial symbol on it. If I had something like that, no one would question me if I headed down to the dungeons under the emperor’s orders. Using it, I could walk right in to heal Rayce. It’s a risk, but saving his life is worth it. He won’t last much longer under the conditions I saw him in a few days ago.
The Borenite sends a cold wave over me, urging me on.
My nails drag across the wooden stool and I speak through my teeth. “Yes, if you mine the base, you’ll find what you need.”
The emperor sets the flowering bug down in a large wooden barred cage. “Very good. And your old master the Gardener should be there too, correct?”
Ice runs through the pit of my stomach, but I refuse to respond.
“I will need to rescue him,” he continues. “A deal is a deal, and he played his role in this so superbly. I must admit, I had my reservations, relying on the fool for such an essential role, but clearly he’s more competent than I imagined.”
My head whips up and I glare at Emperor Sun as he makes his way back across the room, his long light blue robe dragging dramatically behind him.
“Why bother rescuing him? You should just let him rot.”
He pauses in his tracks, resting a hand on the hilt of the same sword he used to end Oren’s life, and looks over at me, this time with a shred of interest shining behind his sharp eyes. “Believe me, I considered it. But I must keep my word. I know this isn’t a concept you understand.” His gaze slides from me to the bookshelf in the far corner of the room. “But I take my promises seriously, and the Gardener succeeded in feeding my nephew the information we discussed at the right times.”
The quills behind him continue to scratch out his response, recording our gravest mistake for the narrative the emperor has already begun to draft.
Despite anger roiling in my veins, my curiousity gets the better of me. “I don’t understand how you were able to time it, being apart. The Gardener never received any letters so it couldn’t have been by writing.”
“A date system. He knew what dates I would be where and he worked accordingly. The desert was the first test we conducted to make sure the rebellion was listening.”
The Gardener’s insistence on knowing what day it was, and the tally he kept carved into the stone wall on the small alcove… This entire time, we’ve been playing right into the emperor’s hands. Everything we’ve done to survive, all of the extra demands the Gardener added on to feed us information like he wasn’t going to give it to us this entire time…it was all already planned. His capture and surrender was planned.
That monster was right about one thing: he’s a better actor than I ever gave him credit for. He was willing to die for his last role, submit himself to grovel for it, all while actually being in control the entire time.
My blood runs cold. “So your army was responsible for the destruction of Dongsu?”
“Dongsu had to pay for its aid to the rebellion. An acceptable loss in order to end this pointless civil war.”
An acceptable loss?
Anytime I close my eyes, the charred and blackened bodies of those who couldn’t make it out haunt me. How can he write off those people’s lives like checks on a wager? My anger brims over and I snap up, knocking my chair and tea over. The ceramic cup shatters on the ground, the sound ringing through the air. I step over the glass, my slippered foot shattering it further, and reach to my side, only to remember that my stunner no longer rests there.
“No loss of life is acceptable.” I can’t keep my voice from rising or my fists from shaking underneath my billowing sleeves. “How dare you kill those innocent people for your own agenda. Do you say the same thing about Oren? Rayce told me about the two of you, he was your friend!”
“You would do well to remember your place here.” His commanding tone leaves nothing to intepret. “A woman’s use is to be seen and only heard when she is spoken to. If you have an opinion, it should stay on your tongue unless you’re trying to encourage me to cut it out.”
Or perhaps I’ll cut yours out first.
Rayce’s crumpled form keeps me from speaking aloud. Though they’d bandaged the worst of his wounds to stop him from bleeding out, the shallow, painful way he breathed twists my heart. To say they haven’t been careful with him is an understatement.
Insolence here is the same as insolence in the Garden. Speak out of line and someone else will pay the price for my wayward tongue.
Clenching my jaw to swallow my anger, I bow my head, trying to focus on the detailed stitching of golden cranes lining my disgustingly exquisite robe, and take a step back, gripping the emperor’s desk for support. My long sleeve billows out, covering my grasping fingers until they wrap around the metallic seal and I pull my hand back.
“That’s more…like it,” the emperor’s voice trails off. I peek up, the strangeness of his tone enough to rattle me from my own fury. He stares down at the bug moving in the wooden barred cage. His mouth, usually in a hard line, seems softer, his fingers more relaxed. “War is an essential part of any kingdom, whether one likes it or not. But some losses are more acceptable than others.” He grips the side of the table, his gaze steadfast on the bug, his voice far off. “Oren, for example, was necessary, but it wasn’t… If I could have…”
I don’t dare move, barely risk breathing as the emperor speaks. Could he actually feel sorrow for killing Oren? The story Rayce told me, about the times they would walk in the gardens, how the emperor and Oren would talk about politics, fills my head, nearly leaving me weak.
What looks like regret flashes across his face, but by the time I blink it’s disappeared.
He slams the cage’s lid shut, his face hard once again. “After the Summer Celebration tonight, all of Delmar will know my rightful claim to the Varshan throne and will understand my reasoning for showing mercy to such a lowly creature like yourself. In the following weeks, I’ll begin my campaign to unite the kingdoms and ensure my legacy with you quietly by my side.”
Instead of acknowledging him, I watch the flowering bug he’d set down in the cage immediately attack a smaller white one, clutching it between its front legs and ripping its teeth into the other’s flesh. Much like how the Delmarion soldiers pounced on the rebellion the moment they had them in their grasp. It makes me sick to my stomach, so I look away, a familiar fe
eling settling into the dormant parts of my body—hopelessness.
“Whether you believe it now or not, princess, our union will strengthen Delmar,” he continues. “Convincing my nephew to surrender was a wise choice. You saved many lives that would have otherwise gone to waste.”
I don’t respond, staying silent just like Rayce warned me to do. My bargain did save everyone on that battlefield, including Rayce, but watching the guards clean up the massacre and rally the remaining rebels solidified one fact in my head: I am alone. This time, no one is coming to save me from my fate. This time, Rayce needs me to save him. I grip the emperor’s seal tighter, my heart hammering in my chest.
His life, whatever of it the emperor allows him to keep, will be worth the slow decline of my own. I am nothing. Simply another insect for the emperor to show off, to shove behind a piece of glass and poke at. A flower wilting away without sunlight.
…
Our fifth day straight of interrogations ends earlier so that we can prepare for the festivities tonight, but instead of going back to my room like I’m instructed, I head deeper into the castle, guided by the fear in my heart. No matter what happens, I have to get Rayce the Borenite. The idea of facing the future without him, of leaving what is between us strained, breaks me.
His whispered plea the night before we fell into the emperor’s trap haunts me. Every time the silence stretches on for too long, I can hear him, the whisper of the life I wanted. The need to touch his face, feel his heart beating inside his chest nearly overwhelms me and I quicken my pace.
The Imperial palace buzzes above my head in preparation for the Summer Celebration tonight. Like the Spring Celebration before it, I should be in a room preparing to make an appearance, but this time I won’t be expected to be the center of the entertainment.
Of course, even that won’t be true when the emperor announces that I am the true heir to the Varshan throne. The secret I’ve kept for seven years will spread like fire throughout the land, from every pair of lips to every pair of ears until it inevitably reaches Varsha. A maid stops me once, but I flash the seal and she bows deeply, letting me on my way.
War of the Wilted Page 25
