The Empire (The Lover's Opalus)

by Grayson Reyes-Cole

  “Of course,” the Emperor returned.

  Raeche lowered herself to the ground beside him and playfully pinched her daughter’s chin before bending to kiss her.

  Rucha giggled then reached for her once more. With a soft touch, Raeche pulled her child onto her lap and embraced her. Rucha hugged her back, sent her flashes of warmth and joy before reaching up to place a tiny hand over each of Raeche’s eyes.

  At once, guilt washed through Raeche’s body. Guilt for her immature infatuation with Galan. Guilt for betraying her rearing and the Emperor who had done nothing but marry her and lay an Empire at her feet. For nigh on two rings he had left her completely alone but for the occasional required appearance. He demanded absolutely nothing of her–not even time in his bed. Instead of recognizing the strange freedom allotted to her, she had squandered the time on avoiding her husband and daughter. She had wasted circulations fretting over and investigating what she should have considered the blessing of Rucha’s parentage.

  She pulled back and stared down at her daughter. Raeche trembled.

  “Ray-ray-ray-ray-ka,” Rucha gurgled.

  “Ru-ru-ru-ru-ka,” Raeche returned, accepting a sloppy kiss on the mouth.

  Rucha raised one hand and leaned over to slap it hard against her father’s chest, right over his heart.

  “Ow,” he yelped, though he was smiling.

  “Lanus!” she squealed, enunciating: Lahhhh-noooss. The Emperor’s name sounded like a melody in the child’s voice. “Not Dada,” she added.

  Raeche looked up at the Emperor so fast she hurt her neck.

  He lifted one shoulder. “She should call me Lanus. She must see me as the man, the leader, even now, for she must learn what it means to rule this Empire.”

  Suddenly feeling like an intruder once more, Raeche nodded and scrambled to stand. She muttered something and started away. But she felt the tiniest tug at her hem.

  “Raeche, take me.” The child had not spoken but the request was clear in Raeche’s mind.

  So rare was it for Rucha to choose her mother’s company over her father’s that Raeche looked to her husband for permission. In one breath he granted it and assured her that she never needed to ask in the next.

  “Mama, Rucha.” She slid a glance at Lanus. When he said nothing, she repeated, “I am Mama.”

  Raeche took her baby to her room. She played with her, talked nonsense to her, and felt her torn soul begin to knit and her view of her life begin to evolve.

  Chapter 5

  As Raeche grew to love her child, she began to know Lanus in a way that was new and not new. Time in his presence became more comfortable even as the heat and power continued to stretch in the air between them. Most importantly, she learned she had never needed to fear violence from him. After all, he enjoyed punishing men who did violence to their women, a sin against the Balance of the Spirit. She had heard the horrifying stories of her husband in battle, yet he had never harmed a woman or child, even when his failure to do so had put his own life at risk.

  Once, Raeche used Spirit to follow him to the border to the South where he became both a man and a warrior who savored the blood of his Spirit-cursed southern enemy. All knew that no matter how strong his power, how far his reach and rule, the Emperor could never enter the land of the Poachers and Riddlers or he would die and even Valor could not save the Empire from being forfeit. Just outside the Death White Border, the Emperor shed his magic, his clothing and anything that could be poached. He embraced the beast inside him, for the riddles of the southerner would drive a thinking man insane but would do nothing to thwart an animal thriving on instinct.

  There was war and blood and blood-singing by the victors. The Emperor sang the loudest–as his blades had tasted the most blood–terrifying all within range. Then came the southern giant, a poacher by his look, with dark metal covering his head and his manhood, a heavy axe in his hands, and shoulders twice as wide as the Emperor’s.

  The violence of the battle made Raeche ill. She lay staring at the scene against her ceiling as her soul wept. Her emotions were so strong that her Spirit touched him and he fell. The Emperor barely managed to roll so that the falling ax only glanced his shoulder. He came to his feet immediately, sank into a battle stance and laughed before killing the wielder of the ax. He blood-sang as he reached out Spirit across time and distance to touch her with a fingertip, leaving a small print of blood on her cheek beneath her eye. She lifted her hand to wipe at the blood, but her hand came away clean, as if she had absorbed it. It had become a part of her. She had only seen something like this once before, when her own blood had been drawn down into the gleaming white wood of her mother’s vanity so many rings ago.

  Raeche felt brave in the knowing of him and pride in the mark. Her health, vigor and hunger returned. Still, her desire to rebel against the Emperor was bolstered, amplified, though she did not understand the reason. She no longer hated him for making her feel fear but sometimes felt like little Eynow, Imperial Prince of Innov and Rucha’s future husband, who was a boy born for mischief. When the children played together he would pull Rucha’s hair, pinch her, push her. Even though the adults scolded and disciplined with Spirit, Eynow did not stop as long as Rucha continued to be disinterested.

  Was Raeche a child? Did Raeche’s urges, like those of Eynow, stem from a desire to be seen by the Emperor? He did not ignore her. Even as he ruled, he encouraged Raeche into the light, to take her place as a ruler beside him. When she did, he expressed his joy. He confessed that the burden of the Empire turned to satisfaction when shared. He confessed to being weary of court and to craving the escape of war at times.

  Raeche wanted to escape into war as well, but the only enemy she craved was her husband. Her heart raced when she was with him and she chanted in her head, begging the Spirit to save her from doing something utterly horrifying. Sometimes she wanted to stab him in his sleep just to see his eyes when he witnessed her seated above him with the blade.

  This was either insanity or illness.

  After asking Taritana to summon a doctor, Raeche failed to properly describe her ailment and was given a potion to help her sleep. She did not take it. Instead, she lay in bed with her body burning, reminding her of Galan, but not of Galan.

  She had come to curse Galan and think of him as a thief. Long before Rucha’s birth, Raeche had sent him away, fearing what would happen when the truth was known, fearing what was happening as she found herself no longer stirred by his caresses or impressed with his small stature or even interested in the lovely play of his timra. Yet now, though she did not want him and had trouble remembering his face, her breasts and womb ached as they had when first he had come to her, and she could not keep her thoughts from turning to the Emperor.

  Chapter 6

  “You called for me, Taritana?”

  For some reason, his voice caused an itch in her belly and between her shoulder blades. Its rasp became a tangible touch. It was the oddest thing. Then again, Valor did remind her very much of his brother.

  “Yes.” Taritana dipped her head in a greeting that showed respect absent of deference. “I heard that you had returned from the South.”

  “I would not miss Rucha’s celebration. She is, after all, my favorite niece.”

  “You have no other.”

  “Favorite just the same.”

  Taritana nodded but said no more. He shifted under her gaze and she wondered why he always seemed to be in motion.

  A weary sigh parted his lips as he raked his hands through his hair. He smiled at her and the smile was…odd. “What is the state of the Empire?”

  “Valor?”

  “Taritana, you have summoned me. You only do so when you would like to educate me on the state of the Empire. So let us discuss it.”

  Her brows furrowed. Valor did not usually handle her so. Usually he was kind to her, soft with her, conspiratorial even. Still, he was correct. She did want to discuss the Empire.

  She fiddled with the pad co
vering the palm of her left hand. “That she believes she has a private life demonstrates how much of a young fool she is.”

  Valor shrugged. “That may be true. But what does any of it matter? Even in the South, I have seen girls painting red hearts on their faces to mimic the blood-mark. They find it romantic. The warriors do not find my brother weak–they think him virile because the most beautiful and powerful woman in the Empire desires him so much that she bedevils him, seeks him through Spirit, and has forgotten her would-be lover altogether. They believe that Lanus inspires passion. He does. Women, low- and high-born, practice deceit and treachery solely to get a glance at him. Those who get a glance long to know him. Those who know him personally fall in love.”

  Taritana coughed.

  “He is also lethal and fair. A warrior without rival as well as a scholar of the Empire and the Spirit, which makes him a judge without compare. The Empire recognizes their leader.”

  “Fine, Valor. Maybe that is true. But what of her? She has never performed her duties as Empress. Every task she does not do falls to me as her Personal.”

  “She does not share a bed with Lanus–does that fall to you?”

  Before reason could take control, Taritana lashed out, nearly making contact with Valor’s cheek. Instead her hand slammed against a wall of Spirit. She snatched it back, stung by the blow.

  Valor laughed at her. “You strike not because that responsibility does fall to you, but because it does not.”

  The Empress’s Personal recovered quickly. “I forget myself.” She bowed her head, eyes on the ground. Then she cleared her throat. “Perhaps you do not understand the significance of this situation. You spend all your time at the Death White Border chasing the ghosts of Poachers and Riddlers. Like the Empress, you also ignore your duties. By rights, you should either be here in the palace or in Old Castle learning to run the Empire in the event of the Emperor’s–”

  “My brother is safe. As is his heir. The Codices speak of Rucha’s rule, so I am certain the Empire would pardon my neglect.”

  “What has happened to you, Valor?”

  “Happened to me?”

  “You and I have shared eyes, ears and heart more often than not.”

  “We could still if you would but open your eyes, open your ears and open your heart,” he said softly.

  Taritana was startled by both his words and tone but continued as if he had not spoken. “We both took our duty to the Empire seriously. We were both devout followers of the Spirit. You knew, as I know, that she is vapid and loose.”

  “Nothing has happened to me. I would turn that question on myself if I were you.” He stepped closer to her. “Now before I leave, I warn you, Taritana. Do nothing that harms her.”

  “I would never harm the Empire!” She was appalled he would even suggest such a thing.

  “No, you would not. But you would hurt Raeche.”

  “Raeche is the Empire.” She could not keep bitterness and aggression from her tone.

  “You misunderstand on purpose. I do not believe you would do anything to change her status in the Empire or even lessen her status in the eyes of the Emperor, but I believe you would hurt her. I am asking you not to.”

  “I have no power here.”

  “You have more than her own mother, who is lost to her own desires. You have as much as a sister, had she had one. She views you as her woman-kin.”

  Taritana swallowed. Heat built in her neck and ears. “She does not. She hates me as I do her.”

  “Maybe, but you are the only one who is close to her outside of the child and, in his own way, Lanus. Neither of those relationships nurtures her.”

  “I am not her friend.”

  “You have seen the tree from which that leaf falls. Raeche does not know the difference. Listen, Tana. No matter what you do,” Valor said, stepping slowly away from her, “Lanus will never love you, yet he would happily destroy us all to have her.”

  “Then he is a–”

  Striking fast as a timra, Valor used Spirit to close her lips over words that would be blasphemous. “What has driven you this far?”

  Still silenced by his power, Taritana did not even attempt to speak though rebellion burned in her blood.

  Valor grabbed her wrists. She tried to pull away but he would not allow it. He ripped off the red scrap of material covering the skin on her palm and pressed his fingertips there.

  She tried to show him nothing, to hold back her visions. Instead, Taritana could sense him searching her naked mind and the vision Taritana chose to show him faded.. He found with ease the memory truly at work stirring her Spirit.

  * * * *

  “Empress,” Taritana prodded. “Your attendance at Prince Praytor’s Request for Ascension is requested.”

  “Has the Emperor asked for me?”

  It was not Taritana’s place to question the Empress, but in this she had been lax. “Is it necessary that he make this request? Whrennal, though in the West, borders the South and has been in dispute for seven long rings. Your appearance as well as the Emperor’s in support of either of the claiming heirs would settle the disagreement.”

  “Has the Emperor requested that I attend?”

  “No, Empress, he has not.”

  “Then I will not go.”

  “Surely you must. The rebellion in Whrennal must be ended. It is the first land outside the Death White Border to sympathize with the South. Should they threaten secession, there will be war. We must eliminate this threat at any cost, but not through approving and rewarding Praytor. His reign must fall.”

  “‘At any cost, but.’ Listen to yourself, Taritana. The wedding of Dahouina and Praytor ends this battle. At least so I have heard. There is nothing more to say on it.”

  Taritana took her leave of the Empress, failing to conceal her disdain and anger. She sought out the Emperor. Surely, Lanus would help if she made her case to him properly?

  Her heart was broken when she realized he would not favor her request. It was made worse when she saw Raeche had followed her to bear witness.

  “Lanus,” Taritana pleaded. “My sister is too young for Praytor. I have heard also that he is cruel. Do not listen to her!”

  In a breath he stood before her. His body seemed strung tight as a bow. His hands flexed as though he would put them at her throat. “You are never to call me Lanus again. You will never question the Empress again before me or any other.”

  “Yes, Emperor.” Her response was immediate. She lowered her head deep enough to show both respect and deference. She wondered if Raeche was satisfied, pleased even, with the Emperor’s response.

  Quickly, the Personal realized the little plague had melted away in the darkness. The Emperor’s eyes seemed to long for her.

  * * * *

  Valor brought her back from the vision. “It matters not that we dislike the Empress, or that she did not spend ages reasoning through it, or that she refused to attend the Ascension, or that she does not bear the burden of a heavy heart, or that it is well-known that Whrennal’s Prince has failed in all tests of manhood. The strategy is sound. Your sister’s marriage to Praytor does end the conflict.”

  Her knees shook as she wilted onto her seat, face in her hands.

  Valor did not touch her. However, he vowed, “I will ride West and look in on Dahouina. You have my word.”

  Chapter 7

  On a gray but dry morning, the Emperor did not go to court. He did not visit kings or queens. He did not hear disputes. He did not go to the South for blood sport. Nor did he go west for Praytor the Unmanned’s Ascension. Instead, he asked Raeche to join him and the children for a light repast and recreation on the lawn to the East.

  This day, she held her hands to her abdomen while watching Rucha and little Eynow swing in a dangerous contraption made of metal that groaned with each forward motion and looked as if it would cast them into the sky. The sound of it caused her to shiver. The Emperor sat on the ground beside her, laughing.

  Her to
ne evoked the Spirit of Neutrality. “Emperor, have you not a worry?”

  “No. The children wear the Spirit of Protection. Taritana blessed them this morning.”

  “The children are blessed that she does not reject duties meant for their benefit.”

  The Emperor did not respond to her barb. “They will wear it until they are put down for the night.”

  Raeche nodded though the knot in her stomach did not lessen. “Has she gone West then?”

  Again, he made no answer.

  “Strong with the Spirit of Will, my Personal. Do you think her loyalty to the Empire will supersede her desire to save her sister from Praytor?”

  “I think, perhaps, that we should have played this way.” He gestured to the children, with the smallest of glances at Raeche.

  The Empress licked her lips and took a long breath. In ignoring her question Lanus invited war between them, yet Raeche sensed he meant it as observation alone. Built into that observation was something more important. Eynow’s parents, the king and queen of Innov, had been raised together as children. Taught as one, counseled as one, even bedded down as one in the night. It was the way of the Innov. They surely lived for each other and their offspring, all twelve of them, of which Rucha’s little prince was the eleventh. They had encouraged a closer relationship between the children, though even they had not wanted Eynow to be parted from the family for long.

  Eynow had been selected for his lineage: a pedigree that closely resembled the Emperor’s, his age–just nine cycles older than Rucha–his deep connection with Spirit, and his stature as the eleventh child. He would lack ambition or the necessary aggression. Intelligent and kind, he would have a freedom in life that would balance the ruler Rucha would become. Rucha, her father’s daughter, loved fiercely but cruelty paced within her alongside determination and ambition. Hers was a warring nature.

  Watching the children now, Raeche was pleased by the Emperor’s invitation. She loved her daughter in truth, and, lately, she had come to accept that Rucha looked, walked, spoke, and felt like the Emperor. Galan had become a pleasantly elusive dream made of sensations and distortions.