by Jaida Jones
I hadn’t been able to speak with Mamoru properly since we’d left Volstov, so I couldn’t know how the new responsibility was weighing on him. The colors were all wrong, and the mountains should have been between us and the sunset, not the sunrise.
At the very least, there was color in Mamoru’s cheeks again—and we both owed that to this foreign land and their foreign magicians—some the very same men and women who had created the dragons in the first place. They were all very clever. I could grant them that.
“Ke-Han blood magic,” Lady Antoinette had repeated, her hands giving away what her face did not. “We have heard rumors, of course, but I never imagined such a thing might… It is forbidden, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I’d nodded. Forbidden. A shameful act to take against one’s enemies, let alone one’s own kin. It was a part of our culture, in that the warlords still pledged a vial of their blood to the current Emperor, but that was more of a symbol, signifying the trust it took to give one’s lord such power voluntarily. The understanding was that it would never be used, that it was a mark of their loyalty. To pervert even that was unimaginable. The gods would see to Iseul’s punishment in the next life, if not in this one.
“We can fix it,” Antoinette had said hesitantly, as though thinking aloud. “It would be best if we could get the object from your current Emperor, of course, but it certainly isn’t necessary. Blood magic operates on the principle that even when lost, a part of you will still wish to return to the whole. The whole, in turn, recognizes that part as something of its own, and a kind of… resonance occurs between the two. All we have to do is change it so that Lord Mamoru’s body no longer recognizes the blood as something lost. It would be far simpler if we could just cast off the things we lost like a lizard with its tail, but we, as a race, are so inconveniently built.”
“This is something that can be accomplished, then,” I’d said, careful not to misunderstand.
“Yes. Luckily our magic, as perhaps you might know, rests in the blood instead of drawing directly from the Well, as it did once,” she’d explained. “That’s how we know more about it. It’s different from yours, which as far as I understand involves a great deal of bartering with spirits and the like.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” I’d said. “Our magic is based in the land, in borrowing its power. Any man can use such a thing if he trains his mind around it. The details of it—the secrets—are quite well kept by those men who possess them. Only a rare few are given that position. The waters are not channeled, but…”
“Perhaps we will be able to study your wild rivers one day,” Antoinette had said. “One day, when all this is over.”
“Thank you for helping him,” I added, allowing the gratitude I felt to seep into the words.
“His own brother,” Lady Antoinette had said, this time conveying everything with her face, in a way that would have been considered most shameful in the capital, my lord’s home.
I found it fitting somehow, after everything we’d been through.
“So we can help him,” the Margrave named Royston told me. “A magical medicine, I suppose. One we’ve perfected since…” His lips twitched, and again I was reminded of the differences between our two peoples. “Well, since you-know-what.”
I neglected to tell them that the snake in the Well had, in part, been Iseul’s idea—a magic based upon the same feverish principles that plagued my lord.
Their medicine was better than any potion fed to him when he was little; it was no simple tea. It had been created to counteract the effects of poisoning from afar—Ke-Han blood magic, the same that had been used in the war against them.
It was strange to think they should be helping us. I hoped the gods would forgive us in time.
“This shall stand between his blood and… well, his blood, I suppose,” Margrave Royston explained to me. He seemed to have taken pity on me—no doubt because I looked like a dead thing, without sleep and without peace—and so placed a hand on my arm as we waited for Mamoru to wake. “We shall hope it lasts long enough to stop it at its source.”
“As you have also done in the past,” I said.
“Well, that,” Royston agreed.
It was a miracle to see my lord so well so quickly, though his limbs were weak and his coloring still paler than it had been. Time was of the essence, nonetheless. The moment he was standing, he said he was ready, and I allowed the lie. I even helped him saddle his horse.
I watched him like a hawk for any signs of relapse, but there were magicians among our number, and Margrave Royston had assured me they would do all they could.
“The Esar is behind this endeavor,” he said. “Take comfort from the knowledge that he needs you.”
I did, however grim that comfort might have been.
On the first night there were fires burning in the mountains, though from where we made camp I couldn’t tell who was winning. Instead of trying to judge what was impossible to judge, I went to find my lord, who had retreated to his own tent since the sun had set, and hadn’t emerged once.
I knelt as I entered. Then, when Mamoru did not bid me rise, I raised my head cautiously.
He was sitting against the far canvas wall, limp and as if still in sleep, though he was sitting, his head unbowed. His hair was braided as it had once been for his victories in the long war, but his clothing was new and a strange foreign imprint on the rest of him, which was so familiar to me. They should have at least clad us in blue, though that moment would prove striking in a print. When the art was made of that day, as I knew it would be, the color would serve as quiet commentary, that which would remain unsaid between the other lords.
“My prince,” I whispered.
“It smells like dragons,” he said, opening his eyes. In the flickering light of the lamp he’d lit, I could not read his expression. “The smoke from the mountains. Are we doing the right thing?”
“My lord,” I said, not rising from my place. “Iseul has tried to kill you. He has broken two of our oldest laws; he has harmed a brother and he has manipulated the blood. It is your place—no, it is your duty—to make right what he has broken. Think of what your father would want if he were here to offer his counsel.”
Mamoru nodded slowly though he didn’t seem convinced.
“They—the Esar, and his men, that is—intend for me to kill him.”
“He is too dangerous to be kept a prisoner,” I reasoned, hating myself for being the one to speak such things. Mamoru’s arm, at least, was no longer bandaged from where I’d beaten him to save his life, and the bruises were beginning to fade. Those wounds, at least, healed quickly. There were others—some of them I bore—that would take more time than that.
Slowly I rose, crossing the distance between myself and my lord to kneel properly at his side.
“When you are Emperor, Mamoru, you may take your summers anywhere you like. Even in a small fishing village in Honganje should you so choose.”
Mamoru turned to me, his eyes wide with surprise. “What?”
“You look as though you’re headed to an execution instead of home,” I said.
Mamoru laughed, more quietly than I’d grown used to. “I am headed to an execution,” he said. “Though hopefully it is not my own.”
“The offer remains,” I said. “I told you I would take you to my sister’s home in the mountains. We’ve come this far.”
“Then I might meet her after all,” Mamoru said, drawing his knees up to his chest and turning his gaze into the lamplight.
There was so much of the Emperor in him. Looking at him was sometimes like catching an accidental glimpse of the sun. Both made my nose sting and my eyes hurt.
“She’ll likely kill me for bringing an imperial entourage into her house without forewarning,” I added. “We’ll have to write to her first, in any case.”
“She sounds wonderful,” Mamoru said. There was a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Of course she’s wonderful,”
I said. “If you’re willing to wake up earlier than the gods in the morning to a punishing day spent in a boat smaller than a hollowed gourd.”
“I happen to think I’d make an excellent fisherman,” Mamoru pointed out. “Fear of fish notwithstanding.” The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air, and when he spoke next there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice. “Do you think we’ll make it in time?”
“Yes,” I said. “I don’t believe that we would have come so far only to fail in the final hour.”
He smiled bleakly. “I hope you’re right. Think how disappointed Goro would be if we ruined his play.”
“You must forgive me my overconfidence in this one small area,” I said, leaning my shoulder against his. “Since we have dared to accomplish the impossible so far, I find it hard to imagine that we mightn’t do it here as well.”
“The only question, then, is whether we will arrive at the capital in time to save the diplomats,” Mamoru said, and turned his face toward the far wall.
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t envy them their positions; nonetheless, I wished we were with them already.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ALCIBIADES
So. There I was, with my only ally, Lord Temur—someone who hadn’t been an ally up until a very short time ago, and maybe it said something about the state of my mind that I trusted him as much as I did, but I did. And there we were, about to be causing a whole lot of trouble for everyone, including ourselves. If Greylace had been around, he would have said something like “Any famous last words, Alcibiades my dear?” Or “I’m so very happy to be sharing this moment with such dashing figures. Oh my!” It was much nicer to be with someone who appreciated the solemnity of a moment like that one: about to go against an emperor by breaking into a veritable holding cell while all his guards, who were a whole lot better equipped than you were, came rushing at you with only one charge.
Kill.
“You seem nervous,” Lord Temur said in such a wry tone of voice that for a moment I didn’t even believe it was him. Gallows humor, I guess they called it. Even the Ke-Han must’ve had a word for it, too.
“Just feeling practical,” I said, trying not to smash my head against the ceiling as the walkways got smaller and smaller. I’d done it twice already, and the last thing we needed was to alert our enemies to our presence because I was hitting my head on things. Places like this just weren’t built for men like me. Little snakes like Caius Greylace were another story entirely.
“Your friend is very resourceful,” Lord Temur replied. “I would not worry about him. I think he can survive anything.”
“We’re not actually friends,” I began to explain, trying to find some patience within me. “In point of fact, I can’t stand the little bastard.”
“Hm,” Lord Temur said. “Time for that later, I suppose, if all goes well.”
He turned to look at me, and I could see his eyes in the darkness, black for the most part but with a flash of light. Sheer determination. I felt it too, coming up to knot in my belly; the way I always felt right before a fight broke out. A real fight, a fight that mattered.
“It is an honor to fight beside you,” Temur went on. They were like the words to some kind of ritual or prayer, and I felt awkward not knowing what my part in all this was, and even more awkward because of all the horseshit that had already gone down. “You are a worthy enemy; this makes you a worthy ally.”
“I don’t take stock in any of that,” I muttered. “Just so you know, I think all this honor and duty and fealty isn’t worth the ground a horse pisses on.”
“About as much as you do not consider the Lord Greylace your friend, I would wager,” Temur replied. “The door is only big enough for one. Who shall go out first?”
“Pardon me,” I said, with a little flourish that would’ve made Caius happy, “but I think I will.”
We could have done this better, maybe; more subtly, definitely. But that wasn’t the point. The point was keeping them from worrying too much about the two who were missing. The point was distraction.
So I put my shoulder against the door, which was too little for me anyway, said a hearty fuck your mother to the element of surprise, and flung myself out into the mirrored hallway where, as Temur had explained, at least six men would be waiting for me.
They were quick. One lunged right at me before he’d even got over looking surprised, sword raised to kill, and this was no wooden blade made to look like the real thing. I was expecting it, of course. The sneaky bastards always had been quick, right up until the end when they’d gone and poisoned us all without our knowing it until it was too late. Lucky for both of us—the country lord and me—it was too close quarters for anyone to be using those murderous longbows that could punch through a horse, not to mention a man.
I braced my sword against the first guard, shouting bloody murder all the while because I was completely finished with sneaking around.
I heard Lord Temur directly behind me, and had a minute of feeling like we’d maybe done a terrible thing to him and his honor and whatever, getting him mixed up in our business like this. Then I couldn’t think about it anymore because the fighting had started and there wasn’t room for any thinking. I lunged forward while the poor bastard on the other end of my sword began defending himself in the cornered way that meant the fight was over before it had even really started. He knew it, and I knew it, but every man has the right to be stubborn.
I’d fought against Lord Temur in the training grounds. Shit, I’d even dueled with the bastion-damned Ke-Han Emperor himself, and both those fights had given me more than enough experience when it came to the Ke-Han style of man-to-man combat. The only thing the guard had over me was speed, which I was used to after the Emperor had turned out to be some kind of demon. The only thing you had to worry about when you were slower than the other guy was that when you hit him, you really had to connect.
Fortunately, connecting was kind of my specialty.
I hit him the next time he blocked high, throwing my weight in with the strike against his chest and sending him flying. In a neat kind of trick I couldn’t have planned even if I’d tried, he stumbled back into the next man heading toward us, blue sleeves tied back and cold duty in his eyes. I felt something knock into me from behind and realized none too soon that it was Temur, fending off an advance from yet another guard no doubt drawn there by all my noise-making.
We were in for it now. It had been a long time since I’d fought with anyone back-to-back.
“At least we know we’re in the right place,” I grunted, slamming the hilt end of my sword into some poor bastard’s face. It cracked in an ugly way that meant I’d probably got his nose, and I jerked my hand away quick before the blood started to spurt.
Temur gave a short laugh like maybe he thought I was crazy, or maybe he just enjoyed that stuff as much as I did and it was finally putting some humor into him. I almost wished I could’ve taken a break from my own fighting just to watch him and see if he looked any different now that we’d got some trouble started.
Unfortunately for both of us, the Ke-Han were stubborn if they were anything, and just then they seemed particularly stubborn about making sure I had no time for breathing, let alone sightseeing.
I blocked high with my sword, and punched another man in the gut. He doubled over with a groan; I helped him with my boot.
“Are you looking forward to becoming a hero, General Alcibiades?”
Of all the times to develop a sense of humor, I thought, wheeling around to catch another guard’s sword with my own blade. I only just did, and the way my arm ached with the impact let me know I’d caught it wrong and at too awkward an angle. It couldn’t be helped. The light there was dimmer than in other areas of the palace—because who wanted to waste lanterns on a bunch of prisoners and their guards, no doubt—and if Temur hadn’t been at my back, I’d have been worried about striking out at him too. Besides, they had all those mirrors helping them out. For all I knew, they were
predicting my every move.
“If we make it out of this alive,” I told him, “I expect people to be rioting at plays about us.”
Temur laughed in his brisk, polite way, just to humor me, before I heard the thump of a body hitting the floor. We made a good team, me and the warlord, which was something I’d never have expected in a hundred years.
“I had no idea you were such a fan of the theatre,” he said, and because I was listening and not paying attention, I didn’t notice the guard I’d punched getting up.
He charged straight at me that time with a yell of his own, the movement so sharp and unexpected that I only just stepped to one side in time. Pain flared hot in my arm, followed by a warm wetness against my sleeve that meant I’d only just dodged being skewered on someone’s sword like a fried dumpling.
Being grateful for small miracles meant that I had to be glad it was only my left arm. I shook it out and swung my sword up into a defensive position. By then I was mad.
“Hey,” I said, getting Temur’s attention while the guard circled us, and more poured in from behind sliding doors and secret compartments and bastion-only-knew where else. Six guards, my mother’s left tit. The Emperor’d known we felt cornered, and he was throwing everything he had at us just to show us how futile it was to try to fight back. “You know where the prisoners are being kept, right?”
My only answer was the sharp screech of metal against metal and a shout that turned into a wet kind of gurgling.
“I beg your pardon,” said Temur, “but there was a situation I may have resolved too hastily. I did not hear your question.”
“Prisoners,” I grunted, keeping my eye on the son of a bitch who’d wounded me.
“Ah,” said Temur.
“I’m thinking you go and get them,” I elaborated. “I’ll hold ’em off here at Tiger Tail Pass or whichever one it was where we beat your sorry asses all the way back to the dome.”
