Embers of Empire

by Michaela Strauther

  Sutra

  ’m afraid parties are no longer my source of entertainment, Katrina,” Sutra replied.

  The petite girl leading him into the small room only came up to his ribs, and Sutra couldn’t help thinking that a girl her age should have been anywhere but there, with him, leading him to a closet in his own castle. But Iryse, his hawk-eyed brother, had seen him leaving, and he had decided that Sutra needed a maid to escort him. It might have been that Iryse was worried Sutra would do something radical behind his back, but Sutra had reason to believe that Iryse didn’t yet understand how radical Sutra had become, and that his real reason for making a maid shadow Sutra was to exert his own power.

  Katrina, as eager to please as she always was, nodded and closed the door behind them. “Would you like anything else, Your Majesty?”

  “Nothing more than to be left alone. Thank you.”

  Katrina nodded again and left, leaving Sutra alone in the closet and surrounded by portraits and old, jeweled possessions.

  This was a room Sutra had not spent time in in a long while. He’d been too preoccupied—sneaking around Iryse’s back to avoid his sadistic plans, disguising his own secrets, soothing his eternal headaches with books and wine and memories—and could never find the time to come to one of the rooms that he held dearest—other than the library and the music room, of course. This room—the part of the room devoted the Ketru, at least—was almost spiritual for him. He’d decided that a long time ago.

  Though he hadn’t visited the room in a while, the maids and servants knew by now to keep Ketru’s items immaculate, not a speck of dust or a scuff to be seen anywhere, and ready for him anytime he needed it. And right now, he needed it.

  Uncle Ketru was his idol. In the absence of his father, who’d become too sick to move and breathe at the same time, Ketru had been both a wonderful substitute father and an even better ruler. His ruling was what Sutra and his four other brothers had aspired to—of course, they had strayed since their aspiration peaked, but in the beginning, Ketru’s ruling was an ideal. That, and the fact that he had been the brothers’ father when they lost their own, was what made his death so painful. Who could they look up to now that they’d become the kings?

  So whenever Sutra came into the small closet, its shelves lined with countless other glorious kings before him, Ketru was whom he wanted to stand out.

  His portrait stared intently at Sutra now, as if it knew all of what he’d done in the past few centuries. As if it knew Sutra hadn’t come to see the painting in a decade. As if it knew Sutra didn’t deserve to have his portrait painted and placed among the others in the closet.

  Sutra knelt before what was left of his uncle and bowed his head. “Uncle,” he began, unable to look the omniscient painting in the eye. “I’m sorry I haven’t come to visit you in a while. Times have been quite a bit difficult, what with Iryse parading around as if he owns the world . . . I just wanted to see you again. I haven’t been able to clear my mind, and I have found that this is the only way in which I can do so. It is hard to clear your mind and focus when the cries from the prison echo through your walls at night, when Iryse keeps speaking of the Phoenix Arena.” He stopped and laughed at himself for a second, as he could not explain to his uncle what a senseless idea like the Phoenix Arena was. And just like that, in the silence following his light laughter, he heard a scuffle.

  It was very soft, and perhaps if he were still mortal, he would not have been able to hear it well, would not have cared. But with that Lucifer’s drug also came vigilance.

  Sutra stood. The sound could have been a mouse, but the idea of another pesky servant snooping through the house was enough to silence Sutra and make him unsheathe his sword. He’d caught a servant hiding in his bedroom before—crammed underneath the bed and downright terrified. The servant had been stealing his jewels, so the servant had been fired.

  That’s what Iryse had told him, but Sutra had a strong feeling the servant was executed in one of Iryse’s torture chambers.

  Sutra winced at the thought.

  He crossed through the room and nudged his sword behind portraits, pushing them back. Each time a portrait fell away, his muscles twitched, anticipating something—or someone—leaping out from behind.

  When the sixth portrait hit the ground, the door swung open, revealing Katrina again. She looked winded and frantic. “Lord Iryse is asking for you in the sitting room, second floor, Your Majesty.”

  Sutra swept his eyes over the room, looking for the black dress or suit of a maid or servant, or perhaps the brown, ratted tail of a mouse. “Why?”

  “He says he wants to ask you something, Your Majesty.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not quite sure about that, Your Majesty, but he says it’s urgent. He muttered something about the guards on the back wall of the castle.”

  Sutra sighed, taking one more brief glance around the room. He hoped it was only a mouse. Most maids didn’t like this room, anyway—the surfaces were too dusty, the portraits too disturbing.

  He followed her from the room, the door closing shut in a cloud of dust.

  Sathryn

  athryn’s eyes were squeezed shut so tight that she was seeing stars, and by the time the door closed, she was breathing so hard and so quickly that her lungs burned.

  She was too scared to move, too scared to do much more than stay crouched behind that corner shelf with her hands clutching her stomach and her jaw clenched shut.

  When a pair of hands rested against her forearms, she recoiled and scooted away. The hands came again, slower, gentler, and paired with a slow and gentle voice. “Sathryn—Sathryn, it is okay. It’s me . . . It’s Julian . . .”

  She cracked open her eyes. Julian was crouched in front of her, looking shaken but much more in control than she was, and his face was up close, his ocean eyes staring at her.

  “He’s gone,” Colette called from somewhere around the room. “He’s gone.”

  Colette’s red hair sprouted out no more than a few seconds later from behind another shelf.

  Sathryn’s mind, even though Julian’s eyes and hands tried to calm her, was still caught on what had happened moments before.

  The tension of having the king in the room hadn’t been as bad before someone—she wasn’t sure who—made a sound, which caused the king to poke around the room. Before, the king was praying. The portrait they had seen of Ketru had been a holy relic for him by the way he was talking to it and kneeling by it. The scuffling noise—it might have been her—was so incredibly soft—how could he hear that? At one point, as the king prodded around the room, his large, brown boot had stepped right in front of her, the shelf she hid behind the only thing separating them.

  Julian helped her up, and they slid out from the shelves. Navier and Colette were already waiting. Navier shot Sathryn a look—Are you okay?—and she nodded.

  After a long time of Colette’s hand resting on the doorknob and Sathryn hoping there was no one else behind the door, they exited back into the hallway, which was once again empty. Julian herded them all into a dim hallway despite Colette’s insistence that they keep moving.

  “We need to talk about what we heard,” Julian said.

  “Something about a party,” Navier suggested.

  “And a sitting room on the second floor,” Colette added.

  “And the Phoenix Arena,” Julian said. “Which means we should avoid any large sitting room on the second floor—that might be where the party is—and keep our ears peeled for the Phoenix Arena. He also said something about the prison,” he chanced a glance at Sathryn, but she nodded for him to carry on, “and the screams within the prison.”

  “And we know another king’s name,” Colette added. “Iryse.”

  Julian nodded and walked from the hallway, but Sathryn pulled him back. “But what about what the maid Katrina said about the guards?” Sathryn may have been in shock, but she could still hear what Katrina had said. “Guards along the back wall of th
e castle? That’s where we were, right? Which means the kings have talked to the guards and found out about us inside their castle already. Which means—”

  “Which means we must move quicker,” Julian said.

  “Which means we have to go!” Navier hissed. “If they know we’re in here, it’s too risky to keep snooping around. There will be sentries checking every corner in this—fortress—soon enough, and if they catch us, we’re dead. Or worse. We need to leave.”

  Julian shook his head. “We cannot leave. Who knows when we’ll get a chance to get in again? We should use where we are to our advantage—”

  “We are no good to anyone dead,” Navier muttered.

  Sathryn looked up at Julian, who had his eyes closed and his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “Colette,” he kept his eyes closed, “what should we do?”

  Colette stared at him, wide eyed, even though he wasn’t staring back. “I—I don’t think we will get a chance to do this again in a while . . . and if we leave, the kings might find us anyway . . . so . . . so maybe . . .”

  She was quiet again.

  “Sathryn,” Julian murmured, “what should we do?”

  Sathryn tensed. Why was he asking her? Didn’t she have the least experience with situations like these? But Julian had asked her, asked for her opinion even though she hardly had one to give. It appeared everyone wanted to leave, but Sathryn couldn’t help thinking of her father, and Etzimek, and her mother. If they all left and they never got a chance to make it back again, who would get them out of prison? She couldn’t let them die if she was able to save them now. And even if they did leave, Colette was right. It would only be a matter of time before the guards tracked them down and took them anyway. And leaving Kingsland just felt so . . . hopeless. Another trek from Kingsland to somewhere else, once again, wasn’t something she wanted to imagine, even if the bite of the cold were replaced by warm sunshine. Warm sunshine might have been worse, as all the animals that had hidden during winter were then going to come out for spring—large animals, confrontational animals . . .

  But here, in the castle ruled by five powerful kings and protected by perhaps hundreds of guards and servants and maids, what chance did they have then?

  Time.

  No one was out in the hallways yet. No one was looking for them yet.

  She looked at Julian, who had opened his eyes in her silence. “Stay,” she said. If only she could explain her thought process to Navier, who stared at her, speechless, and Colette, who looked indecisive and confused.

  “Stay,” Julian said with a soft smile.

  But Navier shook his head. “I don’t think I can do this, Julian. I still have my family—and they aren’t locked in a prison cell. What am I doing here if I run the risk of dying?”

  It was a good question. “Well . . . I’m here because I have nothing to lose. Because this is my mother’s work and all I want is for these kings to rot in Hell. But you—I understand if you want to leave,” Julian said.

  Now it was Sathryn’s turn to be speechless. What was he doing?

  “Navier, if you want to leave, you can leave. But I’m staying here—along with anyone else who wants to stay with me. All you must do is go back to KH4 and grab your things. If you go back to the hall where we entered from the storage chamber, there is a door that leads back outside in a tunnel, hidden from view. We didn’t use that entrance when we were trying to enter because the exit to the tunnel is—like I said—hidden. But my mother’s journals say it’s an escape route. I know you have family. I don’t want you to have to forfeit them for us.”

  Navier wrapped his arms around Julian. “I’m sorry.” He turned to Sathryn and hugged her. Sathryn hugged him back, realizing he was leaving. She’d been under the impression that the four of them could never split—that of course they were going to stay together. They’d gotten here together, after all. But as soon as Navier hugged Colette and pulled away, he smiled one last time at them all, and then left.

  Just like that.

  Sutra

  omeone had breached the castle walls.

  Iryse, pacing the floor of a room leading off the sitting room where the party was, wasn’t at all happy.

  All three of his other brothers were there too, as were four guards from the back wall of the castle, all looking frantic and confused.

  “Tell me again,” Iryse commanded. “How many were there?”

  The head guard, a man by the name of Ivan Alisi, piped up, “It was hard to be sure, Your Maje—”

  “Hard to be sure?” Iryse grunted. “Can you count, Alisi?”

  “Yes, Your Majes—”

  “Then tell me how many there were.”

  Alisi was starting to sweat. It darkened his cloak near the collar and under his arms. “King Iryse, I’m telling you that—”

  “Oh, so you are telling me things now?” Iryse sneered, ambling up to Alisi like a feral cat. “Well let me tell you something. You don’t tell me how many there were and your head will be on a pike by nightfall. And I won’t hesitate to make you suffer before then. So, tell me how many there were.”

  Alisi moved his lips without saying anything.

  Another guard piped up, which was good for Alisi. Had no one said anything, Sutra was sure that Iryse would follow through on his promises. “Your Majesty, there were at least two.”

  Iryse’s eyes whipped to the guard that spoke. “Two?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. Before I was . . . choked . . . and fell unconscious, I saw two people, a man and a woman.”

  “Their ages?”

  Now it was this guard’s turn to be unnerved. “It was difficult to tell, Lord Iryse.”

  Iryse was impatient. “Are you trying to tell me you can’t look at someone’s facial features and decipher what age they are?”

  “No, Your Majesty. The man had on a guard’s uniform that covered—”

  “A guard’s uniform?” Iryse roared. “Where in the blazing, orange flames of Hell did he get a guard’s uniform?”

  The second guard shrugged. “I don’t know, Your—”

  “What am I paying you dim-witted slugs for, anyway? Because surely it isn’t an amount equal to this subpar job you’re doing! Why am I paying you to guard my castle when you can’t even defend it against two people? There were a dozen or more of you out there—a dozen! A dozen should be able to knock down a group of rebels, slit their throats, bury all their bodies, write a letter to each family, water the grass, and still make it back in time for supper!”

  All four guards pressed against the wall in fear.

  “We need new guards on the back line,” Tyru suggested.

  “I know that,” Iryse muttered. “These fools are fired from the back lines.” Then, he turned to the guards. “You all will be guarding the third floor. Night shift. Now get out of my line of sight or so help me . . .”

  The guards rushed from the room, bowing to Iryse on their way out. “And send in Ormon Thoro!”

  Ormon Thoro was the lead guard of all the guards—a general as loyal to Iryse as Iryse was to himself. Thoro was small for a guard, both short and thin, but smarter than any sentry Sutra had ever seen and as good with a sword as any of the kings. His mind was sharp for his age, as even though the kings were over four hundred years old, their minds and bodies were the same as they were when they had first become immortal, when they were young men. Thoro was sharp for his age because his body and mind were well past the years of the minds and bodies of the kings. He had gray hairs speckling his chin and upper lip while the gray hair atop his head faded and thinned. He had the thin, wrinkled body of a tired, old man, but he couldn’t be deceived. His strategies were always flawless.

  Thoro marched through the doorway now, three swords sheathed in his belt and his nose up in the air. He bowed to the kings.

  “General Thoro,” Iryse’s harsh voice was calmer now, “I have just been informed that there was a breach in the castle.”

  Thoro did not look much surprised,
as he’d lived through many breaches in the castle walls and had handled them all quite well.

  “I need you to find whoever is in the castle and bring them to me or my brothers,” Iryse glanced about the room, his eyes pausing at Sutra, “who will then bring them to me.”

  Thoro nodded once. “Do you have the information on where they entered, Your Majesty, and at what time they entered?”

  “They entered from the second cellar on the back wall of the castle sometime early this morning.”

  Thoro nodded again, then pivoted on his heel and left the room.

  As soon as the door shut, Iryse turned back to the rest of them, a sinister smile on his face. “He will find them,” he assured, then strolled over to Sutra. But Sutra wasn’t fooled. Iryse’s hands were clenched ever so slightly, and when he stopped in front of him, his hard, brown eyes were narrowed.

  “Where were you?” he asked.

  At one point in time, they had all visited Ketru. But Sutra was the only one now, at least as far as he knew. “With Ketru.”

  Iryse huffed a laugh. “I did not know you still visited him.”

  Sutra shrugged. “I needed someplace quiet.”

  “Are you lying to me?” Iryse asked. It was such an up-front question that it threw Sutra off a bit, especially since this was one of the few times Sutra wasn’t lying to him.

  “No,” Sutra stated. “Ask Katrina if you doubt my word.”

  “I don’t doubt your word,” Iryse insisted. He said it like a person who doubted words.

  “I’m leaving now.” Sutra turned toward the door.

  But Iryse caught his arm, his steel grip nothing Sutra couldn’t handle, but enough to make Sutra stop. He was curious. “I will not doubt your word—if you don’t doubt my rule.”

  “Our rule,” Sutra corrected him. Behind them, their three other brothers stood quiet in the corner of the room. Nya paced the floor; Rowyn and Tyru conversed in low voices. They, like Sutra and Iryse, wore a gold crown atop their heads. Iryse had wanted them to—it was a party, and Iryse wanted the people attending to know exactly who the kings were.