Embers of Empire

by Michaela Strauther

  “Did you like my mother?”

  Sutra breathed in too hard and coughed. When he stopped, he felt his face heating up. What was he supposed to say? These were the dangerous grounds. To lie, to say that he did not like her would dishonor Anya and push the boy away, would make the boy not trust him anymore—if, in fact, the boy even trusted him now. To be truthful and say he did more than like his mother could have the same effect as saying he did not like her.

  His heart spoke before his brain could. “I loved your mother.”

  Julian’s eyes widened.

  “She was—uh—a wonderful—um—maid. Very good to me—to—to all of us.” Sutra covered himself. Apparently, Julian wasn’t ready to hear the truth of his mother and Sutra.

  “Then why did you let her die?” Julian asked.

  “Her death is one of my biggest regrets,” Sutra murmured.

  Julian’s eyes were shining—most likely with tears rather than with happiness. “How am I supposed to believe you?”

  Sutra smiled. He was sitting in the chair by the beds. He held his head in his hands as he spoke. “Your mother’s favorite instrument was the harp. She would come into the music room whenever she could—and whenever she wasn’t in the library—and teach herself to play. She even tried to teach me once or twice, but my large hands were never quite good at plucking the thin strings. She got quite good at it, and the day before she died she was planning a little concert for me.”

  Sutra, smiling and laughing to himself, was no longer sitting in front of three people in an underground bedroom. He had traveled over ten years back.

  “She was going to play for me pieces she had memorized and pieces she had composed herself—her own pieces. I—I never heard them, because that night, Iryse sent out search parties to raid the servants’ homes. Some servants, like your mother, went home for the night, while others chose to stay here, in the servants’ quarters. All the homes were raided, all of the quarters were raided—all in the search for stolen money. Someone had stolen a large bag’s worth of small, gold bars, gold and silver pieces, and jewelry, which is not much to be stolen when you have hundreds of bags’ worth of riches, but Iryse noticed, as he always does, and commanded the guards to find whoever stole it.

  “Most of the private watchmen came back empty, but one set of men came later in the night saying they found the culprit, and Iryse took whomever it was down to the prison to be tried as soon as he could. I never thought much of it—no, I didn’t like the way Iryse ran things, but you must understand that I couldn’t let the four of my brothers know I had stopped taking the drug, had fallen in love with a servant, had no longer enjoyed their sadistic manner, because if they knew, they would start finding ways to exclude me from rule, or they would be even more sadistic themselves just to tamper with me. They would turn on me—they might even have killed me, eventually. So, I did nothing. That is, until the next day, when Anya did not come in for work. She hardly ever missed work—perhaps a few times due to sickness, and a handful of times to tend to you, when you were younger. So I figured she was home sick.

  “The day of your mother’s trial, I stayed in my room. I did not know it was your mother’s trial. I just knew that I didn’t want to attend another one of those one-sided accusations and pretend to side with my brothers, so I stayed in my room and I read the book your mother gave me as a gift—a book called Sises and Eruma. A week after the trial, the brothers held the public burning. At first, I wasn’t going to attend. I was on edge from wondering where Anya was, as she had not been back to work in so long. And then it occurred to me that perhaps Anya was the one being publicly burned. So I went, even though I was sure I was just being overdramatic.

  “I sat in my seat alongside my brothers on the day of the public burning. Around us were hundreds of people. They knew that the woman being burned was an Ajasek—married into, yes, but an Ajasek no less—so some came to pay their respects, while others came to laugh and jeer. A platoon of executioners marched out, carrying a hooded figure with them. When they were in the center of the arena, they removed the robe and hood from the figure, revealing the bare body of a woman. Anya. Looking fierce and stubborn even though she must have been terrified. Then they chopped away her hair with a short knife and tied her up on the stake, tearing me apart inside, though I had to keep myself impassive on the outside. There was a temple of sticks and dry brush underneath her, which the executioners lit with fire steel and let the fire grow until the flames were close enough to her to nip at her heels. Her screams rang out through—”

  “Stop,” Julian croaked. Tears streaked his face, the same as they streaked Sutra’s. “I was there. I remember.”

  Sutra waited for him to say something else because Sutra himself felt he was sucked dry for now.

  “You were in love with my mother,” Julian said. It wasn’t at all a question, nor was it an accusation. Sutra shook his head as he had for years, always denying the statement to whoever asked, but Julian knew already. Had he mentioned it in his story? He couldn’t quite remember. The words in his retelling just leaked from his mouth as if they were not at all controlled by him, so it was quite possible he’d just released his secret.

  So Sutra stopped shaking his head. “Yes.”

  “Was she in love with you?”

  “I would like to think so.”

  Julian ran his hands through his hair, wiped his eyes, and turned to his two friends. He mouthed something to them—Sutra couldn’t see his lips enough to tell what he was saying—and they both shook their heads vigorously. But Julian said something else and nodded his head just as vigorously.

  The girls sighed and nodded.

  “So, what is the plan?” Julian asked.

  Sathryn

  ou don’t trust him,” Julian said.

  All three of them were in the bedroom alone now.

  The king, Sutra, hadn’t quite formulated a plan, so that was what he was doing now after leaving them alone for a while to have time to themselves. He’d left a large basket of food for them to share, though none of them were eating. Sathryn did not know how anyone else felt, but the prospect of eating or drinking anything a Dragon King gave her did not sit well at all. Why would she trust him?

  “Why would either of us want to?” Colette scoffed.

  “Julian, think through this for a second. Why would a king who has been killing people and torturing people for centuries want to help the people that invaded his castle? What sense does that make?”

  Julian shrugged. He was lying with his back flat on the bed and a hand up over his forehead. “I don’t know . . . but did you see the way he looked at us—at me? The way he smiled every time he looked at me and mentioned my mother?”

  “That’s because he supposedly loved your mother.”

  “Supposedly?”

  “Yes,” Colette hissed. “Supposedly. Do not tell me you believe him.”

  Julian shrugged. “He was crying.”

  “He is a good actor.”

  Julian reached over and grabbed a warm cup of tea Sutra had left for them. He took a sip and sighed. “What choice do we have?”

  Sathryn shrugged. “We leave. Right now, before he comes back.”

  “What about your brother? Your father? Your mother? If we leave there’s a chance you’ll never see any of them again. And Sutra said that he was willing to take the key from his brother and set him free. We don’t know if he’s lying or not, but the chances of getting your brother out are much higher with him than without him.”

  “What are we even trying to do?” Colette muttered. “I thought we were trying to kill them all, not overthrow them. We don’t need anybody’s help to do that.”

  Sathryn nodded, agreeing. “And all those lies he told us to make us trust him—his fake tears . . . I don’t believe it. Not after all he’s done in the past centuries. Can we please think this all through before getting too deep in this hole we’re digging?”

  Holding a pillow over his face, Julian groane
d. “Why am I the way I am?”

  Colette laughed. She was reaching to pick up her tea as well, pressuring Sathryn to do the same. “I have been wondering the same for years, Lynk.”

  At some point, after all the food was gone—thanks to Julian’s prompting—and the tea cups were empty, they went to bed. Something told Sathryn that they would not get another round of fitful sleep for a while, so trusting the king or not, she lay down beneath the blankets of the giant bed and rested her head against one of the pillows, lying between Julian on her left and Colette on her right.

  Despite how exhausted Sathryn was, Colette was the first one to fall asleep, leaving Julian and Sathryn half awake together in the quiet room.

  She poked him in his side. He flinched.

  “What was that for?” His fatigue deepened and roughened his voice.

  Even though he couldn’t see her from how he lay on his back, she shrugged. “We’re in quite a situation.”

  He nodded. “Sometimes I feel like a lost little kid.”

  “You might be lost, but you aren’t a little kid.”

  Laughing, Julian turned to face her. “I know. But I feel like one.”

  “If you trust him, I guess I can trust him.”

  “I trust him,” he said with a yawn. “We’re going to get your brother, and then we’re going to get out of here so we can plan on conquering them—or killing them—without it failing.” His words were becoming slower and slower.

  “Do you believe Sutra loved your mother?”

  He nodded. His eyes were closed.

  “And she loved him back?”

  Julian hesitated, but he nodded again.

  “How could she just fall out of love with your father?”

  Julian shrugged. “Love is strange.” His voice was soft and slow.

  “Have you ever . . .” she began.

  But soft snores were already falling from his lips.

  hen Sutra came back into the room, it was dark outside. The rest of the castle was asleep, including his brothers, whom he had managed to avoid. Sathryn thought it sounded a bit suspicious, but Julian believed it.

  After inquisitions, a trial followed with all the brothers a few days later, which meant they had to leave the castle before then. All they had to do was get Etzimek out and find her parents.

  Sutra walked into the room. They were awake and roaming the room when Sutra entered. He was holding a ring of keys in his hand. “I have the keys.” He looked at Sathryn.

  After Sathryn, Colette, and Julian grabbed their things from the pile—Julian shoving his weapons in the bag and slinging Sutra’s special bow over his back—Sathryn led all three of them to the cage holding her brother, who was lying on the floor asleep when she approached him. Sutra slid a long, brass key into the hole of the iron door that swung open seconds later. He stepped back.

  She called his name.

  When Etzimek crawled from the cage, he didn’t seem to realize a king was standing so closely by him. He was too busy hugging Sathryn, and Sathryn was too busy hugging him back and handing him food she had saved from Sutra’s basket. But he eventually looked up in the dim light of the dungeon and saw Sutra’s face, and he flung himself backward.

  Sutra stepped back while Sathryn quieted Etzimek’s roars. “It’s okay,” she told him. “He is on our side now.”

  Etzimek, like Sathryn had before Sutra retrieved the keys, did not trust him enough, and he hung behind the king cautiously as they wound back through the prison’s tunnel.

  “What do you mean, he is on our side now? Do you know who that is?” She couldn’t see Etzimek’s face in the dark tunnel, but she could hear the hysteria in his voice.

  “That king is Sutra,” Sathryn began. She couldn’t explain everything, especially since she didn’t quite understand everything herself. “Julian—you remember Julian, right?—he trusts him. And I trust Julian.”

  She then explained to him what had happened before Sutra saved them from the torture room, how the other three kings were whipping and torturing her, Colette, and Julian. She told him about Sutra’s actions as soon as he entered the room, jumping to take the weapons from his brothers and commanding them to leave. Even as she told the story, she convinced herself just a little bit more that Sutra was, in fact, better in morals than she had thought he was.

  She also dared to mention the drug she had found, and how Sutra mentioned in his long story that he had stopped taking the drug, so maybe he was different. He could be lying, she supposed, but he could also be telling the truth.

  When they came to the prison doors for the third time that day, Sutra pushed them back into the shadows of the tunnel as he opened the door.

  There was someone standing outside.

  “Good evening, King Sutra,” a voice said.

  “Good evening, General Thoro.”

  Would he turn them all in?

  “I was just guarding the prison doors as Iryse asked me.”

  “You should get your rest, Thoro. It has been quite a long day.”

  “Indeed it has. We finally caught those pests. I heard you were down in the prison doing the inquisition for them now.”

  “I was,” Sutra said. “But I’m finished. There is no need to guard the doors anymore.”

  “This is what Iryse told me to do until morning, so this is what I intend to do.”

  Sathryn tensed, as General Thoro’s voice did not seem unsure, and it did not waver at all. She pictured herself staying down in the foul, hot walls of the tunnel all night until Thoro left his post, and she shrank.

  “I’m telling you now to leave. Iryse told me that as soon as I was done with the invaders, the guards could go to standby. There is nothing more to worry about.”

  “That is not what I was told, Your Majesty.”

  “Would you like to go check with Iryse?”

  There was a pause, then, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  His weighted boots clicked briskly down the hallway. Sathryn didn’t move until the clicks had long faded.

  Sutra leaned back into view and gestured them out with his hands.

  Silently, they stalked the hallways, going only as fast as Etzimek could—Etzimek, who was the weakest among them. The hallways were dim and vacant, but they crept through the shadows anyway until they reached the back door. The door led out of the castle and into the woods behind it. All they had to do was walk out.

  “It is too risky to tell you where we’ll go next,” Sutra whispered, his hand on the door handle. “Once we get far enough away . . . that is when we can speak again.”

  He turned the door handle and flung the door open.

  The tall, imposing silhouette of Iryse, the king that had been torturing Julian, peered down at her with a blaring torch in hand, three other kings behind him, and a group of armed sentries behind them, and she stumbled back.

  Had Sutra betrayed them?

  But Sutra seemed as shocked as she was, and none of the brothers looked happy to see him.

  “Well—it seems I was right,” Iryse growled, glaring down at them all with eyes that froze and boiled her blood at the same time. She turned to run, grabbing Etzimek’s and Julian’s hands in her own, but found a wall of guards marching toward her from inside the castle. At the front of the guards was the old, red-cloaked man again, a grin on his face and a torch in his hand. When the torch’s flame was no more than a foot from her face, the old man leaned forward, an arm stuck out in front of him, and pushed Sathryn out the door into the cool spring air.

  The old man shoved her to her knees while another guard gripped her arms. Julian fell beside her, followed by Colette with guards of their own pinning their arms down. Everywhere around her were the same gray-cloaked guards gripping torches, turning the shadowed black of midnight into a bright-hot circle of orange-and-yellow flames. The door back into the castle slammed shut.

  Sutra was the only one around them standing and untouched by a guard. He stood as tall as Iryse, and his hand rested on a blade sheathed i
n his belt.

  The roar of voices from around them—shouts telling Iryse to kill them all—died down as soon as Iryse held a single hand up in the air. “Quiet,” he commanded. “Thank you. As I was saying . . .” He turned back to Sutra and smiled. “Younger brother . . . You were always so predictable! Did you truly believe I was going to let you walk out this easy? Surely you are smarter than that!” Iryse tapped his finger against Sutra’s head and laughed. “At the very moment you tore into the torture room and demanded to be alone with the intruders, I knew exactly what you were planning to do. I knew you were going to get them out safe because I know you. I just wanted to see the look on your face when you found out how short lived your ‘success’ was. And here you are, sneaking about the castle and scheming behind my back—and you thought I would never notice? Ah, I love how childish you are. It fuels my soul—gives me energy—”

  Sutra growled in his face and shoved him back. The sentries surrounding them jumped to seize him, but Iryse held up another hand, commanding them to retreat. “You—you are a traitor! And to your own brothers. God, what shame this all is! Intruders like these . . .” Iryse approached Julian. “They want to kill us—didn’t you know that? And you want to work with them? You want us to die?” He dragged his foot back and kicked it hard into Julian’s side. Sathryn jerked as Julian’s body fell to the ground, but the man behind her held her arms tighter.

  “Well—what are we to do now?” Iryse asked, turning to the three other brothers behind him. Two of them were identical twins, and they both stared down at Sutra with pure hatred. The other one was looking at Sutra with something else—regret? Guilt? “I do believe the sentence for a traitor is burning at the stake—just as we did to your mother.” Iryse’s head whipped back to Julian, who was lying on the ground but staring up at Iryse with a harsh glare.

  “I enjoyed watching her burn,” Iryse said. “The way the flames made her skin crackle—music to my ears. And her screams—they were a joyful melody—”