The Exalted

by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson

  I looked over my shoulder at Still, who’d silently undone the clasp on Doctor Rutin’s bag and had half her arm inside already. I yanked a sunlamp off the table beside Swinton’s door and followed the doctor inside. Swinton rubbed his eyes blearily at the sudden light and sat up in bed.

  “What do you want?” he snapped, fury lacing his words.

  “I just wanted to check on you before I left for the evening and give you your medicine,” Doctor Rutin said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like someone decided it was a great night to wake me up in the middle of the first good sleep I’ve gotten since we arrived in this godsforsaken country. Give me my pills and get out, bitch.” Swinton glared up at me. “What are you staring at, little king?”

  “I...I just wanted to see you,” I sputtered, surprising myself with the pain in my voice.

  “You’ve seen me. Now get the fuck out,” Swinton spit. “Give me my pills and leave me the hell alone.”

  Doctor Rutin handed Swinton a pair of white tablets and a glass of water. He tossed the pills into his mouth and downed the water in one gulp. Doctor Rutin snatched the glass away from him just as he raised his hand to smash it on the floor. She’d learned his tricks quickly.

  The doctor wished Swinton a good sleep and quickly exited the room. I paused at the door. “Good night,” I said, my voice tremulous. “I love you, Swinton.”

  He winked at me just as I pulled the door closed behind me. He’d done it. Or, at least, I hoped he had. He’d gone the whole day without setting off her suspicions.

  Doctor Rutin scooped up her bag, set the glass on the side table and gave me a small nod. “I’ll see you in the morning, Your Majesty. Girls. Sleep well.”

  I followed her to the front door of the suite and, once I’d closed it behind her, let out a huge sigh of relief.

  “We got it,” Pem said. “Or at least we think we did.”

  I looked back at them and nodded. “Good. That was slick work of you.”

  “It weren’t hard,” Still scoffed. “She always puts her bag there.”

  “We’re not done yet,” I said, crossing the room to unlock Swinton’s door.

  Vi, Curlin and Quill spilled out of the girls’ room just as Swinton emerged, squinting, from the darkness of his room.

  “Well,” he said. “That was fairly painless.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Was it?”

  “I’m sure you were brilliant,” Vi said, swinging herself over the back of a sofa and tucking herself into the corner.

  “When does the general usually show up?” Curlin asked.

  I glanced at the clock on the mantel. “In the next hour or so? Would anyone like kaffe? A drink?”

  Quill wandered over to the buffet with Swinton on his heels. When Swinton held up a bottle of ouzel, Quill shook his head with a grin and squatted to open the cabinet beneath the buffet. He pulled out one of the rare bottles of Denorian wine kept there and handed it to Swinton, whose brows soared up his forehead.

  “You’ve been here for, what, half an hour? How’d you know where they keep the good stuff?”

  Quill laughed. “Rich folks are the same everywhere. It’s no great secret that the best stuff is always at hand, but always out of sight.”

  Swinton clapped him on the back, opened the bottle and handed glasses of golden Denorian wine to Quill and Curlin. Vi shook her head when Swinton offered her a glass, and I asked Still to run to the kitchens for a pot of kaffe. Pem poured the vial of the sedative she’d stolen from Doctor Rutin into a half-empty bottle of top-shelf spirits, then settled it into a rubbish bin littered with wadded bits of paper and a broken glass.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  I nodded, and she slipped into the hall to demand, in an imperious tone, that the guards posted outside our suite do away with the trash. If everything went according to plan, they would slip the bottle of spirits out of the bin and be well on their way to oblivion by the time the general arrived. We couldn’t risk being overheard.

  I settled in next to Vi on the sofa. She was paler than usual and the expression in her eyes was determined, if a little distant. When I reached for our connection, I felt an unexpected brittleness in her, a vulnerability I’d never experienced before.

  “How are you?” I asked, doing my best to keep the concern out of my voice. I’d seen how prickly Vi could get when she was cornered.

  Vi tucked her hands under her knees and avoided my gaze. “Fine. Ready to get you out of this mess and back where you belong.”

  “You don’t seem fine,” I said tentatively.

  Curlin, on the other side of the sofa, reached out and poked me with the toe of her boot. “Not the time,” she admonished.

  “It’s all right,” Vi said, her voice soft and strained. “He’s my brother. He gets to ask.”

  Curlin shrugged and went to wait with her ear to the door next to Pem. I looked back at Vi. “So?”

  “It just took a lot of doing over there,” she said. “I did things I’m not proud of, saw things I’ll never unsee. I don’t know. It was awful, but it’s done. I was glad for your letters.”

  “And I was glad for yours,” I said, reaching out to squeeze her hand.

  “We left Aphra in charge,” Vi said. “So that’ll be something to deal with when you get your throne back.”

  Unease filled me when I remembered that night at Plumleen, when Aphra had murdered her husband right in front of me. “Was that really the best—”

  Pem flung open the door, interrupting me midthought, and Curlin pulled Vittoria into the room. For a tense second, it looked like the general and Curlin might come to blows, but I stood and crossed the room as quickly as I could.

  “General Okara, we’re sorry for the ambush, but we weren’t sure how else we could have this conversation.”

  General Okara’s eyebrows soared up, her usually tightly controlled expression betraying her shock, just for a moment. “Well, Your Majesty,” she finally said, “you certainly have surprised me.”

  I smiled apologetically. “You understand the necessity, yes?”

  The general nodded.

  “Then would you allow me to introduce my friends—and my sister Vi?”

  Vi rose to greet the general. “My brother tells me that he trusts you, and that I must, as well. I hope you understand what a rare honor that is.”

  General Okara bowed over Vi’s hand. “I do. And I am very happy to meet you. Your brother has more than earned my respect, and I am happy to make myself of use to him.”

  Glowing with the general’s kindness, I went around the room, making introductions and outlining the roles each person would play in my plan to take back the throne. When everyone had been introduced, we settled in to talk logistics.

  “So, let me see if I have this right,” Vittoria said. “You’re asking me to defy the orders of my queen, encourage my soldiers to defect and help you take back the rule of a foreign land that doesn’t believe in the ability of a twin to rule justly.”

  Vi pressed her lips together, fighting back a smile.

  “Or,” I said, “you could think of it as though you’re fulfilling a promise your queen made in good faith and subsequently has reneged on, encouraging your soldiers to assist a wrongly deposed foreign monarch and helping the legal heir to the Alskad throne take back his rightful place.”

  Vittoria gave me a wry smile. “I’m not opposed to the idea, but it does require rather a lot of ethical gymnastics.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “But I’ll not leave the harbor undefended, and there are fewer soldiers I can trust with a mission like this than I’d like,” she said, sipping a cup of kaffe. “It’ll mean taking fewer troops than I’d originally planned, but I think we can still manage to take Penby with the help of the Shriven.”

  “They’re not Shriven anymore,” Vi reminded her. “I don’t
mean to offend you, General Okara, but you’ll be a lot less use to us if one of them cuts you stem to stern for offending them. Why not just call them the Legion?”

  Vittoria nodded. “A fair point. We’ll have to coach the troops as we load them onto your ship. How many can we take?”

  Quill sketched a few quick sums on a scrap of paper. “With two hundred and fifty or so of ours aboard, plus crew and supplies—if Mal can convince anyone to sell to us—I think the vessel can hold another five hundred soldiers and their gear.”

  Vittoria snorted. “If only I had that number to offer you. There aren’t but fifteen hundred soldiers in the whole of the Denorian army, and those spread out across the country. There are perhaps seven hundred and fifty here in the city. I might trust three hundred of them with a mission like this, and of those, only two hundred can actually keep their mouths shut.”

  Curlin let out a low whistle. “It’ll be hard to take Penby, much less all of Alskad, with a force that small.”

  “You forget,” Vi said. “There aren’t that many Shriven left in the whole of the empire. A huge number of them were sent to Ilor because of—well, me. And we saw what happened there.”

  Curlin grimaced. “The sooner we set sail, the better. I don’t want word of what happened in Ilor getting back to Alskad much before we do. The less time the Suzerain have to plan, the safer I’ll feel.”

  Vittoria nodded. “I’d like to leave tomorrow. I’ll inform the troops and have them ferry themselves out to your ship in small groups. We’ll try to keep it as inconspicuous as we can, but we’ll have to move fast. If Noriava finds out about your plan, there’s no telling what she’ll do.”

  The kaffe soured in my stomach at the thought, but Swinton squeezed my hand reassuringly. “It’s not exactly outside the bounds of the sentiment of your arrangement,” he said.

  “I’m sure she’ll see it that way, too. Sounds like she’s quite the reasonable one,” Vi quipped.

  Vittoria shot me a narrow look over the rim of her steaming kaffe cup, and I shrugged even as a wave of irritation passed over me. Vi must have felt it as well, because she knocked me on the shoulder.

  “Don’t be like that,” she said. “I’m not the one who went and tied myself to a queen just to get hold of some soldiers that would have fought for you either way.”

  Before I could stammer out a reply, Vi grabbed a pastry from the plate in the center of the table, thumbed the jam filling out and rubbed a sticky glob of deep purple jam onto my nose. The tension in the room broke, and everyone burst into laughter, distracted, for a moment, from the dangers we’d yet to face.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Vi

  We didn’t make it back to the ship until the small hours of the morning, and I fell into a deep and blessedly blank sleep as soon as I reached my berth. When I woke, the sun was already high overhead and streaming in through the windows of our cabin. I dressed quickly and tiptoed out of the room, trying to avoid waking Curlin. Seeing Bo the night before had been harder than I’d expected, but I didn’t feel like hashing through my feelings at the moment. The task that loomed before us was overwhelming enough without giving voice to the demons of depression that curled in my belly like snakes waiting to strike.

  I searched the ship, my face a hard mask that kept everyone, even Jihye, from saying a word to me, and I was grateful for their silence. After nearly an hour, I finally found Mal deep in the bowels of the hold, sorting through one of the stolen chests of the temple’s treasure. Our horde was dwindling quickly, and with hundreds of mouths to feed, if we didn’t manage to restore Bo to the throne in short order, the cause would be lost entirely. All the more reason to get Bo and Swinton out from under the thumb of the Denorian queen and on our way back to Alskad as quickly as possible.

  Mal peered up at me in the dim light of the solar lamps. “You don’t look like you slept at all.”

  “What of it?” I snapped.

  “Just an observation.” He shrugged. “Quill’s in quite a temper. What happened between you two?”

  “We’re in the middle of a war. How anyone has time to think about romance is beyond me.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.” Mal stood, brushed his hands off on his trousers and looked down at me, assessing. “But seeing as you’re well-set on being a prickly beast about it, I’ll leave off. What’re you looking for?”

  “You,” I said. The truth of his name-calling stung. I was working at it—at the feeling of inadequacy that clung to me like a film of oil—but I’d not yet managed to wash it away. “And whatever you’ve got squirreled away down here that might distract a queen enough for her to take her eyes off her fiancé for a few minutes during her weekly open audience.”

  Mal’s brows knit together, and from his calculating expression, I could tell he was going through an inventory of the ship in his mind. A slow grin spread across his face, and a moment later he dove behind a stack of chests, shifted them this way and that, and came up with a box, long and flat and nearly as tall as I was.

  “This’ll do the trick. Now, she’s not yet met you, has she?”

  I shook my head.

  “Perfect. Do you trust me?”

  There was a maniacal gleam in his eyes that I definitely didn’t trust. I bit my lip, then said, “Not as far as I can throw you.”

  He laughed. “Well, seeing as I’m twice your size, I’d suggest you get over it. How long do we have until the audience?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe three hours?”

  “Long enough. Get word through Pem and Still. Tell them to make sure everyone is ready to go before sunset.”

  * * *

  Getting the Denorian soldiers onto the Whipplestons’ ship was no small task, but General Okara’s troops were disciplined and quick-witted, and they managed to disguise themselves and their weapons quite thoroughly. They were hardly noticed among the comings and goings of the merchants who’d deigned to deal with Mal and Quill as they restocked the ship’s ravaged stores.

  Getting Bo and Swinton out of the palace was another matter entirely. We’d puzzled over the problem, turning it this way and that, upside down and sideways, and every time it came up all wrong. Ever since Noriava discovered that Bo had been wandering the city at night, she’d put a guard on him around the clock. They stuck to him like glue, standing outside every entrance to his rooms while he slept, trailing him like puppies as he went from once place to the next and even pacing beneath the windows of his rooms, despite the fact that they were on the fourth floor of the palace and only someone with a death wish would try scaling the smooth black stone of the palace walls.

  We hoped Mal would be able to distract the queen long enough to get Bo free of the palace. We just had to keep her from recognizing me.

  My tattoos and the gold cuff on my wrist were completely concealed by many layers of fine Denorian wool cut in the latest fashion. I’d used dark makeup to disguise the shape of my eyes and brows, and my curly hair was oiled and slicked back into a tight chignon at the base of my neck, rendering me entirely unrecognizable, even to myself. Mal also wore something of a disguise—rather than his usual blend of casual Ilorian and Alskader fashion, he had decked himself out in the finest Alskader clothing he could lay his hands on, and his short, tight curls were trimmed close to his head.

  As I followed him meekly into the grand palace hall, my eyes immediately sought out Bo. My hand unwittingly drifted toward the small silver box in my pocket as I pushed down the anxiety roiling my belly and pulled hard on the feeling of connection between us. Bo’s gaze drifted through the crowd, passing over me several times, the picture of indolent boredom. Though I felt the moment he recognized me, nothing in his outward manner changed.

  The moments crept slowly by as we waited for Mal to be called before the queen. Finally, after listening to dozens of requests for research funding, minor property disputes and perso
nal quarrels—which Mal had to translate from Denorian to Alskader for me—we were announced and summoned to the throne. Heaving the long, heavy box with its intricate carvings and brass fittings onto his shoulder, Mal stepped before the queen and my twin brother.

  “Your Majesty, as the date of your nuptials quickly approaches, you must be in the market for an appropriate gift for your new spouse, and I am sure he searches for the perfect gift to present to you. My partner and I have with us two very rare items that we believe will suit your needs most perfectly.”

  Mal beckoned me forward, and I executed the queer, intricate bow he’d made me practice all morning. A large black cat shared the throne with the queen. Its green eyes followed me knowingly, and its tail twitched like a jungle beast about to spring for the kill. I kept my own eyes lowered—they were so like Bo’s that even the most casual observer couldn’t help but make the connection, and from everything I’d gathered, Queen Noriava was anything but unobservant.

  “You cannot imagine that I would buy a gift for my future husband whilst in his company, Master...” Noriava trailed off.

  “Whippleston, Your Majesty. I would hate to impose upon your time in any way, but perhaps I could take you aside so that you might examine my wares, and let my associate do the same with your fiancé? Under guard, of course. What I’ve brought you...” He paused, a secretive, charming smile bringing out the laugh lines around his golden eyes. In moments like this, Mal was utterly, disarmingly appealing. “...is incredibly rare and valuable. It dates from before the cataclysm. Shall I go on?”

  “And the gift that you, in your infinite wisdom, believe would appeal to me?” she asked, a note of flirtatious teasing in her lilting voice.

  “What can a man give a monarch as powerful and beautiful as you?” Mal flattered. “I would hate to spoil the surprise, but I will tell you that the object my partner carries with her is, perhaps, the most exciting item I’ve had the pleasure of procuring in my entire career. I assure you that you will be most pleased, and if you are not, I will do everything in my power to amend my error in judgment.”