The Orchid Throne Page 6

  We held the rage in our hearts, feeding it diligently.

  We’d conspired with the other prisoners, encouraging them in terse whispers and silent gestures to pilfer and hide some of the vurgsten rock we mined for Anure. The information passed from one to the next, and we stockpiled our vengeance tithe, as we came to call it. It took years, but the day came that we surprised the guards, killing them and taking command of the resupply vessel. Shocking ourselves that we triumphed.

  I ask only to hold the torch.

  Sondra offering her fealty and challenge. Vurgsten dragging at my lungs with every breath, the sound so like my father’s, evoking his dying face. I’d never escape any of it. Not until Anure breathed his last, too.

  As if reading my thoughts of the past, Sondra flashed a grim smile now and stepped forward to open the door. “Through here, Conrí.” She refused to call me anything else, every use of my title a pointed reminder.

  Giving her a nod, acknowledging what she said and what echoed between us, I passed her and entered the extensively fortified addition to the original palace, which might have been as elegant as the Tower of Simitthu at one time. Of course, the castle and surroundings were much the worse for their encounters with vurgsten, a disarray uneasily reminiscent more of the jagged landscape of Vurgmun than any human dwelling. I’d shed my blood on Vurgmun, my barren kingdom, and I brought that legacy with me wherever I went.

  Kara had been right about the security of the so-called treasure room—and the staleness of the air. Deep in the interior of the governor’s castle, the vault sat within stone walls an arm’s length deep. There the former imperial governor, Salvio, squatted like a dragon from an old tale on his literal pile of treasure.

  Immediately the bloated, pitiful lump of quivering terror began bleating at me, offering protestations of innocence in between promises to aid his new overlord in any way. It soon became clear that the greedy slug—Sondra had been accurate in her description, too—knew nothing of the fate of any of the members of the previous royal family. Unfortunately. Though they insisted on calling me king, I had no intention of ruling anything.

  That meant that someone else would have to be found to govern Keiost. Not any of my officers, either. The campaign couldn’t afford to lose them. Besides, none of them wanted to govern, which meant I’d have to force it on them. I had only so much stomach for that—and preferred not to do it to people I liked. This business of conquering created more headaches than it was worth.

  Looking the worthless man in the eye, I gave the order for his execution. That was a responsibility I took entirely on myself as Father would’ve expected. I might not swing the executioner’s ax, but I always assumed responsibility for the cool-minded decision to end a life. My father taught me that, long ago when he thought I’d make those weighty decisions in the throne room of Oriel, not in some stinking airless room beneath the rubble of a city I’d taken without remorse. Having done my job, I turned and left, hoping for a measure of time. Perhaps to finally and completely scrub off the blood and stink.

  Kara followed me out of the room, however, pacing me, a grave expression on his dark face. “My king, we’ll have to brace for counterattack. We have multiple confessions and other associated information that Salvio and his staff sent missives to Anure, alerting him to the situation here—including a final messenger bird that made it safely away at dawn announcing their defeat.”

  No surprise there. In fact, we’d been extraordinarily lucky it hadn’t happened before this. And while luck played a larger role in our campaign than I cared to examine, it seemed unreasonable to believe no news had made it to the false emperor. Which made me think he either underestimated us or dissolved his fear in denial. “Let Anure attack.”

  “You say that now because you welcome the opportunity to kill him. But we both know he won’t come in person. If he’s smart, he’ll bring the hammer of all his forces down on Keiost. He could destroy us in our own trap.”

  “Good for us, Anure isn’t smart.” And he wasn’t. But he did possess an almost magical talent for victory. That would be the smartest thing to do, crush me and my armies before we grew any larger. Kara knew well that I’d trade all our advances for the opportunity to throttle Anure with my bare hands. Not an admirable quality in a king—and just another measure of how I didn’t deserve the title. King of Slaves. King of Nothing. No king at all. “How long do you think we have?” I asked.

  Kara rubbed his stubbled chin. “A week at worst. Ten days at the outside.”

  I nodded, my lips cracking with a sharp split as I smiled. Exactly what I’d thought. “Plenty of time.”

  “For what?” Kara looked exasperated. “We’ve decimated the fortifications in taking the city. There won’t be enough time to rebuild the walls to the point that they can—”

  “Kara.” I halted, gripping my friend’s arm to stop the flow of words. He commanded troops like no other, and he’d never failed to carry out a mission for me, but Kara sometimes didn’t look past the battle to see the war. “Plenty of time for us not to be here.”

  I pointed in the direction of the sea meaningfully, not to be cryptic, but to save my words. I’d hoped the fall of Keiost—and the close ties between its imperial governor and Anure—would be sufficient to catch the false emperor’s attention. If he sent the bulk of his forces here, then we’d find him less defended when we slipped around them to Yekpehr to topple the throne. Fortunately Kara, like all my officers, knew me well enough that I didn’t have to waste words explaining all of that.

  His eyes widened in understanding, and he nodded slowly. “We’ll meet this evening then—a conclave to plan the next direction.”

  I agreed. I knew how I wanted it to go, but they’d all feel better for talking it out. Sondra came jogging up, grinning with a fierce delight that reminded me of her carefree smiles, back before. “I have word from Ambrose, Conrí!” she announced. “He asks you to attend him. It sounds like good news.”

  Knowing Ambrose, he hadn’t put it so nicely, but Sondra did still fall back on court etiquette. We all had our cracks where the lords and ladies we’d been glimmered through the rough skin we’d acquired. I gestured for her to take me to the wizard.

  No time to bathe and recuperate just yet. Hopefully Ambrose had determined that we’d satisfied the terms of his precious prophecy. It could be that claiming this Abiding Ring would require nothing more than plucking it from whatever niche in the tower it rested in, and we could move on to attacking Anure.

  Another week, possibly two, and I could finally kill the tyrant and be done.

  Forever.

  7

  “A craven enemy of the empire?” I echoed Leuthar, letting my voice tremble. Tertulyn handed me a scented silk, which I pressed to my septum, careful not to smear my makeup. While I appeared to recover from a near faint, I thought hard and fast on how to respond. So many possibilities and ramifications. I needed more information. “With armies capable of taking Keiost?” I waved a hand, laughing, and my ladies laughed with me. “I can’t imagine.”

  “No armies, Your Highness,” Leuthar replied, a hint of impatience beneath his dulcet tones. The poor man, faced with such dithering frivolity. “Nothing so organized. They’re merely a small band of criminals, escaped slaves, not even worthy of being called men. They are more like former livestock gone feral. Still, they are desperate creatures. Against all probability they’ve taken temporary control of Keiost. Word is they plan to execute the imperial governor, along with all the helpless denizens of the city.”

  Good riddance to Governor Salvio. He’d been unremittingly self-aggrandizing and ambitious. On top of his less-than-average intelligence, it had made him a cruel ruler who’d squandered Keiost’s meager remaining resources. My father had been great friends with old King Panos, and many times I’d heard him counsel Panos not to fight when Anure turned his acquisitive appetite on Keiost as a portal to her wealthier neighbors. Panos in turn had castigated my father for rolling over to the t
yrant, for giving up without that fight.

  In the end, Anure had defeated Keiost’s formidable navy and dethroned King Panos, sentencing him to slave labor for his temerity in resisting. My father …

  Well, difficult to say whose fate had been worse.

  No, I’d hardly mourn Salvio—I’d even thank these criminals for ridding the world of his blight—but for them to slaughter the innocent populace? Like feral dogs indeed. The dream image of the wolf, dragging its broken chains, nudged at the edge of my mind. I pushed it down to the depths, where it belonged. I needed to think, not feel. Conjuring images from nightmares wouldn’t help me protect Calanthe.

  The news didn’t bode well for Tertulyn’s family in Keiost. It seemed a foregone conclusion we’d lost them, but I’d made her a promise to discover more. It wouldn’t be politic to ask after the former royal family, as the emperor’s official policy dictated that slaves were not people. A queen could not inquire about slaves any more than she’d ask about how the rats in the cellars had fared. Except to wonder if they carried disease, perhaps. I could only inquire tangentially.

  “I greatly regret that Keiost has suffered such a devastating loss.” I made sure to sound as if I recited rehearsed polite phrases. “If you would, give Me word of the imperial governor’s wife and children.”

  Leuthar paused, quickly changing his prepared reply. He hadn’t expected me to say that. “Your Highness, I regret that I do not know.”

  In other words, no one had bothered to discover their fate. Tertulyn didn’t betray her reaction by the slightest twitch. Time enough for that in private. Perhaps my spies could find out if her family yet lived, and go from there. Prisoners, especially those of the unimportant female and juvenile variety, could often be discreetly smuggled out as servants. They had not been responsible for Salvio’s cruelty and deserved a chance to make or break by virtue of their own decisions, if I could manage it. Much there would depend on this army that held the city.

  “Who are these ‘criminals,’ then?” I asked, fanning myself with the scented cloth, disguising my keen curiosity. “Escaped slaves, you say. Surely they are no match for trained imperial forces. From what prison did they escape?”

  “No prison, Your Highness, but mines.”

  “Mines,” I echoed, as if befuddled by the entire concept.

  “To the north.” Syr Leuthar flicked that away as inconsequential, which it absolutely wasn’t. Mines to the north. I knew of none such. Though that explained the appearance of new players in the game. Hmm. I would have to inquire with my scholars. The many kingdoms and forgotten empires had included lands distant and varied. Before Anure had brutally thrown us all into one stewpot over his fire, we’d had little reason to know much of the far reaches. Calanthe had enjoyed a historic insularity for good reasons that hampered me now. We’d never needed the rest of the world before.

  With so much riding on me and the decisions I made, I needed all the advice and information I could gather. All the more reason to offer sanctuary to the learned and the artists. I’d long hoped that perhaps a wizard who’d escaped Anure’s notice would answer the call. My father would laugh at me, calling me unwise and insecure in my rule for seeking advice. A king or queen should depend only on themselves, he often said. But he was gone, and I had my own ways of protecting Calanthe.

  “The imperial forces are indeed moving to retake Keiost,” Leuthar continued in the same breezy tone, “which should be the work of a moment.”

  Anure wished it would be so easy, though he’d accomplished far more uncertain victories in the past. I doubted it would be the “work of a moment,” especially as he wouldn’t have his emissary speaking in my court about it if he weren’t invested in making us believe that.

  It served the emperor’s interests to present an image of unassailability. Still, he would—easily or not—undoubtedly manage to squelch this uprising. Then he’d make an example of all involved, which would include most everyone in Keiost not already slaughtered, no matter their affiliation. After that, he’d likely sanction the rest of us, to spread more fear and make himself feel better. The prospect made me feel ill, and I took a moment to look out the window at the shining sea, so blue and calm. No blood or fire. Not yet. How could I avert that?

  “The ships that brought me here will continue on to dispatch this vermin,” Leuthar added, solidly in his prepared soliloquy again. “I’ve a list of required supplies before they depart in the morning.”

  I glanced back to see Dearsley take the scroll with the list of supplies, a line between his silver brows for the additional demand. We’d already tithed more than three times our due this season. Why the imperial toad couldn’t use his own vast supplies, I didn’t know. Oh wait, yes I did—because he had so much more fun reminding me of his power to demand I give whatever he wanted. His way of making me pay for denying him his ultimate desire. At least the warships wouldn’t be lingering. I’d likely pay more than whatever Anure asked to remove their taint from my waters. Even awake, I heard the muttering of Calanthe’s seas, unhappy about the old violence soaked into the wood of the warships.

  “I’ll see it done,” I replied in a bored tone. “If that’s all…?” I let the question trail, raising my brows ever so slightly.

  “Not quite, Your Highness. The emperor wishes me to relate a warning and deliver a charge.”

  Finally we got to the crux of it. I couldn’t sit straighter, but a line of sweat crawled down my spine beneath the corset. Leuthar tugged just a bit too hard on the feather, a few of the barbs coming loose in his fingers. The situation had him far more concerned than he wished me to know. I gestured to Calla, who handed me a cool fruit juice to sip while I waited for Leuthar to spit it out.

  “Your Highness, His Holiness, the Divine Emperor, bids me warn You to guard Your shores. And should any of these ferals escape the net of the Imperial forces, You are to make certain they don’t travel past Calanthe. At any cost.”

  I made certain to show no reaction, even as the court fell into a frenzy of whispering—silenced when I flicked a quelling gaze over the room.

  “I see no problem with that, Emissary. Surely a ragged band of escaped slaves can hardly pose a threat to Calanthe.”

  “They are … uncommonly organized, Your Highness. They supposedly defeated the walled city of Keiost in only two days by all accounts, unlikely as that seems.”

  That confirmed the time line in the coded letter from my spies. A piece of information I’d hoped wouldn’t be corroborated. “How could they accomplish such a feat? Keiost is small, but hardly indefensible. Their fortifications are like none other.” Certainly Calanthe had no such physical barriers. The juice had gone sticky in my mouth and I handed it back.

  The emissary hesitated, chewing over his reply. “It’s … rumored that they have obtained some sort of weapon. They use a fire that rends stone from stone.”

  I giggled through my jeweled nails, hiding my instant horror. My ladies laughed with me, leading the court in the joke. Fire that rent stone from stone. Like the secret weapon Anure had used to subdue all the realms that we all had to pretend we didn’t know about. We knew he’d been getting it from somewhere. Mines to the north, perhaps?

  “Oh, Leuthar!” I exclaimed, silencing the laughter but keeping my merry smile. “Surely you don’t mean to imply they use magic.” I made the word scathing, to remind him that we lived in the emperor’s world now.

  “Not magic, no, Your Highness,” he bit out. “A product of nature, twisted to their purposes.”

  A rock that produced fire with the force to rend stone. It made sense it would come from the ground. Coupled with these “mines” I’d never heard of, the information had me wondering what our devious emperor had been up to. Escaped rebels from mines with explosive rock.

  “They do sound more organized than your typical cluster of criminal elements,” I observed. “Somewhat more intelligent than feral livestock.”

  He nodded, once, sharp and concise, missing or ign
oring my barb. Oh yes, they were concerned. Was Anure afraid? That would be something, though a frightened emperor meant more pain for us.

  “Your Highness, they are led by a man known only as the Slave King, a brute of a creature, reported to be a ruthless rapist and murderer. He conquers through terror, then torture, laying waste to all in his path and leaving devastation behind.”

  My ladies exchanged apprehensive looks, two falling into whispers, which I allowed this time. The court, taking the permission, also began to murmur among themselves again. Let them talk. The conversations would stimulate chance overheard remarks and rumors to surface in their minds, so Tertulyn could later ferret out what they knew.

  “And does this Slave King have a purpose?” I asked, shading it so I sounded amused, as if I believed such a thing to be impossible. But a group organized enough to take Keiost in two days had their sights set on more than that battle. Keiost was far too poor to be an end in itself, which the emperor knew as well as I did. He might be a corrupt tyrant, but he wasn’t stupid. Alas for that. “Surely this feral mutt doesn’t think to take Calanthe.” I waved my jeweled nails at the astonishing and unblemished view out my windows.

  Syr Leuthar shrugged, his confidence that he’d bamboozled me regained. “Who knows what motivates such a depraved creature? The craven desire for whatever power he can grasp, lust to possess treasure and captives.”

  I pressed my long nails to my lips, hoping to appear dismayed while I restrained any smirk that might escape—or, a far worse indiscretion, remarking aloud that Leuthar might as well be describing the emperor himself. I was not stupid, however, so such foolhardy and treacherous words would never pass my lips, even in privacy speaking only to Tertulyn.