Shadow War (17 page)

The world, after a
year of living cloistered in her quarters, seemed to be growing too large too
suddenly.

But she had no
time to brood about it. Today she would go to the temple for fasting and the
purification ceremony. Tomorrow she would be crowned. That meant this was her
final day to be simply a woman. Tomorrow she would become something else. Would
power corrupt her? What would she be expected to do first? Would the emperor
truly relinquish the reins to her, an untried girl?

She drew up her
knees and hugged them, rocking herself. Everything was unknown, yet she had
faced other tests and survived them. She could survive this too.

As a child, she
used to dream of living life boldly, of having adventures, of taking journeys,
of gathering knowledge and ideas. She used to question why women should be shut
away and cloistered from the world, ripened like conservatory fruit for the
pleasure and disposal of men. She wanted to follow at her father’s heels when
he inspected his troops. She loved to hear his stories of the battles when he
came home after long absences, grown crude and harsh and louder than usual. His
armor would have new dents in it. He would be restless and tense at first, then
gradually he would soften and relax. Never would he tell her everything; his
stories would have odd gaps in them, gaps that her imagination struggled to
fill.

But dreams were
easy for a girl without prospects. Illegitimate and hard-working, uncertain of
her status in a household too busy, Elandra had never imagined she would find
herself here in the imperial palace. Childhood dreams were not supposed to come
true. That was what her cruel Aunt Hecati used to say. Elandra had never
imagined she would find herself at the edge of a destiny such as this. She kept
waiting for reality to bump her harshly from this fantasy. She kept waiting for
Aunt Hecati to strike her with a switch and order her to get back to work.
Sometimes she sat up in the night, breathless and choking, and believed she was
back in the Penestrician stronghold, blind and imprisoned in her tiny stone
cell while ancient chanting rose and fell in the distance.

Was that a rumble
she heard?

For an instant she
believed she felt the room tremble around her.

She leaned over
the edge of the bed, but already the faint sensation had stopped. Perhaps it
was only her imagination at work again. The night was a strange place, and
dreams were not safe from intruders. She sometimes felt afraid here, as though
the shadows held things unseen that watched her. If she could have had a
jinja
to guard her from magic, she would have slept deeply and peacefully, but the
emperor did not like the useful little creatures and would not allow her to
have one.

Moaning a little,
Elandra threw herself back on her pillows. It was barely dawn. Her new room was
dark and shadowy, the outlines of the furniture still unfamiliar to her. She
needed more sleep, but she was too excited to drift off now that she was awake.

What had that
noise been? She was certain now that she had heard a noise.

Loud and sharp, as
though something had broken. Like the mortal snap of a large tree when loggers
bring it down.

Sliding from her
bed, she picked up the long hem of her silk nightgown and crossed the cold
floor in her bare feet. One of her ladies in waiting snored gently on a cot by
the door. Elandra slipped past her like a ghost.

In the anteroom,
however, she could hear low voices talking outside her door. Her guards were
alert and on duty. They did not usually talk, though. Something
was
amiss.

She opened the
door a crack, only to find her way barred by a strong chest plated in armor.

“What is it?” she
asked, squinting against the lamplight in the passageway.

“A noise, Majesty,”
the guard replied. “In the throne room. Men have gone to investigate.”

Her puzzlement
grew. “The throne room? Is it the emperor?”

“Nay, Majesty.
Wait within until the investigation is complete.”

The guard shut the
door firmly against her. Elandra stepped back, but she was more alarmed than
reassured. If something was wrong, she did not intend to sit here in the
darkness like a mouse.

Some ladies might
say that courting servants’ gossip was common, but Elandra had survived her
difficult childhood by gleaning every rumor, report, and speculation from her
father’s servants that she could. Since coming to the palace, she had tried to
build a discreet network, and with her new status, information was easier to
acquire.

Thus, she knew why
Tirhin was flaunting his father’s wishes. She knew Tirhin was furious with her.
He resented her. He felt betrayed by his father. He had been laying plots and
sounding out men’s loyalties. Kostimon chose to overlook his son’s activities,
but she could not afford to be so generous. Tirhin was rapidly becoming her
enemy, and perhaps a coup was being struck right now.

With her heart
beating fast, she hurried back to her bedchamber. She was grateful now that she
had taken certain precautions. Pulling on a heavy robe and fur-lined slippers,
she opened a box of ebony and took out a dagger. It was a large knife, heavy
and curved near the tip. A man’s weapon, not a dainty, feminine stiletto. It
filled her hand, and her fingers closed around it gratefully. She felt
marginally safer now.

Gripping it, she
went to the wall and ran her fingers impatiently along its shadowy surface.
Finally she touched a narrow crack. She found the depression and pressed it,
and a section of the wall sprang silently open. She slipped through, taking
care to close it quietly after her, and felt along a small table just inside
the dark passage. She lit a lamp, and its yellow light drove back the darkness,
showing her a cramped, crude passage filled with dust and cobwebs. It smelled
of age and damp, but she did not care. It was her own private passage to the
throne room, and she hurried along it with the lamp in one hand and her dagger
in the other.

Years ago, when
she was a young child, she had listened to her father talking about another
warlord who had lost his life and his property to the hands of a rival. The
warlord had just hired a new contingent of warriors to replenish his army. He
felt secure from his enemies. But the new soldiers felt no loyalty to their
lord and were bribed into turning against him. They let the enemy into the
palace, and the warlord was slaughtered in his own chamber.

Elandra thought of
the new guards who had sworn an oath to her with their lips but not yet with
their hearts. She thought of her stepson, who was her enemy, and as yet an
unknown quantity. She thought of what lay at stake in this affair.

She had no
intention of being a fool. Better to be over-prepared than taken unawares.

Reaching the door
that would open behind the curtains at the rear of Kostimon’s ruby throne,
Elandra paused a moment, holding her breath as she listened. She decided then
and there that she would choose her own protector following the coronation. If
she had to, she would ask her father to provide her with a Gialtan candidate of
unimpeachable loyalty.

Voices echoed in
the throne room, rising in consternation. She heard no sounds of battle, no
shouts, no evidence of danger. Only a hysterical babble.

Frowning, she
opened the door and emerged cautiously behind the curtains. From their
concealment, she could recognize not only the voice of some of her guardsmen
but also that of Chancellor Wilst.

“What is to be
done?” he moaned, wringing his hands. “What a terrible omen. It is the end of
the world. We are finished. The gods have struck us a mortal blow. They mean
for all men to die.”

Suddenly
impatient, Elandra emerged from her hiding place, still holding lamp and
dagger, her auburn hair spilling unbound down her back.

“Cease this
commotion at once!” she cried. Her voice rang out over the others, and everyone
grew silent.

As one they turned
to stare at her, their eyes wide with fear.

Her frown
deepened. “What in the name of the gods is the matter?”

Then her gaze took
in the throne. It had always been a marvel to her since the first time she had
seen it. Carved of a single gigantic ruby, it sparkled and glowed as though
alive in the torchlight. No one knew how it had been fashioned. Its origins
were a mystery. Where such a tremendous gemstone could have been mined was
impossible to guess. Kostimon claimed it was given to him by the tribes of
Choven, famous throughout the empire for their spell-forged metals. The throne
had to have been spell-carved. According to legend, shortly after Kostimon
proclaimed himself emperor, the Choven had entered the crude beginnings of his
city. They bore the throne, swathed in cloths, upon the shoulders of ten
bearers. Chanting in their eerie tongue, they had come before the emperor and
unveiled their gift of tribute. The throne had caught the sunlight and turned
to fire, dazzling the eyes of all who beheld it.

It was the seal of
Kostimon’s reign, the very symbol of his power.

And now, within
the vaulted throne room at the center of the palace, the ruby throne lay broken
in half.

Elandra stared,
her mouth dropping open before she recovered herself. Unable to tear her eyes
away from the sight, she walked forward, right up to the shattered ruins. Her
slippers crunched lightly over some of the tiniest fragments, and she stopped
in her tracks.

She could see
where it had cracked cleanly down the center, the fissure marks bold on either
half.

“What does it
mean?” someone asked. “What is to become of us?”

Was the emperor
dead? The thought nearly stopped Elandra’s heart. She looked up wildly. “The
emperor! Quickly, someone go to him and see if he is well—”

“I am well,”
Kostimon’s deep voice replied from the other side of the room.

Elandra saw him
coming, robed in crimson and wearing a tasseled cap. His protector Hovet,
looking old and grim in plain steel armor, stalked along behind him with a
drawn sword.

People scattered
out of the emperor’s way until only Elandra stood there by the ruined throne.

Hovet snarled
something, and with a start she realized she was holding a drawn weapon in the
emperor’s presence. Hastily she bent and placed her dagger on the floor, then
retreated respectfully with her eyes lowered.

Kostimon’s face
might have been carved from granite, but as he reached the throne, his
shoulders sagged. He touched the polished side of one half, and it was as
though he physically shrank. Suddenly he looked old and defeated.

Pitying him,
Elandra would have given anything to see that look erased from his eyes.

He sighed. “Then
it is finished,” he whispered. “All is over. The gods have spoken—”

She moved before
she realized what she was doing, rushing up to stand between him and the ruined
throne. Fiercely she glared at him. “It is
not
finished!” she said,
keeping her voice low, but letting all her anger show. “You are not finished.
Not yet. Oh yes, Majesty, it was a rare work of art, a thing of surpassing
beauty. But you were not born with it. It came to you, to serve
you.
Had
it been otherwise, you would be dead now, at the same time as its breaking.”

Kostimon’s
expression did not change. He shrugged. “I am tired, little one. Let it rest.”

“No!” she said,
daring to defy him for the first time. “I will not let it rest.”

Anger stirred in
his eyes. He glared at her. “Keep your place. This has nothing to do with you.”

All the breath
seemed to leave her body. It was as she feared. In one second he had forgotten
all his promises to her. Everything was swept aside, and she might as well be
one of his empty-headed concubines. Fear filled her, but she knew that if she
backed down now she was truly lost.

“I
am
keeping my place,” she said fiercely. “And this has everything to do with me.
Have you not charged me with new responsibilities?”

A shuffle from the
people nearby caught the corner of her eye. Without waiting for the emperor’s
reply, she turned her head to glare at them.

“Leave us!” she
commanded. Her voice rang out across the room. “All of you. And you, Hovet,”
she said, turning on the protector who glowered at her, “go with them to see
that they wait in a group outside. I will not have anyone running off to spread
the word about this. Guard them!”

Hovet did not
move. Nor did anyone else. In dismay, she saw she had no authority at all. It
was all a sham. An empty promise.

Then Kostimon gave
the protector an all but imperceptible nod. Hovet wheeled around and brandished
his sword at the others, even the guards.

“You heard the
Lady Elandra,” he said, still stubbornly using her old title.

They obeyed,
although her guards looked outraged at being put outside. Elandra did not care.
Alone with Kostimon, she prayed for the strength of her father and the iron
will of her mother. The emperor was a capricious man. She had seen him turn on
others with little provocation. Right now, in his present mood, he could have
her destroyed without a moment’s hesitation. But if she gave way, if she backed
down now and sought to save herself, she would lose everything, possibly even
her life. She saw that clearly, although what she has to do terrified her.

“The throne can be
bolted back together,” she began, trying to keep desperation from her voice. “It
can be mended.”

Contempt crossed
his face. He turned away from her. “Ah, the mind of a woman. Always mending.”

“What, then?” she
shouted at his back. “Would you throw it away? Will you let this tiny flicker
of adversity defeat you? Have you ceased to be a man?”

He swung around,
livid now, and raised clenched fists. “I shall have your tongue cut out for
that. You impertinent little hellcat—”