Page 39 of Betrothed to the Emperor

But when the last of the blood mages was killed, it was simply one more crime committed by the Imperium for the sake of magical purity and a united continent. Now, I wished I had asked my mother more, asked her if she had ever met a blood mage.

Miksha closed her eyes again, and the blood from the bird floated into the air, pulsing in wavering lines that looked like rivers or veins in the air. She brought her hands together, cupping them, and blood dripped down into her palms.

Then, she reached out, grabbing hold of Tallu’s leg.

If I hadn’t seen what happened with my own eyes, I would have found it impossible to believe. The blood flowed into the wound, stitching the flesh together as though it were a needle and thread.

Miksha was murmuring the entire time, speaking in a tongue that I didn’t recognize. Liku stood on the side of the room, arms crossed. Occasionally, he would reach up, touching his hand to the lights, shooting another bolt of electricity into them to keep them bright enough for her to work.

The bowlful of blood was nearly empty when she finished. All that was left was a scattering of bloodied feathers and the corpse of a bird.

Her last words were an up-and-down rhyme that echoed in the cabin. On the ground, Tallu’s leg was healed, the flesh unbroken. There wasn’t even a scar where he had been wounded.

His color was healthier. Rather than a matte gray, his skin gleamed golden brass in the light. Instead of gasping as though there was liquid in his lungs, he breathed with the regularity of sleep.

My shoulders slumped, and I stared at his face as Miksha cleaned up, handing the bowl and bird to Liku and rinsing her supplies in a washbasin. When everything was put away, she came and sat next to me.

“And now that he will survive?” Her words were careful, and I glanced at her, worried.

“The Northern Kingdom has no more plans for war,” I said finally. “I’m here to keep the peace.”

“I saved him from his wound, but I can’t save him from what his father did.” Miksha looked around the cabin, her eyes catching on things that I couldn’t see. “And you can’t either.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Did you put a curse on him?”

She’d been inside him. Had she done something to him while she was healing him? For a blood mage, it would be the work of an instant to do something so terrible. Or at least that was what the rumors said.

No one had seen a blood mage in fourteen, maybe fifteen, years since the Imperium had slaughtered every last one until they said the soil in the Blood Mountains was permanently stained red. They said none had survived, none had crawled from the graveyard that had once been their home. So who knew if what they could do was more rumor or myth. For all I knew, everything I’d ever heard about the blood mages was fabrication.

Miksha’s eyes went wide, and she held up both hands. Blood had caked under her nails, drying brown underneath.

“I didn’t curse him.” She leaned forward, grabbing at my hands desperately. “You need to believe me. I didn’t curse him.”

A blood mage living with an ex-imperial soldier in the middle of the forest. There was no way that the story that led here was anything short of horrible.

“I believe you,” I said. When she stared at me uncertainly, I squeezed her hands where her fingers held tight to my palms. “I believe you. When Tallu wakes, we will tell him that his wound was not that bad. He was struck in the dark, and they hit him so hard that it bruised but didn’t tear the flesh.”

The door opened, Liku framed in it. He stared at me, and I looked back. Shutting the door quietly behind him, he glanced at Miksha, and she nodded her head.

“We need clothes for the emperor and then a way back into the city.” I ducked my head. “I’m sorry to be taking whatever extra clothing you have.”

“I have some of my clothes from a past life.” Liku went to the wooden chest on the side of the room and opened it. He dug through it for a moment before pulling out clothes. When he brought them over to me, I felt the fabric of the shirt between my fingers. Expensive. Silky. The jacket was embroidered with the markings of a high-ranked officer in the electro mage corps.

Powering the lights had been no more than a thought for him.

When I turned to glance at him again, he looked away, taking the clothing back and beginning the more difficult process of redressing Tallu. Tallu was taller than him, but Liku was broader. The clothes worked for the most part. I put aside the jacket, wetting my lips.

“It will mark the clothes as coming from you. I don’t imagine that many from the mage corps leave service.” At least not alive, I assumed.

Liku’s shoulders slumped, and the relief was a palpable thing on his body, a breath let out after being held too long. When we had Tallu mostly dressed, Liku picked him up again.

“We have a cart. It will be difficult to drive it in the dark, I’ll need a light.” Liku frowned at me, and the question he was asking was one I was still asking myself.

What was safe? How far did the assassination attempt go?

“The safest place for the emperor is inside his palace,” I said decisively. And if it wasn’t, well, then at least I would be saved from Tallu’s blood on my blade.

The thought struck me, strange in its exactness. Why did it matter how clean my blade stayed?