Page 54 of Betrothed to the Emperor

Well, I had a wedding gift for him in the form of a knife to the heart, but I doubted that was what he was asking for.

“I’ll think of something,” I said. “After all, I have two weeks.”

I did not thinkof anything. After court, I went back to my quarters and immediately checked under the mattress in the hole I’d carved for my weapons and the two purses of imperial coins.

It was then I realized the rabbit skin pouch was missing. My blood ran cold. The dragon egg was gone. I had it when we’d gone to the temple. In the water, when we had leapt in, it had been tied tightly to my clothes.

I had vague memories of it from the cottage in the forest, and then…

When Nohe came back, ready to help me into a new outfit for dinner, I asked her, “What happened to my clothes—the ones I was wearing yesterday? Someone at the emperor’s quarters must have undressed me.”

“They were sent to the laundry,” she said immediately. “I can ask for them, although I think the laundry servants might have torn them for scraps. They were covered in blood.”

Nohe looked down, clearly uncomfortable.

“Was that all? There was no pouch on my waist?” I gestured to my hip, where I’d tied the rabbit skin pouch to the pants myself.

Frowning, Nohe shook her head. “No. Would you like me to ask one of the emperor’s servants or the Emperor’s Dogs?”

I shook my head. If the Emperor’s Dogs had it, that meant the emperor had it. And what would he do when he found out I brought a dragon egg into the Imperial Capital?

It was almost better to have lost it in the river or in Liku and Miksha’s cabin. Maybe the blood mage would take care of it, grow it if it still lived.

“Prince Airón?” Nohe asked. She looked to me as though expecting an answer, and I shook my head sharply.

“Yes. What was the question?”

“In order to have the wedding clothes ready, the seamstress asked if she could see you today.” Nohe was frowning. “Or I can ask for the doctor to come back.”

“No need. I’ll see the seamstress. What else needs to be prepared in advance of the wedding?” I looked at her imploringly, hoping she would take mercy on me and do everything necessary. Eonaî would know what to do, all the required steps, but I was foolish, and I had spent more time on strategy than on etiquette.

With one last concerned look, Nohe began explaining what I would need to do to marry the emperor of the Southern Imperium.

A week later,I had three sets of clothes ordered for the wedding itself, gifts for everyone who needed one, a list of important people I needed to memorize, and all of the formal, ceremonial words I would need to say the day of the wedding. It took a few days for me to work up to asking Nohe about the paper.

“You asked me whether letters to the Northern Kingdom were different than letters from the Imperium.” We were sittingacross from each other in the main sitting room of my quarters at Turtle House. The afternoon light filtered in, and Asahi stood at the doorway, doing his very best not to look disappointed in me for every single one of my decisions before this moment. “Are all letters from the other nations made differently? As the steward of Turtle House, you must know. After all, you housed all the visiting dignitaries.”

“Yes.” Nohe straightened up, briefly forgetting the task of teaching me the proper hand gesture forthank you for the gift, which was entirely different fromthis is terrible, but I’m too polite to say sobecause it involved two fingers instead of three.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well, people from Ristorium rarely write at all. They mostly send their missives via song. When they do write down a note, it’s in a small tube that the air mages can lift into the air and send flying to its destination.” She smiled fondly. Then her eyes lit, and she stood, going out into the main rooms and returning a few moments later with a wooden box. She opened it, revealing neatly organized sets of stationery and other writing supplies.

“This was from my predecessor. She believed it was our duty as hosts to have everything a guest would need on hand, even things that we don’t use here in the Imperium.” She took out what looked like a piece of leather, thin and flexible and stained with black marks. “The Ariphadi send missives on animal skins. They don’t use paper. I was taught they deem wasting anything down in the desert to be shameful, so all their letters are on leather that can be wiped away when returning a note.”

“Interesting. I suppose if the north was the same, we’d write everything on ice.” I smiled to show it was a joke. “Wedodeliver most messages via bird. There’s special carriers we attach to some birds’ feet, and they’ll travel from town to town, delivering any messages that need to be read right away.”

Her eyes lit up, and I realized that Nohe had spent her entire life in the Imperial Palace, serving people from other places. Part of her wished that she could see the places her charges came from.

“What about Krustau?” I asked casually.

“They’re truly interesting,” she said, taking out what looked like a chipped piece of rock. “They write letters like we do, but they seal theirs with a special kind of rock that melts like wax when heated. It makes it difficult to open without a blade.”

“Oh, they use seals?” I asked, opening my eyes wide with pretend curiosity. Internally, I cursed. This was going to make forging a letter difficult without the stone wax.

“Yes, but not with signet rings like in the Dragon Chosen days. Instead, they use the hilt of their blades.” She shook her head, a slight smile on her face. “We had a man from Krustau here only a few years ago, and he would hold his blade to the flame and use the heated hilt to melt the wax onto the letters.”

“Interesting,” I said. I offered over my hand, and Nohe placed the rock in my palm. It was heavy and cold. If she hadn’t said anything, I wouldn’t have known that it was anything more than a normal rock.