Page 12

The meat was chewy, tasting of salt from the ocean, and it slid around my mouth, losing some of the slippery feel as I chewed it.

When I swallowed, I was suddenly back home in the Silver City, eating seafood around a warm fire, my sister on my left, her expression open, and our mother to my right, her smile more guarded but no less genuine.

If it was winter, my father might even have been present.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” Asahi’s voice carried.

I startled, unused to Asahi speaking in public.

He had only ever spoken up when we were in private.

When other people were around, it was almost as though he was actually trying to be my shadow: visible but silent.

“I’m not sure it is wise for the imperial consort to stay in Turtle House for the time being. ”

“Why not?” Emperor Tallu looked at me, then back at the corner where Asahi was forced to step forward into the light.

“We still haven’t found the intruder that Consort Airón saw this morning.” Asahi’s expression was hidden behind his black animal mask, but the tension in his voice was almost angry.

“Intruder?” Emperor Tallu said sharply, looking at me.

I hadn’t exactly forgotten, but Asahi hadn’t said anything else. I had assumed that they had found the man and quietly killed him. Now, I narrowed my eyes, wondering why he hadn’t told me.

“I saw someone this morning. He looked ragged, wearing foreign clothes.” I shrugged. “If you didn’t find him, was he just a servant poorly dressed? Even in Turtle House, someone must be allowed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed some mornings.”

“No servants matched that description,” Asahi said. He bowed, without the triangle of fingers, then stepped back.

“Turtle House will be your quarters, but for now, you should sleep in mine. I would regret deeply if anything happened to you at night.” Tallu frowned, looking out toward the door that opened onto the garden. “Describe the intruder to me again.”

I racked my brain, coming up only with the stringy, matted hair. The clothes made of maroon fabric, not fur or imperial silk.

Tallu’s frown deepened, the furrow between his brows not smoothing out, even as his words indicated he was putting the matter behind him. “I trust you and the other Dogs will find this person.”

Asahi bowed again, the motion only visible by the gleam of light off his mask.

I searched Tallu’s face, but he shook his head once. Unaccountably flustered, I tried to come up with a topic of conversation and only managed a vague inquiry into who maintained the beautiful gardens.

Yor?mu had once said that if I came upon a rock carved like a man, I would happily have an entire conversation with it, not at all caring that it didn’t respond. Of all the times to lose my ability.

But this was different. This was a different kind of disguise than I was used to. I had been taught how to stalk and kill Emperor Millu, not help his son destroy his own court from within.

If that was what we were doing. Watching Tallu as he ate carefully, each bite considered, each motion coordinated, I had to wonder if I was just one more tool for him to use. And what he would do with me when he had no more use for a northern assassin sent to kill him.

Would he lie down for me again as he had on our wedding night? Would he let my blade sink into his soft skin, slice his muscled flesh? I swallowed, tasting none of the meal in front of me.

After dinner, we returned to the emperor’s quarters, the outer door no less daunting than the first time I’d seen it. When he closed the door to his personal rooms, the locks sliding into place, Tallu said, “Tell me about the intruder again.”

I repeated everything, watching his face as I did. He shook his head.

“Do you think he was sent by one of the generals?” I asked.

“Possibly,” he said. “I heard that General Kacha’s visit was unpleasant.”

“Well, he dropped a severed head on my table. I think I can get more information if I train his men. But you aren’t wrong that Kacha wants me dead.” I lay back on one of the lounges, looking up at Tallu’s ceiling.

Carefully, Tallu took the coronet from his brow, putting it down on the low table in front of me before settling onto a cushion.

He regarded it, his eyes focused on the gleam of the metal as he spoke.

“Kacha wants you under his control. Right now, he’s testing to see if fear is the best way to accomplish that. ”

“He certainly has enough of the court under his control that I understand why he thinks I’ll happily fall in line. He even has General Bemishu’s daughters on his side.” I turned my attention to the coronet, trying to see why Tallu was so focused on it.

“General Bemishu should be here within a few days. When he arrives, he will attend the training himself. I find it unlikely that he’s the one behind any of this.

” Tallu looked up, and I let him catch my eyes.

“Whoever tried to kill us in the cavern knew our movements, meaning they were here in the palace. Bemishu hasn’t left the Ariphadeus front since he was given the command years ago.

The only reason he’s coming north now is because of the pause in fighting.

He hopes to argue General Saxu into seeing that fighting with the Ariphadi doesn’t count as part of the imperial expansion. ”

“He hopes to argue that trying to take over land that belongs to the goblin tribes doesn’t count as the imperial expansion?” Incredulous, I laughed.

“Because they are not a united nation, any territory we take is piecemeal. Even they do not claim to own it, merely to be using it for the time being. They believe it belongs to the desert itself; the sand will wipe away any boundary they decide on.” Tallu’s voice grew distant, almost as though he appreciated the idea of the land taking back what people couldn’t possibly own.

“Why are you so worried about the man I saw this morning?” I asked. “I’m sure it was just a servant.”

A servant that Terror and the other birds hadn’t seen. That Asahi and all the other Dogs couldn’t find.

“Because.” Tallu sighed deeply, inhaling just enough to speak his next words. “I fear you saw a blood mage.”