Page 38

He looked over at his beloved, and with the masks covering their faces, I didn’t see any of what his eyes must’ve been saying. But Sagam’s expression went soft, eyes turning down in the corners. He swallowed.

Then, because it was Sagam, he said, “I had no idea we were eating with the emperor now. Are there any more secrets you want to tell me? Perhaps you are secretly a blood mage? Or your favorite color isn’t actually blue?”

Asahi ducked his head. He sat in the chair, hands clasped in front of him, ignoring the delicious feast servants had laid out. “There are great many secrets I haven’t told you.”

He turned to look at Tallu, and after a long beat of hesitation, he reached up and removed his mask.

Sagam gasped, grabbing the back of the chair he had been about to sit in. “ Asahi .”

“I have shown my face. Here, but also to Consort Airón. I accept whatever punishment you see fit.” He couldn’t quite meet Tallu’s gaze, letting his own fall to the table.

“There will be no punishment,” Tallu said. “What news do you bring me of General Kacha?”

“When I first approached my father, he didn’t believe that I was there on my own behalf,” Asahi said.

Beside him, Sagam finally pulled out the chair and sat in it heavily.

I saw his hand go to the blade at his hip, hesitate, then form a fist on the table.

“It took some convincing, but he finally did begin to believe that I was dissatisfied with what he saw as my lessened role looking after Consort Airón. Then, he was happy to speak on his dissatisfaction with the way things currently are. Mostly, he grumbles. Your father gave him far more leash than you do.”

Sagam let out a sound that might have been a snort, but when I looked at him, it was impossible to read his expression through the mask covering his features. His eyes were focused on Asahi’s hands.

“ Mostly ?” I waited for Asahi to look up.

Asahi took a deep breath, glancing to the window before meeting my eyes.

“He believes you are practicing animal speak. He believes you are using it to enchant Emperor Tallu. He has convinced General Maki of this. General Namati is less certain, but he yearns for the ocean and dislikes being on land for so long. My father believes he has enough support to overthrow General Saxu and take over as high general.”

I leaned back in my chair, suddenly unable to touch the plate of food in front of me. “They plan to kill me.”

“No. He plans to have me bring you to him, then he will use the same technique they do on all magic users and burn your magic from your brain.” Asahi said this flatly, his expression nearly identical to the mask that sat on the table in front of him, as though all of his years wearing it had carved it into his own face.

“Do you believe that Airón has bewitched me with animal speak?” Tallu asked.

“No,” Asahi said immediately. “I know that he practices it; he speaks to his birds in his northern tongue. But”—Asahi turned to look at me, his eyes moving over my expression—“I do not believe he has bewitched you using his magic .”

“You—” I wasn’t sure how to end the sentence because any ending would share too much information. If I admitted that I did use animal speak, that was a death sentence in the Southern Imperium. If I denied it, I would be lying to one of the few people other than Tallu who seemed to be on my side.

“I have seen enough to know that your birds are more than pets.” Asahi glanced over at Sagam. Clearly, they had spoken on it before. “But you do not treat them as disposable creatures. You treat them as friends. I do not think anyone who treats birds so highly would strip a human of his free will.”

I swallowed. They were putting too much faith in me. Far too much. They were putting more faith in me than I deserved. When I had myself under control, I considered the problem.

“General Kacha thinks he can make a pet of me, the same way he did the Velethuil.” Picking up my fork, I poked at some of the food in front of me, crushing it beneath the tines. I didn’t even see what it was, my brain too busy.

I had been trained to decipher the puzzle of how to kill the emperor: how to monitor guard schedules, determine the best location, find the best weapon. This was just a different sort of puzzle.

“I will kill him.” Tallu’s words were flat, nearly affectless. “I will end his life. I will choke him with my bare hands and roast his insides with my lightning.”

I choked, nearly laughing, before shaking my head.

“That will prove his point. Call him here. Tell him I am in the next room, and you feel as though you are waking from a deep slumber. You believe I may be using animal speak to cast magic on you. You need to know the technique to remove my magic. When he attempts to do it, we can show that he has assaulted the emperor’s consort. He has attacked the Imperium.”

“You would frame him,” Sagam said.

I shook my head. “No. The opposite. We are going to reveal exactly who General Kacha is.”

The other half of the plan would need more thought. I needed to speak with Tallu privately, and when he heard what I had to say, he might look at me the way that Sagam was right now, as though I was mad.

“We have reason to believe that General Kacha isn’t the only one working against the Imperium.

” I tried to keep my words as true as I could.

Technically, Tallu was the Imperium, so it wasn’t quite a lie.

“Tonight, we need to sneak out to the Sunrise Estate and find out what General Bemishu is doing.”

“You don’t need to sneak anywhere,” Asahi said. “You are emperor; you can go anywhere in the empire.”

“I can, but I believe General Bemishu is hiding his true intentions. The only way to find out what he’s doing is to go when he’s not expecting me.

” Tallu tilted his head to the door. “Were I to visit the Sunrise Estate, it would need to be with a full contingent of guard, a full retinue. It is not the same as meeting the priest at the Dragon Temple.”

“You are the emperor,” Asahi repeated, insistent. “You do not need to sneak anywhere.”

“I shouldn’t have to, and if we go there under secrecy and I find that Bemishu has nothing planned, there is no secret weapon that he has hidden from me, there is nothing traitorous in his intentions, then I will know that I have him on my side.

” Tallu took in a deep breath, looking between Asahi and Sagam.

I knew that his words were meant for both of them.

“I would like to know who is on my side.”

For a long moment, Sagam looked troubled, and then he finally nodded. “You have our loyalty, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“My life is pledged to you,” Asahi said.

“Good. I rely on the two of you.” Tallu looked out the window again.

“I would never ask you to tell on your brothers. The Emperor’s Dogs swear a sacred oath, but—” Tallu swallowed, and in it, I read nervousness that I had almost never seen from him before.

“—I worry that not all of the Dogs are as loyal.”

Neither Asahi nor Sagam answered; they did not even look at each other.

Tallu gazed out the window again, straightening his shoulders. “I fear many are too loyal to my father. Perhaps their loyalty has blinded them to the truth that I did not kill him.”

Without his mask, Asahi had nothing to hide his surprise, but it was Sagam who asked, “You didn’t kill Emperor Millu?”

Tallu shook his head. “I did not. I must believe one of the people acting against me now had some hand in it. It must be one of the generals or one of the exiled council members. That is why we must root out all traitors. Do you understand?”

“You can rely on our loyalty,” Sagam said. I couldn’t see his lips twisted into a smile under his mask, but I could feel it in the way he said, “Both of us were loyal to you when we thought you did kill your father, so you may doubly rely on it now that we believe you did not.”

“Wait.” I frowned at the two of them, looking between them. “You both were loyal to him when you thought he’d committed regicide?”

Any hint of a smile disappeared from Sagam’s eyes.

“Being a Dog was all I have ever wanted in life. I worked for it since I was a young boy. It was the highest honor I could possibly achieve. And I am grateful to be doing it for an emperor as thoughtful and considerate as you, Your Imperial Majesty. Rather than the alternative.”

I got all of his girls for him , Lord Fuyii had said. I know his preferences.

Tallu stood, looking between the two men. “Tonight. May we hope that General Bemishu is as loyal as both of you have proven to be.”

Asahi swept up his mask in one hand, fastening it quickly. Then he walked to the door, kicking aside the linens I had placed beneath it, and opened it. The two Dogs were further down the hall. If they had just snuck back into position, they gave no sign of it.

Perhaps Tallu had more loyal to him than he believed.

“I should continue my day,” Tallu said. He looked out over the courtyard where I had fought the best commanders in his military.

“We need to rest. Come to bed, husband.” I didn’t care who heard us anymore.

Tallu looked at me and nodded. We retreated to his bedroom and the safety of the door that only he could open.

Servants brought some of the food from the dining room, placing it on Tallu’s table, and then they withdrew.

I went to shut the curtain, and Tallu closed the door behind the last of them.

When it shut, I was hit with a wave of cold, something that shivered up my spine, making me tremble.

Hurriedly, I went into the back room, pushing on the stone that Tallu had used to open the secret door, but it only responded when Tallu came close behind me, sending a bolt of electricity into the stone. Inside was an arctic cave. Ice covered every surface, thick on the walls.

The table that had once taken up the center of the room had been knocked aside, and a dragon the size of a borealis wolf pup was curled in the center of the room. It came up to my knee, eyes closed in sleep. When it exhaled, frost rose in the air.

I swore, taking a step back. The dragon didn’t wake.

“At least we don’t need to worry about ice buckets.

At this rate, you’re going to have a castle that rivals my mother’s in the Silver City.

” Walking over to the table, I took one of the platters the servants had left on it and placed it just inside the doorway before letting the curtain fall over the entrance again.

With it closed, the chill lessened, but I could still feel it crawling in my brain, bringing up memories of the tundra.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Tallu asked.

“I discovered who the designer of the airship is,” I said. “And I know exactly what you need to do about her.”

Tallu’s eyebrows went up. “Her?”

“Lady Dalimu. The missing shipments that were rerouted to Forsaith? Bemishu was sending them to her. She builds mechanical toys; it would not be that much of a stretch for her to discover how to build a different sort of machinery.” I sat down on the couch, absently plucking one of the appetizers off of a silver tray.

I popped it in my mouth, the buttery crust crumbling and leaving a sweet berry aftertaste on my tongue.

Tallu frowned, crossing his arms as he paced across the room. He very quickly put together the same pieces I had. “She and the Bemishu twins must be working together, which means they are still loyal to their father and not General Kacha.”

“Or they are loyal to Kacha and spying on their father,” I agreed.

“She assumes that Bemishu will honor his agreement and bring her into the Imperium once her invention is revealed.” Tallu frowned. “Why haven’t they revealed it yet? It would give Bemishu power over the other generals. It would change the face of imperial warfare.”

“I think that’s why we need to go to the Sunrise Estate.

That’s the only place they could be building it.

Her brother—Piivu—is worried that the timetable is too short.

” I spread my hands wide but then couldn’t resist another one of the berry tarts.

Putting it in my mouth, I asked, “What is Bemishu’s rush? ”

Tallu shrugged, clearly not sure either. “What do you propose to do about her?”

He had asked me to use my skills against his enemy.

But I couldn’t, not against a woman whose fate since she was twelve years old had been to be buffeted back and forth by stronger, more powerful, less clever men.

Now, she had created some shred of hope for herself, and we were about to take that away as well.

“We send her north. We send her and the ship to my mother. The Northern Kingdom isn’t the sort of place to hold her origins against her if she is half as brilliant as I think she is.

” I could already imagine what my mother would say, and I knew from how well she treated Lord Fuyii—who knew only a fraction of what Lady Dalimu did—that this was the best outcome.

“She will be treated well. My mother will make sure of it.”

“You suggest to send her there with the airship,” Tallu said, but from the expression on his face, he was not only open to the idea but intrigued by it. “You’d hand this nation-destroying weapon to the woman who sent an assassin into my bedroom.”

“In my mother’s defense, she only really wants to destroy one nation, and we all agree on which one.

Piivu said that the airship needs more lift, more air than it currently has, to get over the mountains.

I know of one man who can get that. Velethuil.

He and the other air mages traveled to the floating islands on their own; they have the air power she needs to make the ship work.

If we heal the damage General Kacha did to take away Velethuil’s magic, then we send them on their way.

” I rubbed my hands over my face. “I think we can use blood magic to do it.”