Page 49

“Wake the scribe Hipati. We go at once to General Kacha’s quarters to arrest all of his commanders and find evidence of his plans.” Tallu glared at his soldiers until they jumped, realizing they were in the emperor’s innermost quarters, a space more private than any other in the Imperial Palace.

Shuffling out, I saw them form into a more recognizable unit out in the hallway. Chin raised, Tallu turned to me. His russet eyes were cold, and to anyone else, the look might have seemed disdainful.

But I knew him better than anyone else in the palace, and I recognized the slight creases in the corners of his eyes, the way they trailed over my face, reassuring himself with his sight when he couldn’t touch my skin.

With so many listening ears, I didn’t dare say what I wanted to, so instead, I nodded. I was fine. Fimo must not have finished his task. I was fine. There was no option for otherwise.

I felt no different than I did before the attack. When I’d first met Fimo, I had taken a lightning bolt to the chest and survived; lightning to the head seemed to have done about the same amount of damage. Yes. He was as ineffective at this as he was a fighter.

A guard captain finally made his way into the room, panting, his belt askew, helmet unfastened. Blood dripped from a cut on his arm. “Your Imperial Majesty, I will lead you to General Kacha’s quarters.”

Tallu stepped forward, following, and I moved next to him. Asahi drew beside me, dropping his voice into a whisper, barely more than a breath of air.

“Are you all right? We didn’t see his men until it was too late.”

“I’m fine.” I shook my head, raising my fingers to my temple where Fimo’s electro magic had entered my head. “Let’s get this done.”

The military quarters had descended into chaos even before Tallu arrived with the entire palace guard. Lights illuminated shouting men, and General Saxu met us with Generals Namati and Maki both at his side.

The late-night chill had finally cracked the sweat and heat from the anxiety I had felt at Fimo’s attack. During the walk, my eyes had adjusted to the dim light outside Tallu’s rooms, so to come upon the brilliantly lit military building was like coming upon the sunrise at midnight.

The three generals stood in the entryway, the massive room filled with their top commanders and a group of men under guard, the stitching on their uniforms labeling them as members of General Kacha’s forces.

“Your Imperial Majesty.” General Saxu dropped to his knees, then prostrated himself, the other two generals slowly lowering themselves to the ground. Their top commanders did the same, and only the men holding General Kacha’s commanders at swordpoint stayed standing.

General Bemishu was nowhere to be seen, but that was to be expected if he was staying at the Sunrise Estate.

“Did you know?” Tallu asked, his voice an arctic wind cutting across the tundra. He was not going to be merciful.

“No.” General Saxu shook his head sharply. With his face pressed to the ground, it was impossible to see his expression. “Commander Rede heard some of Kacha’s men talking. By the time we sent soldiers and messengers to your quarters, it was too late. As high general, I take full responsibility.”

“And what exactly are you taking responsibility for, High General Saxu?” Tallu stepped forward until the toe of his boot nearly brushed Saxu’s cheek. Saxu didn’t flinch, although General Maki trembled briefly before stilling himself.

Tallu looked unsettlingly calm.

“As high general, the four generals under my command are my responsibility. I knew General Kacha had grown anxious to return to the war front. I knew that he was dissatisfied. However, I never believed he would move against you.” Saxu paused, and I could see him considering his next words.

“I never believed he would fabricate evidence against your consort in order to gain power.”

“He accused my consort of animal speaking. I will know if any of the generals agree with his assessment so that they may share his fate.” Tallu stepped to the left, pausing in front of General Maki.

None of the generals spoke for a long, heavy moment. Someone coughed in the hallway, but other than that, I couldn’t even hear the sound of anyone breathing.

“General Maki,” Tallu’s voice was so calm that the danger in it rang like the clearest bell. Tallu would have made a terrible assassin. It was impossible not to look at him and know that he wielded enough power and skill to kill any of these men who were so well trained in the art of war.

“Your Imperial Majesty?” Maki asked, a hesitating second later. He cleared his throat. “I do not agree with General Kacha’s assessment. He was greedy to see your family’s prophecy fulfilled.”

“And yet you gave him the technique he attacked my consort with,” Tallu said. “He told me of it.”

“That is—I have given the technique to all of the generals—it is known throughout the highest levels of imperial military.” Maki shifted, about to rise, then froze when Asahi drew his blade, resting the tip on the marble floor next to Maki’s cheek.

“Yes, but you were a particular friend to him, weren’t you?” Tallu asked. “After all, you give him the ability to raise men from the dead.”

To their credit, neither General Saxu nor General Namati acted surprised. Their troops were not as calm. I heard shifting in the hallway, a murmur that passed down from man to man, each voice echoing some variation on horror.

“General Kacha would not have told you that,” General Maki said. “The art has not yet been perfected.”

“He didn’t have to tell us. You did it yourself.

We found your letters among the other correspondence.

” I crossed my arms. My head was beginning to buzz, and my vision sparkled, as though I was seeing the sunrise reflecting off falling snowflakes.

“We know that you are violating one of the only rules of war to come out of the blood mage mountains. And when we search his rooms, I am sure we will find more evidence.” I crouched low and asked, “Did you really fail? Or are you keeping the information for yourself so that you can do with it what you want?”

I worried I had been too forward, speaking too much on Tallu’s behalf, but General Maki was even more foolish than I expected. He rose with a shout, his face turning into a grimace of fury. His hands reached for me, and I saw the electricity crackle between them.

“You are a foreigner! You do not speak for—” He broke off, his lightning sputtering out, his rictus of fury melting into a gasp as he stared down at where his hand used to be.

Asahi shook his blade once, the droplets of General Maki’s blood landing on the ground. He tilted his blade, raising it so that it rested beneath the general’s chin.

I slid my dagger back into its sheath as silently as I could, then made a show of gasping, turning into Tallu as though I needed his assistance, as though I hadn’t been about to bury my blade in Maki’s throat.

Tallu wrapped his arm around me, and I could hear the rumble of his voice in his chest. “Take him away.”

“Your Imperial Majesty, you must see that I was not violating the rules set forth by your father; I was merely seeking to save imperial lives on the battlefields.” Maki’s voice came closer, and I turned my head, gauging the distance between us. Perhaps I would need my blade after all.

“Let me tell you what I see, General Maki.” Tallu tightened his fingers once on my shoulder, then released me. I moved back.

When Tallu took a step, Maki leaned onto his back foot, away from the emperor.

Electricity crackled in Tallu’s hand, and he raised it in front of him.

“I remember the battlefields in the Blood Mountains. I remember having to hack our own soldiers to pieces so the blood mages could not get hold of them.”

Tallu closed his hand over the stump Maki cradled against his chest. The torturous smell of burning flesh got into my nostrils, and I tightened my grip on my dagger.

I shivered at the tone in Tallu’s voice.

I had known he’d seen horrors, that he’d been a child fighting during the Blood Mountains, but the way he spoke made something cold shiver up my spine, my stomach going tight.

“I remember my own men, magicked back, missing their hands or their ears, limping with one leg, moving as living men with axes still embedded in their skulls. I remember that sometimes they spoke with rasping, dead voices, begging for mercy.” Tallu’s voice was relentless, and my heart broke for him.

“It was the cruelest magic on the continent, and you would taint our pure electro magic with it? You would befoul the Imperium with this atrocity?”

Maki convulsed but stayed standing, his eyes fixed on Tallu’s face. “You must see that is why we need this power. When we have control over the dead, there will not be a kingdom on the continent—no, in the world —that would stand against us.”

Tallu released Maki’s arm. His electro magic had seared the flesh.

Maki would not die from blood loss, although the infection still might kill him.

He was sweating, his eyes darting to the side, but Saxu stood, hand on his blade, face impassive.

Even General Namati looked away as though disgusted by the entire affair.

“What I see is that you have attacked my consort, a man so loyal to the Imperium that he has risked his life to defend it. What I see is that you have violated the one sacrosanct rule we put in place in our warfare. No true imperial would sentence you to anything less than death for your crime.” Tallu leaned forward.

“I will give you the mercy of death if you beg. The alternative is waiting to see what justice I will mete out.”

General Maki swallowed, but then his shoulders slumped. The wrinkles on his face deepened as he accepted his fate; his hair seemed grayer in the dark pre-dawn. Guards dragged him away, and the room was deathly silent.