Page 9

Five

I smiled at them. “You were at the wedding, weren’t you?”

Eona? had a perfect way to put people at ease, her smile so blank that it was impossible to tell if she was genuinely stupid or playing a game. It set most people off-balance, and by the time they regained their footing, she had the advantage. I could at least attempt to do the same.

“Consort Airón.” Lady Chaliko immediately stood, forming a triangle with her fingers at her forehead and bowing low. She was the youngest daughter of Lord Chaliko but the only woman left in his house. I wondered what it was like for her, a teenager balancing the weight of her house on her back.

Lady Dalimu was slower but followed suit, several heartbeats behind her companion. Pito exchanged a glance with her sister, then tittered in laughter. “Oh, I’m sorry, were we interrupting?”

“It was just that you did say you wanted to meet him,” Topi said. “Didn’t you?”

They both laughed again, and they could have given Eona? classes because it was impossible to tell who the object of their mockery was: me or the two women marked as traitors.

“Thank you for the introduction.” I nodded my head to Lady Dalimu and Lady Chaliko in acknowledgment but not any sign of respect or rank.

I was toeing a line here, and the twins were, too.

If I didn’t mistake the mischievous expression on Topi’s face, the Bemishus knew exactly what game they were playing.

Well. Now I had a choice, and so I sat at the table, gesturing for them to take their seats.

Lady Chaliko and Lady Dalimu settled back on their cushions, the tea and treats forgotten in front of them. Both seemed uncertain of the proper course of action, although both were likely more versed in court functions than me.

I took one of the pastries from a nearby platter. “I’m still getting to know my husband’s court. What part of the empire are you from?”

At my bland smile, Lady Chaliko spoke up quickly. “We settled in Tavornai. One of the conquered lands.”

I nodded, masking my recognition of what had once been the elven nation and was now nothing more than a scrap of swamp and burned trees. “I hear it’s very humid there.”

“Oh, very,” she agreed. Her smile was quick, and her eyes looked between the twins before catching mine again.

She was young, younger than me. Likely, she hadn’t celebrated more than her fifteenth year, meaning when her family had been banished, she had only been ten. What would that be like?

“And you, Lady Dalimu?” I turned to the older woman. She had no gray in her hair, but it was impossible for me to tell her age. Her skin was unnaturally smooth, as pale as moonstone. If she had been out in the sun, it had only been to walk from one spot of shade to another.

She had high cheekbones and dark eyes that took in much more than they exposed about her feelings.

She had stained her mouth red, and it stood out, forming a triangle with her dark eyes.

Two bath maids had whispered gossip to each other when they thought I hadn’t been listening: she had been married at twelve and had been childless at twenty-two when her husband had been executed and the family exiled.

Her smile was a twitch of lips, the barest hint of interest. At the wedding, I had noticed something between her and Dr. Jafopo, the Minister of Medicine.

I’d assumed she was hoping to be rescued from her exile by a second marriage.

Now, I wondered what the Minister of Medicine even saw in her other than her beauty. Perhaps that was enough for him.

“We have been living in Forsaith,” she said. “Overseeing the recovery of one of the orchards.”

I blinked, momentarily surprised. I knew they had been exiled to Forsaith, but I had no idea they had settled in the farmlands. “Is that possible?”

Perhaps my question might have been rude, and her eyes went glassy for a moment. The orchards of Forsaith had been burned, the earth salted and poisoned. Nothing would ever grow there again.

At least, that was what we told ourselves in the unconquered kingdoms. Perhaps the truth was more complicated, but either way, Lady Dalimu looked pained.

“I don’t believe so,” she said finally.

“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Pito cooed.

“Yes, you did send a few branches back. I heard they were even green!” Topi said.

“And that is the first step. Next, you’ll have blossoms and then fruit.” Pito beamed at her, so impossibly cheerful that it was truly a wonder Lady Dalimu didn’t flinch back at the assault.

Her lips went flat, pale underneath the red lipstick. “We must try, as House Dalimu cannot return until we provide a full harvest. At least, that was the order of Emperor Millu.”

She glanced at me from under her lashes, her smile suddenly warmer. It belonged to a different person, not a woman who had been struggling in dead lands to do an impossible task or die.

“My father says that the emperor would not have set us to do anything that we couldn’t manage,” Lady Chaliko said quietly. “We are good citizens of the Imperium, and surely he will see that.”

Lady Dalimu stared at her, her dark eyes going razor-sharp, as black as the gaze of a snake.

“We are good citizens of the Southern Imperium,” Lady Chaliko mumbled. “We are .”

“We are,” Topi said.

“And your father, Ladies Bemishu?” Lady Dalimu bared her teeth, her cheeks twisting up. “How fares the general?”

“Father is Father,” Pito said. It was as though she was sucking on a lime, the joy from poking at women beneath her in the pecking order suddenly turning sour.

Searching my brain, I struggled to remember what I knew about General Bemishu.

The information about five generals had sloshed together in my brain last night, mixing until it was impossible for me to tell what was real and what was simply a memory of what another general had said or done or reported.

“He’s fighting in the south, isn’t he?” I asked. The expensive campaign against the goblin tribes had started before Tallu’s father had been born.

“Well, not fighting now. The imperial expansion is on hold. But I think most of his troops are still down there.” Topi managed a more genuine smile than her sister. “From the last letter we got, he’s on his way home.”

“Such good news,” Lady Dalimu said. “I don’t suppose he’ll be displaying any of those horrific goblin artifacts again? I’d hate to miss them before I head home.”

Pito sat, finally taking one of the other chairs.

She looked smaller when she was sitting.

Less like a victorious warrior and more like a young girl caught setting fire to ants.

“He claims he’s bringing elephants along with the goblins to mind them.

I’m not sure if we’re going to have any of the Ariphadi staying with us.

You’d know about that, Lady Chaliko. How did you stand it? ”

Lady Chaliko stiffened and said sharply, “I have no idea what you mean.”

Frowning, I said, “What do you mean, Pito?”

“Ignore her,” Topi said, bending and sitting next to her sister. She nudged her twin, and I didn’t understand the glance passing between them, but Pito looked away like a gambler who’d overplayed her hand and lost a finger for it.

“No, I’d like to know. My ignorance might lead me to error.” Blinking, I widened my eyes. “I would hate to embarrass myself, and I know you’d never let that happen.”

“Of course we wouldn’t!” Pito tittered.

“No one wants to see that,” Topi agreed.

I doubted that was true. I thought it was more likely that both women couldn’t wait to see me fail, if only so they could enjoy the fruits of the ensuing gossip.

Still, it became apparent that they loved gossiping more than they wanted to set up my failure that far in advance.

“Of course you wouldn’t know this, but Lord Chaliko was sent away for harboring blood mages.

One of his own men exposed him.” Pito smiled at Lady Chaliko.

“They say he even allowed them to live in his other houses. He gave them imperial clothing, and they were pretending to be servants and honored guests! Can you imagine?”

At the last second, she turned to look toward me, and I realized that on the surface, this question was for me, even though clearly it was a way to torture Lady Chaliko.

I turned to Lady Chaliko. Her lips were pursed, her brows pulled tightly together, a groove slicing her forehead. “Is that true?”

“It’s what my father was convicted of,” she said, which didn’t answer the question. How different did the situation look from her perspective? Did she know who they had been? Or had her life simply been uprooted one day because her father had tried to save some people the emperor wanted dead?

If that was true, I had no idea why she wasn’t bitter, why anger hadn’t eaten her from the inside out. She should be furious.

Instead, I could see the high rise of color on her cheeks, staining the brass of her skin darker, but the embarrassment was quickly turning to indignation.

“My father has always been loyal to the Imperium,” Lady Chaliko said. “And we continue to be so. We did not steal from imperial coffers.”

It was like watching a wolf cub take a swipe at her mother. Almost instantly, Lady Dalimu turned on her, and like the annoyed mother wolf, she was swift in her retribution.

“ I did not steal from imperial coffers, but at least my husband was not letting foreign magic thrive inside the Imperium’s borders, endangering every person in the area, jeopardizing the imperial line, and imperiling the promise.”

Lady Dalimu didn’t need to clarify which promise because when the imperials spoke about it, there was simply one: Your line will unite the continent.

What was a promise to them was a curse to the rest of the continent, who had no desire to be united under the Imperium’s boot. Not that any of them had considered that inconvenient fact.