David Weber - The Road to Hell

“What do you want, Prince Weeva?” Howan Fai asked.

“You.” He wiggled a finger like a hooked worm. “Since you can call that bird, I want you to attend on me after the Conclave. If the cutcha picks me, I’m going to have her kill that bird. If she doesn’t, I’m going to have you kill it.”

The special policeman just closed his eyes and shook his head with the air of a long-suffering attendant.

Prince Weeva snorted laughter, turned to his own guard, and threw an arm around the Uromathian man.

“Did you see their faces? I want game bird recipes! Have the staff begin looking for them immediately. I want a good selection to review as soon as this dull ceremony’s over. Maybe something can be done with stewed redberry, or currants, but whatever it is has to be delicious so the cutcha’ll eat it before she recognizes what it was.”

The four Imperial Guardsmen still stood at the Eniath apartment. Indeed, they’d solidified somehow, drawing together in some invisible fashion, as Weeva laughed. Their stony faces were too well trained to reveal what they might be thinking, however, and one with senior armsman stripes bowed deeply to King Junni and issued an invitation.

“Your Royal Majesty, I’d prefer to escort your party to the Conclave, if you’re prepared to go.” Rokel Lii translated at the king’s ear.

Prince Weeva grimaced pettishly, but he nodded with brusque contempt and allowed himself to be escorted away.

“No one’ll be touching any imperial falcons,” one of the remaining Ternathians muttered, not far enough under his breath for politeness. He was the one with the Sifter Talent, and his expression staring after Prince Weeva indicated entirely too much confidence that the Uromathian prince intended every word of his threats.

King Junni responded to the Imperial Guardsman’s tone without bothering to wait for a second translation.

“Rokel Lii, we will go. Assure them no harm will befall White Fire at our hands. And have someone tell the maid the threat has passed at least as far as down the hall.”

* * *

The enormous Emperor Garim Chancellery was packed with bodies-some even as resplendently dressed as Prince Weeva. King Junni pressed right past their usual seats near the middle, halfway back from the places of high honor, and strode straight for the front.

Weeva caught their eyes and laughed, then huddled in close to Emperor Chava and began a wildly gesticulated story with arms mimicking an imperial falcon’s flapping, and Howan Fai watched the emperor’s face. Chava looked at them and frowned, not seeming to enjoy his son’s latest antics. Whatever his other faults, Chava had finesse, and the hijinks Prince Weeva planned both lacked that and needlessly complicated Uromathia’s push for greater power in the new Sharonan Empire.

Only when Chava’s eyes suddenly narrowed did Howan Fai realize he and his father reached the very front of the room…and that the Imperial Guard had let them without the smallest word of restraint.

He turned away from Chava and bowed to the Ternathian Emperor. Zindel looked at him with an odd light in his eyes, and none of the astonishment Howan Fai had expected to see as the result of their effrontery. He almost faltered in surprise, but a quick touch of King Junni’s elbow encouraged to him to speak.

“Your Imperial Majesty, may I have the honor of a word with the Imperial Crown Princess?”

“Yes!” Delight filled Emperor Zindel’s face. “Why, yes, you may.”

Then the princess was there. Andrin, face tilted down towards him with a hopeful lift on her mouth, reached out and took his hands. He started to speak, still not sure exactly what he meant to say, but she overrode him before he could open his mouth.

“I need to marry you,” she whispered urgently. “Will you do it?”

Howan Fai was a prince. Of a small kingdom, perhaps, but still a prince, born and bred to the job and well trained in its responsibilities. That was the only reason his eyes didn’t flare wide and his mouth didn’t drop open in astonishment and disbelief. Instead, he dipped his head in a courteous nod, as if that was exactly what he’d expected to hear, although he suspected the light blazing in his own eyes gave that notion the lie for anyone who could see it.

“Of course!” he replied in the same whisper and kissed her hand. “I can imagine no greater honor. When?”

“Now.” She squeezed his hands tightly. “Father will see to it. But we marry now, in front of the Conclave, where no one can challenge the validity. Are you ready?”

“Absolutely.”

He released her hands to press a fist to his heart, bowing as if they’d exchanged the merest pleasantry, then stepped back beside his father as Andrin and Zindel continued to their places on the dais at the heart of the Conclave chamber. Shamir Taje accompanied them and waited while they took their seats before continuing himself to the podium at the lip of the dais and reaching for his gavel.

That gavel rapped once, twice, three times, the sharp sound cutting through the muted burr of conversation. Stillness fell-a taut, singing stillness-and he cleared his throat.

“The Conclave will come to order,” he said calmly into the silent tension.

The first councilor’s smooth, unruffled control of the packed Conclave’s members and their invited guests soothed Howan Fai’s jangled nerves. But he also knew that in the next few moments he’d pass beyond the level where enmity from fools like Prince Weeva mattered and attain in its place a personal enemy in the ruling emperor of the Uromathian Empire.

The rest of the opening ceremonies, unavoidable even here, on this day, flowed past him in a blur. He tried to concentrate enough to pay attention-he truly did-but Andrin’s whispered words replayed themselves in his head again and again, drowning out everything else while he grappled with his astonishment and tried to sort out the wild mix of surprise, joy, determination, and fear. He hadn’t made a great deal of progress by the time the inevitable ceremonial was completed. And then-

“Lords, Ladies, please stand for the commencement of the Conclave. I present the Imperial Crown Princess Andrin Calirath, Heir to the Winged Crown and the Empire of Sharona.”

Taje’s words snapped Howan Fai’s whirling brain into sudden, razor sharp focus, as if he’d just hurled a bucket of icy water into the prince’s face. The young Eniathian stiffened and the huge chamber went deathly silent. A quarter of the room turned towards the knot of Uromathian imperials, but Emperor Chava said not a word.

Andrin stepped up beside the First Councilor and called out in a loud, clear voice:

“I am here to complete the unification of the Empire of Sharona, to meet the requirement of the Articles of the Unification, and to marry a Prince of Uromathia. I present to you my choice of consort: Prince Howan Fai Goutin of Eniath.”

She held out her hand, and Howan Fai rose, the sound of his feet loud in the deafening stillness as he crossed to the dais. He made himself walk slowly, calmly, and mounted the steps, bowing to Emperor Zindel as he reached the top, still wrapped in the electric cocoon of the Conclave’s astonished stillness. Then he bowed again, even more deeply, to Andrin, stepped up beside her, and took her hand in his.

They turned to face the Conclave together, and its silence shattered. The sudden, surging thunder of cheers as the Conclave’s members came to their feet was deafening, rolling up like the sea, pressing against Howan Fai’s face, and Andrin’s, like a powerful wind. It was a storm, a tempest whose like he’d never imagined in his wildest dreams, and Finena on Andrin’s shoulder added her own piecing war cries to the tumultuous cheering.