Brian Staveley - The Emperor's blades

Adare grinned and fell back against the pillows, weariness and satisfaction washing over her in great soft waves. She felt good. Good to be in Ran’s bed. Good to have avenged her father. Good to have eliminated a threat to the Malkeenian line. For the first time in her life, she felt as though she had been truly tested, and she had passed the test. I’m sorry about Ran, Father, she thought, but you taught me well. I’m playing my part .

The thought of her father brought back the memory of his final bequest, the gift that he mentioned in his testament: Yenten’s History of the Atmani . She tossed in the bed for a while, but sleep had left her, and finally she sat up.

“Can you send one of your slaves to my chambers for a book?” she asked.

“Am I keeping you up?” He turned and gestured to the lamp. “I can dim this a little if you want. We can’t have the Imperial Princess uncomfortable.”

“The Imperial Princess is just fine, thank you. The Imperial Princess has a yen for some reading material. It’s Yenten’s History . My father left it to me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A little light reading.”

“I’m not just a princess,” she replied, sticking out her chin. “I’m also the Minister of Finance.”

“You know,” he said carefully, “that the gongs have already tolled midnight. Tongues will be wagging about how late you lingered with the kenarang .…”

She stiffened. “You want me gone?”

He raised a conciliatory hand. “I want you here. Tonight. Tomorrow night. And all the nights after that. I’m just asking if it’s wise.”

She relaxed back into the bed. “A certain general once told me,” she said with a smile, “that you need to know when to plan, and when to act. Well, I’m acting finally, and realizing I have a taste for it.”

“So be it,” he replied before crossing the room, sticking his head out the door, and murmuring something to the slave just beyond.

A few minutes later, the man returned and passed a thick leather-bound codex through the gap in the door. Ran hefted it in his hand, flipped a couple of pages, then shrugged and tossed it onto the bed beside her. It landed with a thump.

“One chapter ought to put you right to sleep. Worse than these ’Shael-spawned petitions.”

“Just because you’re an ignorant soldier doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t appreciate some high-minded thought from time to time.”

“I should have stayed an ignorant soldier,” he replied, lowering himself back into the desk chair with a groan and turning to the stack of parchment. “Ut and that bastard Adiv had best hurry up with your brother or I’ll have plunged the empire into darkness before they get back.”

Adare ignored the complaint and wriggled up in the bed until she had her back against the wall and the great book propped up on her knees. For a while, she just considered the cover. Her father had taught her so much, and this book would be, in a way, his final lesson. She opened it, perused the first page, then flipped ahead, trying to get a sense of the scope. Some maps, some tables-the sort of reading a man like Ran couldn’t stand but that she found fascinating. Another map, another inventory. She was about to flip back to the start to begin reading in earnest when she turned another page to find a loose leaf of paper tucked deep into the spine. Curious, she drew it out and unfolded it, then froze. It was her father’s hand.

She glanced up furtively, but Ran was still at his desk, his back to her, scratching away with his quill at some page or other. She flipped the paper over, but there was writing on one side only.

Adare.

You are reading this, and so I am dead and my gambit has succeeded. I could not place this note in my testament, because our foes were certain to read that testament before you, to alter it if necessary.

Months ago, I learned of a conspiracy arrayed against me, against the Malkeenian line, most likely against Annur itself. As I write, there have already been four attempts on my life. They were all subtle, probing, and unsuccessful, but I have been unable to track the beasts to their lair and each day they are testing, learning. It will not be long before they succeed and I am dead.

Rather than allowing my attackers to dictate the time and place, I plan to use this life of mine as a stone to be played on the board, a stone that may turn the tide of this silent battle we wage. As yet I do not know our foes’ identities, but I have theories and suspicions. I have arranged secret meetings with those I mistrust, meetings I will attend without the protection of my Aedolians or the knowledge of the councillors. I will give these schemers the opportunity to strike me down with impunity, and I will leave a record of these meetings to you, that you will know whom to fear and fight after I am gone.

Adare reeled. A list followed, a dozen or so appointments with times, places. Her father had met with Baxter Pane and Tarik Adiv, Jennel Firth and D’Naera of Sia. He had met on ships in the harbor and in alehouses by the White Market, in secret chambers of the Dawn Palace, and beyond the boundaries of the city. There were more than a dozen names on his list, powerful men and even a few women, but her eyes fell down the page to the only one that mattered:

On the evening of the new moon, I will meet with the

kenarang,

Ran il Tornja, in our family’s private chapel in the Temple of Light.

The evening of the new moon. The Temple of Light. She had been certain Uinian was responsible for her father’s death, had seen the man torn apart for his transgression, had reveled in his destruction. She stared, first at the page before her, then at the naked back of the kenarang, of her lover, as he sat toiling over his papers. Sweet ’Shael, she thought, shivers running over her naked flesh. Sweet, holy Intarra, what have I done?

When the most paralyzing horror had passed, she turned her eyes back to the page.

I do not intend to die without a fight, Adare. Perhaps I shall win, though I find it unlikely. The foe we face is both sly and strong, thwarting me at each pass. I will bring my sword to these meetings, but you are my last blade. You, and Kaden, and Valyn. If you feel, any of you, that you have been hammered hard, it has been that you might better hold an edge.

Heed what I write here, Adare. Heed it, though it may implicate someone you have known a long time, someone you trust. You cannot bargain with this foe, cannot reason with him, cannot find an accommodation. Whoever it is, you must stop at nothing to bring him down. I have dispatched people to warn and protect Kaden and Valyn, but you alone are privy to this final letter.

The final lines were not a declaration of love or an expression of sorrow in the face of imminent death. Neither would have been Sanlitun’s way. His last words to her were hard and practical:

Resist faith. Resist trust. Believe only in what you touch with your hands. The rest is error and air.

Adare raised her eyes from the page. Blood pounded in her ears, burned beneath her skin. Her own breath sounded ragged in her chest. She folded the paper neatly along the creases and tucked it back into the book, flipping a few pages to conceal it. Ran sat at his desk still, grumbling over whatever work lay before him. She could still feel his seed warm against her thigh.

The man shifted in his chair, then turned.

She forced a smile onto her face.

“Bored of that book already?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Looking for something a little more … engaging?” He winked.

She wanted to scream, to run, to pull the blankets over her head, to bury herself in the bed, in the very earth. She wanted to flee the room, to race back to her chambers in the Crane where the Aedolians stood guard over her door. All at once, she felt like a girl again, lost, and frightened, and confused. But she was not a girl. She was a princess, a minister, and maybe the last living Malkeenian.