Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling

He was very close when he spoke again. ‘It escapes the attention of your own kinden — as of other upstart races — that all the great powers of the Days of Lore could see in darkness, to a greater or lesser degree. The Mantids, the Spiders, and of course, best of all, the Moth-kinden and my own people. To know the dark, and not to fear it, was to control the world.’

He was now right at her elbow.

‘And then, of course, the great old night ended, and another kind of sun dawned. A revolutionary sun of machines and artifice that burned us all back into our hollows.’

‘How bitter you must feel,’ she said without sympathy.

‘Bitter?’ A croaky little laugh. ‘My people had already lost our chance for greatness. We were never many, but we had power and a yearning to use it. We had secrets that the Skryres of the Moths have never learned, and some that they might have, but that they deemed us evil, and made war on us to wipe us out, along with everything we knew.’

She gave a little squeak of panic as his pale, cold fingers brushed her cheek, his nails unexpectedly sharp.

‘And we are few now, so very few,’ he continued. ‘And yet they did not completely succeed, for that knowledge is still with us — and your brother is very, very interested in it.’

She had the sense of his eyes fixed on her. They had brought her here unprepared from her chamber, and she wore only a silken gown to keep the night out, and now the night was irresistible. She felt the touch of his fingertips drifting idly down her neck.

‘You. ’ From somewhere she marshalled a little courage. ‘This is an elaborate scheme of yours, Sarcad, simply to inflict yourself on a woman. Are your own kind so very few, after all?’

His rattling laugh came again. ‘Forgive me, Highness. I am an old man, but appetites die slowly in my tribe and you Wasp-kinden are a comely enough people — for an Apt race. You, especially, are a remarkably pleasing specimen of Wasp-kinden womanhood.’

‘And this is what it is all about, is it?’ She tugged at the straps of the chair, which was a futile enough struggle. ‘Or is this just some chance gift to you?’

‘Fear not, Your Highness. Your chastity is quite safe from me. The appetites I refer to are not sexual.’

‘Blood? Your people really drink the blood of others?’

‘As our namesakes do,’ he said, ‘and I consider myself something of a connoisseur. Royal blood, especially. Although I understand it is in short supply. Your father died not young but not old, yes?’

‘That is true.’

‘And there was suspicion at that?’ He was moving around the back of the chair, she sensed.

‘I would not pursue that line of enquiry, Uctebri, lest the guard report your words.’

‘Ah yes, the guardsman. Perhaps you could call on him.’

She frowned in the darkness. ‘For what purpose?’

‘As one ever calls on unknown powers, simply to see if they will come.’

‘You have.?’

‘He hears nothing, my lady, because I have put a magic on him. He sees nothing, and he hears nothing. Light and darkness, and of these two, darkness has the power. Your brother feared your father was killed. He feared even more being blamed for that death, and therefore no investigation, no suggestion was ever allowed to be raised. Your people’s empire is young, its succession untried. Your brother decided that to secure his position he would take drastic measures. He was advised in this by Colonel Maxin — as he then was.’

‘Maxin killed my brothers and sisters,’ Seda confirmed. There was still no sound from the guard. She knew it was impossible but, in this darkness, with that scratchy voice behind her, she found she could believe Uctebri’s claim to magic entirely. ‘He only left me alive because, so long as I live, he knows exactly where the threat will come from. If I die, any number of others might rise to be his chief enemy — or all combine against him. My brother feels so secure on his throne that people say he ties himself to it sometimes, lest he slide off in a moment of weakness.’

Uctebri chuckled. ‘And your brother has many concubines but, I understand, no children. Not even bastards. Remarkable.’

‘He has all of his issue killed at birth,’ she said, ‘or so I have heard. Bastards have no standing, but even so he will not take the risk of one growing up to be used against him.’

‘And no lawful mate. No legitimate issue. A man concerned about his own longevity, should any child grow to manhood. You are his prisoner, but no more than he is his own. Ah, the foolishness of it all.’ His voice seemed to be drifting further away. ‘Still, you must see why he has, in the end, come to consider my proposal.’

‘And what is that?’ she asked. ‘What is your proposal? You may as well tell me. What am I able to do about it?’

‘I have told your brother I can allow him to live far beyond the few years normally allowed to your kinden. Perhaps even for ever? An immortal Emperor of the Wasp-kinden, for ever wise and loved by his subjects. He rather likes the idea, however much he doubts its possibility. He likes it enough to have me try.’

‘And should he ever believe he is immortal, I will die that very day,’ admitted Seda.

‘Ah, alas, your demise would come some moments sooner than his ascension.’ He was now speaking right in her ear. ‘My people understand blood, for blood is the darkness within our veins. Blood has power. Especially the blood of our kin. Sister and brother, close as close, Your Highness.’

She stiffened as she felt something sharp at her neck, like the razor edge of a tiny blade. She closed her eyes, clenching her fists, and willed it over soon.

There was the slightest arrow of pain, a tiny cut, and then the blade was gone, and for a short while Uctebri remained quiet. Then he said, ‘You have quite the sweetest blood I have tasted for some considerable time, great lady.’

‘My brother is mad to believe you,’ she spat at him. ‘You are mad to tempt him with it. After living in fear for eight years I am to be killed on this lunatic’s errand?’

‘Oh that is a shame, Your Highness, that you should believe it impossible.’ Uctebri whispered, still at her very shoulder. ‘You see, I have my own doubts about your brother’s patronage.’

With a start she felt the buckles over her wrists loosen, first one and then the other, and after that he was crouching at her ankles, still speaking. ‘I rather suspect that he would be a dangerous man to have around for ever. Or even for much longer. My concern, you see, is for my own kinden and their future, and I cannot say that it would be best served by the Emperor Alvdan. He strikes me as a man neither gracious nor grateful towards those who have helped him ascend to power.’

She was free of the chair now, so at any moment she could leap from it, but she stayed there, transfixed by his words. ‘Just what are you saying?’

‘Treason,’ he explained, and she knew he was standing right before the chair, as if a supplicant. ‘Or it would be if I were actually a subject of His Imperial Majesty. You may quibble that I am his prisoner, but ask yourself how long that state of affairs might persist if I did not wish it. No, rather the crown is currently serving me, in requisitioning some piece of desiderata that I have long coveted. What I am proposing is that, whilst I am quite capable of delivering what I promise, the crown of immortality would find a fitter home on another brow than your brother’s.’

She did not believe, for a moment, that he could do any such thing. He was a prisoner, and was bargaining for his life with these dreams of longevity. It could even be a trap set by her brother, save that he needed neither excuse nor pretext to have her killed. But possibly, just possibly, it meant that Uctebri the Sarcad represented both an ally and an opportunity.