Amanda Downum - The Bone Palace

“Of course. It would be indiscreet to kill them on the street, after all.”

The princess snorted and tugged off her other boot, letting it fall beside its mate. “What are you going to do?”

Nikos shook his head and stared at his cup. “I don’t know. I-” His voice lowered. “I can’t let Father find out.”

A chill snaked down Savedra’s back. Another fine line between discretion and treason. But he was right; Mathiros’s wrath was an ugly thing. He vented his grief and bitterness by campaigning in Ashke Ros, fighting the Ordozh raiders who pillaged there. That was madness and folly enough-no one wanted to bring the folly home.

“You’ll have to work quickly,” Ashlin said, with a soldier’s practicality. “The campaigning season is already over.”

“Not that quickly.” The flavor of Nikos’s frown changed. “There’s been a delay.” He flicked a fingernail against a folded parchment half-buried on the table.

“What now?” said Savedra. The king had promised his council a short campaign when he led troops to aid the Rosians in the spring, but one thing or another had delayed their return since late summer.

“An armistice.”

That sent Ashlin’s eyebrows winging toward her hair. “With the Ordozh?” The raiding horsemen were feared like demons by any country that shared their border, and no one had managed to treat with their warlords in decades.

“They have a new khayan .” The foreign word slid smoothly off his tongue-for all his magpie mind, he knew how to pay attention. “An emperor of sorts. Father fought him.” His mouth twisted wryly at his father’s diplomacy. “This emperor is willing to have peace for a year, but he wants Father to be present for negotiations. The Council will complain, of course, but a treaty with the Ordozh is enough to give them pause. But we still need to find Mother’s jewelry soon, and deal with these tomb-robbers.”

Ashlin turned, unlacing her vest and peeling off her sweat-stained blouse on the way to the bathroom. She left the door ajar, and Savedra glimpsed the peach-pale curve of her back as Ashlin dropped her shirt. “I want to fight the Ordozh emperor,” she called over her shoulder. “Lacking that, I want to see a vampire. Your demons sound much more interesting than ours back home.”

Nikos rolled his eyes. “Your desire is my duty, Your Radiance.” Splashing drowned Ashlin’s retort. She swore in Celanoran, anyway.

One of their rare moments of easygoing humor. Savedra’s throat closed. Neither of them tried to shut her out, but they didn’t need to. Fate had done that well enough.

She stood, shaking her skirts with a practiced fillip, and poured the rest of her cooling coffee back into the pot.

“Where are you going?” Nikos asked.

She leaned in to kiss his cheek, sliding deftly away when he tried to pull her close. “To visit my mother.”

Savedra and Nikos’ relationship might not be the most impolitic the Azure Palace had ever seen, but she was hard pressed to think of many others. Their houses had been bitter rivals for decades, ever since Thanos Alexios led the rebellion that overthrew the last of the Severoi kings. Not that Ioris Severos had been what anyone would call a good ruler, but that hardly mattered to the family. The last thing the Alexioi and their allies wanted was a Severos worming her way near the throne, especially the daughter of Nadesda, an archa known for her ruthlessness and wide-flung web of influence. Since Savedra moved into the palace she had narrowly avoided three poisoning attempts. Had she been able to bear Nikos any bastards she would be dead by now, no matter how careful she was or how powerful her mother.

Instead she was hijra; the third sex, in old Sindhaïn-men born in women’s bodies, women born as men, and the androgynes who were neither or both. The hijra veiled themselves with ritual and mysticism, keeping mostly to their temple in the Garden. The curious paid to see the faces of their priestesses, and paid more for their prophecies and their bodies. So Savedra’s rivals called her freak and whore-never mind that she had never taken the mark of the order-and made cruel jokes where Nikos couldn’t hear, but she would never be queen or mother to a usurper, and so wasn’t a permanent threat.

Savedra tried to let the hiss and splash of rain and wet streets drown her thoughts as the carriage bore her to the Octagon Court, but it was no use. Murder and sleeplessness left her maudlin, and the weather didn’t help. The grey veil, autumn was called, for the storms that swept down from the mountains; the same name was given to the listlessness and depression that took some people when the light and warmth vanished.

She had the use of Nikos’ coach, but it was simpler and quieter to pass the gate and hire one of the dozen that always waited to carry visitors and courtiers to and fro. The ride was short-less than half an hour before the horses stopped under the covered walk of Phoenix House and the driver scrambled to help her out. His quick appreciative glance might well have been as much for her cloak as for her face, but he didn’t hesitate over the polite milady . Her bolstered pride earned him a gracious tip, and she nearly laughed at herself.

Eight houses brooded at one another from eight sides of the court, and at the tall bronze statue of Embria Selaphaïs that stood in the center. Severos, Alexios, Konstantin, Aravind, Jsutien, Hadrian, Petreus, and Ctesiphon. Eight houses, eight families, constantly squabbling and backstabbing over land and position and trade, a web of enmities and alliances that shifted every year with deaths and births and marriages. The rain turned all the houses into glowering grey hulks, but windows in only six glowed against the gloom. The Petreoi had retired to their estates in Nemea last month to elect a new archon, and the Ctesiphon house had stood empty since the family’s head had plotted against King Nikolaos twenty-eight years ago-the attempt had cost him his life, and his house their archonate and all holdings in the city for thirty years.

The carriage rattled away and Savedra turned back to Phoenix House, her heels tapping on wet flagstones as she climbed the steps. Two guards in black and silver livery bowed and held the door for her, and a maid appeared in the foyer to take her damp cloak.

“Is my mother in?” she asked as she shrugged off heavy velvet folds. Blue silk lining flashed in the lamplight.

“The archa is in the library, milady, with Lord Varis.”

“A private conversation?”

The woman shrugged one soft shoulder. “No more than usual.”

Meaning that no one had spelled the room to silence, then, and Nadesda wouldn’t mind an interruption. “Will you have tea sent up, please, and something to eat?”

“Of course, milady.”

The smell of Phoenix House settled over her, the unique blend of stone and polish, wax and oil, the inhabitants’ favorite meals and pets and perfumes that time had ingrained into the walls. The scents of the palace were familiar now, and she still remembered those of Evharis, the estate in Arachne where she was born, but they had never been so comforting. Phoenix House had awed her as a child, with its shadows and stillness and secrets, treasure troves in gabled attics; now it was simply home.

The library drapes were pulled against the chill, and firelight and low lamps lit the room, gilding dark wood and silver sconces and warming the deep colors of the carpets and wall hangings. Nadesda and Varis sat near the hearth, a tea tray on a table between them. Nadesda glowed darkly in bronze brocade, regal as a queen in her high-backed chair. Her beauty was undimmed at fifty-three; another reassuring constant in Savedra’s life.

“Savedra, darling.” Varis stood when she entered and held out a hand.