Chapter Eighteen
I WOKE UP TO HIS EYES on mine and I tried to scream but my mouth was gagged by a coil of snake.
“What have you done, wife?” Juste asked coolly. “Did you think you could use your magic on yourself?” He rolled his eyes as if I was a foolish child and not a grown woman. “If you’d studied for more than a handful of days under a proper Wing, they could have told you that no one can use their magic on their own bodies. A Wing cannot tear themselves to shreds with their own bird. I cannot strangle my own life out with my snakes, and you cannot fill yourself with wicked honeycomb as you filled me.”
I said nothing. There was a snake blocking the chance of saying anything. I made sure he could see how I felt with the intensity of my gaze. My eyes crossed for just a moment and I almost thought I could see a glimmer of Osprey’s face but then the image was gone, and I was back, looking at Juste.
“We’re about to be coronated and you’re a mess,” he hissed. And I realized – in utter shock – that he was bandaging the wound on my chest with gentle hands.
I froze as his hands lifted the neck of my dress back in place, sliding around me to button the high collar up the back again.
“It will have to work – bloodstains and all,” he said huskily. “I have no time to commission another.”
He’d commissioned this?
“It matches my jacket, you’ll note.” And it did. He wore a dull gold jacket embroidered with black snakes. “Now that I will be emperor, I am doing away with Imperial blues and swans. I will no longer be of House Swan but of House Adder. And with my new reign, there will be a new era.”
The snake slid from my face and I drew in a deep, shuddering breath, flexing against his hold on the rest of my body. Juste was leaning over me, one hand on either side of me pressed flat against the cage floor, his lovely face just inches from mine. The look in his eyes terrified me.
I opened my mouth to speak and to my shock, he kissed me. I froze and then bit down hard on his unwanted kiss.
He drew back, huffed a laugh, and then wiped the blood from his lower lip with his sleeve.
“And now we match, wife. Both wearing gold, trimmed in bloodstains. How considerate of you to add to my attire.”
I wanted to be furious – and of course I was – but it was hard to feel the heat of fury beneath the icy cold fingers of terror that held my heart.
“And now we must be crowned. Which means leaving this cage. I’ve decided to leave your sword and your scabbard in place. Having you armed by my side will lead people to believe you are there willingly – but you will have no option but to come as I call and do as I say.”
I gasped as his snake seemed to pulse and then it was standing me up, sliding down from the upper half of me and ducking beneath my skirts. I clenched my teeth, kicking hard against the gripping coils, but there was no stopping the snake as it came to rest at mid-thigh under the sweeping skirt. It rippled along my legs and as I shuddered again at its embrace. It moved me forward, gliding behind Juste who stepped out of a door cut into the cage.
My hands were tied tightly behind my back – with what I did not know, but I hoped it was not another snake.
“Our glorious reign awaits us, Aella of House Shrike. You are honored to be at my side. Together, we stand for love and peace in the Empire.”
“The kind of love that murdered your father?” I shot back. I was powerless to stop the snake as it kept drawing me forward, forward, forward behind Juste.
“I have always exemplified the best of loves. It is only those full of hate who oppose me,” Juste said calmly, but he looked over his shoulder at me and his eyes flickered with madness.
“The kind of peace that cuts out tongues and kills people a dozen at a time in the city streets?”
He made a moue with his mouth and shook his head. “It is so hard to expunge hate from the hearts of the kinds of people who would oppose us – oppose me. I find it distasteful.”
“But not so distasteful that you stop.”
He leaned in close, grabbed me by the hair, and pulled me so I was inches from his nose.
“I can keep talking about this all day with you, but I am reminded you have a brother in my care who still draws breath. Perhaps you should remember that, too.”
Abghar.
I shut my mouth with a click.
“Good girl. I knew marriage to you would be well worth it. Now, concentrate and see if you can conjure up a vision for me of what my allies are doing on the continent. We received the official message by bird this morning proclaiming the death of the emperor and the need to immediately coronate me, but it was brief to the extreme. Concentrate.”
And despite myself and my horror at this situation, I did concentrate. I focused as hard as I could on my bees. Could I force a vision? Could any of them hear me?
I was led – though I hardly noticed in all my concentration – through the governor’s manor and out to a waiting open-topped carriage. The snake deposited me in the seat facing Juste and he sat, carefully arranging himself to be seen best in the carriage. Still, I focused.
I concentrated on the bees as we rode through the streets to the cheers of the gathered crowds. And if those cheers were forced and anxious, and if they were backed up by Claws with drawn blades in their hands, then the people were no more unwilling than I was.
“Perhaps you should cut my bonds and let me draw from your feather as you drew from mine,” I suggested when I could draw no vision from the air.
Juste regarded me for a very long time before simply saying, “No.”
It was long minutes before he added, “But if you do not find something for me by the time we reach the coronation, I will kill your brother before your eyes. As a coronation present. Perhaps his death will concentrate your blood properly and you’ll see what you need to see.”
I closed my eyes and focused inward and my pleading with the bees turned into a prayer.
Flight of wind protect me, mercy of the skies fly over me, give me peace and protection, let me soar from this terror on the wings of eagles. Bridge the gap between my bee and me. Help me to reach his sight. Spare my brother. Spare him from death.
I gasped as my mind filled with a vision. It had worked!
The bee buzzed over Ixtap’s shoulder and he tried to swat it away. My vision spun as the bee fell and then bobbed back up, circling violently to avoid the attacks of anyone in arm range. He settled – finally – further away than I would have liked. It took all my concentration to line up Ixtap’s words with his lips. He was talking to a group of men and women who were dressed in clothing a little fancier than the Claws – their weapons inlaid with silver, their hair carefully coiffed, their clothing of a higher caliber, but it was still blue with swans stitched in white across the breasts and marching up the arms. Soon, if Juste had his way, it would be black and gold.
“Any resistance to the coronation of Le Majest, Juste Montpetit, is to be met with deadly force. When Le Majest arrives again on the shores of the Winged Empire, he should be received by only those who wish him a long and mighty reign.”
“My Lord Ixtap,” one of the men said, “we want the same things you do – a peaceful nation and Le Majest on the throne – but those who fight against this are like brothers to us. Surely there is a more peaceful way to end this fighting. Surely there is some way that does not include bloodshed.”