I pressed my long nails to my lips, hoping to appear dismayed while I restrained any smirk that might escape—or, a far worse indiscretion, remarking aloud that Leuthar might as well be describing the emperor himself. I was not stupid, however, so such foolhardy and treacherous words would never pass my lips, even in privacy speaking only to Tertulyn.
“These sorts are not the kind of men You’d understand, Your Highness,” Leuthar explained in all earnestness, clearly pleased to have upset me. “Make no mistake but that they call him king out of deepest irony, out of mockery. He possesses no nobility, no refinement. You cannot credit his type with purpose more than You would a hound gone mad from disease. He knows only his endless hunger to consume more and more and more.”
“Even hunger can’t make a mad dog swim,” I declared with a carelessness I didn’t feel. “His Imperial Majesty is kind to be concerned for Me and the safety of Calanthe, but I don’t see how this Slave King can even get here if he has no ships—”
“But he does.” Syr Leuthar clenched his jaw. “Your Highness,” he added, as if to wipe away the rudeness of interrupting me. “Before Keiost, he took Irst, and Hertaq. His Imperial Majesty had no great concerns over those minor losses, as those seaports are little better than fishing villages that have no strategic value, but…”
“But they do have seaworthy boats,” I murmured, momentarily forgetting myself in my astonishment at Anure’s blindness. Or ignorance. It could be he actually hadn’t known. It could be he was showing cracks at last. A huge mistake on his part that might give me hope, if I were capable of hope still. Tertulyn cast me a glance, a flash of powdery blue behind sparkling lashes.
“Indeed, Your Highness. Fishing boats, but they do now belong to these ruffians.”
“So.” I tapped my nails on the arm of my throne, the orchid ring’s petals swaying, a bit of sinuous fluttering of its own accord. Tertulyn sent me an inquiring glance, and I took the reminder to heart and focused on Leuthar instead. “So, His Majesty suspects this King of Slaves might sail across the inland sea to sate his hunger here?”
“Not as a final target, Your Highness,” Leuthar reassured me, all paternal concern and full of shit. “Calanthe is precious to His Imperial Majesty, the jewel of his empire, but much as we love it, it’s but a pretty paradise, of no interest to a villainous scum such as he.”
A reversal of his claim that this Slave King wanted only to sate his immediate desires. My pretty paradise of a realm always held attraction for those sorts, including Leuthar, whose own appetites were well known.
No, the emperor suspected—or knew of—a deeper purpose in this rebel who’d managed to take Keiost. Anure is afraid. This is your opportunity. The knowledge whispered through me, scented with orchids. In the corner of my eye, the orchid ring’s petals seemed to unfurl as it murmured in a voice only I could hear. “And yet the emperor asks Me to act as guard,” I mused aloud, to prod Leuthar and test the ring. It didn’t respond. Hmph. “Calanthe is, as you say, but a pretty paradise. We have no navy, no standing army.”
“But You do have seaworthy ships,” he returned. “Your Highness.”
“Fishing boats and pleasure skiffs, no more.” I made sure to look mournful as I lied. We made sure they appeared to be only that. Calanthe’s power did not lie in those sorts of weapons.
“No worse than this Slave King has procured. Surely a ragged band of escaped slaves holds no great threat for the stalwart men of Your realm, Your Highness.” Leuthar’s eyes glittered as he stroked the feather of his helm. Mocking me by throwing my words back at me. He’d become incautious of offending me, which meant he knew something. Probably he’d read the letter Anure had sent me or had inside knowledge of the contents.
Either that or Anure must be afraid enough to sacrifice me and Calanthe in the hope that in devouring us, the escaped wolf would die of poison before it reached the emperor’s throat. I was not interested in making a sacrifice of either myself or Calanthe. Certainly not to protect Anure. Quite the opposite. “We shall be on watch then,” I declared, entirely done with coaxing Leuthar along. “I assume we’ll be sent word if His Imperial Majesty’s net proves to have holes in it?”
“I advise You not to rely on such an eventuality, Your Highness. Be on the alert, such as You are able. His Imperial Majesty was most clear on this point, and wished me to express this onus to You where all might witness.”
I allowed my lids to droop as I toyed with a blossom on my gown, caressing its petals when I wanted to tear them off to vent the savagery in my heart. “What onus might that be?” I sounded oh-so-very-bored. Inside, I recited the vilest of curses.
“You are the final barrier. Your Highness will not allow this Slave King to pass. The emperor calls upon You personally to fulfill Your vows of fealty to him, to repay him for the indulgences that have allowed Calanthe to flourish independent of his hand all these years.”
“Flourish,” my virginal ass. We’d clawed to feed our own and still fulfill the tyrant’s exorbitant tithes. Still, he had me. I had no choice but to do as Anure commanded or find my leash yanked up short. Not that I would’ve aided this rebellion in the slightest. They had no chance of succeeding, and would only draw out the emperor’s worst. The beast that was Anure had more or less slumbered, fat and sated. A rebellion of escaped slaves could do nothing more than sting the emperor’s nose and send him into a rage that would have him scouring the lands of “rebels,” which would mean anyone he and his scourge of soldiers fancied killing.
Legions of innocents would die, and the lands would cry to me incessantly of their deaths. If they managed to make it this far, I would stop this ill-advised rebellion that endangered us all.
“Of course I serve His Imperial Majesty’s will.” Fully ready to be done, I held out a hand to the emissary, smiling with all the warmth I could manufacture when he bent to kiss the orchid ring on my marriage finger. It symbolized my wedding to my true family: my kingdom—husband, wife, and treasured, imperiled child all in one.
Leuthar inhaled the orchid’s exotic fragrance, like nothing else on earth. “Ever unchanging,” he mused.
“Grown on the same vine.” I gave him the lie, as I had numerous times before. Magic had never existed. It was all chicanery and sleight of hand, therefore he must accept the rational explanation. “A new bloom cut fresh from my secret garden each day.”
“Someday You must show me this orchid house of Yours that grows such fabulous blossoms.”
“If only I could,” I replied with false regret. “But it is not for outsiders.”
“Your Highness.” His expression was mild, his gaze full of threat. “We are all one under the emperor’s hand. There are no outsiders.”
I didn’t allow that to give me pause. “In this case, we are all outsiders, but for a highly trained gardener. The climate within the orchid house is so delicately balanced that even I cannot enter.”
“Alas for that,” he replied, making the small hairs stand up on my neck. “Take my warning, fair queen—do not fail in this charge.”
“I and Calanthe exist entirely to lay ourselves down for the emperor.” The welcome mat of the empire. Please trod upon us. My father had seen to that.