I also fostered an air of increased frivolity in the court, and throughout Calanthe, increasing the gifts to the Morning Glories and making sure they heard plenty of chatter about good things to come. We laughed off rumors of rebellions and dire whispers of the Slave King. If all went well, Anure’s forces would deal with the threat, and we would indeed go on, if not in true prosperity, then at least as well as before.
The emperor would reward me—and all of Calanthe—for our loyalty. The worst would not come to pass. If this Slave King slipped through Anure’s grasp, I would marshal the true might of Calanthe against him, and only hope that that Anure would never catch wind of the power we held in check.
In the meanwhile, I wanted my people strong and happy. Their joy was Calanthe’s, so I did my part in keeping that flow untainted.
Every night I dreamed of Calanthe falling into the bloody sea and the chained wolf becoming that cursed man asking me to help him. No—actually demanding my cooperation, while my true responsibility burned around me. And every morning, in the sanctity of the dreamthink—when I could wake in time—I carefully put it all back to rights again, banishing him and that pitiable wolf to the anguished night where they belonged.
Begone ye foul specters. In the dreamthink, I have all the power. I wave my hands, my orchid ring a blaze of exotic splendor, its fragrance a faint counterpoint, shedding daylight and spice.
The wolf and man both vanish, taking their chains and pleas with them.
Calanthe blooms in serenity, the sea restored to blue.
There. All restored to harmony. I only wished it could last longer than the next nightmare, or that I could be like my ancestors and work those spells and ones even greater as the tales told.
As it was, I did what I could to disguise how each passing night eroded my foundations. I am the queen of masks, the image of all my people hope for. I wore blithe happiness like a wig or flower-strewn gown, covering the wrenching terror and dread that plagued me.
I knew. I understood it with that part of myself that had found the dreamthink and heard the message from the orchid. The wolf would soon be at my door, dragging his broken chains behind, along with all that went with him.
I would have to kill it. Put it out of its misery. But only as a last resort. Just as joy and pleasure fed Calanthe and her deep magic, murder and violence would poison her.
I’d carefully laid my plans, and then sat back to wait. If he brought his war to me, I’d capture the threat. Lock it up in quarantine and forever lose the key. And I knew just the tools to employ.
10
“Calanthe. Surely you don’t mean the pleasure island?” Sondra spoke into our astonished silence, which made me feel more sane—and helped me not growl in Ambrose’s delighted face.
The inside of my skull itched with frustration. Better that than dull disappointment. Calanthe. I had no intention of wasting my time on some pretty, flower-strewn island of traitorous weaklings when I could have Anure’s neck in my grasp. Fuck the Abiding Ring.
“Calanthe,” I ground out. “They rolled over to become Anure’s pets. None of our usual approaches would work.” I was the king of the miserable and oppressed for a reason. The fat and happy denizens of Calanthe, hand-fed by the tyrant and having their soft bellies stroked by him … they had no reason to throw in with us and every reason to betray us. I coughed, a burning scrape of my throat. Things were simpler when I could swing my rock hammer at them. “That island would be no foothold, but a disaster in the making. I won’t do it,” I got out. The throat-soothing potion was wearing off. Too bad I’d drunk all of it.
Ambrose’s face fell. “But the Abiding Ring—”
“We can’t possibly attack Calanthe,” Sondra explained for me. She, at least, understood me well enough to speak for me. “We’d be wiped off the beaches and tossed back into the sea before we could mount our vurgsten charges. The population won’t welcome us. Even if we succeeded in conquering and occupying Calanthe, the emperor’s entire navy would be staring at us across a relatively narrow channel. He’d come down on us like the fist of Sawehl and we’d be trapped on a tiny island with no resources. Old King Gul welcomed Anure with open arms, and the people there have never suffered any privation. They won’t love us, because we wouldn’t be saving them from anything. We wouldn’t have the support of the temples, or any of our usual inside allies. We might as well sail directly into Yekpehr, wave at the emperor, and let him kill us quickly.”
I nodded. At least the direct approach gave us a shot at Anure. Stopping at Calanthe would be suicide. I didn’t mind facing my own death—I looked forward to it, in fact—but I’d vowed to take Anure with me.
“Aha!” Ambrose wagged a finger at me and tapped the ledger again. “I perceive your doubts and am undaunted. You will succeed in defeating Anure once you have Queen Euthalia on your side.”
Euthalia. Why did I know that name? I didn’t and did. It was familiar in that odd way of dreams, when you meet someone in them that you know as well as yourself, and only realize on waking that they’re a stranger, that you’ve never met them at all. A trick of the mind. I’d never heard of this Queen Euthalia. Judging by Sondra’s expression, she hadn’t, either—and Sondra had memorized all the royal bloodlines as part of her education as a lady, before Oriel fell.
“Never heard of her,” I said, hardly growling at all. There. Polite and mostly patient.
“Gul’s daughter.” Ambrose raised and lowered his brows in a gesture I belatedly realized he intended to be salacious. “Old King Gul,” he clarified, “now feeding the fishes his people send to the emperor by the shipload.”
“The emperor drowned Gul?” Sondra echoed my surprise. “But Gul was his ally, nearly from the beginning. Even for the emperor it makes no sense to kill such a staunch supporter. And despite his other excesses, Anure at least has hesitated to bring bad luck on himself by directly killing a king.”
“You lot really did miss out on a lot, didn’t you?” Ambrose shook his head in bemusement, then held up apologetic hands when I scowled at him. “I know, I know—no news in the mines. The emperor didn’t kill Gul, just what he loved most. It’s said the old fellow died of heartbreak as in the ancient tales. In Calanthe, they consign their dead to the sea, with full observance and regalia. The emperor even attended and spoke the prayers to Yilkay. Gul’s daughter is queen of Calanthe now. Euthalia.”
“Don’t remember a daughter,” I mused. It shouldn’t feel like a lie, because—despite the dreamlike feeling of familiarity—I’d never heard of her. Of course, Calanthe had always sounded like a fairy-tale place when my tutors spoke of it. The Isle of Flowers. Untouched paradise. Blah blah blah.
“I remember her name now,” Sondra said slowly. “She was a little girl, the flower princess, when … well.”
When my family was slaughtered, Oriel pillaged, the rest of us sent to the mines—and this flower princess lived happily in her paradise. Right.
“She must be young still,” Sondra added with an opaque glance at me.
“Mid-twenties,” Ambrose inserted, nodding with enthusiasm. “And said to be very beautiful. Of course, Calanthean women are noted for their beauty, but she’s apparently exceptional even in that frame. Common knowledge has her engaged to the emperor—”