“Call Dearsley to attend Me,” I commanded as soon as the girl was gone. “Immediately.”
Calla hesitated. “But Your Highness is not yet dressed.”
“Then dress Me,” I bit out. Really, was it so hard? I’d already risen to my feet. Tertulyn, anticipating me, cast aside the paints and snapped orders at the junior ladies, bidding them to make haste even as Calla gathered her skirts and actually ran for the outer chamber to pass word. By the time Dearsley arrived—out of breath, uniform disheveled from his own interrupted dressing—they’d gotten me into my gown, and also put the wig and crown on me. Because Ejarat frown on me that I should smudge my appearance just because we faced a battle that might destroy Calanthe.
I handed Dearsley the scroll, my ladies crouched around me, busily sewing me into my garments.
He paused almost immediately, lifting a gaze full of dread to mine. “They found no sign of rebels—and they plan to disembark here?”
“So says this apparent captain of the emperor’s warships,” I replied, summarizing aloud for my ladies. “They claim they arrived at Keiost to find the city empty, the populace fled—along with all of the treasury—and the harbor bare of ships. Everything more seaworthy than a rowboat was gone.” I hissed in useless fury. How could Anure have been such a bloody fool to fall into whatever trap had taken two warships? And who was this man who thought I was such an idiot that I’d believe this missive?
Paling, Dearsley dropped his eyes to the scroll again. “Did he say when—”
“The story is that they arrived at Keiost four days ago. They’ve been sailing around and around and sending scouts around and around the countryside, searching! As if they might have somehow overlooked a vast army and wagonloads full of blazing rocks.” Dearsley didn’t deserve my fury, but I couldn’t get my nails into the person who thought to sucker me with this. “They say they only thought to send Me a messenger bird yesterday.” I threw up my hands, something ripping, Nahua making a sound of dismay.
Eyeing me, Dearsley scanned the document again. “You don’t believe it.”
“Oh, I believe these rebels evaded Anure’s might—but the rest … of course I don’t.” I had to be careful here. Citing mystical knowledge would hardly make me seem like a capable queen. And while I trusted my ladies, I wasn’t so silly as to think they didn’t gossip. “If you want to bring a ragtag army of escaped prisoners from Keiost to within striking range of the emperor, what do you need?”
Dearsley frowned.
“And you only have fishing boats. Maybe a few merchant ships,” I clarified.
“You think he captured the warships?” Dearsley whispered, horrified.
“It’s the most likely explanation.” And it confirmed what the ring murmured, the images from the dreams. “They shouldn’t have tried to trick Me with this Oh, we forgot to notify You tale. Anure’s captains would have sent Me a message as soon as they knew this Slave King slipped the net.” The insult to my intelligence gave a convenient path for my terror-fueled fury. I would show this rebel just who he thought to dupe with such transparent lies.
Dearsley closed his eyes. “Then the Slave King, if he’s headed this direction…”
“Is likely already here, with two warships and a considerable force besides,” I finished. I’d known it. Even if they hadn’t yet touched the waters Calanthe considered Hers, I’d known. I should’ve prepared more than I had. Strike that. I’d prepared everything I could. I had to trust to the plan now. “Am I done?” I asked the ladies. I needed to be moving, not be decorated.
“One more moment, Your Highness.” Tertulyn spoke smoothly, but with a hint of pleading in it.
My ladies danced around me, inserting the flowers and jewels to adorn the gown and wig. I forced myself to hold still. One more minute could hardly make a difference. Still, let the courtiers and politicians, those who read everything into my gown color and the placement of the jewels by the corner of my mouth, make what they would of my less-than-crisp display. “Enough with this,” I declared.
“Your Highness.” Tertulyn curtsied deeply, waving the ladies away. “Just a touch more on the makeup, if you will.”
I flicked my fingers in permission and transferred my gaze back to Dearsley, the thick alabaster paste crackling between my brows. “Call a meeting of the Defense Council, in the map room. Also, send notice to all the lookouts, fisherfolk, and bird-masters. Full reports, even the least little thing unusual. Even if it doesn’t look like a warship. I want to know everything.”
“Yes, Your Highness. I shall assemble them.” Dearsley took off at a jog, trying to tidy his clothing as he went.
“We have a Defense Council?” Tertulyn murmured to me as soon as he’d gone, coming at me with paint palette once again in her hand, her brush working to re-create the shadows of my cheekbones from the blank slate.
More able to bear the delay as I could do nothing more until Dearsley assembled everyone, I slid my gaze to Tertulyn. How had she not been present for those conversations? Tertulyn was ever by my side, knowing my mind as her own. Except lately, when I’d been sending her to Delilah, employing her to watch Leuthar, discover nuggets of information from the courtiers, sift truth from conjecture and exaggeration—and plant rumors of my own design.
“We need to mount a defense to keep the invaders off our land,” I explained. I shouldn’t have to explain myself, but I knew—much as I trusted the discretion of my ladies—that what they understood would filter to the rest of court and thence to the larger population.
“But it’s against the old laws for blood to be shed in violence,” Calla said. She came from an old Calanthe family and knew the traditional ways. Following Tertulyn’s lead, she’d darted in to add a few more stitches to the hastily donned gown. I’d chosen scarlet the night before. On a whim, I’d thought. But perhaps some part of me had known. It could be the waters even beyond Calanthe whispered to me of who traveled through them.
“Thus defense,” I replied mildly, reassuring her as if I spoke to a Morning Glory. “There are ways and ways to repulse an enemy without violence. Trust in Me to protect Calanthe.” Even with my ladies, I hadn’t shared the full, audacious plan.
“These are violent men, I hear,” Ibolya, who rarely spoke, put in. “They will not be hindered by less than violence.”
If it were not for Anure’s demand that I confront the army of rebels, I could’ve arranged it so the Slave King’s forces went around us. Like the ocean currents that eddy out past the island, or the tropical storms that circle, giving us their rain and then spending their fury on the open sea, his violence should have been redirected.
But Anure had neatly cornered me and I couldn’t help wondering if he intended it as a test. Outsiders didn’t fully understand why Calanthe had yielded without a fight—because such knowledge could be turned as a weapon against us. Anure lacked full knowledge of how my father had sent him away, but he was no fool.
But neither was I. “Then we shall turn them with something stronger than violence, which has ever been Calanthe’s gift.”
A sigh ran through them, and they smiled in relief. I envied them their restored faith.