Con wanted me to end the empire, promising me his secret weapon to tear down walls. Well, I was no warrior. But I knew how to tear down personal walls. Anure had built a fortress of his own ego, protecting the fragile thing inside thick barriers constructed of absolute power and brutal tyranny. I could breach them with my own subtle rebellion of careful words.
I wrote of our impending nuptials, how they’d inspire the empire and set the fashion for decades—possibly centuries—to come. We’d be founding his dynasty and future generations would hark back to this wedding, wanting to emulate the first and greatest of the emperors.
Warming to my topic, I moved to the extensive planning needed—and how Calanthe, isle of pleasure and all things of most-desired beauty and refinement, could supply the requirements of such a grand event. Carefully I alluded to other famous weddings and how they’d lasted for days, so ours must last longer, so as not to pale in significance. I would bring my own fresh flowers, and the best of wines.
Calla, Ibolya, and Zariah came and went, reporting on their tasks and hurrying off to execute more. Less than an hour to the celebratory toast. My letter needed to be sent before that. Fortunately, writing it helped order my thoughts for my formal—and public—set-down of Leuthar’s impetuous plan. Of course, I could simply refuse to go. The emissary might try to have his contingent of Imperial Guards bodily move me—though I’d like to see him try, as my guard greatly outnumbered them. For that matter, my ladies could defend me to a point. That would cause complications, however, and blood spilled in violence to the point of murder.
And that would win me even less in the long game, as Anure would surely come down on Calanthe with all his might.
Diplomacy and calling upon the arcane world of noble females would thwart him. His Imperial Majesty wanted me to bring a wedding gown? Obviously, the wedding gown of an empress should outshine all others, past or future. I must set the finest dressmakers in Calanthe to sewing the best silk with their most delicate threads of all colors, including the fragile strands of gold and silver, to embroider the exotic blooms of Calanthe intertwining with Anure’s great rock of a citadel.
Crushed beneath it would be more appropriate. I laughed to myself without humor and continued on. I’d begun to convince even myself as I spun my fictions of a wedding whose glamour would dazzle the entire empire. Such an event should be years in the planning—though I didn’t dare test Anure’s temper by suggesting as much—but months, surely. By the time I’d finished writing, I’d made an excellent case for waiting until spring in Yekpehr, still several months away. Hopefully Anure wouldn’t counter with proposing a wedding in Calanthe, island of eternal summer. To forestall that eventuality, I added a postscript suggesting how the towers and battlements of Yekpehr could be employed in memorabilia to seal the event in memory and for all posterity.
Satisfied—at least, as best I could be for a hasty and desperate maneuver—I folded the letter myself, employing my skills to make it intricate, beautiful, and obviously from my hand. None of my ladies had returned from their current errands. How inconvenient. And odd, as they normally checked back regularly. I had asked a great deal of them in a short time, however.
I crossed my private study with quick steps, as much as balancing the wig and crown allowed, invigorated by my plan and feeling far better than my frantic pacing of only an hour earlier. Opening the door, I had already begun to ask the guard at the door to summon my master fowler when I stopped mid-word, beyond surprised to find no one there.
Impossible that my personal guards should have abandoned their post.
I scanned the hall, one that led only to my suite of rooms, in the tower that belonged entirely to me, finding no one there at all. Never in my entire life and reign had that been so. A prickle of unease crawled up my spine and I ventured out a few steps, thinking I might call for someone. Shouts rang out from farther down the bend of the stairs, along with the clang of weapons. Then a cry of pain.
Sawehl and Ejarat save me—those were the sounds of fighting.
I hastened backward a few steps; then the pounding of boots thundering down the hall alarmed me into picking up my skirts with one hand, holding the crown in place with the other, and sliding on the slick floor back into the dubious safety of my rooms. I don’t move fast under the best of circumstances and these were far from ideal. Wheeling around to shove the door closed, I found it suddenly too heavy to move. Leaning my weight into it, I looked down the hall and gasped at the sight that greeted me.
Con, racing down the hall at top speed, still in my father’s black, a sword in one hand and an incongruously pink silk bag in the other. His long, dark hair flew in the wind of his passage, like the wings of a great black bird, face fierce. He seemed to take up the entire hallway in his furious race, but I glimpsed Sondra running at his right flank and Ambrose at his left, carrying his staff and seeming to fly the way his draping robes covered his feet. Merle indeed flew at the vanguard, streaking past me into my rooms.
In vain I struggled to shut the door that had closed easily thousands of times. Then Con was upon me, knocking me back as he shoved the door wider to admit his bulk. Seizing me by the arm, he caught me in time to stop me from falling ignominiously on my ass. Once Ambrose and Sondra plunged into the room, he released me and shut the door, turning the key in the lock and pocketing it.
Scanning the room, he spied a trunk and hefted it, carrying it to set before the door.
“We need more than that,” Sondra said.
“I’ve got it,” Ambrose said, giving me a distracted smile. He strode over to the door and touched the emerald on his staff to the lock. “No one will be able to open it until we’re ready.”
Con turned his scalding frown on the wizard. “I thought you said this was the way out.”
Ambrose smiled happily and bowed to me, Merle spreading his wings to mimic a bow also. “It is,” Ambrose chortled. “Her Highness is your way out. I’ve told you that repeatedly. Both of you. You’re clearly destined for each other, so alike in your obstinacy. Forgive us the intrusion, Your Highness.”
Con spun to me, as if just remembering my presence. “Are there other doors?” he demanded.
“Other doors?” I repeated faintly, with great astonishment. I realized I clutched my missive to Anure in hands gone sweaty with fear and edged away from him. He noted the movement and smiled grimly.
“Search for other entrances,” he told Sondra, who saluted and obeyed immediately, heading for my inner chambers.
I found my voice and my spine. “You can’t go in there,” I asserted.
She tossed me a look over her shoulder and disappeared through the doorway. I turned to Con. “None of you can be in here. These are My private chambers,” I stressed. Ejarat help me if Anure learned of this. My physical virginity wouldn’t matter to him if he heard I’d been alone and vulnerable to marauders.
“Oh yeah?” Con grated out, pacing from one window to the next. “Maybe you should arrest and imprison us. Oh wait—you already did that and it didn’t stick.”
Impossible. “How have you escaped?” I demanded. “Where is Syr Leuthar?”
Con flashed a grin, all teeth and stark violence. “Dead.”
“Dead?” I repeated. I seemed to be doomed to parrot everything he said like an addled idiot.