Which he quickly did, judging by the light of comprehension in his eyes, and the following grim and determined frown. My Conrí understood strategy. “Go on,” he said.
“If Anure’s wizards couldn’t detect the geas, they wouldn’t know to remove it. It worked to make Anure satisfied in the betrothal. It was a stalling tactic that wasn’t meant to last this long.”
Con frowned, stroking a hand up and down my back. “King Gul died, unexpectedly.”
“Exactly.” The old grief choked me, and I leaned into Con. He embraced me gently, and it settled into me that I wasn’t alone in this anymore. “Anure will come,” I said.
“Then we’ll be ready for him,” Con answered.
For the first time, I thought it was possible that we could be. I kissed my husband, beyond glad to have him there. Then gave him a smile.
“Now get your clothes and dress, my Conrí, so I can bathe and get ready, too. Then we’ll call a meeting of the Defense Council.” And Tertulyn needed to be found. If she could be.
“I’ll let your lady in.”
“Con,” I called as he strode to the door. He turned back in question. “I am happy this morning,” I told him. “Far more than I ever hoped to be.”
He smiled, the warmth lighting the gold of his eyes.
I got back into bed so the Glory could start my day again. The realm awaited the sun of my presence, after all.
Read on for an excerpt from the next thrilling book in the Forgotten Empires series
The Fiery Crown
By Jeffe Kennedy
Available Summer 2020 from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
* * *
“I just thought I should mention,” Ambrose replied reproachfully, more of his usual bite to it. “Since you seem to have such a high opinion of my wizardry. In case your brooding and obsessive study of this painting led your thoughts in that direction.”
I set my teeth, resisting the urge to grind them. “I’m not brooding or obsessive. This is a good place to think. Normally no one bothers me here.” If I had to kick my heels in this oppressively cheerful paradise, growing softer with each wasted moment, I could at least contemplate next steps, anticipate Anure’s strategy to take his own revenge on Calanthe and her queen. “It’s not like I have anything else to do.”
“You could attend court, as consort to Her Highness,” Ambrose pointed out blandly, and I suppressed a growl of frustration. At least my throat hurt less, since Healer Jeaneth had been treating me—one positive of having time on my hands. My voice still sounded like a choked dog most of the time, however.
“Court,” I snarled the word. “I don’t get how Lia can waste time on that posturing when she promised to discuss defense.”
“She does have a realm to govern.”
“She won’t if Anure comes while she drags her feet. The woman is uncommonly stubborn.”
“A perfect match for you.” Ambrose narrowed his eyes at my clenched fists. “Isn’t she gathering intelligence from her spies?”
I didn’t answer that. That’s what we waited on, theoretically, but I knew there were things Lia was avoiding telling me. I also suspected that she hoped it would all just go away. Both of us knew that Calanthe couldn’t withstand a full-out, devastating attack. When nothing happened immediately after our wedding, Lia began to hope that nothing would.
I knew better. The painting helped remind me of all the dead waiting to be avenged—and what happened to those who fell before Anure’s might.
Unfortunately, I was at a loss to find a way out of our current predicament.
If Anure was smart—and the Imperial Tyrant might be greedy, arrogant, ruthless, and devoid of redeeming human qualities, but he wasn’t stupid—he’d simply surround the island with battleships loaded with explosive vurgsten and bombard Calanthe until nothing remained. He wouldn’t care about salvaging anything; he never had. Even with the ships I’d captured and Calanthe’s fleets of pleasure skiffs and fishing boats, we couldn’t effectively surround and defeat Anure’s navy. Besides, our own supplies of vurgsten had to be vanishingly small compared to what the emperor had stockpiled for nearly two decades at his citadel at Yekpehr.
We had to deploy our few strengths with strategic care, and being trapped on an island while the Imperial Toad scoured us off it with superior force wouldn’t allow for that. Not only wasn’t I closer to destroying Anure and taking my final revenge, I’d put myself and my forces in an even more tenuous position than before. I’d followed Ambrose’s prophecy, and taken the tower at Keiost.
Take the Tower of the Sun,
Claim the hand that wears the Abiding Ring,
And the empire falls.
Claiming the hand that wears the Abiding Ring? I only wish it had been as simple as conquering an impregnable ancient city. Instead I’d had to find a way to convince Queen Euthalia of Calanthe to marry me. Against all probability, I’d succeeded. We were duly wed, though saying I’d claimed anything about Lia would be a stretch, and I sure didn’t see the empire falling anytime soon. The reverse seemed far more likely.
I’d honed the skill of patiently waiting for my chance to strike—but doing nothing while my enemy mustered a crushing attack? It was driving me out of my mind.
“Lia’s spies can tell her how much vurgsten Anure has, how many ships and troops he can send against us, and how well-fortified his citadel is, and we’ll know nothing more than we do now,” I finally replied to the wizard’s expectant silence. “I thought claiming the hand with the Abiding Ring would lead to the empire’s fall.” I leveled an accusing glare on him.
“You claimed Her Highness’s hand all right, but the wooing doesn’t stop there,” Ambrose replied with mild reproof. “You can’t order a queen about like you can your soldiers.”
“Don’t I know it,” I muttered. Since Ambrose had destroyed what little peace I’d found, I turned and strode down the long gallery. The wizard glided alongside me, making no sound though my bootsteps echoed on the polished marble of Lia’s pretty palace. Ambrose could move silently as a cat when he wished, which was how he’d managed to sneak up on me. No one else could. I’d learned early on in the mines of Vurgmun to duck the ready lash of the guards, a habit that had stuck—and served me well in the years of battle since.
I’d have liked to say I’d gotten used to it, but even I didn’t delude myself that much.
We emerged from the shadowed portrait gallery, a place thick with ghosts and the stale smells of hundreds of destroyed kingdoms, and into the bright, flower-scented sunlight of the main hall. Lia’s palace doesn’t have much in the way of walls. With the eternal summer of Calanthe’s tropical weather, they don’t need them. Open arcades of carved pillars framed the lush gardens, pools, and lawns surrounding the palace, with the gleaming turquoise sea beyond. Flowers bloomed constantly from lush lawns, flower beds, shrubs, and towering trees, with vines coiling over all of it. Butterflies of hues I hadn’t known existed lifted in clouds, then drifted on the breeze, and everywhere birds sang, all sweetly, of course. I hadn’t figured out yet if Lia had an army of gardeners to tend it all or if it just … did that on its own.