I’d made a deal with myself that I wouldn’t ask. Not that Lia would laugh at my ignorance—not out loud, anyway—but I didn’t like to remind Her Highness of what a provincial lout she’d married.
A stream burbled its way through the palace from a lagoon on one side to a pond on the other, meandering through in a trough cut into the marble floors and inlaid with little tiles in all shades of blue and green. Arching bridges crossed it in places, more for show than anything because all but the most mincing courtier could easily leap across the narrow channel. I might not have much in the way of fine manners, but even I knew it would be rude to actually jump over the thing, however, and I didn’t much feel like changing my path to cross over the nearest dainty bridge. So, I turned and followed the stream outside.
Ambrose, of course, tagged along as if we were out for a companionable stroll.
“What do you want, Ambrose?” I finally asked, capitulating to the inevitable.
“Me? Oh, what a question.” He let his staff thunk on the path of crushed stone, leaning on it as we walked, Merle rising and falling with the movement, like the carved masthead of a ship on stormy seas. “I want different things now than when I was an apprentice wizard,” he continued conversationally. “Those ideas change over time, have you noticed? The expectations of idealistic ignorance give way to more mature dreams and goals. Not in a bad way. It’s just that what we thought we wanted came from not really knowing what we could have. Once I learned more about what the world offered me, I discovered I wanted entirely different things. And you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Or how I’d gone from leading armies, gaining momentum on my vengeance with each conquest, to strolling through a garden, having a conversation like the pretty lads and ladies we passed. Most of the courtiers were in court, naturally, kissing Lia’s gorgeously garbed ass and passing their fancily folded notes, but the other denizens of the palace seemed to spend most of their time looking decorative in the gardens. In my black garb—granted, finer than what I’d arrived on Calanthe wearing—and carrying my weapons, I felt like a scarred monster by comparison. Given the askance looks the courtiers gave me before they deflected into other directions, they thought so, too.
“I’m talking about changing expectations,” Ambrose replied, lifting his face to the sun and smiling like that one painting of a saint back in the gallery. “You, for example, can expect very different things from your life now that you’re King of Calanthe and no longer the Slave King.”
“The consort of the Queen of Calanthe,” I corrected, hating the testy edge to my voice, already so rough compared to the wizard’s fluid tones. “Not the same thing. I’m not king of anything, never have been.”
Ambrose waved that off as irrelevant. “My point is, it’s time for you to stop moping about in the shadows. Time to take action, my boy!”
I stopped next to a tiered fountain of roses, glaring at it while I mastered the urge to throttle the wizard. The roses at the top were bright white, then they got pinker lower down. The blooms progressed through all shades of pink and red, until the bottom ones, which were as dark as the blood that pours out when you strike a man in the liver.
Tiny purple bees buzzed around them, making a hypnotic sound that somehow seemed part of the heavily sweet scent of the blossoms. I kept an eye on the bees to make sure they planned to stay occupied with the flowers rather than attacking us. “What action do you want me to take?” I asked, sounding more or less calm. “Lia refuses to convene her defense council and you agreed, saying we should wait to see how Anure responded when he received news of the wedding.”
Ambrose sighed heavily, then settled himself on a stone bench that circled the flower fountain, heedless of the bees that investigated the garland in his hair, though Merle snapped at one curiously. “That’s what I’m telling you, Conrí,” the wizard said with exaggerated patience. “We did have to wait. Now we don’t. Must I forever explain these things?”
I wrapped my fingers into my palms, making them into fists so I’d be less likely to forget that I needed Ambrose and accidentally strangle him. Also, he was Lia’s court wizard now, and she’d be put out with me if I killed him.
Ours wasn’t a marriage of affection. Exactly the opposite, in fact, as we’d started out trying to kill each other before we even met face to face. But the ritual had been done properly, tying us together for the rest of our lives, like it or not. Aside from the sexual consummation, where we seemed to get along just fine, we mostly seemed to piss each other off. Like two bulls in a small pen, one of Lia’s pet scholars, Brenda, had called us. Not a bad comparison, if unflattering. I wouldn’t mind having horns to wave at Ambrose in menace.
“What changed?” I asked. My voice growled with frustration when the wizard got that sly look of his and raised a chastising finger as he opened his mouth. “And don’t say everything changes all the time.”
Ambrose closed his mouth again and raised his brows. “Well, everything does change. Change is the one dependable element of the world,” he pointed out, almost primly, then hastily added as he spied the look on my face, “but I’ll address the question I believe you meant to ask, which is why is now the time and not yesterday, or even earlier today? That’s a complicated answer, because there are many factors you won’t understand, even if I had time to explain them all.”
“Ambrose.”
“Patience, Conrí, what I’m saying is that Queen Euthalia has received a message from Anure.”
“It took you this long to tell me that?” I snapped, incredulous. My blood surged hot, but not with anger and frustration like usual. Excitement and bold purpose filled me. Enough of delays and arguing in circles. Finally I could embark on the final phase of my mission to destroy Anure, everything he’d built, and everything he cared about. If the Imperial Toad was capable of caring about anything at all.
And the empire falls.
“What did the message say?”
“Oh, I don’t know exactly. But the currents of possibility and probability have shifted. It’s fascinating to see.”
I bit back my impatience. “How have they shifted—have you seen how we can counter Anure’s certain attack?”
A chorus of music blasted from the direction of the palace proper, along with cheers and shouts. I knew that fanfare well enough, as it always heralded the approach of the queen. Her people behaved as if her every appearance was a cause for joyous celebration. Ambrose stood, using the staff to pull himself up, a delighted smile on his face. “Aha! Here comes Queen Euthalia. She’ll be able to tell you what the message says. Then you’ll see.”
“Something you could have told me long since.”
“If you’d bothered to attend court, you’d have known already,” he shot back, dropping all hint of playfulness, his words short and full of disapproval.
I didn’t reply, setting my teeth together with a satisfying bite instead. Lia’s court drove me out of my mind with their fancy dress and pretty posturing. I’d gone to court with Lia that first day, thinking that we’d get actual work done. We did have a war to plan, right? But no—she’d expected me to dress up and then sit there while fancily dressed idiots simpered and offered fake compliments, begging for favors in the guise of offering congratulations on our marriage.