Rise of Empire (The Riyria Revelations #3-4)

“She’s tired,” Amilia said, closing the door on him.

The empress sat on the edge of her bed, staring at nothing. This was not her familiar blank stare. Amilia could see her thinking hard about something.

“Were you sleepwalking? Did you have a nightmare?”

Modina thought a moment, then shook her head. “I remembered something.” Her voice was faint and airy. “It was something bad.”

“Was it about the battle?” This was the first time Amilia had brought up the subject. Details of Modina’s legendary combat with the beast that had destroyed Dahlgren were always vague or clouded by so much dogma and propaganda that it was impossible to tell truth from fiction. Like any imperial citizen, Amilia was curious. The stories claimed Modina had slain a powerful dragon with a broken sword. Just looking at the empress, she knew that could not be true, but Amilia was certain something terrible had happened.

“No,” Modina said softly. “It was afterward. I woke up in a hole, a terrible place. I think it was my grave. I don’t like remembering. It’s better for both of us if I don’t try.”

Amilia nodded. Since Modina had begun speaking, most of their conversations had centered on Amilia’s life in Tarin Vale. On the few occasions when she asked Modina about her own past, the empress’s expression darkened and the light in her eyes faded. She would not speak any more after that, sometimes for days. The skeletons in Modina’s closet were legion.

“Well, don’t think about it, then,” Amilia told her in a soothing voice. She sat next to Modina on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers through the empress’s hair. “Whatever it was, it’s over. You’re here with me now. It’s getting late. Do you think you can sleep?”

The empress nodded, but her eyes remained troubled.

Once she was certain the empress was resting peacefully, Amilia crept out of her room. Ignoring Gerald’s questioning looks, she trotted downstairs to the kitchen. If left to themselves, the scullions would start a wave of rumors certain to engulf the entire palace, and she could not afford to have this getting back to Saldur.

Amilia had not visited the kitchens for quite some time. The moist steamy cloud that smelled of onions and grease, once so familiar, was now oppressive. Eight people worked the evening shift. There were several new faces, mostly young boys fresh off the street and girls still smelling of farm manure. All of them worked perfunctorily, as they were engrossed in the conversation that rose above the sound of the boiling kettles and the clatter of pans. That all stopped when she entered.

“Amilia!” Ibis Thinly boomed the moment he saw her. The old sea cook was a huge barrel-chested man with bright blue eyes and a beard that wreathed his chin. Blood and grease stained his apron. He held a towel in one hand and a spoon in the other. Leaving a large pot on the stove, he strode over to her, grinning. “Yer a fine sight for weathering eyes, lass! How’s life treating you, and why don’t you visit more often?”

She rushed to him. Ignoring his filthy garment and all courtly protocol, she hugged the big man tight.

The water boy dropped both buckets and gasped aloud.

Ibis chuckled. “It’s as if they plum forgot you used to work here. Like they think their old Amilia died er sumptin’ and the chief imperial secretary to the empress grew outta thin air.” He put down the spoon and took her by the hand. “So, how are you, lassie?”

“Really good, actually.”

“I hear you got a fancy place up there in the east wing with all the swells. That’s sumptin’ to be proud of, that is. Yer moving up in the world. There’s no mistaking that. I just hope you don’t forget us down here.”

“If I do, just burn my dinner and I’ll remember who the really important people are.”

“Oh, speaking of that!” Ibis quickly used the towel to lift the steaming pot from the stove. “Don’t want to be ruining the sauce for the chamberlain’s quail.”

“How are things here?”

“Same as always.” He hoisted the pot onto the stone bench and lifted the lid, freeing a cloud of steam. “Nuttin’ changes in the scullery, and you picked a fine time to visit. Edith ain’t here. She’s upstairs hollering at the new chambermaid.”

Amilia rolled her eyes. “They should have dismissed that woman years ago.”

“Don’t I know it, but I only run the kitchen and don’t have no say over what she does. Course, you being a swell an’ all now, maybe—”

She shook her head. “I don’t have any real power. I just take care of Modina.”

Ibis used the spoon to taste the sauce before replacing the lid.

“Well now, I know you didn’t come here to jaw with me about Edith Mon. This have sumptin’ to do with the empress crying down here a bit ago? It wasn’t the pea soup I made for her, was it?”

“No,” Amilia assured him. “She loves your cooking, but yes, I did sort of want to explain things.” She turned to face the rest of the staff and raised her voice. “I just wanted everyone to know the empress is okay. She heard some bad news today and it saddened her is all. But she’s fine now.”

“Was it about the war?” Nipper asked.

“I bet it had to do with the prisoners in Ratibor,” Knob, the baker, speculated. “The princess from Melengar done executed them, didn’t she? Everyone knows she’s a witch and a murderess. She’d think nothing of slaughtering defenseless folk. That’s why she was weeping, wasn’t it? ’Cause she couldn’t save them?”

“The poor dear,” the butcher’s wife declared. “She cares so much, it’s no wonder she’s so upset with everything she has to deal with. Thank Maribor she has you taking care of her, Lady Amilia. You’re a mercy and then some, you are.”

Amilia smiled and turned to Ibis. “Didn’t she always used to yell at me about the way I cleaned her husband’s knives?”

Ibis chuckled. “She also accused you of taking that pork loin a year ago last spring. Said you ought to be whipped. I guess she forgot about that. They all have, I ’spect. It’s the dress, I think. Seeing you in a gown like this, even I have to fight the impulse to bow.”

“Don’t do that,” she told him, “or I’ll never come back here.”

Ibis grinned. “It’s good to see you again.”