Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

Swift hands. For a moment Chella savoured the thought of such entanglement. Kai found his balance and his seat at the same time she pushed him away – a mutual decision. She closed her hands, nails sharp in her palms, and put her head back against the rest. What would I want with a pretty blond thing like him in any case? Unseasoned meat.

‘We will be in Honth soon?’ Kai asked.

‘Yes.’ He knew that. The living just liked to chatter – they would spend long enough silent in the grave. The same need twisted her lips, wanting her to add more. She pressed them tight.

‘Then along the Danoob,’ Kai said. ‘Have you ever seen it, Chella?’

‘No.’

‘They say if you’re in love the waters look blue.’

Before Jorg she had never travelled, never strayed from Gelleth, just that short journey from Jonholt to the mountain. A scant few miles in three lifetimes, but oh the things she had seen on that trip.

The span of three lives spent digging into death, unravelling mysteries, stepping away from life in all its mess and clutter and squabbles. And here she sat, rattling her way toward the heart of empire, sick with being alive, stomach roiling at the jolting motion and at the thought of what lay ahead. Not until the Dead King announced her as his representative and pressed five voting seals into her hands had she ever doubted his genius. Now she knew it for insanity.

At the town of Wendmere Captain Axtis halted the column for lunch. The guard set their five times fifty warhorses, their pack animals, and the steeds of the column-followers to grazing in the meadows, careless of who farmed them or what need the grass was set against. The ragged tail of followers still straggled in as Kai and Chella seated themselves beside the hearth in Wendmere’s finest inn. Chella noted the armourers’ wagons rolling by, the carts of the farriers, the troop’s leather workers, the seamstresses’ tiny wagon. Kai paid more attention to the whores, an ever-changing population trailing the guard, girls on mules, girls in open buggies and gigs, more in Onsa’s wheel-house. Each band with some cut-faced rogue to guard and guide and chivvy and negotiate. Chella could almost see the chains of hunger and misery that towed them behind the golden men of Vyene.

Guards brought in goblets and platters in their velvet-lined cases from the goods train, each piece set with the imperial eagle. Only the Gilden Guard themselves could be trusted to serve their wards, to serve the Hundred or their representatives. Chella found herself wondering if these gleaming warriors could handle their swords as well as they handled the silver cutlery being set before her.

‘What do you think of the empire’s elite, Kai? You served in an army, did you not?’

Kai lowered his goblet from wine-darkened lips. He frowned at the man standing to attention ready to refill it. ‘Who says the guard are “elite”? Every petty noble’s third son who’s too dumb to make it in the clergy gets shipped off to Vyene where each grows fat on bribes as an over-valued “watchman”, and each fourth year they get to go on a little trip to collect the Hundred. Pretty armour doesn’t make a warrior.’

To their credit, the men around them hid their offence well.

‘I guess the truth lies somewhere between,’ Chella said. ‘I hear they train hard, these men of Vyene. They are, perhaps, as well-forged as a weapon can be without fire.’

She looked out, through the distortion of the small and puddle-paned windows, across the rooftops, to distant smoke. Their true protection stalked out there somewhere, Thantos, more cautious than his sister and more deadly.

Keres had been skinned, though! A chill crept over Chella, despite the fire, despite the wine. If the lichkin could have told them what happened – her mind would be at better ease. A trouble named is a trouble tamed.

Captain Axtis came in, stamping against the cold and brushing rain off the shoulders of his cloak.

‘Tell me, Captain,’ Chella said. ‘When were the guard last called on to defend the Gilden Gates, when did they last take to the battlefield?’

‘Sixtieth year of the Interregnum, Madam Delegate.’ Without hesitation. ‘The battle of Crassis Plains, against the Holy Roman army of the false emperor Manzal.’

A generation ago. ‘Were you even born then, Axtis?’

‘I was two years of age, Madam Delegate.’

And showing grey hairs under that helm today. Chella wondered how they would stand against the dead of her master’s army, the quick and the slow, with the ghouls and the lichkin.

‘I came to say we should be moving on if you’re set upon a full escort the whole way to Vyene.’