Lance of Earth and Sky

At the emperor's words, a murmuring echo passed around the table. The remaining eight people continued to stare into the sphere at its center through their glowing lenses. Though they responded to speech, they didn't seem to realize anyone else was in the room—each still kept up a steady flow of words, all different, all indistinguishable to Vidarian's ears. The emperor smiled ruefully and lifted a finger to his lips, then approached Vidarian from the far side of the table.

Color and light, despite the dim hall, gleamed off of the emperor's embroidered silk robe as he drew closer to the doorway. Vidarian worked to keep his feet under him—the long journey, hunger, and now facing a man to whom his family had owed loyalty for generations. The young, chiseled face and dark eyes held authority weightlessly, and some distant, surreal part of Vidarian observed that his likeness on the coin of the realm was quite true to life.

A moment of panic surged through Vidarian's veins as he flailed after words, but to his surprise, the emperor's eyes went up over his shoulder, focused somewhere behind him.

Vidarian turned and recognized the shining black coiffure and grey eyes that looked back at him. He only just caught an eruption of hate and fury before they submerged beneath a portrait-perfect smile. Her eyes were now so welcoming, her greeting to the emperor so warm, that he wondered if hunger and shock had made him hallucinate. The light here was so damnably dim…

“Ah, Oneira,” the emperor was greeting her with equal satisfaction and warmth, “you're just in time. Captain Rulorat has arrived. You must dine with us.”

Vidarian fought between relief at the idea of a meal and distaste at sharing it with Oneira, whom, when last they met, was pursuing him and Ariadel through the dead of night with capture orders from the Alorean Import Company.

“Your majesty knows I would love nothing more,” Oneira said, her diction cultured to perfection, “but I had come to relieve you at the table.” In clasping the emperor's hands in greeting, she had accepted the blue glass lenses from him.

The emperor waved delicate hands, the flurry of his fingers light and controlled at the same time, like a sparrow's wings. “Easily remedied,” he said, and waved at one of the guards. “We'll fetch Alandrus. He'll not mind, and should gain practice besides.”

Oneira searched the emperor's eyes for a long moment, doubtless gauging whether she could risk resisting him again, but in the end she smiled, all lightness. “Of course, your majesty. As you wish.”

By all accounts the emperor had decided on that moment's whim to dine with Vidarian and Oneira, but in the short time it took them to adjourn to the dining room—the “sable room,” his majesty had mentioned offhandedly, one of fifteen imperial dining rooms in the palace—an elegantly dressed table for four awaited them.

Vidarian waited for the emperor and Oneira to take their seats, then placed himself to the left of the emperor, resting a hand on the chair and looking for his majesty's subtle nod of approval before setting himself down.

All four places at the table—sable oak, matching the frame of a huge hunt scene in oils on the north wall, and the pedestals in lit alcoves bearing massive floral arrangements that filled the small room with fragrance—were set. Confirming that they would await another guest, the liveried servant who came bearing an effervescent pale wine filled four glasses, not three.

“To departed friends,” Oneira said, lifting her glass, and dropping an obscure look on Vidarian just before she did so.

“Indeed,” the emperor replied, lifting his own and then sipping from it. “To those who cannot join us—our poor Justinian included.” At that last, the look he gave Oneira was brotherly with sympathy.

“So it's true, then,” Vidarian said softly, more to himself than the table. Two faces turned toward him. “The Court of Directors,” he said, still absorbing the truth himself—realizing he had not wanted to believe. “We heard…” The words failed him.

“That they fell dead,” Oneira finished for him, and for the briefest of moments her eyes filled with water, but again she mastered herself so quickly as to make it seem an illusion. “The moment you opened the gate, according to the calculations of our scouts.”

Vidarian's head swam, and not just from the surprisingly potent wine. Had they known they would die? Is that why they tried to stop him from making it to the gate? But no—surely if Justinian himself had known the gate's opening would strike him down, he'd have killed Vidarian at the first opportunity, and there had been many such…

As he looked across the table, searching for an adequate reply, he realized three things in quick succession:

One: The same shift in healing magics that had caused Ruby's death must have disrupted the longevity magics of the directors.

Two: With the entire Court gone all at once, the Company must be in total chaos—

And three: Oneira had not just been Justinian's second. She had loved him, and likely he her.

* It would explain how a director would be so foolish as to insist on a female second, * Ruby said, soft with emotion, all trace of her usual cynicism gone.

Oneira's head jerked toward him, suspicion and confusion warring on her face.

Ruby's stone went so cold Vidarian could feel it through the leather pouch at his side. * She can hear me? * Vidarian was equally baffled. Ruby's “voice” had been pitched for him alone.

Before he could find a way to learn what Oneira had or hadn't heard, the door behind him opened. And before he could turn to discover the mysterious fourth guest, the emperor stood, a look of total stricken astonishment on his face. So trained were his features ordinarily that it took Vidarian several moments to recognize the expression for what it was: awe.

Remembering himself, Vidarian stood, and turned toward the door.

It was Calphille. But what a spell Renard had cast over her! The gown was green and black silk, tightly laced in the latest fashion, its shimmering skirts floating on voluminous petticoats. Her hair, which had been dark as shadowed leaves, now had a luster that took it from rich pine to spring bud, accented by tiny jeweled flowers that winked red and gold in the candlelight. The gown bared her shoulders, showing the chocolate smoothness of her skin dramatically, and powdered gold dust brought out the rich amber of her eyes. But eclipsing all of this was her wildness, which no cosseting could mask. If you were to wrap a tiger in finest silk, you would not notice the drape of the fabric; this was how Calphille shone through the countess's finery.

The emperor had shaken off his reverie, and now crossed the floor quickly to offer Calphille his arm. Her eyes widened as he approached, but Renard must have also briefly schooled her in etiquette, for she dropped a graceful curtsey that spoke more of a doe in flight than a courtier. As he walked her to her chair, the emperor's eyes never left her, nor indeed when he took his own place opposite her.

* He's smitten! * Ruby chirped, all of her sullenness lifted like evaporating fog. Vidarian hardly dared breathe; his obligation to Ruby, their macabre task, weighed all too heavily on his mind, and her long silences punctuated by dark moods he attributed solely to his failure thus far. But he could feel her attention now, oddly joyous, utterly on the emperor and Calphille—who, for her part, seemed equally in the emperor's thrall. She might drop her eyes demurely, but whenever the emperor spoke, her whole body oriented toward him like a leaf toward sunlight. * An intriguing development! *

Again, when Ruby spoke, Oneira looked around surreptitiously, a crease of confusion subtle between her eyebrows. There was no doubt in Vidarian's mind that she could hear Ruby—but why, or what it meant, he had no idea. She, too, seemed intrigued with the energy that crackled between Calphille and the emperor, and, to Vidarian's intense relief, utterly without jealousy. He could feel the iron claws of court politics closing around them: the emperor and Calphille, transfixed with each other, while Vidarian, Oneira—and Ruby!—thought only of what this new power dynamic would do to their own schemes.

More liveried servants entered the dining room, bearing glass cylinders of a frothy exotic fruit aperitif that did little to wash the unpleasant taste of politics from his tongue. Delicate cakes of fried shredded root vegetable followed, swimming in a pale cream redolent with far island spice. Though Vidarian prided himself on esoteric knowledge of foodstuffs from across the five seas, he could recognize only the basics of what came before them.

Over a larger plate of poached tigerfish with tiny succulent tomatoes and an exquisite brown-butter eldergrass sauté, the emperor at last yielded Vidarian a polite opening. “In these strange times, I can only summon the empire's wisest, and hope that their counsel can see us through.”

“I had wondered, your majesty, what counsel or service I might provide you.” Vidarian forced his words into a genteel slowness, though he burned with the urge to demand of the emperor the reason for his summoning.

To his surprise, the emperor turned to Oneira, who smiled but did not take the proffered invitation. “I was hoping you would have those answers,” the emperor said, setting aside his fork and resting his hands on the table in a clear signal of frank conversation. “With this war with Qui—”

“War?” Vidarian breathed, completely unaware of having interrupted the most powerful man on the continent.

“Yes,” the emperor blinked, overlooking Vidarian's misstep, “and with my Sky Knights in such a shamble—”

Vidarian must have looked even more baffled, for Oneira, of all people, offered rescue, of a sort. “He has been on the farthest fringes since the Opening,” she demurred, ostensibly speaking to Calphille, who already knew full well, rather than give the impression of correcting the emperor. “In the wild, where little hint of the consequences of his actions have permeated.”

Heat crept up Vidarian's neck as he thought of their work to subdue the seridi as “little hint,” but it would be worse than useless to contradict her. And was it true? War? With Qui? The rich meal rolled in his stomach at the thought. The great land nation to the south had always disputed the border provinces…

“Bloody savages,” the emperor said, a cultured agony and affront twisting his lip, and Vidarian struggled not to boggle at his rough words. “Lurking, always, at our southern border, and when they realized the time was right, seized Isrinvale, and are halfway through Lehria, according to the latest relays.”

Now Vidarian's head swam. Even Ruby's stone radiated a deep, chilled shock. “And the Sky Knights…?” Caladan's affront took on new color, and Vidarian regretted his obtuseness. He should have convinced the gryphons to land so he could gather news outside the capital. Surely the Knights were attempting to stem the tide of the Qui invasion—

“A shambles,” the emperor repeated, and his dark eyes lifted to rest heavily on Vidarian. The burden in them seared through to the depths of his soul, but there was resolution there, too, and strength. He found himself pulled up by that gaze, and would never again wonder how such a young man could wield so much power. “And that is where I require your assistance. With my Sky Knights all but disabled, I rely much more on my skyships, and not only do I lack for captains that can show the necessary sharp thinking of captaining an entirely new class of ship, I require your unique knowledge of elemental magic to figure out what in the sacred names of all four goddesses is going on. We're dealing with towns turned upside down, waking relics, shapechangers…”

“The Company has provided the emperor with materials,” Oneira began modestly. She went on about rare books the Company had obtained, but at the word “shapeshifter,” Calphille had gasped, and Vidarian looked up at her, giving the slightest shake of his head. Now was certainly not the time to introduce that particular aspect of Calphille's family to the emperor.

* Will there ever be a good time? * Ruby giggled, and Vidarian thought sharp thoughts at her, warning her of Oneira's strange “hearing.” For a blessing, she seemed not at all aware of Vidarian's thoughts, and he aimed to keep it that way. Ruby settled down, but still radiated damnable amusement at the whole thing, and now Vidarian understood why: it would be up to him to explain to the emperor that he was enamored of a shapeshifter, which the royal court—and perhaps even the emperor himself—would never accept as fully human.

All three at the table were now looking at him, and so he said the only thing he could say: “It's my honor to serve the empire,” he managed not to sigh, “in any way I can, your majesty.”