“You had a duty to bring the information to me,” Randor said, ignoring the question. “I ennobled you. I made you Baroness Cockatrice. You had a duty to me, a duty you chose to ignore.”
“Because you would have killed a great many innocent people, none of whom knew their family patriarch was a traitor,” Emily said, tartly. Neither Imaiqah nor Tam had known the truth. “And because you would have killed my friend. My first real friend.”
“The family of a traitor has to die,” Randor snapped. “That’s the law!”
“You didn’t kill Alicia,” Emily pointed out. “And she was an adult by the time her father was beheaded.”
“That would have plunged her inheritance into the hands of a very distant cousin,” Randor snapped. “And she was not a confirmed adult.”
“A legal technicality,” Emily countered. “Alicia would have been twenty when her father died.”
“But an important one,” Randor said. “And Paren betrayed me, personally.”
“Only because you betrayed him first,” Emily said. “You made promises, didn’t you? And you didn’t keep those promises.”
Randor snorted. “The Merchants Guild couldn’t organize a dance without spending weeks arguing and agonizing over every last detail. They couldn’t make a decision in a hurry if the lives of their wives and children depended on it. And I was supposed to give them a say in running the kingdom?”
“You made a promise,” Emily said.
“I ennobled Paren,” Randor hissed. He stood up and started to pace the room, swinging his fists as if he was looking for someone to hit. “I made him a man of title as well as wealth and power. I ensured his sons would have a fair chance at heiresses and that his daughters would have suitable marriages to men of good quality. I even put him on the Privy Council and listened to him! And he betrayed me.”
He rounded on Emily. “I expect to be betrayed by the noblemen. They’re cockroaches. You don’t blame vermin for doing what vermin does. But the men I ennoble personally? You’d damn well better believe that I expect complete loyalty from them. I made him great!”
“You betrayed him,” Emily said, quietly.
“You betrayed me,” Randor snapped. “You utter filthy…I should never have let you anywhere near this kingdom! I should have banned your ideas right from the start! I should have burned the printing press, smashed the spinning jenny, exploded the gunpowder and executed anyone who knew how to make them. The kingdom would have been just fine.”
Emily shook her head, wordlessly. Randor was wrong. The New Learning had spread at terrifying speed. The kingdoms that refused to adopt it would rapidly find themselves outmatched by the kingdoms–and city-states–that did. It was easy to imagine Beneficence, ten or twenty years down the line, being armed with repeating rifles and cannon while Zangaria would have nothing more advanced than a bow and arrow. The war would be a walkover, particularly if Zangaria had learned nothing in the intervening time. A valiant cavalry charge at an enemy position would end in total disaster, the horsemen slaughtered to the last man. She could…
Randor slammed his fist into his palm. “Do you know what they’re doing, out there? Do you know?”
“No,” Emily said. “I’ve been locked in your cell…”
“They’re muttering your name,” Randor told her, coldly. “Not my name, not my daughter’s…yours. Your name is on everyone’s lips as the heroine, the savior, the one who gave them everything. The commoners are threatening to rise in your name. They’ll fight and die for you.”
“I’d rather they lived for me,” Emily said, lightly.
Randor backhanded her. She barely had a moment to gasp in pain before he was in front of her, one hand clutching her neck. His grip tightened slowly, threatening to choke the life out of her. She tried to pull back, but she couldn’t move. She was at his mercy.
“Do you know what I could do to you?” Randor’s voice was almost a scream. “Do you know what I could do? Anything! Anything at all! I could make you suffer for hours, then have you healed so you could suffer again. I could break you.”
He lowered his voice. “And no one is coming to rescue you. Your friends don’t even know where you are. And your…father…isn’t your real father. He’s certainly not going to bother coming to the rescue when you failed so spectacularly.”
Emily choked, her vision starting to dim. Was this the end? She felt oddly peaceful, if only because there was no way to resist. She’d die in a squalid dungeon, dimensions away from her homeworld…but she’d had a good run, hadn’t she? Jade and Cat could use what she’d taught them to overthrow Randor and put Alassa on the throne, then turn the batteries against the necromancers. And the New Learning would spread…Randor could kill her, if he wished, but he couldn’t kill an idea. It was already too late.
Randor loosened his grip. “No,” he hissed. “You won’t die today.”
It was a struggle to breathe. Emily was half-convinced that Randor had crushed part of her throat, even though she thought that would have proven fatal. Her throat hurt, badly. Her entire body hurt and there was blood in her mouth and…her thoughts started to swim out of control. Perhaps he had killed her after all.
“You taught people that they could seek their own place, instead of staying where the gods put them,” Randor said. “And they think they can rise up against me, that they can upset the natural order and take my throne. And all they will do is throw the country to the noblest dogs!”
Emily tried to speak, to tell him that the social hierarchy looked very different to someone at the bottom. But the pain in her throat was too great. Her breathing came in ragged gulps, each breath hurting her more than she cared to admit. Randor might have decided not to kill her with his bare hands, but…she doubted that was a good thing. The only reason she was alive was because he thought he still had a use for her.
“Tomorrow, you will be taken from this cell and marched to a place of public execution,” Randor said. His lips twitched, humorlessly. “As a noblewoman of Zangaria, you would normally be immune from the death penalty, but you did rule Cockatrice in your own right and so you will be treated like a man. I trust you will appreciate the honor of dying like a man, Lady Emily. Unless, of course, you would like to be married off to someone of my choice…?”
“Go to hell,” Emily managed. It still hurt to talk. “I…”
She shook her head, firmly. She doubted it was a serious offer. If Randor was telling the truth, nothing short of her death would dismay the crowds…although there was no guarantee she wouldn’t become a martyr. The crowds might get angrier if they watched her die on the block. And if it was a serious offer, she was sure that Randor would choose someone guaranteed to keep her under control. She’d spend the rest of her life, if she was lucky, drinking potions every day to keep her magic suppressed. And once she gave birth to an heir, she’d probably have her throat slit.
“Very well,” Randor said. He stepped back, rising to his feet. His voice was suspiciously affable. “Where is my daughter?”
Emily shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Randor met her eyes. “You must know where the portal terminated.”
“They won’t have stayed there,” Emily said. Randor must know where the portal had originated now too. Unless…no, Jade would have made sure to destroy everything before they fled the city. “They would have gone somewhere else to stay away from you.”
“I will find them,” Randor told her. “And when I do…”
“You betrayed your daughter,” Emily said, cutting him off. It was getting easier to talk. “Alassa is your heir, not a newborn baby.”
“I will pass a strong and stable country down to my heir, whoever he may be,” Randor said, coolly. “And if my daughter does not come back to me, she will be disinherited and my son will take her place.”
“Your bastard son,” Emily said.
“He is my son,” Randor shouted, so loudly that it echoed from the walls. The sudden switch from affability to anger was terrifying. “His mother does not matter. He is my son!”