Our procession rumbles down the Avenue of the Soldier. Squads of enemy soldiers on patrol line up at intervals to salute in the East Saroese manner, a bow with hands braced together. They are paler than the local Saroese, and many are burned red from too much sun.
Beyond them, I glimpse local people staring with wary interest, although they keep a wide berth from the foreign soldiers and do not cheer the arrival of Nikonos and his banner. It seems the populace does not trust their new king and his foreign allies, but they are caught by the majesty of the procession, our tattered remnants marching with dogged pride. It is only after the royal carriage has moved on that I hear people shout out greetings as they see familiar faces in the Royal Army.
We reach the Square of the Moon and the Sun and make a wide turn onto the Avenue of Triumphs, which leads to the king’s palace. How strange that I am part of a royal victory procession like the one Amaya and Mother and I watched the day Father sat in glory as a newly promoted general, the last day we were a happy family all together.
The words come out as if I have no rein on them. Hoarsely I say, “Mother was so proud of you that day. She wept to see you given pride of place in your own general’s carriage. How could you have abandoned her, Father?”
He doesn’t look toward me but I hear his words, murmured for himself and not for me. “I will make it up to her. She’ll understand.”
“How can she understand you just leaving her when you didn’t even know she was safe? How could you bear to do it, if you truly loved her?”
His fingers tighten on the hilt of his sword, not aggressively but with suppressed tension. He won’t answer, and he refuses to look at me.
I don’t have the courage to ask again.
I ride with the victorious army he commands. That is answer enough.
The gates of the king’s palace open before the combined force of the royal carriage, the royal sea-phoenix banner, and Prince Nikonos’s personal banner of gold and purple, all of which taken together fool the guards into thinking that Nikonos sits inside. This has to work. If they realize it’s Kal, they’ll cut him down without mercy.
I still have the knife Inarsis gave me. Heart racing, I set it across my lap, ready to fight if we’re discovered. Putting Kal on the throne is the only way to defeat the invaders. I’m sure of it. I’m sure.
The outer courtyard fills up with our infantry units. Officers come to the curtain where, hidden behind the gauze, Father gives a stream of orders in a low voice.
“Make sure all approaches to the palace are under our control. Secure the grounds. Search every chamber and storehouse. Imprison all East Saroese soldiers who surrender, and kill those who resist. Restrict the palace guards to their barracks until we can determine their loyalty. We remain on high alert.”
Our soldiers race up stairs to the guard walks, spreading out to take over the palace.
The royal carriage passes through a second gate into an inner courtyard. Here courtiers sit on benches beneath the shade of trees, waiting for permission to enter the king’s audience chamber. As the royal carriage halts, these courtiers leap to their feet and press fists to hearts, each wishing to be seen as first to greet the returning king. Officials wearing the gray silk of the royal stewards push open a third gate. Accompanied by a complement of Father’s veteran troops and Kalliarkos’s personal guards, the royal carriage passes through.
The gate shuts before we can follow.
“Father, what if the palace officials attack him?”
“Quiet.”
No screams and no clash of arms reach my ears although I am certain the palace officials, confronted with Kalliarkos, will react with immediate and drastic measures. He’s armed. He’ll defend himself, but we have to reach him before he’s overwhelmed. From farther away, in the other precincts of the palace compound, a flare of sound from a confrontation bursts like a flock of birds taking wing, then calms.
Father gets out of his carriage and limps to the gate. I’m right at his heels. Courtiers murmur, staring at Father and at me. Always at me. One of the stewards steps out of line to block my path. The purple stripes on his sleeves indicate that somewhere in his past he can boast of a palace forebear.
His haughty gaze flicks over Father’s stained tabard and dusty boots. “Without a letter of entry marked with the royal seal, you may not enter. And this… creature may not pass under the gate that admits the elect to the king’s audience hall. It should not be walking within these walls at all.”
Father still carries the captain’s whip he earned years ago. He presses its tip against the man’s chest and shoves him hard enough that the steward stumbles back.
“Open the gate.”
But a palace official with palace antecedents is not easily cowed, not even by my father. “No. There is protocol to follow, something a lowborn man like you cannot understand.”
I’ve already eyed the wall and the trees. “It’s all right,” I say. “I don’t need to pass under the gate.”
I launch myself into the friendly canopy of a persimmon, a tree favored by the royal family. The branches sway alarmingly as I climb. One cracks under my weight as I leap but I’m able to grab the top of the wall and roll onto a walkway. A surprised guardsman runs up, sword drawn. I vault past him and scramble down the stairs. There’s yet another courtyard inside, paved in marble and lined by pillars, where the royal carriage has come to rest. It’s abandoned; the area has emptied, not a soldier or official in sight except the man on the wallwalk who is now being yelled at by my father from the other side.
Where is Kal?
I drag the gate open and Father enters. In his wake a flood of firebird soldiers move in so fast that I’m pressed back against the wall, caught there as they fill the courtyard. Father hammers on the magnificent dark wood of the two-story-high double doors to the audience hall. There’s no answer.
He corrals the haughty steward and demands, “Is there another entrance?”
A hollow knocking sound from inside the hall makes us all jump.