So long as I have him.
She would rejoice as she has never rejoiced, marvel at the miraculous deformity of her Fate. And as the excesses of her passion dwindled, she would hang numb and awake, listening to the enemy’s drums on the night air. She would comb his hair with absent fingers, assuming the solitary authority of all mothers abandoned by their husbands. She would muster the countless injustices she had suffered and she would lash them into a semblance of order. And she would plot ways to keep him safe, never knowing, never dreaming …
She would think herself heroic, not so much to reward efforts made as to goad efforts required. She would torture anyone who needed to be tortured. She would kill anyone who needed to be killed. She would be whatever her sweet little boy needed her to be …
Protector. Provider. Comforter.
Slave.
And he would lay besotted, breathe and breathe and breathe …
Pretend to sleep.
The Andiamine Heights clattered and hummed with subterranean industry, alive once again—resurrected. The Blessed Empress sauntered to the bedroom, drawing the long pins from her hair.
A fraction of her will be watching, his accursed brother whispered.
Silence!
Uncle Holy told her something.
Five golden kellics flashing in Naree’s dark palm.
Imhailas vanishing with the heat of his blood.
The Collegian sneering at the girl, saying, “And here’s a silver to remember her by …”
Esmenet could not blink without seeing these and other desperate things as she made her way up the marble stair. It made her dizzy thinking of the darkness of those days, mourning Inrilatas, fretting for Kelmomas and Thelli, fearing her brother, the Holy Shriah of the Thousand Temples. The soldiers had fled upon her appearance, leaving the wrought-iron camp lanterns they had placed for her benefit swaying like dowser sticks. Her shadows bobbed, angles splitting and combining as she climbed the steps. Hooves rained as hail across the street outside. Officers bawled at their formations. No one expected problems, but with the tumult of the days, she had decided to err on the side of precaution. Almost dying in one riot was enough.
Besides, it was important that she arrive as she was, Anas?rimbor Esmenet, the Blessed Empress of the Three Seas. She savoured the joy of the triumphant return, the petty jubilation of returning as master to a place where she had been a slave. The Empire climbed these stairs as much as she!
She paused at the top of the stair, amazed that she recognized so little of the place. But then Imhailas had taken her here at night and in a panic, and she had not stepped foot outside Naree’s apartment until the Shrial Knights had dragged her out screaming and weeping weeks later. She looked about, realizing that she had never been on this stair, or in this hall, not really. The camp lanterns made a grotesquerie of the uneven plastering. The emerald paint had begun peeling back in a singular direction, so that it resembled something reptilian.
She saw her daughter waiting by the apartment door, her face pale even for this gloom. Theliopa’s gown (yet another one of her own manufacture) consisted of black and white lace pleats, packed so dense as to resemble closed codices in places, and everywhere strung with tiny black pearls. Her flaxen hair had been pinned high into a matching headdress. Esmenet smiled for the simple relief of seeing someone she truly trusted. This was the way it was with tyrants, she knew, how their trust was whittled down until only blood remained.
“You’ve done very well, Thelli. Thank you.”
The girl blinked in her odd way.
“Mother. I can see what you-you are about to do.”
Esmenet swallowed. She hadn’t expected honesty. Not here.
“And what of it?”
She wasn’t sure she could stomach it.
“I would beg you to reconsider,” Theliopa said. “Don’t do it, Mother.” Esmenet approached her daughter.
“What do you think your father would say?”
The shadow of a scowl marred the blank fixity of Theliopa’s gaze.
“I hesitate to say, Mother.”
“Why?”
“Because I know it will harden you-you against what must-must be done.”
Esmenet laughed in mock wonder.
“Such is the grudge I hold against my husband?”
Theliopa blinked, paused in calculation.
“Yes, Mother. Such is the grudge.”
It suddenly seemed that she dangled from a hook.
“Y-you have no inkling of what I suffered here, Thelli.”
“I see a great deal in your face, Mother.”
“Then what would you have me do? What your father would do?”
“Yes!” the girl cried with surprising vehemence. “You must kill her, Mother.”