knotted shapes. Then, as quickly as it had started, the changes stopped, and Den found himself sitting in a beautiful open court as grand as any he’d ever seen. At its center, seated on a raised throne of living wood, was the Immortal Empress. The dirt had fallen from her skin and hair, leaving her radiant, her body almost glowing beneath a sheath of beautifully patterned silk, the ends of which were just finishing weaving themselves from the remnants of her rags. Her glossy black hair was piled on her head, each hair holding itself of its own accord in an impossible arrangement that seemed to float over her ageless face, now as stern and as proud as he remembered it.
“After all,” she said again, leaning back on her throne, “I am the Immortal Empress still, a star of the Shepherdess, and I will be victorious.”
She held out her hand, and a white line appeared in the air. Den blinked in recognition as it sank silently through the empty space, glowing like the full moon. Through it, Den could see the interior of the throne room at Istalirin, her war palace, and the chaos of the panicking staff as they realized what that glowing line meant.
A wide grin broke over Den’s face and he hopped to his feet. “So it was you then,” he said. “Suits me. Let’s go.”
“I have no idea what you’re babbling about,” the Empress said. “But this is for me. You’re walking.”
“What?” Den roared.
“You were very disrespectful toward your Empress,” she said with a cutting look. “Your punishment is that you must walk back to Istalirin. Your commission will be ready when you arrive.”
Den frowned. “And you will honor your promise at last?”
The Empress gave him a cruel smile. “Beyond your wildest dreams, Bloody Den.”
And with that, she was gone. The white line shimmered and faded, leaving Den alone in the beautiful court under the sky. He stood a moment, grinding his teeth until he could feel the pain shooting down his neck. Finally, he turned and stomped out. That had been petty, even for her, but he should have expected it. The Empress was a woman, and women were always petty, especially when their pride was bruised. Still, it didn’t matter. He’d just spent almost fifteen years walking the breadth and width of her cursed land, what was another few weeks? What mattered was that he’d done it. He’d found her, and better, he’d won. He would have his war.
A great smile broke over Den’s scarred face, and he began to walk faster, jumping into the jungle at the clearing’s edge. This time the trees parted for him, whispering apologies. Now that he was in the Empress’s favor again, the world was bending over to make his life easy. His walk became a run as the forest opened for him, and Den began to laugh. A war at last. Finally, after so long, he would reclaim his paradise.
Still laughing, Den fell into a mile-eating jog, running through the now-genteel forest. He didn’t know where he was still, but it didn’t matter. The spirits had their mistress again, and they would make sure he got where she wanted him to be. Grinning at the thought, Den picked up his pace, running full out along the path the trees made him, following the setting sun west toward the war palace of the Immortal Empress.
Two Months Later
“Are you sure?” Queen Theresa of Osera leaned forward, frail fingers tightening to white-knuckled claws on the velvet arms of her chair. “Absolutely sure?”
The fisherman looked almost insulted. “I can tell you only what I saw with my own eyes, your queenship,” he said, lifting his head to look at her for the first time. “For years now, my crew has sailed the roughest ocean in the world to be your eyes on the Unseen Coast, and I’m telling you the shipyards are active again.”
“But why now?” The queen shook, though with fear or rage even she could not tell. “She built like mad for twelve years after the war, and then fifteen years ago, everything stopped. Now you’re telling me she’s building again? Why? Why ships? Why now?”
The fisherman flinched and gave no answer.
None was expected. The queen had already hauled herself to her feet and was now pacing the length of the small stage at the end of her private-audience chamber, muttering under her breath.
“What changed?” Her whisper was tight and raspy. “Did we show some weakness? Or perhaps I was the fool to think she had given up.” Her jeweled heels clicked faster on the glossy wood floor. “How many ships?”
The fisherman jumped. “Too many to count. I took the time to spy on only one of the yards before coming to you. Was I wrong?”
“No,” the queen said, shaking her head so sharply that she knocked loose one of the carefully pinned curls of her once famous golden hair, now mostly white. “Without your information we wouldn’t have a candle’s chance in a storm. Tell me, though, in your hurry, did you see what kind of ships was she building?”
“I did,” the fisherman said, licking his chapped lips. “They was palace ships, lady. Every single one.”
The queen stopped walking and pressed a bony hand to her forehead. “Lenette?”
A strikingly beautiful woman in an elegant dress of stiff black silk appeared from a side door. “Yes, my queen?”
“Pay him. Double.”
Lenette nodded and walked across the room to the strongbox. She took a fist-sized bag from the bound chest and walked to the fisherman, holding it out for him with both hands. He took it with a blush and opened the bag at once, eyes bulging when he saw the pile of gold it contained. But the smile slipped from his face when the queen looked at him with a glare that could have cut iron.
“Spend it quickly.”
The captain swallowed loudly, but the queen’s attention was already back on her pacing. Lenette took the man’s arm and led him back to the doors, gently pushing him into the hall. Thus dismissed, the fisherman bowed several times before the guards shut the doors in his face. The moment they closed, the queen collapsed into her chair with a pained sigh.
“And there’s the other shoe,” she muttered. “Twenty-six years after her first invasion, the immortal sow finally rousts herself to finish the job.”
“The man was a fisherman, my lady,” Lenette said gently, walking over to kneel beside the queen’s chair. “Not a trained spy. He could have been mistaken.”
The queen gave an unladylike snort. “I’m not sending the fleet into the Unseen Sea to check his story. The deep trawlers are the only ones who dare that crossing. Fortunately for us, the same reckless greed that sends them chasing leviathan spawn in the deep current spurs them to take my money to spy for their country. Anyway, without that ‘fisherman,’ the old harpy would have caught us naked as a cheating lover.” She nodded at the closed door. “The captain is Oseran born and old enough to remember the war. If he says they’re palace ships, they’re palace ships. It’s not something you forget.”
“But we only know that she’s started building again,” Lenette countered. “Those ships might not even be for us. She could have a new target.”
“Where?” the queen said with an exasperated huff. “The woman rules half the world. There’s nowhere left for her to conquer save the Council Kingdoms, and our little island is dead in her way. Her army will roll over us without even a pause. When I think of all—”
A racking cough stopped her midsentence. The queen doubled over, pressing a lace handkerchief to her mouth as her body convulsed. Lenette was with her in an instant, rubbing the queen’s back with her small, delicate hands until the attack subsided.
“You shouldn’t think about such things, lady,” Lenette whispered. “You’ll only worsen your condition. Remember, Osera and the Council have pushed the Empress back before.”
“Yes,” the queen wheezed. “Two and a half decades ago, when I was young.” She looked at her blood- streaked handkerchief with disgust. “When I wasn’t sick. When I could stand to look at myself in the mirror. Back when I was truly queen.”
She raised her gaunt face and gazed across the chamber at the portrait that took up most of the wall. It was enormous, large as life and set in a gilt frame that touched both floor and ceiling. On it, a steel-gray sea pounded the rocky eastern shore of Osera. The stony beach below the cliffs was filled with soldiers raising their swords in salute, or perhaps taunting, for the choppy sea was scattered with the Immortal Empress’s warships, some crashing on the reefs, some ablaze, all fleeing defeated back across the Unseen Sea. In the painting’s foreground, a young woman dressed in the heavy black armor of the Eisenlowe stood with her feet in the sea. She faced the fleeing ships with her head held high, hair flying behind her like a pale gold banner. Her hand was stretched out toward the ocean, the gloved fingers tangled in the long, black hair of the enemy general’s severed head.
