FIVE
Madness from Above
The world had become unhinged and so had its Emperor. Kaleva could tell that was what those around him were thinking. He stood on the deck of the airship
Yet even in this moment of power, all he could think of was the open mouth of the Rossin, and the gleam in the eye of del Rue. Those were the images that chased him in his dreams, but haunted him just as much in the daylight.
He shook his head, trying to banish them. Kaleva knew he could trust no one—that had been proven in the disaster of the Mother Abbey. His advisors had been corrupted by runes and the undead—even his own sister had been tainted by association. It was as his father had told him.
He’d always thought his father was just being cruel, but now the Emperor fully understood he’d been communicating the truth.
However, Kaleva smiled to himself, for a surplus Prince in a distant land, he had come far. His father, the King of Delmaire, had supplied him like a sacrificial calf to the bickering Princes of Arkaym as a figurehead of an Emperor, and he had shown them all.
He would fight the hallucinations of the geistlord and the unnatural man that commanded them. The Emperor would not give in to fear.
“General Beshan?” The Emperor shot the name over his shoulder, and the old man, with his salt-and-pepper beard and battle scars, snapped to attention.
“Imperial Majesty!”
“How long before we reach Sousah?” Despite the speed of the airships, they did not move as fast as Kaleva wanted. It made him more than a little irritable. He wanted to experiment with the tinker’s contraption immediately, and it would be a nice example for the rest of the rebel Princes; when they saw what he could do, they would scamper back into line.
“Another few hours,” the general muttered through his mustache.
The Prince of Sousah had declared for this Pretender, this sister of Raed Syndar Rossin. Many principalities—most in the west—had declared for her. They claimed the Conclave of Princes that had summoned Kaleva across the ocean to rule was invalid, and that they had been pressured to agree to his appointment. Instead, they wanted a scion of the Rossin house to rule over them. The very thought of that family made Kaleva grind his teeth together. The Rossins had been tainted right from the very beginning thanks to that geistlord. They were abominations and traitors to their race.
If certain of the Princes of Arkaym wanted a Rossin back on the throne, that did not matter to Kaleva; he had taken the crown, and he most certainly was not going to give it up. To spur those Princes that did remain loyal to him onward, the Emperor had promised that they could add any principalities they took in his name to their own. It had brought many Ancient enmities to fresh vigor, as they scrambled to fight over the bones he was throwing on the ground.
“Hold your course, I am attending my wife downstairs,” the Emperor said shortly, before striding off the deck and going down the polished wooden stairs to the stateroom.
He could hear her weeping long before he reached the door. Ezefia, Empress of Arkaym was wailing as though her life depended on it.
The Emperor could tell by their pressed lips and pale expressions that the screaming and wailing was bothering the two guards stationed at the door.
For too long, Kaleva had realized, in the burning remains of the Mother Abbey, he had been in everyone’s shadow; first his draconian father, the King of Delmaire, then later his martial sister who everyone had feared and respected. The Deacons, with all their twisted, demonic magic, had at least shown him that much.
He had to be Emperor. Alone and singular as it was meant to be. However, he would require an Empress and children to follow. The question was, would it be this one?
Kaleva pressed his hand against the door and listened to just one more sob. When he pushed the door open and stepped inside, her weeping stopped as abruptly as if it were attached to a string.
She was a great beauty even with tears, Ezefia of Orinthal; dark eyes, a heart-shaped face, and warm full lips. She was also a liar and had made him a cuckold.
The man, who had concealed himself in the Imperial Court, called himself Lord Vancy del Rue, and had given Kaleva so much useful advice, had also been the lover of the Empress herself.
Now Ezefia was trussed to the chair she sat on. Tears were running down her cheeks, but she was the daughter of royalty and pride kept her from weeping in front of her tormentor.
Kaleva smiled and shut the door quietly behind him. Ezefia was not gagged, but she did not say a word as he approached. So he spoke instead.
“We shall be over Sousah soon, and then I shall show them the power of an Emperor unleashed.” Kaleva tapped the top of her head sharply. “I shall make sure to bring you up on deck for the fireworks. Perhaps, if we are lucky, your lover is down there.”
Ezefia’s head came up at that. Her stunning green eyes were brimming nearly over, as she stammered, “My lord, it was not by choice. He cast a spell over me, enamored me. It was like I was trapped in my own body, howling to get out. He did things to me, and it may have seemed as if I were his, but in my heart I remained true to you.” She paused, and then managed to gasp out the rest of her pitiful attempt to win him back. “After all, my love . . . it was I who told you all, once his spell on me was broken.”
Perhaps, if he had loved her as he once had his favorites, perhaps if there were more than just a convenient connection between them, he might have found a morsel of sympathy. Yet now, as he looked down at her, he saw nothing but a duplicitous woman who had committed treason against the crown.
The fact that her belly was just beginning to swell with del Rue’s child only added to the offense. Kaleva’s face twisted into an ugly set of lines; he suspected that Ezefia might have tried to pass the bastard off as his own if the whole mess at the Mother Abbey had never happened.
Still, it had shaken him loose from his complacency. Everyone had thought the Emperor a kindly man, but kindly men were often taken advantage of.
“You were merely trying to pre-empt the servants’ gossip reaching me,” Kaleva hissed in reply.
Ezefia hung her pretty head at that—the tears apparently dried up—but her shoulders still shook. “Why don’t you simply have me killed then?” she said, her voice low and husky with resignation. History was ripe with tales of Empresses who had betrayed their marital vows as well as the punishments that were meted out on them. Kaleva knew that she was running over them right now in her mind.
The Emperor looked out the window of the airship and formulated an answer. “It was suggested that I seal you up in the walls of the palace, as the third Emperor did to his unfaithful wife. Others said I should have you defenestrated.” Kaleva tilted his head, rolling the oddly fascinating word around in his mouth. “I was tempted by that.”
He sighed and lightly touched Ezefia’s shoulder. “But the truth of the matter is, that by keeping you alive I may bring del Rue back. Oh, I am sure he has no concern for your welfare. No,” he said, pointing at her bulging belly, “I know he will come back for that, then he and I have some unfinished business to conclude.”
He wanted to show the man that had mastered him that he had no hold on him now. The orphaned Deacons had provided plenty of information on the art of manipulating the weirstones, and it had proved not nearly as difficult as the Order had tried to convey. In fact, the weirstones were very useful in so many ways.
Tinker Vashill had been brought in to consult on some new uses for the power of the weirstones, and his designs would be the hammer that Kaleva would bring down on the unruly Princes of the Empire—starting with Sousah.
The communication horn strung near the window blew a short note, and the Emperor picked it up eagerly. “Your Imperial Majesty, we are drawing over the target, and are awaiting you command.”
