Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) (2 page)

A warm breeze wafted through the gauzy curtains on the balcony, bringing trilling birdsong from the aviary below and brushing across Emperor Baltanarmo’s face as he studied his bed companion. She was tall and lithe, but his favorite of her many glorious attributes was her long, cascading hair, so blond it was nearly white. She stood out in every crowd, though not just because of her crowning hair. Zahira was a rare creature in that she instinctively knew what to do with the adoration of thousands. She had been his companion for many years, and he never tired of watching her interact with the people, whether in public—the
gloryedas
and the armada parades—or discussing her favorite public topics, like legislation or
benythicencias
. The merchant classes in particular were entirely enamored of her and her policies. She possessed other attributes as well, but the woman was loyal to her higher purpose like no one else the emperor had ever encountered. She was, in a word, incorruptible. Even by his nightly desires.

She stirred beneath the thin silk cover and faced him with a sleepy smile. “Good morning, my
cazan
. Are you well rested?”

The emperor smiled. “As always, you tire me out to the perfect degree. What would I do without your ministrations?”

The happiness leached out of her expression. He had rarely seen her so, and worry instantly lodged in his throat. “What is it?”

Zahira sat up, heedless of the silk that slithered down and pooled in her lap. Her magnificent bosom heaved with a preoccupied sigh. She looked across the sleeping chamber, past the gauzy curtains, and seemed to see all the way to the horizon. He had always thought that the blue of her eyes was full of eternal sky. “Something is coming.”

Baltanarmo sat up, rather more quickly than Zahira had, and leaned closer. “Something bad? Need I call my
cetechupes
?”

Her fine tangle of white-blond hair shivered in the negative. “It is an opportunity, Balti. But it will cost you.”

He leaned back on one hand, resting it against the thick, down-filled mattress, and relaxed. “Everything costs me. Tell me what it will gain me.”

Her eyes slid to him. She tipped her head in his direction and let a smile spread across her lips. “It will gain you what you already possess. An empire.”

He felt his brows draw together, pulling on scar tissue that threaded through one of them, a relic of a reckless duel in his youth, before he had realized the vast benefits of objectivity. “If I already possess it, how does it benefit me to gain it again? Are you telling me my empire is in danger?”

“I did not say you would gain
your
empire. I said you would gain
an
empire.” She inclined her head meaningfully toward the western window.

New understanding blossomed in Baltanarmo’s mind. Any new overtures toward the west could interfere with the negotiations he already had in place, and a single misstep could cost him years of progress. His hand rose to his chin, and his index finger rubbed the stiff, curly beard that descended from it. “I have much at stake already.”

Zahira nodded serenely. “If you do as I suggest, you will not lose it. But you will still lose something, and it may give you pause.”

His hand left his beard and tangled firmly in her pale hair, and he gave her head an urgent shake. “Then tell me, woman. What am I to lose? This is no time for your riddles.”

Zahira’s delicate face tightened to mask the pain of his grip, and he loosened his hold. “You will lose me, Balti. It is a certainty.”

Instinctively, he reached for her with both hands, pulling her close, holding her warm skin against his. “No. I cannot lose you. You have been with me from the beginning. And earlier, even. I need you. You cannot go. I would not trade the entire Waarden Empire for you.”

Zahira slipped her strong arms around his muscled back and held him just as tightly as he held her, though it left her breathless. “Let me be more clear, Balti. If I go, you will never see me again. But I will return to you as I once left your father. Do you understand? I must leave, and I must die. But I will never abandon you. I have given you my allegiance. Can you pay the price that is me for the game your father once played with Old Emperor Hedrick? How badly do you desire dominance over lesser men, who know nothing of greatness?”

Zahira’s eyes dominated his view, wide and electric blue. Her intensity was contagious. He crushed her to him once again and rolled atop the mattress with her, pressing her lips with his own. He broke off the kiss and whispered breathlessly in her ear as she wrapped her legs around him. “I want it. I want it all. But if I must part from you, I will have you one last time.”

Baltanarmo indulged in his consort’s perfect body as he never had before, his passion laced with the unfamiliar pain of loss. She was beautiful, perfect as always, yet on some level, it hurt that she didn’t seem as desperate to remain with him as he did with her.
But is that not the way of the Emperor’s Consort? She has always stood apart. Until this moment, I never understood how apart she must stand to see what she sees.

Leaving his lover replete and tangled in the sheets, Baltanarmo rose and crossed the cool marble floor barefoot, letting the warm breeze wick the sweat from his skin. He pressed through the gauzy curtains and stepped onto the small, rounded balcony. The delicate, fluted stone arch overhead cast its early-morning shadow sharply westward.

He rested his hands on the bougainvillea-carved marble railing and studied his vast city far below. Enchamanca, City of Rapture, the flawless ruby at the heart of
Valio
Sejueno. Streets radiated from his palace hub in all directions like spokes on a wheel. His ancestors had designed the ancient capital with the mighty walls and towers of the Alchazzar as the center of his people’s universe. Slender parapets rose like joyous fountains within the hub of his palace grounds, but none rose so high as his own personal quarters.
As it should be. If one is to command the hearts and lives of millions of subjects, one must necessarily see the furthest.

Baltanarmo heard the woman’s slight footsteps padding across the floor but did not turn. A ring of cool metal settled around his head as Zahira slid the Bloodcrown over his thinning golden hair. The front-heavy weight of the hollow golden sword upon his forehead reminded him of the pain he’d suffered in filling it, year after year.

Zahira moved to stand beside him, as daringly unclad as he was. Her eyes locked onto the golden sword bearing its liquid burden, and she ran her thumb across its hilt from side to side. “Every year, you bleed for your people, and you wear your sacrifice for all to see. Do you not think it is high time that they bled for you in return?”

Baltanarmo turned his eyes westward, over the low, rolling hills at the edge of the Caharta Valley, and on to the arid plains beyond. He let the weight of his blood bow his head in assent. “So let it be. I will pay the price that is you. I’ll wager my love against my success, and let the future speak of my winnings.”

***

Vela woke to the tantalizing aroma of licorice rolls wafting in through a broken pane in the window of his rented room, along with the clatter of wagons and hawks of the street sellers below. He lay under his light coverlet—all he needed in the humid night warmth of Kemada—and breathed deeply.
So far from home, yet some things never change. Though I’ll not say no to a double handful of those Shawnash rolls the moment I tie my
pantilones.

He rose and poured cool water into his basin then splashed it over his face and balding, close-cropped head, finishing with an invigorating fingertip rub all over his scalp. He patted himself dry with a small cloth and gave his head a bracing, wide-eyed shake. Perhaps today he would find something useful, and it wouldn’t do to be half asleep when the moment came. His commission was open ended, but despite Shawnash’kote’s savory baked goods, he had no desire to extend his stay one day longer than necessary—not with such a life-changing reward awaiting his success back home.

Nondescript raiment in place, Vela padded down the inn’s stairs and exited onto the bright, dusty street. The energy exuded by the street sellers as they called invitingly reminded him of home. Not his current home, but the small townhouse his
mendre
had owned when he was a child. The golden dust, kicked up by the fierce winds off the Sea of Galahara, had always given Chigulan a magical air in his young mind. Everyone from his
peppa
to the dairy merchant down on the corner had been heroes in his eyes, capable of amazing feats of cleverness and strength.

Now I know there is no such thing as a hero
. Vela dropped a ducat in the baker’s hand and accepted a thin, conical breadpaper full of small, spiral licorice rolls.
There are only those who succeed and those they have to use to do it.

He munched his way from Yewakma’s hospitality district—such as it was—to the market proper. His rickety stool awaited him by the side of Hawak’s lime cart, and he flipped the gap-toothed Shawnash a ducat as he settled onto it.

“Always a pleasure, Kyres.” Hawak bobbed his head in thanks.

“Only a matter of time,” Vela replied in his best Akrestan accent. “That fool nephew of mine, he can’t be much later than this, or he won’t survive my taking it out of his hide.”

“Eh, youth. What can we do, old men like us? We had our fool’s years and survived.” The lime merchant bent over his cart and rearranged his fruit. It must have made a more appealing heap, for he quickly sold half a dozen to a raggedy man bearing a bamboo cane.

Vela let his eyes trail after the man as he merged with the passing crowd. He wasn’t nearly as old as he appeared at first glance, barely more than a boy, in fact. The deep recesses of his brain triggered a warning. Was the young man, clearly a true Akrestoi with those ratty blond braids, stealthing about just as he was?

“Need to stretch the legs.” Vela rose and rolled his shoulders.

“You just sat. That bad knee of yours?” Hawak inquired.

“Aye,” he replied absently, stepping into the flow of foot traffic.

His target limped his way through the center of town and eventually headed into a dingy slice of urban decay near the smelting houses. Vela hesitated at the corner of what looked like a dim, dead-end street, pretending to clean his boot heel on the broken edge of a low piss-vase filled with dark, round mintpebbles. The limper had little company on his street, but he didn’t look back. Leaving more distance between them, Vela strolled after him.

He expected the young man to enter one of the tiny townhouses that crowded the edges of the street, but instead, his target settled in a small booth with a low green awning bearing a mortar and pestle in faded yellow stitching. He looked directly at Vela with resigned proprietary interest, so Vela met his eyes and nodded then moved past. He managed to find a needle’s eye of an alley, a slender strip of wooden tunnel that slid between two townhouses and led out of the dead-end street. He wedged himself into its shadows and bared his teeth in silent frustration.

“What’s down this way?” Vela’s native language caught his ear, but he didn’t recognize the man’s tenor voice. Fear stiffened his spine.

Another man laughingly replied, “More Waarden dirt, I expect. You have strange inclinations for a merchant’s son, Turlo. All this poking around in the dirty corners of the city while your father trades at the docks. Do you fancy yourself a repenter for your past lives?”

Vela peeked around the corner. The explorer, in pale, oiled curls and blue silk, stood arms akimbo and grinned up at the tenement houses surrounding the dead end. His companion stood several paces off in a silk outfit of similar cut but darker hue, his arms in the air, questioning his friend’s sanity. The Waarden glanced at the pair with disinterest.

Vela shifted back until his right eye barely saw around the wall’s edge. It didn’t matter where the pretty young men were from. If they discovered him while innocently exploring a foreign city, he’d have to dispose of them.

Turlo’s eye fell on the green awning. He sauntered over and asked in broken Waarden to see some product, and the seated young man produced a small box with a variety of artfully displayed glass vials. A brief conversation followed, too faint for Vela to catch, but Turlo’s friend only gave an exaggerated sigh and stared at a pot of wilting flowers as if they had offended him.

Without asking permission, Turlo uncorked one vial and took a proprietary sniff. A flash of anger crossed the apothecary’s face, but he swiftly masked it with a bland smile. “Eh, Ferrar!” Turlo called. His companion lolled his head in Turlo’s direction. “Father was right. This is bathwater compared to what your uncle makes for the
cetechupes
.”

Ferrar swatted his hand through the air, a gesture that would serve equally well as a mimed slap to Turlo’s head and an indication of impatience to depart. “Then leave it. This city makes me want to scour my lungs with sossa blossoms.”

After Ferrar stalked off, Turlo tossed a few coins onto the table and pointed to one of the bottles. Purchase in hand, he hurried to catch up.

Vela took a deep breath and released the tension in his gut. Those pompous, entitled man-boys could have ruined everything. He amused himself with the thought of tracking them down and making it clear that visiting a foreign empire was a terrible time to lose control of their tongues.