The Empire. Grayson Reyes-Cole

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СКАЧАТЬ bones now dug into the soil of the south and curled up to the sky, marking the line of destruction for any born of the Empire who dared cross it. “As Personal, you should not put yourself in direct danger.” She did not sound concerned for his good health. Like a perfectly dedicated Personal, her concern for the Empire ruled.

      “Better me than Lanus.”

      Her silence marked agreement.

      “You and I both know the sole danger facing our Emperor is the Empress. What happens to me is of no importance. He will survive.”

      He sensed her shudder. Sensed her come nearer. Not near enough to touch, only to whisper. She wanted something from him. “Valor, I know what part of the Spirit takes you. I know your real name. I need to know–”

      “You know very little, Taritana, especially about me.” He knew the words would sting. She did not care over much for him but she had never been treated to his temper either. It would make her uncomfortable. Far be it for Valor to leave her, his secret weakness, to her discomfort. “I apologize for my tone, Second Empress. The Empire is strong but there are those that stir the wind with questions. You have done something to calm the swaying trees and breaking waves, for now. It is an honorable thing you have done, Taritana.”

      He imagined she nodded. When he felt her hand on his back his muscles tightened and his hands turned to fists on his favorite quiver.

      “Thank you,” she said.

      He turned to regard her. Tall, like all women from the North, she stood at the same height as his brother Lanus, a scant few inches shorter than himself. She had shining waves of hair that vacillated from blond to brown almost as if changed by mood. Her large eyes were blue-gray but could also darken at a moment’s notice. She had generous lips, very strong brows and cheeks…even her nose dared those around her to call her anything less than beauty. Her square jaw seemed fit for a man, yet she appeared completely feminine. Valor could not understand it. Surely, her beauty differed from Raeche’s–the Empress was small and dark, her features delicate–yet Taritana could hold a man spellbound with her raw, bold, daring beauty. Raeche held a man spellbound like a neurotoxin.

      “She swims as poison in his blood.” Taritana said aloud what echoed in his mind.

      “Yes.”

      “And she does not even know it. How can she be such a fool?”

      Not often one to defend the Empress in any way, his sense of fairness overrode every other instinct. “Raeche has never known anything else but her existence as Empress. She knows little of the Spirit of Nature. Her father died long ago. Her mother–we both know–is a fool of auru proportions. She has no sisters. By rights, her education on such matters should fall to you.”

      Taritana frowned. “For that I have surely earned the Spirit of Disappointment.”

      He tilted his head to the side, blond locks falling forward. “I find it intriguing that being a sister to her is your only perceived failure as a Personal.”

      “I have a sister,” she snapped.

      “In the eyes of the Empire, Ina is not your sister. Raeche is your family as Lanus is mine.”

      “Lanus is really your brother. Dahouina is really my sister, not Raeche.”

      Valor would get nowhere if he followed this path. He changed his tone to one of conspiracy. “Tell me. What has she done now that is worse than all she has done before to provoke your ire? For that matter, what have you done now that causes you such irritation? My Spirit senses justice, yet you…”

      The Empress’s Personal raised her shoulders and the slightest shimmer appeared at the corner of one eye.

      The Emperor’s Personal put out his hand. At his silent request, Taritana came closer. She opened her left hand to him and peeled back a thin red pad covering the small space below the lines of her fingers and above the lines of her palm. The skin there was pale and soft–no different in appearance than the rest of her hand.

      Valor touched the exposed flesh with his fingertips. A rush of Spirit closed his eyes and the vision took form.

      * * * *

       With a night-blue hood pulled low over her eyes, Taritana watched from a dark parapet.

       The rich forest of the East formed a natural boundary around the Imperial wing of the palace. Brittle brambles grew dense in the winter, making the woods practically impenetrable without the use of Spirit or the help of the Lovers’ Opalus. On this cool night the woods opened like the flower of the single-vine. Dark but streaked with lighter shadows, the opening accepted Raeche’s dark silhouette.

       Earlier that evening, the Imperial couple had celebrated two rings of marriage before the Empire. That night, Raeche used her beauty to tempt a bold timra player to suicide by another’s hand. All saw his flirtation, but recklessly Raeche encouraged him, so much so that the fool believed her Personal to be complicit.

       Though Taritana had delivered the message from Galan, the timra player, she had believed Raeche would laugh and mock. Instead, she treated the Spirit-enhanced missive like the most valuable of gifts. The Personal had also believed Raeche smart enough, devout enough, not to take part in any forbidden liaison. In that, Taritana was also wrong.

       When the woods closed behind Raeche, Taritana knew that even if she summoned the guards no one would make it in time to follow the Empress. Even if they penetrated the forest Raeche would be lost to them, for she sought the Lovers’ Opalus. The Empress was ever the fool, willfully ignorant of the rumbles of the Imperial couple’s failure to produce an heir had begun to shake the Empire. Taritana would allow no further humiliation of Lanus.

       She had to tell him. The Emperor would reject Raeche, for she had betrayed the man and the Empire by lying with the timra player while she hid from his bed and denied him an heir.

       The Empress’s Personal went to the Emperor’s room and found him abed, naked. When she told him what she knew, she watched in awe as he covered his perfect body and demanded she take him to the exact spot on the parapet where she had seen Raeche. Ice started to fall from the sky as they stood shoulder to shoulder, waiting for her to appear.

       When the East Forest returned her, Raeche stepped out without a cloak. Instead, she wore a white gown, bright in the night against the backdrop of her streaming black hair and dark skin. Even from the parapet, they could see her slight form shivering under the burden of a dress weighed down with water. Though her face was hardly visible, they could tell she tried to keep water from her eyes. Then a nearly imperceptible bubble, perfectly born from Spirit of Heat and Protection, encircled the Empress.

       Raeche had never mastered any Spirit well enough to protect herself this way.

       Taritana gasped and stepped away from the Emperor.

       He did not even look at her. “I will not let her make herself sick with this folly.”

       “But–”

       “Help me keep her warm, sister. We will devise a plan.”

      * * * *

      Valor СКАЧАТЬ