Ten years and a few weeks ago, Aemillian and I and a small army had stormed the imperial palace and slaughtered the royal family and their guards and courtiers and retainers. I had not participated in the slaughter, but I had helped to plan it; my hands would never again be clean. Sometimes, in the night, I could still smell the blood.
Elana and Rennin were not the only ones to escape the palace that day. As far as I knew, though, they were the only ones of any rank to make it out. Most of those who had survived and gone on to form Elana’s loyalist court-in-exile had been away from the city when we staged our coup. Largely, that had been by design. Every dignitary and general who visited the emperor brought with them some number of elite soldiers, so we had struck when the court was in ebb to maximize the odds in our favor. Moreover, Aemillian’s plan to squelch the inevitable counter-revolution required known and competent figures for that counter-revolution to coalesce around; hence, the prince and those advisors who had been allowed to slip through the net.
The quest for the sword had gone awry in so many ways. Years of careful planning brought to naught by Aemillian’s heavy-handed tyranny, by my fool heart, and by pure chance. And yet, for all of that, here I was: little more than a full day away from the final confrontation that we had set in motion a decade ago. The plan was coming to fruition almost in spite of itself.
My heart wasn’t in it, anymore. I was sick of the lies and the bloodshed, sick of playing high stakes games with human lives as pieces on the board. The curse I had laid on Veralar Tann, and the death of Orland Borgon, weighed heavily on me. The visions I had been granted in Ghol Vidar weighed heavier, still. Neither of the futures I saw for Vencar boded well for the nation or her people, nor did they live up to the promises made to me by either Aemillian or Elana. I wanted to be quit of the whole thing. Of all the promises that I had made, the only ones I felt at all good about were my promises to myself and to Khanaarre that she would survive the coming confrontation, and live to see her mastery and her genius recognized.
I had made my pacts with Aemillian to protect my secrets and because leaving him, just then, had felt like a betrayal of the love we’d shared. But those pacts had led to the unveiling of the very secrets I’d meant to protect, and betrayals more bitter than our broken hearts could have been. I had betrayed the love and trust of Sarah Kemm and the people of So’renner. I had betrayed Veralar Tann. I had failed Orland Borgon and my mothers and the heads of my Orders – both the priestesses of the Stars and Aemillian’s predecessors in the Obsidian Cabal. In the process, had betrayed myself over and over and over, and laid doom after doom upon myself. I was exiled, now, from three homes: the one I had been born to, So’renner, and now the Holy Empire. Veralar Tann would break the curse I had laid on her and come for me in this life; so, if she failed, would Lynqxaemass. Even if I evaded those dooms, Orland Borgon was due vengeance in death.
I had one more betrayal to commit before this sick game played out: Aemillian Solirus or Elana Traiana. I could see no way out of that choice except to betray them both. Whatever I chose, I betrayed myself yet again.
Aemillian had come to me in my dreams, again, that first night in Vencar City. For a change, he had not appeared in his imperial regalia, or that of our order. Instead, he had appeared one of the filmy elven style robes that we had worn for each other in those better days when we had first been named the Great Wizards, after we had formed our syphons and I had been awarded my mastery, but before he had set his sights on claiming the Rorgoth Throne for himself.
“It was never my plan,” he said to me, as tender as I’d heard him since before he’d claimed the throne, “that we be apart for so long. You know that, don’t you?”
It made my heart ache to see and hear him so. Sharp, dark, and beautiful. I ached for his hands on me, his cock in me. To know, intimately, the heat and power he’d taken from the Rorgoth Throne.
Glancing down at myself, I found I was dressed the same as he was: the gauzy white silk emphasizing my nakedness beneath. I considered forcing the dream to change, dressing us both, or putting pants on myself, at least. But that felt too likely to escalate this encounter into a battle of wills. Instead, I merely settled myself into the cushions of the seraglio that he had conjured for us.
“I do,” I said, letting myself choke up. “As you know that it was always my plan. I have no wish to rule. I cannot be your empress. I will not be the emperor’s consort.”
“My power is absolute,” he said, like that was reassuring. “I can shelter you from the politics. I can build you the tower that you have demanded of the pretender. I can give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Just … be mine, again.”
He could. I knew it, and he knew that I knew.
“If your conscience aches to bring the prince to me,” he said, “I can come and take her, myself. I know that you are in the City. You have only to withdraw your hand of protection, and I will pluck her up even now.”
It was some small reassurance to me to learn that I could still hide her from him, at least in part. He would not, could not, dissemble. If he knew where we were, he would have taken the prince, already. I could not pretend that I wasn’t tempted, not even to myself. It would be the simplest, easiest way to bring this whole tragedy to an end.
“No,” I said, after a moment. “I will bring her to you. Let the drama we’ve staged play out. It will be more satisfying for us all, in the end.”
“As you wish,” he said, and vanished.
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