The soldiers sheathed their sabers and bowed, very low.
The night seemed to spin on with a silvery strangeness, like a half-remembered dream. The wagons used to transport the stone from the seaport were gathering dust just outside the tiny village, the horses that pulled them safe in the herders’ stable. It seemed Rescarin was ready to move the stone with a word, or he would have left neither.
It took hours to load the stone, the five soldiers and Eda’s guard sweating and straining in the moonlight. Eda and Ileem paced between the wagons, overseeing the work. She tried not to see the body that lay where it had fallen; she gave no orders for its removal. But its presence gnawed at her, shook her to her core.
“Why did Rudion kill him?” she asked Ileem quietly as the last of the blocks were being hauled onto the wagons.
Ileem set his jaw, every inch of him burning with power and certainty. “Because Rudion takes care of his own.”
Eda swallowed. “Did you call him?”
Ileem lifted his left palm into her view, and the fresh red mark slashed across his web of scars was her answer.
They started back to Eddenahr just before dawn, Eda and Ileem at the head of the stone-laden wagons. Every mile was agony, Niren’s uncertain fate eating Eda up from the inside. Over and over she sent a prayer to the gods, to Tuer:Let us be in time. Let us be in time.She tried not to think of the soldier, toppling dead to the ground at the barest brush of Tuer’s shadowy hand.
It was nearly noon before Eddenahr came into view, its white walls and silver-spired towers hard to look at in the glaring light of the relentless sun. Sweat crawled along the back of Eda’s shoulders, dust and grime ground into every ounce of skin.
As they drew nearer the city, Eda sent the wagons to the temple site, a fierce hope going through her at the thought of her temple being completed. Of Niren growing well and whole again.
She and Ileem and her guard thundered on to Eddenahr, pulling up at the gates in a cloud of choking dust.
To her surprise, they had a welcome party.
Rescarin was waiting there, the other Barons behind him, all dressed in their formal robes, heavy chains of office weighing around their necks. The envoy from Denlahn was present, too: Liahstorion, in a cloud-pink gown that hugged her slim form and accentuated the muscles in her arms and legs; Ambassador Oadem wearing his ever-present frown; a dozen Denlahn guards.
The entire space between the open gates was filled with Rescarin’s soldiers, the Evallan crest emblazoned on their crimson sashes: a rising blue wave, a silver star.
Rescarin strode toward her, his stance assured, his expression beyond smug. “Eda Mairin-Draive, you are under arrest for the murder of our late Emperor and the unlawful seizing of his crown.”
Rescarin’s soldiers swept forward and surrounded her.
One of the soldiers dragged her from her horse and put his saber to her throat, forcing her onto her knees before Rescarin.
Chapter Twelve
EDA’S FAITHFUL GUARD DREW HIS OWN SABER, and Ileem dismounted, his form solid and still an arm’s length away. Her eyes sought his and he gave her an assuring nod, which helped to quell the panic roiling inside of her. She stared up at Rescarin with as much indifference as she could affect and held her body rigid as a spear shaft.
“Baron Rescarin,” she said coolly, around the point of the saber, “you understand that threatening the Empress of Enduena is treason.”
He laughed. “You’re the Empress of nothing. You’re just a bastard who thought she could fool us into letting her parade about in pretty dresses and a crown. But you’ve been found out. Your ruse is at an end.”
A hot wind stirred through the company at the gate, drying the sweat on Eda’s neck, rustling through the dirty silk of her loose riding trousers. Ileem stood silent, his fingers twitching to the dagger on his belt.
Eda swallowed, carefully, the saber scratching her throat. Would Ileem call Rudion again? Did she want him to?
Rescarin crouched in front of Eda in the dust. He grasped her chin with one smooth, ring-covered hand, his nails digging in, pulling her face toward the saber.
She fought him, straining hard, but he forced her throat into the blade. Panic crawled behind her eyes. Pain bit hot.
“Baron Rescarin!”
He released her, and she stumbled backward in the sudden absence of his pressuring hand.
She stared up at Ileem, who had drawn his dagger and raised his left hand, showing the cut that was just beginning to scab. Sunlight gilded him in gold, and it almost hurt to look at him. “Do not make me call my god, unless you wish to be struck down like your soldier in the desert, to be a feast for jackals, for worms.”
Eda picked herself up, wiping the smear of blood from her neck.
Danger blazed in Rescarin’s eyes. He snapped his fingers at the soldiers who had relieved Eda of her horse. “Take her away and throw her in the dungeon. We’ll figure out what to do with her later.”
