More laughter.
“Take her back to Eddenahr with you,” said Rescarin. “Find her a nursemaid.”
“Now you’re not coming back at all?”
“Someone has to put Evalla’s affairs in order. If I’m to be regent—”
“That isn’t decided yet.”
“You know it is.”
“Fine. I’ll take the girl with me. What are we to tell her?”
That’s when Eda shoved the door open and marched into the room, so horribly, horribly angry that tears were pouring down her face.
They didn’t interpret her tears correctly.
Rescarin knelt down to make himself her height and took her small hand in both his large ones. “Poor child is distraught, Lohnin, you see?”
“I’m not a child!” she shouted, or at least she meant to shout. The words came out all strangled and damp.
Rescarin laughed a little and patted her head. “You have nothing to worry about, you know. It’s off to Eddenahr tomorrow. Won’t that be grand?”
“I don’t want to go to Eddenahr. I want to stay here.”
“You can’t,” said Lohnin, stacking papers neatly on her father’s desk then kneeling beside her and Rescarin. “Your parents are gone and there’s no one to look after you.”
“I can look after myself. I’m to inherit Evalla—my father told me.”
“You’re not inheriting anything. Best to get to bed, now. You’ve a long journey ahead of you in the morning.”
“I want to stay here!” Eda kicked Rescarin in the shin, as hard as she could, and he howled and jumped backward, knocking his head against the desk. She saw the rage come into his face, but she wasn’t expecting the blow, a sharp, stinging slap across her cheek.
She gaped at him, so angry she could barely breathe.
“Get her out of here,” snapped Rescarin.
Lohnin grabbed her arm and yanked her from her father’s office, dragging her all the way back to her bedroom.
Eda didn’t sleep. She waited until Lohnin’s footsteps faded, and then crept down the hall to the room where her parents’ bodies lay. She sat between them all that night, praying to the gods that it was all a mistake, that both of them would stir, and open their eyes, and come back to her. Make everything right.
But they didn’t. They just lay there, dead, dead, dead.
In the morning, Lohnin put her in a carriage bound for Eddenahr.
That was the day she decided she would become Empress. The last day someone other than herself would command her own fate.
Chapter Two
EDA CLIMBED THE HILL IN THE TORRENTIALrain, the normally dusty road a swirl of sucking mud beneath her feet. Rain ran into her eyes and plastered her clothes to her body; she hadn’t brought a canopy or a cloak—she wanted to feel the full weight of the gods’ storm. Dread had seized hold of her in the council chamber and wouldn’t let go. How much time did she have before the gods took what she had promised them?
A pair of guards trailed up the hill behind her. There were always guards. That was the price she paid for being Empress of half the known world: never any privacy, not even the illusion of it. She was grateful for the loyalty of the Imperial army, comforted by the fact that she had an entire garrison of soldiers at her command just outside the city. Still, the lack of privacy—even though it ensured her safety—grated on her.
The Place of Kings loomed ahead, Eddenahr’s ancient royal burial ground built on top of an even more ancient temple. Millenia ago, it had been erected in honor of Tuer, Lord ofthe Mountain, first and most powerful of the nine gods. All that remained of the temple now were a few crumbling pillars circling the brow of the hill and, mostly obscured behind fallen gravestones, a low doorway spilling down into darkness. Eda had discovered it as a child when she’d first been brought to Eddenahr.Too fond of death,her nursemaids always said,a lover of shadows.But that wasn’t it at all. She’d come here because few others did—to think, to plan, to prepare for the day she’d be crowned Empress.
Since then, she’d come to offer a daily oblation to the gods, as the ancient kings and queens of Enduena had done.
Today, she was here to ask for more time.
