released him, and bowed lower than I would have thought he’d been capable of. He murmured something in a low voice, rough and alien. I could only presume it was an apology.
Fiacre caught my eye and nodded toward the door. The Emperor had arrived, standing with his seven separate bodyguards, or poison tasters, or whatever the hell they were.
“I suppose we’d best take our seats,” Josette said. Her smile was back in place, but it was a diplomat’s mask of a smile, and there was no authenticity to be found in it at all.
The man muttered his foreign apology again before standing and ushering the prince to his seat.
Caius turned to me with the air of a fisherman who’d caught lobsters in his trap.
“That was thrilling,” he whispered, as we moved away to take our seats. “Didn’t you think so? I wonder who that man is. He moved so quickly! Perhaps he was a general, or some other manner of warrior servant. He was so strong.”
“‘Thrilling’? He almost killed you,” I pointed out, just in case Caius hadn’t noticed that part.
“I know that,” Caius said. “Why else do you think it was so delightful?”
He was the only person it was my misfortune to know who would have said almost being killed by a Ke-Han bodyguard was “delightful” or “thrilling.” I was beginning to despair for all of Volstov, if this was what was happening to our nobility. And I was beginning to despair for myself, if this was any example of how the rest of the talks were going to go.
The younger prince had taken his seat once more. I could see him from where I was quite clearly, and his bodyguard, too, in case he wanted to try anything again. I may not have had my sword with me, but then again, he didn’t either. The way I saw it, we could still manage to figure out how to kill each other properly with just our hands.
Prince Mamoru murmured something to his brother, then bowed deeply to him. It made me feel all kinds of uncomfortable to know that we were transacting our business with a people who made their brothers bow to them on a point of formality.
Then the Emperor Iseul lifted his hand.
Even though his father had just died—even though he was new to it, and he had a hell of a lot to prove—he held himself like he’d been doing this all his life, or at least like he’d been waiting for it that long.
“Now,” he said, in a voice made all the more formal by its stilted Volstovic accent. “Lords and Ladies of Volstov, our esteemed guests: the Ke-Han welcome you.”
And the way he said that, I thought, folding my arms over my chest and getting ready for a long night, made it obvious that he was the Ke-Han. Even though he’d been a prince this morning, he was an emperor now. But those were just the times we lived in.
KOUJE
My lord Mamoru was kind. It was always almost impossible to apologize to him.
My forehead scraped the floor of his personal chambers nonetheless. When we’d been younger, and my lord more outspoken, he’d commanded me once to stop my bowing—which, after a long week that made no sense to either of us, I’d explained to him was like asking a fish to live out of water, or a songbird to keep silent. If I’d done my duty as his servant poorly, then it was my job to appease the natural order of things by begging his forgiveness.
“It was a misstep,” I said, my hands in fists at either side. “It was clear he did not intend to harm you. I should not have acted so rashly.”
“Kouje,” my lord said, “surely you’ve apologized enough.”
That was the trouble with my lord: He was too kind. The Emperor had known it, and had done what he could accordingly. My lord Iseul, too, had tried to stamp it out. Some men, however, were made to be like Iseul, and some men like Mamoru. You could no more have taught my lord imperiousness than you could have taught me to stop bowing.
“Indeed, nothing came of it,” Mamoru went on, unplaiting the jade from his hair and setting it upon a low, dark table. It was worn with the polish of true craftsmanship, the fine patina of age. He’d had it since he was a child, and dressed—as was sometimes the custom with second sons—in the swaddling clothes of a little