translator, whose skill with words would have been baffling to me even if I had been in top form. Nonetheless, he didn’t look at me quite as though I were an enemy—which admittedly the three guards were—and I was grateful for that. When he spoke, it meant I did not have to.
“It’s just a few more architectural wonders this way,” Royston added, leading me into an antechamber, followed by another, followed at last by a third, each, bafflingly enough, smaller than the last, though all of them equally crammed with tables and chairs and vases full of flowers, with portraits of foreign men on every wall. In the last room, three more men were waiting for us. They were simply dressed, though only one was sitting, his hand resting upon a white cane.
Royston, alongside our guards, dropped to his knees.
“You might wish to bow, Lord Mamoru,” Royston whispered, in the Ke-Han tongue.
It had been a long time since last I bowed, and I wondered dizzily if I would topple over in the midst of the formality. Still, as I lowered my head and bent stiffly at the waist, I heard the man in the chair rise and do the same.
So, I realized. This was the Esar.
He began to speak, and Royston translated for me. “His Majesty beseeches you most politely to take a seat, for you have traveled a long way to arrive in our humble capital,” Royston said, with a touch of humor in his voice. “Please, do sit,” he added, and these appeared to be his own words. “You look as though you will collapse before you manage to say anything at all.”
I took a seat gratefully after the Esar had done the same, not sure where to place my hands. We were separated by a long, polished table of very dark wood, in which I could see my own reflection. The legs of the chair were too long, and my feet barely brushed the carpeted floor.
“Now,” Royston continued, translating once more. “He is eager to hear what you have to say—and, he adds, is in awe to meet a member of the imperial family of the proud Ke-Han at last.”
I almost smiled. We’d been enemies for four times my own lifetime, and now I was the man the Volstov Esar met. Hardly a terrifying sight. I should have sent Kouje in my place.
I lowered my head to thank him for the opportunity to speak. “Your Highness,” I said, as Royston spoke heavy Volstovic syllables beside me, “it is my honor to meet you, and, under other circumstances, I would offer more appropriate formalities than time allows me. I hope one day you will forgive me and allow me to greet you as befits your status.” The Esar lifted one hand, and smiled behind his beard—a gesture I recognized as well as Royston did. Go on. “I am a member of the imperial family, it is true, though I arrive here in this unorthodox manner. The events leading to my presence now are stranger than even a playwright might divine, but I hope you will believe my story, Your Highness, as I have no cause to lie to you.”
And then, I told him of my brother’s betrayal, of Kouje’s loyalty, and of what we had found during our flight through the mountains.
It had often been said that no man could read the emotions upon the face of a Ke-Han warrior—which was integral to every man’s training—but in that moment I saw, too, how difficult it was to read the expression on the face of the Esar of Volstov, whose clipped beard and blunt features revealed nothing, even when I told him of the troops garrisoned in the Cobalt range.
We both knew that I was betraying my brother. We could at least tell ourselves that he had made the first move in betraying us.
“Water,” the Esar said when I had finished speaking; it was a simple enough word, and I could recognize it well. “Bring the prince water.” One of his guard disappeared to comply with his request, and once again I found myself bowing to him in gratitude.
“Your Highness,” Royston said, “the troops in the mountainside will be dispatched easily enough, if the element of surprise is on our side. It is our diplomatic envoy in the capital that worries me.”
“They will have been taken hostage, of course,” the Esar said simply. “It is our royal duty to save our people.”
“Including the diplomats,” Royston said, a simple enough