make the same promise, and we…” I cast my eyes about me for a place suitably distant from the rest of the room—a place far away enough for me to take only the two of us out and leave the rest to their own devices.
All these heroics were making my head hurt.
I wouldn’t have turned down a little Ke-Han wine, either.
“Agreed,” the Emperor said. “I too have wished to come to the conclusion of our… practice.” He smiled at me like he was commenting on what I was wearing. I spat blood out between my teeth. That creepy vial around his neck glinted red.
“You cannot do this,” Lord Temur said, stepping forward. “It is my place—”
“I have no reason to fight a dead man,” Iseul said curtly. “It is for General Alcibiades to name the place.”
“The courtyard,” I said, and jerked my head in its direction. Water was everywhere, pooling between broken rocks and fallen beams, bits of paper floating in the pools like flower petals. It was the perfect site for me to get my ass handed to me, but I wasn’t going to let it go that far.
Emperor Iseul lifted his hand, and the red-faced Jiro stepped forward to offer his sword.
“You cannot do this,” Lord Temur repeated.
I looked him in the eye. “You’re right,” I said. “About Greylace, I mean. Tell him to make sure Yana lives in high style for me.” When Temur’s expression registered confusion, I laughed. “He’ll know what I mean.”
“Enough,” Iseul said, striding past me and into the courtyard. “You have stated your objectives, General Alcibiades. You wish to kill an Emperor. In my court, men die for such treason.”
“And many other things,” I added, limping after him.
I didn’t even plan to draw my sword. The second we were clear of the others, I would burst the final waterway beneath us; we’d go shooting up toward the sky like waterborne stars, and at least I could die for some purpose, which, considering my place as a general, was my duty in life, anyway.
The Emperor, though, was always just a hair too quick for me. His sword was already drawn, and the second I’d stepped away from the others he was on me, the blade whistling through the air and coming up against mine. The impact ran through me, all the way to my toes. I swore I could feel it rock through the ground—or maybe that was another aftershock.
I didn’t have the time I needed to concentrate. He was on me, blow after blow, ceaseless and determined. Maybe he’d sensed, in his own mad way, what my plan had been. He had a keen nose for sniffing out danger. Whatever his motivations were, he was going to kill me. My arm ached so bad that my teeth were rattling in my jaw. It wasn’t a matter of whether or not he’d slice me in two—it was only a matter of when.
Good thing I’d made provisions for Yana, I thought, and brought my sword up just a hair too slow. I could see the blade of his sword as it arced downward toward my nose.
I always knew a Ke-Han would kill me. Bastion, I should consider myself lucky that it’d taken them this long.
I stood my ground and braced myself for death.
It didn’t come.
Instead, Emperor Iseul was frozen in time before me. For the first time, I saw an expression of surprise on his face—pure bafflement, I’d even say—like he’d just seen a ghost. At first, I didn’t know what to make of it—whether or not I should look behind me; if the answer would even be there.
Then Iseul fell.
It took longer than it should have for me to piece things together: the arrow in Iseul’s back—a fine arrow indeed, from one of those damned longbows. The figures in the distance, all wearing red. The shouting behind me, suddenly coming in loud and clear over the blood rushing at my temples. And the second prince, whom I recognized despite how long it’d been, clearer than all the rest, across from me on the opposite end of the courtyard.
“The punishment,” Mamoru said, his face twisted in the dark, “for treason is death.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MAMORU
On the seventh and final day of mourning, Kouje came to my chambers to tell me that my brother was dead.
It was always an ambiguous period, that week one spent in isolation, contemplating the death that was to come.
I’d survived two in my lifetime. I hoped never to have to live through another.