the Cobalts had been settled and General Yisun was dead.
Such a turn of events was for the better if not the best, as there were certain men who would never be turned to my side, and the general who’d trained my brother had been one of them. Nonetheless, I was weary to lose so many of the great men of my past, now that they had no place in our present, much less the Ke-Han’s future.
Kouje did not lift his head, his hair braided back like a warrior’s once more. I wondered if his scalp ached the way mine did under the strictness of the style. His clothing was crisp and black; not a single hair was out of place, nor was there even the hint of mud and dust to stain the hem of his robes. It was a return to the Kouje I’d known all my life, and yet seeing him that way seemed strange.
“Provisions have been made for the delegates from Volstov to return to their homes,” he said, “though as I understand it, a great many will be remaining behind not only in order to complete their original mandate of hammering out a permanent treaty but also to keep watch over our new council of warlords.”
I nodded, feeling the sharp ends of the hair ornament between my finger and thumb. It had been my idea to assign a Volstovic diplomat to each of the seven warlords, since it seemed too dangerous to set them loose and too severe to have them all die alongside Iseul.
Perhaps it was naive of me, but I did not want the first days of my rule to be tainted with yet more death.
“We’ll have to bring masons in for the palace walls,” Kouje continued, “not to mention the palace itself.”
I smiled at the humor in his voice and lifted my head at last as he did the same.
“These men from Volstov,” I said, in the tone of someone sharing a private joke with a friend. “They do not know how to get a thing done without tearing the landscape apart first.”
Kouje chuckled, then pressed his lips tightly together as though trying to stem the tide of laughter. Our time in exile together had fostered many bad habits between us. Most of them could be shared only in privacy.
“You should put that in your speech,” he said. “That is, if they can convince you to make one. If anyone will be able to hear you over the cheering. You know they’ve been holding a festival in your honor since we came back? You can hear the drums at night. Well, perhaps you can’t, but they are quite loud down at my end of the palace.”
“They are not observing the period of mourning?” I asked.
“I believe their period of mourning ended the day you came back, my lord,” Kouje answered.
I nodded, unsure of how I felt about that. Would they still hold plays in my honor? Or, now that my fate had been decided, was it more likely their attention would turn to something else entirely?
It was time for my attention to turn as well. An emperor did not have the same freedom as a fugitive to think about the theatre—although one day I would find Aiko and Goro, and at the very least donate a new traveling cart to their troupe.
“As I understand it, there is some special entertainment arranged for the farewell reception,” Kouje went on.
“Is it time already?” I wondered. The light in my chambers was provided chiefly by lanterns, so it was difficult to tell the time of day. It was the best design for those prone to fevers in winter, Kouje assured me.
“I believe so, my lord.”
I stood, and the weight of the fabric was heavy against my shoulders. That weight too would take some getting used to, but it would serve as a reminder until then; it would teach me how, as an emperor, I was meant to walk.
The farewell reception had been arranged to honor the men and women from Volstov whom my brother had taken captive—another gesture to try to mend what Iseul had so nearly broken. My brother had been proud, perhaps too proud to work in tandem with anyone who had defeated him. I finally saw that, though thinking about it was pointless since it made me hopelessly angry with a person from whom I could no longer seek any answers.
Kouje rose only once I’d reached him, and fell behind so that his