just like his servant-bodyguards. It was then that I remembered he was still in mourning for his dead father.
Emperor Iseul snapped his fingers, and one of his entourage started doing something with a cord to tie back his sleeves.
Beside me, I heard the shifting of gravel as Lord Temur got to his feet. For the first time since I’d met him, he looked flustered.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, feeling a sudden inexplicable companionship with someone who’d until now been my enemy, “but—to me, I mean—it looks as though the Emperor wants a chance at fighting me next.”
Temur eyed me, as though trying to choose his words very carefully. “I would lend you my sword, had I been permitted to bring a live blade.”
There were too many things I wanted to say to that. Did that mean that yes, I was going to have to fight the Emperor? Did it mean I was finally going to get what I’d been wishing for—right when I really didn’t want it—a real fight? And most important: Was I going to end up like the second prince if I caught one of the Emperor’s fancy jade hairpins on the edge of my sword in the heat of the skirmish?
Before I had a chance to answer, one of the Emperor’s guards unsheathed his sword and handed it to me. I guessed whatever rules applied to us about swords didn’t apply to them. There was something about the weight of the gesture that was like a sudden cold wind up the length of my back. I didn’t like how this was going, not at all.
Caius waved to me from the sidelines. He looked as though he’d just been told there was going to be a festival in his honor, with lanterns and streamers, dancing girls and fireworks.
“Good luck, my dear!” He smiled that creepy jack-o’-lantern smile he had. “Do us proud, would you?”
At least he had his priorities in order. I wasn’t expecting the same kind of encouragement from Josette, who had to be diplomatic now that the Emperor was there, but she’d pressed her lips together into a thin line, like she was afraid that she would start cheering if she didn’t remind herself not to.
I swung the guard’s sword, testing the weight of it against what I’d just been using. It was heavier than Lord Jiro’s sword had been, maybe even the same weight as the practice sword. I was thinking maybe that I should have thanked him, but when I turned around he’d already retired to the sidelines and so had Lord Temur, who was standing next to Josette and murmuring something in her ear.
If it was a bet, I was hoping Josette’d forget to be diplomatic just long enough to put it all on me. It was a matter of patriotism, after all.
The Emperor stepped out into the open area we’d made our sparring arena. His long, ornate sleeves were tied back with a thin, ropy cord, and he had a fierce look in his eyes. Somehow, I thought, he looked a little like the paintings we’d seen of the warrior-gods, smiling cruelly, their hair braided with the bones of their enemies or something.
However preposterous he looked all dolled up in traditional Ke-Han fashion, this was a man who’d got rid of his own brother for questionable reasons. A man who’d dressed in his finest to greet us the afternoon we arrived, when only that morning his father had killed himself for the sake of honor. I was starting to get the feeling that this—everything—had been a really bad idea, when he swung his sword up into a waiting position. It was the same stance Lord Temur had adopted yet different all the same.
In the time it took me to follow, the Emperor’s expression changed from bloodthirsty to amused.
“I was a warrior myself, General,” he said, “before I was an emperor.”
With that, he brought his sword down lightning quick, and when we clashed it was with the crisp, dangerous ring of metal on metal.
It was one thing sparring with Lord Temur, who was more or less, in the scheme of things, my equal. I was a general; he was a warlord. We’d probably both been in the same position during the war, and we were the same age, more or less.
It was another thing to spar with the Emperor of the Ke-Han, who was, by my understanding, a good five years younger than I was.