that he missed. He even, somehow, smelled the sea about her.
Tuvaini used to wake to the calls of the fishmongers and seabirds, the ringing of the ships’ bells and the sound of waves cresting upon the rocky shore. The gardens under his window bloomed jasmine and rose, and his mother used to trim them as she sang.
She had been the granddaughter of Satreth II, known as the Drunk, the laughing stock of the empire in his day. Still, cut off from Nooria by mountains and a desert, huddled against the shore of the gulf, they were almost as deities through his blood. The shipbuilders and merchants knew little of palace gossip; to them, blood was everything. Little did they know how thin it ran. Tuvaini’s people were unlikely ever to rise to the Petal Throne. A female connection was near to meaningless when it came to the succession.
Tuvaini put the sting of that aside. “Lapella,” he called softly, dangling the key from one finger. He found her prostrate before her altar, offering incense to Mirra. Her fingers showed white against the soapstone base; she held hard to her prayers. Lapella never tired of Mirra. Perhaps she dreamed that one day Mirra would remove the scars from her pox-sickness, even fix her ruined womb. Tuvaini’s belief was that no god should improve the lot of humans. Only the Mogyrk god had ever promised that, leaving his Yrkmen followers to practise vengeance and cruelty in his stead. The invaders burned through the empire, even raping and plundering their way through the palace itself. When Satreth the Reclaimer fell upon them at last, they learned the weakness of their god.
Tuvaini didn’t interrupt Lapella; he liked indulging her sometimes. He took a seat by the window and studied the moon. He’d paid off three Red Hall guards and set them running. He had to show them how their actions were a form of loyalty, show them the wider tapestry. He was good at explaining such things. With any luck, they could make it to his home province in five days. They could work for his family there, in obscurity. Nobody would ever learn they’d allowed the Carriers to pass through the secret ways to the fountain, and by his order.
The others, who knew nothing, would be questioned and killed. Backwards as it was to reward the treacherous guards and kill the honest ones, Beyon had left him no choice. The emperor had, quite unexpectedly, advanced from cutting throats to asking questions—and then cutting throats.
Tuvaini felt some regret for the deaths. The guards had served him well, on the whole.
Lapella stood now and straightened her robes. She looked at him in her shy way, chin tucked in. “Are you thinking about the emperor?” Her meekness stirred him. Once, she had been bold, the tigress of the province by the sea.
He smiled. “Not any more.” She came closer.
He looked at her amber eyes, the pocked scars on her cheeks.
“Are you sorry you let them use you?” she asked.
“A little.” Tuvaini had seen Eyul’s hair turning steel-grey, had noticed his stiffness going in and out of obeisances, but he hadn’t expected the assassin to get hurt. Eyul still had his uses.
Lapella stood before him now, chasing his regrets away. “But you got what you wanted?”
“I will.” He smiled again and opened his arms. She leaned into him, rose-scented and soft.
“What did you do today?” he asked.
“The same.” Not much of an answer. He had no idea how she spent her days. She insisted a servant’s life was better than living in the women’s halls. Back home, noblewomen moved about more freely. Here, they depended on the double luck of having sons and outliving their husbands, as Empire Mother Nessaket had.
Nessaket had nearly the freedom of a man, and more cunning. He’d seen her today in the royal gardens. Not one to linger over blossoms, she’d used the flower walk to hurry from the east wing to the west. Tuvaini stood by the yellow roses and watched her disappear through the Sunset Arch, her silken train shimmering behind her. His mind filled with images of Nessaket. In every one of them, pride sculpted her features. She stood, or sat, or lay clothed in wisps, but always distant as mountain ice.
I will see her sweat and cry, see that perfect hair tangled, wild, watch those pale limbs strain.
“I see you’re ready for me,” commented Lapella, stroking him through his robe. He’d nearly forgotten about her, but she didn’t mind.