liked best to use, full of charm and regret. “It saddens me that the Empire Mother schemes against the empire. Your Knife may be forced into use, Eyul.”
Eyul’s hand strayed to the ancient blade at his hip. It is not my Knife, it is a thing older and more cruel than I. He recalled the day the old emperor had handed the weapon to him. He’d thought it an ugly thing, poorly made.
Emperor Tahal had been a delicate man, thin where Beyon was muscular, understanding where Beyon used force. He had folded Eyul’s fingers about the twisted hilt and pressed his own hand against the razored edge. “Only with this holy weapon may royal blood be spilled without sin,” he told him. “You enter into a divine covenant, Knife of Heaven. You are the Hand of Justice. Serve only the empire, and damnation will not befall you.”
Would that were true. The young princes visited Eyul in his dreams. Every night they watched him. Every night their blood ran through his fingers. He felt their lifeless gazes upon him even now.
Eyul shook the memory from his mind. “And if the marks are true? We could have a Carrier on the petal throne.”
“If the marks are true the pattern will carry Beyon from the throne.” Tuvaini sat on the edge of the fountain and ran his fingers across the slick tiles. “One way or another.” His voice sounded heavy, but with sadness or anticipation, Eyul couldn’t tell.
Eyul listened to the play of the waters. He liked this room at the heart of the palace. During the day the fountain belonged to the women. They hung their firm, glossy legs over the sides and murmured together as they enjoyed the relief from the midday sun. The men gathered around the fountain in the evening, smoking their pipes and discussing matters of empire. All of them were mere ghosts at the time of midnight bells. In this dark hour, the fountain took on the stony feel of a tomb and offered a rare peace.
The Old Emperor had laid on Eyul a burden; the future of the empire might rest on the twisted Knife at his side. The pattern-marks had threatened the empire since the time of Beyon’s grandfather. They spread from person to person, silently, imperceptibly, until hundreds died at once, the agony in their final moments surpassing any torturer’s skill. By the time those blue shapes appeared on a person’s skin, only two possibilities remained. The marked person either died, or changed for ever, abandoning his family and all that he loved to answer the call of the pattern. They murdered and thieved in unison, but to what end, no one could tell. Blank of face and eye, Carriers were mere shadows of their former selves, walking imitations of life. The emperor’s Blue Shields endeavoured to burn all victims, purge the sickness, and leave no trace of the pattern. Fires burned throughout the city, achieving nothing but smoke and the stench of burning flesh. The marks continued to appear, coloring their way even to the emperor.
“The emperor—” Tuvaini began to speak.
A shadow passed, a flicker at the edge of Eyul’s vision.
Ambush!
Tuvaini saw it too, a heartbeat later. He lifted his feet and spun into the fountain. “Treachery!” he cried. A knife blurred through the space where his head had been.
Eyul turned right, blade at the ready. Three shadows, two spreading to flank him, one advancing. Eyul danced aside from the lunge of a dagger and caught the black-clad arm behind the thrust. The emperor’s Knife slid home, deep, steel in meat. Two more.
One circled Tuvaini, who struggled to his feet in dripping silk. The other—where had he gone? Instinct made Eyul dive forwards and the knife seeking his heart bit only his calf as he rolled clear.
The assassin loomed over him, his blade a flicker in his closed fist. Eyul spun on the floor, grabbed the man’s sandal, and rose quickly, yanking up the captured foot. His foe toppled, arms flailing, head cracking when it hit the tiles. Eyul held only the shoe now, lost as the man fell. Without pause Eyul threw himself onto the prone figure, pinning knife-hand to floor, holding the man down with his whole body.
The Carrier made no move other than to open his eyes, and Eyul almost rolled clear at the sight of his fixed and unfocused pupils. Those eyes belonged on a corpse, but the body below him continued to struggle, lifting a free arm towards