and breeches, nothing more than what a thrall might be given at her father’s holding; only the gold on his fingers showed him to be something more. Behind him, two soldiers in blue mounted their own horses. A fourth man waited well to the emperor’s right, his white robes fluttering, though no wind stirred. He looked at Mesema with eyes the color of the winter sky and she quickly turned away.
The emperor gestured towards the mountains ahead. “We’ll ride to the east.”
She didn’t ask where he was taking her—she didn’t feel that it mattered. He was the emperor, and if he wanted to take her to the top of a mountain or drop her down a well, it couldn’t be prevented.
He smiled then, a natural smile from a Rider in his seat.
“Let’s see you ride.” He set off, and she could see he treated his horse more as a thrall than an equal. Still, he rode well, and she had to struggle to keep up with him. She wasn’t used to the soft feel of the sand under Tumble’s hooves. The emperor rode ahead for the most part, but she managed to pull alongside for a few moments at a time. They exchanged no words. The blue-hatted soldiers followed at a distance, and behind them rode the strange man in white. When she turned, she could see them, sitting straight and awkward on their mounts.
The mountains towered before them, lit by the evening sun. In time the rock grew distinct, shadows marking lower peaks, crags and ridges. They passed from the dunes to where the sand rose in tiny ripples. She could see a great rise of mist from the rocks to her right, and a swathe of green that trailed away, heading south-west. This could be no other than the River of a Hundred Names, which fed the Felting in the valleys and flowed down into Nooria and beyond.
Mesema rode on, trailing the emperor, until the orange-lit rock face filled her vision. Here the mountain threw out two great stony arms, boulderstrewn and riven with deep clefts, in a protective embrace around an area of sand. The emperor steered his horse into the gap. Mesema looked up at the huge rocks that looked poised to fall and crush him.
“Come,” he called back to her. Cerantic did not have the authoritative inflection her own language provided, but she recognised the command in his tone. She followed, clinging to Tumble’s mane.
Once through, she drew in her breath. A riot of colours, yellow, purple and blue, danced from rock to rock. It could be the plains for all the flowers, except for the pale, shifting earth that lay beneath them. She slipped off Tumble and knelt by a sky-tinted blossom. She ran her fingers over the thick and fleshy petals.
“It looks like you,” he said. He’d come to stand beside her.
“The zabrina.”
Mesema stood and backed away.
“I meant the color is the same as your eyes.” He leaned over and snapped it from its stem.
Mesema frowned at the flower as he twirled it between his thumb and forefinger. “Why did you bring me here, Your Majesty?” Behind him, the soldiers had dismounted and were standing guard. She didn’t see the man in white and was glad for it.
“Do you see nothing here worth the bringing?” He threw the flower aside.
“It is pretty.” Mesema looked around at the colours, intensifying now in the last light of the sun. “Where is my father’s voice-and-hands, Your Majesty?”
Shadows reached across the valley.
“He has gone to join the rest of his body.”
She hoped he spoke truly. Mesema fingered the blue feather in her pocket. More questions bubbled up inside her. “Why didn’t you bring your brother the prince to greet me? Are you angry with him because of the general?”
“No.” He studied her with copper eyes.
She hugged her arms around herself. “Did he not wish to come?”
“He—” The emperor glanced back at his guards, but they were not within earshot. “He’s not like us.”
“Us? I am not like you, Your Majesty.” The words came out before she could stop them. She braced herself, but he only laughed.
“Correct: nobody is like me. I am the Son of Heaven.” He laughed again. “The gods’ favour is obvious, is it not?”
Mesema watched him laugh, feeling uncertain. Cerani humour eluded her. She took a few steps away, admiring the flowers that rose impossibly from the sand. The desert: this was the heart of the Cerani Empire. Her father had told her that