Lance of Earth and Sky - By Erin Hoffman Page 0,18

reading the knights' discomfort from her far circling distance.

Caladan kept greater mastery over himself than his young charge, but he, too, eyed Isri with fear and suspicion. “Not long after all the…changes…began, these creatures started to appear. Word is that they caused the Court of Directors to fall dead.”

“Where have you heard such things?” Vidarian demanded, command coming back to him from many a tossing storm deck. Inside he still reeled: was it true? The Court of Directors—all dead?

* Where do you think they heard them? * Ruby said, soft but arch. * The emperor must blame someone to keep a grip on the throne, and it seems he doesn't want to blame you. *

Caladan wavered before Vidarian's determined outrage, but said nothing, letting silence stretch between them. Ruby radiated smugness.

“Perhaps you had better escort us to the emperor,” Vidarian said, dragging them back into the safer realms of protocol.

The knight's relief was palpable, but incomplete. “We're instructed to bring you to the palace,” he agreed. “His majesty's attendants await you there.”

There was something he wasn't saying, but better to take it up with someone in charge, Vidarian decided, and so he nodded, to Caladan's further relief. “Please lead the way, sir knight.”

The promised attendants were waiting in a courtyard just within the palace walls. Caladan and his apprentices led the way, and as they came closer to the ground, citizens and palace folk alike turned their heads to follow their passing, but upon sight of the Destiny and the gryphons, lifted their hands and whispered or shouted.

The knights were only too happy to pass them into the palace's care, and had taken back to the sky even before Vidarian could help Calphille, her legs stiff from the long flight, out of the ship.

A steward wearing a sash clasped with the imperial seal stepped forward to welcome them as the shadows of the departing knights passed over their heads. “We welcome you on behalf of his imperial majesty,” he began, and Vidarian moved to clasp his hand.

“We've traveled far at the emperor's request,” Vidarian said, “and are of course anxious to know how we can be of service.”

He'd summoned all of his available diplomacy, but the steward still seemed taken aback. “Of course—Captain,” he said, relaxing slightly when Vidarian nodded approval at the title. “We are charged to see to your comfort at the palace, beginning with your rooms and—” his gaze dropped in flickering assessment of Vidarian's clothing, “fresh attire.”

With their months of travel, of life-and-death struggle, Vidarian abruptly realized it had been more than a season since he had last thought about what he looked like. In the steward's delicate discomfort he saw himself in the eyes of a courtier: battered, stained, carefully wrought manners worn away by the destruction of all that had been familiar to him. To survive this—the imperial palace!—he would have to do more than summon a little diplomacy. “We would be most grateful for your hospitality and assistance,” Vidarian said, letting genuine embarrassment creep into his voice. Long ago, his father had trained him on the value of sincerity, especially where it was least expected.

The steward relaxed further, enough for a rueful smile. He snapped his fingers at one of the three assistants. “Marcelle, if you will see to stabling the captain's—” his eyes roamed across the gryphons “—creatures in the guest barn—”

// If by ‘barn’ you mean ‘guest quarters stocked with live game for guests to consume,’ please by all means lead the way. We have flown more than three days at the emperor's pleasure and are quite famished. //

The steward's eyes bulged at every other word, and he gasped aloud when he realized that the “creature,” Thalnarra, was in fact speaking to him. By the end he had broken out in a cold sweat and was stammering incoherently.

One of his assistants, a boy—no more than ten winters, or Vidarian would eat his shoe—instead stared at the gryphons with a wild sort of joy, his eyes shining. “They—they could quarter in the old empress's garden?” he said, voice high and shoulders tense, awaiting reprimand.

The steward spun, a look halfway between relief and consternation washing over his wrinkled features. He turned from the boy, eyes narrowed, to Vidarian, and relief won out when Vidarian nodded. He had no idea if the garden was appropriate, but they must have been referring to the late Dowager Empress Celaine. She had died a decade ago, and with the emperor not having taken an empress, the garden