“Enough,” he said, his voice cold. He must have already been preparing, mentally, for the arrival of the delegates. “Rise.”
I did as he’d bidden me. It was as things would be between us from then on, and it was as things had always been, for I respected my brother’s elder position just as I loved him, and it stilled the quaking in my chest a little to know that not everything had changed.
“What—” I held my tongue, breathing the way I’d been taught to hide the uncertainty in my voice, my movements. “What happens now, Iseul?”
He shook his head, looking out over the gardens as though expecting to find some answer within their soothing patterns. Of course, my brother was a man who needed no such reassurance. I myself felt an unbidden longing. The sand had no need to worry as to what direction to take, what shape, what form. There was a plan in mind for the sand, and it had only to follow. My brother and I had no such luck.
I fiddled with the smooth, soft fabric of my overlong sleeves, trying not to seem as though I was waiting on my brother’s response. Surely the new responsibility was weighing heavily on his mind, and he would have a great many things to discuss with the warlords, our own diplomats, before the delegation from Volstov arrived tomorrow. The proper thing, I knew, was to beg my leave, expecting to be informed of what my new role within the negotiations would be at a later hour, when my brother had taken his time to sort it out. Knowing this, however, did not preclude my stubborn desire to stay nearby. After all, with our father dead, Iseul was all I had of family, and I the same to him—for even as the elder prince, my father had not yet seen fit to find my brother a wife. Now he was emperor, but still my brother, and I would not leave until I’d found some sign that I’d not lost him to dark thoughts of what was to come. But he would not look at me.
“Iseul,” I began, and felt reassurance opening like a blossom within me. It seemed then that I knew, from some unseen source of certainty, that everything would be healed in time for my brother and for me. For our people, for all the Ke-Han. We would put our heads together, Iseul and I, along with my father’s old advisors; and we would manage the task set to us as best we could. I hadn’t yet grown past the childish notion that there was nothing we couldn’t accomplish together. And indeed, even our father had been proud to claim that Iseul’s strengths balanced against mine so fittingly that together we made a nearly invincible pair. Today was going to be onerous for him, and I could not expect reassurances—rather it was my place now to reassure him, in his new station, for if I did not support our new emperor with all my being, then what man could be expected to do so?
We would find ourselves within this new rhythm once we’d settled into this new way of being. It was only a matter of time.
My brother’s face turned toward mine, and then to the door as Kouje cleared his throat just beyond, filling the silence my brother had left in the wake of my appeals.
“Your pardon,” Iseul said to me, sounding distant somehow, but how could I blame him? He moved with a steadiness of purpose that I longed to imitate, and slid open the door on the kneeling figure before us.
“My lord Emperor,” Kouje began, proving that news traveled faster among the servants than I’d have believed possible, and that my brother’s decision was known now throughout the great-house, if not the palace proper. “Word has been sent that the delegation from Volstov is set to arrive rather—earlier—than we anticipated.”
“Earlier,” my brother repeated.
He did not need to phrase it as a question; it was Kouje’s duty to anticipate and respond in kind.
“We believe they may be here in a matter of hours, your Supreme Grace.”
It was then that I envied Kouje’s propriety in keeping his face averted. This way, he did not have to see my brother’s expression at that moment, terrible as the gods’ fire.
“Gather the warlords,” said my brother, in a voice I didn’t recognize. It was a voice that had commanded our warriors in the mountains. “We will hold counsel in