A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,123

of highborn Paters and Maters who barely knew her.

Or so I am told, after. I do not attend. I do not leave the palace for days following. Instead, I plot how I will destroy Keris.

Two weeks after the funeral, I am holed up in a meeting chamber with Livia’s advisory council, listening to a group of recently arrived generals arguing over why their war plan is the only one that will allow us to take back Silas—and eventually Serra and Navium—from Keris.

“We should wait,” says old General Pontilius, fresh from Tiborum. He paces around the long table where I sit with Mettias, Quin Veturius, Musa, Cassius, and six others.

“No. We strike now,” Quin says. “While she’s trying to take the Free Lands. Secure Silas, and move south from there.”

“And what if it’s a trap?” Pontilius asks. “She could have an army lying in wait for us. Reports put her forces in Marinn at nearly forty thousand men. She has another thirty thousand in reserve. That leaves fifty thousand men unaccounted for.”

“They’re scattered throughout the south—” Musa offers, and Pontilius recoils as if slapped.

“How would you know, Scholar?”

Once, Musa might have laughed off such insolence. Now he frowns. Eleiba’s tidings from Marinn have sobered him. All I could send was a token force. Two Masks. Two hundred soldiers. They will not have even reached Marinn yet. They won’t get through in time, Musa had fretted. We have to draw Keris off. We have to take back the Empire so she has no choice but to return.

He could have gone back with Eleiba. He’d wanted to, even. But his people are here, so he stayed.

“Do you know where Musa of Adisa was in the fight to take Antium, Pontilius?” I say now. “At my side, bleeding for an Empire he’d never set foot in until a few months ago. Fighting for the Scholars. Tell me, General, where were you during the fighting?”

Pontilius pales. “You’ve been taken in by a handsome face—”

My blade is at his throat before he finishes. “Do not make the mistake,” I say, “of thinking I won’t slit your throat for discourteousness, old man. Everyone at this table knows I won’t hesitate.”

Pontilius swallows and, in what he no doubt thinks of as a more reasonable tone, says, “He is a Scholar—”

My punch lands with a crack across his jaw, and he topples backward, stunned. I am embarrassed for him. He’s younger than Quin. At the very least he should be able to handle a punch on his feet.

“You—” he sputters. “How dare you—”

“She could have killed you.” Pater Mettias, wan and quiet until now, speaks up. “Count yourself lucky.”

“You should remember, Pontilius”—Quin spits out the Pater’s name—“Empress Regent Livia freed the Scholars. The advisory council supported her.”

“The Empress Regent is dead.” Pontilius moves as far away from me as he can. “And now this—this woman—”

“As the people have named her Imperator Invictus, and as she is the Mater of Gens Aquilla, I move for the Blood Shrike to serve as regent,” Quin says. He’d warned me this morning that he’d make such a motion. But I did not expect it to come so soon—and I wish he had not invoked the title of Imperator.

“Until we have dealt with Keris,” the old man goes on. “Yea or nay?”

It’s not really a question, and the yea that rumbles through the room is unequivocal.

“She cannot be both Shrike and regent.” Cassius speaks up, the cretin. He and Pontilius don’t look at each other, but my sources tell me they’ve been plotting. It’s a shame I need their men. “There’s no precedent.”

“There is no precedent for a Blackcliff commandant to betray her own people to barbarian invaders, leave her capital to burn, and declare herself Empress,” I say. “There is no precedent for her to then enjoy the support of hundreds of Illustrian Paters, including yourself, despite such crimes. There’s no precedent for her to murder the rightful regent with the help of an ancient supernatural evil.” I open my hands. “But here we are. Help us or leave, Paters. It makes no difference to me. I will secure the Empire for my nephew with or without your aid, and with or without your men.”

After the meeting is over, Dex finds me. My old friend has shadows beneath his eyes. He looks like he slept about as much as I did. But he does not offer me kind words or understanding. He knows I do not want either.

“The new wet nurse is ready