“How are the defenses progressing?” Stephania asked.
The guard captain, her guard captain, stepped forward. “There is nothing to worry about, your majesty. Everything is in hand. The invaders will not get to us in here.”
He said it the way Stephania might have reassured some young noble girl worried about her first feast. She held her anger in check, because she couldn’t afford to alienate the man. In that sense, being a ruler wasn’t so different. Even a queen still required the support of others, the control of opinion and the power bought through loyalty. Queen Athena had forgotten that. Stephania wouldn’t.
“I am not looking for reassurances,” Stephania said. “I require details. I know our efforts in the tunnels have been successful, but what of the rest?”
The guard captain looked a little surprised, but nodded. “We have reinforced the gates with iron bars,” he said, “and set boiling sand above them. An enemy without a key would die long before he broke through. The walls have been checked for defects, and we have set nets to catch fire arrows.”
It did sound as though they could keep enemies out for weeks if necessary. Stephania knew that they had stores. She’d checked on them herself.
“Elethe, what about our agents?”
“We have recruited some within the city using the promise of food and shelter if they give us valuable information,” her handmaiden said. “Lydia and Nerine are questioning Queen Athena’s former servants to see if any might be suitable to join us.”
Questioning was probably a polite word for some of it. Stephania had taught her handmaidens to be ruthless.
“What about beyond the Empire?” she asked. “The war will pass, but then we must be well placed to continue our relations with others. We must have information.”
“Birds have been sent,” Elethe replied. “With the invasion, it is hard to do more.”
Yet there was always more that could be done. Stephania turned to the nobles in the contingent with her.
“If you have relatives beyond the borders of the Empire,” she said, “make use of them. Write to them. Use whatever birds you need. Frame it as asking for news, and I’m sure they will tell us all we need to know. Tell them that I will offer coin for informers they find.”
She snapped her fingers at another of her handmaidens. “We will need messengers to send to the invaders, starting to negotiate the peace. Tell them that they may take what they wish from the city, but that when they tire of battering in vain against the castle walls, we will be ready to talk.”
Of course, considering what the First Stone would probably do to the messengers, it probably wasn’t worth wasting good people on it.
“Send those of Queen Athena’s people who wish to prove themselves,” Stephania said. “Although make sure that they don’t know anything too important first.”
Whatever they did know, they would undoubtedly tell the invaders. Felldust’s torturers were rumored to be very inventive. Stephania thought of the girl she was preparing to play the part of her. If Irrien saw through the disguise, or if he had no interest in talking, that girl would die. Stephania felt a hint of guilt at that, but not much. You looked after yourself first, your family second, and those beyond only after that.
The thought of that brought her attention to the Hall of Knowledge. The doors were shut for once, and Stephania was impressed by the way they muffled some of the cries from within.
“Elethe, with me,” she commanded. “The rest of you, wait here.”
When she stepped inside, Stephania had to admit that she was a little disappointed. She liked things to be neat, and things in here were anything but that. There were papers strewn everywhere, several with blood on them. Old Cosmas sat tied to a chair, with blood on his face, and on his hands where the two handmaidens beside him had torn out his fingernails. One side of his face was bruised until he barely resembled the scholar he had been.
Stephania made a small sound of disappointment as she looked at her handmaidens. They stared at her in surprise, then quickly knelt.
“I sent you to gain information,” Stephania said, “not to cause chaos.”
“Forgive us, your majesty,” the older of the two said. “But he would not talk to us. He called you a false queen, and he didn’t respond to threats or promises. When Ustra offered herself to him, he laughed.”
“And so you beat him bloody as a side of beef,” Stephania said, letting the disappointment creep into her voice. “Go, both of you. We’ll find you tasks more suited to your talents.”
They left, at a speed that suggested they knew exactly how lucky they were to be allowed to do so.
Stephania found a chair for herself, sitting beside Cosmas and putting a hand over his. Of course, given his injuries, that just made the old man whimper in pain.
“Please forgive my handmaidens, Cosmas,” she said. “They have such a limited idea of how to do things. They don’t understand that the goal is to get information, not just to gratify their need for pain. If it helps, I will be having both of them whipped for their mistake later.”
“You… are worse than both of them,” Cosmas replied. “The philosopher Caxin tells us that we cannot blame a snake for biting—”
“But we can blame the one who puts it in your bed,” Stephania finished for him. “Yes, I have read his work. I didn’t find him very convincing. Oh, is that a surprise, Cosmas? You always did give me such condescending looks when I came in here. Did you think I was just looking at ancient dress designs, or reading the parts of the ten thousand pleasures I shouldn’t have been?”
She’d done both, of course. For a young noblewoman, both were weapons to use against enemies, and of course, she’d done a good job of pretending to be harmless.
“I’m more surprised you weren’t reading the tomes on poisons,” Cosmas said.
“Ah, so you did know what I was like,” Stephania replied, even though she didn’t really believe it. It was better to flatter sometimes. Better to let people go on thinking that they were the clever ones, until it was too late. “Wise old Cosmas, who sees all and knows all, then tells people whatever he thinks they need to know. Tell me, old man, whose side are you on?”
Even tied and beaten, he managed to give Stephania a look that said she would never understand.
“On the side of the Empire,” Cosmas said. “On the side of doing what was best for all of it, not just a few nobles, or a few rebels. Since you know so much of the philosophers, you will have heard Xin Lu’s contention that a man must make his own morality and stick to it.”
Stephania had read it. It had seemed to her to be more wasted air. You did what you could in this world for your own benefit, because you knew that everyone else would be doing the same.
“Well,” Stephania said, “as a man who hears everything, you will have heard that I rule the Empire now. As its queen, I command your obedience.”
“Queen of a castle about to be taken,” Cosmas countered. “Queen, not by right, but by violence.”
Elethe stepped forward to strike Cosmas. Stephania stopped her with a gesture. It wasn’t mercy. It was simply that she couldn’t afford for the old man to die before he’d told her all he knew.
“All rulers rule through violence,” Stephania said. “The kindest king will hang those who rise against him, or see his throne taken. As for right… I thought I was married to the Empire’s rightful heir?”
She enjoyed the shock on Cosmas’s face.
“Oh, I know about Thanos. I don’t suppose you have proof for me, do you? It might come in useful.”
Cosmas sat in silence.
“This is unwise, Cosmas,” Stephania said.
“You’re going to torture me some more?” he shot back.
Stephania shook her head. Instead, she stood, looking around until she found a slim volume, cracked with age.
“One of the philosophers you love so much,” she said. “Presumably very rare?”
“Irreplaceable,” Cosmas replied.
br /> Stephania smiled at that, then started to rip out pages.
“No,” Cosmas said. “What are you doing?”
Stephania looked over at Elethe while she continued to tear out pages. “The key to getting what you want from someone is to understand what they hold dear. It might be their well-being, in which case pain and threats will work. It might be their children, or their position… or the books they’ve spent a lifetime accumulating. Fetch a brazier, would you? I think it will be easier to burn things.”
“No!” Cosmas said, tearing at his bonds as if he might escape the chair that held him. “You can’t!”
Stephania tore out another page. “I can, and I will. You will watch me destroy every book here, unless you start to tell me what I want to know.”
She got through three more pages before Cosmas broke. Stephania raised an eyebrow. She’d expected it to be more.
“Thanos is mentioned in a genealogy,” Cosmas said. “He’s there as the king’s son.”
That was a start, although Stephania definitely wouldn’t leave it there.
“I will need more than that,” Stephania said. She held up the book by way of emphasis.
“There was… there was talk that Thanos’s mother had moved on,” Cosmas replied. “The rumors said to Felldust, but I… there were letters. Somewhere in here, there are letters.”
“Where?” Stephania demanded.
Cosmas shook his head. “I don’t know the location of everything here, only that they are here. Or they were. I put them in a box somewhere.”
That sounded like Cosmas. All the information in the world, and he couldn’t find half of it. Stephania decided to move on to the one thing she wanted to know about even more.
“What do you know about sorcerers?” Stephania asked.
She saw Cosmas swallow. “There are many things written about them. I have accounts—”
Stephania waved that away. “There was a sorcerer in Felldust. Daskalos. I need to know about his weaknesses. I made a deal with him, and I need to know how to undo it.”
She saw Cosmas pale slightly, and knew he’d heard the name.
“I cannot help you,” Cosmas said.
“Elethe, fetch that brazier,” Stephania commanded. This time, her handmaiden rushed to obey. Stephania clamped her hand down over Cosmas’s, ignoring his cry of pain. “You think I won’t carry out my threats? You think I won’t burn your precious scrolls? You will tell me what you know. I will save my child!”
“You promised him your child?” Cosmas said. He shook his head. “You are a fool. A man like Daskalos cannot be cheated.”
“Then I’ll kill him,” Stephania said, although even as she said it, she found herself thinking of the way he’d come back from her knife thrust in the cave. “I will find a way.”
“There is no way,” Cosmas said. “I’ve read about him, in books so old that with any other man I would have thought it was a successor or a student now. They say that he has the secret of hiding his life in an object, and unless you destroy that, he cannot be killed. That he can use the wind to listen and the refection on a pool to see. How do you fight such a man?”
“That is what I want you to tell me,” Stephania said. She could feel the anger rising in her now. She tried to be reasonable, but people never did what they were supposed to.
Cosmas laughed then. He laughed long and loud, even as Stephania threw his precious book against the nearest wall, scattering its pages.
“Look at you,” he said. “You’re right, everyone has something they care about. For me, yes, it’s my books. For you, though… you’ve given away the one thing that matters to you, you stupid girl. You had a life with Thanos, you had a child on the way, and you gave it all up. You can’t stop Daskalos, and I’ll laugh when he takes the one thing that matters from you.”
“No you won’t,” Stephania assured him. She took a knife from her belt. “I’m sick of your interference, Cosmas. I’m sick of you hoarding other people’s secrets to hand out like sweetmeats. I’m sick of you pretending to know everything, and do you know the thing about being a queen?”
Cosmas might have started to answer, but Stephania stepped forward, thrusting her blade up under his ribs.
“The thing about being a queen is that you don’t have to listen to people who anger you,” she said. “You can just deal with them.”
She watched Cosmas die. There was probably a time when she would have felt something at seeing the light go out of the old scholar’s eyes. Now, she was just happy that he wouldn’t be interfering in her business any longer.
When Elethe came with the brazier, Stephania saw her hesitate before setting it down and dropping to one knee.
“My queen?”
Stephania imagined how she must look then, with blood on her hands. Idly, she wiped her hands on the remains of one of Cosmas’s scrolls.
“I got tired of waiting. Remove his body, then have the others go through this place from top to bottom. There are letters here I want to find.”
“Yes, your majesty.” Elethe sounded frightened then. That caught Stephania a little by surprise.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” Stephania said. “You’re serving me well. Come find me when you’re done here.”
“Yes, your majesty. Where should I find you?”
There was only one answer to that.
“With Ceres. As I said, everything has a breaking point. I intend to find hers.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Thanos dreamed, and in his dreams, the dead stared at him. He saw people he’d known, people he’d fought, people he’d been forced to kill. He saw his brother and his father, fighting in front of the statues of his ancestors that lined the royal chambers. A second later, the statues were replaced by figures who stood there, ancestors looking at him in accusation, in recognition, and very occasionally in respect.
“Are you really here?” Thanos asked. “What is this?”
His father didn’t answer. Nor did Lucious. They kept fighting in front of those who had gone before, rolling on the floor as new figures started to emerge from spaces in the walls.
The Bone Folk stepped up next to Thanos’s ancestors, and one by one, he saw them start to devour them. They drank down the ghosts like smoke, taking them in huge gulps that left nothing behind. When they turned to his father and Lucious, Thanos wanted to do something, but he couldn’t move…
He woke to the rocking of the ship that was carrying him to Delos. Thanos sat up and saw Jeva crouched a little way away, her eyes fixed on him. After the dream he’d just had, that was a little unnerving.
“You look as though you’re trying to decide whether to eat me,” Thanos said.
She gave him a grim look, and when she spoke, it was in tones of obvious insult. “You know it does not work like that for us.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Besides,” she continued with a laugh, “you’d be far too stringy.”
Thanos laughed with her. He wasn’t sure he could even begin to understand the Bone Folk woman. They’d been traveling together for days, and Thanos still wasn’t sure he was any closer to being able to read Jeva.
It seemed she could read him though.
“The dead can be difficult sometimes,” she said.
“Did you see something?” Thanos asked.
She spread her hands. It wasn’t an answer, but it seemed as though Jeva wasn’t one to give out answers. It was enough that her people had agreed to help.
“Do I look like a seer, to see into your dreams?” she asked. “I just know that look. What did you dream of?”
“Of someone I cared about. Of the dead being eaten.”
Thanos couldn’t think of a better way to put it.
“That is a good thing,” Jeva said. “It reminds us of our connection to them. We are the tip of a spear that goes back lifetimes.”
Thanos wished that he could see things that way. Maybe he wouldn’t feel quite so alone then. That thought made
him think of Ceres. He would get back to her. Right then, he wanted to get back to her more than anything else in the world, but it felt as though every step he took was a frustration, leading him into more problems, and pulling him further from her.
It didn’t help that the Bone Folk’s fleet was a strange thing that looked as though it should barely have floated. Each of their ships incorporated as many of the bones of great beasts as the rest of their architecture, so that ribs taken from whales wrapped around their hulls, and shark teeth formed arrow tips as they prepared for war. It was a terrifying-looking fleet, and a part of Thanos still wasn’t sure if he should be bringing these people to the shores of Delos. What if he was just making things worse?
Even the smugglers who had taken him to Port Leeward kept their distance from the main body of the fleet, as though unwilling to risk having the Bone Folk too close. When Thanos had declared that he would be traveling on one of their ships, the captain had looked at him as though he was mad. Yet Thanos had done it. He knew he needed to show his new allies that he trusted them. Strangely, he did trust them.
And they were willing to help. That counted for a lot.
In the distance, Thanos thought he saw ships. He hurried to the railing, trying to ignore the bone feel of it under his hands.
“They are the stragglers of Felldust’s fleet,” Jeva said, coming up beside him so quietly that Thanos was glad she wasn’t his enemy. “They head to the city like gulls upon a carcass. Would you like us to destroy them?”
Thanos looked around. They had the ships to do it. The Bone Folk had an impressive fleet of ships thanks to their years of piracy. Even so, if they went into combat with a convoy like that, the odds were that they would suffer losses.
Thanos shook his head.
“It’s better not to,” he said. “I don’t want to get into any fights we don’t need before we get there.”