The Ruby Prince: Book Two of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 2) (24 page)

“I thought that was against protocol?”

“Your throat being slit before the wedding is against protocol, a more pressing concern in my mind,” Basaal said stiffly. “Come, I will take you back. These pathways are more obscured than I care for.”

Basaal kept his arm around Eleanor’s waist, listening for any sound, any hint. Finally, up ahead, Eleanor saw the long staircase towards the women’s quarters. Someone stood at the top, only a silhouette against the bright lights behind her.

“Hannia,” Eleanor said, recognizing her worried stance. “You can leave me here. I will be fine the rest of the way. If she sees that you’ve brought me,” she added, “I may never hear the end of it.”

“Fine,” Basaal said as he scanned the darkness one last time. “Be safe.”

“Send Ammar with word that you returned safely to your own rooms,” she requested.

“I will.”

“Go then,” Eleanor said, gently pushing him away. “Hannia will be wondering why I have not come.”

“Good night,” Basaal said, and he kissed her on the cheek before disappearing back down the pathway into the darkness. Eleanor pushed a branch away and began to ascend the long stairway. Within moments, Hannia would see her.

Then she heard a snap, a sound in the undergrowth nearby, and Eleanor jumped and turned to the side.

“Basaal?” she said.

Nothing.
She grabbed her skirts and began to move quickly up the stairs, but she was jerked backwards and pulled off the steps, a hand over her mouth. Eleanor twisted, trying to escape, but she was pulled firmly against someone’s chest.

“The emperor,” a voice hissed into her ear, “wishes an audience with
you
.”

***

The man forced a gag into Eleanor’s mouth and bound her hands behind her back. Then he forced her into an unfamiliar corner of the garden and through an open door into darkness. Trying to keep her balance as best she could, Eleanor stumbled nonetheless.

Once they were inside the walls, the man lit a torch, and Eleanor saw her captor: not only a Vestan but the same assassin who had killed the snake in the desert before it could strike Eleanor, the same man who had threatened Basaal before they had left for the Marion court. Eleanor glared at him as he pushed her through the tunnel. It was a dirty and dark place, this underbelly of the Zarbadast palaces, endless twists and stairs going off in all directions.

With no hesitation, the Vestan led her through the winding hallways before pushing her up a tall set of stairs. Eleanor stumbled on the hem of her long white gown, smashing her elbow against the stone wall. This only seemed to increase his impatience, and he prodded her forward faster.

When they came to a door, the Vestan pushed a key into its lock and then pulled at the latch. A loud click echoed down the staircase, and he kicked the door open, pushing Eleanor through without ceremony.

It was dim in the circular chamber. Several archways rose in the deep space around them, hung with curtains of thick purple velvet. Then Eleanor noticed that a figure sat on a throne in the middle of the room: Shaamil.

He cleared his throat. “Remove the gag, then leave us,” Shaamil ordered.

The Vestan cut her gag with his knife, pointing it menacingly close to Eleanor’s neck before disappearing into the darkness behind her. Only one lamp was lit. Glowing behind the emperor, it shadowed his face.

Despite her need to catch her breath from the quick ascent up the stairs, Eleanor pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin.

Shaamil sat in the shadows, unmoving. Without his watching audience, without the grandeur of his large throne room, Eleanor found the potency of Shaamil’s presence almost suffocating. Although, surprisingly, he did not seem as able to intimidate her as he had before.

“Is that so?” Shaamil said as if he could read her thoughts.

Eleanor made no sound.

The Vestan had bound Eleanor’s hands tight, and she attempted to shift her wrists, but to no avail, for the rope bit into her skin. Eleanor sighed and resigned herself to the pain as she kept her eyes focused on the shadowed face before her.

Shaamil shifted in his throne, and Eleanor could now see half of his face. His mouth twitched, and his eyes were unyielding.

“Tell me of my son’s time in Aemogen,” he said.

Eleanor’s stomach gripped around itself, and she said nothing.

“Answer my questions,” he ordered, “and I will return you to your quarters.”

“There is not much to tell,” Eleanor said.

Shaamil waited. Apparently that was not the answer he was looking for. In the shadows around his shoulders, Eleanor thought she saw something, a movement, a hint. She looked again but couldn’t be sure.

“I am not a very patient man,” Shaamil said. As he spoke again, the shadow around his shoulders
moved
. Eleanor’s eyes blinked and then went wide as she saw a snake’s head, weaving through the air into the lamplight, its black tongue slithering out in Eleanor’s direction. The emperor raised his hand and ran his fingers beneath the jaw of the beast. Eleanor shuddered as she realized that it was the same kind of large, black serpent she had encountered in the desert.

“I will repeat myself only once,” Shaamil snapped. “Tell me of my son’s time in Aemogen.”

Frowning, Eleanor answered as vaguely as she dared. “He came to Ainsley under the guise of a traveler and said that he was the son of an Imirillian lord and had chosen to abandon the army. After coming to know his skills in warfare, we commissioned him to train the men of Aemogen.”

“And you simply let him remain without questioning his allegiance?” Shaamil asked as he tilted his head. “You risk showing yourself to be a fool.”

“We gambled with the knowledge that if he were a traitor, we would gain far more from him than he would from us.”

“And what did you gain?” Shaamil asked.

“Aside from a few military exercises?” Eleanor asked as she half laughed, sounding as bitter as she dared. “A lesson in petulant behavior, an aggressive perspective of life, and a little false camaraderie. I assure you,” she added, “all of Aemogen wants his blood.”

“But not you,” Shaamil said. “You fell in love with the treacherous boy.”

Eleanor pressed her lips into a line and gave Shaamil a hard stare.

“Oh, he is treacherous,” Shaamil said. “I can see the disagreement in your face. But you, innocent as you are, will marry the most dangerous of all my sons. And, if you do not see that, I pity you. Do you honestly think that you can trust his words? That he has no thirst for power? The boy has soaked up power and allegiance with the pleasure of a desert plant.”

Eleanor made no response.

“His mother would worry over his nature,” Shaamil continued. “Not so soft, not so caring as she had wished him to be. He shared none of her alacrity or tenderness, traits you seem to have in such abundance. No,” Shaamil said, and his smile tilted. “As a child, he was motivated by domination and would win at any devil’s cost. He would use duplicity and deceit and then come down so hard that his opponents were rattled by their defeat.”

“He is callous,” Shaamil continued. “Ruthless. Ambitious. Can you claim that you never saw this? Never questioned any of his philosophies?” he asked. “Have you never wondered why my youngest son, the seventh son, is the richest among the princes of Imirillia? Or, did he never tell you?”

As the emperor spoke, his fingers baited the snake wrapped around his shoulders. “I wonder what your people will think,” he added, “when they find that you are the wife of the most insidious power-monger on the Continent?”

Eleanor would not let this comment shift her face, knowing he was trying to press her into a reaction, something that he could take, weigh, and measure. All his words were spoken with the intent to manipulate her. And she knew Basaal. She knew his desires. At least, she thought she did.

Yet, all the words that Basaal had spoken about power and place now came crowding into her mind, and the fragile trust she’d given him when he had promised her an escape—a trust that had turned solid—now felt like sand slipping through her fingers.

“And now you have come,” Shaamil said as he lifted a hand against the shadows of his face. “You carry your own weight, Queen of Aemogen. I’ll not deny that something beneath your innocent face calls to him,” Shaamil explained. “Basaal has wanted to bring the South under his subjugation since he was a boy, and you have become a desirable pawn in his game.”

Shaamil leaned forward, and Eleanor could discern more of his face and of the snake still wrapped around his body. The lines of his age showed beneath his closely trimmed beard, crow’s feet setting off the skin around his black eyes.

He considered Eleanor. “I have dreams,” he said, offering an unexpected admission. “Be they visions, I know not, but they come. For many years I have seen the same vision: of Basaal, seventh son, riding forth, under banners of black and bloodred, stopping in the center of the Continent, a golden crown of towers about his brow—”

Eleanor started at his reference to the Aemogen battle crown, and a cold, worrisome fear swept from her feet to her shoulders, and she shivered. Shaamil’s eye took note.

“And—” Shaamil continued, “from his footsteps are born venomous snakes that cover the earth in all directions, even beyond the borders of this continent, bringing all into subjection beneath him.”

Eleanor swallowed, waiting for what Shaamil would say next.

“And then,” Shaamil said, “on the night of your betrothal, the same dream came again, albeit two things were changed.” The emperor held up two fingers, pointing them simultaneously at Eleanor with an accusatory air.

“The banners of his army had turned to silver, bearing the symbol of a tower, and instead of snakes, each footstep sent a horse—a strong horse, adorned in gold, unrivaled by any I have ever seen among my stables—riding to each coast on the Continent and, at the shore, transforming into a jeweled bird of prey. One horse bore a rider dressed in red, who did not leave my son’s side. A bird landed on the rider’s outstretched arm.”

It was as if these visions were opened to Eleanor’s mind as the emperor spoke, and the first had filled her with a thick dread, burdening her with an unshakable weight.

“Last night,” Shaamil continued, “the dream repeated itself but in a third variation. The banners were now half silver, half bloodred. His footsteps now bore an army of mighty steeds as well as a legion of powerful snakes,” he explained. “Half of the golden crown he wore was bright; the other half, stained in blood. Do you, Queen of Aemogen, have an explanation for this?” Shaamil demanded.

Eleanor thought—as she was certain the emperor had—that the third dream indicated a choice yet to be made that would change the course of Basaal’s life and the fate of the Continent. And, if these dreams were somehow prophecy, Aemogen would be swept up into Basaal’s power either way. For, why else would he ride wearing the battle crown?

“Have you told Basaal these dreams?” Eleanor asked stiffly, refusing to answer his question.

Shaamil lifted his hand to his chin and moved the back of his finger across his mouth before answering. “I have not,” he said finally.

“Then, why tell me?” Eleanor asked.

The emperor rose from his throne and approached where she stood, the snake moving in a serpentine path around his body. He stepped so close that Eleanor was forced to look up to see his face. He made a quick movement with his hand, revealing a small knife with a jeweled handle, and he brought it to Eleanor’s throat. She swallowed, feeling the cold edge tempting her skin to break.

“I tell you,” he said, his voice slithering into her ear, “for, I believe you are the reason his fate may change, and I am uncertain yet if it is for good or ill.”

She felt the blade split her skin like a slit of fire, but Eleanor stared back unflinchingly as a single line of blood burned its way down her neck. Then the snake stretched forward from around Shaamil’s shoulder, and she felt the whisper of its black tongue along her jaw. Eleanor shuddered but did not break her expression. The Emperor gripped her arm with his hand.

“These symbols have meaning to you,” he insisted. “Tell me.”

“The only symbol I see is of your own venom poured into every snake,” Eleanor practically spat back, speaking as sharply as she could. “You’re poisonous, with a blackened soul. It will be a matter of little time before every serpent turns and eats your house, leaving it to waste.”

Shaamil’s eyes gleamed at her bravery even as he pressed the tip of his blade under her chin, forcing her face upward. “Tell me the significance of the crown,” he demanded. Eleanor was too tired and too scared to placate and pretend.

“No.”

Laughing, Shaamil stepped away. And, at the knife’s absence, she let her chin fall. Shaamil returned to his throne and sat again in its shadows. With a flick of his hand, in signal, the snake eased down his arm, dropping itself onto the floor.

The serpent rose from its coil, making the sound of a stifled scream before shooting forward, racing towards Eleanor’s feet. She stumbled backwards to get away. But the serpent sprang, leaping towards her exposed neck, and sank its teeth into the skin above her collarbone. She cried out, falling backward. A warm pain rushed into her neck as she rolled over to be free of the beast, but it would not let go. Eleanor struggled against her bonds. Finally, she pulled herself to her knees and forced her shoulder to her jaw in one quick movement. The snake dropped from her neck, and Eleanor stood, crying out as she kicked it away from her.