The Empire (The Lover's Opalus) (13 page)

“He has sent for your mother, invited her to attend this fool saying of the Amu’Wey.”

“She is
coming
?”

“Of course she is coming. Even Annikah would not refuse the Empire.”

She would,
Raeche thought. Then, she felt as if someone had taken hold of her ribcage and begun to squeeze. “Bring my daughter.”

“Rucha is being dressed as we speak.”

“Bring her now,” Raeche insisted.

Panic fueled hot splotches on her neck and face. When her Personal did not act quickly enough, she clenched her hands into fists, closed her eyes, then her ears, then her nose. She stopped breathing and was in an isolated place. She found her daughter’s Spirit, which fascinated in that it was at once Light and Dark, then grabbed hold.

“You are advancing freakishly quickly in your abilities, Empress,” Taritana remarked.

Raeche stood near her Personal with her daughter in hand. Rucha, her big green eyes both pleased and inquisitive, was shirtless, her pale, boy-like chest exposed, though her legs were covered in the finest weave of water-blue cloth. Raeche raised a hand, ripping the girl’s ceremonial jacket from the air. She sat her daughter down and finished dressing her.

“Rucha, dear, you must stay close to Mama.”

The Empire’s daughter nodded.

Raeche stood. “Taritana, you are not to allow that woman near my baby. Do you understand?”

“I do,” the Personal responded.

“If I must be in her presence, then you must take Rucha.”

“I understand.”

Then, in another careless display of Spirit, Raeche reached out to Lanus. “What have you done?”

“I have invited your mother to bear witness to our love.”

“What are you really about, Emperor?”

“You will see.” He silenced the link between them.

* * * *

“I honor you, Mother of the Empire,” Lanus said. He held out his left hand, thumb tucked in, palm rigid facing the sky. He offered a specific respect with lack of deference.

Annikah startled him when she ignored his salute. In fact, the Emperor’s mouth opened and his heart sped with such surprise that he felt his guard rise as if he were on the battlefield. No one had ever dared ignore an Emperor, even a sworn enemy.

She sat without his leave. Lanus had never wanted to lash out more than he did in that moment. A man accustomed to absolute power since birth had also become accustomed to absolute respect, or fear–he had never made much notice of the difference between the two.

“You summon war to your gates because you know you cannot be defeated here?” she asked.

Lanus imagined shock registering in sparks around his body. “Explain yourself.”

She did not. She merely watched with eyes more shrewd than vacant. Lanus did not favor the new expression. “There is something you want from me, Emperor. I can always tell when a man wants something from me. What is it? The sooner you release your thought the sooner you can end your beleaguered tolerance of my presence.”

“Tell me of the vanity,” Lanus commanded.

He had fully expected the mother of the Empire to either simper or giggle, to disavow any knowledge, yet in this new demeanor she did not even demur.

“The vanity you speak of was a gift from my mother and a gift from her mother to her. It has been with us as long as your Codex of the Empire has existed. Had Raeche not been selected to become the Empire, it would have gone to her as well.”

The Emperor overcame his shock at the first coherent and complex set of sentences from the woman he had ever heard. “Why did her status change the tradition?”

“Her status ended our line here, Emperor. Had I given her the vanity, you would have destroyed her. There would be no Rucha. Lannel would never come. I would never have let you withhold my granddaughters so I sent it back from whence it came.”

Lanus took in the tenderness with which Annikah said her granddaughters’ names, especially Lannelorree who had yet to be born.

How did she know of Lannel?

Stunned, he opened his mouth to ask but then stopped himself. Now was not the time. He would store it for later rumination along with the puzzle of Annikah’s intent. For now, he had a more immediate concern. “Tell me where to find the vanity.”

“No.”

“That was an Imperial Order.”

“
You
are not my emperor,” the older woman–whose face was so like his love’s–returned. Then, with no fanfare, she disappeared.

Instinctively, Lanus used Spirit to reach for her. Yelping when pain seared his hand, he yanked it back. It had burned bright red and would possibly blister. Before it could, his brother waved a hand in an attempt to heal the wound. Valor failed.

“Find her,” Lanus commanded.

“I have already tried. She left no trace. I have sent an order to have our best Spirit Wielders make the attempt.”

Lanus nodded absently. Slowly, with incredible concentration, he watched his hand return to its normal pale state. “They will fail,” he said. “The Spirit Wielders. They will not find her.”

Valor agreed. The Emperor’s burn had been a clue to Annikah’s destination. It was a place neither of them, nor the Spirit Wielders, could follow.

“What will you say to Raeche?” his brother questioned.

Lanus did not even spare him a glance. “I am not going to tell her anything, Valor. I also know that my wife will not ask after her mother.”

“You cannot say the Amu’Wey.”

Slowly, the Emperor stood. He stepped closer to his brother, not intimidated by the slight look up required to meet his eyes. “You are within your rights as Personal of the Empire to stop me.”

For a moment, just a moment, the Spirit of Thought clouded Valor’s eyes. “‘We are all traitors to our duty, when our duty–’”

“‘Is a traitor to us.’” Lanus finished the proverb, a verse that predated the Empire, one which had long fallen out of favor.

“What will you do about Annikah’s defiance?”

“I will hunt Annikah to the ends of the Empire.”

“What if you must go farther?”

“Then we shall see if I can go farther. Perhaps, as you have alluded, after the Amu’Wey nothing will stop me from going farther.”

“Only if she loves you.”

Then Lanus told his brother, “Speak nothing else on this subject for the rest of time.”

Valor swallowed hard. His nod was barely perceptible but binding nonetheless. He took his leave.

* * * *

In the hours that followed, the Empress kept her daughter so close that Rucha grew restless and angry. The small girl, so strong, faced her chair to the wall and kicked and kicked, making a horrible racket. Raeche laughed then asked her to kick harder and louder. She said she would sing a much-celebrated song based on the drum of her daughter’s feet. Rucha pinned her mother with her piercing blue eyes. Raeche delighted in the glower as well.

“You have a fine temper, daughter. Fine. It will–”

Taritana materialized in a blue-white mist before her, scooped up Rucha and disappeared. Raeche sighed. It seemed as though the occasion to find herself alone with her mother had come.

She had sensed Annikah’s arrival at the palace, for no Spirit slid like ice on her skin like her mother’s. When warmth returned she knew Annikah had left. Now she was cold once more. Her mother appeared before her, back from a long distance. Perhaps back in Spirit only. A welt of anger and distrust swelled in the air between them, though her mother appeared as young, darkly beautiful and insouciant as ever.

“Your husband asked after my vanity,” her mother said.

“Did he?”

Annikah raised an eyebrow that imparted her obstinate nature, her commitment to being uncooperative.

Raeche drew herself as tall as possible, with every intention to be the Empire, to tolerate her mother’s presence then dismiss it. For so long she had prayed coldness into her Spirit. She had worshipped non-reaction, just so in a moment like this her mother could not use her reaction to manipulate her. Then Raeche caught a glimpse of something at her mother’s throat. Something that glinted an eerie blue-white as it greeted her. It had wanted Raeche to see it, or perhaps it had wanted to see her. The Empress felt a quick desire to greet the object.

“What is it?” she demanded, gliding closer to Annikah.

Annikah danced back. “To what are you referring?”

“What do you wear there around your neck?”

“Oh, this?” She acted as if she would gesture to it. Instead, she laid her hand on top of it, preventing Raeche from even glimpsing the length of chain the thing was on.

“Yes, that.” Raeche moved closer still.

Annikah stepped further back, though she still had not quite solidified in her daughter’s presence. “What if I answer another question for you?”

“I have no questions for you, Mother. But I do want the necklace.”

“You have many necklaces, of that I am certain. Why would you want this one?” Her sly eyes cut to the side. A little smile turned her glossy lips.

Raeche did not have an answer.

“Perhaps I should ask why you want your husband.”

Raeche became the very Spirit of Perplexity–a dangerous Spirit.

“So fair and ferocious, your Lanus the Clear. So unlike you.”

Not sure what to say, Raeche advanced again on her mother.

Suddenly, Annikah rushed forward. She grabbed Raeche’s hand and placed her palm over the heat of the pendant at her throat. “Consider this shard, the sole piece of the vanity I allowed myself to keep, to act as wedding present,” Annikah whispered. She reached behind her neck unbuttoning the shining white bead from the flexible white loop that held it. She let the necklace sag into Raeche’s palm. “When it is time, give it to Lannel for me. She is the only one out of all of you fools deserving of this crown. Goodbye, daughter.”

The farewell sounded permanent. Raeche did not care as long as she held the necklace to her heart.

Chapter 15

On a cold, bleached-white day with a blustery wind wringing tears from the eyes of an audience come from the West, North and East, the Empire held hands as they mounted the Lovers’ Opalus. Raeche and Lanus were followed by Valor, Taritana, and the Innov.

At the top of the small mound, garbed in their ceremonial robes of red and white and the yellow metal drrofy, they faced each other.

“We beg you to reconsider,” the Personals said, discretely and in unison.

The Empire stared at them. Speculating.

The Personals, to their credit, did not turn to look at each other. Instead, they followed the tradition of the ritual. Taritana held a jeweled blade identical to that held by Valor. The opulence of the instruments was unimportant; that they could cut and that they were separate was tantamount. The Personals presented the blades then stepped aside. Valor lifted his niece into his arms.

Raeche sliced into the palm of her hand with her blade. She watched as the Emperor did the same. A collective rumble of worry rippled through the crowd. They watched in horrified awe while the Empire washed their blades in their own blood.

Raeche raised her arm. She pressed the tip of her blade to the spot above her husband’s heart, a spot that already bore a burn from where her new necklace had touched his flesh. Lanus pressed the tip of his to the corresponding spot on her breast. For a split second, Raeche shared a pang with Lanus. Rucha, being held by Valor and Taritana, looked more like she belonged to them than to her parents. In that second, Raeche wondered if she was looking at the Empire, the new Empire. She looked up at her husband. Eye to eye.

Raeche pushed. Lanus pushed. They were linked through Spirit and metal and blood, heart to heart. Neither of them cried out, though both were stabbed through the heart and their blood ran freely.

The blessing and curse was short, a handful of words said in unison. “If you I do not kiss, may I drown. If you I do not worship, may I bleed. If you I do not love, may I die.”

Lightning did not strike. The earth did not open up. Avla continued to fly high in the sky. The winds from the west still caressed their faces.

When Raeche and Lanus drew back their blades, their wounds closed over, completely healed. Their hands still joined, they faced the Empire.

* * * *

That Dark, as he watched the wife he loved more than the Empire sleep, Lanus wondered if she had ever known what she was. He knew now, because the Amu’Wey had made them two parts of the same whole. He knew now what he was by Spirit-marriage. He knew what his children would also be. The Emperor was felled by a sweep of dark emotion that combined the Spirits of Joy and Avarice and Finality.

Epilogue

On the eve of Rucha’s ninth birthday, her parents kissed her, told her they loved her and allowed her to sleep in their bed, where she did not stir.

On the day of Rucha’s ninth birthday, her little sister, Lannelorree, “Rich ore of Lanus”–the Empire’s Jewel with hair as black as an avla’s wing, skin like rich sap of a tree from the Forest of the East, and eyes also like her mother’s–became Rucha’s Personal.