The Empire (The Lover's Opalus) (2 page)

Chapter 2

On a day that knew no daystar, on a day when only the blackest of dark clouds blanketed the sky and hung so low they were pierced by the mountains in the West, a storm brought the child. Raindrops fell, fat and fast, accompanied by the crack and roar of thunder. The windows rattled and at some moments it felt as if the palace itself shook.

Raeche knew only pain. Her body had become a prison walled with suffering and strife. The primal instinct to push pulsed through her, dragging screams from her throat. She fell to the Spirit of Agony, sobbing as her flesh rent. While she struggled to deliver her, the child, angry and frightened, lashed out with her first blast of Spirit, swamping them with her emotions.

The Emperor himself stayed near through the labor, soothing them both with his own Spirit of the Empath as much as he dared. The Imperial couple had been warned that the interference of too much Spirit during the birth could drive both mother and child mad, or worse. Despite the warning–and though Raeche knew herself to be an unfair woman–her Spirit told her she would be forever grateful for his help and restraint.

After the labor the nurses cleaned the girl child. Taritana, performing her duty as the Empress’s Personal and Woman of the Spirit, blessed her. As Raeche listened carefully–waiting for the Rage to overtake the Emperor–Valor, performing his duty as The Emperor’s Personal and Man of the Spirit, witnessed the Emperor’s acceptance of his heir. Then the child was returned to Raeche, laid in her arms against her breast.

When the new heir to the Empire, calm and on her way to slumber, blinked up at Raeche, the Empress noticed the pale, almost icy-green irises of her eyes, which were already open, aware. They looked like the Clear Pool beneath the trees of the Forest to the East. With timid, trembling fingers, Raeche brushed back the portion of the blanket covering the baby’s head. Skin fair as the nightstar, Rucha’s wisps of hair shone with the color of the daystar at its highest.

Raeche gasped before remembering that Taritana watched with narrowed eyes. Valor stood at her side and neither would fail in their duty. Raeche steadied herself and accepted Rucha with her own rite, proud she did not stumble and inspire further suspicion.

Raeche looked up at her husband–the tall, blond, all-powerful, fair-skinned, green-eyed devil
.

She had known nothing of fear before this day.

Chapter 3

With their Personals flanking them, the Imperial couple stood on the tower balcony and presented the new heir to the Empire. The Personals swore on the Spirit the legitimacy of the child, vowing to protect her happiness and livelihood and, by doing so, protect the Empire’s happiness and livelihood, as long as they lived. This vow acted as the first official step in relieving them of their responsibilities to the Empire. Two more ceremonies and they would no longer be Personals. In the next ceremony, a child Personal would be chosen for Rucha. Her betrothed, young Eynow, would also receive one. In the final rite, Rucha would be deemed a woman, a scholar of the Spirit, and a warrior, thus ready to inherit the Empire.

As was the unwritten tradition of Personals, both Taritana and Valor relished this moment–the beginning of freedom–but neither would openly acknowledge their relief, which was also traditional. They were honored by this duty, the most important in the Empire after that of the Imperial couple, but it prevented either of them from pursuing their own lives, their own spouses, even their own property. They needed at all moments to be prepared to replace either ruler as half of the Empire in order to execute the strength of continuity.

When the ceremony was complete, the Imperial court retired to a reception in the Great Hall of Victory, named thus for its myriad tapestry depictions of the war that created an Empire even as it isolated the South.

After arriving at the reception, Valor used detached efficiency to extract himself. He greeted members of the Imperial court, danced with the Empress despite his distaste for her, and kissed his niece and Personal daughter, Rucha. He challenged the Emperor to a battle of swords–an ancient tradition–and was dutifully bested. Valor assured all in attendance that the Death White Border that separated the Empire from the land of Poachers and Riddlers needed him once more. He embraced his brother, ignoring the Empress, whom he found to be beautiful yet spoiled, powerful yet immature and spiteful. He made official declarations to Taritana while holding her hands, which she returned in kind. Then they made a traditional toast. All needed to witness their devotion to the Empire and the Imperial family.

Finally, Valor quit the reception with plans to pack before traveling to the South. While stuffing the last provisions into a bag made of the thin but nearly impenetrable greatch hide, the door whispered open and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

“Taritana.”

“Valor,” she said, her voice deep and controlled as usual. “May I enter?”

“You may.”

Valor sensed her coming deeper into the room, though he did not turn to greet her. Laying eyes on her might very well lead to disaster. Besides, he did not need to look at her. No one in the Empire knew her form, the way she moved, the shape of her Spirit as well as he. He busied himself with reorganizing his bags.

“You are off to the South again,” Taritana said.

“Yes, as always.”

“Is that wise?”

“The Death-White Border is lovely this season.” He smirked.

Always so devout and dutiful, she ignored his quip. Instead, she paused to say a prayer and make a sign to the Spirit for the great, fallen aurus–once thought to be immortal, indestructible–whose bones now dug into the soil of the south and curled up to the sky, marking the line of destruction for any born of the Empire who dared cross it. “As Personal, you should not put yourself in direct danger.” She did not sound concerned for his good health. Like a perfectly dedicated Personal, her concern for the Empire ruled.

“Better me than Lanus.”

Her silence marked agreement.

“You and I both know the sole danger facing our Emperor is the Empress. What happens to me is of no importance. He will survive.”

He sensed her shudder. Sensed her come nearer. Not near enough to touch, only to whisper. She wanted something from him. “Valor, I know what part of the Spirit takes you. I know your real name. I need to know–”

“You know very little, Taritana, especially about me.” He knew the words would sting. She did not care over much for him but she had never been treated to his temper either. It would make her uncomfortable. Far be it for Valor to leave her, his secret weakness, to her discomfort. “I apologize for my tone, Second Empress. The Empire is strong but there are those that stir the wind with questions. You have done something to calm the swaying trees and breaking waves, for now. It is an honorable thing you have done, Taritana.”

He imagined she nodded. When he felt her hand on his back his muscles tightened and his hands turned to fists on his favorite quiver.

“Thank you,” she said.

He turned to regard her. Tall, like all women from the North, she stood at the same height as his brother Lanus, a scant few inches shorter than himself. She had shining waves of hair that vacillated from blond to brown almost as if changed by mood. Her large eyes were blue-gray but could also darken at a moment’s notice. She had generous lips, very strong brows and cheeks…even her nose dared those around her to call her anything less than beauty. Her square jaw seemed fit for a man, yet she appeared completely feminine. Valor could not understand it. Surely, her beauty differed from Raeche’s–the Empress was small and dark, her features delicate–yet Taritana could hold a man spellbound with her raw, bold, daring beauty. Raeche held a man spellbound like a neurotoxin.

“She swims as poison in his blood.” Taritana said aloud what echoed in his mind.

“Yes.”

“And she does not even know it. How can she be such a fool?”

Not often one to defend the Empress in any way, his sense of fairness overrode every other instinct. “Raeche has never known anything else but her existence as Empress. She knows little of the Spirit of Nature. Her father died long ago. Her mother–we both know–is a fool of auru proportions. She has no sisters. By rights, her education on such matters should fall to you.”

Taritana frowned. “For that I have surely earned the Spirit of Disappointment.”

He tilted his head to the side, blond locks falling forward. “I find it intriguing that being a sister to her is your only perceived failure as a Personal.”

“I have a sister,” she snapped.

“In the eyes of the Empire, Ina is not your sister. Raeche is your family as Lanus is mine.”

“Lanus is
really
your brother. Dahouina is
really
my sister, not Raeche.”

Valor would get nowhere if he followed this path. He changed his tone to one of conspiracy. “Tell me. What has she done now that is worse than all she has done before to provoke your ire? For that matter, what have
you
done now that causes you such irritation? My Spirit senses justice, yet you…”

The Empress’s Personal raised her shoulders and the slightest shimmer appeared at the corner of one eye.

The Emperor’s Personal put out his hand. At his silent request, Taritana came closer. She opened her left hand to him and peeled back a thin red pad covering the small space below the lines of her fingers and above the lines of her palm. The skin there was pale and soft–no different in appearance than the rest of her hand.

Valor touched the exposed flesh with his fingertips. A rush of Spirit closed his eyes and the vision took form.

* * * *

With a night-blue hood pulled low over her eyes, Taritana watched from a dark parapet.

The rich forest of the East formed a natural boundary around the Imperial wing of the palace. Brittle brambles grew dense in the winter, making the woods practically impenetrable without the use of Spirit or the help of the Lovers’ Opalus. On this cool night the woods opened like the flower of the single-vine. Dark but streaked with lighter shadows, the opening accepted Raeche’s dark silhouette.

Earlier that evening, the Imperial couple had celebrated two rings of marriage before the Empire. That night, Raeche used her beauty to tempt a bold timra player to suicide by another’s hand. All saw his flirtation, but recklessly Raeche encouraged him, so much so that the fool believed her Personal to be complicit.

Though Taritana had delivered the message from Galan, the timra player, she had believed Raeche would laugh and mock. Instead, she treated the Spirit-enhanced missive like the most valuable of gifts. The Personal had also believed Raeche smart enough, devout enough, not to take part in any forbidden liaison. In that, Taritana was also wrong.

When the woods closed behind Raeche, Taritana knew that even if she summoned the guards no one would make it in time to follow the Empress. Even if they penetrated the forest Raeche would be lost to them, for she sought the Lovers’ Opalus. The Empress was ever the fool, willfully ignorant of the rumbles of the Imperial couple’s failure to produce an heir had begun to shake the Empire. Taritana would allow no further humiliation of Lanus.

She had to tell him. The Emperor would reject Raeche, for she had betrayed the man and the Empire by lying with the timra player while she hid from his bed and denied him an heir.

The Empress’s Personal went to the Emperor’s room and found him abed, naked. When she told him what she knew, she watched in awe as he covered his perfect body and demanded she take him to the exact spot on the parapet where she had seen Raeche. Ice started to fall from the sky as they stood shoulder to shoulder, waiting for her to appear.

When the East Forest returned her, Raeche stepped out without a cloak. Instead, she wore a white gown, bright in the night against the backdrop of her streaming black hair and dark skin. Even from the parapet, they could see her slight form shivering under the burden of a dress weighed down with water. Though her face was hardly visible, they could tell she tried to keep water from her eyes. Then a nearly imperceptible bubble, perfectly born from Spirit of Heat and Protection, encircled the Empress.

Raeche had never mastered any Spirit well enough to protect herself this way.

Taritana gasped and stepped away from the Emperor.

He did not even look at her. “I will not let her make herself sick with this folly.”

“But–”

“Help me keep her warm, sister. We will devise a plan.”

* * * *

Valor felt Taritana’s horror at his brother’s words. Lanus had not known, but he had nearly broken the woman then. He destroyed her faith in the Spirit and the Empire when next he required her to assist with his plan.

Valor pulled back his hand. Watched as she covered her palm again with the sliver of red tape.

“You have done the right thing. Understand that here.” He touched his temple. “And believe it here.” He touched his chest above his heart.

She nodded. A slight flush chased across her cheeks as she studied him. “Some moments you look almost exactly like him,” she mused. “Your voice is deeper than the Emperor’s and, though younger, you are taller, and sometimes seem wiser. At least in your sensible disapproval of the Empress.” This time her voice was breathy and high. He found he loathed the sound of it.