The Silvered (59 page)

Jesine reached out, fingers closing around Kirstin’s wrist. “Let me help. Is it the baby?”

Lips drawn back, Kirstin snatched her hand away. “There is no baby!”

‘But the prophecy…?”

“Soothsayers are insane. Everyone but His Imperial Majesty seems to know that.”

“Are you sure?”

“That Soothsayers are insane?” Kirstin’s laugh lifted the hair on the back of Danika’s neck. There was no way anyone listening would think she was laughing at Stina’s story no matter that Annalyse tried to laugh with her. “Pretty sure, yes.”

“Kirstin…”

“My blood came last night.”

Jesine shook her head. “There could be many reasons for blood. You could be…”

“Miscarrying? Had three. I know what a miscarriage is like. I know because I had one just before the Imperial army decided to destroy our lives.”

“Yes, but…”

“Jesine.” Danika cut the Healer-mage off. “She’s known all along there was no baby. She was still mourning her last miscarriage when we were taken.” That explained…well, everything. “That’s why she dared try to remove the net.” Kirstin’s expression suggested she was an idiot for taking so long to figure it out. Maybe she was. “They go into our cells when we’re in the water room and they go in while we’re here. Will they find anything?”

“Like blood?” Kirstin snorted. “What difference does it make? Like the golden girl says, there could be many reasons for blood.

She was terrified and trying to hide it. Danika could see fear in every brittle movement and hear it on the edge of her tongue. There’d been enough blood then that no one could mistake it. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I heard the prophecy when you did, Alpha…”

Kirstin made the title an insult. Danika let it pass.

“…and Leopald needs six mages expecting children. There were
already only five of us. What were their orders if they came up short? Would they kill us all and start again if they found out?”

“You’re talking about your unfortunate stains on the bed, aren’t you?”

Danika snapped her gaze up to Leopald’s little rathole so fast she felt the movement in her neck. She’d been so intent on Kirstin, she hadn’t noticed it open.

“I admit, I was angry at first.” Leopald frowned in an overly false and concerned way. “But then I realized I should consider the misrepresentation of your condition as an opportunity.”

“An opportunity?” Danika repeated, switching to Imperial. Eyes locked on Leopald’s face, she got slowly to her feet, hearing the others do the same.

“Exactly. An opportunity I thought I wouldn’t get for some months now.” He leaned forward, hands on his knees, eyes shining as though he was about to share wonderful news. “I’m not going to kill your little friend, I’m going to start building the future of the empire now. I’m going to breed her.”

Danika actually felt her mouth fall open. He’d mentioned breeding before, but she hadn’t…because he couldn’t…

Straightening, he beckoned to the guards. “Take the small dark one to the door into the research wing.”

“You’re insane!” Danika moved around to Kirstin’s side as Mole-under-ear and Poked-chin came away from the wall. She shoved Mole-under-the-ear back, her attention on Leopald, peripherally aware that both the other women and the other guards were also moving. “You are certifiably insane!”

“And you are abomination,” Leopald snapped. “Which puts you in no position to judge.” The guards’ hands closed around Danika’s upper arms as he added, “Take her, too.”

T
HE EMPEROR PUSHED through the curtains at the back of the observation booth before the wall had finished closing, paused and stared up at Reiter, cheeks flushed, eyes narrowed. “Something bothering you, Captain?”

There were so many things bothering him, Reiter didn’t know where to start. Particularly as he’d like to stay alive after the telling. It wasn’t that the mage had called the emperor insane; it was that the moment the word had been spoken he’d realized it was true. One moment he saw
the emperor
, the next moment he saw a man. A man who kept pregnant women captive, not as an act of war or to keep the empire safe as Seen in prophecy, but for his own
insane
reasons.

“Yes, Majesty.”

The emperor barked out a surprised laugh. “Credit where credit is due, Captain. At least you’re not a liar.” He patted a bit of Reiter’s ridiculous gold braid and started down the stairs. “The dark-haired mage has lied to me since she arrived.”

His shoulders were right there, right by Reiter’s boot, and the stairs were narrow and high. Unfortunately, there was no guarantee of a broken neck and, given that he was alone with the emperor,
fairly high odds he’d die regardless of how successful the attempt.

“I despise liars.” Most of the anger had faded from the emperor’s voice, leaving it tired and slightly betrayed. “Well, anyone would who spent as much time as I do with politicians, wouldn’t they? Still, the sixth mage hasn’t yet arrived, and I expect as long as I have them all pregnant at once, I’ll have fulfilled the prophecy in good faith.”

“Uh…breeding the mage, Majesty, right now…is it…that is…” This was not a conversation Reiter ever expected to have, but maybe he could buy the mages some time. “Will she catch during her…bleeding, Majesty?”

“A very good question, Captain.” The emperor sounded intrigued. “I don’t suppose you discussed fertility with your mage?”

“No, sir.”

“It’s hard to know what information will end up being important, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. But with other bleeding…” Flame it! He was not using the word animals. “…females, their bodies aren’t receptive.”

“They aren’t?”

“No, sir.” Reiter found himself hoping the emperor had never had a dog.

“I expect I’d have known that if I’d kept a few female abominations. There didn’t seem to be much point at the time as all my high-powered mages were—or were about to be according to the Soothsayers—female, and breeding my own was the ultimate point of the exercise. Still, that’s why we have the scientific method: observation, measurement, testing, and experimentation to modify the hypothesis. And nothing else remotely like the abominations exist, you know. They’re unique.” Instead of moving down the narrow corridor back toward the palace, the emperor turned, and pointed at the lantern hanging to the right of the stairs. “If you could remove that, please.”

The gaslines that had been brought in to light most of the newer parts of the palace hadn’t been extended into the north wing. Or at least they hadn’t been brought into the hidden corridor leading into the north wing. Was it because the gas was a type of flammable air and an Air-mage would be able to work with it? Wondering who filled the oil lamps and how much they knew, Reiter lifted the lantern
off the ornate brass bracket and stepped back, giving the emperor room to reach up and pull the bracket down.

A piece of the wall folded back, exposing a corridor that ran parallel to the room the mages were in. Had been in.
Were
being dragged out of by pairs of guards. The lever on the inside of the wall was in full sight, the works themselves were exposed—polished steel gears and chains and parts Reiter didn’t recognize. The emperor patted a brass curve fondly before closing the door and leading the way to the right along the hidden corridor, past another set of gears and levers, under a line of old-fashioned oil lamps.

Reiter could do nothing but follow. He clenched his teeth so hard a muscle in his jaw began to spasm. He was impotent; considering where they were going, the word was darkly apt.

“I hadn’t intended to take you any farther with me into the north wing. The work I’m doing there has only peripheral connection to the mages, after all, and it was with the mages that the Soothsayers Saw you’d be useful; however, two things have changed. Do you know what they are, Captain?”

“The mage…”

“Yes, of course, the dark-haired liar. That was a little obvious, wasn’t it? Actually, now I consider it, the second point is fairly obvious as well.”

Reiter had no…“Cobb.”

“Well done!”

He despised himself for his involuntary flush of pleasure at the Imperial praise.

“I choose my staff for, among other things, their ability to not speak out of turn. So much of my life is public, I like to maintain the minimal amount of privacy I have. To keep it, as it were, private.”

“So Cobb was a test, Majesty?”

“Of course. You were Seen by the Soothsayers, and I had certainly hoped you could take the place Major Halyss was to fulfill, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you could be trusted.”

Reiter’s knees actually felt a little weak, his relief out proportion to the amount of time he’d spent with Cobb. “So she wasn’t…removed.”

“Of course, she was removed. As I said, Captain, I like to keep what’s private, private, and the north wing is mine alone—the guards
are mine, the scientists are mine, the experiments are mine. Although no one will ever know the effort I’ve put in, I fully intend to use the results of my research to benefit the empire. If you’ll recall, I mentioned how the discovery that abominations are necessary to create mages will eventually leave us with the only truly functional mages in this part of the world. The Imperial armies will be unstoppable. More than they are now, of course,” he added with a smile that suggested he didn’t want to hurt Reiter’s feelings, Reiter being in the army.

Telling even a sane emperor to shut up would be suicidal, but Reiter wanted him to stop talking almost enough to risk it. He didn’t sound crazy when he talked. He sounded rational. Scientific. Smart. He sounded a lot saner than half the brass Reiter had served under. When he talked, it was hard to remember what he
meant
.

At the end of the corridor, the emperor waved Reiter forward to open a normal door—no iron bars or massive locks to warn of the horrors it hid—then stepped through and smiled his thanks. “Although my observation booth is technically part of the north wing, we’re in the north wing proper now. That door…” He pointed to the right between two guards in the same uniform as the men who guarded the mages. “…leads out into an antechamber where the pages wait. They don’t come any farther. While I’m all for expanding the scientific curiosity of the young, there are some things the youthful mind is just not flexible enough to experience. Science is not always pleasant, and the search for enlightenment can take dark paths. Beyond the antechamber is the palace. Well, the rest of the palace, of course, as this is also the palace. It’s huge, you know. Of course you do; you’ve probably spent the last few days trying to find your way around it. Now this way…” He turned to the left, indicating Reiter should fall in behind him. “…is the way to the testing rooms. I suspect we’ll have arrived first.”

Constant repetition of
harmless
may have ensured no shots were fired as they fought the guards to keep from being separated, but it changed nothing in the end. Securely held between two large men, Danika saw Stina, Jesine, and Annalyse dragged back to their cells while she and Kirstin were forced down the stairs into the dark.

Panic rising, Danika reminded herself that Leopald had ordered them taken to the north wing, not the cells. Not the cells. The north wing. She laughed, unable to stop the awful sound from escaping at the thought of preferring new horrors to old. Chipped-tooth wrapped an arm around her waist, his new hold gentler if just as secure.

Weight hanging off her guards’ hands, Kirstin braced both feet against the wall and pushed. She wasn’t very large, but she’d never been weak. Bruised-thumb stumbled off the edge of a step. Swayed. Began to fall. He’d have fallen alone if he’d just let go of Kirstin’s arm. Dimples could have saved himself if he’d let go. They both hung on. The three of them landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, Kirstin somehow, amazingly, on the top of the pile. She scrambled to her feet and limped past the line of dark cells to the rough wall at the far end where they cornered and recaptured her.

Three steps higher, Danika watched it all.

The fall, the landing, the chase—all done in silence. Dimples cried out when he landed. Bruised-thumb made no sound.