Jessa sighed heavily as all eyes were fixed on her. She took a sip of wine from a ridiculous golden goblet encrusted with pearls the size of chicken eggs. She was by far the youngest person at the table, excluding Torin. Her inexperience had been made painfully obvious by her nearly fatal journey to the Abyss. And yet… she was the only person on her counsel who had not taken full leave of their senses.
“An assassination of a duly elected representative of our Protectorate allies?” Jessa phrased it as a question, but it came off as an accusation. “Have you all lost your
fucking
minds?”
“Jessa,” Sireen explained, placing her finger in Torin’s tiny hand. “We all respect what you’re trying to accomplish—”
“Do not assume you are safe from my anger just because you hold my son, Sireen. Torin would feel my lightning as a tickle.”
“The Mirrored City is like the inbred cousin of democracy, your majesty,” Turnbull said. “Baash is a theocracy in all but name. Women are chattel and people like mys—Maddox and Heath are treated as criminals.”
“Heath
is
a criminal—of the highest order,” Jessa corrected. “And while I feel for the plight of those who are treated differently because of their sex or sexual preference, there is an easy remedy for those living under oppression unavailable to the people of Thrycea. They can cross the street and live under a different government.”
“The matter is not domestic but foreign policy,” Warmaster Joy said. “The Mirrored City has always been a fickle force on the Grand Assembly, depending on which faction is in power. Baash dislikes offensive military deployment on principle, regardless of the need.”
Jessa swirled her wine. “They sound like lovely people. If only more nations harbored such notions. Ours, for example.”
“Your grace,” Cameron said. “We will not win this war through anything but a show of force. The Patriarch was a stubborn fool who never lost sons or fathers to the battlefield while Volkov’s and Rivern’s children bear the hard cost of freedom. Dessim understands this.”
Jessa looked to Pisclatet who was busy writing something in a notebook. “Pisclatet? Do you have any justifications for our atrocious actions to add to the discussion?”
He nodded and blinked his bulbous fish eyes. “Human feet are disgusting, your grace. Yet Pisclatet finds himself fixated on espadrilles. Why would this be? The fevered workings of Pisclatet’s mind elude even him.”
“Thank you for your candor,” Jessa replied. “Can any of you think of any plausible reason I should not replace the lot of you with advisors who will act in the spirit of my interests?”
“Pisclatet is the best clothier in Creation, your grace,” the fishman calmly explained. “Rayaia of Karthanteum is the closest, but she is deathly afraid of water and will not come anywhere close to Mazitar.”
“Dear niece,” Sireen said. “We are your council because we are the
only
people you can trust. Any Stormlords who are not your kin will turn on you the moment you show weakness. Cameron is the father of your child, with deep knowledge of the Protectorate’s politics, and Pisclatet, impertinent as he may be, is a proven spymaster.”
Jessa wanted to slam her head into the table. “Are there any more assassinations I should know about?”
Cameron said, “Concern yourself with making a just and free empire, your grace. There are a lot of new assholes we need to rip into the Thrycean nobility and quite a few in the Protectorate who would see you dead just because of your blood. Let us deal with them.”
“Turnbull,” Jessa said, “is there a list?”
“Not one we should write down, your majesty,” he demurred.
Warmaster Joy interjected, “Is it better to take the lives of hundreds of soldiers, who care only for duty, or the handful of individuals who lead those armies? I can adjust my strategy as you desire, for as long as you can afford soldiers. Patreans are not afraid of death.”
Jessa opened her mouth to speak but words did not come. She drank more wine.
Kondole preserve me,
I’m turning into Mother.
Jessa sighed. “Where is Nasara on that list?”
Cameron said, “She’s a top priority, but we can’t get to her.”
She still found it hard to address him directly. “Pisclatet? You’re the spymaster. What is preventing us?”
Pisclatet sighed heavily, with his massive throat, for a good while before answering. “Nasara and Sireen have had decades to scheme against each other. Each has spies in the other’s court. Each knows exactly who those spies are. Each one feeds them misinformation that the other knows is misinformation. Some of them work for both. None can be trusted.”
“It’s true,” Sireen said. “We pay them handsomely for intelligence that we never even look at. It’s impossible to know what’s true and what’s meant to mislead. It’s better to ignore and leave the spies in place.”
Jessa pondered. “Then we hire a mercenary from some part of Creation that has no ties. What about Asherai? Or Karthanteum?”
“Nasara is a Stormlord,” Sireen said gently. “We live under constant suspicion of assassination. A foreigner would be detected from miles away. And Nasara is near to being a Tempest herself—they are not easy to kill. Assassins know this.”
Jessa leaned back. “We killed my mother by slashing her artery while she was distracted.”
Turnbull added delicately, “With the Razor of Setahari, a weapon forged in ancient Sarn. I doubt a steel dagger would cut it, to pardon the pun. But we do possess the Razor of Setahari—”
“You were unable to destroy it as Tempest,” Cameron cautioned.
“We are not using that vile thing. I would rather Nasara sit on the Coral Throne and dance atop my mutilated cadaver than allow the Razor back into the world,” Jessa stressed.
The Razor was like the Sword, it took over whoever wielded it, only it was not friendly. It was the architect of the plague of Harrowings that had crippled Rivern, and it turned on its ally, Riley, as soon as it was convenient.
“It was just a thought, your grace,” Turnbull said.
Jessa finished her goblet of wine. “What about me?”
Cameron protested, “You risk too much already! Our son needs his mother.”
Jessa locked eyes with him. “My son needs to be safe.”
“Jessa…”
She stood and spread her arms toward her advisors. “I’m nineteen years old. I lived in a drafty old castle in an impoverished nation with a mother who despised me. Up until a year ago, my greatest wish was to marry Torin Silverbrook and give him three beautiful children. One son and two daughters. I had never once sat on a throne or wielded any power save for what flows through my veins.
“We can all tacitly agree that I have no business sitting on a throne. I know nothing of politics or war. In this regard, I am at the mercy of your decisions because by every measure I am a soft, incompetent ruler.”
Cameron turned his head.
Pisclatet nodded heartily. “Yes, but do not be so hard on yourself. Your profile has a pleasing geometry, and you will look ravishing on coins.”
“I get that from my father.” Jessa was starting to feel cheeky. “Josur the second had more than a pleasing geometry. He was a king of the people, who endeavored to understand their struggles even as my mother systematically unmanned him for her amusement. In the end, I was the one who killed him by holding a pillow over his face until his body squirmed no longer.”
No one spoke a word.
“The one time my mother found a scrap of sentiment in her bitter blackened heart was when a suffering man needed mercy.” Jessa laughed. “It’s ironic. She killed thousands without the slightest concern, but she couldn’t bring herself to give her husband a merciful death. Humanity is a strange beast. It survives in the most inhuman places; crippled and sickly, it finds its way even into the worst of us.”
She walked around the table, taking her son from Sireen’s arms. He was warm and had the warm, sweet fragrance of a newborn baby. Her baby. She kissed his forehead and smiled.
“I was never supposed to sit on the Coral Throne,” Jessa cooed to her son. “I was never supposed to be more than a wife and mother, and do you know what? I never wanted to be. But here I am, the fucking
Tempest
.”
She turned her silver gaze on her dumbfounded advisors.
Jessa smiled. “So I don’t know what to do in this situation. I have no clue because I never in my life expected it to happen. While I was planning my wedding, my mother and aunt were planning their imperial coronations. Nasara is older, smarter, and vastly more experienced. She has the support of the Stormlords, the blood sages, and the coelacanth. My support relies solely on the dubious outcome of an assassination in a far-flung city.”
“Heath will get the vote in the Grand Assembly,” Cameron said. “He is as devious a Stormlord as Nasara. More so, I’d wager.”
“And I am not.”
Sireen pleaded, “Jessa, no one is saying that.”
Jessa shook her head. “You’re not listening. I am
not
an Empress. I don’t want to be, anyway. I don’t want to play games or hide behind a network of useless spies in Mazitar, waiting for a vote in Bamor, while Nasara builds her navy. Warmaster Joy had the right idea: we can end this by killing my aunt.”
“We are trying, your majesty,” Cameron said.
Jessa tilted her head. “I know. But… as much as I am underqualified for the position that has been thrust on me, the same applies to you. My mother was loathsome as any creature to walk Creation, but she understood one thing more than any Stormlord who came before her.”
Sireen folded her hands and smiled approvingly.
Jessa walked over to Cameron and handed him their son. “If you want something done properly, you need to do it yourself. I need to kill Nasara.”
Turnbull clutched his neck. “She has the Thunderstone. One scratch could kill you.”
“My grandfather Nash was stabbed in his stomach by a Thunderstone. I felt it when he died and his power flowed into me. If a scratch was all it took, then why drive it that deep? I think the Thunderstones are a lie to keep us afraid. Have you seen one kill with ‘but a scratch,’ Sireen?”
Sireen shook her head. “The effects can be unpredictable, but they do afford protection from lightning. That much has been well documented. It’s dangerous to underestimate the coelacanth’s magic.”
“It’s more dangerous to trust a word they say,” Jessa said. “A thousand years ago, they convinced a bunch of pirates to rape and murder the peaceful inhabitants of this very island to claim their power. I’ve met Kultea—she doesn’t give a flying fuck what we do topside. And the coelacanth have pretended for centuries to be our allies when they give us nothing.”
“Thunderstone is exquisite in color and specularity,” Pisclatet admitted. “I wouldn’t call that
nothing
.”
“Duly noted, spymaster.”
Pisclatet bowed graciously.
Jessa leaned on the round table. “We do this without war, without spies. I don’t know how to be an Empress, but I do know how to wield my Heritage. Get me into the Sunken Palace, and I will kill Nasara personally. You have experience orchestrating assassinations? Let’s plan one that
matters
.”
“There are grottoes beneath the Sunken Palace—” Sireen said.
Pisclatet waved his arms. “No. Every moron in the Sunken Palace knows about the grottoes. The best way in is through the kraken pits.”
Jessa grabbed her goblet and filled it with more wine from the decanter. “Go on…”
T
HIRTY-
T
WO
Revelation
H
EATH
The Patreans were masters of grafting and bio manipulation. We think of the fearsome things like the battle hulk skeletons or the grisly chimera surgeons. But the archeological evidence and surviving remnants show a whimsical side to their tinkering in the natural order.
The ducks of Velrailles have blood that bears the exact flavor and alcohol content of a finely aged cormieu. Not only can one get drunk on duck’s blood, the meat requires no marinating, making it efficient for both cooking and viniculture.
I have attempted similar experiments with blue comb chickens to moderate success. The blood, while potently alcoholic, is nearly undrinkable. Also the chickens’ motor function and impulse control are severely impaired.
—
MAGUS WINTERHOLT, UNPUBLISHED RESEARCH
HEATH STRUGGLED AGAINST
the chimera’s grasp as his vision disintegrated into a whorl of blackness. In an instant, he was staring up at the sun and clouds. Another flutter and he felt himself hurled through the air with great force. It took him a while to get his bearings as he flew head over heels, seeing the sky and street below whirl around him with dizzying speed.
He had been tossed off the roof of Freedom House by a teleporting monstrosity. Teleportation was a disorienting experience, but his Stormlord reflexes and previous experience afforded him a precious extra second to act before he hit the crowded cobblestone street below.
He relaxed his muscles, bent his knees, and covered his head. He tried to land feet first, but he was still spinning. Heath winced, readying his Light to heal himself. Solar armor would have been great, but Daphne had never taught him that trick.