Page 101 of A Dance of Shadows

Aurelia

When we reach the clearing halfway up the steepest of Costel’s surrounding hills, my husband looks rather peeved—and sweaty. I don’t think he anticipated the carriages only being able to carry us partway up and having to walk the rest of the way. And he’s dressed as if it’s already the depths of winter, his formal suit all layers of fine wool.

He spins toward my parents, who’ve been clambering up the path at the head of the crowd behind us, and folds his arms over his chest. “All right. This is where you said we should go, isn’t it?”

My father eases ahead of us to motion toward the nearly sheer hillside that rises from the clearing several feet away. Tufts of grass and sprigs of wilted wildflowers cling to pockets of soilamid the uneven rock, but this section is mostly pale, rippled stone.

“Just over here,” he says. To my relief, he motions to the gaping cave entrance that stands about halfway along the rocky surface, almost twice as tall as I am and wider still. “That’s where we conduct the ceremonies honoring Kosmel’s clever advice.”

Nothing he’s said is a lie. Wedohold the annual memorials within that arcing space—because it’s close enough to the actual site and easier to gather all the city folk who want to join us there. The cave itself isn’t the one from the fable, as far as we understand.

Itcouldn’tbe, because it’s only made up of that one large cavern with no passages branching off.

That fact won’t be obvious from the shadowy space Linus peers into. As I venture to join him, he stares into the dark depths, up at the arching entrance, and then around us, taking in the rest of the steep hillside.

My heart thuds faster. What if I judged wrong? What if he meant to offer a slightly easier divine task to the country of his empress’s birth?

I could have ruined our chances rather than saving them.

I stand serenely as he draws back a few paces and takes in the terrain again. A few dozen members of both courts as well as a swarm of curious commoners gradually assemble in the rest of the clearing, held back from the emperor by our guards.

Amid the panting and surreptitious grumbling of the Darium nobles, who’ve never made this trek before, I catch a hoarse wheeze that I suspect comes from Bastien’s single lung. I ball my hand at my side, resisting the urge to glance back and confirm the exertion hasn’t hit him too hard.

Linus clicks his tongue, his expression going unusually pensive but the manic glint I’ve learned to beware lighting in his eyes.

He tips his head toward a much shorter, narrower crevice some twenty paces farther along the hillside. “It appears we have plenty of caves to choose from. I’d say if we want to be true to the spirit of Kosmel’s lesson, we should explore territory that isn’t quite so charted. Let’s take a look at this one.”

As he strides over, Mother’s gaze flicks toward me—startled and maybe a little horrified.

Because I was right.

He wants to make this challenge as difficult as possible. I’m not sure exactly what he has in mind, but if we’d pointed him to the actual site of our ancestors’ escape into the hills many centuries ago, he’d likely have dismissed that as too “charted” as well, appearances aside. Then gods only know where he’d have directed us for his sadistic pleasure.

A few murmurs pass between the locals behind us, but no one is foolhardy enough to suggest the emperor is mistaken. And technically, the cavern he’s dismissedisfar more explored than the real one of legend, both because there’s much less of it to survey and because we’ve discouraged our citizens from treating the original site as a source of entertainment.

Now I suppose it’ll serve as just that for my husband.

He walks up to the crevice, which is just wide enough for two men to squeeze in next to each other. The passage’s ceiling only rises about a foot above Linus’s head, but it veers off far into the hillside.

My husband cocks his head and then shoots a grin back at the rest of us. “Yes, I think this will do nicely.”

“What exactly did you have in mind, Your Imperial Majesty?” Father asks in a carefully even tone.

Linus rubs his hands together, his grin stretching wider. “If I have the story right, some of the first people to venture into this domain took shelter in that cave over there while fleeing pursuit. When their enemies had almost caught up with them,Kosmel appeared and told them to be as clever as rats—to vanish deep into the hillside and squeeze through tight spaces until they found another way out and could take their pursuers by surprise.”

I force a smile at him. “That’s the gist of it, husband.”

“Excellent. Then I want to see both how well you’ve all kept that Kosmelian cleverness and how energetically the people now under your rule will show their devotion to you.”

He motions to the narrower opening in front of us. “Let’s have all the Accasian nobility head in there, along with my lovely wife. Oh, and my Darium friends who’ve been most eager to help the local efforts in the past can join them as well, since they clearly appreciate a challenge.”

Counsel Etta wasn’t one of that number, but her mouth twitches as our nobles stir uneasily. “What sort of challenge will this be, Your Imperial Majesty?”

Linus flicks his hand at her dismissively. “I was getting to that. We’ll call down a little rockslide over the entrance, and then we’ll make a competition of it. Those inside search for another way out while your city folk dig open the entrance. Whoever fails to complete their task before the others will get to enjoy this cave as their permanent residence for the rest of the week, just as those old Accasian refugees did!”

My stomach sinks. With the advance preparations I advised Mother on, I’m not all that worried about our safety within the cave. But he’s set it up so that no matter what happens, one group will lose and be consigned to the dank darkness for several days.

The previous murmurs rise into a discontented muttering, but Father heads off any overt complaints with a raise of his voice. “We’ll happily demonstrate the tenacity all Accasians share in your honor. Rockslides are rather rare in this area, though.”

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