Page 183 of The Cradle of Ice
What seemed like ages ago, atop Rami’s balcony, his friend had expressed a desire to take Kanthe into the M’venlands, to share with him the blooming fields of tabak.
Now everything has changed.
He glanced over to Aalia. She lounged next to Tazar, leaning her head against his shoulder. He held an arm around her, as if trying to protect her from the storm of events.
“Aalia would make a great empress,” Rami said. “If allowed.”
“Still, she did not look happy at Tykhan’s offer of the crown. As I recall, she and Tazar had ambitions to end the hardfisted tyranny of emperors—only now she must take on that role herself.”
“The circlet may chafe, but she’ll be able to make changes, to break chains, to try to stem the decline of a stagnant empire.”
Kanthe nodded. “I don’t doubt her good intentions. But it is easier to wish for such a goal, even to fight for it, but once the reins are handed to you, lofty dreams become weighted by stony reality.”
“Like facing my brothers and the imperial council.”
Kanthe read the worry in Rami’s face. “How will your brothers take such a claim?”
“I cannot truly say. The Augury’s ploy may end up getting us all killed. That’s if we can even trust him? He is weighted down by secrets as much as all that bronze.”
Kanthe slowly nodded and stared toward the wheelhouse door. Tykhan had vanished inside after Aalia finished her long missive. It had required multiple strips of parchment to lay out her case. But Kanthe doubted all the parchment in the world could truly accomplish that. Any success depended on the addled emperor and the puppeteer who pulled his strings.
Tykhan had taken Aalia’s curled and sealed message into the wheelhouse, where he had affixed it to a skrycrow and sent it winging out a window toward Kysalimri. Afterward, Tykhan had remained inside there, leaving many questions on this side of the door.
Behind Kanthe, Frell and Pratik debated and pondered a hundred subjects concerning the Sleeper of Malgard. For Kanthe, their chatter had faded into a drone. At one point, they had tried to pull him into their discussions, but he had waved them off. To him, it was all spent breaths and suppositions. Any true answers were locked in bronze up front.
He preferred the patient attitude of Llyra, who picked at a fingernail with a tip of a dagger. Jester and Mead drowsed nearby. Elsewhere, the Rhysians had also given up their game of daggers and sat quietly, looking meditative.
“How is your father doing?” Kanthe asked Rami, wincing a bit, knowing this was a sore matter for the prince.
Rami craned back to look at the stern cabin. “When I left him, he had fallen asleep. But I should—”
The door back there banged open. Emperor Makar burst out, wild-eyed and disheveled. From the dampness at his crotch, he had soiled himself. He rushed out with a shout of fury. He tripped over a table in his haste and sprawled headlong to a crash.
Rami rushed toward him. “Father!”
Makar rolled away, lifting his arms. “Who are you all? Where am I?”
He clearly remained confused, but his words were ripe with command, firm with the authority he once wielded.
“It’s Rami … your son.”
His sister hurried over, drawing Tazar, too. “Father, it’s Aalia. I’m here, too.”
Makar shook his head, breathing hard, struggling to recognize them.
The wheelhouse door slammed open behind Kanthe. Before he could turn, Tykhan blurred across the space, demonstrating the speed of a ta’wyn. He brushed through the others.
“Let me,” he said as he drew to a stop, dropping to a knee next to Makar.
Bronze fingers brushed across the emperor’s brow. Upon their touch, Makar slumped to the deck, accompanied by a small sigh of relief.
“I’m sorry,” Tykhan said as he stood and faced them, lifting an arm. “I’ve been distracted.”
They all backed away, fearing that same touch.
Tykhan lowered his arm. “I had needed a quiet moment to ruminate on the variables that lay ahead of us. So much has changed of late, and I wanted to ensure my calculations and suppositions hadn’t been skewed off course.”
Rami remained at his father’s side. “What did you do to him?”
