I slipped the cane from its loop and set it on the table. He looked suitably startled, and shifted his chair away. “I should be careful if I were you, Drake. Because what you don’t understand is that I can be the instrument of your death. And if you anger me enough, I will. In fact, I’m thinking about it right now.”
Heat stung the air. “Don’t try to duel with me.”
“James!” said the general.
“Why do you always scold me and never her?” he demanded as the spark vanished. “Anyway, what do you expect a man to do when an attractive gal throws herself at him? By the way, that object she carries around so casually is pure cold steel. She’s no doubt in league with that cursed cold mage and means to hand him the sword to do you in the moment he gets close enough.”
I set my hands on the table and leaned toward him. “He’s worth a hundred of you.” I took in a few breaths to calm myself, then looked at Camjiata. “No wonder you wanted my mother to die if you believed she would give birth to a child who would kill you.”
“It does not work that way.” He had the means to hold your gaze even when you wanted to look away. This, too, was a form of sorcery: the ability to command. “Anyway, we do not execute pregnant women. You would have been born regardless.”
I pressed a hand over the cane, feeling the quiver of its magic through my sweaty skin. “Babies are easy to dispose of.”
“The djeliw teach us that our destiny is already written. As long as you are alive, I can be alive. But if you are dead, then I must already be dead.”
“I suppose that’s meant to be reassuring. What is your destiny, General?”
“To free Europa from the petty quarrels and greed of princes and cold mages. To unite all its peoples under one just code of law.”
“With you conveniently seated as emperor.”
His easy smile made my lips quirk despite my mistrust. “I am meant to sit in an emperor’s throne. It is the role my mother raised me for.”
“How can she have raised you for that?”
“She was the favored daughter of the patrician Aemillius lineage. They cast her off when she betrothed herself against their wishes to an Iberian captain. He was highborn enough. His mother was an Iberian princess and his father was born into the princely Keita lineage. But her people scorned all Iberians and desired her to marry to suit their schemes, so they cast her off in the most public way imaginable. They stripped her naked and whipped her onto the street as a whore. You should have some sympathy for her plight, Cat.”
I frowned, thinking of the way Aunt Tilly and Uncle Jonatan had given me to the mage House in Bee’s place. At least they had wept.
“She raised me to be the instrument of her revenge. I dare not dishonor her memory. But I have no child to foist off as my heir. The imperiate will dissolve after I am dead, leaving behind a better legal code and the abolishment of clientage. So you must ask yourself if the people of Europa will be better off or worse off than they are now. I must wonder, Cat, if there is something your cold mage wants very badly that I could offer him in exchange for his support.”
I sat down as hard as if all the air had been punched from my lungs.
The abolishment of clientage.
Bee placed a hand over mine. “Let’s go out to the balcony to get some air.”
An uneasy feeling rippled down my spine. I nodded. We rose and went out into a patch of shade. The air was sticky with humidity and thick with the scent of flowers. I closed the doors behind us. A guard clothed in a dark blue tabard and holding a rifle glanced up at us from his station at a gate set into the back wall; his gaze widened; then he looked away.
Bee wasn’t looking into the garden. She stared at the railing, her mouth twisted down with shame. “I’m sorry for the part I played in all this. I did truly think you wanted out of the marriage.”
“You couldn’t have known I changed my mind.”
“I truly didn’t know most of what was going on. Obviously I was just being tremendously naïve. And he did say he wanted the cold mage alive, in his army.”
I leaned against her shoulder in the familiar way. “I’ve already forgiven you, Bee.”
“He doesn’t want to harm you, Cat. He told me so many stories about your mother. He speaks of her with the greatest esteem. I think he looks on you as he might look on a niece.”
“One with a sword in her hand?” I glanced through the closed glass doors. Inside, Camjiata was working through a second plate of food with the pleasure of a man who enjoys eating, while Drake was picking through fried slices of potato as if looking for an elusive shard of triumph.