The bath on Level Three was Liane’s favorite place to relax, especially when she’d ordered everyone else from the room and had the massive and hushed chamber to herself. She floated alone in the main bath, a marble pool larger than the first room she’d slept in here at the palace. She’d shared that room with five other frightened girls, all of them captives like herself. She was the only one who had survived more than a year.
Bowls of soft flame floated in the pool with her, casting soft, flickering light into the water and onto the walls and even faintly to the ceiling far above. Flowers floated around her, too, fragrant and lovely. Liane allowed her fingers to caress one velvety, white petal as it floated past.
She did not think of the other girls very often, though they had been her friends in those first terrible months. It seemed as if that time had happened to another person, not her. She no longer gave herself the luxury of fear or tears, and that frightened child who had been taken from her home because she caught the eye of an imperial soldier had been dead a long time. When she looked back it seemed that she and all the others had been such lame-brained children. Such fools.
All of them had been so sure their families would rescue them from this hell. Even Liane. Even though she’d known that her father was a farmer who would never know how to fight the imperial soldiers, and her brothers were all children themselves, and her mother could not have fought for her even if she had not been ill, she had somehow expected...
She closed her eyes and made herself dismiss all thoughts of those days. The Liane she had become didn’t expect anything from anyone.
“May I join you?”
Liane jerked up, coming out of the water with a surprised splash. Her feet quickly found the bottom of the pool. She did not stand in the waist-deep water, but crouched there with the water touching her chin. Heavens, she had allowed herself to become so lost in the past she had not even realized another had entered the room! She relaxed when she saw who had joined her.
“Minister Sulyen,” she said, her voice not giving away so much as a hint of her surprise. “How lovely to see you, as always.”
He grinned and began to unbutton his crimson robe. “Why so formal this evening, Liane?”
She glanced beyond him to the doorway. None of his guards waited there, and he had closed the door. And locked it? She could not be sure. “Are we alone?”
He nodded as he shrugged off his garment and stepped into the pool. She had seen him naked before, and he had seen her, but it had been years since they’d been intimate. He had become her friend, early in her time on Level Three. He was the reason she’d been the one of all those frightened girls to survive.
“You have your own room for bathing, Maddox,” she said as she swam toward him.
“Yes, but there are no beautiful women in my bath.”
She returned his smile. Maddox Sulyen had become Minister of Defense at the young age of thirty-two, twenty years ago. He’d survived not only seventeen years of Sebestyen’s reign, but the last three volatile years of the previous emperor’s regime. The first few years of Sebestyen’s rule had been tumultuous. He’d been thirteen years of age, not yet a man and yet not a child who required an advisor to make all decisions. The priests had done their best to control him in those days, but their dominion had never been complete. Sebestyen had always been stubborn and independent, not easily influenced by the whims and desires of others.
A few ministers and generals who’d thought themselves capable of manipulating a thirteen-year-old ruler had found themselves dead or banished to Level Thirteen in those early years. Maddox had been much too clever to fall into that trap.
He was a handsome man, not particularly tall, but fit and always well groomed. His hair remained a fair blond, with no sign of gray or thinning, and his remarkable blue eyes sparkled like those of a much younger man. He had always been demanding in his sexual needs, and his delight in women had not diminished over the years.
“How are you?” he asked in a lowered voice, when she was close. In the palace, it paid to be cautious.
“Fine,” she answered just as softly. “And you?”
“I have survived.” Maddox reached out and touched her face, the way a friend might. “These days that is a feat all its own.”
She nodded, understanding. “Why are you here? The truth, Maddox.”
He smiled again, that warm grin that had captured hearts all across Columbyana. Fine lines around his eyes crinkled, making him look cheerful and harmless. Minister Sulyen was most definitely not harmless. “I’m traveling to the Northern Province to meet with my generals.”
“When?”
“In the morning. I plan to leave before daylight.”
“Why can your generals not come here?”
“Because the fighting is there at the moment, and they do not wish to leave their troops.”
The war seemed more of an annoyance than a danger, from behind palace walls. But Liane was very well aware that real dangers did exist. “The rebels are not so fierce that they command the presence of not only four generals but the Minister of Defense himself,” she argued.
“They have become fiercer and more organized in the past seven months.”
Liane shook her head. “Kill Arik and there will be no revolution.”
He grinned at her again. “If you’re such an expert on warfare, perhaps I should make you a general.”
“Don’t patronize me, Maddox. Arik is the driving force behind this annoyance. Kill him and the rebels have nothing to fight for.”
“If we could find him, we would.” He brushed a strand of wet hair out of her face. His touch was gentle, but not sexual. “I’m afraid the rebels have become much more than an annoyance, Liane. A month ago they defeated an army of superior forces. They captured and killed General Corann’s counsel—a clairvoyant, if you can believe it—and now they have taken the Northern Palace.”
She came up out of the water, standing tall. “What? Does the emperor know this?”
Maddox grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. “No,” he whispered. “Sebestyen knows only what I tell him, and if I inform him that Arik has taken the Northern Palace, he’ll have my head. Or worse. By the time I return, the palace will be in imperial hands once again, so there’s no reason to tell the emperor anything at all.”
If she told Sebestyen of this betrayal—and withholding such information was indeed a serious betrayal—Maddox would be killed or sent to Level Thirteen, and as the one who’d uncovered the information she’d be one step closer to becoming Sebestyen’s sole ally. And one step closer to killing the bastard.
“Then I will wish you good luck,” she said softly. “This is all very interesting, but that still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“A woman, of course,” he said. “I’d like to be well-laid before I leave on my long journey.”
“Are you thinking of anyone in particular?”
His blue eyes sparkled for a moment and he winked at her, but she knew he was teasing. They were friends, not lovers. That time had passed long ago. “You choose for me, Liane.”
“Someone tireless, then,” she said with a smile.
He kissed her on the forehead, in an unexpected gesture of friendship. “Send two.”
She laughed as Maddox swam toward the pool steps. “If you ever decide to retire your post, I will get you a position here as a Level Three Master.”
“Ah, my true calling,” he said as he climbed the steps, wet muscles rippling in the firelight.
Minister Sulyen had been a fierce general and was a well-respected Minister of Defense. He understood warfare, intellectually and emotionally, his generals adored him, and he knew how to handle Sebestyen.
At the top of the steps he turned to watch her as he reached for a fat towel and began to dry himself. He was already hard, and impressively so. Yes, even at his age he’d make a fine Level Three Master.
Maddox had never married. He had never told her why he’d remained unmarried when any woman he asked would be glad to be his wife. And she didn’t mind that he did not reveal all his secrets. Perhaps he remained unwed because he could not be faithful to any one woman. When it came to pleasure, he enjoyed a variety of women too much to be bound to anyone. Then again, maybe he had once had a great love and she’d been taken from him or wed to another. That was unlikely. She’d never met anyone who behaved less heartbroken than Maddox Sulyen.
Liane swam toward the steps herself. She would choose two women for Maddox and then she’d retire for the night. She’d visited Sebestyen earlier in the evening, and she’d already been dismissed.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked softly.
“Of course.” Liane reached not for Maddox but for her own towel. She gently dried her skin. “I have everything any woman could possibly want. Servants, clothes, fine food, a luxurious bedchamber.” She gestured to the pool behind her. “This and more, and all for doing nothing more than any wife is expected to do for her husband.”
Maddox surprised her by leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. Then he whispered in her ear. “He is not sane, Liane. Perhaps he never was, but he’s getting worse. You’re so close to him, you must see it. Be careful.”
She held her breath. If not telling Sebestyen about the capture of the Northern Palace wasn’t treason, this certainly was.
“Make it three,” he said as he stepped away.
“Three?”
“Three women, none of them new.”
While he was past the age where it was possible for him to reach fulfillment three times in such a short period of time, he would see that all three ladies were well satisfied. Maddox had always received as much pleasure from the sexual delight of his partners as from his own.
“I know just the trio of ladies to send you off.”
He was dressed and out of the room before she had the chance to don her red robe. She took her time, brushing out her wet hair, pinning it back, smoothing the wrinkles out of her garment.
She went directly to the Level Three residence hall and chose three girls for Maddox. One tall, one short, one buxom. They were all enthusiastic and they all adored Maddox and were happy to be chosen for him. He would begin his journey well-satisfied, just as he desired.
From there Liane went to her private quarters. She was the only one of the emperor’s concubines who had her own bedchamber. She’d earned it, just as she had earned everything else she called her own.
The room was decorated in silver and blue, like Sebestyen’s bedchamber, and was embellished with a minimum of feminine frippery. Her luxuries were a soft mattress, a full-length mirror, the dresser where her oils and lotions sat, and an upholstered chair with a matching hassock. She had a heavy coverlet for winter; a thinner one for summer. The floor was of stone, of course, but a number of luxurious rugs were laid out so that her bare feet need never step upon a cold floor. Her clothes filled not one, but two massive wardrobes. One of those wardrobes had been reserved for crimson robes in varying fabrics and styles.
If she wished a servant to help her prepare for the night, she could have one with a single word. But tonight, as on most nights, she preferred to be alone.
Sleep did not come easily, as she had hoped it would. Her mind spun with plans and secrets, memories and possibilities. She tossed in her bed, sleeping in short snatches that were never long enough, and rose before the sun.
Her window had been left open to let in the night air, and Liane went to that window and looked down at the city below. She had not left the palace in so long, the city was foreign to her. She had survived here; she wasn’t so sure she would be able to survive down there.
She took a deep breath and held it. On Level One there was no fresh air. Fans worked constantly to bring air up to the emperor’s Level, but it was not the same as the air she breathed as she leaned out the window. On some warm nights she had convinced the emperor to come to her, so that the heat was not so stifling as they pressed their bodies together. Not this summer, though. It had been more than a year since he’d come to her quarters.
On the nights when he had been here, he’d glanced several times toward the window as if the sun would appear in the night sky to fulfill the wizard’s prophecy. It hadn’t mattered that she’d made sure the window was completely covered with the dark drapes that were now pulled back to allow the air to rush in.
Was it only a matter of time before Sebestyen ordered every window in the palace bricked in? If he did, the place would be all but uninhabitable, even with the lights and the fans that were powered by the machine on Level Eleven. No—that wouldn’t happen. Maddox was wrong; the emperor was not insane. He was cruel and cold, but his actions were not those of a madman.
She stood there, allowing her mind to wander and enjoying the fresh air, until she saw Maddox leave with his entourage. They rode the strongest, fastest horses; he had the finest men as his guard. She watched as he worked his way through the city, valiant and unhurried.
Maddox Sulyen was the only person in this world she called her friend. If not for him, she would have been dead long ago. He’d taught her how to survive, how to become the woman she needed to be in order to remain here on the upper levels. The Level Three Masters had taught her about pleasure, her own and that of the men she entertained. But Maddox had taught her to separate a young girl’s idea of love from sex. He had been the one to teach her that her body was a weapon like any other, and if she learned to use it properly she would survive.
Maddox had taught her how to make herself indispensable. She had become all that Level Three stood for. She was decadence, she was pleasure. And she never, ever confused sex with love.
Some days she wished the soldiers had killed her instead of bringing her here, but not today. Today she had a purpose. She had a goal that was so important, nothing could get in her way. Nothing could stop her.
“I have no choice,” she whispered as she watched Maddox ride away.
The day passed like many others. Liane had a position of importance on Level Three. The crones managed things nicely, and a number of servants— young girls in training, in most cases—waited upon the concubines whose only duty was to please and entertain. Liane was expected to be present in order to give guidance and direction when necessary. The other girls either envied or feared her, and she did not have friends among them. She did her best to make sure they understood those truths that had saved her.
In the afternoon, she took a long nap. Sebestyen was expecting her tonight, and it wouldn’t do to arrive on his doorstep with a yawn, with circles under her eyes. Yes, she did need to speak with him, but as Maddox was already gone there was no need for urgency. Tonight would be soon enough.
She didn’t allow herself to consider that she was giving Maddox a chance to move far enough away from Arthes so that Sebestyen would not give chase.
Liane took her time getting ready for Sebestyen, choosing to wear not one of her red robes but a dark green diaphanous gown. Why pretend that she was going to his chamber for any reason but sex? With the green fabric draping her body, she adorned her neck with gold chains of varying lengths, and put fine gold loops in her ears and a circlet of gold on her hair.
There was no rush, not tonight. Sebestyen was to entertain his wife this evening, in hopes of impregnating her. Rikka had been empress for two years, and still was not with child. Sebestyen’s patience wore thin more quickly these days. His first wife had lasted almost four years, the second three, the third not quite that long. Rikka’s time would soon be up, if she didn’t find a reason for the emperor to keep her alive.
Rikka would not remain in her husband’s bedchamber any longer than necessary, and Sebestyen expected Liane to be waiting when he was ready for her.
When Liane was finished with her preparations, she drank the elixir that had been placed at her bedside. All the sexually active women on Level Three took this same elixir daily, to keep from filling the palace with bastards. As badly as Sebestyen wanted an heir, he just as desperately wanted that heir to be legitimate. After all, he had denied Arik’s heritage on the grounds that his mother had come from Level Three and he was therefore unfit to serve his country in any way.
His own child could not be the offspring of a whore.
Liane had been taking the elixir for so many years she was quite sure she’d never be able to have a child. Her monthly flow was so light and sporadic that at times she went for months with no cycle at all. She’d never bear a child, and even though she did not care for children and she did not dream of being a mother, that was simply another reason to hate Sebestyen.
She studied her reflection for a few moments, looking for flaws in her appearance. Her lips were much too colorless tonight, so she darkened them with rouge. She brushed her hair once again, knowing Sebestyen would expect it to be perfect for him.
The lift carried her to Level One. Before coming here, she’d had no idea such a contraption existed. There were many wonders in the emperor’s palace. Lights that came not from flame but from glass rods powered by a noisy machine on Level Eleven. The lift which made it possible to travel all the way from Level Ten to Level One, powered by the same contraption. The fans that made Level One habitable were also artificially powered.
She stepped off the lift to face three familiar sentinels. Two young, one rather old, all of them dressed in sharp emerald green uniforms and well-armed. Liane smiled at them and spread her arms wide. The translucent gown left no doubt that she was unarmed.
Taneli, one of the younger sentinels who had risen to a position of power, insisted on checking her over carefully, spinning her around and patting at her in places where it was quite clear she hid nothing.
“Do you really think it’s necessary to search me?” she asked with a smile.
“Emperor Sebestyen orders it,” Taneli said. “We even search the empress when she visits.” He nodded to the closed door.
“She’s still in there?” Liane asked.
He nodded.
Liane listened carefully, but all was quiet behind the closed door.
She turned a bright smile to the young sentinel. “Do you examine the empress as thoroughly as you examine me before allowing her entrance?”
His eyes remained firmly planted on her breasts. “Um, of course.”
“Why do I not believe that?” She took a step closer to the young soldier. He turned red in the face. “You probably give her a cursory pat here and there, but never on her tits. And I can’t imagine that you ask the empress to spread her legs so you can thrust your clumsy hands between them.”
He turned redder, and his left eye twitched. “Well, she is the empress.”
Liane took a deep breath. In the past sixteen years, she’d outlasted three empresses. “I’m not impressed,” she said softly, before spinning around and throwing open the doors to Sebestyen’s bedchamber.
She had hoped to catch them in the act, but all was finished, apparently. The empress was buttoning her robe and a naked Sebestyen reclined on the bed with a bored expression on his face.
That expression brightened when Liane smiled at him.
“I got tired of waiting,” she said, ignoring the Empress Rikka and walking toward Sebestyen.
“You never were one for patience.” Sebestyen offered her his hand. “I’m glad you’re here. Duty is done. Now it’s time to indulge myself in one of my few true pleasures.”
Liane tried to pretend she didn’t notice the glare Rikka shot her way. In fact, she did her best to ignore the girl. Did Rikka really love Sebestyen? If so, she was a fool.
Robe in place, Rikka walked quickly toward the door, her head high and her spine straight. But once there, she stopped and turned to face the bed. Liane sat beside Sebestyen and reached out to touch his bare chest. His eyes swept over Liane’s scantily clad body and the physical response was exactly as she had hoped it would be.
“Once again you have taken my breath away,” he whispered. He cupped one breast in a cool hand and teased the nipple that was clearly visible through the sheer green. Liane placed her head on his shoulder and her lips on his neck.
“I deserve your respect,” Rikka said in a soft voice.
With a sigh, Sebestyen looked at his wife. “What did you say?”
“I said—”
“Can’t you see we’re busy?” Liane said impatiently, raising her head to glare at the empress. She did not like this foolish girl, but if Rikka started standing up for herself and demanding things from Sebestyen, she’d soon find herself in Level
Thirteen with whatever remained of her predecessors. Sebestyen would again begin the search for a new and suitable bride from the important families of Columbyana. It was always such a tiresome search, and it affected his mood in an adverse way. She didn’t need that complication, not now. Not when she was so close to getting everything she wanted.
The empress ran from the room. One of the sentinels closed the door behind her.
Liane reclined on the bed beside Sebestyen and placed her mouth close to his ear. “I’m glad she’s gone,” she whispered.
“So am I.” Sebestyen threaded his fingers through her hair and held on tight. “If she isn’t pregnant within a month, I’m going to get rid of her. I’m going to—”
Liane laid her fingers over Sebestyen’s mouth. “I don’t want to talk about her, and I don’t want you to talk about her. She is insignificant and you are a young, virile man who has many years left in which to produce an heir.”
He drew her hair back and kissed her throat. “You are right, of course. You are always right. Heaven above, you are so beautiful tonight.”
She sighed and smiled, but before Sebestyen could go further she took his face in her hands and looked him in the eye. “I have something very important to tell you.” The words she needed to say caught in her throat. She had killed traitors, she had spied upon men who believed she cared for them, she had used men for pleasure and allowed them to use her. What did one more infraction matter?