Highness, open your eyes for me.”
Frowning, I forced my eyes open. I was back in my room. Emmory and a gray-haired doctor I recognized as Dr. Ganjen, who was Dr. Satir’s backup, hovered over me. “What—” I choked on the word, cleared my dry throat, and tried again. “What in the hell is going on?”
“You were poisoned, Highness.”
“How?” I pushed myself upright, waving off the doctor’s anxious protests. “You checked everything that went into my damn mouth, Emmory. How did I get poisoned?”
“I don’t know.” His reply was an impolite snarl. “Sorry, ma’am.”
“No, my fault, stupid question.” I sighed and looked at the ceiling. The movement made me dizzy and I cursed, sliding back down to the bed.
“Please lay still, Highness. The poison is exacerbated by movement,” Dr. Ganjen said.
“Where’s Dr. Satir?”
“Family emergency,” her colleague replied. “She had to leave the capital for a few days. Your Ekam’s quick reaction with the antidote saved your life.” The older man patted me on the arm. “You’ll want to take it easy for a day or two, Your Highness. There will be residual weakness from the neurotoxin. I’ll have to do some scans to figure out what caused the reaction since your Ekam insists you didn’t ingest any of the toxin directly.”
“Pretty sure I didn’t, though that idli tasted funny.” I stuck my tongue out at Emmory and winked.
That dragged a chuckle out of him. It was frayed and ragged with stress, but the amusement was there.
“You’re going to give me gray hair, ma’am.”
“You don’t have any hair.”
“Princess, are you all right?” Nal’s voice floated over Emmory’s shoulder.
“Someone just tried to kill me, Nal. I am not ‘all right’ but I am alive.”
“Nal was concerned for your safety, as we all were.”
Confident that Nal couldn’t see me, I arched a curious eyebrow at the edge in Emmory’s voice. “Help me up, Ekam. I promise I won’t dance around but I don’t want to be lying here. It makes me feel worse.”
He took my arm and helped me off the bed. Leaning against Emmory for support, I offered Nal a sarcastic smile. “See. I’m alive.”
“You were poisoned, Highness. Right under your Ekam’s nose. I don’t think—”
Trusting my legs to support me, I let go of Emmory and waved a dismissive hand at Nal. “You were there, too, Nal, and you heard the doctor. I am alive precisely because of Emmory,” I snapped. “Doctor, thank you. Pass those results to us as soon as you have them.”
The doctor bowed to me and left the room. Nal didn’t go as quietly, her angry protests on her way out the door delivered in a voice too low for my ears to make out distinct words. Emmory replied with two snarled sentences that were equally incomprehensible. There was a moment of shocked silence, and then the door closed.
“Drink this, Highness.” Stasia pressed a hot cup into my hands, but the heat of it didn’t penetrate my icy fingers. “Do you want a fire?”
I wanted to burn the world down. I bit my tongue and tossed back the pepper-spiced liquor before the words could escape, unsure where my sudden anger had come from. The drink stole my breath, successfully keeping me from looking like a fool.
“I’ll make a fire,” Emmory said, taking the cup from my hand and passing it back to Stasia. She dipped into a curtsy and left us alone. He slid an arm around my back and, before I could protest, lifted me into the air, sliding his other arm under my knees.
“I can walk.”
His lips curved into the briefest of smiles. Then he set me down on the couch near the fire and turned back to the bed for a blanket.
“So Zin was right about the desperation thing. I probably shouldn’t have pushed Laabh, huh?”
“Highness, now is not the best time for this.”
“When is? I was wrong and you were right and thank you for being on the ball so I didn’t die.” I leaned against the couch cushions, stifling a yawn as the drink hit me like a sledgehammer. “I really loved your brother. Did he love me back?”
Emmory knelt by the fire and piled logs as he spoke. “I knew my brother. He loved you, don’t ever doubt that. He was there to keep you safe—”
I choked back the laugh, remembering some of the foolish escapades I’d been involved in over the years. “Portis apparently had a slightly different definition of the word safe than you.”
Emmory gave me a smile that I thought was the first genuine one he’d shown since this whole thing started. “I know he left a lot out of his reports. He was there to keep you safe, but it was as much because of his feelings for you as his duty.” He dusted off his hands and got to his feet. “I miss him, too. For so long I thought my little brother had betrayed our family, this empire, everything I believed in.” Emmory’s smile was quick, filled with a regret I’m sure was echoed in my eyes.
“Zin could tell you how I cursed Portis’s name every night for that first year he was gone. Then the pain faded. My initial rage dulled to a bitter ache in my chest. I couldn’t forget him, though, no matter how much I tried. I kept dreaming about him, would think of him at odd times. Part of me couldn’t believe he’d really—” Emmory broke off and forced a smile. “Four months ago, Zin and I came home from a job and Tefiz was waiting for us. I didn’t recognize her, but Zin did.
“She told us who she was and said that my brother had specifically suggested us to the heir. I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. Tired, dirty, and still stinking of gods know what, we went to meet your sister, Ven, and Ofa.” Emmory’s laugh sounded like he still couldn’t quite believe it all. “I was so angry. Thank the gods for Zin, who kept me from saying something I’d regret when I saw Portis’s face.
“Portis told us everything. Then Princess Cire told us the rest. The rising tension with the Saxons, the factions in the government who were too busy fighting with each other to notice the problems outside, the growing unrest of the people. Everything you’ve learned since you came home, Highness.”
“And things have only gotten worse,” I murmured.
“Somewhere in the middle of all that, I realized that little piece of me had been right all along. My brother wasn’t a traitor. He hadn’t been stripped of his service and banished, he’d just walked away from all of us to keep you safe,” Emmory said. “That’s how I knew he hadn’t tried to kill you, Highness. He wouldn’t have, because you were everything to him.”
“He was everything to me, too,” I murmured, holding my hand out. Emmory took it and I squeezed his fingers with a smile of my own.
“Whoever poisoned me fucked up.” I changed the subject abruptly. “They are desperate. They’re on some sort of timetable here. Otherwise they could just sit back until we got complacent and then strike. Eventually someone would get a lucky shot off. I’m not questioning your ability, that’s just the odds, Emmory.” I ignored the Look from him. “They tipped their hand. Now we have somewhere to really start looking because whatever they poisoned me with had to come from somewhere.”
Emmory studied me for a long moment. “You would have made a good Tracker, ma’am.”
I was saved from gaping foolishly at him by Zin, who appeared in the doorway.
“Highness, the prime minister has had Ambassador Toropov taken into custody.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s accused Toropov of poisoning you.”
I sat up too fast and the room swirled around me. “Oh, bugger me. Emmory, did he just say what I thought he said?”
“He did, Highness.”
I tossed back the blanket and got slowly to my feet, waving off both of them as I made my way toward the bed. “I’ve got it, Zin, I’m not an invalid. Go get Stasia. I want out of this damn dress. Call Clara and Phanin. I want the ambassador in my main room in five minutes or heads are going to roll. Emmory, you fetch him yourself if you have to.”
Emmory, of course, did not.
I probably should have been grateful for it, since his disobedience kept me off the floor. “Damn it, Emmory.”
“If I’d thought you could walk yourself, I would have left you alone. The doctor said the weakness would affect you for several days.”
“If this damn dress didn’t weigh three stone, I could. Don’t pick me up, Emmory, it’s embarrassing.” I slung my arm around his neck. “Just help me over to the wardrobe.”
I could barely walk, but Emmory—thankfully—was kind enough not to point it out and instead helped me across the room. I sank down onto a chair with a muttered curse.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m not doing a very good job of keeping you safe.”
“If you think for one second that I’m letting you abandon me here, Ekam, you’re mistaken. I’m still alive and that means you’re doing a good job. Sometimes you have to count your blessings where you can find them.” I patted his arm. “Now stop wallowing and go rescue the ambassador before some idiot starts a war.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
My smile faded when Emmory left the room and I retreated into my thoughts, only murmuring a word or two to Stasia as she stripped the dress off me. I tugged on a pair of black pants and a tank top and tried to ignore the trembling in my limbs that wasn’t all a residual reaction to the toxin.
I’d almost died.
It wasn’t the first time. Hell, I couldn’t even count the number of close calls we’d had out there in the years I was away from home. There were a handful of memorable ones—the bank job, the backwater ambush, staring down one of Po-Sin’s rivals with a gun shoved up under my chin.
I shuddered a little at the memory. I still didn’t know how I’d made it out of that one alive. That bastard had been fucking insane. The only reason I didn’t have a hole the size of a planet in my head was because he’d liked the color of my hair.
It wasn’t the almost dying part that was causing my hands to shake. It was the fact that Emmory had saved my life.
You can’t fool yourself anymore, Hail.
I snarled at the voice in my head, burying my face in my hands, but it wasn’t going away. I was in this and in it deep. I had fully put my trust in Emmory and Zin to handle things I wouldn’t be able to almost without realizing it.
And to keep me alive.
At Stasia’s insistence, I bundled up in a robe and let Emmory help me out into the main room. I was settled onto the rose-colored couch talking to Alba when Ambassador Toropov was brought in.
“Your Highness, a joy to see you safe.”
“Ambassador.” I held out a hand to him, smiling when he took it. “I apologize for the overzealous response from my people. We are all a little jumpy given the circumstances.”
“Understandable, my dear. I take no offense. I hope you realize the Saxon Kingdom wants nothing more than peace with Indrana.”
“Oh, of course.”
Toropov was a consummate politician and didn’t even bat an eyelash at my tone. Given all the recent tensions, I couldn’t rule out that the Saxons could be behind this plot. The loss of Indrana’s ruling family would throw the empire into a state of chaos that would make it even easier for the Saxons to swoop in and get back a lot of the territory they’d lost in the war.
I didn’t think Toropov was so foolish as to have tried to poison me in full view of everyone; however, I also couldn’t rule him out simply because of a gut feeling.
“Let’s talk after the holiday. I’ll have Alba get with your people?”
“That would be lovely, Highness. Thank you.” Toropov bowed and left the room.
I waited a beat before raising a hand and signaling Zin to open the door again so the prime minister could come in.
“Highness, a blessing to see you well—”
“What in the fires of Naraka were you thinking?” I sliced a hand through the air before Phanin could finish. “Never mind that you acted without any orders whatsoever from the Crown. But you just yanked a diplomat into custody in the middle of a state function, Phanin. I couldn’t have blamed his bodyguards for completely losing their shit. You’re lucky we didn’t have a shoot-out in the palace.”
“You passed out after dancing with him, Highness.”
“Actually, I passed out after talking to you,” I countered and watched him swallow. “If we’re using that logic, what’s your defense?”
“Highness, surely you don’t think—”
“You’ve overstepped your authority, Phanin. I realize Mother’s been ill and others appear to have relied heavily on your advice.”
He flinched a little at that and I stared at him impassively. From what Emmory had discovered, the only reason Phanin now enjoyed so much influence in the palace was because my sister had invited him into her confidence.
“There’s been some fluidity in the chain of command around here, but in the future all decisions will go through either me or my mother. I will remind you only once that you are merely the prime minister and the amount of say you have in the politics of this empire is right about here.” I held my hand down by the floor. “You are not a council member, nor a member of the royal family. Next time I catch you making decisions about matters of the empire without some kind of approval, I’m going to take you out back and shoot you myself. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Highness.” He bowed. “My apologies, Highness.”
“Get out of here.” I tapped my fingers together, trying to get my foggy brain to cooperate.
“Highness, perhaps you should rest?”
“In a minute, Emmory. Alba, will you send a message to Admiral Hassan? Let her know I’d like to talk with her when it’s convenient.”
“It looks like she’s back on the Vajra, Highness,” Alba said. “I’ll send her a message.”
“Thank you.”
“We can go over the rest of your schedule in the morning. I’ll make adjustments as needed until the doctor clears you.” Alba smiled. “Good night, ma’am. I’m glad you’re all right.”
“You and me both, Alba.” I pushed to my feet, ignoring Emmory’s frustrated sigh, but didn’t try to move until Alba was out of the room.
I made it to the door of my bedroom and leaned heavily on the jamb with a few choice curse words.
“Highness.”
“I have my pride, Emmy.”
“Is it worth passing out for, ma’am?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” I shot him a look and gestured. “Come on, help a girl out, would you? I don’t want to pass out, and you and I need to talk.”
With a silence both concerned and frustrated, Emmory helped me to bed and then retreated back to the doorway.
“Do you think Toropov tried to kill me?” My stomach was twisted into edgy knots.
Or that could have been the poison.
“It would be an incredibly bold move, ma’am.”
“More or less than stealing our border worlds?”
Emmory wiggled a hand, his shoulder shifting under the black material of his uniform in a half shrug. “The Saxons are on our list, Highness. Toropov is high-profile, but it doesn’t remove him from suspicion.”
“So you do have a list. Let me hear it.” I raised a hand, stopping his protest. “People are trying to kill me. I tend to take that personally, so don’t bother with the holy cowshit line of ‘We’ll handle it.’ Give me the list.”