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The old Gebbi Zimballa Palace had been erected during the reign of Emperor Dardar Birhi, the monarch who had begun Khambawe’s transition from a modest seaside fishing town to its eventual status as the Jewel City of the Matile Mala Empire. With the passage of centuries, its splendor had diminished, and the efforts of even the finest painters and stonemasons could not forestall its eventual decline. Long ago, the Emperors had moved their residence to the newer Gebbi Senafa, which was located closer to the city. Yet the people of Khambawe did not demolish the old building, out of respect for its importance to their history. They continued to maintain the edifice, although it was seldom visited by anyone other than scholars who made use of the library still located within its walls.
Now, in Khambawe’s time of peril, the Gebbi Zimballa had found another purpose to serve: refuge.
Inside the old palace, the Emperor and Issa tried to make themselves comfortable in the chamber that had been hastily prepared for them. According to the history woven into faded tapestries and preserved in leather-bound tomes that few other than the most dedicated historians had reason to peruse, the chamber had once served as the throne room of Emperor Dardar Birhi. When he was a child, Alemeyu had been an avid reader of those ancient volumes, and he remembered now that the territory Birhi had ruled was about the same size as his own diminished empire. The irony inherent in that similitude was not lost on Alemeyu.
Both the Emperor and Issa left their steaming cups of kef untouched on a golden tray. Food and drink were not their primary concerns now.
Still clad in the armor of Issuri, Alemeyu sat on a throne of granite worn smooth by many the generations of previous monarchs that had used it. The royal seat in the Gebbi Zimballa was far less imposing than the Lion Throne in its successor palace. The carvings on its back and sides were barely visible. They represented the triumphs of Khambawe’s earliest rulers over their rivals in other cities. Many years had passed since the last time an Emperor had sat on this throne. On its arms, Alemeyu could see traces of dust his retainers had left behind in their rush to make the long-disused chamber ready for him.
The Emperor had not reprimanded them for their neglect. This night was no time for formalities or protocol. He had already decided that he would not abandon the seat of his distant ancestors if Khambawe fell this night. In Birhi’s time, the Zimballa had been as much a fortress as it was a palace. And in this old fortress, the last of the Matile Mala Emperors would live ... or die.
There was only one throne in the Gebbi Zimballa. For that reason, Issa sat on the topmost of the seven steps that led to the dais on which the throne was mounted. On those steps were carvings that, like the ones on the chair itself, had been diminished by time to mere scratches in the stone. Issa paid scant heed to the record of history upon which she rested. She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, which she had pulled close to her chest. Her eyes were drawn to the shadows cast by the torches that were the only illumination in the chamber.
The few furnishings left in the throne room were familiar enough, despite their great age. But the shadows they cast seemed somehow sinister, like hands with grasping fingers pressed against the wall.
Makah, the Emperor’s cheetah, lay curled like a house cat at Issa’s side. The cheetah’s eyes stared unblinking at the entrance to the chamber. If the spotted cat saw the shadows, it paid no heed to them.
With a slight shudder, Issa looked away from the shadows. She and the Emperor were alone in the old throne room. A retinue of soldiers was posted outside the door, and throughout the rest of the old palace as well. They, as well as the Emperor and Issa, knew if they were forced to fight here, it was likely to be their last battle.
Issa looked up at Alemeyu. The firelight cast no shadows on his gold-chased armor. Instead, the muted illumination rendered to him a radiance that she would, at another, less-fraught time, have admired. However, that luminescence did not reach his eyes.
Alemeyu was staring beyond Issa, and beyond the shadowy walls of the throne chamber. He could have been looking into the future or, perhaps, the past. Or he might have been looking into himself.
Whatever the Emperor was seeing, it displeased him. Beneath the golden helmet that crowned his head, Alemeyu’s brows were knotted in a frown.
“I wish we had more news,” Issa said, for not other reason than to break a silence she was beginning to find oppressive.
Her voice caused Alemeyu’s head to snap forward, then back, as though he had suddenly awakened from a deep slumber. His brow smoothed, and his mouth turned upward in a fleeting smile.
“Considering what we have heard so far, I’m surprised you would say that,” he told her.
That comment brought a smile in return from Issa – also fleeting. At the beginning of the invasion, a succession of runners had come from the city. The descriptions of defeat and destruction they brought with them fell like stones in Issa’s heart, as well as Alemeyu’s. Then the messengers stopped arriving. And that, in itself, bore a meaning that was ominous.
It was Alemeyu’s brief smile, along with the tension that accompanied their long wait, that then caused Issa to say words she never imagined would ever spill out of her mouth ... words she had never wanted anyone – including herself – to hear, despite the truth in them.
“Alemeyu,” she said. “I am sorry I could not give you – and the Empire – an heir.”
The Emperor looked at her in silence for a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity. As she returned his gaze, Issa was reminded of the day they had wed – an elaborate ceremony attended by the Degen and Imba Jassi, with Jass Gebrem pronouncing the ritual words that bound them to each other until she or the Emperor died, or one of them put the other aside.
Alemeyu had put three previous wives aside because they had not been able to continue the line of Issuri. Issa’s predecessors had been well compensated, but they lived in tacit, unofficial exile from the Degen Jassi. They no longer even resided in Khambawe. Their continued presence in the court and the city would have been an affront to the Emperor’s current consort, and an embarrassment to him.
On the day they were wed, Issa had vowed that such a fate would never be hers. I will bear him a child, she told herself fiercely. I will ....
But as the years passed, no heir was born. And before the Fidi came, before the Uloans came, she had known that before long, the Emperor would put her, too, aside.
Then Alemeyu spoke.
“The fault for that is not yours, Issa,” he said. “It is mine.”