Page 26 of Poisoned Empire

“You’re incorrigible! I’m attempting to prevent another Great War, and here you are playing the thief and cavorting with my father in your undergarments instead of living up to your end of our bargain!”

“Gods below, I missed a fucking tea party! If your empire crumbles because I didn’t sit nice and pretty with Domina Jewel Snob So-And-So, talking ponies and flowers, this whole damn continent is doomed anyway. Besides, I can be a shameless hussy with anyone I want!”

“Not while you’re living in this palace you won’t be! That event mattered because your absence showed how little respect you have for me in the most public of forums. If this ruse is to work, you have to at leastpretendto be someone I might consider an appropriate wife! That means you act like a gods-damned noble, attend the events and, yes, talk ponies and flowers with every airhead in the palace if the situation calls for it!” He rounded on her, gripping her slim, bare shoulders in his hands.

Selene sneered, undaunted.

“As far as I see it, that’s your problem, not mine. If you weren’t such an arrogant bore, you’d see that the one who has to act like the love-struck fool to pull this off is you—not me. I played my part as the eccentric daddy hid away all those years. Be a bit fucking odd if I change my personality now. My deal with the magister means I get up to all the antics and make my sisters look like well-mannered dolls in comparison. Don’t want to start a war? Don’t try to change the script I’ve been given.”

Belisarius released Selene as if stung, glaring as he wrestled with his anger. He hated it, but she might actually be right. Everyone had witnessed her shocking display the night before.

“Belli, don’t be a brat. If you can’t stomach the thought of being an actor on this stage you’ve set, then devise another plan. Otherwise, what the girl says makes sense. Hells, if you don’t want to play at being in love,I’llplay the part.”

Not his father, too? When would this nightmare end? Selene gasped in mock shock, a hand on her chest as she fluttered her lashes. Belisarius looked away from that damn slip, resolving to ban the use of such thin, sheer materials in their future construction.

“You dirty old goat. You think you could keep up with my wild ways?” She eyed Belisarius with what could only be described as evil glee. “How would you feel about calling memother?”

A moment of gut-wrenching horror at the thought changed his mind. Gods save him, he should never have conceived this awful scheme. But no matter how he thought about it, there was no other way to peacefully lure the magistri to Nadioch—not unless he also wanted them at the head of their own armies, or at the very least, ready to openly commit regicide.

“Ifeelovercome with my love for you, dearest Selene.” He ground out the words as if he were chewing glass.

“Good! Because if we’re going to do this, I have a few ideas.”

Belisarius’ soul withered ever so slightly to hear it.

Chapter 10

Nicephorus’worldwascomposedof castoffs. He’d spent his life tediously sewing all the disparate pieces into an effective whole, as if putting together an ugly patchwork quilt. The sprawling, complex bureaucracy on whose apex he stood had been built using superfluous sons, noble bastards and other talented men denied the position of heir or lacking the prized elemental magic championed by the elites of the provinces. Even in the palace, bureaucrats not extensively trained in some martial skill or another were considered beneath noblemen who’d never worked for the benefit of the people a day in their lives.

Meanwhile, due to the prince’s reforms, his bureaucracy ensured clean water flowed throughout Lethe via aqueducts, the price of bread was kept reasonable, intracontinental trade blossomed, legal disputes were settled quickly and fairly, and banditry and piracy were kept to a minimum. Yet it was never enough. No matter how brilliant their minds or how useful their interventions, convincing large swaths of the illustri and nobilissimi of the merit of the reforms proved difficult when their chief concerns were for the opinions of the magistri, who by their nature despised any change to the status quo. Given these headaches, the very last thing Nicephorus wished to add to his extensive daily workload was playing nanny to an unpredictable, antisocial poison mage.

Nicephorus pulled a cord of black silk hanging from the ceiling of his office. A series of pulleys alerted the correct branch of government of his need. As if emerging from under the surface of a placid lake, a mage stepped from the shadows in the corner of his office. His uniform was dark, a veil concealing his features. He was the logothete in charge of spycraft and security at the palace, an executive bureaucrat serving directly beneath the praetor.

“Domina Milena Amethyst has wandered off. Please locate her and notify me of her whereabouts. Be cautious and do not approach her. I’m told she can be quite lethal.”

“I’m sure we’ll find her shortly, Praetor.” The shadow mage bowed, disappearing into darkness once more.

Moments later, a knock on his door interrupted him from the report he was reading. The flushed face of a young notarios, the pale pink stripes on his tunic denoting him as the lowest bureaucrat on the rungs of the governmental ladder, peered into his room. Nicephorus frowned. The boy’s manager, an asekretis, would have to teach him proper protocol. No one was to disturb the praetor so casually.

“Pardon the intrusion, Praetor. But I just saw Domina Sapphire working at the blacksmith’s without an escort.”

Nicephorus jumped up from his seat, his expression grim. He could feel a headache beginning to bloom behind his eyes. What was so difficult about playing the part of a pampered noblewoman? Apparently, he would need to mind two mages today.

Iliana hated the cumbersome, bejewelled skirts she was forced to wear to these damn parties. She reflected on this as she turned her back to the prince and his men to make her exit, nearly tangling her legs and tripping like the fool she was. Gods only knew how much her latest fit of temper would cost her.

She stomped up steps and took a calming breath, trying to walk with her usual gait down wide, extravagantly decorated corridors where nobles sashayed over floral mosaics without a care in the world. Upon returning to her suite, five sets of deadened eyes and an eerie silence met her in the shared parlour of Magister Sapphire’s daughters. Each engaged in the quiet, feminine pursuits of needlepoint, painting and reading etiquette manuals. Iliana envied them their skill with the needle and thread, but little else. Their eyes drifted from her back to their activities without comment.

Her frustration at this ridiculous farce was beginning to grate. Obediently following the dictates of both magister and prince, she was forced to be a puppet, commanded to dance and entertain on a whim. It was suffocating. She needed to get the hells off this damned continent, to leave the foolish political games for the nobles to fight themselves. Better they bloody each other’s noses than bend her till she broke. Not even the supposedly level-headed strategos had raised his voice in her, or Selene’s, defence.

Selene was obviously doing as she pleased, which was no different than usual. Iliana only hoped the prince decided not to let his anger dictate his decisions. She sighed. Her hands itched to create something, to lose herself in something familiar and reassuring. She shut the door to her own separate room and squeaked in surprise when the prim servant girl stood and greeted her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

Entirely unfazed, the girl smiled.

“Is there anything I can help you with, Your Resplendence?”

Maybe it was time Iliana began doing as she pleased, consequences be damned. Her sisters were in no danger, and she yearned to make something that might one day gut a man just like the magister. Or teach a lesson to that blockheaded strategos.

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