“Take as much time as you need.”
She gestured at the chairs situated in front of her desk, the cushions there delicately embroidered. Kote was mindful of the belts and buckles that came with his officer’s uniform and sat carefully on one of them.
Eimarille folded her hands together over the desktop, studying the man who had killed for her. His green eyes were bright against his tanned skin, wavy black hair slicked away from his face. The dark green and tan uniform he wore clashed with the soft blues of her office, but no one other than herself was present to notice.
This had been Bernard’s office mere days ago. Terilyn had ruthlessly overseen the redecoration of it over the course of a single night, and the results were much more to Eimarille’s liking. Terilyn had peeled apart every single piece of furniture Bernard had owned, uncovering a few secret stashes of information: a code book, a list of noble bloodlines and debts secretly owed, and a ledger of accounts for half a dozen banks for his personal use.
She’d sent messengers to those banks with a crown warrant in hand to ensure the funds were transferred to her control. The debts owed she would keep as leverage if the families in question didn’t adhere to the national support Eimarille was busy cultivating.
“Will the revenants we’re letting loose into the eastern provinces of Ashion be enough for you in this push?” Eimarille asked.
Kote nodded. “More than, at this juncture. We’ve set them to towns rather than the main cities, with the intent of making travel difficult. Haighmoor is ill-equipped to handle an incursion of that magnitude, thanks to the old king’s forcible drawing down of the military.”
“I suspect he wasn’t as successful as he thought he was. Not with Meleri and the Clockwork Brigade working to stop him.”
“We don’t believe the Ashionen army will have the capacity to deal with the threat.”
Eimarille hummed thoughtfully, running down her mental checklist. “And the wardens?”
“We expect towns to call for aid, but we’ve loyalists situated at key communication towers. Limited requests will get through, and the wardens who answer the calls should be overwhelmed. We expect the first calls for help to go out today.”
“Excellent work. I’ll look forward to your reports in the near future as you press our advantage.”
The crisis in the east was a manufactured one that Eimarille had painstakingly planned and built over the course of years. It was merely the first feint in her inexorable march across Ashion. Letting the wardens answer their traditional call as ordained by the Poison Accords was needed, for when they failed—and she’d engineered that they would—the Daijal army would cross the border.
In a matter of days, the long border separating her two countries would be shattered in the name of humanitarian aid.
Kote had been integral in laying down the groundwork when Eimarille couldn’t, and her trust in him hadn’t been misplaced. She leaned back in her chair and nodded in satisfaction. “I leave our march in your capable hands, High General. Do call when you’ve taken Haighmoor.”
“Certainly, Your Royal Majesty.”
The office door swung open without a knock, allowing Terilyn to enter with a tray holding a tea service balanced on one hand. She inclined her head slightly at Eimarille as she approached and set the tray down on the side credenza.
“Your Royal Majesty,” Terilyn said in greeting. “High General. Your aide-de-camp wanted me to inform you that your motor carriage is ready to take you to the airfield.”
Kote nodded and got to his feet, saluting at Eimarille before following it up with a bow. “The front awaits me.”
He’d land in Istal in the early evening if the airship launched on schedule, which Eimarille had no doubt it would. The Daijal army was nothing if not efficient these days. The officers she’d dined with last night in celebration of her coronation had rarely been invited to such festivities, but they’d been more comfortable than the nobles to Eimarille’s discerning eye. Perhaps because they knew they had her favor.
Kote took his leave, closing the door behind him. Terilyn busied herself with pouring the flowering tea into two cups, the petals of the blossom inside the glass teapot jostling a bit with the motion. When she finished sweetening the tea with sugar to each of their own liking, she carried the delicate teacups and their matching saucers over to the desk.
“I’ve been reliably informed the emperor of Solaria has returned to Calhames,” Terilyn said.
Eimarille reached for the violet-hued teacup edged in gold and breathed in the smell of the pale gold tea. “And his daughter?”
They’d both read the broadsheets about the assassination attempt and received telegrams in code from their spies in Oeiras. Eimarille knew Imperial Princess Raiah Sa’Liandel of the House of Sa’Liandel lived. They simply did not know where she was currently located.
Terilyn leaned a hip against the desk and crossed her arms over her chest, her own tea cooling on the wooden desktop. “There’s been no word, but the emperor doesn’t appear grief-stricken, according to our spies.”
“I’d say one such as himself would be able to hide such a thing, but that is a grief no parent could bury easily.” The mere thought of losing Lisandro was a nightmare best not entertained.
Terilyn tilted her head to the side, the waterfall of long, loose black hair falling over her shoulder. “He’ll learn to, if all goes well. At least until he’s been disposed of.”
Eimarille lifted her teacup and chanced a sip. It was still too hot, so she set it aside before reaching for her lover. She curled her fingers around the fabric of Terilyn’s skirt, the material soft beneath her grip. Terilyn had always followed Eimarille’s sense of fashion, every outfit worn with an eye to its use, from making a political point or to hide the weapons of a Blade.
In this moment, it was a gown far more embellished than Terilyn typically liked. The green gown was embroidered with gold thread over her hips and breasts in the shape of falling flower petals. The collar rose to her neck and wrapped around her throat but left her shoulders bare. They were instead covered by layers of pearl necklaces, the jewels once belonging to the former queen of Daijal. For all of Aleesia’s faults, she’d had glorious taste in jewelry, and Eimarille liked the idea of draping Terilyn in expensive jewels as a sign of her love, even if all anyone else would see was political favor.
Terilyn was Eimarille’s voice in places that Eimarille could not be. For now, with her schedule cleared because Eimarille willed it to be, it was just the two of them, with no one to see how Eimarille tugged Terilyn to stand between her and the wide desk. She shoved the grand leather chair back with an unladylike push of her feet, the legs of the chair scraping loudly over marble.
