“I’m not sure. But I think you and whichever Dogs you have among the many here should focus on finding Namati. Running one of the elven schools means that there are plenty of young elves in residence who may hear more things than the adults think they do.” I glanced significantly at the elves still on the porch, now eyeing Tallu’s own servants with suspicion.
“That is true, but it was not my question.” The Kennelmaster eyed me with a frown, as though now he was wondering what I was keeping from him.
“I’m not sure what we’re walking into. For that, we would need to ask Commander Rede and his scouting party.” I waited until the Kennelmaster nodded in agreement. Then he was off, and I finally made my way into the manor house.
Tavornai had been conquered by Tallu’s grandfather, Emperor Rellu. What had once been a thriving elven nation had been ruthlessly logged and reduced to what we now saw. In our old tales told around the fire on winter nights, the elves were a proud race who lived longer than any of the other peoples on the continent.
Their trees grew into houses, a forest could be a city with woven bridges connecting each of the magic buildings. Passing through the swampland, we had seen no evidence of that.
Because after Rellu conquered Tavornai, he and his son had set about eradicating as much of the elven way of life as they could. They couldn’t change the elven lifespan, but they could change how their children were brought up. So any elf under the age of twenty had been dragged out of the trees and forced into imperial schools where they learned trades that would benefit the Imperium and then forced into slavery doing jobs true imperials didn’t want to do.
It had been one of the horror stories my mother had told me and my sister, a reminder that death wasn’t the worst thing the Imperium could do to us.
In the manor house, where a wealthy imperial family would have drawing rooms and libraries, music rooms and salons, wepassed rooms full of sewing practice, others where large baskets filled with rocks and charred pieces of wood were being carefully crushed and turned into the powders and paints the imperials used on their skin.
I walked into one of the rooms, frowning as I picked up one of the stones. The tools used to crush it were small, too small for my hands. They were the size of a child’s hands.
As I glared down at the mortar and pestle that was clearly wielded by an elven child, I heard the softest sound of someone breathing in the room. The children had been sent away as soon as His Imperial Majesty’s presence had been known, based on what Terror had said.
Which meant, whoever was here was hiding, waiting for an opportunity. Gently, I put the pestle down at the same time as I loosened one of the knives along my leg. I kept my gaze down, striding through the room as I took note of the carefully decorated tins and tubes.
There was a soft gasp, and whoever was in the room held their breath when I passed the station where someone had been carefully packing gold powder into a glossy ivory tin.
I waited, curious how long they could hold their breath. After sixty heartbeats, there was a loud exhale and a gasp. I grinned down at the table.
Taking a step back, I said, “Come out.”
There was a long pause, followed by a desperate breath, the puff of air bitten off. I unsheathed my dagger, tapping the handle on the tabletop.
“Come out.”
I took another step back, watching for movement. First I saw hands, too small to be fully grown, the arms wrapped in dark green vines. A small child pulled herself out from under the table. She looked no more than seven or eight, but Lord Fuyii had taught us that elves looked like children for decades longer than the rest of us did.
She wore a white shift—peasant clothing—but her hair was a glossy purple, the color of water lilies. The vines that grew around her arms circled her neck before disappearing under the shift.
I watched her. She looked like a child, and the unhappy expression on her face made her seem all the younger, but I had once been a child. I had once been a child who had trained to kill the emperor. Just because she was young did not mean she was harmless.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Her eyes searched my face, and despite her clearly elven appearance, the brown in her gaze was as imperial as any of Saxu’s men.
For all the evil they did, the elven schools were the one place children abandoned because of their half-blood status could live freely.
“Riini,” the girl whispered. Her hands twisted the skirt of her shift and then she looked up fiercely. “Is it true the emperor’s here? His Dogs are with him?”
“Why? Are you hoping to kill him?” I asked. “I warn you, his Dogs are more lethal than you.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to kill him.”
“Weren’t you sent away with the rest of the children?” I asked.
“Yes,” she admitted, embarrassed.
I looked around the room where children were being forced into labor that grown men and women had no interest in doing, labor so difficult that many of them would die before they were fully grown from inhaling the dust in the air.
“Shouldn’t you be grateful to have a day’s reprieve from all this labor?” I raised a finger, dipping it in the powder she had been carefully packing into the ivory case.
My finger came away gold, and I rubbed the pigment between my thumb and forefinger, watching as it spread evenly. This was the sort of expensive powder that nobles would fight over. And she was laboring over it for no more than a bed and hopefully enough food tofill her belly.
