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“Hallu?” Tallu smiled, the expression at odds with everything we were going through.

“Brother.” Hallu swallowed. “Your Imperial Majesty, Dragon Chosen Emperor Tallu.” Hallu looked up, and his mother smiled down at him. That was the correct way to address His Imperial Majesty. “May I go with you when you travel back to the war? I’m old enough now. I should have experience in battle.”

The smile was still on Tallu’s face, but something behind his eyes went dark.

“Where did you hear such a thing?” Tallu asked. He didn’t ask Empress Koque if she had told the boy he needed to bloody his sword. Her horrified expression said clearly she had not.

“No one told me,” Hallu said, looking between Koque and Tallu, clearly realizing that neither was pleased with his response. “But General Saxu and Commander Rede spoke of your time at war. They said your father took you because you were his heir. You are emperor now. Shouldn’t you take me?”

Hallu looked between them again, his shoulders beginning to hunch, losing the straight-backed regal bearing he had clearly learned from his mother.

“Hallu,” Tallu knelt in front of his brother, “my greatest hope is that when you ascend to the throne of the Imperium there is no more war. My greatest hope is that you will be emperor in a time of peace. That you will have no need to learn to bear the horrors of war, nor learn how to sacrifice men to win a battle. Do you understand?”

Prince Hallu slowly nodded his head, although I wasn’t sure he actually understood or simply wanted out of the conversation.

“Right now, your only duty is to listen to your mother and do everything she says.” Tallu stood and Hallu bowed low, his fingers forming a triangle.

“I thank you for the education, brother. I apologize for my…” He trailed off, straightening and glancing at his mother. He had been trained well enough to know that he should apologize, but he was still too young to realize what he needed to apologize for.

“Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty,” Koque said.

Tallu nodded, lifting his hand and making a polite gesture of dismissal. When they were gone, I closed the door.

“Do you have any idea what Spider told her?” I asked.

“For a long time, I thought it was the same thing Spider told us. Now, I wonder.” Tallu stared at the closed door before shaking his head.

“I thought the same,” I said, “but I think it was something else. Something dangerous to us?”

Tallu shook his head. “I cannot believe that.”

Although I was sure he meant he would not believe that. Without any more words, he took my hand and pulled me to the bed.

It was too small for two grown men. It was clearly designed for Koque and Hallu alone. But when we curled around each other, we managed to fit.

I dreamed again. I was sure it was just the noises of the forest, keeping me partially awake, my mind jumping from image to image.

Something blue pooled in front of me, the liquid glowing bright enough to rival the moon. When I bent and touched the liquid, it stuck to my fingers, clinging to my hand like sap. Even when I tried to pull my hand free, the liquid stretched between the puddle and my palm, pulling harder the further I got.

It drew me back, climbing up my arm, pulling until my wrist and elbow were deep in the puddle of liquid. It was warm, warmer than my flesh. I knew if I let it, it would consume all of me, and drag me down to whatever was on the other side.

Other side? The thought lingered in my brain. How did I know there was something on the other side? How did I know that when my head disappeared under the pool I would never be the same again?

Tallu touched my shoulder and I jerked to wakefulness. He hovered above me in the murky darkness of early morning in the forest.

“Are you ready?” he asked, his voice quiet.

“Yes,” I said, rubbing my hands over my face. “Yes, I am.”

Tallu had a plan and I would follow, no matter how my eyes ached from tiredness, no matter how small I felt when I thought about Kacha, a man who had taken everything from me. It didn’t matter that I had clawed it back from him; he had still taken it in the first place. I would not let him win.

Thirteen

There was no camp to return to, but as we rode Naî toward Namati’s boats, she was willing to fly over what was left of it. First we had to pass by the battlefield, the place where I had killed half an army. I tried not to think on it, tried to remember that if they had won, so many more would have died.

It didn’t help. I wasn’t sure anything could. Using magic I wasn’t sure I should have ever touched in the first place, I had slaughtered them.

Once, I had worried that my father would never look at me the same after I had assassinated an entire boat full of elves that were hunting the whales off of our coast.