Peleus’s word had some value after all. A bandon of guards, two hundred strong, had appeared that evening in the Trabakondai quarter, scaring off all rioters, and half the Trabakondai as well, though any abuses they committed were at least less severe than what a mob would have done. It was, of course, the talk of the city. Some saw it as further evidence that Peleus had been corrupted by Shirrin and the Trabakondai in general; others saw it as merely a sign of even-handed legalism, that even non-citizens have a right not to be murdered. Either way, the anti-Trabakondai sentiment had cooled, at least for the moment.

  Which left Shirrin merely to wander the pace, questioning her purpose just as she had for the st several days. She withdrew from the world, stirring from her chambers only to occasionally terrorize Peleus; but even that had the air more of juvenile pranks than it did the deliberate regime of psychological harm that it had previously. Shirrin was dangerously close to devolving into a mere imp of chaos, forever causing minor trouble in the pace without any real notion of ends.

  Shirrin had become used to people not noticing her. Certainly, they saw her; when she passed in the halls, the sves and courtiers would shudder and jerk out of the way. And folk talked about her as well, spreading rumors and mutterings about what horrible magics she worked when the stars were out. But by and rge, she was treated the same way one might treat an infestation of over-rge spiders: with brief revulsion, followed by rapid avoidance. That changed when the messenger arrived.

  He was young, maybe twelve or thirteen, and he looked deeply afraid to be bothering her at all, trembling as though at any moment she might strike him down. Shirrin raised an eyebrow as he arrived, flitting through the door of her chambers early one morning.

  “Hello there. I don’t think I’ve seen you around the pace before.”

  “I am Iphis, son of Argus,” he said, puffing out his chest as he made an adolescent approximation of a formal introduction.

  “Argus the senator?”

  Iphis nodded. The sons of senators would often begin training to follow in their father’s footsteps by doing small favors for other politicians; it was a way to ingratiate themselves with their elders while also learning some of the political ndscape in and around the pace.

  “The Emperor requests that you make yourself known in the throne room,” the boy continued. “Posthaste.”

  That was concerning. Particurly that Peleus wanted to see her in the throne room, specifically, as opposed to in private. Shirrin felt the twang of fear at an impending dressing-down, in public at that, but it was easily fought off. Her spies would have told her if Peleus suspected anything. She waved the boy off, then set off for the throne room at once.

  The first surprise came before she even reached the throne room, for standing outside of it was a mass of impatient and confused men. Almost all of them were men, at least, for this crowd was made up primarily of the rich and powerful of the city, ndowners and senators and magistrates, with a few pace guards and servants mixed in. Normally, at that hour, these people would be within the throne room itself, waiting for their turn to speak to the Emperor or to whichever high magistrate he had appointed to hear petitions on his behalf. She did not slow as she forced her way through the crowd, but by overhearing their conversation she understood the gist of the situation. They had been cast out from the throne room, with promises of a swift return, and absolutely no further expnation from the Emperor.

  Shirrin pushed through the doors and was immediately struck by the thick smell of incense, the main reason why she kept her appearances in the throne room to an absolute minimum. A half-dozen braziers burned the stuff, scattered all over the throne room, and filled the room with incense so thickly that it could almost be seen on the air. Shirrin’s throat seized, and for a moment she forgot to breathe. It was several long, slow seconds before her lungs came back under control.

  The throne room was one of the rger chambers of the pace, a long hall with a row of columns on either side, and not a handspan of surface was not in some way a dispy of imperial power. The floor was made of Kyreniai granite, and the roof was a grand vault of Philgeonian marble. Each pilr was painted brilliant violet and vermilion, with decorative carvings of vines and supporting hands along the base and cap. Along the walls were countless tapestries, with thin scrims of silk suspended between the pilrs to give a sembnce of privacy to those talking business while they waited for their moment of audience. At the head of the room was the centerpiece of its decoration, the throne itself; carved from rich red Sarraniai ironwood and inid with semi-precious stones in blue, green, yellow, and white.

  All of that space, the huge spotless echoing chamber of Imperial power, served to hold two people, three if one counted the new arrival. Sitting upon the throne in his ceremonial purple robes was Emperor Peleus. Standing at his feet in a fine silk dress, amber bracelets at her wrists and a tiara of silver on her brow, was Athan. He was stewing in quiet fury; she had no idea what was happening.

  Peleus flicked his eyes over at Shirrin, all her arts of stealth forgotten. “Ah, you’ve made it. Your little intrusion into my affairs the other day has caused me to come to a realization. You have been quite… resistant, for one who is meant to be a sve, so I have decided to give you a reminder about the nature of our retionship.”

  Shirrin would have sworn if it were not a severe viotion of an already-strained servitude. She instead remained still and silent, watching the proceedings with horror as her frantic mind began to piece together what it was, precisely, that Peleus was doing. He was ignoring her previous advice, purposefully, and funting it as well, reminding his sve that her words had meaning only to the extent that he allowed them to have it.

  Peleus’s attention swung around to the Empress. “Now then. Do you know why I have called you here, to the throne room, instead of handling this matter in our chambers?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head miserably.

  “Because I wish for you to take it seriously. I ask you this not merely as your husband, but as your superior: where have you been going at night?”

  “What?” said Athan.

  “Do not py the fool with me, my love,” Peleus said lovelessly. “I have noticed these absences, the times that you do not return to our bedchamber until long, long after sunset. So where were you?”

  Shirrin circled around the edge of the throne room, trying desperately to bring herself within view of Athan’s face. This had been precisely what she had feared, the thing that could tear the pn to pieces. If Athan told the truth, it would certainly be damaging to her reputation and to her retionship with Peleus, but the damage would be minimal compared with how severely she could be punished for associating with the Empress.

  “I was praying,” Athan said. “Private prayer, for our daughter’s sake. And has not her condition improved greatly? I did not think it was necessary to tell you, and for that I am deeply sorry, but…”

  Peleus held up his hand for silence. “I beg you to speak only the truth, that I may continue to love you as a wife and not hate you as an enemy.”

  “It was no lie!”

  “Then you mean to tell me that your prayers have taken pce in a former bedroom? That they sound, to a passer-by, the same as conversation? What a strange form of prayer that is, you must tell me more about it, where it came from, how you learned of it, if this is indeed the style of prayer that has brought back Aissa’s health.”

  Silence in the throne room. Total silence. Shirrin’s thoughts were moving rapidly in circles, trying to find some way out while at the same time trying to calcute how she had been brought here in the first pce. Athan looked horrified.

  “Have you had me followed?”

  “No, my love. But you have been, at times, overheard. Now please, I will ask you this only once more: speak the truth, and tell me where you have been going these st few weeks.”

  Athan again fell silent, though the look of horror had been repced by one of abject defeat. Her eyes flitted about the room, unable to meet her husband’s face. Shirrin was totally unmade, her thoughts like insignificant bugs flittering through turbulent air. Would that she could have communed silently with Athan in that moment, begging her to conceal everything. But she could not. All she could do in the shadows behind the throne was look on in horror and hope that Athan would notice her.

  Did Athan notice her, though? There was once, maybe twice, where as Athan’s eyes flickered about the throne room they did appear to nd on Shirrin, but it was a hallucination of a hopeless mind. Even if she did, what did the Empress care for the opinion of a sve? The moment she was at risk, truly at risk from the one man in the world who held power over her, she would fy Shirrin to the bone if it meant her own safety.

  Finally, Athan sighed. “I will tell you, my husband. I hope it will not bring shame upon me, or upon she who I am about to indict.”

  “That remains to be seen,” said Peleus.

  “I thought Aissa was going to die, you see,” Athan continued. “I have never lost a child before, and I needed to understand what that meant. I could have talked to my mother, perhaps, I do believe I had a brother or two who died young, but for whatever foolish reason, the person who I thought to speak to first was… Aissa’s nursemaid.”

  Peleus raised an eyebrow, leaning forward slightly in his chair. “All this time, you’ve been talking to… a nursemaid?”

  Athan nodded. “It seems so silly when spoken aloud, does it not? Indeed I suppose that is why I kept it a secret. It felt silly, absurd, but you must understand that a woman is never more irrational than when the life of her child is on the line.”

  “And if I were to go and find the nursemaid and ask her about this, she would say the same? That you and her were meeting at te hours, to discuss Aissa’s illness, and mourning, and all the other things?”

  Athan shrugged. “She would likely deny it at first. And all the more stringently refuse to detail the contents of the conversation. You must understand that these were conversations on womanly matters, motherly matters, not something a man like you would need to understand. Hector might have, but, well…”

  Peleus fell back into his chair, shutting his eyes and rubbing firmly at the furrowed skin of his brow. It was as though the trusting part of him and the disbelieving part were wrestling, struggling for dominance.

  Athan took a step forward, outstretching her arms. “Times have been hard for you, my love, this much I know. I hate to see you so gripped by paranoia.”

  “Do not!” Peleus cried, almost as a reflex. “Do not procim to know what does and does not ail me. Thank you for your honesty.”

  The Emperor rose from the throne and stormed off, muttering wordlessly to himself as he went. Slowly, as the heavy weight of his presence lifted from the room, Shirrin felt safe once again to carefully emerge from behind the throne. She was stunned speechless, very nearly stunned thoughtless. It should not have been surprising after what had just happened that, as soon as Peleus was gone, Athan turned to look at Shirrin, and yet it very much was.

  “I cannot believe what I have just done,” Athan said, her voice bubbling with suppressed ughter.

  Shirrin looked back at the throne, and at the doors of the chamber, to make certain that Peleus was out of earshot. “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “You lied to Peleus. Do you really think he would have hurt you, had he known the truth? I am a sve, Athan, it all would have fallen upon me.”

  Athan grinned. “Where would I be if I could not be trusted to protect the safety of my friends? A lie like this won’t hurt him.”

  Shirrin’s heart felt as though it was falling out of the bottom of her. How could this be happening? “I am your friend?” she asked.

  “Of course you are,” Athan said. It sounded as though she were remarking on the obvious.

  Shirrin forgot all propriety and pulled the Empress into a tight embrace. Athan was shocked at first, but eventually came to return the embrace as best as she could. They stayed that way for some time, rocking steadily back and forth as tears of bittersweet joy rolled down Shirrin’s cheeks. She had the Empress as a co-conspirator, willing to risk Peleus’s wrath to protect their secrets, to return Shirrin’s love with, if nothing else, a cordial friendship; but this did not change the fate that was to come.

  Athan, of course, was the one to break the embrace. “Do you suppose he’ll question her, the nursemaid?”

  “He might,” Shirrin said darkly. “I advised him not to question you about this matter, and he ignored that advice, so it certainly appears that an inquisitive mood has overtaken him.”

  “Then he might become suspicious! What are we going to do if he asks her and she professes to know nothing?”

  This, at least, was something which Shirrin knew well how to do. “If I go at once I’ll be able to get to her before Peleus can. My magic allows for such things.”

  “Really? Even with Peleus having such a headstart?”

  “Indeed.” Shirrin grinned. “Do you wish to see something? Only promise me that you will not tell anyone of this.”

  “I promise it.”

  Shirrin nodded, then promptly vanished, dissolving away until nothing remained but a humble housefly hovering in the air. It was the first time she had allowed herself to make use of her transformative abilities in front of someone who was not a co-conspirator, but there was no time to think about the implications of what she had done. She had someone to speak to. The fly buzzed away, leaving Athan alone in the throne room.

  SaffronDragon