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  “Ah,” the Emperor said, turning his eyes on me. Just then, he reminded me a little of Caius for reasons beyond his clothing, because I thought I saw a spark of madness in his expression. “I see. You practice at fighting, but do not deem it necessary to use real swords.”

  Josette sucked in her breath, like she knew what was coming, and, even worse, that she couldn’t do a thing to stop it. That alone should have made me think twice, but my blood was pounding so hard from the fight that it made it real difficult to think even once.

  “I had a real sword,” I pointed out. “Only it was borrowed, and it just seemed like good manners not to get it all banged up practicing with someone else.”

  “Good manners,” the Emperor repeated, only in his voice it sounded like something soft and slithery, a snake sliding through dry leaves.

  “Yeah,” I said, tapping the sword against my leg. I caught Caius’s eye from where he was standing up against the wall. He looked like a puppy in a box, trying to keep his composure but still too wriggly and excited to actually manage it. I wasn’t going to get any help from him in squirming my way out of this conversation, and I was starting to wish I’d just gone and bowed like Temur so as to placate the Emperor so he could’ve gone on his way and let us be. There was something about the way he was looking at me that I didn’t like. I felt like a beetle pinned under a ’Versity student’s lens.

  “Well,” the Emperor said, “a real soldier of the Volstov should fight with a real sword.”

  I couldn’t get my head around why that sounded like an insult before he’d undone something at the front of his robes, and was shedding all the fine, heavy layers like the most elaborate cocoon imaginable. Underneath it all, he was wearing plain black robes, just like his servant-bodyguards. It was then that I remembered he was still in mourning for his dead father.

  Emperor Iseul snapped his fingers, and one of his entourage started doing something with a cord to tie back his sleeves.

  Beside me, I heard the shifting of gravel as Lord Temur got to his feet. For the first time since I’d met him, he looked flustered.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, feeling a sudden inexplicable companionship with someone who’d until now been my enemy, “but—to me, I mean—it looks as though the Emperor wants a chance at fighting me next.”

  Temur eyed me, as though trying to choose his words very carefully. “I would lend you my sword, had I been permitted to bring a live blade.”

  There were too many things I wanted to say to that. Did that mean that yes, I was going to have to fight the Emperor? Did it mean I was finally going to get what I’d been wishing for—right when I really didn’t want it—a real fight? And most important: Was I going to end up like the second prince if I caught one of the Emperor’s fancy jade hairpins on the edge of my sword in the heat of the skirmish?

  Before I had a chance to answer, one of the Emperor’s guards unsheathed his sword and handed it to me. I guessed whatever rules applied to us about swords didn’t apply to them. There was something about the weight of the gesture that was like a sudden cold wind up the length of my back. I didn’t like how this was going, not at all.

  Caius waved to me from the sidelines. He looked as though he’d just been told there was going to be a festival in his honor, with lanterns and streamers, dancing girls and fireworks.

  “Good luck, my dear!” He smiled that creepy jack-o’-lantern smile he had. “Do us proud, would you?”

  At least he had his priorities in order. I wasn’t expecting the same kind of encouragement from Josette, who had to be diplomatic now that the Emperor was there, but she’d pressed her lips together into a thin line, like she was afraid that she would start cheering if she didn’t remind herself not to.

  I swung the guard’s sword, testing the weight of it against what I’d just been using. It was heavier than Lord Jiro’s sword had been, maybe even the same weight as the practice sword. I was thinking maybe that I should have thanked him, but when I turned around he’d already retired to the sidelines and so had Lord Temur, who was standing next to Josette and murmuring something in her ear.

  If it was a bet, I was hoping Josette’d forget to be diplomatic just long enough to put it all on me. It was a matter of patriotism, after all.

  The Emperor stepped out into the open area we’d made our sparring arena. His long, ornate sleeves were tied back with a thin, ropy cord, and he had a fierce look in his eyes. Somehow, I thought, he looked a little like the paintings we’d seen of the warrior-gods, smiling cruelly, their hair braided with the bones of their enemies or something.

  However preposterous he looked all dolled up in traditional Ke-Han fashion, this was a man who’d got rid of his own brother for questionable reasons. A man who’d dressed in his finest to greet us the afternoon we arrived, when only that morning his father had killed himself for the sake of honor. I was starting to get the feeling that this—everything—had been a really bad idea, when he swung his sword up into a waiting position. It was the same stance Lord Temur had adopted yet different all the same.

  In the time it took me to follow, the Emperor’s expression changed from bloodthirsty to amused.

  “I was a warrior myself, General,” he said, “before I was an emperor.”

  With that, he brought his sword down lightning quick, and when we clashed it was with the crisp, dangerous ring of metal on metal.

  It was one thing sparring with Lord Temur, who was more or less, in the scheme of things, my equal. I was a general; he was a warlord. We’d probably both been in the same position during the war, and we were the same age, more or less.

  It was another thing to spar with the Emperor of the Ke-Han, who was, by my understanding, a good five years younger than I was.

  All I could think was that Emperor Iseul was lucky he hadn’t been Emperor during the war, or during my time fighting in it, anyway. That Emperor had a lot to answer for, and, with a sword in my hand, I might’ve been tempted to make him answer for it right then and there, and peace treaty be damned.

  The first meaningful thing I learned about Emperor Iseul was that he was fast.

  He came at me like a poisonous snake lashes out to bite, whip-quick and light. He looked more at home in plain clothes than he did all trussed up in emperor garb, and he looked pretty regal then.

  And it wasn’t anything at all like fighting Lord Temur, partly because they were two very different men and partly because having a real sword in your hand changes everything. I was more than just plain grateful that I’d had the practice fighting Lord Temur to learn a little more about swordplay in the Ke-Han style. In fact, I didn’t have any proper words for just how grateful I was.

  Knowing what the Emperor was aiming for helped me to parry the first ten or so attacks, but not knowing what direction he was coming from wasn’t doing me any good. I couldn’t read anything in his face beyond the glint in his eyes. He’d wanted to strike out at us for a long time, ever since we’d arrived and probably before then, too. I just happened to be the poor bastard standing in front of him, holding a sword.

  I thought about Volstov. I thought about how many years I’d fought, and how many friends I’d lost, and the battles I’d been in with that man on the other side.

  It was hard to get past the defensive, but there was something as angry as fire in the air and it was coming over me now, same as it’d come over the Emperor himself. I didn’t even know what we were fighting for anymore, but we were fighting honestly, like two starved lions in the ring.

  I brought my sword down, hard, aiming for his shoulder, and he parried, throwing all his weight against the attack. I could feel the clash in my jaw, it was so sudden and so hard, and then he was on the offensive again, while I had to keep blocking his attacks at lightning speed, or else. He was moving fast enough that I didn’t know if his swings were the sort of thing he could stop in time—that is, if he did break through my defense—before he sliced my arm off, or worse.

  Head, belly,
hand, head, hand, belly. He fell into a pattern that was deceptively easy to follow, striking out with rhythmic diligence. It wasn’t anything like fighting an ordinary soldier. I wasn’t good enough, and we both knew it. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to make him sweat—and fighting, I knew intimately, wasn’t always about who was good and who was better. It was about luck, too, and tenacity, and about reading a person.

  Only it was impossible to read the Emperor. The more I fought him, the more I realized he was fucking insane.

  There was sweat in my eyes, pouring down the back of my neck and staining my shirt and my chest, my shoulders, my underarms. I wished to bastion I had my own sword—a mean, heavy Volstovic number that could’ve broken his blade in half with the right swing—and then we’d’ve seen how good he was, with two pieces of a sword and me bearing down on him.

  I could hear my breath turn ragged, was starting to recognize the pattern of the Emperor’s breaths, too—how he breathed in when he attacked, breathed out when he parried. Our swords met, over and over, me fighting like a Volstovic soldier, him like the Emperor of the damn Ke-Han.

  Then I slipped on the gravel. It was the only opening Emperor Iseul needed—the opening, maybe, he’d been waiting for this whole time. It was my boots, or the fact that I wasn’t used to fighting like that on the gravel, or how out of practice I was. Any number of things could’ve caused the slip, but they were all worthless excuses. It was a mistake, pure and simple, and I was going to pay for it. It was only a matter of how.

  My thoughts came pretty quickly in that instant, right before the Emperor’s sword came down.

  I managed to stop the blade from slicing me open, cracking my collarbone and heading toward the lungs or the heart, but it took all my weight—at least I was a bigger man—to keep Iseul at bay; I had no chance to push him fully off. He’d attack again, and quickly. The second strike would likely throw me off-balance.

  I braced myself for it, down on one knee and thinking through all the unfavorable situations I’d been trapped in, all the scars I’d won. Was I really going to let some Ke-Han bastard get the best of me, Emperor or not?

  So instead of just waiting for the attack, I brought myself up to meet him as his sword came down the second time. The noise was so loud I thought I heard Josette shout behind us—less like a scream of fear and more like a vote of confidence. Or, at least, I chose to read it that way.

  It surprised the Emperor, as much as he could be surprised, anyway, and I pressed my advantage without much finesse. Strength might win me this one, not technique. If only I had my fucking broadsword.

  Iseul parried my every move, but at least I was driving him backward.

  Pride undid me. I was too pleased with myself, and that blinded me to the possibility that the Emperor could be as strong as I was. That maybe he’d been holding back some cards for the very last round, the way they had in the war, so that by the time we’d got them figured, it was nearly too late to stop them.

  And, just like that, I was on the ground, flattened out, dazed and aching and wondering how I’d got there. I’d lunged too quickly, pressed my advantage too fully, and Iseul had caught my blade with his own, then…

  Then, he’d tripped me.

  Still, I always knew the Ke-Han fought dirty. I should’ve been expecting it all along.

  I could hear the sound of a sword coming down, could hear it sing through the air with such grace and speed that I knew two things. One, that the Emperor was a master swordsman, and at least I’d been bested by a worthy man. Two, that the Emperor was going to kill me.

  You didn’t swing a sword like that unless you were aiming to kill, and I was down, moving too slowly. I brought my sword up, but my bad arm was numb, and there wasn’t enough strength in my hand to stop Iseul; he’d just drive my own blade into my neck with his own.

  Shit, I thought. Caius Greylace had really done it this time.

  “My Lord!” Lord Temur shouted from the sidelines. There was something in his voice I recognized—a little bit of the same desperation I felt, although not as much, obviously, since I was the one Emperor Iseul was about to slice open.

  The Emperor stopped as if on the blade of a knife, the tip of his sword a bare inch away from my face. My life didn’t pass in front of my eyes or anything like that—I was used to almost dying—but the morning sunlight glinted too brightly off the metal of the Emperor’s sword, and my heart was pounding so hard I could scarcely hear anything else.

  Then, just as neatly as you could turn a Ke-Han sword from sharp side to blunt, Emperor Iseul’s face lost that mad spark, so that even when I looked for it, I couldn’t catch the barest hint. He removed his sword in a deliberate gesture, graceful, as though it had all been a part of the dance to begin with.

  Except I’d heard the panic in Lord Temur’s voice. That hadn’t been a part of any dance, Volstovic or Ke-Han.

  “I overestimated your skill,” the Emperor said, as if that was his idea of an apology. Close to, the sharp planes of his face made him look less like a warrior-god and more a man wearing a demon mask. His eyes were lined with kohl, making them seem longer and thinner, like the eyes of some great cat that toyed with you before pouncing. The ornaments in his hair clinked together like the wind charms we’d seen in the city. “If it is your intent to practice here in the future, I will inform the guards that you are not to be disturbed.”

  I didn’t know what the proper response to that was. How did you thank a man who’d just tried to kill you? Did you show you were grateful, just because something—fate or Lord Temur’s voice or a combination of both—had intervened? All I knew was, I was flat on my back and I wasn’t about to turn over just to bow.

  “It seems as though I’ll be needing the practice,” I said instead, wondering a bit too late whether or not the humor would translate.

  Emperor Iseul stretched his lips in a humorless smile. “Indeed, you do.”

  He turned and walked off the yard to where his servants were waiting, muttering to themselves in a language I still didn’t understand, though I thought I caught one or two words that were starting to sound familiar to me. Maybe one was the Ke-Han word for “Volstov,” or “little blond shit-stirrer who dresses like a woman.”

  As it didn’t look like anyone was going to rush over and help me up anytime soon, I got up myself. I brushed the white dust from the gravel off my trousers and rolled my shoulder a couple of times, stretching out my bad arm gingerly. With my luck, it’d stiffen over the course of the day and get worse overnight. Either way, there was no doubt in my mind it’d be sore as hell in the morning.

  Emperor Iseul’s servants were busy dressing him, tying on the colorful robes that hid his private mourning, and all of them silent as the grave before Iseul started barking orders and they began to talk among themselves, hesitantly at first. Who knew what they were saying? Maybe they didn’t like the way I’d been manhandling their Emperor, but if I could’ve spoken the language, I would’ve assured them that it was me who needed the fussing over, and not Iseul. I’d been the one flattened—and my pride felt it too, just the same as my back and arm.

  One of them shuffled over to take the sword back, which I handed over gladly. I’d had enough of real weapons for the time being.

  “Are you all right?” Josette had finally broken away from the wall to ascertain my well-being—after having waited a properly diplomatic interval, I was sure. “That last looked quite… forceful.”

  I shrugged, regretting it when my arm started to tingle after the movement. “It was good exercise. And that’s the whole point. Force.”

  “Well,” she said, looking between Emperor Iseul and me, “think of the story this will make, though. Fiacre will never believe it. One of our own, sparring with the Emperor of the Ke-Han!”

  All at once her face changed, got all excited and flushed the way Caius’s did when he contemplated some new fabric or a particularly beautiful formation in his tea leaves. At least she didn’t sound so thrilled by th
e fact that I’d almost had my neck sliced in two. Maybe she didn’t realize it.

  “I have to go and tell him,” Josette continued. “I’m sorry, but if I’m not the first to break the news, I’ll be sorely disappointed. I’ll see you at breakfast, though! And Alcibiades… perhaps you’d better bathe first.”

  I followed Josette back to the wall, where Lord Temur was standing uncertainly in the middle distance between Caius and the Emperor, looking rather unsure of himself for the first time.

  I still couldn’t shake the sneaking suspicion that Lord Temur had saved my life by recalling the Emperor to his surroundings the way he had. I guessed that meant I had to be grateful to him. What surprised me was that I didn’t really mind.

  “Lord Temur,” Josette said suddenly, as if she’d just had a brilliant idea. “Would you like to accompany me back to the palace?”

  Temur blinked, and I thought I saw a hint of a smile in his eyes. Maybe the Ke-Han had expressions after all, and you only had to know where to look for them. Or maybe it was just the remnants of the fight still in him. Either way, he held out his arm, and this time, Caius didn’t dive between the pair of them to take it away.

  In fact, Caius was being oddly still for someone who’d been all but doing cartwheels in the courtyard earlier. With his one good eye, he regarded the Emperor’s servants refitting his train, and he didn’t even look as excited about the clothes as he might have, nor was he tapping his cheek in fake concentration, a gesture that was rapidly becoming overly familiar.

  I joined him by the wall, standing by way of blocking his view, since as far as I was concerned he’d orchestrated this whole thing in the first place. Even if it had started out as something of a favor, it’d ended up almost killing me.

  “My, my,” Caius said, coming to life suddenly as though he’d been in a daze all this while. “What a dreadfully exciting morning, don’t you think? You’ll be the talk of the palace for months, my dear, as the diplomat from Volstov who tested the Emperor himself!”