23
~ AKELLA ~
Rizalt Akella ock Hanyon was still sleeping peacefully when the three burly men burst through the door. Even with the door forced open, slamming against the dresser and knocking the items upon it onto the floor with a sudden and violent clatter, Akella might have stayed sleeping a few moments longer. But the woman who had been sleeping beside Akella woke up immediately and, screaming as she sat bolt upright in bed, took all the bed’s rumpled blankets with her in order to cover herself. The sudden absence of the blankets created a cold draft that whooshed rather unpleasantly over Akella’s naked body.
And that was what finally woke her up.
“Oiii,”was the only syllable Akella managed to utter, squinting at the sunlight that was now so rudely shining in her eyes. She lifted a forearm to block it, but the sun was annoyingly all pervasive.
Akella could already tell the hangover was going to be made worse than usual by whatever events were about to transpire.
“Get dressed, ye filthy pirate,” said one of the burly men, who at least had the decency to avert his eyes from Akella’s naked body and the prostitute barely covered by blankets and bedsheets just behind her.
As Akella’s eyes adjusted to the unwelcome brightness, she tried to both piece together her jagged memories of the night before and figure out who the strangers who’d just woken her were. The one who’d averted his eyes was dressed in an Imperial Army uniform. So was the one standing beside him, who was definitely not averting his eyes but was at least staring at the screaming woman behind Akella and not Akella herself. The third man Akella recognized as the brothel’s bouncer, big and stupid and ugly and seeming to enjoy the fact that Akella was being caught naked and unawares in his place of employment.
All of Port Lorsin had been a great party the night before, because its young Empress had finally taken a husband. Akella wasn’t overly fond of Port Lorsin, but she was fond of parties, so she’d decided she and the crew of Preyla’s Vengeance could spend one more night in the city’s Shipper’s Quarter before heading south to the Islands with its (almost) legitimate cargo of Western cotton.
Akella thought back. She remembered drinking. She remembered cheating at cards, but she’d left before the men she’d swindled had caught her doing it. She remembered visiting at least two other brothels with her men before finally settling on this one and the woman behind her.
And yes, there’d been a fight at some point during the night, and yes, some of her sailors might have lifted the coin purse of the man she’d put in his place, but none of that was really that unusual for a feast night in the Shipper’s Quarter.
Had she actually done something bad enough to warrant being arrested … ?
No, wait. The better question was, had she actually been caught doing something bad enough to warrant being arrested?
“Hurry up,” said the military man with the averted eyes, clearly uncomfortable about the situation he found himself in. “And you,” he said to the prostitute, “stop yer yowlin’. Yer givin’ me a headache.”
The prostitute’s mouth snapped shut behind Akella, but the woman still sniffled miserably.
“Can you really blame her?” Akella asked. She waved a hand around the room, noting with some regret that the coin purse she’d helped steal was one of the items that had fallen from the dresser when the door slammed into it. “This isn’t exactly the most pleasant way to be woken up, lads.”
“The man told ye t’hurry up, pirate,” said the bouncer. “So ye’ll hurry up, if ye know what’s good for ye.”
“Yes, yes. I heard him.” Akella stood up and stretched, unhurried, completely unselfconscious in her nudity. Let them stare at her instead of the woman cowering in the bed behind her, who obviously feared the three strangers. Let them stare at her instead of the stolen coin purse that she deftly scooped up at the same time as her trousers and undergarments.
She dressed at her own pace, giving herself the time to puzzle out why military men would be arresting her. Whenever she’d been arrested in Port Lorsin in the past, it had been the city guard that had done the arresting, not the Imperial Army.
It was almost cause for concern. Almost.
“Alright,” Akella said, spreading out her hands. “I’m dressed. Now where are we going?”
One of the soldiers, the one who’d been ogling the prostitute since the door had been flung open, produced a pair of iron manacles connected by a chain.
“Whoa there, soldier,” Akella said, holding up both palms. “Did I say I was going to fight you? There’s no need for those.” She glanced at the averted eye soldier. “Tell your friend. I’ll come willingly.”
He finally looked up, hesitation in his face as he studied Akella for a long moment. “Ye try anything –”
“Do I look like I’m trying anything, sir?”
“I ain’t a sir,” the soldier grumbled. “Ye try anything, we’ll clock ye, cuff ye, and drag ye the rest of the way.”
“I promise,” Akella said. “I’m not trying anything.”
She reached into the stolen coin purse, making both soldiers put their hands on the hilts of their weapons.
“Relax,” Akella said. “I’m simply paying the lady behind us for her time.”
Under the watchful eyes of all three men, Akella placed the woman’s payment on the dresser, then deftly slid an extra silver eagle beneath a rumpled scarf. She would find it later. She deserved a little more, having her morning ruined like this.
One of her sailors appeared in the doorway of another room as the men led Akella away.
“Rizalt? What’s happening?” he called in Adessian.
“Everything’s fine,” Akella replied without turning around, using the Imperial common tongue for the benefit of her captors. “I’ll send a message when I can.”
“Do you need help?” he asked.
This time, Akella replied in Adessian. “Given what Preyla’s Vengeance has on board, absolutely not. The last thing we need is extra attention.”
“Aye, Rizalt.”
The men were pushing Akella ahead of them out the door.
“If I’m not back by sunrise tomorrow morning,” Akella shouted over her shoulder, “set sail without me.”
#
Thirty minutes later, Akella found herself inside the last place on Earth she ever thought she would step foot: the palace of Port Lorsin itself. The soldiers had been stubbornly silent about why she had been dragged out of bed and escorted through the palace’s western gate. So was the young palace guard in shining black armor who met them at the gate and walked her through a maze of corridors. Then one particularly long hallway entered into the most extraordinary indoor space Akella had ever seen.
The hexagonal room was vast, its vaulted ceiling soaring at least fifty feet over Akella’s head. Sunlight streamed in through skylights set far above, and in the center of the room, set a few feet below the rest of the floor, an enormous sunken garden spread out. Somewhere in the garden’s center, Akella could hear the babbling of a spring or a fountain.
She let out a low whistle through the gap between her two front teeth. “Are those plants actually real? Not elaborate green silk or something?”
The black clad guard gave her a sidelong glance. “Of course they’re real. Who would use silk to make plants?” Akella had stopped to gawk at the atrium and gaze up at the impossibly high ceiling, and now the guard gave her a gentle shove in the small of her back. “Come on,” he said. “The Empress is expecting you.”
TheEmpress? Had the guard just said the Empress was waiting for her? For an Adessian pirate captain?
Preyla save me,Akella thought. I must have really stepped in it this time.
A few twists and turns down new corridors later and the guard stopped between a heavy oak door inlaid with images from the Empire’s storied history. Two more stoic looking men in black armor nodded like they’d been waiting for him to appear.
“This is her,” Akella’s guard said. “The pirate.”
One of the guards opened the door for them, and Akella’s guard walked her inside.
“You can sit,” he said, waving at what was perhaps the finest red upholstered divan Akella had ever laid eyes on. “She’ll be here soon.”
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” Akella asked.
This question actually caused the guard to smile. “No. That’s not for me to say. It’s for her to say.”
“And when you say ‘her,’ you mean the …”
“The Empress.”
“Yeah.” Akella had already understood that, but she needed to hear him say it once more. And then, as if to reassure herself that she wasn’t still in the brothel having a very unusual dream, she said, “I’m here … in Port Lorsin’s palace, because I have to see the Empress of the House of Dorsa.”
The guard nodded. “That’s right.”
“Am I under arrest?”
He shrugged. “Not for me to –”
“Not for you to say,” Akella said. “Yeah, got it.”