45
~ LINNA ~
Out of the corner of her eye, Linna saw a figure she was nearly positive was Akella slip away from the eastern courtyard and down a rarely used side hall. That part wasn’t too strange; the pirate was always sneaking about somewhere. What really caught Linna’s attention was the fact that she carried a lantern with her. It was at least three hours before the sun would set. Where could she possibly be going that required a lantern?
The Commander was still speaking about Linna needing to tend to the Empress while she made yet another trip to the north, back in the direction where the Imperial Army’s old winter camp was, though not quite that far away.
“…hopefully no more than a week, round trip,” the Commander concluded.
Linna wrenched her attention away from the side hall. She wanted to sprint after the pirate right away, to see where she was headed. Linna told herself it was because she still didn’t quite trust Akella and took it upon herself to keep an eye on the shifty pirate captain. But it was closer to the truth that Akella was always up to something intriguing, whether it was taking command of a ship in the middle of a hurricane, digging tunnels beneath palisade walls, or rushing into battle unexpectedly and getting herself injured. Despite herself, Linna liked Akella, even felt a certain kinship with her. And she definitely wouldn’t have come as close to defeating the Commander in their sparring match if not for the time she’d spent training with the pirate.
“Are you still listening, Linna?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Linna replied automatically. “When do you leave?”
“Dawn,” the Commander answered. “Come, now. The Empress said she would have baths drawn for both of us, and we don’t want to be so late that the water is chilled by the time we arrive. You know how that annoys her.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Linna had been about to clean her sword when she’d caught the glimpse of Akella disappearing. Now she wiped the blade down hastily before returning it to the scabbard at her hip.
She’d come back after the bath, she decided. She’d figure out where Akella went and see if she could follow her. Because pirates were inherently untrustworthy, Linna told herself. That was the reason Linna needed to investigate, and not because they’d been in Castle Pellon only two days and she already felt trapped and claustrophobic.
The bath was tepid when Linna stepped into it, and she was sure that if she’d been any closer to the Empress’s bedchamber, she would have heard the Commander being berated. But ironically, the suite of rooms that made up the lord and lady’s residences in Castle Pellon was a fair bit larger than the Empress’s apartments back in Port Lorsin. Maybe it wasn’t that surprising when one considered that the royal wing of Port Lorsin had been built close to eight hundred years ago whereas Castle Pellon was less than two hundred years old. The Empress also had one of the smaller sets of apartments, given that she’d chosen not to move into her father’s quarters once she’d returned to the palace.
The consequence was that Linna’s room was farther from the Empress and Commander than she’d ever been, separated from the master bedchamber by a short hallway and airy sitting room. She couldn’t decide if she liked being so far away or not. On the one hand, she could come and go as she pleased more easily, and she could avoid being seen if it suited her, but on the other hand, she’d felt more part of things when she was sleeping just beyond the Empress’s bedchamber door. Or, for that matter, on the ground beside her cot in a tent.
But at least it was still just the three of them inside the honeycomb of chambers – with the Commander back, the only guards allowed inside the Empress’s quarters were Linna and the Commander herself. Not even Ammanta had taken a room inside the Empress’s new accommodations. Linna supposed she should take pride in that.
She put on nightclothes once she’d finished the bath. They didn’t fit particularly well – too loose in some places, too tight in others – but at least they were relatively warm, and she’d learned from her limited stay within the castle that getting warm and staying that way was a luxury not to be taken for granted. Pushing her feet into a pair of wool-lined slippers she’d found in the bottom drawer of the standing wardrobe, Linna padded down the hallway, across the sitting room, and towards the double doors that led into the Empress’s bedchamber. One door was ajar, which usually meant Linna was invited in.
“…believe how much her skill has grown in such a short time,” the Commander was saying as Linna approached the door. “When we left Port Lorsin five months ago, she barely knew how to hold a sword properly. Today, she nearly bested me as we sparred.”
Linna felt a smile growing on her face. The “she” the Commander spoke of could only be her. She’d been reaching for the door knob, but now she let her hand fall away as the Empress began to speak.
“You always said she had great potential,” the Empress said, but she sounded distracted, as though her attention was only half-focused on the Commander’s words.
Linna couldn’t see them from where she was standing, but she could imagine them. The Empress was hovering above the table she’d had brought in, the one covered with maps and wooden blocks showing the last known positions of enemy forces and her own army that had taken up so much of her attention in the past few months. The great map always reminded Linna of an oversized board of Castles and Knights, a game that had only just begun to gain popularity in Terinto around the time she first met the Empress, and which Linna had never learned to play.
“I am rethinking our plan to send you north,” said the Empress, abruptly changing the subject. “Perhaps Colonel Ollea can go in your stead. I prefer the generals of our three divisions closer to home, especially if we suspect some fresh offensive afoot.”
“I want nothing more than to remain at your side.” The Commander sounded tired – exhausted, even, and also like she’d had this conversation with the Empress more than once. “Colonel Ollea is a very capable commander, certainly promotable to general. But her talent is in leading men, not in tracking.”
“We do not know yet that tracking will be required.”
“We know that four scouts have disappeared and never returned,” said the Commander.
“They could have simply deserted.”
“Possibly.”
The Empress let out an exasperated sigh. “You say you want to remain at my side, and yet you hardly argued when I sent you north. Now I am saying you should stay here, but you are the one advocating that you leave again. Are you sure you haven’t simply grown weary of me?” The question teetered on the edge of irritation and something far more vulnerable. “Especially now that … that Mace’s child grows fat inside me?”
“Tasia. Of course not.” A beat passed; Linna imagined the Commander stepping closer to the Empress, maybe wrapping her arms around the Empress’s belly, which had noticeably grown in recent weeks. They had almost never touched or embraced in Linna’s presence, so the most she could do was picture how it might happen. “My priority is – has always been – your safety. I did not argue when you sent me north the first time because a collapse of our northern line would have put you in danger. I advocate a return trip now because that is where the newest threat to you – and to the child – rises from.”
The Empress responded too softly for Linna to hear.
“I promise I will,” the Commander answered. “Always.”
More silence followed. Linna was about to move away, to return to her original plan of finding out where the pirate was skulking off to, but then she caught the end of the Empress’s sentence.
“…back to Port Lorsin,” she said. “Like we said we were going to do when we still thought we’d have to fight tooth and nail to take Pellon.”
Linna froze.
“I’m glad to hear you say it,” said the Commander. “Impressive skills or no, I will feel far more comfortable knowing she’s well out of harm’s way.”
They’re talking aboutme again, Linna thought, panicked. They’re going to send me away.
“She’s had her adventure, and she’s grown from it,” the Empress said. “But I sense a storm brewing, and I don’t want her here when it hits. For that matter, I don’t want any of my personal staff here when it hits. I only want those here who are absolutely necessary; I would not put the rest in danger needlessly.”
“Good. I have long wanted her to return. And it cannot hurt to have another set of eyes upon Adela, especially with the Terintan boy around.”
“Terintan boy?” repeated the Empress, amused. “Are you as biased against your own people as the rest of my Empire?”
“It’s not the Terintan in him I don’t trust. It’s Lord M’Tongliss.”
“Darien has proven himself a perfect gentleman.”
“He is a gentleman when you can see him,” the Commander countered. “You do not know what he says or does when you cannot see him.” The Commander added something else, but Linna couldn’t make it out.
The Empress laughed, and Linna, who had heard more than enough, stalked away from the door, eyes burning with tears she refused to shed.