Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [113]
‘Such promise,’ one of the women murmured. ‘She could have learned so much of our histories, such as no savage has ever known, and now this . . . Such a waste . . .’
‘Majesty.’ Gjegevey’s voice quavered, and Seda realized that he was terrified almost out of his mind. Had he been here alone, he would have thrown himself before the Masters and begged for mercy, but she gave him strength and for her sake, for loyalty’s sake, he clung to his staff and held his ground.
Several of the Masters were already turning away, not even interested enough to witness her being destroyed. The looming tidal wave of their power – a slightest handful of all they had saved up here, and yet still so much, such a vast fist to crush such small flies – was cresting all around them.
‘You have your grand histories,’ Seda conceded, betraying nothing but cool arrogance in her voice and stance. ‘But I have an Empire.’
She could sense their amusement at such a proclamation, and it bought her a little more time – time to educate those who had thought she had come to serve them.
‘At the lightest gesture of my army, half your city was razed. It would take a fraction of the soldiers now under my command to obliterate it from the face of the world. If I do not return safely to them, then that is exactly what I will do. More, they will bring in machines and Mole Cricket-kinden and they will dig. They shall tear apart the earth itself, until they uncover these halls, and then the sun shall become your only ceiling, and for all your power, and however many of my subjects you slay or drive mad, they shall take you eventually, and lead you through the streets of Capitas in chains. And so your histories, all of your histories, shall come to an end. I shall tear up every stone that bears your name or your likeness, and then I shall salt the earth itself so that your power may never revive.’
She sensed the massive hammer of their will poised in delicate balance above her.
‘You cannot think—’ one of them began, but Seda did not let him finish.
‘If you harm me, then this shall come to pass. It shall come to pass even if you simply deny me. I am the Empress of the Wasps, and I am the inheritor of the ancient powers, by blood and by shadow, and there is only one thing I require from you. Grant that one thing, and I shall leave you to your darkness and your stone.’
This was the fulcrum moment on which the future hinged, with their power poised right above her, an invisible, irresistible weight that could crush her mind, send her stark mad, and none of her tricks of magic or statesmanship could withstand it. But we are Wasps, and we do not beg. I shall have this on my terms or not at all, for there is no other path fit for an Empress.
Gjegevey stood very close, almost clinging to her arm, his face sheened with sweat in this unwholesome blue light. She radiated strength, though. Even if, at her greatest, she seemed a mere gnat in the face of their might, she stood straight and defied them, and held firm to her demands.
Had it not been for that other woman, had it not been for those stolen dreams that had visited Seda so long ago, so far away – those dreams of the same echoing halls, the lamps, the solemn faces of the Masters – then she would have sucumbed. True, had it not been for those dreams she would never have come at all, but in that moment of crisis, facing the vast depths of the Masters’ strength, she still held to that one scrap of knowledge. They were defeated before, out-thought, tricked from their prey. The Beetle girl escaped them. Well, I shall go one better.
‘See my Empire,’ she told them, and then filled her own mind with it, all of its artifice and energy, its rapacious hunger, its unending hordes of soldiers, its fierce youthful fire. She summoned up all her own confidence, her belief in her people and in herself, and her unbridled and all-consuming need to control: to control herself, control her people, control the ancient