Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [120]
Elandra met her mother’s eyes, and it was like staring at a wall. She knew further argument was futile.
“Are you finished?” she asked through lips that felt like wood.
“Yes, I think I have said enough.” Iaris drew up her robes and walked to the door. She paused and glanced back as though she meant to say something else, but then did not.
As soon as the door closed behind her, Elandra threw the knife. It thunked deep into the wood panel of the door and quivered there.
A guard peered inside, his gaze widening as he saw the knife sticking out of the door. “Is everything well, Majesty?”
“Why did you admit that woman without my permission?” Elandra asked him.
The man’s eyes went blank. “Admit who, Majesty?”
Elandra frowned, and she knew then that the Gialtan balance of power was shifting into different hands. Even the guards’ loyalties were going to Lord Pier, who as the second most powerful warlord in the province after Albain was poised to seize the reins of leadership. If Pier convinced the other warlords to accept Tirhin, then Elandra’s reign would be over before it began.
She pulled her knife from the door and held it a moment, thinking hard. There had been something strange about Iaris’s visit, something almost triumphant.
If Albain recovered, he would not let Pier support the new emperor. There would be no shift of power, no redistribution of the Albain estates. That meant Albain’s rivals could not allow him to get well.
Fear spiked through Elandra. She must have cried out, for the guard looked at her worriedly.
“Is something wrong, Majesty? Are you unwell?”
She sent him a wild look. “Am I permitted to leave my apartments?”
His frown deepened, and he exchanged a wary look with the other guard. Neither of them were known to her. Alti and Sumal were off duty, and she realized how truly alone she was right now.
“Answer me!” she said sharply. “Am I permitted to leave?”
“Of course, Majesty,” the guard said with a bow. “But if you are unwell, perhaps it is better if you do not wander the corridors.”
The answer hidden in his unctuous words was clear. She felt her face go smooth and blank.
“Thank you,” she said. “I will retire now. See that there are no more disturbances. I may wish to sleep late into the morning.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
He bowed low, and she slammed the door. Whirling around, she felt frantic and unable to think for a moment.
It would be so easy to put a pillow over Albain’s face and finish him.
Fear gripped her, making her gasp for breath. She donned clothing and slippers hastily, then took her knife and the lamp and slipped through the servant’s door.
Here, in the cobwebbed passageways known only to those who scrubbed, fetched, and carried, Elandra sped on her way. She knew these passages as well as anyone in the palace. She had grown up in them, working hard to avoid whippings, wearing rags whenever her father was away. She knew all the shortcuts.
As she ran she berated herself for having left her father. Why had she not realized the danger? She was not thinking, not being sharp enough. Kostimon would have scolded her for her mistakes.
“Strategy,” she seemed to hear his voice saying in her ears as she hurried faster. “Always know your enemy and where he will jump next. Always know where you will go after that. Be ready. Outsmart your opponent.”
She climbed a tight spiral of stairs, hoping that Iaris’s visit had been to gloat, to anticipate what was to come and not what had already happened. Let me get there first, Elandra prayed.
More stairs, another long passageway. She passed an alcove where servants on night duty dozed on stools beneath bells attached to various bedchambers. There was no time to be cautious, but her slippers made little sound, and no one woke up.
She hesitated at a fork, then took the right passage, climbing up an uneven series of steps to a short hallway. There was the valet’s nook. He lay asleep on his cot, his tunic folded neatly on its stool. She slipped past and eased open the door into her father’s bedchamber.
Her lamp sent a feeble