Death and the Emperor

Book 1 Chapter IX: Long Live the Emperor

The Red Queen shook her head, "You may call it nonsense if you like," she said, "but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!" -- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

The day of Marin's coronation dawned bright and cold. Kilan woke up to a servant clearing out the fireplace in his rooms.

"Good morning, my Prince," the servant said, bowing low.

Kilan stared for a moment before his brain woke up enough to process what she'd just said. Prince? He wasn't a Prince! He was just a Grand Duke, and even that title was mostly ceremonial. Then he remembered that after today, he would be the Emperor's brother, and so would be a Prince. The thought left a curiously bitter taste in his mouth. There would be no living quietly in Rethli after this.

Walking down to breakfast was like stepping into another world. Everyone he met on the way, from servants to his uncle's counsellors, stopped and bowed as soon as they saw him. In the dining room where his family took their meals, he found yet more changes. Instead of Særnor sitting at the head of the table and Marin sitting to his left, the positions had been reversed. Now Marin sat at the head, and his wife Balaeron, with their little daughter Tarmleos in the chair beside her, sat on his right instead of Arásy. A servant stood behind Kilan's chair and handed him salt or sugar, or changed his cutlery for him.

This never happened at home, Kilan thought. I don't like it. Do they think I can't even pick up a fork on my own?

At the head of the table, there was an incredibly stilted conversation going on.

"It will be sunny today," Arásy observed, looking out the high, wide windows at the clear sky. "That's good. It would be an awful omen if it rained."

Marin snorted. "Mother, surely you don't believe in nonsense like omens."

"What about nonsense like morality?" Særnor asked abruptly.

Marin's fork scraped sharply against his plate. The noise was shockingly loud in the awkward silence of the dining room.

Kilan looked up, startled. His parents and Marin were engaged in staring at each other as if they were about to have a fight there and then. Balaeron fussed nervously over her daughter, stealing glances at her husband as if afraid to look at him directly.

That was the moment Kilan understood something was truly wrong here.

~~~~

Arásy didn't look surprised to find Kilan outside her door.

"We thought you'd want to know what that was about," she said wearily, rubbing her forehead. "Come in and sit down."

Kilan took a seat by the fireplace, opposite the armchair his father occupied.

"Do you remember our trip to Esergot four years ago?" Særnor began.

"Yes," Kilan said, unsure what this had to do with their strange behaviour at breakfast.

"Did you ever know why we went?"

"The Empress wanted to see you about something." Kilan wished he could elaborate on that, but if he had ever known why they went, he had forgotten about it. All he remembered clearly was how much he had hated the Palace, how dark and empty the rooms had been, how he had searched in mirrors for a glimpse of Death.

"Empress Linish had begun to suspect my brother of embezzlement of tax money," Arásy said. "She -- or her sister the Chief Inquisitor -- had noticed some irregularities in the paperwork, and we were the only people she trusted enough to take her concerns to."