The Withering Sword

Chapter 54: Fools and Futures

AMRAXES

Bainling, capital city of Miihing (subjugate kingdom of the empire)

The main hall where the coronation ceremony had not had time to take place became chaos less than a minute after Yamo’s death. Amraxes stared at his cousin as shouts, screams, and scuffling feet echoed around the richly-decorated hall. Her eyes gazed unseeingly off to the side, and he remembered the time when his crew was stranded, starving to death. Yamo’s ship had crested the horizon just as Amraxes started to lose hope. He remembered her standing on the deck of her ship, smirking down at him, shouting: “Where’s your ship, Sea Prince?”

Amraxes looked up, his mind in a muddle. His men held the murderer, Bharbod Ghaqag. The landless marquise struggled against them, shouting obscenities about Yamo, about the empire, about the imperial prince.

“Close off the entrances!” shouted Amraxes. He’d been slow to react, and he cursed himself. “Let no one else in or out!”

As his men moved off to obey his orders, Amraxes let Yamo slide from his arms, his hands slick with her blood. He stood. The press of bodies surrounded him, but he waded through them, ignoring the mounting hysteria and confusion. He headed straight for the place where he’d seen Avaho last, looking lovely in her silk robes with her hair tumbling loose about her shoulders. But she found him before he found her, her hands latching onto his sleeve.

“Come,” he said. She nodded, and they ran for one of the doors. In the confusion, no one took notice of them. They reached a servants’ door Amraxes had taken note of earlier as a possible escape route in case of an emergency. He had thought he would be running with Yamo, though. His men had reached it just before them, closing it.

At his order, they pulled it ajar, letting them slip through. As they passed, Amraxes said, “Get out of the palace as soon as you can. Every imperial soldier. We’ll get out―worry about your own safety.” He pushed Ahiri out into the corridor ahead of him. After they’d cleared the doorway, they ran.

He meant to head to their chambers, but Ahiri pulled him in a different direction and he didn’t resist. She took him to a room he’d never seen before, an unused parlor of some sort, and opened a dusty cabinet. From it she withdrew his scabbarded sword, several daggers, and a gun.

“Ahiri,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. How had she known to store these things here? Had she known Marquise Ghaqag would assassinate Yamo? But there was no time to question her. He released her, buckled on his sword, two of the daggers, and the gun, and followed her back out of the parlor.

They ran through servants’ passages, rushing past a handful of kitchen girls who screamed and threw themselves out of the way. Amraxes had forgotten he was covered in Yamo’s blood. Fruit dropped from the baskets in the girls’ hands, rolling across the floor. Something ripe burst as he stepped on it, splattering his boot with seeds and green juice.

Ahiri led him into the outer courtyard, and across it to the stables. He didn’t know how they’d made it so fast; the palace still seemed quiet behind them. Closing off the main hall must have stopped the news from spreading.

With Yamo dead, there was no reason to stay―and it was only a matter of time before the assassins came for Amraxes and Ahiri as well.

Amraxes pulled down tack from the pegs in the room at one end of the stables and threw open the half-door of his horse’s stall. He saddled and bridled the bay gelding, which he had ridden all the way from Fiulheng to Bainling. He knew the horse trusted him, but he murmured reassurances to him as he worked, not wanting the hurried preparations to spook him. He tore out the seams of his blood-soaked tunic sleeves and removed them; he also pulled off his embroidered sash, which would make him too recognizable, and stuffed it into the saddeblags. Then he mounted up inside the stall and rode out into the straw-littered corridor.