Obsidian: Retribution (Book 2)

Eight: Priorities

The cup flew halfway across the room with its content and landed with a loud clank on the marble floor. It bounced twice and rolled over to rest in front of Deo di Amarra's right foot. The royal advisor, now right-hand man of the future salar, took a slow, discriminating step to the side to save his expensive bear pelt robe from the path of the spilled wine. He looked down at his cream and gold tunic and frowned over the drop of red that ruined it, then up at the prince regent.

Azram, realizing the magnitude of his mistake, quickly pulled back the hand that threw the cup, placing it behind his back along with the other, as if doing so would destroy the evidence of his tantrum. Still breathing heavily, he clamped his mouth shut, trying his best not to apologize and undermine his own authority. Imran didn't blame him for wanting to, not when the man he may have just pissed off was Deo di Amarra.

One needed to remember, after all, that the very throne Azram was sitting on had been vacated for him due to its previous owner having done just that, and that history tended to repeat itself when the latter generations neglected to give it the attention. For the very least, Azram seemed to be heeding it, if a little too excessively.

"It's been a month," complained Azram, carefully. "If he's dead, shouldn't someone find the body by now?"

That someone meant him, of course, Imran thought and decided to remain silent. Only a stupid man would rise to the occasion when not addressed directly. It was, nonetheless, his responsibility as the Commander of the Royal Army to be looking for the salar, dead or alive. The wrong man to appoint the task to, surely, given where his loyalty lay, but Azram, being only regent, lacked the authority to change the last salar's official decree except in an event of absolute necessity. Imran imagined he could have been discreetly killed to accommodate such necessity––and would have been––had di Amarra not insisted to the prince that he be kept alive. Why, he had yet to find out. They were definitely not on the same side, and there was always a good reason behind everything the Khandoor did.

"It would be best," said di Amarra, crisply, "that you do not voice such an opinion out loud, my lord prince. There are always ears in the Tower, and whether or not you become salar depends on the people of Rasharwi not knowing that you had a hand in his demise." A ringed hand rose over his chest, brushing briskly over the stain on his tunic twice as though it had been dust, not wine. "And in pleasing your high-level officials at court, of course."

Azram, at that moment, looked like a boy who needed to kick a dog in front of his peers but was too afraid of the beast to take the challenge. He stared at di Amarra, his chest seemingly filled to the last inch with words of insult looking for release. The prince, somehow, managed to swallow them all down and heroically deflated.

"I will have the power to deal with all of them when I am salar," said the prince regent, struggling to fit a milder tone to a heated tongue. "The sooner that happens, the more secure the Salasar will be."

"Which is why Commander Sa'id's head is out there, along with your soldiers who have been sent out to look for him. What can be done is being done. There are other things to do, my lord regent, besides looking for your father," said di Amarra.

It was a brilliant plan, Imran hated to admit. Whether or not izr Sa'id had meant that much to Salar Muradi, the late commander had requested––and been offered––an honorable death in public. Putting his head on display as the man responsible for the tragic event not only shifted the blame from Azram, but it could infuriate Salar Muradi enough to drive him out of hiding. The former salar, as merciless as he seemed, was before all else a man of his word. Di Amarra knew this and had decided on the best possible way to bait him out of hiding.

"And if he doesn't turn up? What then?" Azram slapped the stack of reports on the table. His hand paused in midair before he repeated the action when di Amarra cleared his throat. "I need the power to put the provinces back in line, or in two years there won't be a Salasar for me to rule."