Realm of Light Read Free Page A

behind.
    Baiter’s
experienced eye ran along his meager troops, and he nodded in curt
satisfaction, then walked over to personally check the emperor’s saddle. He
tightened the girths another notch, retied the strings holding the heavy
saddlebags, and next turned his attention to the general’s mount.
    By the time he’d
finished this, the emperor was coming with Paz in tow.
    “Mount up!” Baiter
shouted, and the men with horses obeyed. The rest stood by, impassive and ready
for war, their gauntleted hands resting on their sword hilts.
    “Here, Majesty,”
the sergeant said to Elandra, leading a raw-boned sorrel up to her. He handed
her the reins. “I’ll shorten the stirrups for you.”
    “Thank you,” she
said.
    But the general
pointed his whip at the sergeant. “Stop that!” he commanded. “Captain Vysal,
withdraw this man.”
    The captain’s face
tightened visibly beneath the bandage. It was plain to Elandra how loathe he
was to become caught in this conflict. The guardsmen’s eyes were shifting in the
torchlight, watchful. From her father, Elandra knew that such disagreements
among the commanding officers always led to a loss of morale in the fighting
men. They could not afford to be seen bickering, yet Kostimon was making no
effort to stop it. Did she dare try to intervene?
    “Vysal!” the
general said sharply. “You heard my order. Obey it.”
    Saluting in
response to the general’s command, Captain Vysal snapped his fingers at the
sergeant, who stepped back.
    Paz glared at
Elandra first, then at the emperor. “I’ll leave not one able-bodied man behind.
I need fighters, not wailing women.”
    Astonished,
Elandra stared at him and wondered if he had gone mad. “I am your empress,” she
said in outrage.
    “You are a
traitor!” he shouted, red-faced. He jerked the reins from her hand, making the
sorrel horse shy back nervously. “You could not have crossed the palace
compound alone, by natural means, and arrived here alive. That means you are in
league with the enemy. You led them here. You have betrayed us!”
    Furious, Elandra
looked at the emperor, who stood frowning and silent. “Will you not defend me?”
she asked.
    Kostimon frowned
at the general. “Say no more against the empress.”
    Elandra waited for
more, but Kostimon fell silent again. In astonishment, she realized he intended
to say nothing else in her defense. Did he think it enough, this mild rebuke?
As support of her, it was paltry indeed.
    Her face went
stiff; her eyes burned. She clenched her fists down at her sides, hiding them
in the folds of her skirts. So she was to be abandoned, like unwanted chattel.
The promises, the ceremonial words, the crowning itself were all as dead leaves
blown away in the wind.
    She wanted to
rage, to throw things, to weep. But she must not give way to her emotions now.
She must act like an empress, not a woman.
    “Sergeant Baiter,”
she said quietly, her voice so tightly regulated it sounded dead. “I shall not
require your horse.”
    Frowning in
dismay, Baiter took the reins from the smirking General Paz. The sergeant’s
face told all that lay in his heart. “But, Majesty—”
    Elandra’s gaze
moved to Kostimon, old and half-confused, his mind alternating between bouts of
imperial temper and indecision. He remained emperor still, but now he ruled a
lost empire. He was no longer capable of defending himself or her or his
domain.
    Fresh tears burned
her eyes, but she swiftly blinked them back.
    “Go quickly,
husband,” she said. “Ride to safety while there is still a chance. I bid you
well.”
    Looking
bewildered, Kostimon snapped his fingers impatiently. “Get on the horse. There
is no time for such—”
    “You have an
empire to defend,” she said, trying to keep her tone steady and noble while
Paz’s smirk widened. “As the general has said, it’s swordsmen you need beside
you, not an ineffectual woman.”
    “Don’t be absurd,”
Kostimon said. “Fauvina—I mean, Ela,