A burble of hysteria climbed up Sam's throat. "Sorry," she heard herself squeak. Damn it, she didn't squeak. Composing herself, she tried again. "I'm sorry, butâwho are you?"
"I am Azhir Anan," he rumbled, and then to Sam's utter mortification, he knelt in front of her and bowed at the waist until his head touched the floor by her feet.
"Get up," the boy emperor snapped. "The Lord Marshall does not bow to some foreign barbarian."
Azhir Anan stood, but not without sending the emperor a reproving frown. "You heard the Arbiter. This is General Hondo's granddaughter. She deserves your respect."
Sam half-expected the emperor to order his man put in chains for daring to criticize him in front of others, but all the boy did was flush. Azhir Anan must have had the emperor's earâand more importantly, his respect. She wasn't above taking advantage of that. Attempting deference, she copied the Lord Marshall's bow, prostrating herself before the emperor. "I am humbled by your presence, your imperial highness," she murmured.
"Oh, enough already," the emperor said with a sour twist of his mouth. He waved his hand imperiously. "Rise." By the time she scrambled to her feet, he had already dismissed her, his glare trained on the Arbiter. "Where is my sister?"
The Arbiter's calm façade was beginning to crack. "I already told you, Majesty. Your sister is too ill to see you."
"And I did not spend a fortnight traveling to see no one!" the emperor shouted. Azhir Anan put his hand on the boy's chest to restrain him. The emperor breathed in and out through his nostrils, reminding Sam of an enraged bull. "You will bring me to Zahra. I command you."
The Arbiter threw her shoulders back, her pose as regal as a queen's. "You forget where you are, Majesty. Outside these convent walls, you may command me, but your authority means nothing here. Here, you bow to a higher power."
"Yours?" the emperor scoffed. "You are nothing but a false prophet."
"I am the Mother's chosen vessel," the Arbiter said coolly, "and my sisters are Her army on earth.
Do not forget we have deposed heretic kings and emperors before."
The emperor took a step forward. This time Azhir Anan did not hold him back. "Is that a threat?"
The Arbiter's copper eyes glinted. "It's a promise."
Tension crackled between Arbiter and emperor, filling the air with a suffocating silence. For once, Sam was entirely forgotten. No, not entirely forgottenâAzhir Anan watched her still, drinking her in like she was the panacea to all that ailed him. Who was he? She knew his name, and the emperor called him Lord Marshall, but she knew little else. He'd said he'd loved her motherâwho had Tsalene been to him? Who had he been to Tsalene?
Tearing her gaze from the big man, Sam watched the Arbiter and the emperor face off with avid interest. The tension in the air thickened, threatening to snap. Sam seized the moment. She cleared her throat, and the weight of their stares fell on her. "I do not mean to interrupt," she said as demurely as she could. "If I might request a private audience with the Lord Marshall?"
The Arbiter's brows drew together in suspicion, but she couldn't refuse Sam's request without seeming petty or paranoid.
Azhir Anan dipped his head. "I would be delighted, if my liege wills."
"No, I won't allow it," the emperor declared with an arrogant toss of his long braid.
Sam's heart dropped. "But, your imperial highnessâ"
"I will join you," he continued as though she hadn't spoken. "Whatever you can say to my Lord Marshall, you can say to me."
Sam blinked back her surprise. An audience with the Lord Marshall and the emperor himself was a coup. She spoke quickly before the Arbiter could gainsay her. "The sisters will soon be gathering in the prayer hall for the midafternoon prayer. Shall we speak in the gardens?"
A vein pulsed in the Arbiter's temple, betraying her irritation. "You would skip out on the prayer session, Highness? Here, in this holy place?"
The emperor rolled his eyes. "I've already prayed three times today. I'm sure Emese will forgive my missing the fourth."
The Arbiter's expression hardened into one of intense dislike. "The Afterlight does not discriminate between the soul of a king and the soul of a pauper. Remember that."
The emperor's smile bared all his teeth "And you remember that if my sister has come to any more harm under your watch, I'll send you straight to the Afterlight myself."
The Arbiter made an amused sound. "You can try." And with that, she turned her back to them, returned to her office and shut the door with a decisive snick of the lock.
Sam stared at the closed door. Whatever the Arbiter had wanted to say to her apparently could wait.
The emperor harrumphed, jolting her out of her perplexed thoughts. "Well? You wanted a private audience with my Lord Marshall. Now you have one. So speak."
She nodded her head toward the Arbiter's office. "I would prefer not to be overheard." She lowered her voice to just above a whisper. "It is a sensitive matter."
The emperor gave her a look reserved for the smallest speck of dirt beneath his feet. Fortunately, Azhir Anan spoke on his behalf. "We will continue this discussion in the gardens. Will you show us the way, Lady Samantha?"
Sam returned his smile tentatively, confused by this unexpected kindness from a man she didn't know and never heard of. "Follow me."
They didn't speak again until they were deep in the gardens and far away from prying eyes. The sun was unbearably hot, so they sought the shade beneath an arbor of cherry trees. A bell chimed, signaling the start of the midafternoon prayer. The sisters were already inside, but they wouldn't be long. The midafternoon prayer was barely half an hour long. Which meant Sam had barely half an hour to convince the emperor and his Lord Marshall to help her.
Sweat trickled down her neck, the shade doing nothing to relieve her nerves. They were her best chance of escape from the convent, maybe the only one she'd get. Where did she even start? They were looking at her expectantly, and she had to say something. The words came tumbling out. "How did you know my mother?" she asked the Lord Marshall.
He smiled wistfully. "She never mentioned my name to you? Ah, but why would she? We did not part on the best of terms." He reached up and plucked a cherry blossom from one of the overhanging branches. "Your grandfather took me in when I was a small boy, after my father died saving his life. My father was no one, a mere soldier. But General Hondo always pays his debts, so he took me in, a boy with blood as common as it comes. He raised me as a son. Tsalene was like a sister to me, until suddenly she was not."
Sam stared at him, rapt, having never heard this piece of her mother's childhood. "What about Nasrin?"
Azhir Anan made a show of shuddering. "We trained together, but we were never close. She was five years older than Tsalene, and ten times as scary. I think she saw me as a usurper of her father's affection. She certainly enjoyed beating me soundly on the training field."
Sam gaped, picturing her aunt at cross-swords with this giant bear of a man. Nasrin was the same height as she was! "She beat you?"
He grinned sheepishly. "I was a skinny lad, and it took me a long time to grow into my height. I didn't outweigh her until well after she'd left for the convent." His face softened. "Once Nasrin left home, I had Tsalene all to myself."
The emperor bent over at the waist and pretended to retch, looking much more like a normal fifteen-year old boy than the most powerful man in Rhea. "Keep your feelings to yourself, lover boy," he said, surprising Sam into a laugh.
Azhir Anan lifted an amused brow. "One day you too will be a fool in love, my liege."
"Never," the emperor declared resolutely. "If I ever become as sappy as you, old man, it will be because of a head injury."
Sam glanced back and forth between the two of them, trying to puzzle out their strange relationship. She had the sense if anyone else talked to the emperor like the Lord Marshall did, it would be off with their head.
Azhir Anan caught her expression and laughed. "I have watched over Kaz since he was this high," he said, measuring his hand against his knee.
"Kaz?"
"Short for Kazan. And you must call me Azi, as my friends do."
Her cheeks went warm. "I am honored, LorâAzi. Then you must call me Sam."
"I never said you could call me Kaz," the emperor grumbled. "That's 'your imperial majesty' to you."
In an effort to hide her twitching lips, Sam swept into a Thulian-style curtsy. "As you wish, your imperial majesty. You may call me whatever you wish."
An evil light gleamed in the boy emperor's eye. "Very well, kokol," he said gleefully, earning a sharp look from Azi.
She smiled sweetly at him. "What's the point of calling me a name I don't understand? For all I know you're calling me your beloved." That wasn't entirely true; Sam knew the Rheic word for beloved. Much to Sam's dismay, Tsalene had refused to teach her how to swear in her native tongue.
The emperor opened his mouth, but Azi spoke before he could. "Don't say it, Kaz."
"I didn't say anything!" the emperor complained.
"But you were going to."
The emperor turned up his nose and harrumphed.
Though she was entertained by their exchange, Sam was quickly losing control of the conversation, and time was ticking. "I wish we could talk more about my mother," she said, "and I hope someday soon we will." She closed her eyes and forced out the uncomfortable words. "But for now, I need your help."
"And why should we help you?" asked the emperor with an arrogant arch of his brow.
"Because the Duke of Haywood will be in your debt." Her gaze shifted to Azi. "And if you loved her as you say you did, for my mother's sake."
The emperor folded his arms over his skinny chest. "And what can the Duke of Haywood possibly do for me from all the way across the ocean?"
Sam bit her lip, thinking quickly. "He could grant your sister asylum?"
"Zahra has asylum. Here, at the Convent of the Sun."
"Where she's treated like an indentured servant," Sam countered. "Worse, because her servitude has no end. Your sister lives in fear, Highness. The Arbiter is not a merciful woman. Zahra would be better off in Thule, where the convent has no claim on her."
"Zahra told you this, did she? Did she find her missing tongue?"
"She didn't have to," Sam said between gritted teeth, struggling to keep her temper in check. Deep breaths, in and out. "In Haywood, Zahra would be safe from the sun sisters, and you would save face. Exile is a worthy enough punishment for treachery. No one could accuse you of being soft."
"Soft?" the emperor asked dangerously.
Sam refused to be cowed. "For loving a traitor to the empire and forgiving the unforgivable. For allowing your heart to rule you instead of your head."
The emperor clenched his fists. "I. Am. Not. Soft."
"Oh, for the Mother's sake!" Sam snapped. "I'm not saying you're soft! That you care for your sister is a point in your favor, as far I'm concerned."
"Enough," Azi growled, his stern glare including them both. "Behave, children."
"I'm not a child," the emperor muttered.
At fifteen, he was a child, but Sam didn't have that excuse. "I'm afraid I have a temper," she apologized, doing her best to appear contrite.
Azi's mouth tilted up at the corners. "Like mother, like daughter." He plucked another cherry blossom from the arbor and rolled the petal between his fingers. The movement reminded Sam of Tsalene, and the cherry tree hidden in a quiet copse in the woods just outside Haywood Castle. Stupid emotions. Now she was homesick, on top of everything else.
"I will help you, if it is within my power," said Azi, letting the cherry blossom spill from his hand to the ground. "I cannot speak for my liege."
The pressure behind her eyes was growing worse. Crushing her feelings into a tiny ball, Sam successfully managed a tight nod and a "thank you" without coming apart.
Azi cupped her chin with the callused palm of his hand. "Tell me, fruit of my heart, what help do you need?"
A/N: See pic of how I envision the emperor! I have no idea who this man is but *fans self*...
We are inching ever closer to Braeden's return! I am thinking 2 chapters from now, so stay tuned! In the meantime, let me know what you think of this development!