Part Seven
Inside Peony's office, the emperor stood over Jade, who frowned up at him from the low cushioned sofa across from the desk. When he made a move to stand up, Peony made a soft sound in the back of his throat. The wordless command kept Jade in his chair, snapping the stack of paper in his hand. The sarcasm of his gesture was lost as the soft mittens of bandages around his hands absorbed the sound.
"The second infantry is returning from the forest," Jade said, reading from his handful of reports. "The navy is almost completely recalled. The first flotilla is holding a defensive line around the bay and they're halfway through laying the mines. In a few more days, we'll have to seal the harbor."
"Good," Peony said. "And the merchants are obeying my decrees?"
"They are," Jade said. "The merchant marine are confused and we had to stop a handful of them at first, but all of them are staying safely behind our blockade now. I think the test destruction of that derelict convinced them."
"Nothing like seeing a geyser and an explosion of wood to convince them not to sail out," Peony said. "All right, then. Let's go over the terrain of-"
A footstep scuffed outside the door. Both of them froze, and Jade half-turned while raising his hand.
"Wait," Peony breathed. "Don't you dare cast anything."
"But-" Jade started.
"Try to cast and I'll grab you before you hurt yourself," Peony warned him. "Besides...we know who that is."
Jade paused and listened again.
Outside, the footsteps started again, creeping across the carpet. Then someone grunted and hissed far too loudly.
"Watch your feet, stupid replica," Asch whispered. "You almost choked me."
"It's not my fault," Luke whispered back. "You keep going so fast and your robe keeps trailing behind you. I can't help it if I step on it."
"Master," Mieu cried, "please don't argue."
"Both of you shut up," Asch said, jangling the chain as he audibly yanked Luke forward. "Come on!"
Inside the office, Peony sighed and went to the door, quietly opening it and leaning out. Luke and Asch were already halfway down the hall, hunched over and trying to move silently as they complained at each other. Their chain forced them to keep too close to sneak properly, and Luke stumbled every time Asch paused to listen or look around a corner. Floating behind them with his head drooped, Mieu kept a watchful eye on the pair.
"This is starting to become pitiful," Jade said, watching as Peony closed the door again. "The whole castle can hear them sneaking around."
"Luke needs the exercise," Peony said, his planning forgotten for the moment. "He was in bed too long. And it keeps Asch distracted from trying anything drastic."
"You think he would?" Jade asked. "Over Luke? The 'stupid replica'?"
Peony chuckled. "Don't let that lame facade fool you. It's pretty obvious he cares. He's just too stupid to show it."
Jade watched the emperor run his fingertips over the smooth surface of his desk. Peony probably didn't realize what he himself was showing, growing wistful and distant every time the pair was mentioned. Though the emperor maintained his authority to everyone's face, including his own, Jade knew him from their earliest school days. And Peony was not one to fall into introspective daydreams.
"I don't think they hate us," Jade offered.
Peony looked up, startled at himself. Annoyed that he'd lapsed again, he half-shrugged and busied himself with unfurling a detailed map of Daath.
"No," Peony said. "But Asch is trying to protect them both, and if Luke is going along with it, then he's scared."
Jade lifted an eyebrow. "If he's scared, then it'll only get worse when they can't escape."
"I know," Peony said. "I'll deal with them later. We have to finish our planning. They can't get into any trouble in the palace, anyway."
About to answer, Jade closed his mouth and let it lie. He'd traveled with both of them and knew exactly what kind of havoc they could cause. But let Peony think otherwise for now. Asch and Luke would get his attention eventually.
The explosion in the garden was Peony's first clue that he had grossly underestimated his saints.
Worn out from a protracted discussion with his generals, hammering out the logistics between his navy and army, Peony left the war room and headed back to his chambers. He passed a pair of soldiers at every door and window, all of them standing alert at attention. Each one snapped a little bow as he walked by, and he sighed as the uniforms started to blur together.
Pacing down the hall was a matter of national security. Dinner was a courtly spectacle. Daily decisions were made based not on what he enjoyed but on what gave him the most amount of privacy. Lunch in the garden with Guy and his rappigs was nice but too indulgent—better a working lunch with his ministers. Go bother Jade in his lab? No, not when the necromancer was working on spells for Luke. And he had to maintain appearances anyway. He couldn't visit all the time or else people might suspect what Jade truly was to him.
If he'd thought the questions about marriage and an heir were insufferable before...
He paused at one of the large windows, leaning against the glass. The gardens were beautifully kept, with green lawns and walkways between the flowerbeds, and ivy-drenched walls ringed the palace. High enough to keep people from looking in, the walls nevertheless added a fine setting to the waterfalls in the background.
No other country was as magnificent as Malkuth, Peony knew. The waterfalls alone...and yet so impossible to protect. Every time he destroyed one threat, another one cropped up. Before, the miasma. Potential war with the other nations. And now the Order was failing.
"Perhaps next year it will be plague," he sighed. "Or famine."
Resting his head against the glass, he closed his eyes and savored the silence.
The flash of white light coupled with a loud burst made him freeze. "No time to escape" was his first thought, followed by "where is it?" Dirt and clumps of grass showered the window, raining down with pebbles and pieces of brick. The garden was a mass of white smoke that covered the whole garden, and there was no time for him to mount a defense. No doubt it was a surprise attack. He hoped his guards could hold the line until the infantry arrived.
The smoke began to clear. Peony pressed against the glass, trying to see their enemy through the haze and ignoring the guards nearby shouting at him to get clear of the window. The sea breeze gave him tantalizing glimpses of the crater left by the explosion, growing wispier until finally-
He gasped. The guards beside him paused, following his gaze.
Asch knelt in the middle of the crater, cradling Luke against himself. Even from the upper floors of the palace, Peony could tell that Luke had collapsed. His gaze flickered to the wall and breathed out in relief. The inner wall had been smashed against the outer wall, which had cracked but held against the low level hyper-resonance.
Why had the fonon burst been so weak, though? They were strong enough to destroy whole cities. To only level one wall...
Guards had surrounded Asch and Luke, but they faced the breach as if expecting someone to attack. Peony tensed—they hadn't realized that the saints were the reason for the explosion. With their backs to the pair, the guards were left wide open as Asch slowly drew his sword. Even weighed down by Luke, it would be easy for Asch to cut them down and escape.
Peony startled the men beside him, slamming his fist into the window. The heavy glass didn't break and he shrugged off his guard as they tried to pull him to safety. Any moment they would overpower him and drag him to his chambers—even an emperor had rules he had to follow—but to see Asch about to take Luke outside into the town and vanish, worse, over the bodies of his men...
Luke put his hand on Asch's arm. Asch looked down, obviously yelling at Luke, but the guards turned at hearing the commotion and took a step back at seeing the raised sword. Unsure of who their enemy was, they glanced at each other, then at the boys and at the broken wall.
Luke was saying something. And then Asch lowered and sheathed his sword. He didn't look happy about it, muttering at Luke, and he put his arms around his replica and snarled at anyone coming too close.
"Your highness," the guard beside Peony said, unsure of what to do. "We should get you someplace safe."
"The danger is gone," Peony said, shaking his head. "Come with me outside."
"Sir?"
"It seems the saints aren't dolls after all," Peony murmured.
The guards still hadn't blocked off the crumbled part of the wall. Asch wondered if he could throw Luke over his shoulder and charge through. His replica was as heavy as he was, but if Luke hung onto him, leaving his hands free...
"Saint Asch?" one of the men asked, hesitantly looking at his men before staring back at him. "Did someone attack you?"
"Yeah, the emperor," Asch mumbled under his breath, shifting Luke in his arms. "Get up, you little idiot."
"Can't," Luke breathed. His head lolled against Asch's shoulder. "I can't even move."
"This is all your fault," Asch snarled. Gathering Luke in his arms, he got one leg under himself and tried to stand up, but his strength faltered and he toppled backward, covered with Luke instead. "Dammit!"
"Sorry," Luke moaned. He blindly scraped one hand against the grass, pushing at the ground as if to lift himself off of Asch.
"Quit it," Asch said, putting one arm around him and holding him as he sat up. "You're just embarrassing yourself."
Embarrassing both of them, Asch thought, glaring at the soldiers as they pieced together what had happened. He wasn't sure what was worse, the worshipful looks or the pitying ones. Half of the men around them looked like they were going to sink to their knees and pray to them, and the other half looked like they were about to burst into adoring tears. The last time they had seen Luke, he had been bloody and swooning, and now Luke couldn't even raise his head.
But worse, they were casting those same looks at Asch. He flushed hot as he looked at all of them, wishing he could put Luke down and fight their way out. They thought he was just a boy, that they were just boys—dammit, he was Asch the Bloody, God General. Men trembled at hearing his name. If he wanted to, he could have sliced through every man here and escaped with Luke over his shoulder, down through the city...
He breathed out, and his shoulders dropped.
Impossible. The chain made it impossible—even if they got out, how would they hide? They were dressed like damn courtesans, in flowy open robes, and everyone knew their faces. And if they ever did cut the chain, they would fade back into pure fonons.
Sheer frustration and anger welled up in him. He crushed Luke against himself, burying his face in the crook of Luke's neck. His replica was an anchor, and he couldn't bring himself to cut the chain.
Across the garden, a door opened and footsteps came towards them, muffled in the grass. Asch refused to look up. He knew who it was.
"Guards, form a line at the wall," Peony commanded. "Engineers are already on their way. Protect them as they begin their work."
No one moved. There was a quiet cough, and then one of the older guards spoke.
"Your majesty, the saints...are they well?"
Asch smiled bitterly. Yes, Peony, explain why your two dolls are broken. Can't pretend things are okay if your palace is blowing up around you. See if you can twist logic around enough so that everyone believes-
"No," Peony said. "The saints are not all right. They're hurt, and I've missed seeing it because I was preoccupied with the assassination. But I see it now."
Asch frowned. His brows knitted in consternation, and all around him, the guards moved away, leaving him and Luke alone. Was that all it took? Peony gave them a couple platitudes and they accepted it like that? He watched them take positions along the wall, leaving them along with the emperor. Against his will, he lifted his head up at Peony, teeth bared.
"You see it now?" Asch mockingly echoed. "What, you didn't see it when you had Luke's skin whipped off his back? You didn't see it when he could barely stand being touched by you?"
Peony opened his mouth, but he didn't argue. He closed it again and let Asch curse and swear at him until his strength gave out, taking whatever the boy doled out.
"Goddammit, you said you were our friend!" Asch yelled. "You said you didn't want to hurt us, but you didn't try looking for another way. You never tried. You didn't even try to to think of something else. I thought you-!"
Asch cut himself off so fast that, for a moment, Peony thought he'd choked. Asch had lowered his head again, hiding his face as his voice dwindled.
"You thought...?" Peony gently prompted. He knelt beside them, half expecting Asch to swing at him.
"I thought you cared," Asch mumbled, shaking his head. "I thought you cared about us."
If Luke had broken down, Peony would have known how to handle it. Slave to his emotions, displaying his emotions like banners, Luke was easy to read and soothe. He was so eager to please that he gave into Peony's plans like a child.
But to have stern, forceful Asch on his knees, gripping Luke like a security blanket, his shoulders trembling as he fought his own emotions...
Peony reached out and touched Asch's hair, stroking it when he didn't argue. He didn't try to apologize. He couldn't argue that he shouldn't have driven Luke to that punishment. Or that he'd been too deep in his own grief and shock to treat his closest companions like anything but tools, with the weight of an empire on his shoulders.
"You're right," he offered. "You've been right through all of this."
Sniffling, ashamed that he was sniffling, Asch dragged his sleeve across his face and met his look.
"You don't mean that," he said.
"I do," Peony said. "Each time, you were right. I was thinking like an emperor, not your friend."
Asch looked at him for a long time. In his arms, Luke groaned and fidgeted against his chest, pillowing his head on his original's shoulder. He was a distracting bundle of warmth, but with Peony pretending he was a friend and the dull realization that there was no escape welling up in him like a rising wave of despair, the world felt like it would sweep him away and Luke was his only anchor-
Peony froze as Asch started laughing. Of all the reactions he'd expected, bitter chuckling wasn't one of them.
"Are...are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah," Asch said, calming down. "Just...he's an anchor."
"He's worth a lot more than that," Peony said, completely misunderstanding.
"Yeah. I know." Asch shifted Luke to a more comfortable position. As he started to sit up, he winced as moving became more of a struggle than he'd expected. His muscles trembled, and he started to crumble towards the dirt, Luke on top of him.
"Whoa, got you." Peony grabbed him around the waist, holding him from landing sideways. "Looks like destroying my wall took more out of you than you realized."
Asch cursed himself steadily—stuck in Peony's arms. This was exactly what they were trying to escape in the first place. And it was only worse now. The emperor was warm, comforting, and his grip bent like steel around them. No escape. Asch couldn't breathe, as if a lump had formed in his chest.
As Peony waved for people to come help—Asch was vaguely aware of Guy's voice, of someone lifting him onto a cot, Jade's face over his for a moment and then vanishing again—he stared at the sky and wished he was flying straight up into the clouds.
Luke squeezed his hand. Surprised that he hadn't let go of him—how had he not even noticed?—Asch turned on his side and put his arm around Luke, gripping tight as he buried his face in Luke's robe. No tears. He would not allow himself any tears.
"It's okay," Luke whispered. "You'll see. It'll be okay."
"Quit lying," Asch hissed. "I know you don't believe that."
No response. Asch all but curled around Luke, snarling at someone who tried to gently pull him off. He kept one eye open in case anyone looked like they planned on doing something to them, but he was only carried back inside the palace, and the windows flying by looked instead like terribly thick bars.
TBC...
