Chapter 54

The noise in the salon had quieted after several raucous minutes, so Apolo decided to stay with Arora and her children rather than check on Duo and Trey. If she was bothered that Trey did not return to be with her, she did not say so. Apolo was exhausted after the ride from the Wastelands, and before he knew it, either the peaceful sounds of Shamara's babble, Arora's gentle responses to Shamara's nonsensical speech or the baby's suckling noises or put him to sleep. When he next awoke, the room was flooded with morning sunlight and Arora was not beside him.

He heard her moving around, and he rubbed his eyes before pushing himself up from the pillows to sit and he saw her pacing, her face stony with anger. The baby was sleeping soundly in a basket on the far side of the room and Shamara was nearby playing with a cloth doll Arora must have made for her.

Seeing him awake, she stopped to look at Apolo. "Do not heal that canyon beast's backside! If you do, I will make you regret it."

"Is he hurt?" Believing he had shirked his duty to protect Trey – he doubted Arora would be so angry over anything Duo Maxwell did – Apolo leaped from the bed, and despite his own sore and aching muscles after having spent so many hours in the saddle, he hurried out of the chamber and rushed down the hall to the salon.

Out of breath, his heart pounding frantically, he came upon Trey sitting on the floor cross-legged holding his head in his hands, a foul-smelling pile of vomit nearby. Trey was moaning, and hearing Apolo's footsteps, he pressed the heels of his hands to his ears before slowly turning his head to look at him.

His eyes were bloodshot, his face sallow, and Apolo was horrified to think that some sickness had overcome him until he saw a ceramic bottle nearby. He recognized it as the sort of container in which Lady Virinea stored the fermented fruit she made for her personal use. Based on the dust he could see hadn't been thoroughly wiped off, the wine had probably been stored in the palace before her disappearance many years ago when Trey was a child. Apolo did not know much about wine, but he did know that humans seemed to favor it more as it grew older because it was more potent.

"What are you looking at?" snapped Trey. "Get over here and heal me!"

Apolo crossed the room to him, sidestepping the vomit and wondering if he would have to clean it since Arora was far from amenable to her mate's present condition.

"My sister told me not to."

"And I am telling you to heal me," snarled Trey irritably. "I asked her to at least help me to my bed, and she refused!"

Since his tunic was stained with vomit, Apolo wasn't surprised. "I am not crossing my sister, not in the mood she is in."

"You are a disloyal prick!"

Sighing, Apolo leaned down to help him to his feet, and ducking under Trey's arm, he grasped him around the waist to steady him as they moved towards the door.

"Where are we going?" demanded Trey. His words were slurred because he was still feeling the effects of having drank too much wine.

"Take him to Duo's chamber."

When Apolo turned quickly to see Arora standing in the corridor leading to the bedchambers, her arms folded over her chest, Trey groaned loudly from the sudden movement.

"Where would that be?" asked Apolo.

"The rooms where Prince Dilan held court." Her contemptuous gaze swept over Trey. "Don't come back until you are ready to apologize." Without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel and marched back to her chamber.

"I'm not apologizing!" Trey shouted after her, and the effort made him groan again.

Apolo turned Trey towards the door, slowly this time because he did not want Trey to vomit on him. Trey was of no help as he moved, so Apolo found himself dragging dead weight. He did not speak until they were far enough from the imperial apartment so that Arora did not hear their discussion. "What do you have to apologize for?"

"Gods damn! Stop talking so loud!"

Since he was speaking in a normal tone, Apolo lowered his voice so not to cause Trey any more pain. "What did you say or do to my sister?" She was Trey's mate – his bonded mate – so he would never hurt her physically, but his words might cause her pain when Trey lacked the ability to think before speaking. Apolo was afraid of what he might have said to her, drunk as he must have been, especially after she had borne his son into Duo's hands instead of his.

"I don't remember," moaned Trey. "Duo and I were fighting, and then when he – we – calmed down, he told me that he had found my mother's stash of wine when he was searching the palace for any of Caron's men. He suggested we celebrate my son's birth, and I thought it was a good idea. I only had a single swallow from the bottle. Maybe two. Or was it three? I don't remember. Duo kept pushing the bottle to me, and since I was feeling damn good after a drink or two ..."

"Duo may remember what you said or did since your mother's wine doesn't seem to affect him as it does you." Apolo would also forbid Duo from encouraging Trey to drink when he knew he could not handle it.

After much struggle on his part, they came to the apartments that Dilan had occupied at the palace. Apolo was loathe to enter the rooms where he endured the ignominy of spending the years Trey was in the terran system fawning over his bastard half-brother, but he pushed inside. The large antechamber where Dilan had held his court was empty, the sumptuous furnishings untouched. Since Raemon and Raenald had also spent all their time in this suite, Raemon had probably intended for this to be his chambers and had ordered it not be touched during the attack on the palace.

Apolo took Trey through the room to the large sleeping chamber and expecting to find Duo sleeping, he was surprised to find it empty. He left Trey on the decadently comfortable bed and went to the bathing chamber. Duo wasn't there either, and since Duo's duty was to protect Arora, he could not believe he was away from the palace. Whatever he was doing or wherever he had gone, Arora probably knew, so Apolo would ask her later.

In the meantime, Apolo spent the next hour washing a partially drunk, uncooperative man and dressing him in a fine, clean tunic which was too big for him. Duo wasn't' going to be happy that Apolo took the garment, but it was the least he could do after putting Trey in such a miserable state and leaving him to suffer the consequences of Arora's wrath. Apolo did not heal him, and after telling the groggy man that he would return after securing his sister's permission to care for him, he left him to sleep.

When he entered the apartment, he found Arora on the floor cleaning the mess Trey had made. He reached out with his senses to find that Shamara was napping in one of the chambers and the baby was sleeping contentedly with a full belly.

Before he had a chance to speak, she tossed the rag she had been using into the pail of now noxious water and rose to face him. "Is he still in pain?"

"You know that he is," Apolo said with a wry smile. "Allow me to heal him."

"Let him suffer a bit longer." She swiped her hair back from her brow and blew out her breath. "After you fell asleep, I went out to check on them since I hadn't heard them fighting for some time. I was afraid they had knocked each other out."

"Were you more afraid for Trey or Duo?" asked Apolo curiously. She had grown close to the terran, and Apolo feared that Trey felt threatened.

"Don't be ridiculous!" she snapped. "I have the same feelings for Duo that I do for you. We have been through much together. I owe him my life, and now I owe him my honor. I know how angry Duo is that Trey did not return in time. He has become a powerful warrior and I did not want him breaking my mate's head open. Trey is an ass, but I love him."

Apolo crossed the room to put his arms around her, and for a moment she allowed him to comfort her, but just before her defenses were ready to crumble so that he would reach into her to find out what she was hiding, she disengaged from his embrace. He wanted to beg her to share what had happened during Caron's attack, but he knew she would refuse.

"Where is Duo?" he asked her instead.

"He has taken his men into the city to search for any house Caron warriors that have not left."

Apolo wished he could read her thoughts because her answer did not sound honest. He was hurt that she would lie to him. "Did you send him?"

"Duo will do what Duo wishes whether or not I sanction it," she said with a shrug that gave Apolo the impression that she had, but she didn't give him a chance to ask any more questions. "You should return to Trey and heal him. The sooner the warriors of house Caron have gone back to the south, the sooner Trey can contend with the lesser warlords."

"Will you come with him to receive their oaths?" Apolo asked. "If we force Raenald to make an oath to you, it will bind him even more."

"No!" she said fiercely, and he saw that her hands were clenched into fists at her side. "Trey can take that bastard's oath, but I will not suffer the sight of a male of house Caron again. They killed nearly everybody in this palace, including innocent females that they tortured before butchering."

"Those men have paid," Apolo reminded her. Not a single man of house Caron remained living who had besieged the palace thanks to his sister and the few men of the palace guard that remained.

She turned on her heel and left him alone without responding.

He debated following her to press her for more details about how she had held the palace, but he knew she would not tell him. So he left her alone and returned to Trey to heal him. He let him sleep which he did for the rest of the day and throughout the night. Apolo stayed with him in case he awoke, but he did not until the following day at equal suns. When he finally rose from the bed, Trey, still in a very bad mood, went to his apartments and found the door barred to him. He was going to get men to help him break it in, but Apolo reminded him not only how he would appear doing it, but what their dissension might do to Arora's reputation so soon after the birth of their child. Trey agreed that he should keep his disagreement with his mate private.

They left the palace together so that Trey could take the oaths of the house Caron warriors and he was pleased to see that Lord Chasek had arrived with his army. Apolo had been concerned that Wattan and his men could keep the warriors in line, but now that Caron was dead, they were subdued, even fearful. After what they had done to the city on the orders of their lord, they had every reason to worry that the emperor would change his mind and have them all executed. Surrounded by the emperor's army now, there would be no escape if Trey ordered them killed.

Trey did not break his word, and after sending Chasek back to the palace with sufficient men to guard it, he began the lengthy process of taking the oaths of the warriors which continued for the rest of the day and into the night. Apolo did not expect them to beg for forgiveness when Caron had ordered them to sack the city because no man could disobey the warlord to whom he had made an oath no matter how despicable his orders were, but Apolo sensed remorse in many of the men for what they had done. Standing nearby, Raenald looked insufferably pleased to listen to the men pledge their loyalty to him after doing so to the emperor, and if the men were disgusted to have to do so, they did not show it which was a testament to Caron's training. They would blindly follow the dictates of the head of house Caron and Apolo hoped Trey had not made a mistake by trusting Raenald to understand the weight of his own oath.

"I am surprised that your other imperial guard was not here to watch over you," remarked Raenald after the last man had moved away.

Trey turned his head slowly to look at him, and while he did not show his contempt for Raenald, Apolo felt it. "My mate has just given me a son. She needs rest and I did not think this ceremony warranted her presence."

Apolo would rather hear Trey accuse Raenald of lying about his role in the attack on Imperia and the palace, but he knew that having accepted Raenald's oath, he would be breaking his own by turning on him.

"Take your men and return to your lands," Trey told him curtly. "Should I have need of them, I will expect you to send them." He did not say that he never wanted to see him again, but Raenald could not mistake his tone for meaning anything but that.

Without another word, he walked away in the direction of the city gates. Apolo waited until he was far enough away that he could not hear him before he looked at Raenald to find him watching Trey's back with a sickening smile. "I don't believe you are as innocent as you claim to be."

Raenald turned his head to look at Apolo, his lips still curved in a smile that made Apolo want to end his life. "I hated my father, and I prayed to the gods that he would fail."

"It doesn't surprise me that you would abandon your sire," retorted Apolo. "I question when you chose to do it."

"I am still standing when my father and brothers are ashes on the winds," Raenald reminded him. "If I had been at the palace, do you think gracious Lady Arora would have allowed me to live? Do you think I could have escaped Duo Maxwell and his ruffians? Unless you have any more baseless accusations to make, Apolo of house Dax, I will lead my men south where I will uphold the emperor's decrees."

Apolo watched Raenald stride to his horse, and after mounting, he gave a signal for his warriors to do the same. As they passed by, Lord Wattan came to Apolo, mounted on his own horse. He and his men would escort Raenald and his army back to the Caron holdings in the south where Wattan would set a guard on his territories before returning to the emperor with the bulk of his army.

"If he or his men step out of line, Raenald will be the first man to die," Wattan told Apolo. "Keep the emperor safe." Wattan saluted him and rode away to join his men.

Apolo watched the departing army until they disappeared on the horizon before he headed back into the city. The streets were strangely quiet, and he felt people peering at him through doors open only a crack or watching him from their windows standing back far enough so that he could not see them. Although it bothered him that they believed him a monstrous sorcerer, he understood their fear especially now after the city had been ransacked and pillaged by another monster. They had lived under Zeno and the heavy hand of his imperial guard, but Apolo hoped they would soon see that Trey was different, that he would make their lives better.

Knowing that any offer to help the injured would be refused, Apolo was glad that the loss of magic from the ancestors allowed him to be oblivious to any suffering behind the closed doors. As he continued on to the palace, he turned his thoughts to his exchange with Raenald. Apolo hated the man, now more than ever without knowing why. He had wanted to seize him, to draw out his black secrets using his powers, but whatever Raenald was hiding was not worth the backlash Trey would suffer by allowing his sorcerer to manhandle him. His warlords might worry that he would do the same to them. But a man who would turn his back on his father, to join his enemies rather than share his fate, did not deserve to be trusted.

As he drew near the palace wall, a loud noise came from a nearby alley and Apolo went in the direction from which it had come. He saw two men finish kicking in a door and he was surprised to recognize them from the day they had come back to the palace. They had been among those that had met Trey at the gate on their return. Now they disappeared into the building, then quickly emerged holding a man between them. A naked woman came to the doorway they had smashed open, covering her face with her hands and Apolo could hear her sobbing. He was about to step forward, to demand to know what they were doing, but one of the palace guards drew his dagger and rammed it up the chin of the captive, impaling him on the blade before pulling it out and dropping the body in the filth of the gutter.

Horrified, Apolo could not react until the other man seized the woman and Apolo took a step to rescue her, but she sneered at the men with such an ugly look that he was taken aback.

"You serve a lying pretender and his sorcerers!" she screeched. "Gods curse his house!"

The guard put his big hand around her slender neck and slammed her against the wall. Apolo thought he should do something, to stop the man from choking her to death, but the vitriol in her voice stunned him. These were the people who had welcomed Lord Caron and his men into the city to hide them so that they could destroy Trey. He was sickened by what he had witnessed, but Apolo was torn between confronting them and letting them deal with traitors as they saw fit. Then he wondred who had given them permission to do such things to the people of Imperia.

He left the grisly scene behind and hurried back to the palace, ignoring the greeting Chasek had called out as he passed through the reception hall. He was nearly running when he came to the imperial apartments where he found a guard standing outside who stepped in front of the door to bar him from entering.

"The emperor has commanded that he not be disturbed."

"I must speak to him urgently," Apolo insisted. Trey would want to know what was happening in the city.

"The emperor has commanded that he not be disturbed," the guard repeated.

Despite belief to the contrary, Apolo could not force anyone to act against their will using his powers, and he could see by the stony set to the beefy guard's features that he was not going to disobey Trey's order. He would be useless as a guard if he did, so Apolo told him to inform the emperor, when he saw him, that he wished to speak to him as soon as possible, and then he went back down to where he had seen Chasek and saw that he was headed in his direction.

"Lord Chasek!" Apolo hailed him and the warlord smiled wearily at him.

"Lord Apolo." He nodded. "I was about to retire. I haven't had much sleep in the last few days and the emperor's gracious lady has given me the crown prince's suite to spend the night."

Apolo disliked speaking to him before Trey, but he had no choice. "As I was returning to the city from the oath ceremony ..."

The other man cut him off. "The emperor should not take the oaths of an army of marauders. I am surprised you could stomach watching the spectacle, and I would be surprised if there were not a battle on the march south between Wattan and Caron's army."

"Lord Wattan has given his oath to obey the emperor," Apolo reminded him.

"And if that weasel shit Raenald breaks his oath, Wattan will be under no obligation to honor his own." Chasek leaned closer to meet Apolo's gaze. "We all know Raenald will break his vow. He doesn't understand honor and loyalty."

Apolo shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. He could talk for days on how vile Raenald was. "I did not stop you so that we could talk about Raenald's character."

"That would be a short conversation," snorted Chasek.

"I thought you should know that upon returning to the palace, I saw men of the palace guard in the streets and ..."

"I suppose you did not like what you saw," Chasek interrupted him, "but what they are doing has to be done. There are traitors in the city that must be dealt with. Caron did not march his army through the gates, but hid his warriors among the residents."

"They had no choice," Apolo argued although what he had seen and heard told him otherwise.

"There are enough men all over Calabria that still believe that Trey is a pretender. If we must shed blood to prove he is Zeno's son and our rightful ruler, so be it." He leaned closer so that he was nose to nose with Apolo. "And it's about time that you put on your father's mantle or another will take your place at the emperor's side, someone with the strength to do what needs to be done."

He didn't give Apolo a chance to retort that Trey did not need a cold-blooded killer at his side before he moved away, and as he stood watching Chasek's retreating back, Apolo had the sinking feeling that he was right. Calabrian's did not laud a man for his skill at counseling, but his skill with a sword and willingness to use it. Apolo would gladly use his sword to protect the people he loved, but he could not and never would use it to strike fear into those he ruled. If that is what it took to call himself the emperor's imperial guard, he would step aside for another man whose blind loyalty made him indifferent to the suffering of others.

That man was now in the streets, his terran sensibilities crushed by the atrocities he had been forced to witness, first in the north at the slave market and now here in Imperia. Apolo regretted the part he played in making Duo Maxwell the ruthless vigilante that he had become.