Free The New World by Michael A. Stackpole Page B

him warily. “You are Ieral Scoan. I remember you as the one who brought the crown to my brother.”
    The man produced a handkerchief and wiped his upper lip. “I am flattered, Duchess.”
    “You needn’t be. I do not remember you fondly.” Jasai raised her chin. “Duchess was the rank I was given by the Council of Ministers. I am a princess now.”
    “Yes, of Deseirion.” He smiled graciously, but contempt crept through his words. “But we are in Helosunde. Here you are a duchess, nothing more.”
    Keles took a step forward. “But nothing less.”
    Scoan laughed quickly. “Actually, much less.” He produced a small square of folded paper, sealed in red wax. “You are requested to report to Vallitsi and appear before the Council of Ministers.”
    Jasai stared down at the paper, then back up at him. “And if I choose to ignore that request ?”
    “Forgive me. I never meant to imply you had a choice. You’re under arrest.” The minister gave her a predatory grin. “You’ve been consorting with the enemy, Duchess. You’ll be tried for treason and hanged by the neck until dead.”

Chapter 9
    S ave for decades of practice, the Naleni Grand Minister could not have kept surprise and outrage from his face. He had served the Komyr court perhaps not always enthusiastically, but diligently and certainly above the level the Princes deserved. The Komyr Princes had never fully appreciated the role the bureaucracy played in stabilizing the world.
    But this—this outrage—showed how far Prince Cyron’s mind was gone. And Prince Pyrust has joined him .
    Pelut Vniel stood in the doorway to the Naleni throne room, with a phalanx of lesser ministers behind him. Wooden columns split the room in three. A red carpet edged with purple occupied the center and ran right to the door. Had Vniel stepped through incautiously, he would have trod where only nobility walks, and his life could have been forfeit.
    To the left of the throne stood Prince Cyron. He wore a purple robe emblazoned with a golden dragon. Pelut had never seen the robe before, and the way the dragon coiled around a golden crown certainly had not been seen since before the Empire had been sundered. The crown’s nine points each bore a sign of the Zodiac, the foremost pair being those of the Naleni dragon and the Desei hawk.
    Pyrust aided and abetted Cyron in this lunacy. He wore a deep blue robe with a flying hawk emblazoned on it. The left wing had two feathers clipped, marking the Prince’s half hand. The hawk was poised to land on an Imperial crown, within which nested two fledglings. The image again had not been seen since before the Cataclysm.
    But it was the third person, the woman seated on the Dragon Throne, he focused upon. She was Prince Cyron’s whore—uncommonly beautiful and rumored to have been a bed companion to previous Komyr princes. Her imposture was an absurd satire, worthy of Jaor Dirxi or other artists of his ilk.
    The ministers behind him gasped.
    The woman on the throne snapped open a fan as if to shield herself from the sound. The fan was emblazoned with a purple crown, as was her antique golden robe. The woman sat the throne as if it truly belonged to her, and her calm shocked Pelut so much that he finally began to assess what he was seeing.
    The way she deployed the fan and used it to shield her face meant the ministers were to take no notice of her. She clearly understood the games played at court, but she was not alone in being able to invoke symbols.
    Pelut bowed deeply to her and held the bow for only as long as appropriate to honor the throne had it been empty. He then straightened and bowed first to Prince Cyron, holding it for as long as was appropriate for the ruling Prince. He waited for Cyron to acknowledge his gesture, but the half-armed Prince graced him with nothing more than a nod. When he bowed to Prince Pyrust, Pelut only got a grunt, but he covered his reaction to this affront passively.
    Entering the room, Pelut had a