Empire of Exiles by Erin M Evans

Author:Erin M Evans [EVANS, ERIN M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2022-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

IV

A LIZARD AMONG THE LEAVES

Year Eight of the Reign of Emperor Clement

Palace Sestina

Envision a moment, two scions of Kirazzi—two brothers, a year apart: Redolfo and Turon. They have the same parents, the same lessons, the same tutors, the same texts. The Equations of Sulba. The Jade Sapa’s Oration and Rhetoric. Olouluian Tactics of the Beminat—all the best wisdom of the imperial federation, grounded in the dictums of ancient Khirazj—The Maxims of Ab-Kharu. The Papyrus of On. The Precepts of Bekesa.

Two brothers, so alike on sight that one is said to be the other’s changeling, but such different people, here, now, at the end of that path.

It is The Precepts of Bekesa in particular Turon is thinking of, these proscriptions and admonitions and promises from their distant source. The brothers learned the text from the same tutor, a bent old man with a knobby beard like a statue’s—in his youth, he had fled Khirazj, actual Khirazj, in the retinue of Turon and Redolfo’s great-grandfather, seen the Salt Wall formed in a roar of magic and sacrifice. And while he was meant to drill them on Bekesa’s philosophy, the order of the world and the rights and responsibilities of the kingship, what Turon remembers most strongly are the old scribe’s words on the changelings. Two boys—ten, eleven—made to drill on these warnings, because, the old tutor insisted, Those Who Sow Deception had laughed in the face of all those other walls.

Here, now, in the study with the garish wallpaper, Redolfo takes the brandy back. “If I knew who the Shrike was, believe me, I’d tell you. I think that life might be worth as much as mine.”

“Why is that?”

He grins. “Where do you think the changeling blood came from? The Shrike is the one who went over the Wall and collected it. Shouldn’t the emperor worry about that running free?”

It’s a press, a dare—another distraction. Turon doesn’t follow this time—what is Redolfo distracting him from?

The tutor’s voice echoes in his thoughts: The changeling hides among the Khirazji like a lizard among the leaves of the palm. When it is still, there is no marking it, but it must move and breathe and continue its small life according to the circle of Al-Duat.

“Which of them turned on me?” Redolfo demands. “If it wasn’t the Shrike.”

“Make a guess,” Turon says, trying to put his finger on what is unsettling.

Redolfo downs the rest of his glass. “I have a lot of enemies, don’t I?”

The same words again, the same flourish and intonation. The too-sweet brandy drunk glass after glass. Turon hesitates.

“Will you tell me something?” he asks. “A story. About me, when we were young?”

Redolfo laughs once. “I thought you were supposed to be interrogating me about Lireana. About the venom and now the Shrike.”

“Humor me,” Turon says. “A grieving brother.”

Redolfo rolls his eyes, sighs. “When you were five, you went to the temple of the Golden Oblates with Father, and you were so worked up you threw up on the statue. Happy?”

Turon holds his

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