He is fragile, like a prince of ice, of glass. -- Philippa Gregory, The Lady of the Rivers

Kilan awoke the next morning to the disorientating knowledge that he was not in his own bed.  He stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling, half-way between sleep and wakefulness. He was still clinging tightly to Death, their bodies entangled with each other. The memory of the night before filled his mind, bringing a hint of a smile to his lips and a faint blush to his cheeks.

"Good morning," Death said, propping herself up on her elbow. "I hope you're going to skip the 'woe-is-me-I-made-a-terrible-mistake" angst this time."

This prompted a wry grin. "That only happened once. And you have to admit, it wasn't the most sensible decision at the time."

Death shrugged. "Good decisions rarely seem sensible at the time."

Kilan rolled his eyes. "What time is it? In my world, I mean?"

"About eight o'clock. Maybe later. Your cousin won't arrive until two in the afternoon."

How does she know that? Kilan wondered. Then he remembered the foolishness of wondering such a thing about someone who could see the future. Oh. That's how.

They lay in silence for a few minutes. Death rested her head on Kilan's shoulder. Kilan absently ran his fingers through her hair. It was... nice, and peaceful, in a way he had never realised simply lying beside his wife could be.

Oh no. His wife. Or rather, his other wife. What would Qihadal say if she knew where her husband was?

Death apparently sensed his change in mood. "Kilan. You're worrying again. You do far too much of that."

First Nadriet, now Death. Why did people think he worried too much when he had very good reasons for worrying?

"I was thinking about Qihadal," he said. "What will I tell her about this? About you?"

Death shrugged. "She already knows that we're married, and that we were married long before you ever learnt of her existence. I dare say she thinks we're intimate far more often than we really are."

That hardly made things better.

"But in the eyes of the empire, she's my wife!"

"And you, she and I all know that your marriage is a sham." A dark look, almost like jealousy, flashed in Death's eyes. It was gone before Kilan saw it. "I don't think she'll object to you spending time with your actual wife."

~~~~

The last time Gialma had visited Esergot, it had been to attend the royal wedding. He had been one of an enormous crowd of guests thronging the temple. The streets had been completely blocked by thousands of people from all over the empire. Compared to that scene of chaos, the city he saw now was almost unrecognisable.

There were still crowds of people on the streets. But they were hurrying to or from some mysterious destination, not standing around. The ribbons and decorations were conspicuous by their absence. The bells, which had rung all over the city for hours on end, were now silent except when they rang the hour.

Gialma looked out the windows of the zeim as he was driven through the streets. He kept comparing what he saw in the capital to what he had seen in Istogu. The contrast was shocking. Here the people were well-fed. Their clothes were well-made and protected them from the cold. Here there were prosperous shops full of expensive goods. Here there were few stray dogs running around, and no rats to be seen at all. There were still beggars, but they were fewer in number, and even they seemed to be better-fed and better-clothed than the ones in Istogu.

I don't care if he's summoned me to face my execution, the prince thought. I'm going to confront Tinuviel about his neglect of his people!

The zeim drove up the long, tree-lined driveway leading to Zasordoth Palace. Gialma folded his hands in his lap and tried to appear calm and unconcerned. In a few minutes he would know why he was here. In a few minutes the ordeal of uncertainty would be over.

A servant led him up a long flight of stairs, down a long hallway, and into a large room.

"Wait here, please," the servant said, bowing.

She disappeared through the door, leaving Gialma alone in the room. He studied his surroundings, more to give himself something to do than from real curiosity. The floor was tiled and covered with a bright white carpet woven from what looked like teozhan[1]. The walls were painted pale yellow and covered with portraits of various notable Caranilnav ancestors. There was a large window that took up most of the wall, looking down on one of the palace orangeries. A cushioned window-seat stood beneath it. In the middle of the room there was a table with two chairs on either side of it.

The sound of approaching footsteps echoed down the hallway outside. Gialma tensed. Was he going to be taken to Tinuviel now?

Then the door opened, and Tinuviel himself walked in.

Gialma started. It had never occurred to him that the emperor might personally meet him in this room. He had thought he was brought there to wait until his cousin was informed of his arrival. So Tinuviel's sudden appearance caught Gialma completely off-guard.

Belatedly he bowed to his cousin.

"Your Majesty," he said faintly, feeling lost and disorientated.

Tinuviel said nothing. He moved to sit down on one of the chairs. It suddenly struck Gialma that the emperor may be as uncomfortable in this situation as he was. He never looked at Gialma for more than a few seconds at a time before he would quickly look away, and he moved with a sort of tense, nervous energy that Gialma recognised only too well from his own attempts at speaking to strangers. It was an unexpected and unsettling moment, to realise that he and his cousin weren't so different as they might seem.

"Prince Gialma," Tinuviel said quietly. "Sit down."

Gialma sat in the chair on the other side of the table. He placed his hands on the table before him as protocol dictated[2], and kept his head respectfully lowered.

"Do you know why I asked you to come here?" Tinuviel asked.

If the emperor wasn't going to directly address the elephant in the room, then neither was Gialma. "No, your Majesty."

"One of the members of my High Council is retiring. This will leave a vacancy."

Surely he didn't bring me here just to discuss that, the prince thought.

His cousin's next words drove that thought out of his head. "I would like you to accept the position."

What? Had he misheard? Had Tinuviel truly just asked him to join the High Council?

"Your Majesty?" Gialma said, feeling suddenly dizzy.

"If you accept you will have a title of your own, and considerably more political influence than either of your parents." Was it his imagination or did Tinuviel sound rather sarcastic? "You would be expected to spend the greater part of the year in the capital. But you would advise me on all important matters that arise."

Was this a ploy or a gift from the gods?

"May I have some time to think it over?" Gialma's voice seemed to come from somewhere very far away. He felt as if he'd been dropped into an utterly alien world and told to find his way through it.

"Of course. You don't have to answer today. Rooms have been prepared for you in the east wing."

And with that the conversation was over.

~~~~

"Thank goodness that's over for now!" Kilan exclaimed the minute he was safely in his office.

He had speaking to himself. He hadn't realised anyone else was there. The person sitting in the chair by the wall escaped his notice entirely. Until she spoke, that is.

"What is over?"

Kilan almost jumped out of his skin. "Qihadal! What are you doing here?"

His Empress stared at him curiously. Kilan tried to look less like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The joint knowledge of who he had just been speaking to and where he had spent the previous night combined to make him feel horribly guilty.

"I came to ask you which of these invitations we should accept," Qihadal said, holding up a collection of letters. "We can't attend all these parties, so who can we afford to offend?"

Kilan didn't quite like the idea of offending anyone, but he supposed it was inevitable in this case. "Who are they from?"

The next few minutes were spent in discussing the pros and cons of accepting each invitation. There were over twenty invitations in all. By the time they were finished, Kilan and Qihadal had ruled out half of them and were left with ten. Kilan expected his... official wife? Consort? Co-conspirator against the Iqui? -- would go and write letters of acceptance immediately. He was wrong. She hadn't forgotten what he said when he first arrived.

"What did you mean? What is over?"

Damn it.

"I asked one of my cousins to accept a seat on the High Council," Kilan said. "I'm waiting to hear his answer."

Qihadal accepted this without further question. She had never shown much interest in the actions of the High Council. It mattered very little to her if Prince Gialma accepted or not.

Or so anyone would have thought. Fate, that bane of a good many people's lives, was laughing in the background.

~~~~

Hundreds of miles away from Esergot, a noblewoman had just died. One of the Reapers collected her soul and immediately moved on to the next name on his list.

There seemed to be no connection between the just-deceased Countess Caeril of Traeron and Emperor Tinuviel. And indeed, there wasn't. But the Countess's daughter would have a considerable effect on the future of the empire.

Caeril had never married, but some twenty years before she had given birth to a daughter, Niuyínkir. She refused to say who the child's father was. The people of Traeron had shaken their heads and gossiped about it, but for as long as Caeril ruled competently they did nothing more. Now, however, they would have to do something about it. They couldn't let a bastard inherit the title.

And so, as Niuyínkir knelt by Caeril's deathbed, she realised she would be denied the title her mother had borne.

And she decided to do something about that.

By any means necessary.

~~~~

After the drama of his meeting with Tinuviel, Gialma had taken refuge in a nearby room. It turned out to be a library. There he paced to and fro for hours on end, undisturbed by anyone.

Tinuviel had offered him a seat on the High Council. Therefore, Tinuviel couldn't know about his... less than legal activities. So what should he do? Accept? Refuse? Accept and call off his agreement with Prince Nalginton?

He paced and paced, and still couldn't find an answer to this situation. Gradually a new thought began to form. As a member of the High Council, he would be able to influence Tinuviel's decisions. He could raise issues he thought needed to be dealt with. He could do some good.

An hour later, he had an answer.

~~~~

Kilan learnt that evening what Gialma's answer was. A servant interrupted his supper with a letter.

"Excuse me, your Majesty," he said, bowing, "but your cousin asked me to give you this."

Kilan opened the envelope and read the short message scribbled on the piece of paper.

Prince Gialma is honoured to accept the position so kindly offered to him by his royal cousin.

"Thank you," Kilan said to the servant. "There's no answer required tonight."

When the servant was gone, and he was left alone in his rooms, Kilan wondered what the future would bring. What would happen when Prince Gialma officially became Counsellor Gialma?

~~~~

The smallest, least important choices can have a devastating effect. Gialma decided to go for a walk in the gardens that evening before retiring to bed. While outside, he caught a glimpse of someone walking along a path lined with trees to his left. He stopped and looked again.

It was Empress Qihadal. She was walking slowly, with her head bowed, but he recognised her by her dark skin. Gialma didn't dare speak unless she spoke first. She didn't see him at all, but walked by silently.

Gialma watched with a puzzled expression as she walked back towards the palace. Why was the Empress out alone so late at night? And why did she seem so depressed?

Chapter Footnotes:

[1] teozhan = A sort of material halfway between silk and wool. It's made from the winter coat of the yalaum, a small mountain-dwelling animal something like a goat.

[2] When meeting the ruler in Carann, protocol forbids a person from ever moving their hands out of the ruler's sight. The reason is obvious: when everyone can see your hands, you can't reach for a weapon.