Empress of Dorsa (The Chronicles of Dorsa)

Almost without being aware she was doing it, Joslyn shifted her stance and breathing into mountain.

“She is even older than she looks,” said the woman on the table, her words coming out in a long, dry rasp like air escaping a bellows. “Old enough she’s lost count of the years.”

There was a long pause.

“She comes from a kingdom without death,” Rennus said from within the old woman. “Ruled by a deathless king.”

Tasia glanced at Joslyn, confusion written across her face. “What does that mean? Is she from the Shadowlands?”

“The king – or god? – she sees him as a god … The god-king foresaw that if she traveled to the west and allowed herself to be captured, she might succeed where all her sisters failed,” Rennus-inside-the-woman said. “She would feign defeat and let the proud Terintan lord believe he had gained control. Then she would have her chance at eliminating the illegitimate Empress.”

Illegitimate…?

“So she tricked M’Tongliss?” Alric asked.

“It would appear so,” said Rennus-inside-the-woman.

“Which means M’Tongliss is innocent,” Tasia said. “I suspected that, but it’s still good to know.”

“Answer the Empress’s earlier question,” Joslyn said. “What is this ‘kingdom without death’? Does she mean the Shadowlands?”

“It means …” There was a long silence. “She is very strong, even with truth serum. Even without the aid of a shadow. It is impressive – she resists me even now.”

Joslyn glanced at Rennus’s actual body, which had gone still and stiff since he had possessed the woman. His dilated eyes remained wide open, staring at nothing.

“The kingdom without death is far to the east,” said Rennus-inside-the-woman. “But … her thoughts make little sense. She says it has no true time, no true location; this ‘kingdom’ is not on the mortal plane, yet it is not in the Shadowlands, either. It is somehow … part of both?”

“Far to the east …” Tasia pondered. “Could she mean the Kingdom of Persopos?”

“Ahh,” the Rennus-inside said. “She reacted to that – the question offends her. Persopos is not its name, at least not its true name. Persopos is the name given by others. The god-king and his subjects call it something else entirely.”

Evrart looked as though he might be sick. He had long argued that the late General Remington’s theory that the Kingdom of Persopos was manipulating mountain men to fight a proxy war with the Empire had been nothing but an old man’s flight of fancy.

“What does he want – this god-king?” Tasia asked.

There was no answer at first.

“I think the truth serum must be wearing off. Her resistance grows stronger,” said Rennus-inside. “But this part she wants to tell you: she says the god-king is the rightful heir of the House of Dorsa. He will take the throne that belongs to him back, reunite the shadows with their mortal counterparts, and make all the Empire a deathless place, just like her homeland.”

The chamber fell still and silent, contemplating the gravity of what the prisoner threatened. Port Lorsin had barely survived the last invasion of shadows; could it survive a second?

The prisoner’s body jerked on the stone slab, pulling against the chains that held her in place.

“More will come,” she said, looking directly at Joslyn. Joslyn couldn’t be sure that it was still Rennus speaking or the assassin’s own voice. “The deathless king will send as many as it takes. He has already succeeded in taking most of the East away from you; it is only a matter of time before he reclaims the rest. You may protect your false Empress once; you may protect her twice; you may even protect her three times. Yet there will come a day when you will fail, and the good and righteous king will sit at last on the throne of his ancestors and bring the salvation his people cry out for. And you shall not be able to stop him.”

Her body jerked again, this time her back arching, straining against her bindings, before falling hard against the stone. Rennus’s body suddenly pitched forward, and he would have likely collapsed against the stone table had Udolf not caught him and helped him to straighten once more.

Rennus’s chest heaved as if he’d just finished a hard run. His blue eyes were wide with surprise. “She threw me out.” He barked out a laugh. “That’s never happened before. The old bitch threw me out.”

“Are you alright, Brother Rennus?” Evrart asked, and something in his tone suggested deference.

No, more than deference,Joslyn thought. Reverence.

“Should we send a guard to fetch a healer or…?”

Rennus shook his head. “No, no, that won’t be necessary, Brother Evrart. I’m alright. I was just … not planning to exit in quite that fashion.” He patted Udolf reassuringly and chuckled, wiping perspiration from his brow. But his laugh was strained. “Forgive the crude language I used, Empress. I was caught off-guard. Our elderly guest is quite the fighter.”

Alric, who had drawn his sword in all the excitement, eyed the elderly assassin who now laid motionless upon the slab. “D’we need to give her more serum, or have we got what we need? If we got what we need, I say we ought …” He made a horizontal motion with his sword.

Joslyn drew her dagger and took a cautious step closer to the woman. She put two fingers on the inside of the woman’s wrist, then to the side of her neck.

Joslyn sheathed her dagger and faced the others. “No need to execute her. She’s already dead.”