Empress of Dorsa (The Chronicles of Dorsa)

The main ingredient appears to be a flower common to the East – something we would treat as just another weed.

That’s what Brother Rennus told the Empress the elixir the mountain men drank was made out of.

Linna unslung the second waterskin she carried, the one filled with poison Brother Rennus had given her. She uncapped it and sniffed. The aroma was definitely floral.

“What?” Akella asked, watching her.

But Linna’s mind was going too fast for her to answer, because the pieces were falling into place now, one after the other in rapid succession. She’d already turned westward, towards Pellon, and started to run.

Brother Rennus had wanted Linna to deliver the “poison” the first time. Just as she was delivering it this time.

He’d known she would come to him and volunteer for this job. He’d known she’d volunteer because he knew Linna felt underestimated by her mistresses and was determined to prove her worth. And so each time the Commander was far from the Empress – on the northern front leading First Division, or leaving Pellon at dawn to take two brigades north once more – Linna was suddenly presented with an opportunity from Rennus to prove her worth.

Why would Rennus manipulate Linna in particular into delivering the “poison” instead of using his beastwalkers, which, now that Linna thought on it, was probably much easier for them to do than the head Brother had claimed?

The answer was simple: Whenever the Commander was away, Linna never strayed too far or too long from the Empress’s side, even to the point of sleeping in the Empress’s tent or bedchamber until the Commander returned.

Just like she’d been sleeping in the Empress’s bedchamber in Castle Tergos the night the assassin came in through the window. The assassin who was dressed in a soldier’s uniform, who climbed a four-story castle wall with apparent ease, and whose eyes were eerily blank until the moment Linna plunged a sword into his belly.

Eerily blank as if possessed by a shadow.

Or a skinwalker.

And the journey to Pellon, when the Empress had fallen so ill? Udolf had told Linna to fetch Brother Rennus immediately if the Empress’s condition grew worse. Linna hadn’t found the Brother, though. She’d found Wise Man Jesker. What if there had been nothing natural about her illness? What if it had been an illness created by the shadow arts?

Linna kept getting in the way of Brother Rennus’s attempts to assassinate the Empress. But at last she’d taken his bait. At last both the Commander and Linna were too far away from the Empress to thwart another of Brother Rennus’s assassination attempts.

The sun had fully risen now, which meant that back in Pellon, General Alric and the Commander had already left through the city’s main gates. The Empress was probably watching from a window of Castle Pellon as ten thousand soldiers marched in opposite directions.

Pellon’s defenses would be down to two-thirds strength.

And just as an ambush awaited General Alric’s two brigades, Linna had little doubt that a similar ambush awaited the Commander somewhere to the north. The Castles and Knights board had been perfectly arranged, and now their opponent was ready to spring his trap.

Linna wasn’t worried for the Commander. No matter what happened, she would survive the ambush and return alive to the Empress. But in the meantime, the Empress’s secondary bodyguard, the one who got lucky with the assassin in Castle Tergos, the one who was really more glorified servant than guard, always delivering tea and emptying chamberpots, the loyal little seagull hopping around and scooping up whatever scraps of attention were dropped for her, was miles upon miles away.

Miles away, and had very nearly delivered what was probably a powerful elixir into the hands of the waiting mountain men.

Ammanta’s still in Pellon. Ammanta will be there,Linna thought desperately, picturing the smiling Fesulian who always carried the deadly, double-tipped spear across her back. Whenever the Commander was away, Ammanta was technically in charge of the Empress’s palace guard. But Ammanta wasn’t the Empress’s ever-present shadow the way the Commander was. She had other duties to attend to and couldn’t be at the Empress’s side every moment.

Please, Mother Eirenna. Please, Father Mezzu, Mother Moon, Preyla,Linna prayed, throwing in the name of every god she could think of. Protect the Empress. Protect her until we get back. Gods, please.

Rennus – and probably Udolf – and who knew who else – wouldn’t act right away. They’d wait to strike until the Commander was too far north and General Alric was too far southwest to return to Pellon to help. That gave Linna enough time to get back and warn Ammanta and the Empress that something terrible was afoot.

Maybe Rennus and Udolf would even wait until the ambush began. It made tactical sense – a three-pronged, simultaneous attack. An ambush in the north, an ambush in the southeast, and a final ambush within the walls of Pellon itself.

Gods, what if the Empress’s assassination was just one piece of a much larger attack? The number of soldiers inside Pellon’s walls would shrink by one-third the moment Commander Joslyn marched north and General Alric marched south. Twenty thousand soldiers was still an impressive number, but all eyes would look outside the city walls for threats. No one would expect an attack from inside those walls.

“Why are we running due west?” Akella said from a few feet behind. Linna was practically sprinting now, and Akella was having trouble keeping up. “Shouldn’t we be angling north? We’ll intercept Alric faster if we head west by northwest.”

“General Alric will have to take care of himself,” Linna called over her shoulder. She picked up her pace. “We have to get back to Pellon – back to the Empress. Before it’s too late.”