return it, but his face relaxed, and he nodded, acknowledging the jest.
"Have we stopped at all?" he asked.
"No. It's midmorning if the sun is any indication." She turned to him. "We need to talk."
The look on his face made her stomach clench--seeing his hope and relief and knowing she was about to crush it, hating herself for that and then hating herself for feeling guilty.
It was so blasted complicated. So fraught with emotion and all of those emotions painful, and she was struck by the overwhelming urge to leap out the back of the wagon, fight their captors. Because whatever happened, it would be action and a pain she could deal with so much more easily than this.
"About our plans," she hurried on. "You know the emperor better than I do. What will he do when we are delivered to his doorstep?"
Gavril took a deep breath. "That is . . . difficult to say. I knew him well enough when I was younger, but my opinions on the man have changed. Justifiably in some ways and yet in others . . . I'm realizing now . . ." He shook his head. "You didn't ask for my opinions on the emperor himself."
"No, go on. I'd like to hear them."
Gavril hesitated. "It is impossible to explain without touching closer to breaking my promise than you might like. Everything is colored by the past, and in explaining that, you may think I'm trying . . ."
"Anything you say about your experiences with the emperor helps me understand what we might be about to face."
"All right, but I warn you, this may be more about my father than the emperor. It's . . . difficult to separate the two."
"I can imagine."
He seemed to relax at that and sat cross-legged before he began. "You know that they were best of friends. Boon companions. They grew up together. They fought in the imperial wars together. When Jiro Tatsu was made emperor, I'm certain my father felt slighted. It happened before I was born, so I know little of it, though I do recall once hearing them talking, alone together, and the emperor saying it was only luck of birth that gave him the throne over my father, because my father was not empire-born."
"That is true," she said.
"In public, they remained as close as ever, but even as a child, I felt the tension between them. At the time, I only worried it would affect my friendship with Tyrus. My father . . ." Gavril shifted. "My father did not encourage me to form relationships."
"What do you mean?"
"He . . ." Gavril shook his head. "It adds nothing to the tale, because my father did encourage my friendship with Tyrus. Or, I should say, he encouraged . . . No matter. The point is that we remained friends, and so the emperor was like an uncle to me. He was very kind to me, and always had time for me, and I greatly admired him and often wished . . ."
"Often wished what?" she prompted when he trailed off.
"My relationship with my father was not easy. I envied Tyrus's with the emperor. It was the difference between being a bastard to a man with four legitimate heirs and being the only child. My father said that someday I would be glad of his harshness, because Tyrus could never be more than he was, and I could. I did not care. I would have gladly shared my father's attentions with a dozen brothers, if I could be as free as Tyrus."
"Tyrus is not free."
"I know. His burden is different but no less. A child doesn't see that. Later, my view of the emperor changed. I was confused for a long time. No one truly explained what my father had done, and people thought him either a martyr or a monster. I was still friends with the son of the man who had sentenced my father to exile, and the emperor himself was as kind to me as ever, as if nothing had changed. But then I grew up, and I heard how my father had been betrayed by his best friend, how the emperor exiled him on false charges because he feared my father's power. I heard that from my uncles and in the streets. Then Tyrus went away to the Okamis and I was moved into the barrack for training. That separation also meant a separation from the emperor himself, and my opinions on the man changed. My view of his actions changed."
"He became the enemy," she said softly.
Gavril nodded. "Time tempered my memories of my father, too, and all around me I heard what a great man he was, and how any rumor of his ruthlessness or cruelty or, yes, madness was from his enemies, who spread lies for the emperor. Even my opinion of Tyrus altered. I was . . . more influenced by others than I like to admit. I felt alone and . . ."
He cleared his throat. "That is no excuse. The fact is that it was simple for me to believe we had grown apart and the fault was more Tyrus's than mine, and that if he continued trying to renew our friendship, he had an ulterior motive."
"Tyrus never has ulterior motives."
"I know, and I know it does not speak well of me to admit I thought him guilty of that. It was easier to believe I had avoided a trap than that I'd lost a friend, which I now know I had. I now know many things. About Tyrus, about myself, about my father, and about the emperor. But it is the last that concerns you. What do I think of the emperor?"
He took a deep breath. "I am almost certain we face no hero's welcome. Jiro Tatsu is not the kindly uncle I once believed him to be. Nor is he the monster I later thought. He is the emperor, and all that entails. He must put us into the dungeons, exactly as these men expect. If he makes any other move, his enemies will pounce, and the empire will be further split. It will not be comfortable nor pleasant, but it will be safe. We will be there for appearances only, and only until he can find some reason to free us."
"But then we cannot go to your father's camp."
"No."
"Which is a problem."