"Return to Alvar Kitsune's camp."
"With whom?"
She looked at Gavril. "Gavril Kitsune."
"Who was acting as a spy for me in his father's camp. Because the atrocities his father committed were too great even for filial piety. The empire came first. Is that correct, Gavril?"
The emperor's words suggested Gavril had been a spy from the start, which he had not. Wisely, the emperor was not asking Moria to confirm this.
"Yes, your imperial highness, I did turn against my family," Gavril said. "I understand the crime I committed in that, and my ancestors will judge me for it."
"But your conscience would not allow you to act in any other way. My charge to you then, Keeper, was to return with Gavril and do what?"
"Spy on Alvar Kitsune."
"And?"
"Kill him if I could."
Tyrus stiffened at that, his eyes filling with outrage. "You asked--" He clipped his words and shut his mouth, but his eyes still blazed.
"I presume you did not?" the emperor said.
Moria lowered her gaze. "No. Like Tyrus, I failed my mission."
"Because, like Tyrus, you were tasked with one you lacked the experience to carry out."
"It does not matter. I failed."
Tyrus looked over, and the outrage in his gaze turned to pride. He straightened and said, "Yes, Father. She lacked the experience to carry it out. She is a Keeper, not an assassin. In asking her to do so, you misjudged. I apologize for saying so, but I must."
"Yes, you must." The emperor stepped forward and squeezed Tyrus's arm. "I gave both of you tasks you were too inexperienced to carry out. Yours, because I did not foresee what happened. Hers, not because I expected her to carry it through, but because I hoped if she had the opportunity she would take it. It was a seed planted with little hope of sprouting."
"We may have failed our missions," Moria said, "but we did find the children of Fairview, Northpond, and Edgewood, and we have brought them home, safely."
Emperor Tatsu's brows shot up. "You . . . ?"
"We have the children, your imperial majesty. In the wagons." Moria waved toward them and the crowd and the emperor looked and saw several of the older children, grown restless and standing alongside the wagons.
The emperor hid his surprise, and quickly turned to the warrior behind him, ordering the man to take the children inside the city walls.
"The guard said you brought something else," Emperor Tatsu said. "Something more exotic." He looked up, over their heads. "But it did seem rather unlikely." He tried to hide his disappointment, but he looked like a boy who has been told he can have a pony for his Fire Festival gift, and then finds no pony with his presents.
Tyrus lifted his fingers and whistled, and Zuri swooped in, landing beside him.
Emperor Tatsu stared at the dragon and then said, "Or not."
Tyrus fought a smile. "The one Alvar hoped to raise was much larger."
"I should hope so."
"This is her whelp. And while I had hoped to do this with a little more ceremony . . ." Tyrus cleared his throat and bowed. "I would like to present you, Emperor Tatsu, of the dragon clan, with the living embodiment of your totem, brought to life by the blood of the Keeper of Edgewood and given to me by the goddess herself, to bring to you and present to you. A dragon." He looked at Zuri. "She'll grow."
The emperor laughed and stepped forward to embrace his son. When he moved back, he looked at Zuri again, staring for a moment, as dumbfounded as any commoner. Then he shook his head sharply and turned to the crowd.
"My son has returned. He has brought with him the honored Keeper and the equally honored son of my former marshal. I gave them tasks that set the entire empire against them, that brought them into grave danger, and branded them as traitors. Yet while they were not entirely successful, they accomplished feats greater still. They returned our lost children to us. And they woke a dragon. For the empire. Taking her from the clutches of Alvar Kitsune. If there is a surer sign that the goddess smiles on us, I do not know what it is."
A cheer rose from the crowd. Emperor Tatsu embraced the three of them again, more formally now, then moving to do the same with the Okamis and Ashyn and Ronan and even Sabre.