The Empress did not sit on the throne but stood near it, surrounded by her enormous green-eyed cats, each as tall as Zezili’s shoulder. The sight of them sent a prickling up Zezili’s spine. The Empress herself was a tall, striking figure, slender, with knobby arms and legs that were often canted at awkward angles. Her face, neck, and hands were smeared in a bronzer that gave her the color of dark honey. A blotch of red marked her lips. Her black brows and brilliant yellow eyes were smudged in kohl, and her hair – most of it her own – added another foot to her already extraordinary height. She dressed in a pale white dress with bone corseting that gave her the figure of a stick insect. The elaborate hooping under her gown created a wall of material belling out from her narrow frame, a distance that would have to be crossed before one touched her.

Zezili squared her shoulders. She concentrated on the length of purple carpet, but as she walked, her gaze was drawn to the Empress’s cats. They sat quietly watching her, their faces as inscrutable as the Empress’s.

Zezili walked to within a yard of the cusp of the Empress’s belled white gown, stared at the hem, and got down on both knees before her. She took off her helm, set it beside her.

The cats wound closer. A dozen, more? She imagined them chewing on her body, saw claws rend flesh.

She bowed her head and moved the tangled mass of her hair, baring her neck. One of the big cats lay down beside her. Its tail caressed her legs.

A delicate hand alighted on the base of Zezili’s neck. The fingers were cold.

“I charged you,” the Empress said, her voice like a sigh.

“I did as you bid,” Zezili said. “All but one of the camps is cleansed, and I’m sure Monshara can take care of the last. I obeyed you in all things.”

“You darkened their way. You interfered,” the Empress said. Her fingers dug into Zezili’s hair. “Worse, you may have hurt my other plans.” She took her hand away and beckoned to the cat lolling beside Zezili.

Another of the cats hissed.

“I find myself uncertain what to make of you or do with you.” The Empress sat in her silver throne, the fantastic menagerie of beaten silver rods and spires twisted into grotesque faces.

“Perhaps this was my fault,” she said. “I expected pure obedience. Look at me.”

Zezili raised her gaze from the carpet. She did not know what she expected to see in the Empress’s face, but looking up, she saw an unchanged visage, unmarked by feeling, grief or fear or anger. The Empress was, as ever, a blank bronze canvas, with the long, regal neck and supple form of her kind, the startling eyes.