When he did not return, the Crown Prince became the ill-advised Mallow Emperor, for she did not do her duty to the empire by ruling and sending out others in her stead. Instead, she went in search of her father, and she never returned.

Thus, her unfavored uncle crowned himself the Oak Emperor, said to be strong but seen to be rigid. For two years the empire suffered as the Pall spread and people died.

Just when all was believed to be lost and the empire doomed, the prince of the Fourth Estate, who had been the first to go out to investigate, returned home, against all expectation. He had explored the shore of the Pall and had, he claimed, even sailed down a river beneath the Pall. He brought a sheaf of ideas to the council, listing measures that could be taken to safeguard the empire and its population. These the Oak Emperor rejected.

Within a month, the Oak Emperor was dead, and the returned prince took the throne as the Willow Emperor. He implemented his new bureaucracy, upon which the empire has survived to this day.

From The Official’s Handbook of the Empire as compiled by Luviara, theurgist, working at the behest of the Inner Chamber of the Heart Temple

25 THE THIEF

Elen woke at dawn, as she always did, and was surprised to find herself stretched out on one of the cots. The events of yesterday evening broke onto the surface of her memory as she oriented herself to her new circumstances.

Kem was safe.

She’d followed the frantic group back to the carriages. No one was using the cots because the prince’s retinue were all flapping and squawking in fear for him, so she had decided to rest while she had the chance. She had lain down on one of the cots, fully clothed except for her boots, expecting to be rousted at any moment. Yet here she still was, after a sound sleep.

“You’re awake. Good. I have questions for you.” Luviara perched on the edge of a camp stool, hands gripping her journal as she peered at Elen in the dawn’s twilight.

The theurgist’s gaze made her nervous. Luviara wanted something. Elen did her best to avoid people when they were in this sort of mood, but there was no avoiding the prince’s interlocutor. She sat up, hating to meet questions lying down, and swung her feet over to lace on her boots. Rule One in her ledger was Securely Fasten Your Boots Before Wading into Trouble.

“A gracious morning, Your Worthiness. May I ask if the prince has recovered from his faint?”

The theurgist’s gaze darted toward the prince’s carriage. The curtains into the interior had been opened. The bench inside, unfolded into a bed, lay empty, with rumpled blankets all that remained of the prince’s presence. The two concubines knelt on the deck extension, whispering to each other as they held hands.