“It wasn’t easy for my mother to conceive,” he said, squirming in his seat. “My father’s reign was tenuous in those early years, and an empire without an heir cannot be stable. He was under a lot of strain. Eventually, my mother allowed him to try and conceive with one of the other wives. She chose Enver’s mother, Na’him.”
“Wait, it was your mother’s choice? Not your father’s?”
Iskander shook his head quickly. “No, of course it wasn’t up to him. Look, I know what people think about the menagerie, but it’s not . . . What I mean to say is that my father has only one real wife: my mother. The role of principal wife is highly sought after and coveted throughout the empire.”
Coveted? Right. What woman wouldn’t want to handpick her husband’s lovers? “What about the other wives?”
Iskander’s throat bobbed. “In an empire as large as Vishir it would be easy for any one province to think they might be able to break away. The wives are our assurance that they won’t. Each time an emperor assumes the throne, one noblewoman from each province is sent as tribute to ensure their loyalty to the crown.”
“So the other wives are political prisoners?”
“Yes. It’s not like my father has a relationship with them. It’s not . . .”
“Sexual? Well, that makes it all right, then,” I said, my voice so dry the deck between us should have burst into flames.
“It helps the provinces too,” Iskander said, a note of defensiveness creeping into his voice. “Their families receive a handsome dowry, and any wrongdoing by the emperor could very easily cause a war. That’s why it was my mother who made the choice, so her family couldn’t object. My mother approached Na’him and negotiated the arrangement with her and her family.”
Iskander’s expression faded from embarrassment to bitterness with a sour smile. “The kingdom needed a male heir. At the time, Na’him was the youngest of my father’s wives, the most likely to be able to conceive. Na’him’s family wasn’t terribly powerful. And Na’him had no aspirations for power, so she wouldn’t threaten my mother’s position.” An angry huff of air chuffed out his nose. He shook his head. “That choice made Enver what he is. My mother has never forgiven herself.”
“Because eventually she did have a son?”
“Three months later. In less than a year, the empire went from having no heirs to two.”
I nodded in understanding. Unlike most kingdoms, the oldest Vishiri prince wasn’t guaranteed the throne. The surviving prince was.
“After I was born, my mother insisted Enver be sent away. She couldn’t stand seeing her great error pushed in her face every day.”
“Your father didn’t allow it?”
He snorted. “He did, actually. Na’him cared nothing for motherhood. Enver’s birth didn’t change her. And my father is what he is. We bear his blood, but an emperor must always be wary of sons. He allowed Enver to be sent to live with Na’him’s family. He gave Na’him leave to go with Enver, but she didn’t want to. Her life in the menagerie was more luxurious than anything her family could give her.”
He shook his head at the water, and I wondered if he realized how sad this all sounded. A child born out of necessity, then shunted to the side when he became inconvenient.
“Sometimes, I think that was my mother’s second great mistake. Maybe if Enver and I had been raised together, we could be brothers. Not rivals.” He shrugged, like he was trying to shed the weighty mantle of what if. “The few summers we spent together in our youth weren’t enough to create any kind of affection. He never liked me and absolutely loathed my younger brother, Tarek,” he said, referring to the brother my father helped birth, and who died only a year after my parents. “There’s nothing of love between us now. He wasn’t raised to feel it.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, still feeling strangely sorry for boy-Enver.
He exhaled a mirthless ha. “Do you know who his uncle is? Ishaq. He raised Enver. Made Enver the heartless creature he is today.”
I recalled the haughty way Ishaq had treated me in Eshkaroth and frowned. “How did Enver get onto the council?”
“When the old lord vizier died, Ishaq nominated Enver for the empty seat. Ishaq argued that Na’him’s neglect of Enver was a disservice to Vishir. Her indifference was keeping a possible future emperor from learning anything about rule.”
“Na’him’s indifference?” I asked. “What about your father’s indifference?”
Iskander’s lips twitched a smile. “Well, Ishaq couldn’t very well call my father an unfit parent, could he? My father gave Enver the council seat like it could make up for his loveless childhood.” Iskander shook his head at his hands, brows drawn together. “As if a council seat can make Enver a leader.”
Pity-laced uncertainty wormed through me. A council seat might not make Enver heir, but it could certainly get him the favor of court. I wondered who favored Iskander for the throne. Or did he only have an influential mother on his side?
We sat in silence for a while longer, looking at the same night, but surely seeing different things.
“Why did you do it yourself?” Iskander asked at length, his voice so small it was nearly lost to the waves. “Execute Vitaly.”
I sighed. He’d never killed anyone. If he had, he wouldn’t have had to ask. “He was my subject. No matter what he was in the end, Vitaly lived by my word. If his death was to fall from my lips, then it should come by my hand. That’s the price we pay to rule.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
“No. You don’t. But you will. Someday.” I let him chew on that for a while and hoped I hadn’t wounded his pride.
“What did Vitaly mean,” Iskander whispered, “when he said, ‘I will serve you better when I see you again’?”
Vitaly appeared on the far side of the prince, looking at me. His cold eyes filled with longing. Not for life or revenge, but redemption.
I turned away from Vitaly, willing myself into a stillness I couldn’t quite feel. “In Seravesh we believe an oath doesn’t just bind you in this life but in the next. Vitaly swore to be loyal to me. He failed in life. Perhaps he’ll do better when we meet again on the other side.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth, either. Some of my men knew there was something more to me, something that tasted of magic. They never asked, and I never told, but they must suspect. How else would Vitaly have known to swear that oath to me?
Even in its lightest form, magic was dangerous. My father was a healer. He wielded the purest form of magic, and it got him killed. It got my mother killed. It almost got me killed. So how could I possibly tell Iskander I could still see Vitaly? That he was watching us right now?
I tried not to see the suspicion in Iskander’s eyes, or the knowing lilt to his smile as he stood. “Get some sleep, Askia.”
Iskander walked away, but I hadn’t the strength to move. My eyes were on the ink-black horizon, on the shores of a northern continent that had long since vanished from sight. Somewhere out there in the darkness was a land of endless forests and crystalline lakes, a land of rolling farm fields and snow-tipped mountains. My home was crying out to me like a child begging for aid. And I could not fail her.