The Gates of Memory, стр. 89
The simple brilliance of Hanns’ plan angered her. Even now, every move he made seemed only to benefit him in the end. It almost seemed too perfect to be coincidence. She didn’t care if Hanns was the emperor or not. She glared at him, her voice nearly a growl. “Did you plan this from the start?”
Hanns’ glare made her want to cower. Though he didn’t display it openly, she could feel the power radiating off him. Even without the gates, he maintained a commanding presence. While he’d always been friendly to her in the past, she couldn’t allow herself to forget this man had a policy that killed those who disagreed with him in public. And one didn’t become an Anders through kindness alone.
“I did not,” he said, his voice colder than the mountain glaciers. “And if you imply as much again, I won’t care what aid you’ve given in the past. Am I understood?”
She pushed out the moment as far as she dared. “Clearly.”
Alena’s question, and the reaction that followed, quelled all other discussion around the table. Hanns nodded. “We’ll meet with Weylen and the other warleaders tonight. It has already been arranged. Is there anything else?”
Alena’s heart sank through her stomach when Brandt spoke. “Alena knows a way to ignore the cost.”
The emperor looked at her, undisguised eagerness in his eyes. “You do?”
Brandt answered for her. “A soulwalking technique that bonds with a soul as it dies. The soul’s strength then becomes the soulwalker’s.”
“Is this true?” Hanns asked.
“It is.” If lying might have worked, she would have.
“Then teach it to us. It will be needed in the fight to come.”
Alena took a deep breath.
“Anders I said I should not.”
Hanns paused, apparently not expecting more resistance from Alena after her first reprimand. “Despite what Anders sometimes thinks, he is no longer the emperor. You will teach the technique to our affinity-gifted warriors.”
Alena cursed Brandt for putting her in this position. He must have sensed her reluctance and hoped to persuade her through the emperor. In private, they might have spoken and reasoned together. But he had taken that opportunity away.
But what Brandt didn’t understand was that she hated orders. Mother and Father would have told him that in a heartbeat, had the subject ever come up. If one asked as a friend, Alena would travel to the ends of the continent. But if the same request was framed as an order, well, they could go to the gates.
In the corner of her vision, she saw the panicked look on Jace’s face. Of those in the room, he knew her best, and he knew exactly what she was thinking.
She knew her action was foolish.
But it was also right.
“I will not.”
Alena felt the warping of Hanns’ power, the preparation for its unleashing. She braced herself, knowing any gesture on her part was useless. Hanns had the power to kill her with a thought.
Jace’s hand was on the hilt of his sword. If Hanns acted against her, she wasn’t sure how Jace would react. She and the empire tore his loyalties cleanly in two.
Alena sat calmly against Hanns’ glare. For the first time in some days she felt at peace. Her knowledge would die with her.
“Get out,” Hanns said. The words were spoken softly, as though if he spoke any louder he might loose the rage building within him. “Out of respect for your service to the empire, I will let you live. But you are forever exiled. Should you be found within my borders, you will be sentenced to death.”
There was no use saying anything more. Exile, she imagined, was better than she could have expected. People didn’t stand up to the emperor. Those who tried were swiftly cut down.
She left the room without a word, no longer an imperial.
47
Brandt focused on his breath, but his mind refused to rest on the sensation. At most, he could follow a couple of breaths before his attention wandered elsewhere. Ana’s hurt glare stabbing into his back didn’t help.
If Ana would just yell at him, Brandt thought it might be easier. But for all her anger and all her disappointment, she refused to speak unkindly to him.
That didn’t mean she hadn’t expressed herself, though.
Competing desires tore him not in two, but into shreds. He loved Ana, respected Alena, obeyed Hanns, and would die for his empire. What did he do, though, when those desires all pulled him in different directions?
Once, when he’d been training as a wolfblade, the instructors had made him complete an unusual exercise. A circle of other candidates stood around him, shoulder to shoulder, about a pace away. His instructions were to stand stiff as a board, arms crossed over his chest. He was pushed, and so fell toward the circle, where another candidate would catch him and push him again.
Forced to remain stiff, Brandt had no choice but to trust the other candidates to catch him. He failed if he lost his posture. The others failed if they let him fall.
Being young and aggressive, the pushes hadn’t been gentle, and it had taken all his control not to break form and catch himself. But he’d been tossed about in that small circle for what seemed like an eternity.
He felt like that now, too. Tossed about violently, his direction changing moment by moment. But now there was no one to catch him.
If he had more time, he might be able to think his way out of this mess, but there was none. Hanns expected him shortly for their meeting with Weylen.
Brandt opened his eyes and stood up, stretching after his prolonged and failed attempt at meditation. Ana glared at him with red-rimmed eyes. He almost went to her, but stopped. What had broken between them would take more than an apology. It would take time and effort. Both of which he was willing to give.
But not now.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He watched, hoping his apology would melt some small part