She Dreamed Her Empire Would Burn, So She Set Out to Break Four Collars novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Musician

Iven plays for the Chancellor and tells her she is in the middle of all four dreams, then passes her a note.

The Chancellor's Thursday salon had a harp, forty guests and a panther sitting at the foot of the stage.

Nimeriel had attended every one since she was fifteen.

She had never once looked at the panther.

Tonight she could not look at anything else.

He sat on a velvet cushion with the harp across his knees, blue-black hair falling over his gold eyes, and a wooden collar that matched the cushion's trim.

His long fingers moved on the strings without any apparent effort.

"Iven plays like rain on glass," said Veridian at her elbow, handing her a glass of pale wine. "He's the best I've ever kept."

"Kept," she said.

"Housed. Fed. Taught." The Chancellor smiled. "He was wild when he came to me. Look at him now."

A countess in green silk leaned over the stage rail and stroked one of Iven's ears.

His fingers did not stop.

His smile did not move.

But his tail, which lay curled behind the cushion, went very, very stiff.

"Such a pretty pet," said the countess. "Does he purr?"

"Leave my boy be, my lady," said Veridian pleasantly, and the countess laughed and let go.

Nimeriel noticed that the Chancellor had said it nicely.

She noticed that it was still "my boy."

She set down her wine.

When the piece ended, there was a polite ripple of applause, and Iven bowed from the cushion without rising.

"Another, Highness?" he asked, in a voice that had been oiled until it shone. "Something to rest the nerves? I hear the Warden-elect doesn't sleep."

"Who told you that?"

"The Chancellor, over breakfast. He worries."

Veridian patted her shoulder.

"Play the lullaby, Iven."

The panther lifted the harp and drew a slow, drowsy tune out of it that made half the room yawn.

Nimeriel watched his hands.

Under the lullaby, in the low strings, a second pattern was running.

Three notes up and one down.

Three up and one down.

She had heard it somewhere.

She excused herself and slipped out to the terrace, and in a minute the harp stopped and the panther was behind her, tuning a string that did not need tuning.

"You were meant to yawn," said Iven. "Your teacher told me to put you under by the fourth bar."

"I didn't drink his medicine."

"I know. I watched you not drink it from the east window. A fern nearly died." He plucked a string. "You've had the dream."

"How do you know?"

"Because you looked at me tonight like you'd already buried me."

She said nothing for a moment.

"Eleven nights," she said.

"Nine for me. The Tree started late." He glanced back through the glass, where the Chancellor was laughing with a duke. "I'm good at listening. People say things over a harp that they would never say over a plate. I've heard the Chancellor ask the Emperor's physician, twice, how long the old man has."

"My father is tired."

"Your father is dying, Highness, and the Chancellor knows to the week." He said it gently. "And every collar in the capital is humming louder than it used to. Brannoch says it's the Tree. He doesn't say it's why."

"Why would you tell me this?"

"Because in my dream you're the only elf in the whole burning palace who isn't screaming at us." He tilted his head. "And I would very much like to know why."

She met his eyes.

"I want to stop the fire."

"Then you'll have to open every collar in the empire before it starts." He grinned, quick and sharp as a cat, and it made him look ten years younger. "Which you can't do. Which is the fun of it."

"Do you always laugh when you're afraid?"

"Always. It annoys the people who frighten me."

She almost laughed too.

Behind them the glass door opened, and the countess's voice floated out. "Is the pet allowed on the terrace, Highness? Does he need his lead?"

Iven's smile slid back into place.

"Just tuning, my lady."

He bent his head over the harp.

As he did, a folded square of paper dropped out of his sleeve and landed on the stone by Nimeriel's slipper.

She covered it with her foot.

The countess went back inside.

Iven strummed one soft chord, not looking at her.

"Read it alone," he murmured. "And Highness, whatever you do after, do it with Ru."

He walked back through the glass door with the harp in his arms, bowing to the guests as though nothing had happened.

Nimeriel bent, took the paper, and opened it beneath the lamp.

It was a single line in a neat, quick hand.

"Registry, under the Warden's ledgers, third shelf. Midnight. The Chancellor logs every key you take, so don't take one."

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