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Even I put on four throwing knives, although I trusted that my magic would be there, and might even be more effective.

General Saxu entered, glancing at Sagam and Asahi before bowing and waiting for Tallu to acknowledge him.

“Thank you for joining me,” Tallu said. He waved at one of the nearby chairs, carefully chosen because of the table and the footrest between General Saxu and Tallu. Saxu could lunge, but the extra seconds the obstacles created would cost him his life.

“I am always at Your Imperial Majesty’s disposal,” General Saxu said.

General Saxu’s eyes slid around the room, his hands resting on his cane. He said nothing else, but his face paled just slightly, the sheen of his skin vanishing. Tallu watched him as I did, and I was sure that if I noticed it, he had noticed a dozen other signs of General Saxu’s wariness.

“The war against the traitor generals is over,” Tallu said. “And with it, I choose to close another chapter in the history of the Imperium.”

General Saxu looked up, his expression blank, his lips pulled tight. He waited, but the silence was heavy with expectation rather than curiosity.

Tallu didn’t react, still waiting, until General Saxu said, “You seek to end the wars brought forth by the promise. I know. How could I miss it? You tempted the other generals into a fight. You have given back Tavornai and the Ariphadeus. You gave shelter and sustenance to the Krustavians when a single battle could have won us their mountains after Mountain Thrown City fell to a volcano.”

Still, Saxu kept his hands relaxed, one resting on the head of his cane, the other flat on his thigh.

“Yes,” Tallu said simply. “The promise was a lie, and with it, my great-grandfather cursed his entire line. If I do not manage to create peace among people who should only want us dead, then House Atobe ends with me and my brother.”

“A lie?” General Saxu’s voice rose sharply. “I have devoted my life to the promise. What do you mean it is a lie?”

“I mean that my great-grandfather was greedy, and his greed made him hear the prophecy given by the dragon monks as what he wanted, rather than what it was. They knew that my brother and I would be cursed, and they told my great-grandfather a way to break it. Create peace on the continent. Unite disparate nations.” Tallu kept his expression neutral, but I could hear in his shortened sentences that he was in physical pain; having to reveal his secrets when he had kept them for so long was like cutting open his chest so that Saxu could see his heart.

“You ask me to give up my life’s work,” General Saxu said, his voice shaking. “You ask me to give it up for what?”

“For the chance of a generation of imperial children who grow up without the fear of war. For the continued rule of House Atobe, with its iron hand above the nobles that might fight amongst each other otherwise,” Tallu said. “So that in your retirement, you might enjoy peace rather than die on the battlefield.”

General Saxu gently put his cane to the side, bracing his hands on his legs and lowering himself into a bow. He spoke to the floor, and anger shook his words.

“I have served three emperors. I thought you the greatest of them. Do you distrust me enough that you think it better to kill me than hear my answer?” General Saxu asked. “Do you not even trust me that much?”

“Will you join me?” Tallu asked.

“I have been killing men since I joined the army at thirteen. I have lost family, comrades, subordinates. And all of their deaths had meaning because of the promise. I watched men freeze in the northern ocean and be torn apart in the Krustavian Mountains. All because of the promise.” His voice rose, and his knuckles turned white, even though he kept his hands flat on his thighs, refusing to make any sudden movement that would give Asahi the excuse to remove his head from his body. “The promise gave their deaths meaning. And now you ask me to understand peace? You ask me to see it as an ideal that Krustau will once again take the Lakeshore Palace and the land around it, that Tavornai will no longer provide labor and goods that keep the Imperium from aching poverty? You ask me to sit with goblins at the table and not stare at their strange ears or look at their sharp teeth and remember how they have torn imperial flesh from my men’s bones?”

Saxu lowered himself even further, and I realized he was not bowing so much as exposing his neck. He waited for the killing blow.

Tallu’s entire face looked tight, his jaw clenched, and he looked toward Asahi. He was going to raise his hand and with a single gesture order Saxu killed.

“When we first met at the Mountainside Palace, you said to me that you were happy for the break from war,” I said. “You said that you would be happy to go back the next week or to never go back again. Was that a lie?”

“No, Your Highness. That was no lie.” General Saxu spoke to the floor.

“Would you truly prefer to sentence everyone you love to death through endless conflict, rather than peace?” I asked. “Or do you believe that Tallu will never be able to trust you as long as you are alive, and that the rest of the nobles who are thirsty for the fruits of war will dog at your heels, begging you to take up the mantle of high general and kill the tyrant Emperor Tallu in favor of his young brother?”

General Saxu flinched. That was it. There was the problem. He knew what Tallu feared, and he knew exactly how he would be used against Tallu.

“Join us. The task ahead is much harder than any battle you have ever fought. It is impossibly hard, infinitely so.” I stepped forward, and Tallu didn’t reach out to stop me when I stood in front of General Saxu’s chair, crouching down to kneel. “Would you not rather meet my mother while agreeing on a treaty than across a bloody, frozen battlefield?”

“His Imperial Majesty will not be able to trust me,” General Saxu said. “And you are right, within the Imperium peace would cost a great many nobles their power. They will try to use me to rise up against the emperor.”

“Then help us fight them,” I said. “Help us create a country that you are proud of.”

General Saxu shook his head. When he spoke, it wasn’t to me. He spoke to Asahi, waiting in the corner for his emperor’s orders. “I will draw my weapon and make your job easier now. With the excuse of my attack, no one will question the legitimacy of killing me.”

“And with you dead, who will I trust with the safety of the Imperium? Who will I trust with my brother’s safety?” Tallu pressed. “There has been enough bloodshed. We have both lost enough men. Will you stand with me?”

“You should have him kill me,” General Saxu said.