I paced up and down the room, keeping my strides short and my gait steady even as strength coiled under the surface, heat rising and dying as I walked. My gaze passed over the tapestries and pictures on the walls, the sun shining through the elaborately decorated window and the play its light made against the ground and furniture. The clamor of the city below the window reached me even through sound-dampening wards, like an irritated buzz in the back of my skull.

“One day, I am going to own this miserable little city,” I said. “It might be years or decades or even centuries, but one day all of it will be but what I allow it to be.”

As I turned again, I saw Yarani sitting on one of the chairs, watching me with dark eyes.

“Of course, my lady,” she agreed.

I took a deep breath. She could tell I wasn’t speaking as Nari, but as the next Empress of the Sky. My declaration was not just an expression of pettiness. I felt it like an itch under my skin, the knowledge that Adzur was important, a strategic necessity.

I knew my troubles would not begin and end at the Zarian, and eventually my attention would be turned to the other nations, other powers. The rest of the world, really. But it might not be so today, I acknowledged to myself. I can still afford to let this go.

“It would be a mistake in the long run, though,” I mumbled to myself, even as I sat on another table.

“What would be?” Elia asked, barely glancing up from what she was reading.

“Letting the Zarian put an Adzurian embargo on the Empire would be a loss, even beyond the war effort,” I said. “Especially when I came here personally. If I’m to deal with foreign powers — and let’s face it, I’ll most likely be younger and less experienced than them and we’ll still be a possible threat — then I can’t seem like a flailing child.”

“I’m a little more concerned about what it would mean for the war,” Yarani said. “We might not need advanced Adzurian technology, but it would certainly help. And letting the Dominion use their formations would be an unpleasant turn.”

I nodded, then glanced at another stack of documents. “We’ve still got a fair amount of what we wanted already, haven’t we?”

“About half of your list,” Elia answered, gesturing vaguely in the direction of a long sheet of paper lying on another table.

“Those were mostly the easy things, that aren’t regulated as much, if at all,” Yarani added.

“Something, at least,” I muttered. Materials and components for our research and development initiatives, or the knowledge of how to make reasonable alternatives to what would be needed, made these deceptively valuable. I still had trouble getting my hands on all the elements I would have liked, and even for knowledge of local metallurgy alone the trip to Adzur hadn’t been a waste.

But it was not much when weighed against an embargo.

“Tell the rest of the delegation to step it up,” I told Yarani. I’d sent the diplomats and sundry attendants out to get me these things. It was better to operate under the assumption that we might be on a time limit now. This apparent deal with the Zarian would only make things harder, best to get what we could today.

She nodded. “We’ve already been working hard at it, but there are a few deals we can close now where we’ve been trying to bargain for better conditions.”

I stood up and moved to a chair, glancing over sheets of paper on the table. It was a bit of a chaotic mess, but I’d helped to make it and so I knew my way around the information. I’d read enough of it that I probably didn’t need the physical paper, but sometimes it helped to have things spelled out in front of me.

“Do you think we should confer with home?” Yarani asked hesitantly.

“No. It’s still a while before I have another dream-meeting scheduled, and Kiyanu’s likely to be far too busy for sleep. Same for Kariva.” I sighed. “I know I have no room to talk, but high-level cultivators needing so little sleep can be darn inconvenient.” I shook my head. “Besides, what can they tell us that we don’t already know?”

“I assume you want to try to find out what we can about what the Zarian are offering or threatening them with,” Yarani said. “I have made some connections that might yield some information, if I ask nicely.”

I frowned, but nodded. “Do. I hate having you do that sort of thing, but under the circumstances …”

She stood up. “Oh, you don’t want me to use my wiles in your service?”

“Exactly,” I agreed, deadpan. “Your wiles are supposed to be reserved for me. But needs must, so I’ll make use of you.”

“Can you please keep your flirting down?” Elia asked, glancing up. “We’re supposed to have a serious situation here, I’m pretty sure. Or at least warn me before things get heated so I can go somewhere else to read in peace.”

I grinned at her, then sobered up as Yarani left the room. “Do you have anything else to add?”

“Just that I can understand these priests in the Sun’s temple here a lot better now,” she muttered. “Adzurian politics is a bit of a jungle. With trees that like to uproot themselves and eat trespassers.”

I was about to ask if she was speaking from experience and there actually were jungles like this here, before I bit my tongue. We didn’t need further diversions. “Can your friends in the temple help us?” I asked instead.

She pulled a face. “I’ll try. Although I’m not supposed to interfere too much, like I said, and even as a granddaughter of the Sun, they’re not going to give me everything for free. Even if they had hard facts on the Zarian initiative, which I doubt.”

It was my turn to grimace. I understood the implication that it could be Jideia’s work behind this, and I had to agree. There was no way to know for sure, right now, but it was a possibility. And it had implications of its own. If they were moving away from direct attempts to kill me onto subtler political games, that was both relieving and concerning. I doubted Isuro would actually accomplish all that much in this vein — he’d never struck me as the manipulator type, even if his heart was fully in it. But problems that were not simply solved by me surviving an assassination attempt would do more than enough damage, anyway.

And who says there’s no assassination attempt here, anyway?

“You look like you’re having deep thoughts,” Elia commented. “Anything I can help you with?”

I sighed and stood up, starting to pace again. “I’m trying to figure out what’s behind this,” I said. “I can only see it being a mix of threats and bribes. Perhaps threats against Adzur in general and bribes for the premier or his faction, promising someone backing in internal struggles in exchange for pushing through this embargo. But it’s stupid, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

“They have to know they’re running a risk by angering the Empire,” I said. “What do they think they’ll get out of it if our alliance wins?”

“I don’t know,” Elia said. “Will it?”

I paused, meeting her sharp gaze as I considered that. “The Empire is allied with the Terbekteri, so the balance of power is in our favor in the long term,” I said slowly. “But the alliance is young and the Kingdom has not participated much. More to the point, the war is being waged far from their shores.” I frowned. “I suppose you’re right. In their eyes, the Zarian are winning.”

We were pushing them back on the Earth Continent, but the more important theater of war was and had always been the Sky Continent. Where the Zarian had advanced far into Imperial territory, even if we’d stalled them now.

“It’s not entirely unreasonable to believe the war will end soon,” Elia said. “The long-term thrust of it might be a danger to the Zarian, but only if it comes to that. The fronts could grind to a halt, and the war is costing both countries much. They might expect that peace will be made soon, perhaps on terms that are somewhat favorable for the Empire given its current position. Internal instability in the Empire might force its rulers to accept.”

I grimaced. “Yeah, I guess.”

If I was honest, I’d never really considered an outcome outside of clear victory or defeat. I took a moment to think about it now, but while I could understand the viewpoint, I didn’t think it held water. Even without Jideia’s meddling, this wasn’t about shifting the border a few kilometers, this was more like a war for the fate of our two nations. Not to mention that I would not accept such an unfavorable peace settlement, not when it would just lead to new wars down the line and when we could still turn around and crush the Zarian in due time, even if sacrifices had to be made now. I doubted Kiyanu would see that differently.

But I could understand how it might look from Adzur’s point of view.

“We would also need Terbekteri,” I mused. “They’d be essential for any assault on Adzur. The premier might plan to offer them concessions in order to curb our anger, if it comes to that. In the end, it’s just an embargo, and he even wants to make another deal with us.”

“It still seems smarter for Adzur to keep playing the middleman,” Elia pointed out. I suspected she was enjoying playing devil’s advocate. “Especially since it’s not like one deal would stop the Dominion from squeezing them when they’re in a position to do that.”

“That’s why I assume threats or favors are involved,” I said. “And helping me would just pose the same problems. They’re merely evening the technological playing field.”

Elia set down the papers she was reading, neatly stacking them on the side, and gave me her full attention. “And?”

I sighed. This was a bit tricky. “We might need to convince them that we are going to win this after all. Show strength in the war. But I can’t exactly engineer a decisive victory against the Dominion on demand.” My lips quirked. “If I could, we’d certainly have far less problems.”

“It would be nice,” she agreed. “I’m not a general, but pushing for a victory regardless of strategic considerations is probably not a good decision. So, do you think we should bring the Terbekteri into this?”

I chewed on my lip, considering that. Then I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to escalate this any further. At least not like that. Although there might be other ways of showing strength and applying a bit of pressure.”

She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on it. Instead, she stood up. “Well, I’m going to head for the temple now, if you don’t mind. Unless there’s something else we need to talk about?”

I hesitated for a moment. “Be careful, Elia,” I said. “Really.” If the Zarian were willing to sabotage my negotiations instead of going for a kill this time, there was no reason to think they’d be above targeting the people close to me.

I’d need to take steps to ensure the others’ safety, too. Maybe assign more guards to them, even if I’d only taken a limited number of them with me. Lei was a little too absent-minded to be properly cautious sometimes, Yarani still thought of herself as a soldier on occasion, and I didn’t know how Elia would think of it, but she wasn’t much for caution, as a rule. Not that I’m in a position to be casting stones, I admitted to myself.

“I always am,” she replied. “You’re not going to set guards on me, are you?”

I suppressed a sigh. Sometimes, her ability was really inconvenient. Or maybe just her own awareness. “If nothing else, they’ll help people take you seriously and they’ll make me worry less,” I said. “You won’t begrudge me that, will you, my friend?”

She snorted. “Oh, I don’t know. But I really should be going now.”

“Alright, let’s go,” I said. Maybe I could convince her on the way. With Elia, you sometimes had to strike while the steel ingot was still hot.

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t protest as I walked over to her. My guards sensed us coming out and opened the door for us. I slowed down to let her exit first, then made to step through the door.

That was when the table I’d been sitting on until recently exploded.

I was pushed away by the force of the explosion, instinctively pulling my head in and hardening my skin, even as the amulet I wore around my neck flared to life and sent out a flare of qi. It was a heartbeat too late, and the fringe of flames bit into me, charring the back of my robes even as ash and dust assaulted my eyes while a roar resounded in my ears.

Well, so much for the nice furniture, I couldn’t help but think.