Moth and Spark by Anne Leonard

fast against the Emperor. He was the overlord, after all, they would not even need to convince themselves they were not traitors.
    “I don’t trust them not to force me to do something stupid,” Aram said.
    “They’ll know what it means about the troops as well as you and I do. Especially since—” He cut himself off.
    “Since what?”
    Reluctantly, he said, “Since you sent them all away. They know there’s more to it.”
    “Leave that to me,” Aram said. Corin reminded himself that his father had been king for more than three decades and knew his lords.
    He was unable to be so calm himself, though. “Hadon can’t expect us to believe this letter, why did he send it?”
    “He may. Wouldn’t you rather have her there than along the path of Tyrekh’s soldiers? That’s how he’s thinking. He’s quite correct about the time it takes to move troops. He may even be telling the truth.”
    “You can’t mean that, not when he took her. Not when he’s got his dragons watching us.”
    “Corin,” Aram said, an edge to his tone.
    “He doesn’t even give us numbers,” he said, frustrated.
    “No. And I’ll let the council chew over that as long as they want to. But he’s not disclaiming suzerainty or ordering us to submit, so we have to act as though he is our lord. Listen, Corin, what happens to him if he sends a hundred thousand men here to hold off Tyrekh?”
    “Kynos and Theron,” he said immediately. He should have thought of them at once, but he hardly needed a lesson. Hadon’s two sons were vicious, power-hungry, and getting impatient. Spies reported that they all three played each other double. That kept the power even, but if one of them gathered or lost an edge it would shift. If Hadon sent his best men north he would have no defenses against his sons. Three years ago, neither of them had any substantial backing. Now they both did.
    “Exactly. Bad as he is, I’d rather have Hadon over me than either of those two.”
    “That won’t make much difference if Tyrekh comes in. He’s worse than any of them.”
    Aram said, “Yes. And if the cost of pushing back Tyrekh is having one of the princes as Emperor, I’ll take it. But look where Hadon is. If he defends us, he is overthrown. If he cuts us loose, that might turn his other vassals against him. Once they see he doesn’t honor his obligations they’ll break away and he’ll lose his power anyway. He’s in a tight spot, he’s stalling. There’s not much we can do about it. But if we turn against him before he openly turns against us, we lose any chance of support. He may yet decide it’s better to send soldiers here than have the rest of the Empire crash around him. I don’t want to make his decision for him.”
    Corin stood up again and paced the length of the table and back. His father was right about the politics hemming the Emperor in. But something about it didn’t fit. Why were the dragons surveying the north? And why on earth had he taken Tai? It was an entirely unnecessary provocation. What did he think to keep them from doing?
    Another, grimmer, possibility occurred to him. “You don’t suppose he’s made some sort of deal with Tyrekh, do you? Hand us over to buy time?” It made a twisted sort of logic from where the Emperor stood. Give away the small country of little value to him while he built his army, and then swoop down on Tyrekh in three or four years and take possession of all the kingdoms Tyrekh held. It would increase the size of the Empire by half with very little work.
    “I wouldn’t put it past him,” Aram said. “There’d be no point in taking her, though, if he had. If there’s any dealing between Mycene and the Sarians, it’s probably the princes.”
    That was an even more unpleasant thought. Corin wanted to kick something, hard. Instead he said, “So we kneel before him as we have and hope he’s not the executioner. But what about her?”
    “Well,” said Aram, and halted. “The problem is one of