Before the Iudex
Izzy
The guards had stopped commenting on Princess Isolde’s blindfold three weeks ago. At first, they would bow and ask if Her Highness required assistance, their voices tight with concern. Then they learned to simply step aside when they heard her small, quick footsteps approaching, the soft tap of her fingers trailing along the stone walls. Now they barely noticed her at all, which was precisely the point.
Izzy pressed herself into an alcove as two members of the Thornish delegation passed, their boots clicking against marble. She had memorized the rhythm of their walks by the second day of negotiations. Lord Verek favored his left leg. Ambassador Cressida wore heels that struck the floor like a metronome, precise and unvarying.
“The Empress seems amenable,” Cressida was saying. “Three more days should suffice.”
“Three days,” Verek agreed. “The shipment arrives on the new moon regardless.”
Their footsteps faded down the corridor. Izzy remained still, breathing through her mouth to stay silent, turning the words over in her mind. Shipment. The new moon was five days away, not three. Why would the timing of their departure matter if not to ensure they were safely home before something arrived?
She continued her circuit of the palace, fingers reading the texture of tapestries she had known since infancy. Here, the hunting scene with its raised threads depicting her grandfather’s prized wolfhounds. There, the smoother weave of her mother’s coronation banner. She climbed a servants’ stair by memory and touch, emerging into the narrow maintenance corridor that ran above the great hall.
The rafters smelled of dust and old smoke. Izzy hooked her legs over a beam and hung upside down, her long dark hair brushing cobwebs, listening to the murmur of voices below where her mother held afternoon court. The acoustics here were remarkable. Every whisper carried.
“Your Majesty is most gracious,” Ambassador Cressida was saying, her tone honeyed. “The border disputes have caused such unnecessary suffering on both sides.”
“Peace benefits all,” her mother replied. The Empress’s voice was warm but guarded; Izzy had learned to read its subtle variations long before she had taken up the blindfold. “We look forward to signing the accord.”
“As do we. Though I confess, the journey home weighs on my mind. The mountain passes grow treacherous as winter approaches.”
Izzy’s ears pricked. The passes wouldn’t be dangerous for another two months. Every child in the Empire knew that.
She spent the evening in the library archives, running her fingers over embossed maps until she found what she sought: the old trade routes, the ones her tutors called obsolete. Her fingers traced a path from the Thornish border that bypassed the mountain passes entirely, following a river valley that emerged directly into the Empire’s agricultural heartland. A route that would be perfect for moving soldiers quickly and quietly, if one wanted to arrive while the Empire celebrated a newly signed peace.
On the morning of the signing ceremony, her father found her in her chambers, still wearing the blindfold.
“Izzy.” Emperor Consort Aldric’s voice was gentle but firm. “Not today. Please.”
“I can see better this way.”
“That’s not the point and you know it.” She heard him cross the room, felt his calloused hands, a swordsman’s hands, take hers. “The Thornish delegation already thinks us strange. Your mother has worked hard for this treaty. Will you take off the blindfold? For her?”
Izzy considered refusing. But she had what she needed, and perhaps it was time.
“For her,” she agreed.
The great hall blazed with light that made her squint after three weeks of darkness. Courtiers lined the walls in their finest silks. The Thornish delegation stood opposite the throne, Ambassador Cressida’s smile fixed and pleasant, Lord Verek’s posture carefully relaxed.
Izzy took her place beside her mother’s throne as the scribes prepared the documents. She watched Cressida watch her, saw the ambassador’s smile falter for just an instant.
“Your Highness,” Cressida said, recovering. “How lovely to see your eyes at last.”
Izzy’s eyes were her father’s gift: violet ringed with amber, unsettling in their intensity. She fixed them on the ambassador and did not blink.
“You should delay your journey,” Izzy said, her voice carrying across the suddenly silent hall. “The river route through Kelden Valley will be unusable in five days when your shipment of soldiers arrives and finds no one to receive them.”
The color drained from Cressida’s face. Lord Verek’s hand moved toward his sword before he caught himself.
“The child speaks nonsense,” Cressida said quickly. “She cannot possibly—”
“I heard you with Lord Verek discussing the timing,” Izzy continued. “And again when you mentioned the mountain passes to my mother, though they won’t be dangerous for two months yet. And I know the old maps. You wanted to be home before your army arrived because you couldn’t risk being held hostage once the invasion began.”
Empress Mira rose slowly from her throne, her face carved from ice.
“Ambassador. Is my daughter mistaken?”
The silence stretched. Izzy did not need her blindfold to sense the fear radiating from the Thornish delegation, sharp as copper.
Cressida ran.
