Always there was the chance she might reassume the empire, hiding in her secret part of the Tower, letting her minions believe she was unchanged. There was nothing to stop her trying.
She could go that route even after keeping her promise to return the Annals.
That, my companions believed, was what she would do. And they dreaded her first order as empress of shadow restored.
Chapter Five: CHAINS OF EMPIRE
Lady kept her promise. I had the Annals in hand within hours of entering the Tower, while its denizens were still overawed by her return. But...
"I want to go on with you, Croaker." This while we watched the sun set from the Tower's battlements the second evening after our arrival.
I, of course, replied with the golden tongue of a horse seller. "Uh... Uh... But... " Like that. Master of the glib and facile remark. Why the hell did she want to do that? She had it all, there in the Tower. A little careful faking and she could spend the rest of her natural life as the most powerful being in the world. Why go riding off with a band of tired old men, who did not know where they were going or why, only that they had to keep moving lest something—their consciences, maybe—caught them up?
"There's nothing here for me anymore," she said. As if that explained anything. "I want... I just want to find out what it's like to be ordinary people."
"You wouldn't like it. Not near as much as you like being the Lady."
"But I never liked that very much. Not after I had it and found out what I really had. You won't tell me I can't go, will you?"
Was she kidding? No. I would not. It had been the surface understanding, anyway. But it was an understanding I expected to perish once she reestablished herself in the Tower.