“Erris d’Arrent,” the man said from atop the dais, draped in the pure white robes of the First Prelate’s robes. The choirs had quieted to a hush, but still sang a soft pulse that echoed through the cathedral as he spoke. “The faith recognizes your right to rule. Step forward and be crowned Queen of New Sarresant and Gand, Empress of a new colonial state that lays rightful claim to all the lands of the New World.”
Her binders had come to a stop at the base of the dais, and she strode up the steps past them, beneath the golden dome erected above the central altar. The priest wore a reverent, solemn expression as he reached for the diamond-encrusted crown, lifting it above her head. Her instructions had been to turn around, to face the assembled crowd and deliver a set of lines before the Prelate set the crown in place. In service to my countrymen and my Gods, they began. They were wrong. She hadn’t invaded and seized the city to serve its citizens; she’d done it to ensure they served each other. The old kings and queens had ruled by virtue of inheritance, delivered from their parentage and their gods. Hers was a different sort of crown. She was a different sort of ruler.
The priest’s solemnity had begun to waver when she hadn’t turned around, and it ebbed to a sour confusion when she instead took the final steps, reached, and took the crown from his grasp.
Cold metal, heavier than she’d expected. She laid it on her own head, and turned to face a shocked gasp from the crowd. Wide eyes looked up at her from every pew, only her binders maintaining looks of satisfaction.
“I accept this charge,” she said to the hall. “Given by my hand, and none other. I will defend this state until my last breath, and ensure that its people do the same. The decadence of the old kings is finished, and the decadence of revolution. We are bound together by loyalty and purpose: to see our enemies defeated, to see our people prosper. I will accept nothing less. You may expect nothing less, from me.”
The hall remained quiet when she finished. There had been a reception planned, a grand presentation within the staterooms of the palace, though she’d never intended on wasting an afternoon on pointless displays of wealth or power. Her ships would be arriving soon on the shores of the Old World. She had a campaign to set in motion. And now, finally, she had the power to see it done.
65
ARAK’JUR
Training Yards
Outside New Sarresant
Hundreds of blue-coated soldiers watched his passage as though he were an enemy. He felt their eyes like so many squirrels or sparrows, a reluctant audience as he and Ka’Inari followed behind the lieutenant assigned as their translator and guide. A subtle change, but one he’d known enough to feel it in his blood. He was a hunter, here. And they were moving toward his prey.
Every step had resonated with Mountain’s will. He was here to kill a conqueror. The surety of it settled over him, wiping away the need for thought.
“Wait here,” the lieutenant said when they reached a large structure, the sort of thing the fair-skins built, all paneled wood and stone. Ka’Inari bowed and stayed behind as their guide went inside.
“Arak’Jur,” Ka’Inari said.
Hearing his name took him by surprise, and he started, finding Ka’Inari staring at him.
“You hear Mountain’s promptings,” Ka’Inari said. “I recognize the look. What do they say?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “They’ve said nothing.”
“Yet they are with you,” Ka’Inari said. “I can sense their presence.”
Before he could reply, a woman appeared from within the building. Blond-haired, in a uniform with a star and a stripe on the collar and sleeves. A woman he recognized: Rosline Acherre, the soldier who had accompanied Sarine and Ka’Inari on their journey from Ka’Ana’Tyat.
She lingered in the doorway for a fraction, a broad smile creasing her face. Then she rushed toward Ka’Inari, and the shaman met her with a tight embrace.
“I was the knowing you’d come,” Acherre said in thickly accented Sinari. “Et ton compagnon,” she said, switching to Sarresant. “Arak’Jur.”
“Fine to see you again, Captain Acherre,” he said, feeling none of the warmth that seemed to pass between Acherre and Ka’Inari. It earned him a deferential bow from her.
“Major, now,” Acherre said. “Pushed up since we are the seeing last.”
“Tigai and his family?” Ka’Inari said.
“Here. Inside,” Acherre said. “And High Commander d’Arrent. Ou, je suppose qu’elle est l’Impératrice maintenant.” The name rang in his senses. Erris d’Arrent.
“L’Impératrice?” Ka’Inari said, making clear he didn’t know the word.
“Big … leader?” Acherre said in the Sinari tongue.
“And Sarine?” Ka’Inari asked. “Has she returned?”
Acherre shook her head, and both their expressions turned grim. He’d heard Ka’Inari’s account of the girl’s disappearance, along with some other of his traveling companions. The importance of it seemed to blur, his senses focused on the hunt.
Ka’Inari bowed his head. “Inside?” he said, and Acherre nodded, gesturing for them to follow as she led the way.
They entered the building past soldiers carrying muskets fixed with steel bayonets. Acherre led them up a flight of stairs, around a hallway toward a double door with two more guards on duty on either side. At the captain’s—no, major’s, if he’d understood her correction aright—appearance, the guards swung the doors, admitting them into a chamber with a host of men and women already seated around a broad table, and he came face to face with his quarry.
Erris d’Arrent. The same woman he’d met after the battle in New Sarresant, wearing six stars on her high blue collar and barely tall enough to reach his chest. He heard Mountain’s voice in his mind again: SHE MUST DIE.
Mareh’et gave his blessing, and the room froze.
All eyes stared at him, but it was Ka’Inari who spoke.
“Arak’Jur?” Ka’Inari said. “What are you doing? Is there some threat here?”
Translators passed the words from Sinari to Sarresant, but he heard none of it. Erris d’Arrent had locked eyes with him, and Mountain’s voice sounded again: SHE MUST DIE.
He held mareh’et’s gift, feeling its spirit pulse around him, filling his muscles with the Great Cat’s strength and power.
It was wrong.
Erris d’Arrent had been his ally. She’d sheltered his people, given them land and an army to protect them when he’d journeyed south. Through her force of arms and Ka’Hannat’s visions, both peoples had been kept safe. She was no enemy of his, though thinking it tore at a sense of purpose burning deep in his core. Mountain shuddered in his thoughts. He was meant to kill conquerors and tyrants, men and women who would plunge the world into war. Erris d’Arrent had done so, and would again. He was meant to kill her. Being in her presence yoked him to a course of violence, a yearning drive to let mareh’et’s gift decide her fate. But he was in control, not the spirits. She was his ally, and he would let her live.
“No,” he said. “All is well, and we are here for peace.”
Once more his words were translated into the Sarresant tongue, but his thoughts went to Corenna, and he fought down a rush of tears. This was what she had endured in his presence. The compulsion to kill him, as strong as whatever Mountain had done between him and Erris d’Arrent.
D’Arrent nodded slowly, still watching him as she began to speak, and the lieutenant who had escorted them through the camp reappeared at his side, translating her words into Sinari.
“Her Imperial Majesty bids you welcome,” the lieutenant said, “and expresses her satisfaction at your appearance here today.”
Arak’Jur frowned. He understood enough of the Sarresant tongue to know d’Arrent had said something closer to “I thought they told me you were dead.” He opted to respond to what she’d said, rather than the translator’s formality.
“Not dead,” he said in the Sarresant tongue. “Here in peace, as allies, to a
nswer the spirits’ call to war.”
D’Arrent’s eyes shone. “Damn fine to have you,” d’Arrent said, then followed with something else, in the Sarresant tongue. The translator seemed bewildered, until Arak’Jur spoke in a sharp tone, switching back to Sinari.
“Speak exactly what she says,” he said to the lieutenant. “And nothing else.”
“Diplomats,” d’Arrent said—and the lieutenant translated properly this time. “A burden I don’t bloody well need. But it’s damn good to have you with us. I hadn’t expected more than the shaman.”
He saw another round of translation happening for the benefit of some of the others around the table—two men of slight build and height and one thicker, by a woman who shared some of their features. Those would be the Yanjin family, of whom he had heard from Ka’Inari. Acherre was there, and an old man whose face he almost recognized, behind thick mustaches and wire-frame spectacles. Another trio of fair-skins finished their company, two soldiers and a man in lace.
“Now,” d’Arrent said, translated quickly as she moved to hover over the table, which he saw was strewn with maps. “Here is the tactical situation, as I understand it. Old Sarresant”—she pointed—“is under threat from two armies, an alliance between the Thellan in the south and Sardia in the east. Our armies are due to make their landings here, along the northern coasts, unless we can persuade the Dauphin and the King to make common cause and give us the use of their ports. Regardless, I intend to put us in the field. And with Lord Tigai’s abilities, once we establish … anchors, was it? … between the two fronts, we can move binders and troops between them, reinforcing wherever the enemy strikes. I intend to fight two battles at once, but it begins, as it ever does, with maneuver.”
She turned to Ka’Inari. “You have Ka’Hannat’s gift, yes? Of seeing threats before they happen?”
Ka’Inari nodded when the translation was done.
“Then I’ll need you with Tigai,” she said. “It is imperative he reach both fronts. A small force of fast riders can cut through the mountains in days, then swing along the flatlands to where the Sardians are marching north. Acherre, Ka’Inari, Tigai, and Arak’Jur, if you’re willing to do it.”
He struggled to keep pace, trying to match her gestures to the delayed cadence of the translator converting her words to Sinari. He studied where she pointed on her maps, and tried to picture the journey she’d proposed. He, Ka’Inari, Acherre, and this Tigai, covering a moon’s turning worth of ground in a matter of days. It would be hard going, made harder for being over unknown and hostile territory.
“What sort of reception can we expect in these villages?” he asked, pointing to where a network of cities crisscrossed the southeastern stretches of the map.
“Acherre will know where the borders lie,” d’Arrent said. “The Skovan principalities have remained mostly neutral, according to the scouts I have in place there, but they won’t take kindly to strange folk moving through their land. You’d do well to pick up a scout from our ranks who can speak Skovan before you cross the border.”
“Wait,” the woman in Tigai’s party said, whom he only belatedly noticed was missing her right hand. “Major Acherre’s command of the Jun tongue is passable at best. I’ll have to come along, for Tigai to be of any use.”
Before she’d finished speaking, the two similar-looking men—brothers, Ka’Inari had said, Tigai and Dao—started arguing with her in their native tongue, with Acherre joining in with snippets of Sarresant speech. A jumbled mess, and after trying a few words, the translator gave an apologetic shrug.
He took the opportunity to move away a few steps, closer to where Erris d’Arrent was watching them debate.
Once more Mountain flared in his senses as he approached, and he smothered it. He was here as her ally, not to kill, though every step toward her weighed heavy on his shoulders.
“So,” he said, using his own command of the Sarresant tongue, though it was far from perfect. “Is it true, that this Tigai can move us across the sea?”
“It is,” d’Arrent said. “You’ll sleep there tonight. Provided they finish bickering by then.”
He nodded and she met him with a wry look, though there was a wariness there, a cool reserve he couldn’t put down to fair-skin customs or strangeness.
“Our pact,” he said. “It has worked, to keep our people safe.”
“Yes it has,” she said. “Do you mean to propose a new one, in return for your aid in this campaign?”
He paused, glancing at the translator and waiting to be sure he’d heard aright. The next he spoke in Sinari, his knowledge of the Sarresant tongue not having the proper words.
“The spirits’ visions will guide us toward victory, in opposition to a great evil. For my part, I must defeat this evil. The man who holds a thousand threads of gold. I saw him in a vision, at Adan’Hai’Tyat. I have made a great sacrifice, coming here. But it will be repaid when I reach the end of my path.”
The translator seemed to struggle with his words, but d’Arrent looked at him with rising confidence, nodding along as he spoke.
“Ascension,” she said. “That is your spirits’ path, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said, latching on to the word in the Sarresant tongue. “Ascension.”
“I’ve learned something of it,” d’Arrent said. “I think we share the same goal, and the same enemy.”
“You have communed with our spirits?” he said, feeling a moment of shock. But then, no—he’d seen her work the fair-skin magic. Their leylines. Perhaps ascension was a thing they had in common. As Ad-Shi had described it. Champions, at the apex of each line of skill.
“Not your spirits,” d’Arrent said. “The ‘threads of gold,’ you called it. For us, it is decided in holding territory, in the loyalty of many subjects.”
Understanding dawned. “For my people, it is a thing of the spirits, a great task set before us.”
“And your task is to kill Paendurion—the enemy with a thousand threads?”
“My task is to kill those who would lead men and women to war,” he said cautiously. “Mountain are spirits of peace, above all else.”
“Those who would lead …” she repeated, then met his eyes, for a moment her features as hard as steel.
“An easier path, to betray trust,” he said. “But it is not our way.”
“Nor ours,” she said finally. She offered a hand—a fair-skin custom he knew well from his youth as a hunter and trader. He took it, and they exchanged a firm grasp.
“It is decided, then,” the old man in spectacles said. “Provided Her Majesty is amenable to my participation.”
The rest of them had quieted, waiting on d’Arrent. From the look of them, the woman who had argued to join them had been put down, the two Yanjin brothers appearing satisfied with whatever decision had been reached.
“What is this?” d’Arrent asked. “Your participation?”
“Only if you agree, Your Majesty,” the old man said. “But I’ve proposed having me accompanying Lord Tigai’s party, instead of the Lady Mei. As you well know, I can speak Sarresant and Jun. Skovan, too, and Thellan, should the need arise in the mountains.”
A long moment stretched as d’Arrent weighed the man’s words. Neither option settled well, in Arak’Jur’s eyes. A one-handed woman of slight build would be pure hindrance for hard travel, but an elder long since past his prime would be no better.
“Consider it settled, then,” d’Arrent said. “Lord Voren—Fei Zan—you will accompany them. No sense in further delay. Lord Tigai, you know the place where you are taking us?”
“Yes,” Tigai said through two translators. “At least, I know it’s somewhere close to here.” He gestured toward the map. “There are only a handful of stars on this side of the Divide, but one of them is close to the strands connecting Voren to the other continent.”
The translator spoke the words quickly, but must have garbled them; or if he didn’t, the words made no sense to Arak’Jur. But Erris
d’Arrent seemed satisfied.
“To the stableyards, then,” d’Arrent said. “We fetch our mounts and supplies. Then, Lord Tigai will take us across the sea.”
66
TIGAI
Coastal Bluffs
Old Sarresant
The starfield receded, and he opened his eyes to a vista of hills and grass overlooking an ocean. Erris d’Arrent was already moving, barking an order as she mounted her monstrous white horse. Animals had been provided for all of them, and places among the soldiers and generals of the New Sarresant Army. Preconditions for his services, negotiated by Mei and not amenable to him in the slightest, not that he’d been consulted before she sold his talent like a whoremaster. It meant leaving Dao, Remarin, and Mei behind, after struggling for months to get them back.
Remarin embraced him like a son, thumping his shoulder when they separated. Dao held him like the brother he was—always fighting on the same side, no matter when they disagreed about what side it was or should be. Mei wrapped around him like a jungle cat, shedding the only tears, though he would never call her weak for doing it.
“Make the journey quickly,” Mei said. “Or I’ll have Dao elevated to a High Lord and Magistrate by the time you return.”
“If they even have High Lords here,” he said.
“Perhaps he’ll be the first.”
D’Arrent was calling for them to move, and he helped Mei up into her saddle as the rest of them gathered together, all save the four who would accompany him on his southward ride. Those hovered a few paces off, beckoning to him as surely as d’Arrent’s orders summoned his family away.
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