by Jayne Faith
7
High Priestess Lunaria
WHEN AKANTHA MADE her foreboding announcement about the delay of the next Tournament challenge, I struggled to prevent a visceral reaction. I was certain she’d purposely sprung the news in a setting where neither Lord Toric nor I could immediately react or question her, and I knew without turning that he was just as startled as I was.
Curious whispers spread through the audience, and I couldn’t help flipping a glance at Maya, who stood only a few feet in front of me on the throne room floor. She was probably not aware that Akantha’s announcement could possibly have something to do with Maya’s brief conversation with her twin sister. I doubted she knew that if the wrong people found out, the situation could erupt and end very badly for her. Still, even without that knowledge, she looked very worried.
The ceremony ended and the members of the audience rose to their feet, my signal to turn along with Akantha and curtsy as Lord Toric descended from the throne with his two guards close by. He went between us into the tunnel that led to the room under the throne, and I followed him with Akantha directly behind me.
The guards stopped just before the doors, closing them after the three of us were inside.
I whirled on Akantha and gave her my coldest glare. “What is the meaning of this drama, young woman?”
“I did not mean to subvert you in any way, Your Holiness,” she said. “But the news only just came to me immediately before the ceremony, and there was no time to discuss it with you and Lord Toric.”
She gave me an innocent, wide-eyed look that I did not buy for a second.
“What news?” I demanded, deeply annoyed that I had to ask.
I glanced at Lord Toric, who was standing as still as stone with his arms crossed. Only the muscles of his jaw moved, bulging each time he clenched his teeth.
“It’s terribly shocking,” Akantha said. She pressed a palm to her chest as if her news were enough to make her feel faint, persisting with her act of innocence. “There are rumors that one of the Offered has violated the sacred texts by contacting someone on Earthenfell.”
My heart tried to jump up my throat, and it took all my self-control to keep from meeting Lord Toric’s eyes. How could this information have reached Akantha? Surely Sir Jeric would not have told her. Despite being Akantha’s fiancé, he was obviously not in love with her and knew very well that Akantha despised Maya and wished her dead.
I flipped a hand through the air and forced my expression to relax into one of relief. “Oh, is that all? I know of these rumors, and the Temple is already addressing them. There is no need to delay the Tournament.” I dropped my arm and forced myself to look at her steadily.
Akantha narrowed her eyes, regarding me for a moment. “Forgive me, Your Holiness, but a breach of this sort—even a rumor of such a thing—is not only the business of the Temple. It is also the business of the Tournament proceedings because it involves one of the Offered. In fact, it is such a grave matter I daresay it is the business of every citizen of Calisto. Yes, I have to say I believe every soul in the nation would be interested in such news.”
Her threat was clear.
“Yes, I agree,” I said. “And because of the gravity of it, it would be deeply irresponsible and inflammatory to spread such gossip. It would undermine the very fabric of our nation to allow such a lie to circulate.”
Akantha had the gall to cross her arms and give a tiny smile. “It wouldn’t be irresponsible if it were true. It would be a public service.”
“It most certainly is not true,” Lord Toric burst out. He stalked forward and squared off with her. “And as the Priestess says, it would be inflammatory to spread such gossip. Not only irresponsible, but criminal.”
Akantha tilted her head in a gesture that was neither acquiescence nor disagreement.
True panic began to constrict my chest. If the news spread and fanatics fanned the flames as they most surely would, the public would call for Maya to be thrown into the sacrificial fires. Though I was not directly responsible for what she’d done, as the keeper of the way back to Earthenfell, I would surely be deposed from the office of High Priestess. Perhaps thrown in the fires right after Maya in an attempt at complete cleansing of the violation.
I would lose my office, decades of work, and possibly my life. Toric would lose Maya, and the stars only knew how her death would knock us off the path of the Return to the homeland.
Akantha had us, and Lord Toric and I both knew it.
There was no sense in wasting more time arguing.
I moved forward, close enough to hear Akantha’s soft breaths. “You need to think carefully about your actions, young woman. Messing about with the plans of the stars will not benefit anyone in the end. Be very, very careful, Mistress of Tournament.” I looked into her eyes for a few heartbeats. When she blinked, I cast her one last hard look and turned to Lord Toric. “I’d best return to my duties. I’m sure you have a schedule as full as mine, my Lord.”
He gave Akantha a final glare as he came to my side. The two of us departed without another word, leaving Akantha alone.
“I know it’s inappropriate for a Lord, but my hands were itching with the urge to throttle her neck,” he muttered through gritted teeth, keeping his voice low so the guards behind us wouldn’t overhear.
“I might have held her down for you,” I said wryly.
My comment elicited a snort from him.
“This is very bad,” Lord Toric said soberly after a long moment of silence.
“Yes, it is.”
“I do not understand how she became so bulletproof.”
I shook my head. “She is obsessed with gaining power, and she is clearly willing to do anything for it, without regard for the consequences. There is a bizarre sort of power in such rashness because she does not play by the rules like you and I do.”
I could almost feel my control slipping as if it were a physical sensation. Like ribbons sliding through my clenched fist and whipping in a violent wind that threatened to tear them away.
I touched Lord Toric’s forearm. “I will be in contact with you at the end of the day. We must keep in close communication. I’m not sure how much we can do to stop Akantha unless we can quickly come up with a reason to toss her in jail. You will keep your people on her?”
He nodded tightly, and I veered off toward the Temple.
When I arrived, Novia was waiting.
“I apologize for the delay,” I said, and beckoned. “Please come on in.”
I let her go ahead of me into my office. “I’ll be conferencing with Lord Toric just before dinner,” I said to my assistant, Celestia, over my shoulder.
“Oh! Yes, certainly. I’ll add it to your schedule, Your Holiness.”
I went into my office and closed the door, shutting out the sound of Celestia murmuring to herself as she made changes to my schedule.
“Novia, thank you for coming. I presume you heard of the Tournament delay?” I said it casually, but watched her face closely.
“I was not in the throne room, but I had the broadcast playing in my office.” Her expression remained steady, but her eyes darted away from mine.
“Quite a strange Tournament it’s been,” I said mildly.
“Yes, quite.” She cleared her throat. “If you don’t mind, Your Holiness, I have several things to review with you.”
“Let’s get started.” I leaned forward in my seat to peer at the tablets she’d placed on my desk, but she’d not yet powered them on.
“My team has been digging into the Pirro battles,” she said. “Especially the events just before Prince Toric’s abduction and the time when the Pirros were supposedly wiped out by our forces.”
My attention snagged on the word supposedly, and I gave her a sharp look.
“Some Pirros survived?” I asked.
“Almost certainly.” She switched on a tablet, and it displayed photos of ten or twelve Calistans. “But first, some history. We discovered there was a grou
p of citizens who quietly raised funds and resources for cultural studies. They believed that if we were going to wipe out other races in our quest for Earthenfell, we should make an effort to record something of their cultures.”
She tapped on a photo of a man, and it enlarged to fill the screen. “Mordecai Steeling, a minor noble. He comes from a long line of patrons of the arts. Going back several generations, his family has always had a hand in supporting artists, culture, museums, things of that nature. He was the man who founded the group I spoke of, which he named The Society for Cultural Preservation. The group created a small Calistan cultural museum, but I believe it was a front for his real interest—studying the cultures of our enemies.”
My stomach knotted and then began to churn. “His group had contact with the Pirros.”
“Yes, we believe the first contact was shortly after Prince Toric’s return to Calisto, though it’s possible there were earlier expeditions.”
“Do you think this man, his group, had something to do with Prince Toric’s abduction?”
Novia shook her head. “There is no evidence of that, and it wouldn’t make sense. As far as we’ve been able to ascertain, they were not in the business of politics or war. They were purely interested in capturing details about endangered alien cultures.”
“This is most . . . unusual.” I frowned. “I can’t even imagine how Steeling could have discovered the locations of Pirro tribal bands, especially if he did not have military connections.”
Novia gave me a shrewd look. “I did not say he had no military connections, only that he was not interested in war.” She flipped to a different screen on her tablet, one that displayed a photo of a man who looked vaguely familiar, along with several lines of text.
I glanced at the name under the photo. “That’s Queen Stella’s maiden name.”
“This man was her father, a noble who made his career in the military. George Artoi. He and Steeling grew up in the same sector. There’s very little in official records that connected them, except for one interesting detail. Steeling’s daughter and Queen Stella were the top two candidates for the position of Lord Alec’s wife. Steeling’s daughter was favored to become Alec’s queen when she abruptly dropped out of the running. She claimed she’d been diagnosed with a disease that would make her barren, but she must have made a miraculous recovery because she went on to marry and have three healthy children.”
I stared at her incredulously but saw the pieces sliding together. “Steeling pulled his daughter from eligibility, all but handing the throne to Stella,” I said. “And Stella’s father later repaid Steeling by feeding him the locations of Calistan enemies so Steeling could conduct his cultural studies?”
“That’s my hypothesis,” Novia said.
I leaned back in my chair, staring up at a point on the wall and considering how all the pieces might fit together. “So back to the Pirros. Steeling and his group spent time with them, studied them.”
“It appears so. But . . .” She paused as a look of consternation passed over her face. “I do not believe his team was the first to make contact with the Pirros. I believe there has been a secret link between Pirro and Calisto that goes back eons.”
“What?” I leaned forward, wide-eyed, not bothering to try to cover my shock.
“My team has identified a handful of artifacts, pieces that we now suspect are Pirro in origin and had mistakenly been credited to Calistan artists. All of the artifacts can be tied to Steeling’s family. Generations before Steeling.”
I blinked several times. “Why were the artifacts never recognized as alien?”
“I’d hypothesize that no one ever had a reason to suspect the artifacts weren’t Calistan. But the symbol you discovered in the sacred texts served as a starting point. My team used visual analysis algorithms to analyze that symbol, as well as others that appeared in Calistan military documents about the Pirros, for hundreds of subtle characteristics. We identified aspects of the symbols were distinctly and undeniably non-Calistan. Some of those aspects are much, much too subtle to be detected or recognized by even the most learned art historian. But it gave us a partial library of characteristics that were distinctly Pirro. Then, we did an analysis of all known Calistan art and objects in museum collections. Some of them scored hits for Pirro features.”
My eyes widened and I let out a long breath. “Novia, as shocking as this is, I want you to know I’m deeply impressed by the work you’ve done.”
She allowed the tiniest of smiles to thin her lips.
“Is there any evidence that Pirros were smuggled onto Calisto?” I asked, thinking of the message that Lord Toric had seen scrawled on his window when he was a boy.
“Nothing has come up in our research,” Novia said. After a pause, she shifted forward on her seat. “Your Holiness, we have never really spoken of the origin of the secret volume. The volume that recently came into your possession.”
I passed a hand over my eyes, my head throbbing with everything she’d told me. “It just showed up with no indication of who sent it. Do you have a guess?”
“I have absolutely no supporting evidence, so I couldn’t even properly call it a hypothesis . . .”
“Please,” I said. “A guess is better than nothing at all. Especially your guess.”
“I think the Pirros may have been the keepers of the secret volume.”
Her words seemed to drop like weights onto my eardrums.
“But if most of the Pirros are gone now—”
“I don’t think they all are. But even if they’d been completely wiped out, Steeling’s descendants might have inherited the duties,” she said.
“If this is true, then we cannot deny that the Pirros somehow play a part in our Return to Earthenfell. They or their agents may even be among us. And their work may not be done yet.”
Novia only nodded silently, her eyes large and round.
8
Toric
I MANAGED TO get through the Tournament challenge, managing to turn away all of the Offered women except for Maya. The reward of seeing Maya’s name and likeness at the top of the ranks of favor made my heart swell with joy and satisfaction.
But I needed release, and not of the sweet, intimate, passionate variety I’d found with Maya. I craved the dark, violent release that Jade had trained me to need. I tried to hold it off, to push it away using the meditation techniques I’d learned long ago to calm my rage and instead focus on the people around me and allow myself to become absorbed in everyday things. The mental discipline that allowed me to push my trauma into the past where it belonged and grow into adulthood, take the throne, and serve my nation as Lord. An important aspect of maintaining my discipline, my focus, was allowing myself to give in to my needs periodically.
But I was torn.
Part of me deeply longed to bring Maya into the darker side of my sex life, to teach her how to satisfy those needs. To have her hands wield the whips. But another part of me wanted to keep her separate, in the bright and pure place in my heart I hadn’t even known was there until she came to Calisto.
Eventually, possibly, I could show her, ask her to give me what I needed . . . but not yet.
With a heart like lead and unwanted dark desire prickling over me like a suit of thorns, I finally sent for Sytoria.
I hated her knowing smile and hated even more the intense, carnal satisfaction she brought me. But she gave me what I needed, and the next morning, I tried to take some solace in the fact that I would remain satiated for a time.
It was small comfort, however, when I thought of Maya.
Thoughts of my dark angel were not just ones of love and longing. Akantha had me deeply troubled. The Priestess and I had spoken again after Akantha’s surprise announcement about the Tournament delay and the not-so-veiled threat she’d made to me and the Priestess about spreading the story of Maya breaching the boundary between Calisto and Earthenfell. But the Priestess and I hadn’t had much to say. I had people following Akantha’s
every move, and the Priestess didn’t say so, but I was fairly sure she had her people tailing Akantha, too. I wanted to trust that we would stop her before she did something rash, but I wasn’t confident.
I’d also begun to try to think of ways that Akantha and my mother might be working together. I wasn’t sure they were, but they were both against Maya. They were both also against me, though my mother wasn’t obvious about it. I didn’t really have any direct proof of it, but I was somehow almost certain of my mother’s opposition as I was of Akantha’s.
Another burden on my mind was the brief, foreboding conversation I’d recently had with the Priestess. She’d revealed a bit about what the Temple researchers had discovered—or at least, suspected.
I needed to talk through some things, but there were so few people I could trust. I had another meeting with the Priestess, and I hoped she would not mind acting as my confidant.
We met in her office for the sake of security.
“This place is beginning to feel like a second home,” I said, glancing around. My gaze paused on a portrait of the previous holder of the office, High Priestess Atria, a stern-looking woman. I remembered her from my childhood, when she used to stand at the foot of the throne during ceremonies presided over by my father. I’d sat in the audience with my mother and siblings, watching my father in awe and wondering how I would ever manage to look as regal as he did.
High Priestess Atria had died after I returned to Calisto, and the woman who sat across the desk from me today had been voted into office by the Temple.
The Priestess and I briefly updated each other on the situation with Akantha and her threat to go public with Maya’s supposed violation of the Earthenfell-Calisto divide. Neither of us had much to report on the topic, other than relief that Akantha had not yet moved on her threat as far as we were able to discern through our respective networks.
