The Caradorii raised his hand. The Deacon acknowledged him with a nod.
“If the Gods were upset with the Dracodar for usurping their rightful place, why punish the people?” The Caradorii’s accent was thick, his voice measured.
“Because we knew better. If I watch a man commit murder, and say or do nothing when the watch investigates, then I am complicit in his crime. If a person steals goods, and you buy them, your hand might not have carried out the theft, but you are similarly guilty.”
“Why weren’t the Dracodar punished?”
“They were. Do they still rule today? They were completely eradicated in the Thousand Year War, which, I might add, only became possible because of the Blight.”
A milk-skinned Heleganese lifted her hand tentatively.
“Yes, Meleen Ansabi?”
“Some would say it was Cortens Kasandar who was responsible for their downfall,” she said.
“If one wishes to look only at the act instead of what facilitated it, then certainly.” The Deacon surveyed the class. “But Cortens’ chance was provided by the Dominion. After all, he was an Elder before he became king. How else could the Blight have affected the Dracodar if not by the will of the Gods? Never before had any disease troubled them. The Blight might not have killed them outright as it did the faithless among us, but its effect was worse. They could no longer breed. Even King Ilsindin’s attempts to force himself on the Dominion’s chosen people proved futile. It took centuries upon centuries, but eventually their dwindling numbers made Cortens’ efforts and the Thousand Year War possible.”
“So the Blight was a curse and a blessing,” Meleen said, “as was the war.”
“Precisely.”
“You seem to have gotten lost,” said a voice Terestere recognized.
She turned to face Elder Hamada Netal. He was a Kheridisian with a too smooth face and an easy smile. Ivory piercings adorned his nose and ears. Around his neck was the gold chain of his station from which hung the Star of the Dominion.
“Elder,” she said with a nod, “you haven’t aged a day since our last meeting.”
“Thank you.”
“You mentioned my lack of directions, but what brings you to classes for initiates?”
“As the next in line to be Patriarch, I must become versed in all aspects of the Grand Chantry.”
“Ah.”
“And you, your presence here?” he asked.
“I simply wanted to see how much has changed since I was here last.”
“A grand time, that was,” he said, smiling. “Jemare—” The curve of his lips became a frown. “I apologize, my lady. Sorry for your loss.”
“It’s fine,” she said.
“Are you ready for your meeting with the Patriarch?”
“Not quite, but then who is ever truly ready to meet one of the Empire’s most powerful men?”
“True.” Hamada nodded. “Anyway, I must complete my rounds. Hopefully we see each other again before you leave.” He hurried away.
As she strode through the corridors and up to her chambers, she pondered his words. She had lost so much. Not just a kingdom, a husband, and a son, but many people close to her heart. Another person might have given up, succumbed to the weight of such death, but those very same losses that were supposed to cripple her had strengthened her resolve. I have come this far by letting nothing stand in my way. Act as if that which would give you pain does not exist. Separate it from your mind. The family you have left is all that matters. She buoyed herself with the thoughts, but when she entered her room’s dimly lit confines, her mood hadn’t grown any better.
Grimacing, Queen Terestere considered what she still had, the purpose behind her life. Her people. That was the most important asset. Had always been. They would survive; she would see to it as she’d promised. In the process she would regain all that was hers and repay her suffering tenfold.
A knock sounded at the door. Queen Terestere frowned. She wasn’t expecting anyone. She fixed her dress, put on her most regal face, made her way across the chambers, and put her eye to the peephole. A Cleric, left side of his head shaven, waited outside.
The queen pulled open the heavy oak door, oiled hinges turning with a whisper. “Yes?”
“A delivery, my lady.” The wiseman kept his head down, eyes averted, hands tucked into the sleeves of blue robes trimmed with red and cinched at the waist with a slim belt.
Terestere regarded the man’s empty hands. The Cleric had nothing beside him or anywhere in the carpeted hall that led to her chambers. “Well, where is it?”
“Downstairs with a runner. He refused to leave it with anyone but you.”
“Thank you. Lead the way.” Unless news traveled faster than she gave it credit for, only two people knew her current location at the Grand Chantry. She wondered which of them it might be.
Curiosity piqued, she followed the wiseman through a series of lamplit halls that smelled of incense, the white stone walls decorated with pictures, the halls with an effigy of one of the Dominion’s ten Gods. One such painting depicted a melder at a Dragon Gate, soul ablaze, and a gigantic creature on the other side, features shrouded as it sought to pass. The wisemen they encountered on the way gave her a slight bow, but none acknowledged the Cleric. After descending several flights of stairs they reached the fourth floor meeting area. The Cleric pointed out the runner, and then excused himself.
The runner was an olive-skinned Kasinian, a whip of a man in thick woolens, a long cloak down to the tops of worn, wet leather boots. He had the haggard eyes and wind-burnt face of a man who had traveled almost non-stop for days on end.
“My queen.” He bowed from the waist. “The merchant sends his regards.”
“Rise,” she said without hesitation. Her heart rate sped up, and she prayed to the Dominion that it was good news. “I was told you had something for me?”
“Yes, a letter.” He retrieved a small oiled leather satchel from the folds of his clothes.
“Tell the merchant not to stray far.” She took the satchel. “His services will be needed.” The runner bowed again and left.
As much as she craved to know the contents of the letter, she made a nonchalant return to her chambers on the Grand Chantry’s tenth floor. She quickly opened the satchel, removed the folded paper, broke the seal, and began to read. Her heart lightened when she learned of close family members that made it out of the chaos Kasandar had become after Succession Day. Others weren’t so blessed by Hazline. The merchant mentioned the state of the city since Ainslen’s victory and the uprising by the people, particularly the commoners. It pained her to know so many in the Smear were dying after she’d worked to help them over the years. The merchant also complained of how much the economy had begun to suffer.
All of it seemed mundane, as it should, for that was the point of her message system. She had never trusted seals as a guarantee of privacy for they could be duplicated. Hiding a message by use of a meld could also be detected. With the thought in mind, she strode to her reading table.
A game board with the script, Tet Dracogis, old Dracodarian for Dragon Gates, written in silver paint, occupied a spot near a tray. The board was made up of a hundred alternating black and white squares, divided in ten rows and ten columns. Etched above the columns was a small N for north. From left to right the northern columns were labeled beginning with the number one and ending at ten. The same list adorned the southern side.
Rows to the east and west followed a similar pattern but with the first letters in the names of each God of the Dominion, expect for Hazline who received a Z. Mandrigal was listed first, followed by Antelen, Keneshin, Humel, Hazline, Jarina, Desitrin, Serentar, Rendorta, and Coren.
Representing the soul cycles, a thick line split the board down the middle from east to west, like an additional row right a
fter Hazline. At the northern and southern ends were the castles, occupying central locations of two rows and four columns for a total of eight squares. The Dragon Gates made up two rows and one column in each of the four corners. Only one game piece currently sat on the board: a dragon king, its wings folded at its sides, and tail coiled around it.
She procured another sheet of paper, took a quill, dipped it in ink, and began to decipher the message, matching words to letters and numbers to form combinations. When she was done, the message read:
The sun rises west,
The stones grow to mountains,
The snow has been denied,
And another storm brews east,
It is time.
Terestere pondered the words. All the appropriate pieces were moving, maneuvered precisely as she designed. She smiled. Indeed the time had come. She drafted her response, giving specific instructions, particularly where the counts were concerned. Of the things that swayed men, she found power, coin, and women to be the most useful. Combine them with the right words and one could achieve almost anything.
After she sent for an initiate to deliver her letter to a courier, Terestere balled up the other sheets and tossed them into the fireplace. The smell of burnt paper rose thick in the air. Once the flames had done its work, she left the room and requested an audience with the Patriarch. Upon receiving his acceptance she made her way upstairs.
Her footsteps echoed through the Benediction Chamber. Upon a dais were two massive, gem-encrusted, high-backed, silver seats. Behind them loomed the ten statues of the Dominion, the Gods in various forms of dress. The scent of jasmine rose from candles set on ceramic stands near the statues. Save for a nearby lectern and four small chairs, no other furniture adorned the room. She bowed first to Mandrigal, the sun, and God of Rebirth, and then to his wife, Antelen, the moon, Goddess of Time and Tide. She paid reverence to the others in turn, before she moved on, pausing at Hazline to beg for his fate to shine on her.
Muffled chants drifted through the hall: songs of wisemen carrying from other rooms on this floor of the Grand Chantry. The prayer songs would soon rise, funneled through a series of pipes to join the others throughout the temple, adding to those of the Clerics who manned the ten enormous horns atop the temple. From there the mantras would resonate across Melanil, giving the citadel the name for which it was known: the Chanting City.
She stopped to pour herself a cup of coffee from a table near one of the walls before she made her way to a line of enormous windowpanes. Outside, several wisemen picked their way up snow-covered steps toward one of many doors. Their hoods hid their faces, and they kept their heads down against the swirling white fluff that fell from a sky painted in grey hues.
The last time she’d visited Melanil and the Grand Chantry, she was in the company of Jemare and Joaquin. Gripped by a sense of longing, she sighed. That had been a grand occasion, full of revelry, a ball at their estate, and a feast to celebrate two hundred years of Jemare’s rule.
She smiled with the memory before her face became grim. Joaquin had died soon after, thrown from the Cliffs of a Thousand Sorrows, murdered by Elysse the Temptress. In a letter, Elysse said it was the promised repayment for a similar act committed by Jemare. Even now, over a century later, she saw Joaquin’s broken body.
As horrendous an image as that had been, it paled in comparison to her husband’s remains. When Ainslen finished, Jemare had been but so much pulp.
She took a sip of her coffee, a strong black brew, bitter, just the way she preferred, its warmth chasing away the chill in her bones. The months since Jemare’s death had been filled with sleepless nights and days spent on horseback that left her bottom sore, legs tired, and hands calloused despite riding gloves. The lack of sleep was not from her grief. Beyond the tug of her attachment to Jemare, she lacked the debilitating sorrow she’d seen in other widows. Hers was a marriage of necessity, of furthering her status. Yet, as cold as she could be, his nefarious acts made her cringe. They still did.
The mere thought of all she’d seen, the dead children, husbands, wives, nobles, commoners, the secrets, made her weary. Too much death. I’ve seen too much death.
Reasons like those, the violence and war, entire peoples forced to spend their lives in slavery, or used for the power they could give, were the things that drove her. People of the faith ascribed to the Gods to lend them strength, and while that was all well and good, the Gods would not deliver. Her prayers were more out of respect for the power the Dominion represented, vast and limitless and utterly unknowable. Her strength derived itself from survival and a thirst for vengeance.
One day she would be sated. But today was not that day. It was another footstep.
With this stride the two men who helped give her a purpose all these years were gone, lives snatched in a moment. A husband and a son. Not a son by blood, but a son no less. Despite the need to distance her emotions, Prince Joaquin had grown on her. She helped raise him from a babe, more a mother to him than the whore Jemare had chosen to bed. A woman picked for her strength in soul and her fertile womb. The truth of that last was a secret she kept close. When the deed was done, Jemare had gotten rid of the mother.
At times she wondered how different things would have been had Joaquin been her child. Would you be alive today? Or would you still be dead, another victim of Far’an Senjin?
Events pointed to the latter, for Jemare had done the improbable: drawn up new laws for succession, ignoring traditions with roots borne since the Empire’s inception. Kasinia was built on such traditions. In secret, Jemare had declared that a royal line would rule. And so had begun his endeavor to produce an heir. After decades of secret failures he made the choice to find a suitable woman, one that wouldn’t be missed by the nobility.
One day, when all was revealed, some would think her desperate. Or terrible. Perhaps I’m both. Perhaps I’m a monster just like my late husband. She hoped when people encountered the truth in its entirety they would understand her quest for a piece of her to survive.
For a moment she considered bringing an end to her plans. And in the same moment she steeled herself against the idea. Too many people relied on her to see them to some form of safety. The months to come would be among the hardest, but whatever was needed for her people to thrive she swore to see it done. Another sigh escaped her lips, this time from exhaustion, both physical and mental. The things she’d been forced to do weighed on her.
Lost in thought, Queen Terestere stared out the windowpanes down into Melanil. Spires poked into the sky, white stone and whiter ice glinting with sunlight like frosty crystals. Several hundred stairs led down from the chantry’s array of entrances to the walls that were decorated with friezes of the Gods and the Order’s past leaders. The most prominent of the latter was Cortens Kasandar, and although he only rose to Elder, he was still seen as one of their greatest achievers. Closest to the walls were villas and palaces—homes to higher ranks of wisemen, the Mystics, Curates, and High Priests and Priestesses. Only the Elders, the Patriarch, and Matriarch were allowed to live in the Grand Chantry itself, closest to the Dominion’s bosom.
Celestial Avenue ringed this section of Melanil, and on its opposite side were mansions, inns, warehouses, markets, taverns, and brothels, spreading as far as she could see. Perhaps more brothels than necessary, but then again, the Order had a voracious appetite, particularly for Kheridisian women.
Tree-lined streets, colonnades, cobblestoned roads, narrow alleys, and dirt paths drew lines among the brick and timber structures, tiled and wood roofs draped in winter’s finery, a white field of rime and hoarfrost. Smoke drifted up from the abundant chimneys. People, coaches, wagons, and horses crowded the streets despite the weather.
To the west, at the edge of her vision, the Crystal Skies shone, a precursor of things to come. The colorful swath made her think of Aidah Rostlin. Her expression grew grim befo
re she directed her attention to the northeast.
Ice caked the banks of the River Silk except where the dockworkers kept the quays clear for the galleys, schooners, and warships out in the deep waters, each flying Kasinia’s new flag—a scaled hand from which soul emanated. She nodded, impressed with King Ainslen’s choice for a standard. Far in the distance, the walls of Tocar were a dark stain that rose from snow-covered fields near the glittering expanse of the Vordon Sea. The thick windowpanes before her drowned out the clangor from a city well into its daily routines despite the harsh weather. She took another sip from her cup.
“A sight to make one breathless, is it not?” Patriarch Corgansetti’s voice was the same resonant tone she remembered.
Terestere turned to the man who had been a cherished friend to her dead husband. “Always. Whenever I visit I understand why Melanil was chosen for the Grand Chantry.” She recalled when she thought she would spit in the man’s face when she saw him, but she’d outgrown the sentiment. Not the hate, though. That simmered, waiting its time.
Despite his shimmering robes, Corgansetti was showing his age. His head was a brown chicken egg marred by spots, and his eyes carried lines at the corners from years spent poring over books. His hands were wrinkled claws, skin pulled tight, a spiderweb of discolored veins beneath. Encrusted with diamonds, the ten-pointed, ten-sided Star of the Dominion stood out on the chain around his neck.
“I expected Matriarch Janania to be present also,” the queen said. She knew the Order mandated that those raised to be its leaders were to be like Mandrigal and Antelen, the sun to the other’s moon, compatible in race and in thought. Near inseparable, they lived together from young, and did almost everything in each other’s company. They developed a relationship so close that when they eventually married, and were raised to their respective positions, they were of like minds, two halves of one whole. Janania might not be here in body but she was in spirit. No decision was made without the other half.
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