The Seventh World Trilogy omnibus

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  “Virginia,” the Ploughman said gently, “his forefathers may have sworn against him, but whether Lucien Morel even believes in the King is doubtful.”

  Virginia was quiet a moment. “As is your own belief,” she finally said.

  Again, silence met her words. Libuse answered. “He is not here,” she said. “We have seen—things. Signs. But no final fulfillment of those signs. It has been two years. We have Gifts, but no proof of where they come from. We have to live here, Virginia, here in this world, and our people will starve if something does not change.”

  “Yes,” Virginia said. “I know.”

  She turned away. The Ploughman took her arm. She stiffened, though his touch was not forceful.

  “We need your sight,” he said. “We need you to help us.”

  She turned slowly and faced him, her memories fusing with this moment in a way that made her ache. “You are not the first man to say that,” she said. “The last betrayed me—betrayed the King, betrayed all of us. Ploughman, our Gifts are something greater than ourselves. They aren’t meant to be used to fulfill our own pleasure.”

  “This is hardly pleasure,” the Ploughman said. “I may have no choice. The decision is not yet made—but if in three days we leave this city for Athrom, then on your love for this place, Virginia, I ask you to come.”

  Virginia did not answer. She turned and left the throne room, stumbling against the door frame as she went out. She knew their eyes were following her, but she didn’t care.

  She had seen, and they had not listened.

  The wind blew softly through her hair as she stepped back into the street, and a voice said, All shall be well.

  “How can it be, Llycharath?” she whispered to the Wind-Spirit. “They are turning against the King.”

  But you are not.

  She sat down on the stone steps of the castle, listening to the voices and carriage wheels in this city where the King had once shown his power. On a hillside not far away, a burned patch of earth was all that remained of the unholy fire that had called the Blackness into the battle—with her own unwilling help. She could still feel the power of the Order of the Spider as they turned her Gift of sight against her and against the people of the King. She could still feel the pain as they tore her spirit apart.

  “The King is all I have left to hope in,” she said. “Not this madness of men.”

  Footsteps on the stairs silenced her, and she tensed as a booted figure drew near, his sword belt jingling. His shadow fell over her. A sense of being hunted washed over her so strongly that she nearly choked.

  The voice that spoke was foreign—Southern. One of the strangers.

  “Virginia Ramsey,” he said. “The Seer of Pravik—or am I mistaken?”

  “And who are you?” she asked.

  She heard the creak of his leather armour as he bowed. “General Merlyn Cratus,” he said. “Leader of the High Police.”

  “Lord of ashes,” she said.

  An edge came into his voice. “Pardon?”

  She stood a little uncertainly and took her skirt in hand as she began her descent to the street. “You are not mistaken,” she said. “And neither am I.”

  * * *

  Far below the streets of Pravik, another city—another world—lay hidden. Ancient, steeped in tradition, and long hidden from the world above, the Darkworld had maintained its underground colony for nearly five hundred years, ruled by a line of kings, tempered by a priesthood devoted to the King of legend.

  Their history was tumultuous. Traitors to the King in the Great War, they had stopped just short of swearing allegiance to the Morel Empire and gone underground instead. They vowed to wait until the King returned, planning to beg his forgiveness and offer their long dark years as penance.

  But life without the sun was not life as men were meant to live it. Waves of a mysterious disease they called sun-sickness swept their numbers, killing hundreds. The priesthood faithfully tended the wounded, singing to them and telling them stories of the King. They learned to fish from the underground rivers and make bread from roots gathered near the surface. They burned fish-oil lanterns and made clothing of human hair. They grew pale-skinned, large-eyed, small of stature. Sun-sickness and other diseases decimated their numbers over the decades, until at last, the Majesty Nahtano, son of Tebazil, Sire of Seventeen Sons and Guardian of the Holy Priesthood, ruled only a tiny tribe of survivors in the dark.

  But rule them he did, and jealously.

  Fish-oil lanterns flickered with sickly blue flame in the hall outside the throne room as the doors burst open, and the council, dismissed, flooded out. Soldiers and nobles talked animatedly as they passed through the hall. The priests were quieter, more thoughtful, hands clasped with long sleeves falling over them. One, the young priestess Rehtse, lingered.

  Harutek, the Majesty’s son, was the last to leave the throne room. He saw Rehtse waiting and appraised her with a stormy expression.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “How should I be?” he snapped. “My father is a fool.”

  “Hush, Harutek,” Rehtse said. “Don’t talk treason.”

  “No one else has a right to,” the prince said.

  “It may be your right,” Rehtse said. “But it does not become you. Honour your father, my prince.”

  He looked her over and smiled sardonically. “You are not any happier with me than he is.”

  She hesitated. “For different reasons.”

  “Always honest, aren’t you?”

  “I’m a priestess,” Rehtse said.

  Harutek snorted. “That does not make you honest. I have seen enough of the priesthood’s lies.”

  Rehtse felt her blood growing warmer, but she forced back her retort. In Harutek she could still see the playmate of her youth—just as, in the Majesty, she could still see the man who had been a grandfather to her while she played with his sons. Her family had sent her into the priesthood, and thus into the circle of royalty, as a little girl. The royal family and the priesthood had been her world. She knew perfectly well that her world was dividing now. But it hurt, and she was determined to do what she could to hold it together—if only by reaching out to this hard-headed prince with love.

  Still, she couldn’t entirely keep the rebuke out of her voice. “What we teach is not lies,” she said. “It is our whole purpose for existing. You should be leading the Darkworld in waiting for the King, Harutek.” She was quiet for a moment. “You should not have brought those men here.”

  “Look at me, Rehtse,” Harutek said. She hadn’t realized she wasn’t—she had turned her eyes to the floor. She looked back up at him now. His face was so much like Caasi’s. It was just a little older, a little harder, and his eyes were brown where Caasi’s had been grey. But they were just as passionate.

  “I know I am not my brother,” Harutek said. “I know it is hard for you to believe that I will do right. But I will do what is best for our people—now, and when I take the throne. You have to trust me.”

  She didn’t answer that. He brushed past her and descended the steps into the caverns of the Darkworld. She watched him go, lingering still on the steps, and quietly prayed the ancient blessing over the royal family.

  “May they stand faithful in thy stead, care for thy people as fathers, guard them as warriors.” Tears pricked at her eyes, and she began to repeat it, just for good measure. “May they stand faithful…”

  “Rehtse!”

  She turned her head toward the throne room. The Majesty’s tone was belligerent, and she sighed inwardly before lifting her chin and answering the summons. The throne room was a work of art, its limestone walls and ceiling carved with stylized symbols of the past—suns, moons, stars, and a seven-starred crown. Animals featured there too, winged birds and running deer, curved fish and clawed bears. After council, the room was eerily empty and quiet.

  In the center, the Majesty sat on a carved white throne. Flames flicke
red from lantern poles and candlesticks on the dais, casting light over his snowy white lock of hair, his wrinkled face, and his sharp eyes. The dais around the throne was empty of its usual company of priests.

  Rehtse crossed the smooth floor to a small table beside the dais, where she poured warm water from a stone pitcher into a basin. A flame beneath the pitcher kept the water warm. She draped a cloth over her arm and carried the basin to the Majesty.

  Without a word, she knelt before him with the bowl raised, allowing him to reach in and wash his hands. The ritual was old—a cleansing from all that had been said, from all argument, from all animosity council might incur. Rehtse hoped that the Majesty was engaging in the tradition with his heart as well as his hands.

  But she knew better.

  When he had finished, she set the basin down and handed the Majesty the cloth to dry his hands. He did it wordlessly, then gave the cloth back to her. Ignoring the uncomfortable stone beneath her knees, she set to washing his feet.

  “What did you say to Harutek?” he asked. His voice startled her, but she kept her hands steady.

  Pouring water from her palm over his feet, she said, “I told him that he should not have brought those men here.”

  “As if your opinions matter,” the Majesty said. He was silent a moment longer. “I heard him out there, cursing me.”

  “Not… cursing, your highness. He differs with you on what is best for the Darkworld.”

  “Everyone differs with me,” the Majesty said. “My son does, Divad does, even you do.” He nodded in mock approval. “Yes, it’s good that you keep your tongue and avoid my eyes. I know what you think. You show it every time you go above, fraternizing with the wreckers of our world.”

  Rehtse swallowed her reply. Instead, she said, “Harutek is wrong to seek allegiance with the Empire.”

  “You would rather he do what Caasi did,” the Majesty said. “Go off and fight the Empire and die. You’re a cold-hearted wench. You should weep for Caasi and hate the cause that killed him, not idolize it. You should weep for yourself.”

  I have, Rehtse thought. Caasi had been her playmate, then her best friend, then the one to embrace the old ways with her—the one to believe in the King with all his heart. Given a few more months, he would have been the one to marry her, and together they would have helped renew the Darkworld’s faith in the King.

  Yes, she had wept when he did not come back from Athrom.

  “Fight them or embrace them, it does not matter,” the Majesty said. “When I die, this world goes with me. That is the curse of a man whose sons care nothing for him or the world he has preserved.”

  Rehtse dried the Majesty’s feet and stood, grateful for the opportunity to turn away. She could feel the Majesty’s eyes scrutinizing her, and she winced. Rehtse’s soul bore twin wounds, and the Majesty was deliberately picking at both. The loss of Caasi, whom she had loved, and the royal family’s slow apostasy from all that she believed so ardently.

  So she fought back. The washing of the Majesty’s feet was always followed by a blessing. It was tradition. It was expected of her. She replaced the basin on its stand, climbed the dais again slowly, and with her head bowed and her palms turned to the Majesty, she recited a blessing she did not think he would want to hear.

  “May you be blessed in your reign,” she said. “May the King keep you as his emissary and regent until he returns, and may he in whose grace the Darkworld hopes and has being find you faithful to the end.”

  She smiled serenely. He glared up at her.

  “Get out,” he said.

  She obeyed.

  * * *

  Libuse stood in the midst of upturned ground at the end of the second day since the strangers had come, heaps of cobblestones forming mounds all around her. An evening breeze blew back her hair. Ahead of her, the Ploughman was picking his way carefully through the newly ploughed ruts. He wore a dark cloak and a sword. Rain spattered his hair and shoulders.

  He looked back at her, his face torn.

  She said nothing. She felt what he did. They had both struggled with a decision they felt was inevitable. For hours, over the ruts in the ground, under the spitting clouds, they had argued alternatives, possibilities, ways to keep existing, feed their people, and defend themselves against the Empire without alliance. They had debated ways to take Virginia’s advice without destroying themselves. But they had arrived at no new answers.

  They had wanted more than anything to form a new world on their own. But it was not going to work.

  “My lord, my lady.” The voice belonged to Rivan, one of the Ploughman’s farmer-guards. They turned to face him, and the Ploughman strode forward so they could talk without raising their voices.

  “What of the strangers?” the Ploughman asked.

  “They disappeared for a few hours last night,” Rivan said, holding his hand up to stall the Ploughman’s reaction. “But we found them. They were below, meeting with Harutek and the Majesty.”

  The Ploughman frowned. “What?”

  “My lord, whether or not you accept Cratus’s invitation, it seems Harutek has already done so,” Rivan said.

  The light spring rain was dissipating, yet Libuse drew her cloak closer around her as though it was picking up. She said nothing. Nothing needed to be said. Their relationship with the Darkworld was already a sensitive one. The priesthood had embraced them. The Majesty hated them. Harutek, who was perhaps more truly influential than the Majesty, viewed them as a means to some end they had not entirely identified yet. But they did not rule out the possibility of his becoming an enemy.

  If the Darkworld and the Empire joined hands, Pravik would have no choice.

  “Thank you, Rivan,” the Ploughman said. “Tell no one yet—I don’t want rumours spreading.”

  Rivan bowed and left them. The rain continued to spatter.

  “We have one more day to give Cratus our decision,” the Ploughman said.

  “We do not need it,” Libuse asked. “Harutek has made our decision for us.”

  The Ploughman’s hand had been clenched in a fist. Now he released his fingers, and clumped soil fell out onto the ground. The street smelled of wet stone and earth. A few labourers were still digging up the ground, hoods pulled over their heads against the damp and the cold mountain air.

  “What if Huss is right and the King does come back?” the Ploughman asked.

  “He will have to understand,” Libuse said. “There is no other decision to be made.” Tears pricked at her eyes. “I do not want you to go. You were to be my husband in a fortnight.”

  “I will be yet,” the Ploughman said. He took her hand and laid it over his heart. “Athrom is five days’ hard riding. We can go and meet with him and be back here in time.”

  Libuse blinked away tears. “Then do not make Cratus wait any longer,” she said. She touched his face. “Go, and hurry back to me.”

  “And Virginia’s vision?” the Ploughman asked.

  “Use it,” Libuse said. “Use it to keep you on your guard, and turn the emperor’s plans against him where you can. You are wise, my warrior. Take good counselors. You can do this.”

  He smiled. “I will do as you say,” he said. “And I will hurry back, to the city where my heart lies and to the woman who keeps it for me.”

  She smiled in return, despite the tears. Libuse was a daughter of kings, and her line had been displaced by the Empire for centuries.

  She knew how to wait.

  * * *

  Hours passed as Virginia sat alone, back on the high rope bridge, feeling the day pass from morning into afternoon, feeling the passage of shadows. No more visions came.

  The bridge creaked beneath her as someone else stepped onto it. She did not turn her head, but waited for him to reach her.

  “This is not an easy climb for an old man,” Jarin Huss panted.

  Virginia smiled. “I am sorry.”

  “How does a blind woman climb it?” he asked.

  “I know the way,�
� she said.

  “You saw something last night,” he said.

  “The Ploughman told you?” she said.

  “Yes. When he told me that he will be leaving for Athrom tomorrow. He feels it is useless to wait any longer.”

  Virginia kept staring out into the darkness. “He wants me to go with him.”

  “You must not,” Huss said.

  She turned her head in surprise. “You would have me abandon him now? It is a foolish decision he makes—I fear it will destroy us. But what else can he do? He is right—the people will starve.”

  Huss grunted. “You see the problem. It’s unthinkable that we should join hands with our enemies. But there is no other choice. So they say.”

  “There is a choice,” Virginia said.

  She heard the gentle smile in Huss’s voice, and the weariness in it also. “You see that too. We cannot exist in this world of great powers without a greater power to uphold us, not even with the Ploughman’s Golden Warriors at our call. For all we know the Empire has far greater forces at its behest, and we have succeeded in the past only because of luck. We need the King, Virginia.”

  She nodded, swallowing back the longing that rose in her at the mention of the King’s name. “But the Ploughman is not willing to wait for him. He has never believed fully, not as we do.”

  The old man was silent for a moment. “You have seen the King, Virginia,” he said. “Maggie has touched something of his nature, I think; she continues to touch it in song. But Libuse and the Ploughman—they cannot act on what you have seen and what Maggie has touched.”

  “But the Ploughman is also Gifted,” Virginia said. “And his Gift comes from the King. It is the King’s power that works in him.”

  “That is true for all the Gifted,” Huss said, “but that does not necessarily mean all the Gifted recognize it. Your Gift feels a part of you, does it not?”

  She nodded.

  “You and the Ploughman both gained your Gifts at a young age. So he struggles to believe that it comes from outside him. Don’t be too hard on him, Virginia. It is difficult to wait for something you believe in. It is much harder to wait for something you only hope is true. And even I do not know when the King will return, only that it must be soon—the time of the Veil is over. Morning Star will be upon us.”