by Devin Madson
“There is no reason to be afraid,” he crooned, stepping forward. “What the One True God wants to see in your thoughts he will, whether you let me in or not. Once you muse on that truth you will realise how comforting it is, how content you can be when you let go, when you stop fighting and flow upon the tide of God’s purpose.”
His words crept under my skin like my mantras.
“And God has a purpose for you, Dishiva, as he has a purpose for all,” he went on, taking another step. “A purpose that will be remembered long after we are gone, the effects of our lives left to ripple on as Veld’s once did, building all that makes this world great and good.”
He picked up the sash and mask. I was trapped, but the warmth of his voice was comforting like a protective mother. “Here, let me do this for you,” he said, sash held out.
Deep down where my rage lived, I screamed and fought and would have bitten his hand rather than let him lower it over my head, but with my eyes caught to his and the sound of his voice filling my ears, I could not move. The sash settled over one shoulder, and like a hypnotised child I threaded one arm through so it could fall diagonally shoulder to hip.
“I’ll hold on to this until after,” he said, lifting the white mask. “Come with me.”
And I did. Moving through a dream, I let him set my hand upon his arm and lead me out past the guards, though the touch of his hand and his proximity made bile rise in my throat.
Outside, murmurs filled the yard. A raised stage stood shoulder high, surrounded by a sea of Levanti and Kisians, soldiers and refugees, looking up to the commanding figure of Gideon in his layers of imperial crimson silk. His gaze pinned me as we stepped out into the light, and every voice faded into silence.
What are you doing? I demanded of myself. Run!
But the deep fear and anger was nothing to the peace. It hung about me like a drug, infusing every thought with its insidious belief this was meant to be.
Heads turned, and though I ought to fight, to kick and bite and scream, I walked on at Leo’s side bathing in the disgust of every Levanti sneer. I caught sight of Lashak, her stare a horrified thing mingled with confusion, and I wished she could feel the peace and be comforted by it as I was.
A low hum rose from the whispers, becoming something like a wordless chant as the crowd parted. It seemed to come from all around us, but as we drew closer to the stage, a group of pilgrims appeared, along with Lord Nishi and his ever-growing number of servants, joining their voices to the song.
Don’t do it! Don’t go! This is madness! I shouted, but I might as well have been two separate people for all the heed I paid. We had reached the stage, leaving all chance of escape dwindling to nothing.
The stairs creaked beneath the guards’ heavy treads as they mounted the platform. There was nothing permanent about the construction, the stairs shaking beneath my feet even as my legs trembled to hold my weight. Leo tightened his grip on my arm.
“My people!” Gideon called, stepping to the edge of the stage, his outstretched arms spreading cloth like webbing—a crimson bat ready to take flight. “These are difficult times, beset by evils. As a prisoner I fought to save you from Chiltaen tyranny, and now as your emperor I can do no less than fight on for peace and tolerance.”
Having reached the top of the stairs, I gazed out over the sea of watchers, and a sea it was, for there were more people at Kogahaera now than ever before, more Kisians displaced from their homes and more Chiltaens come to join Leo’s faith. When Gideon spoke again in their language instead of ours, a murmur of amazement spread.
“The Kisia I dream of is one where we can all—Kisian, Chiltaen, and Levanti alike—live side by side not regardless of our differences, but celebrating and accepting our differences,” he went on, none of it sounding like the beginning of an execution.
“Smile, Dishiva,” Leo whispered as Gideon repeated his words in Kisian, gesturing to the silent figure of his empress standing behind him in equally glorious regalia. “You are about to be very famous indeed. Whatever history may forget about these events it will not be me and it will not be you.”
“We are new to these shores,” Gideon went on in Levanti. “And we can only truly make a home here if we accept some of your ways as our own. I took on the title of emperor. I took a Kisian wife. And now we must give something back.”
With my hand caught to Leo’s like it had been buckled, I searched the crowd for faces I knew and begged silently for help with all I had. But there was no help.
“Step forward, Dishiva e’Jaroven,” Gideon said. “Captain of the Third Swords of Jaroven and of my Imperial Guard, defender of all I have built.”
The peace on which I had floated dropped away and I stood naked of all assurance, staring out at the crowd but not really seeing them. Whatever Leo had done, however he had clouded my mind, he had cruelly stripped away. Now, seconds from an unknown fate, I had the barest moment in which to make a choice. Fight, risking death and exile and harm to Gideon, or let myself become something unthinkable in the hope of lessening the damage.
It was both the hardest choice and no real choice at all.
I stepped forward.
“To forge stronger ties between our people, we are here to celebrate Captain Dishiva e’Jaroven’s decision to take oath as Defender of the One True God, to become a bridge between Levanti and those of the faith.”
Gideon repeated the words in his second language, but even as the strange sounds washed over me, all I could hear was their echo in my head. A defender of the One True God. The One True God.
He turned his gaze upon me. No smile, no cruel sneer, nothing but hard, implacable determination to succeed, and I could not even hate him for it. He had come too far, risked too much, dreamed too high.
Beside me Leo said, “Kneel, Dishiva.”
Fight or submit. The choice had already been made and I knelt, as much a martyr as if it had been my execution.
“I call upon the blessings of the One True God,” Leo said, and though he must have shifted into Chiltaen at some point to hold the crowd, time seemed to have lost all meaning. There was just me and him and the hard wood beneath my knees. “That he may protect this warrior who gives herself body and soul into his service, as she fights to protect him and his humble servants upon this mortal plane.”
The silence of so many held breaths sucked at my attention, but I kept my eyes upon Leo’s feet and dared not move.
“Do you, Dishiva e’Jaroven, swear upon life and honour to uphold and defend the faith of the One True God?”
The words stuck in my throat with a disgust I could not swallow, a disgust that had nothing to do with the gentle people whose faith I was taking on and everything to do with the man standing over me.
Let him think he has broken me. Let him think he has won.
“I swear upon my life and honour to uphold and defend the faith of the One True God,” I said, my dishonour ringing through the yard to be chased upon a tide of Levanti murmuring.
Nearby, Oshar translated, calling in Kisian to the watching people.
“Do you, Dishiva e’Jaroven, forsake your position as commander of the Imperial Guard and captain of the Third Swords to give your honour to the protection of God?”
I swallowed a mouthful of self-pity with my bile. “I do.”
The translation rattled on, the only sound to break the silence in the yard.
“As the highest-ranking priest present, it is my great honour to accept your pledge on behalf of my absent father, the hieromonk of Chiltae, and on behalf of the One True God himself, in whose service I am sure you will make all Levanti proud.”
The collective hum rose again, Oshar translating over the top. Within the hum a single voice chanted, its meaning shearing through my skin and into my heart. Levanti had such chants for summoning the attention of the gods, and though this one soon rose into a song it was no less beautiful than our own for being different.
I flinched at the touch of fabric against my fa
ce. Pale, soft fabric, suffocating like a cloud.
The mask.
I clamped my lips as Leo wrapped its ties around my shaved head. Light bit through the narrow eye sockets that thinned the world to a narrow band, and there was no way to breathe but through the weave. No way to be seen as anything but a faceless servant of the One True God.
I was Levanti no more.
“Rise, Dishiva, Defender of the Faith,” Leo said as the song faded away. “And take your honoured place.”
I stood, faceless before the masses.
Applause rose from the crowd and Leo leant close. “Now in God’s name you can bless the Swords marching south to root out those deserters and their beloved whisperer.”
I turned, shock pounding through my veins.
“You are not good at lying,” he said. “And before you ask how I intend to force your hand, remember what levers I have at my disposal. If you refuse to comply with my plans, I will kill every one of your Swords and their horses. I will butcher even your dear Itaghai, and I will make you eat him. Don’t think I can’t.”
I thought of the dreadful peace under the effect of which I might have done anything.
He straightened, adding his own applause to the tumult in a rhythm that seemed to mirror the panicked racing of my heart. “All praise Dishiva, Defender of the One True God!”
3. CASSANDRA
The cart jolted to a halt, and while Captain Aeneas leapt onto the road, I stabbed the driver through his ribs.
Was that really necessary? Empress Hana asked, though it was less a question than a need, for her own conscience, to register displeasure.
“Would you rather he blabbed everywhere about the two Chiltaens and their heavy box? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not be found by—”
You seem to be forgetting you’re no longer in your body, Miss Marius. I am not Chiltaen.
I gave the empty road the look I would have given her. “I had not forgotten,” I said, patting her blonde curls with my bloodstained hand. “I look more Chiltaen in your skin than I ever did in mine.”
Her knees clicked as I forced us to rise, and setting a boot to the carter’s back, I kicked him off the box. The body landed on the road with a fleshy thud. Captain Aeneas had walked a few paces away and knelt on the damp grass to murmur his evening prayers. I rolled my eyes. Evening gloom was setting in and the air smelled like rain, but at least the horizon was empty of pursuit. Wherever Leo was, it was not here.
Yet.
While Captain Aeneas prayed to the dying sun, my gaze slid to the long, coffin-like box in the back of the cart. It hadn’t moved since the carter had helped the captain lift it in this morning, and yet… Even looking at it made the hairs on my arms stand on end. It was just a box, but the thing inside was alive and listening and, worst of all, seemed to be waking up.
I climbed down, wincing and hissing at the pains in every joint. I wanted to sleep, but there wasn’t even the semblance of a shelter, and the box needed to be moved, a fire built, and the ox and cart tended.
He can do it.
“Not without help.”
He’ll have help. Put me in the carter.
I stared at the carter’s body, and to hide my annoyance that the idea had not occurred to me, said, “An empress doing manual labour?”
In the silence, a chill wind rushed past my ears.
I was not born an empress and I will not die one. Just put me in the corpse.
It was only a few steps to the body I’d kicked onto the road, but it was more steps than the empress’s aching body wanted to take. I envied the freedom she was about to have as I bent to touch the man’s lifeless cheek. The loss of her loosened the tension across my shoulders, but did nothing to lessen the fatigue hanging about my neck.
Like a waking cat, Empress Hana stretched the body’s limbs in the last of the light. Her first attempt at speech came out as a gurgle, but she coughed as she hunched off toward the trees and soon had it working. By the time Captain Aeneas rose from his prayers, she had returned with an armload of wood scavenged from the damp forest floor. Before I could point out how useless damp wood would be, he was already shaking his head.
“We don’t need a fire,” he said, the gathering shadows making art of his scarred features. “We stop only long enough to rest the ox.” He glanced toward the box as he spoke, its stillness eerie. The sharp wind tore at my skin with its icy hands. “And to feed him.”
Hana dropped the wood. It landed on the dead man’s feet, but she seemed not to notice. “I want an answer first. You think we can use him to stop Leo Villius, yet you’re a believer in the faith. Why do you want him stopped?”
The captain did not meet her gaze. She pinned him with the unnerving stare of a dead man and waited.
“His father is dead,” I said. “So surely he will be the next hieromonk of Chiltae.”
His scowl deepened. “Even were that true, the hieromonk of the One True God ought to work only for his faith and his people, not for… power and glory,” the captain said. “The holy empire is a thing of the past from which we ought to learn, not something to emulate whatever the… connections and… similarities.” He trailed off. “I am not good at expressing myself about such things.”
He went to tend the ox, and I suppressed the urge to follow. “At least I think we can trust him,” Hana said in the carter’s croak.
“We? After all that shit back in Koi, I’m not even sure I can trust you.”
Leaving her to glare after me, I walked her aching limbs toward the closest tree and sat. The ground was cold and wet, but I could not find the energy to care and leaned back, watching the stiff-limbed corpse help Captain Aeneas free the ox from the shafts and lead it to water.
I closed drooping eyes, only to see a city street bustling with people—Chiltaen people in Chiltaen clothes, walking a Chiltaen street beneath a Chiltaen sky. Quick breaths came and went from my lungs, tasting of thirst and stale bread. Across the road a tall building rose from a nest of bare trees, its single spire reaching higher into the sky than any building in Genava.
I muttered a prayer and it was my voice that emerged as unsteady steps took me out into the crowded square. A shoulder shunted me sideways, sending pain through my injured leg, but Kaysa kept balance and walked on toward the church doors.
With a shout I awoke, jolted back to where Captain Aeneas and the dead carter were lifting Septum’s box from the cart. I hauled myself up and only remembered my body’s aches when pains pierced my knees and ankles. Hissing swear words, I hobbled across the muddy field as fast as I could, which was not at all fast once the first rush of panic wore off.
They had set the box down by the time I arrived, out of breath and sweating despite the cool night air. “Kaysa is in Eravum. At the church. If we hurry we could get there before she moves on.”
The captain and the empress shared a look. “I thought you might ask to go after her again,” the empress said. “But it’s too dangerous. Leo Villius is looking for us, and he and everyone else knows what I look like. This”—she pointed at the box—“might be the only way we can nullify him.”
“Why do you care? You were ready to die not so long ago.”
Empress Hana narrowed her eyes. “And you wouldn’t let me go. You told me I had a duty to my empire. To my daughter. And you were right.”
“You do. I don’t. It’s not my empire and she is not my daughter.”
“No, but that’s my body you’re walking around in, Miss Marius.”
The silence could not have been deeper had the wind itself held its breath. I glared at the empress, but every argument sounded petulant, and beneath Captain Aeneas’s gaze I could say none of them.
“I don’t want to be stuck with you any more than you want to be stuck with me, Miss Marius, but there are more important things than either of us. And getting this… man back to Torvash is one of them.”
I wanted to say Captain Aeneas could do it on his own. I wanted to say there was no ev
idence the seventh Leo would be of any use and the hieromonk had been no paragon, yet all those words went as unspoken as the rest.
It was the captain who broke the silence. “We cannot stay much longer,” he said, having taken to the we much more confidently than I had. “We must feed him and restock and get back on the road. I’ll fetch the running lantern.” He walked away toward the front of the cart, leaving the empress and me standing awkwardly together.
“I’m sorry we can’t go after her yet, Cassandra, I know—”
“I don’t need your pity.”
She scowled. “Solidarity is not the same as pity.”
“It is when it’s empty words.”
“Empty words? When I have given you more autonomy over my body than—” She snapped the dead man’s jaw shut. “If you try to run, I’ll shove you so deep into my mind you won’t even remember who you are.”
She ended on a hiss as the captain returned, a lantern swinging in his hand. Its light glared into my eyes as he set it atop Septum’s box. “I have some bread and meat left in my pack.” He paused. The light was too bright to see his expression. “Normally I wouldn’t be worried, but given what happened back in the hut…” He trailed off, but even without his words I relived the moment when the unmoving body had turned its head, had looked at us, really looked at us.
“I think between the two of us, Cassandra and I can keep an eye on him while you feed him,” the empress said. “Give Cassandra your dagger; she is by far more skilled than I.”
I hated her vote of confidence as much as I hated the look of shocked question the captain threw her way. “Are you sure? Is that—?”
“Yes, do it.”
And as though she in her stiffening skin of dead flesh was his empress rather than an enemy, Captain Aeneas took the dagger from his belt and held it out. Almost I did not take it, but though I glared at the empress, I closed my—her fingers around the hilt made warm against his body. “Try not to hurt him if you don’t have to, but…”
“If he’s trying to strangle you, stick him in the arm?”
A smile flickered. “Something like that.”
