Seymour stared at her with growing concern. Then he pointed at his own chest and mouthed, Me?
She nodded. “Did you hear me? I didn’t say anything. He read it himself. We came into the room together—”
“Fine. It’s just bad luck then, isn’t it?”
“Yes! Yes.”
“Well, let’s make sure you don’t have any more, shall we?”
“It won’t happen again. I promise.”
The voice seemed so close that it sounded as if the person were right next to her, but it didn’t emanate from any specific direction. No matter where she stood or which way she turned, the voice was there. Sephryn didn’t recognize it. The speaker certainly didn’t sound like Fryln Ronelle or Eril Orphe.
“What did you do with my son? How are you talking to me like this? Who are you?”
“You don’t get to ask questions—that’s rule one. I tell you what to do, and you obey. If you do, you’ll get your son back. Easy as strawberries, right?”
Sephryn had no idea what that last part was supposed to mean, or if it meant anything. Nothing was making sense. Someone had stolen her child, obliterated Mica, and now a disembodied voice was threatening to do the same to Seymour and making nonsensical comments about fruit.
“We’re going to make a trade, you and I. I’ll give you back sweet little Nurgya in return for the Horn of Gylindora.”
And the quagmire of insanity just kept getting deeper. The voice knew her son’s name, which was both terrifying and reassuring. That it knew anything about her while she knew nothing of it was paralyzing, but the promise of her son’s safe return provided the thinnest of threads to hold onto.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a musical instrument made from an animal’s horn, an ancient thing. Nyphron has it in a safe place in the palace, I suspect. Get it. Then I’ll exchange what you want for what I desire. Understand?”
“Not really, no,” she said. “How will I find it? What’s this all about? Did you kill Mica? Who are you? How are you talking to me?”
“Rule number one. Remember? Or was Mica not a sufficient demonstration? Do you need a reminder? I can still pop your friend. Care for me to paint more of your house in that lovely red color?”
“No!”
“Are you sure? If either of you speaks a word, all three of you die, starting with poor little Nurgya. Can you trust this fellow that much? If not, I can take care of him for you.”
Sephryn stared at the monk, who continued to sit on the bench at the window. He held his teacup so tight that his knuckles were turning white. He looked at her, frightened.
“He won’t say a word. He doesn’t even know anyone in these parts.”
“You’d better hope so for your child’s sake. Speaking of the kid, you should know I hate children, and I’m not the patient sort. I’ll give you some time, but don’t take too long.”
Sephryn waited, but nothing more was said.
The Imperial Palace stood on the high hill across from the Aguanon, the temple to the Fhrey god Ferrol. As one of the first buildings constructed in the imperial capital in the wake of the Great War, the squat, four-story edifice was more a fortress than a palatial home for the ruler of the world, even more so now after the wall had been added.
Percepliquis was a grand and beautiful city that had no need of fortifications because it had been built at the time of unification. But the palace was another matter. It alone had been successfully invaded.
It had happened about twenty years after Sephryn and her family left the capital and moved to Merredydd, but Nolyn and Bran had been there, and they told her what had happened. Bran had been teaching the art of reading and writing ever since the death of his parents. He used The Book of Brin as an educational tool and had students make copies. Then in the year Forty-Five, a dramatic historical play depicting the Battle of Grandford was featured in the city’s main amphitheater. Accompanied by flutes, lutes, a full chorus, and a troupe of dancers, the famous battle, known to be the turning point in the Great War, was reenacted.
“It was all wrong,” Bran had told her. “There was no mention of my parents; not a word about my father’s ride to Perdif, or Raithe’s sacrifice, or Suri’s creation of the gilarabrywn. And Persephone was reduced to the doting wife of Nyphron, the hero who forsook his own race to save mankind!”
In response, Bran sought to set the record straight. He went about the city, standing on boxes in the squares and reading from Brin’s original epic account of the Battle of Grandford. He was soon told to stop. The request came from the palace, which, it turned out, had funded and promoted the play. That only made Bran redouble his efforts, recruiting many of his students to go into various squares and make use of their reading skills. Then the emperor himself ordered Bran to stop. Again, Bran refused. He famously and publicly replied, “This is the exact reason Brin invented writing. She wrote her book to guard against powerful people changing stories of our past to suit their interests.”
The next day, Bran was arrested and locked in the palace.
There was talk of an execution for defying the emperor, but few believed that would happen because Bran was a popular figure. Plymerath, one of the legendary Instarya heroes of old, was said to have been among those who had spoken on Bran’s behalf. Although Bran wasn’t killed, neither was he freed, and he spent two months in prison. He might well have been in there the rest of his life if not for Nolyn.
The emperor’s son had returned from the Grenmorian War to find his childhood friend locked up by his father. Nolyn had tried to speak to Nyphron and was stunned when he was unable to get an audience. The First Minister had declared that Bran was stirring up trouble and would remain isolated until he accepted proper imperial history. Bran said he would die first. Fearing that was an actual possibility, Nolyn went to the one person he knew could help—the old mystic, Suri. She had been like an aunt to all of them and still lived in the forest of her birth. Ancient by human standards, she hadn’t left the Mystic Wood in decades, but for Bran, she made an exception.
As Nolyn explained it, the old woman—who wore a ruddy cape and leaned on an ancient staff—entered the palace without fanfare or resistance. She walked out with Bran, who laughed uncontrollably. Bran said it had been the expression on Nyphron’s face that had elicited his reaction. “The ruler of the world was as powerless as a child when facing a little old woman.”
The next day construction began on a wall that surrounded the palace. Nothing fancy. Only six feet in height, the wall didn’t appear worth the effort, but it did have one interesting feature: a continuous band of symbols that ringed the top. The symbols appeared to be merely decorative, and why the wall had been built at all remained a mystery to everyone. To Sephryn, the markings were vaguely familiar, but she didn’t know why.
In addition to the wall, the emperor instituted a new tradition of stationing a guard at the gate, presumably to stop feeble old women from walking in and freeing prisoners. Five men took turns at the post. That day, it was Andrule.
“Good morning, Andrule.” Sephryn waved as she approached, hoping he couldn’t see the terror behind her eyes.
What if he doesn’t let me in?
That was a ridiculous thought. The Imperial Council had its offices in the south wing of the palace. She passed through the same gate nearly every day and had done so since before Andrule was born. And yet . . . this was the first time she ever had to, the only time walking to work had felt criminal, and she was certain the guilt showed on her face.
“Morning, Sephryn.” He smiled at her. “Is there a meeting today?”
There wasn’t. Truth was, Sephryn had absolutely no reason to be there. Luckily that didn’t matter. Sephryn Myr Tekchin was a well-known workhorse. No one ever saw her dancing at a festival or drunk in a Mirtrelyn hall. She didn’t lounge in the bathhouses or take extended holidays to the remote corners of the empyre. In a little over eight hundred years, Sephryn—the daughter of two long-forgotte
n heroes—hadn’t been anywhere except Percepliquis, Merredydd, and the Mystic Wood. And she hadn’t been to Suri’s home since childhood. After having fought for so long to secure a right to the council chambers, she spent nearly all her time working in the eight offices and one meeting hall. That was partially because she felt an obligation to those who had helped make the advisory body a reality. But if she were honest, she was also proud of the Imperial Council, the greatest and most lasting achievement of her life. Wrapping herself in that accomplishment helped blunt the stings of not yet having managed to make the world a paradise for all. Change on that scale was a long journey made by small but determined steps.
Sephryn shook her head at the guard. “I left my scarf inside. At least I think I did. Can’t find it, so I hope it’s here.” That was a lie, and while not an unlawful thing, she saw it as her first criminal act on behalf of the Voice. She didn’t need an excuse to enter the palace, but Sephryn wasn’t planning on following her normal routine, and she wanted to get ahead of any questions. If someone found her wandering, she hoped to explain herself by stating she’d lost her scarf and was searching. Her ruse was far from an ironclad defense, but no one in the palace had any reason to doubt her, and she guessed even a flimsy excuse would be more than enough.
“Don’t want to do that,” Andrule said, and for an instant, she feared he knew—knew everything. As her heart began to thunder, he added, “Don’t want to be without a good scarf. Still cold. I swear this year’s Founder’s Day Festival will need to be held indoors.”
She nodded and smiled, more from relief than anything, not daring to say another word as Andrule waved her through.
The wall that Suri had been responsible for created an enclosed little courtyard, most of it paved with flat stones. There were purposeful gaps, decorative circles where trees grew. Sephryn remembered when they were saplings. Now budding with new leaves, the trees were mammoth, and their root systems upended the once carefully placed stones. Having no clue where to begin her search, she walked straight to the front door. She didn’t even know what she had come to steal. A musical instrument? That just sounded too bizarre. Her son had been taken and an old woman murdered for a horn? So much about the request was beyond comprehension. She was hearing voices in her head—not voices, she corrected, just the one. Does that make it better?
If she hadn’t seen her son’s nursery painted in Mica’s blood, and if Seymour hadn’t been there to witness the scene, Sephryn would have convinced herself she’d surpassed Arvis and won the award for Most Detached from Reality.
But we both saw the message. And while the monk hadn’t heard the Voice, that aspect didn’t seem so strange when compared to the whole. In many ways, the Voice had provided a degree of structure to the incomprehensible. She had no idea what was going on, who the Voice belonged to, or how she was hearing it. But the words, awful as they were, lit a path toward purpose and provided direction. Sephryn’s entire life had been dedicated to goals, not an unusual pursuit for a workhorse. She had a problem to solve, and as frightened as she felt, she would persevere.
The interior of the palace lacked the subtle beauty employed in later buildings. The entrance hall was four stories tall, with narrow windows lining a high gallery. Painted on the upper walls and parts of the ceiling were astounding scenes of battles from the Great War. Warriors rode on horseback with streamers flying from long poles, vast valleys were filled with thousands of soldiers, and fortress gates were defended by archers. In one scene, three figures stood on a hilltop. One fought against what looked to be a dragon.
The scene was famous. The three individuals were said to be Cenzlyor, Techylor, and Nyphron, and the painting depicted the moment when the emperor slew one of the conjured beasts in the last epic battle of the war. Little of what was depicted was accurate. Nyphron had actually fought and slain a great beast on a hill, but it wasn’t a dragon or even an enemy. The creature had been an ally. And Cenzlyor and Techylor were just artistic metaphors, not actual people. Cenzlyor, which meant swift of mind, was the symbolic stand-in for Arion and Suri, the women who had aided the cause with their magic. And the male figure known as Techylor represented the thousands of human warriors—those with swift hands—who had fought and died. That’s how Empress Persephone had explained the painting, although the words engraved in a band encircling the room could easily give the impression that Techylor and Cenzlyor were actual people. The empress had insisted on the engraved writing, even though she had never learned to read. She recognized its importance, and she would have been outraged that the emperor had outlawed the practice after the incident with Bran and Suri.
Off to the right was the North Wing, home to the imperial bureaucracy comprising the office of taxation and other domestic concerns, and also the headquarters for military matters. On the left lay the South Wing, which housed the servants’ quarters, kitchen, storage rooms, and the offices for the Imperial Council. Low ceilings held up by heavy stone pillars and a lack of windows made that wing feel like a tomb. Because this was where Sephryn had had her first encounter with death, that notion was amplified. She had been twelve when Empress Persephone—the woman she’d been named after—died. She’d passed away in the room directly above the chamber where the Imperial Council now held its meetings.
Sephryn quickly crossed the black-and-white checkered floor to the majestic stair that gave access to the gallery above. For the first time, she climbed. At the top was a series of doors, which made up the Imperial Residence, Nyphron’s private quarters. It, too, was divided left and right. The right was the emperor’s personal living space, while the left had been reserved for Empress Persephone. Sephryn had always thought it odd that the two rulers not only had individual bedrooms but entirely separate apartments.
“Nyphron has it in a safe place,” the Voice had said, “in the palace, I suspect.”
Sephryn assumed that anything the emperor considered valuable would be in his personal quarters. She also guessed her scarf excuse might not hold up if she were discovered in that part of the palace. Her plan—if push came to shove—was to claim that she believed a servant might have taken the scarf upstairs after thinking it was Nyphron’s. That was weak, and she doubted anyone would believe an item of hers could be mistaken for something owned by the emperor—but it had the benefit of being impossible to disprove. The excuse was also all she had. Why else would she be wandering the private residence? At least if she were caught, the most likely outcome would be a request for her to leave. Anyone else would—
That’s why the Voice chose me! The thought surfaced late, making her feel stupid. Relax. It’s difficult to think straight after all of this: Mica’s blood dripping off the walls, not knowing if Nurgya is alive or dead, being forced to commit a crime against the emperor. Oh, Mari, this isn’t going to end well.
Still, the puzzle piece fit, and that helped. The more things made sense, the better she felt. The biggest mystery was the source of the Voice. Sephryn didn’t have a clue on that score. If she ruled out the idea that she had lost her mind—which actually could be the most likely possibility—what was left?
Is it a god? Possibly. Who else has that kind of power? And if so, which one? It didn’t sound benevolent. Maybe it’s Ferrol. No, that doesn’t fit. The Voice was definitely male, and her mother and father had always insisted that Ferrol was a woman—and they ought to know since they claimed to have met her.
Sephryn came to the split and stopped. A door stood on either side of the hallway. She’d reached the point of decision.
I have to start looking somewhere—
Just then, the door on the right opened. Behind it, and looking squarely at her, was Illim.
Sephryn couldn’t speak. She just stood there and stared.
Illim was the Imperial Steward. Older than the emperor, he had held a similar position long ago when Alon Rhist had been the foremost stronghold on the imperial side of the Nidwalden River. Although thousands of years old, Illim didn’t appear a day o
ver forty-five. He was barefoot and wore a comfortable, loose-fitting tunic. His attire seemed strangely casual until she realized that, as the emperor’s personal aide, he likely lived there.
Illim began snapping his fingers over and over, an irritated expression pulling at his mouth. Then he stopped and pointed at her. “Sephryn, right?” He followed his conclusion with a grin of triumph.
She nodded.
“Knew it.” He continued to smile. “And your mother was . . . Moya.”
Again, she nodded.
“I liked her, but I suppose she’s dead now?”
“For eight hundred years, yes.”
“That long?” He shook his head sadly, then studied her carefully. “What about Tekchin? Is your father still alive?”
“Yes, he still lives in the same house in Merredydd.”
“I remember him well—wonderful days. Good old Tekchin. Is he with you?” Illim looked down the corridor.
“No, sir.”
Illim waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t call me sir. I’m just a glorified servant, always have been.”
“You’re a bit more than that.”
“Perhaps,” he said and sighed. “It’s a shame your father isn’t here. I’m sure the emperor would be delighted to see him. They are the only Galantians left, you know.” He scratched his head, and she noticed his blond hair was starting to turn white.
“My father—”
“Hold on.” He waved for her to follow. “No point standing in this drafty hallway. I was just checking to see if the linens had arrived. Let’s go to my chambers, but please ignore the mess.”
He led the way through a suite of rooms, moving quickly. She followed, feeling both fortunate at the invitation as well as concerned. Although he didn’t look like it at that moment, the Fhrey before her was likely the second most powerful being in the world. Imperial Steward was a simple title, but Illim was also the emperor’s best friend and confidant.
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