Remember the Dawn

by A M Macdonald

  Ahryn leaned forward and focused on the impending political discussion, shrugging off the sleepy comfort of the warm hall and delicious food.

  “House Lokka is pushing out from Celaena and farther into the islands, spreading their lies about our family. More and more starless and brought into their orbit, declaring their lands and tokens for the shield-bearers. Our treaties do not carry the same weight, and some are worth less than the paper on which they’re drawn. Our resources are dwindling. The Lokka cannot outshine us, but they can starve us. Worst of all, blame for the great defeat is moving ever so slightly away from the Rayn, and I don't need to tell you where it trickles. History is slowly being rewritten.”

  She may not have understood politics, but she recognized the fear in her father's eyes.

  “Can it be contained?” Her question sounded foolish in her own ears.

  “Sadly, that is not for us to decide. House Ferai is vigilant, and we do whatever we must to preserve the balance between the Houses. In this we share a struggle with the Arbiters—though they are appreciative, make no mistake. We still enjoy a fragile alliance with the Lion, but I fear for the Order. There are shadows moving that Uriyeh does not see.”

  “We can fight them! We don’t need the Order or any Arbiter—our star is brighter!”

  “Perhaps, but your mother and I are bound by our faith. We cannot intervene.”

  “Pacifism and solemnity won't save us, Father! Leave such ideals where they belong: with the starless. We are Astral, not meant to sit back and blow where the wind takes us. Let me help. My command of starlight is growing by the day—I've almost mastered the channel. You and Mother won't have to do anything.”

  “I will not listen to this in my home, Ahryn.”

  She sat back, rejected, and the shimmering blue light withdrew. She found her father's position naive. Studies at the seminary opened her eyes and allowed her a new perspective, one among the stars, as if looking down on the Dominion. While she appreciated House Ferai's nobility and adherence to principles of natural justice, she did not place the same emphasis on hope.

  Let the Arbiters be objective.

  “I see, Father.” She raised her glass. “Here is to uninteresting times.”

  Brother Ezai sat at a table, hunched forward, elbows planted. Candlelight revealed cracks in the stone which were centuries old, perhaps older. He spread a bit of parchment between his thumbs, black-inked letters revealing themselves. Squinting, he read slowly, lingering over every word, taking care to commit his instructions to memory. Details were important, a tenet instilled by the Order of the Orange Dawn—by his father—and Ezai had long lived by their code

  Once finished, he held the scroll over a candle and watched the flames lick their way up the parchment until they reached his fingers. Heat permeated his gauntlet, but he did not immediately shake away the burning scroll; he was too mesmerized by the melting red wax seal, a sequence of stars formed in the constellation of House Rayn: three points of a crown.

  He sniffed, stifling a deriding laugh at the thought of anyone from House Rayn lording over anything.

  Stars know they'd tried.

  House Lokka’s constellation suited the Rayn better: seven stars in an outer ring, and an inner ring of three more. A shield, though it looked more like a tokenpurse.

  Ezai commanded the negativity to flow from him, unwelcome in the stream of his calm. Despite his personal feelings for House Rayn, they were as entitled to justice as anyone else in Celaena. He focused on his summons: ‘My children are dead, murdered in our own city-home. I hereby invoke a bond of justice, and I choose you, Ezai.’

  A herald, unannounced and unexpected, had delivered a message bearing those words directly to Ezai earlier in the morning. He’d been taking a ritual stroll side by side with Uriyeh—the Lion—through the Hall of Invocation. The herald had approached as he was dragging plated fingertips through the shallow river flowing through the Keep’s inner walls, watching little folded paper boats floating on the current and waiting to be plucked. Rays from the rising sun had filtered through slits in the stone, tinting the trickling water orange.

  At first, Ezai had objected to receiving a direct summons, which ran afoul of the principles of objectivity. Justice could not be blind if victims could choose their Arbiter. But when he had presented the missive to Uriyeh and discussed the gravity of the crime, the Lion had given his approval.

  Why me?

  Ezai had never before been enlisted by an Astral family, who preferred a different vintage of Arbiter: one not so tethered to tradition and the old ways. Those like him, rigid and pure, fell below their standards. Instead, the Astral coveted Dawnmen who traded in favor and tokens, who reveled in the machinations of politics and tyrants. It made him sick to see the Order’s perversion, such Arbiters walking freely about the sacred Keep. Yet it happened, even under the watchful gaze of the Lion.

  Given the significance of the summons, a call to duty by an Astral House for an unfathomable crime, he became ever more confused, and even more irritated. Why would an Astral family entrust such an obligation to an Arbiter unwilling to bend?

  “Pulled another boat so soon, Ezai? Don't you even get tired of the scraps?”

  The voice came from the doorway behind him, and Ezai looked over his broad shoulders, his contemplation broken. Brother Veydun stood leaning against the high archway, arms crossed, stringy red hair dangling down his skinny face, a smirk upon his lips. He wore the gray tunic of the Orange Dawn, an emblem of a rising sun sewn into the left breast. A rapier was tucked in his belt. The dainty sword’s blade was long and thin, and the hilt was encased by a golden cage encrusted with cloudy crystals.

  Distaste crawled into Ezai's mouth. “Are you still carrying that thing around, Brother? What justice can you hope to bring for those in need when you only threaten the prick from a fancy needle?”

  The ginger-haired Arbiter laughed, a disturbing, high-pitched cackle.

  No man should ever be that happy, and if he was, it shouldn't sound like that.

  “Better the prick of a needle than to be bored to death with verse, or have you finally parted with your silly adherence to the tenets? I don't think the Order ever intended to be taken so literally; justice need not be delivered with dotted I's and crossed T's, Ezai. If only Yella could see you now.”

  The cackle came again, but Ezai didn't share in the laugh with Veydun, unwilling to break from principle. They were Arbiters, disciples of the Orange Dawn, and they’d kept the peace in Celaena for thousands of years by respecting the Order’s code. Breaking with tradition was not acceptable, despite claims of effectiveness from many of his wayward brothers.

  If it were up to him, none would have such discretion to flout the tenets, to mingle with the starlight families and pervert the balance. But it was not up to him, so he vowed to never stray. Let the others burn, for all he cared.

  How could the Lion let such things come to pass?

  “Literal interpretation is the only way.” Ezai stood from his table and pinched the wick of his candle, the room now alight from the open door where sunlight poured through. “You are so quick to forget the foundations on which you were raised, all in the name of what? A quicker resolution and cleaner cut? I don't think that is what the Order intended. The balance between Astral and starless is delicate, and it cannot survive unless we all stand together.”

  Veydun pushed off from the archway and allowed his arms to drop to his side, smile receding. While he appeared thin and gangly, Ezai knew taut muscles ripped beneath the man’s armor, a legacy from years spent keeping the peace.

  “You are not blind, Ezai, but you cannot see the world changing around you,” Veydun said with a sneer. “The Astral families are at war with each other now, instead of with us. But how long will that last? How long until they turn their attention back to this balance you hold so dear?”

  The red-haired Dawnman stepped closer. “And rebellion is alive in the commoners, who grow more resentful of the
Astral every day, and who grow poorer and poorer every day.” He began to gesture with his hands, pointed and almost accusatory. “We do not have the time, or the men, to bother with archaic beliefs, and we cannot suffer the handcuffs of ethics or the boundaries of institution. Tsac, Lokka, Rayn, Vo, Ferai—the five Astral families—that is where the real power lies, Brother, not in the fragile tension we maintain.”

  Veydun's steely eyes hardened and he lifted his chin. “The families are not patient. Soon enough their contempt for the starless will reach its crescendo, and then what do you think will happen? We may be defiant, but I am not foolish enough to believe we can resist all five Houses united.”

  “We did it before.”

  Veydun smiled. “Before, the Lion led righteous men bound by common purpose, and the Astral were disorganized and burned with untamed fervor. Before, the Eagle was alive.”

  Ezai bristled, but said nothing.

  “Find your calm, Son. Let it flow. Let it pass.”

  “Things will be different this time, Ezai. My suggestion? Take my lead and line your pockets while you can. There may come a day where your justice becomes vengeance, wielded by those less scrupulous, and you will need all the tokens you can get when fleeing to a dark corner in the Dominion.”

  Ezai gritted his teeth at his Brother's appeal. A zealot may have found it heretical, but he just found it in bad taste and worthy of his sword.

  A man like that should not wear the rising sun and purport to deliver righteousness to the people.

  Veydun’s words were part of the taint infecting the Order, running through the halls of the Keep as if a poison traversing its veins.

  Ezai postured the palm of one hand above the bastard sword hanging from his belt, blade reflecting the sunlight. “I wonder, have you already arrived at that day, Veydun? Your words are unwelcome, here of all places; perhaps you should speak them elsewhere. I hear the Tsac pay well for mercenaries who will do what Arbiters will not.”

  “Perhaps I shall.” Veydun turned to leave, black eyes wild and challenging. “You don't deserve that sword,” he spat. “The Orange Dawn is approaching its dusk, Brother. When the sun rises again, I'll be there. Will you?”

  At that, Veydun disappeared from the archway, and Ezai heard the scraping of a rapier against the ancient stone of the Keep. He was unconsciously clenching his fists and found one of them gripping the hilt of his sword, instinctively ready to draw. Of course, he never would, as there was no excuse for wanton aggression, let alone with another Arbiter in the midst of this sacred chamber.

  Ezai took several deep breaths, found his calm. Did Veydun have a point? The distracting thought troubled him deeply and rippled his stream. The boats he’d recently plucked in the Hall of Invocation had led to trifling disputes in Celaena's districts, mostly located among the poorest and lowest of the starless. From gambling debts and petty thefts to incestuous insults and drunken brawls, he spent more and more time far from the outer districts, higher strata, and the Astrals city-homes.

  There, issues had depth and meaning: tariffs on inter-quint trade, theoretical restrictions on expeditions into the Expanse or over the Unpassable Sea, questions of lineage and honor, and even philosophical disputes related to Astral study and the forgotten celestial faith.

  No, he must stop. To dwell on the who and where of justice ran contrary to neutrality and objectivity, the fulcrum of the Orange Dawn. Every boat, every call for justice, needed to be treated the same.

  He steadied himself, pulled tight the lapels of his gray tunic. All men and women deserved resolution, no matter their status or starlight, the simplest yet most fundamental of the Order's tenets. Abandoning his principles would be as fatal for Ezai as a spear to the gut, for he lived his life in pursuit of righteousness.

  So, that left one question: How would he deal with the missive from Sotma Rayn? The missive had been directed to him specifically, not just an anonymous call in the form of a little paper boat floated down a stream in the Hall of Invocation.

  Ezai decided to respond to the Rayn missive before end of day—not for the pedigree or prestige, and certainly not for the lining of his pockets, but because the instructions he'd received revealed the urgency of the matter, along with the grave consequences should it become public knowledge.

  The missive just burned had been penned by Sotma Rayn, the third son of Isiyes—one point of the ruling crown. Sotma wrote to him without the blessing of his two brothers, enough to disrupt the trio that ruled House Rayn. It was shocking by itself, but together with the missive's contents? Ezai found himself in earnest contemplation.

  My children are dead.

  Two Astrals murdered? Assassinated in their own city-home? Sotma's missive referred to a black arrow found amongst the bodies, giving Ezai pause. Not even the pious followers of the Orange Dawn believed in fairy tales, though ancient texts held within the Arcanum allegedly spoke of many unknown, unbelievable things.

  Why me?

  He strode though the archway where Veydun had stood not minutes before and began traversing the ringed hallways of the Keep, slowly making his way to the northern passage. The Keep stood on a plain-island just to the south of Celaena, shaped as a pentagon, with large, horizontal slits in the leystone wrapping the entire building. The first Arbiters had carved a symbol of vigilance, an eternal watch over each of the five Astral families. Each side of the pentagon rose high, a hundred feet at least, and within each was a doorway—high arches, simple and open. Another symbol, one of welcoming.

  Ezai exited the northern arch and began descending the stone stairway built into the hill, looking to the wide channels that bordered the Order's island, which were populated with dinghies and swiftclips filled with peasants and merchants who delivered wares and carried about the business of trade. Ezai approached the docks of the eastern channel, stepped into a boat, untied it, and pushed off, setting his sights for Celaena and the Rayn’s city-home.

  Chapter Three

  “One must not take sides. The balance is delicate, and the scales of peace cannot afford anything other than pure impartiality.”

  - Interpretations by Nesher

  “You really don't need to come with me, Father.” Ahryn and the Patron had trekked down the Falls earlier that morning, then readied a boat stationed in the plunge basin. From there, a channel snaked east from the mountain range, past rolling foothills, and into open waters before meeting with the western boundaries of Celaena.

  “Nonsense. I'd like to spend some time with you before you're off again to the seminary. Who knows how much more you'll grow up?” He smiled, the sight of it warming her to her core. She may have been a young lady set out to make her own mark on the world, but she still enjoyed the warmth of home, where she found comfort with her loving family and the kindness of the Patron.

  Father and daughter stepped into their boat. Unlike the dinghies used by starless to traverse the channels throughout Celaena, theirs was large and sturdy, made of the finest teywood and carved to resemble a comet. The bow was rounded, spherical, while the stern was elongated and narrow. They took their seats in the hollowed sphere while Nuna guided the vessel from the basin, pointed toward the city-island of Celaena, the ancient celestial home of the faith, dating deep into recorded history. Ahryn saw monolithic structures on the horizon as her family’s watercraft floated downstream toward the foothills, glistening towers circled by rings upon rings of homes and shops. She pictured intersections of flowing channels dotted with tattered dinghies, and countless starless in their districts crafting finery and performing other labors.

  She brought her attention back to the boat and the fluttering teyflowers on the riverbanks, the gentle rush of the river interrupted only by the subtle creaking of the rudder Nuna manipulated.

  “So tell me, where are you in your training?”

  “You mean my studies?” She spat her response a little too harshly, but her father only raised an eyebrow. “Sorry. It's just that Hecta won't let us get our noses out of
the Doctrine. It's all academic, Father. I've only actually tried starsinging a few times.”

  The Patron laughed. “It seems Hecta is the same as I remember him to be. Such a curious old man, yet brilliant. You should pay attention to him, Ahryn. You'll learn much.”

  “Learn, learn, learn. Yes, there is so much learning.”

  “Come now, you can't expect to master your starlight overnight. It takes time to set the proper foundation. Lacking control can be dangerous.”

  “I'm aware.” She recalled her first day at the seminary, and the hours of boring lecture about safety and control, and the perils of a wild star.

  “Just be patient, Ahryn. You are startouched—the light will be yours.”

  “One day I will see?”

  “Hah! Yes, one day you will see.”

  She smirked, then turned her sights back to the scenery ahead. Nuna led their boat into the foothills, where shrubbery and high grass, yellow and dry, replaced pine trees. They passed by several villages, each involved in one trade or another, and watch tides of commoners with satchels at their backs walk east. They were headed to the docks, ready to sail to Celaena, the beacon of light in a tired world. No matter how much faster their boat traveled than the walkers, they never seemed to overtake the crowd.

  So many starless.

  They vastly outnumbered the Astral. So many, yet so vulnerable, helpless before the command of starlight, but kept safe by the Orange Dawn. She understood her father's alliance with the Lion, and why Ferai hadn’t joined the war a decade ago, but still she struggled with the dissonance. Weren't startouched like her meant for grander things? What was the rightful place of the Astral in this world?

  She and her father continued to make conversation as they broke from the channel into open water, discussing everything from her studies at the seminary to the politics of the day to the history of her family and of the Astral. They repeated themselves and retold old stories, but she enjoyed spending time with her father before returning to the island.