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You might be thinking that I had figured out all those details about my uncle by observing tiny things about his demeanor. His clothes. His hair. His face. You might be thinking that I had analyzed a thousand different ways of playing chutrang, and then found patterns in how Queen O’nell played to match her to the appropriate styles of attack and defense. You would be wrong. I did none of those things. Like any good con, I only showed you what you already wanted to see. You wanted to be fooled, just like everyone else.
For uncle’s bit, I had made mostly general observations that would have been true no matter what I said or who I said it to. I knew he had taken a long time to dress—and I was sure he never actually timed himself—so I threw out fifty-five minutes. Less obvious than forty-five minutes, or an hour. I said he had met courtiers from the old continent, but, well, everyone had met them today. I said he had soup for breakfast, which was what we served everyone in the morning. I told him he’d come back in a hurry, but there is no other way to ride a horse—he wouldn’t trot it about around the palace. I mentioned he was caught out in the rain. Uncle wouldn’t have stayed in unless it was a heavy rain, and a lord of Chaya would not seek shelter in some random tavern in town. He would have ridden all the way back here no matter what.
And finally, my favorite quip. I knew that my uncle would have had his sword cleaned today, before the meeting in the great hall. Whenever Father got his sword shined, he practiced with it for a while. I assumed Uncle would do the same. As for how I guessed that his mind wasn’t really there—everyone imagined themselves somewhere else when they swung their sword in practice. Although, it might’ve been somewhat of a more vivid thing for a man trained in theatre.
What I had told Queen O’nell was even bolder. There was no analysis, no in depth thinking, no critical reasoning, nothing. In fact, I had even told her in our conversation, just minutes before, exactly how I got my information. Taa had told me of their chutrang games and how the queen played. I was just repeating her words. But my uncle thought I was using some secret method of the way, and Queen O’nell saw what I did to Uncle with no use of alchemical advantages. They both had expectations. I only showed them what they wanted to see. The best illusions are not the ones that make you dizzy or awed or bemused. They are the ones that blend perfectly into the reality you expect to see.
This is not to say that I was not capable of making any number of observations about the manners and thoughts of Queen O’nell and Uncle Ojin. I was, but I wanted to show something very specific.
See, now, how subtle the way works? It cuts delicately. It works slow. It is invisible to the uninitiated.
CHAPTER 15
“I bring dark tidings from the oracles of the Rho tribe,” Taa said. She wore her black shawl tightly around her. Her face passed into shadow. She stood still as she spoke, slightly hunched over and leaning on her wooden staff. Taa had a tired kind of grace—the same worn and dignified poise etched into the statues and paintings in the room. She would be one of them one day. The first to join in three generations. Father might too, if this war with Narkissa went well. As for my sisters and I, it was every sibling for herself.
Silence for several seconds.
Father spoke. “Of course you bring dark tidings, Mother. If you ever brought good news to the Royal Court, we’d know something was really wrong.”
Several people laughed. Mother scowled. Queen O’nell visibly relaxed. She was always tense around Taa. Not anxious, but in need of her approval. I knew the feeling well.
Taa raised a hand. Silence again, but a few courtiers smiled and exchanged glances to keep each other at ease. Taa brought out as much skepticism from people as she did reverence. You could usually split any audience she spoke to into one of those two extremes. Everyone knew the stories about her, but not everyone believed them. Fewer and fewer every day. And even those who did would argue she had aged. The Tide Bringer was not the alchemist she was fifty, sixty years ago. She was approaching ninety. It was common to see elderly alchemists with withered bodies from years of side effects from practicing magic, but Taa was an extreme example. Someone like her, missing half the skin from their face, most of their body appearing like a skeleton with small chunks of glowing green flesh and blood—that was rare. You didn’t see people survive for that long when they dabbled with magic beyond what their bodies could handle. Some said Taa had daemon blood running through her veins. Others said she knew the way so well she had tricked death into thinking she was immortal. Foolish rumors, but they were fun. I was fairly certain that Taa was the one spreading them.
“Foreboding dreams, they’ve been having. The oracles.” Taa sniffed. A deep breath. Alchemical smoke steamed from her mouth like forest mist. Her shoulders expanded as she inhaled, widening so much they thinned her shawl and you could see the green of her lungs and heart glow with the air. The palace was Taa’s home, but she never looked like she belonged here. The scent of toasted bread and buttered fish, the smell of spices mixing with cider and coffee, it created an atmosphere too loud and too leisurely for her. Taa needed a cozy corner in a dark library filled with sweet tobacco smoke and the smell of old books. That was the perfume of her life.
Taa lifted a finger and drew a circle in the air. “They’ve seen colors that frighten them. Red seas that gives warning. Red rivers that flow down the wrong side of the earth.”
Taa always spoke like this in front of the Royal Court. Father meant his comment as a joke, but there was truth in it. Taa rarely appeared to discuss or debate a matter like other courtiers or nobles. Nor did she appear in many meetings. She was always travelling. Studying Narkissa’s movements in different places. Watching for the vampire queen’s actions. Mother said that no one in all of Mirradalia understood Narkissa better than Taa. Taa didn’t even share all that she knew. At least not easily. She approached studying Narkissa like a private, scholarly matter. She would come in front of the Royal Court once in a blue moon, share some kind of ominous warning, then be gone. Sometimes, she wouldn’t even wait for the court to ask her clarifying questions. You might argue this wasn’t the way, and for the most part, you would be right, but I don’t think that mattered to Taa. Like everyone else in the world, she was a creature of irony. She understood the importance of patience better than anyone, but she had none of it. She understood how the Royal Court worked better than anyone, but she resented it. She would have been one of the greatest queens in Chaya’s history, but she abdicated her throne. She didn’t want to rule. Her spirit was too wild for that; it needed the whole world to roam.
Father turned in his seat, eyes flitting over my mother for a moment. She was listening intently. The back of the great hall continued with their dinners, uninterrupted. The front was still eating, but slower, trying to make out Taa’s words when they could. They watched the courtiers of their respective kingdoms, looking to see what their reaction might be. Some looked doubtful. Some looked intrigued. Either way, Taa had chosen a good time to speak. When food and drink were around, everyone spoke more pleasantly. The knives had already come out.
“I imagine, you must have finally decided to declare war on the vampire kingdom?” Taa asked. Her voice was reflective. There was none of the nervousness you saw when people stood in front of the Royal Court of the five kingdoms to ask a question, make a request, or express an opinion. Her tone was flat, and she controlled it with the same fatigued discipline she often conversed in.
Father made a gruff sound. “They’re drawing up the proclamation tonight. We sign it tomorrow. In the coming months, we’ll join our forces. Decide on tactics.” He turned to some of the courtiers near him. They nodded in unison, some raising their glasses in a toast.
“You must delay,” Taa said. She waved a hand like the matter had already been settled. Faces turned to her with confused expressions. Others turned to Father, hiding irritated looks behind stately glares.
“You can’t be serious,” my uncle interjected, so quickly he must have been e
xpecting something like this. “Ono, I was already against this war. I said Chaya was better off sealing our borders against the Serpentine tribes. Yet we still proceeded, and now, after spending so much of our resources in preparation, the House of Anasahara changes their mind again and wants us to delay?” Ono was Old Emelim for mother-in-law. A mix of affection and respect. Uncle’s tone leaned toward respect. There was hardly any affection between the two of them, and even the respect was thinning nowadays. “And if I heard correctly, you want us to delay because of dreams had by Serpentine nomads in the old continent?” He snorted. “You can’t possibly believe we’d act on that logic.”
A few nods around the table, followed by speculative glances at Taa.
Uncle Speight didn’t speak like this to Taa often, but he took the opportunity to whenever he could. In normal circumstances, someone of his status would never dare to speak to her in a flippant manner. But being family, he took advantage of playing the obedient but rowdy son-in-law to appear more important. Finding these opportunities came naturally to him, and through the years, he had perfected the art of setting them up. Uncle might not have been the master tactician someone trained in the way aimed to be, but he was crafty, and his single most practical talent was the ability to project himself as being far more important than he really was. You had to give reminders to someone like that, reminders that you could pull the rug from under their feet, but Father believed in preserving the strength of his General. He wanted a unified Chaya, not just a kingdom that put up the front of being one.
“Mother, I have to agree.” Father sighed, twisting his beard. “And where is this even coming from? You were in support of declaring war against Narkissa. You were the one who first brought the idea to me.” He bobbed his head forward in a sign of concession. “Granted… I may have been more enthusiastic about it than you expected, but you still never showed any signs of doubt in the past. We can’t have doubt about this, Mother. We must move swiftly and boldly. We cannot march to the Shaed in hesitation.”
Taa raised her staff and hit the floor. Silence again.
“The oracles of the Rho have dreamt of the nether. The far side of the nether, beyond the endless waters and the darkness and the rippling. They’ve had visions of something that comes to us from the heart of the dark.” Her voice cracked and vibrated in the air, thick and unbreakable. Hoarse like my uncle’s, but the words were clear and precise. Ever so slightly, the fringes of her shawl moved a few inches upward as she spoke, dovetailing in a wind you could not see or feel. Green dust fell from the top of her staff like a rain-jeweled snow globe, condensing into drops of liquid emerald on the wooden floor, then vaporizing seconds later into more of her forest mist.
Nothing brought a room to attention like the word nether, and nothing did justice to the word like an alchemist who visibly looked like they knew their way around the dark.
Taa brought her staff up. She pointed it to the ceiling. Alchemical lights flickered, giving weight to her tone. “The oracles… they have seen the glimmers of the Red Shaed. He rises in the distance.” She brought her staff down to quiet any muttering. “They believe Saythana walks among us once again. Lu’hra Jahd himself lives and breathes and sings in the world between worlds.”
I took a sip of the wine. Sweet, but with a bitter aftertaste. As casually as I could, I checked on my shoulder. The wound had almost entirely disappeared. Faint white lines traced over the bite marks, light enough to look like a complicated tan. There was no hint of blood. Not even stains of old blood on my skin. Even physikers couldn’t do a job that well no matter how good their alchemy. For a long while, I stood there wondering if I had really dreamt of Saythana the night before. I drank more of the wine.
It was hard to gauge what the room was thinking. There wasn’t fearful murmuring like I had expected. People watched Taa silently. Then they looked to their courtiers, then to Father. Father looked to Mother. I knew what he was thinking. He wished that Taa had come to him first in private before saying all this. That wasn’t how Taa did things. She liked the silence her words brought. The way conversations faded into whispers when she was around, whispers as quiet and distant as lighthouse bells.
Uncle snorted. Queen O’nell and Mother glanced at each other. Father kept his eyes on Mother, looking unsure of what to say. Conversation began to stir across the room, but everyone still hinged on Taa’s words, waiting for her to say more. They fell to silence when she raised her staff to speak again.
“They say it started months ago. Their dreams turned darker. Their visions more vivid. Dreams of red seas and red smoke, red skies and red sand. And I am told,” she eyed Haben as she spoke, “that the temple of Saythana in Mimenhi has recently been burned?”
Haben rubbed his chin, then nodded with a regretful glance to Father and my uncle.
“The signs are always similar, across the ages. There will be more in the coming months if I am correct. More signs that Saythana has returned. The oracles will see more of the world drowned in red in their dreams, all the way until he enters our world in physical form.” She bent her staff toward Father. “Delay the war. We must be ready for anything. The next few years will be unsteady. We do not know what this means for us yet.”
Uncle looked like he wanted to speak, but was suddenly unsure of his place. He eyed Queen O’nell and Father, absently grinding his teeth.
Then, reluctantly, he cleared his throat and spoke, “We can’t fall back on the war,” he insisted, catching Father’s eyes. “We’ve come too far.” He leaned back as though that had settled the matter. “How many more blue moons are we going to let the people of Chaya suffer until we do something?” He turned to the other nobles and courtiers sitting near him. “And what of your people? Do they not demand action?” He tugged hard on his scarf then smoothed the silk in agitation, as though its creases might have hurt the effectiveness of his words. He turned to Taa, softening his expression. “Ono, come now, you’re saying all this comes from visions from the oracles of the marrow clans? How much weight can we give to their words? People who avoid civilized lives.”
Uncle didn’t support the war. I hoped this burst of sudden enthusiasm for it didn’t go unnoticed by the others of the Royal Court. He didn’t speak out of place often like this. He was very conscious about authority. He imposed his own on others, and he was self-conscious around people who had more of it than him. When he was the leading figure in a meeting or with just Father, he tended to try and dominate. But it was different now, especially because of Queen O’nell.
“I am not asking for you to avoid the war,” Taa said. Irritation crept into her voice. She lifted a hand, holding it in place like she was stilling the air in front of it. “Just to wait. When Saythana comes to this world, you cannot know how it will end. We must be prepared. Now is not the time to shed our resources. The five kingdoms must hold strong.”
Father stood, walking over to a wine cask to fill his glass. It was his way of taking some of the weight away from Taa’s words—by looking unbothered and easy. A lot of the things he did around her were deliberate in this way. You couldn’t blame him. Taa casted a long shadow.
“Mother, I know you have much respect for the old religion, and, well, traditional beliefs, but you know as well as I do how little is known about Saythana. How little is understood. And every decade there is always one group or another saying he has returned. When I was young it was the priests. When I was older it was the star gazers of Xenash who said they saw his arrival written in the alignment of the planets.” He spared a glance for Queen O’nell. “Now that I’m old, it’s these oracles from the Serpentine tribes.” Hushed laughter followed his words. “How can we make decisions based on assumptions this vague? Especially decisions as large in scope as this one? There’s just no sense in it. You want us to stall the efforts of five kingdoms based on visions from… oracles? And not even visions of something clear. They see… a certain color? Going by that is as good as listening to superstitions about the old gods
.”
Nods. Murmurs of agreement. Uncle broke in: “Never drop a freshly caught bird into the sea, or Semladon will get you.”
Father grunted. “Never leave food out to rot in the desert or Malakel will smell it.”
“Ahjur, do you believe they are telling the truth?” Queen O’nell asked.
A few heads around the room turned at the address. Like ayetha, ahjur was the same across all languages. In a way, it was the proper counter-address to ayetha. Ayetha, you said to someone dear to you whom you taught. Someone younger. Someone you were showing the world to. A pupil, an apprentice, a granddaughter. Ahjur was used to address someone you looked up to. Someone you admired greatly. Mother called Taa ahjur sometimes, out of habit. Before she became Taa’s daughter through marriage, she was her student in the Sisterhood. The term was much more than just endearing. Think of it as an admission of respect. It is the highest possible regard you can give to a person. It quieted some of the laughter that Uncle and Father had started.
Taa gave Queen O’nell a single nod.
Disturbed looks spread through the crowd, along with a few confused expressions and worried glances. People wanted to know if they understood correctly what Taa had said. A few others had gone the opposite direction, choosing to zone out entirely and turn back to their dinners. This was a matter for kings and queens, they decided. From across the room, I saw Yephi squinting at me. I lowered the glass of wine, though I’m sure Mother had already noticed me holding it. I hadn’t made a decision about it yet. It didn’t taste bad, but I couldn’t be sure if I’d ever like the sensations that came with it. The edges around the world were already beginning to lose a bit of their sharpness. For people who enjoyed thinking, I couldn’t see how this habit could be liked. Then again, it was one of Taa’s favorite pastimes. And Queen O’nell’s.
Vermilion Dreams (Book One of A Vampire Fantasy Epic) Page 24