Corinn had been skeptical of the emblem he chose to wear as the embodiment of his royal rank, but she had to concede that there was a bit of flair in the simplicity of the gold tuvey band he wore around his right bicep. All Talay would love him for that-and fight to the death for him.
Perhaps as the years passed she would loosen the grip she held on him. No, not perhaps. She would. Absolutely, she would. She would restrain only the parts of him driven to dreaming ideals the people were not ready for. That rash side of his nature, which had cost him his life, needed to be starved out of him. At her side all his strengths would shine; his weaknesses would atrophy and fall away. He would learn the rightness of her rule and take it into his heart. Then they really would do fine things together.
They would fight off the attacking horde. The Auldek could not stand against her command of the song any more than the Numrek could. After that, who knew the extent of what she and Aliver could do? Wash the sin of the quota away from reality and from memory? Put the league in its place, humbled and obedient? Extend the empire right across the Gray Slopes to Ushen Brae? Of course! That was why a double monarchy was so perfect. Aliver would eventually rule in the west as she would rule in Acacia. The possibilities were endless.
After them, Aaden would be there to inherit it all. He walked just behind her, beaming, bubbling with excitement. Already, she found herself concocting the wonders that would mark his coronation. By then she would speak the Giver’s tongue as if it were her first language. And he will, too. Aaden will, too.
The queen sat with all this humming within her as the priestess opened the ceremony. She watched as Elya’s children dropped out of sight, to rest until after the coronation. She listened without listening as the sect’s purple-robed scholars read through the entire chronology of monarchs since Edifus. She greeted the procession of representatives offering gifts from around the empire: a pair of mating cranes from the Aushenian marshes, dining bowls of blue glass from the Ou family of Bocoum, a silver and turquoise necklace from Teh, a clutch of large crimson ostrich eggs, some delicacy of the Bethuni that the chieftain claimed made them more valuable by weight than gold.
The league’s offering was elegant and understated. Sire Grau himself presented it to them, both he and Dagon with their heads bowed. It looked like a marble bowl, wide based, with a gold-framed glass dome over it. Closer inspection revealed a specially constructed version of one of their navigational instruments. Inside the dome a carved metal serpent floated in a clear liquid. Beneath it, a map of the Known World. At Dagon’s urging, Corinn cupped the bowl and moved it. The serpent rotated.
“It always,” Dagon said, “stays faithful to the one direction it loves above all others.” Aliver, too, tested it, grew pleased, joked that he would have the royal scholars make a study of it. The engraving across the gold rim read: Whether My World Be Large, I Always Know My Place in It. Corinn smiled her acceptance of it.
The gifts went on: a suit of armor in the Senivalian style, a heavily bejeweled diadem from the Creggs of Manil…
After the gift giving, a poet from Aushenia recited long, grandiose verses from one of the Aushenians’ rhyming epics, modified at key points to make it all a tribute to Acacia. It took hours to get to the actual moment of coronation, but Corinn did not mind. She was not the girl who had hated sitting through state functions anymore. No, she thought, I’m not that girl at all.
The priestess of Vada was not the old crone that Corinn remembered from her own coronation. Youthful, she was almost attractive, even with the sides of her head shaved to the skull and the hair on her crown bound into a large knot. She took far too much satisfaction in her brief role of importance, intoning with the same ostentation as her predecessor, cutting others with her dark eyes as they brought her the ritual items she washed and blessed. She submerged an old tunic-said to have belonged to Credulas, the fourth king-in soapy water, squeezed it, and then hung it on a frame to dry. There was a story in that, Corinn knew, but she had never learned what it was. Nor was she entirely sure what the Vadayan sect’s function was, other than as scholars of Akaran lineage. They had once had a more defined religious practice, although it was dead now.
When all is settled again, Corinn thought, I’ll make a study of them. And of other things. There is so much to know.
And then, finally, it was time. The priestess called Aliver before her. Corinn did not really register the words she was saying or the replies that Aliver was giving. She knew them by heart and had been through the same oath herself. What she focused on was the way Aliver’s handsome face managed the perfect balance of deference to the priestess’s duties and ultimate authority. He already was a monarch. That was what his visage and upright bearing said. He knew his authority, but he had the patience and confidence to see through the customs into which he had been born.
“You’ve trained him well,” Hanish’s voice said.
Corinn stopped the inhalation of breath that the voice caused before the air had passed her tongue. She fought the instinct to turn toward it.
“Look at him. He’s playing his role perfectly and doesn’t even know it. You may have chosen correctly,” Hanish said, “in bringing him back instead of me. You could have your way with me in bed, but I wouldn’t have been so easy to control in other matters.”
He stood beside her, in the small space in front of a Marah guard and beside Sigh Saden. She could feel the brush of him against her shoulder, the touch of his skin when he nudged her. She did not glance at him or acknowledge him in any way. None around her did either. He was a figment of her powers over life and death, that was all. Nothing more. She blew the breath out again.
“How can you be sure, though? Perhaps he’s playing you for a fool.” Hanish laughed and stepped toward Aliver. “He is about to become king. He did come back from the dead. One wonders…”
Corinn’s gaze darted around, trying to see if anybody else noticed him. No one seemed to. The priestess slid the tuvey band down Aliver’s bicep, around his elbow, and off. Hanish had to draw his head back as she swung around with the band, lifting it high so that the audience could see it. He stood at Aliver’s shoulder now.
“Looked at from another perspective,” he said, “our dear Aliver has pulled off an amazing correction of his misfortune. You think it all a gift you gave him, but what if he’s outmaneuvered you? Just consider it a moment. That’s all you have left, anyway.”
The fact that only she could see or hear Hanish should have been a relief of sorts, but it was more an aggravation. She had a thousand retorts for each of his comments but could offer none of them. He seemed to know this, and to take pleasure from it. She tried to find a spell within the song, something with which she could erase him. It was not easy, for she had first to explain to the magic just what he was. Only then could she find the necessary spell. As she was not sure what he was, her mind drew circles in the song, the head of the spell chasing a tail it could not catch.
“What if he learns what you’ve done to him?” Hanish asked. “Do you imagine he would still love you then?” He rested a hand on Aliver’s shoulder, thrummed his fingers. Aliver extended his arm as the priestess slid onto it the tuvey band-adorned with a blessing in the form of a short length of crimson ribbon. Hanish acted as an aide would, touching the band when it was in place and then smoothing the fabric of the monarch’s upper sleeve. The ceremony was almost complete. All that was left was the recital of the final sanction. Corinn had a part in this, which the touch of the priestess’s eyes reminded her.
Hanish made a show of stepping out of her way when she took her place beside Aliver. At a signal given by touching Aliver’s hand, the two siblings began. “Hear us, Acacia, empire of the four horizons, of the tree of Akaran, of the six provinces…”
They spoke loudly, but as the Carmelia was far too large for everyone to hear, designated speakers took up their words and repeated them. The speech cascaded down from the dais and around the high ranks of benches like a song in the
round.
“Edifus was the founder,” both Akarans said, repeating words that had first been drummed into them as children working with their tutor. “You know this to be true. He was born into suffering and darkness in the Lakes, but he prevailed in a bloody war that engulfed the whole world. He met the Untrue King Tathe at Galaral and crushed his forces with the aid of Santoth Speakers. Edifus was the first in an unbroken line of twenty-one Akaran kings…”
Hanish said, “Unbroken until I came around. Don’t forget that. You haven’t written me out of the histories already, have you?”
Corinn fumbled the words of the sanction. She tripped over them for a moment, trying to remember them and to match her timing to Aliver’s. She felt him glance at her. A bead of sweat broke loose from her forehead and ran down her left temple and cheek. “Are the living con… We are the continuation of those who came before, Akaran all…”
“You probably have,” Hanish said. “You’re capable of anything. Two monarchs! What a strange idea, Corinn. I hope you are half as crafty as you think yourself. I really do. For the sake of our son I do.”
He is nothing but a distraction, Corinn told herself. Control yourself! Divide your thoughts. Make them whole but doubled.
She did. Her lips found the words of the sanction. Her face maintained its calm. Her mind danced with the spell that would wipe this phantom Hanish from the world forever. She thought she had the substance of it. She bunched up her malice toward him into one seething ball of song. She held it in the back of her mouth, needing only a break in the sanction to release it.
Because of all these things, Corinn was as jolted as any of the others by the sound. Perhaps more so, though at first she kept on as if she had not noticed. A bang echoed across the stadium, a sound like a battering ram against a mighty door. Another.
“Oh, something is knocking,” Hanish said.
Aliver stopped speaking. He turned toward the tunnel through which they had entered.
Corinn kept on speaking for a moment, but with Aliver’s gaze went the turning heads of the crowd. A third boom rocked the place with a force that shook the foundations of the stadium. Something broke. She realized what the sound was. The iron gates through which she had entered had been bashed open. The rush of air was palpable from where she stood. It tore at the hats and garments of those near it. That’s impossible, she thought. The gates could not be flung open. They were always locked for the ceremony. No one in her service would even think of it, and if they did it would not be possible, not as heavy and secure as they were.
The words finally fell from Corinn’s lips-and the song dissolved in her mouth-as figures strode through the tunnel and into the stadium. “Take the prince away,” she said. “Rhrenna, do it now.”
“Not just knocking,” Hanish whispered, suddenly at her ear again. “They’ve let themselves in.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
B arad had thought that the presence of a ghost made physical was to be the most disturbing thing he would witness that day. From his box below the dais he watched the figure appear at Corinn’s shoulder. He nearly called out, but the fact that nobody else did stopped him. Or, not just that. Whatever sorcery Corinn had bound him with stopped him. He feared the man was an assassin, and then wondered why he feared that. Let the queen die. That would be a fine thing. Let his inability to warn her be the death of her. As ever in his life since the queen had captured him, his mind rocked like a boat atop choppy waters, first leaning one way and then the next, all the time making him sick to the stomach.
Because he could only watch, he did. Through watching, he saw. The queen could hear the words the dead man whispered in her ears. She fought not to show any sign that she acknowledged the phantom’s sudden appearance, but to Barad’s eyes it was obvious. Her jaw clenched when the man’s lips moved. She shifted away from the touch he gave her elbow. Her eyes darted around, checking to see if others saw the man at whom she would not herself look. Not an assassin, then. Barad stared harder.
The man’s hair was long and golden, with a few thin strips of colored leather woven into its braids. Meinish. His face looked odd beside Corinn’s. His features did not show the contrast of light and dark that hers did. No touch of the sun on them. He seemed to stand in the dull light of another place entirely. He did stand in another place, Barad realized. He was dead. As soon as he had the thought, he knew it to be true. A ghost was whispering in the queen’s ear. Why could he see the dead man when nobody else seemed to? His stone eyes, surely. They were works of sorcery, after all, and they were Corinn’s doing. Through them, he watched as the man moved around the dais unseen, talking much of the time. More than that, Barad knew every word the man spoke. Intimate. Playful. Teasing. Even his whispers reached him. He did not follow the intricacies of the ceremony at all, just watched the queen and the ghost, hearing his one-sided conversation, wondering what was going to happen.
He had no better understanding of it when the gates to the Carmelia crashed open. He rolled his stone eyes away from the dais and watched the figures march through the tunnel and into the crowded stadium. They were not ghosts, these ones. For a moment Barad thought them monsters with elongated heads like eaters of ants, but that image faded as the light touched them. They were men, larger than normal, but men. They cast shadows and had about them a solidity that was even more tangible than the crowd who drew back in horror from them. They must have been heavier than normal men, for their feet split the stones across which they trod. Even the tattered robes they wore swung with a martial weight, as if the fabric were woven of metal and as likely to cut as a blade. They drove a wedge through the people standing on the entry causeway. The crowd cringed away from them, some pressing back so hard that those along the inner railing went toppling over onto the lower benches.
The intruders took no notice of the people at all until the guards remembered their duty. With a lieutenant shouting them into motion, they snapped into ranks and began marching toward the intruders. The front rank thrust before them a treacherous bristle of halberds. The foremost of the intruders raised their arms in unison and roared out something. The soldiers’ flesh went liquid. Their clothes and armor dropped to the stones, sodden with blood. Their weapons clattered down among the filth, all of which was trodden over by the intruders’ feet a second later.
Sorcerers, Barad named them. They are sorcerers.
The sorcerers turned and ascended the stairs toward the dais. General Andeson barked a command. Archers-Barad had not even known there were archers-on the ledge up beyond the dais let loose a volley of arrows. They should have fallen a hundred or so right on top of the intruders, but the sorcerers tilted their heads and blew at them. The motion was like shooing away a bothersome fly. The arrows skidded away from them. They careened through the stadium, looking suddenly like sleek, black birds, erratic fliers that impacted randomly among the crowd, puncturing chests and throats and embedding in skulls. People sprang away from the injured, sending waves of panic through the tightly packed audience.
Andeson did not repeat the order to shoot. He stood with his mouth hanging open. Aliver asked something and in answer the Marah shifted around the dais. They bunched tightly together on the stairs below the royal party, swords drawn.
The intruders climbed one flight of stairs before slowing. They paused and looked around, taking in the view from the landing. The action was so casual that the Marah held their positions. No new orders came for them. The sorcerers’ gazes roamed over the assembled crowd, both the ranks above and below them, both the motion of those trying to flee and the awed stillness of most of the crowd.
Just like that, by stopping their raging forward progress, the men looked almost normal. Their faces, though mature and weatherworn, were not animal or massive or even particularly fierce. They contained two expressions at war with each other. On the surface they conveyed disdain, as if they owned all the people they surveyed and found them lacking. Beneath their condescension a terrible eagerness squirmed.
That was the main thing Barad saw. Behind their features, and in their eyes, were passions at odds with the aged facades they occupied. There were twenty-two of them. Barad did the math on his lips. Twenty-two, the same number of generations as the prophecies had predicted would pass before a time of great change.
One by one they completed their survey, began slowly up the next set of stairs, and set their gazes on Corinn and Aliver.
Barad did the same. He had forgotten about her for those few moments of chaos. Corinn was there at the same spot on the dais. Prince Aaden was nowhere to be seen, but Marah were all around the queen and Aliver like living armor. Even the priestess had been bustled away as the guards closed in. She was pressed uncomfortably between a soldier and the stone pedestal behind her.
The ghost was still at Corinn’s elbow, even then whispering in her ear. “Friends of your brother’s or friends of yours? Late arrivals. I’m hoping it’s one or the other…”
Hanish. Of course it was Hanish Mein! Barad had never met him, but what other Meinish ghost would haunt the queen? Who else would say the things he was saying? Seeing that, knowing it, Barad knew as well that the number twenty-two was not random. They were still living within the same generation. Hanish had not been the change at all. This was. Whatever these had come for. That was what he was whispering in the queen’s ear. By the pallor of her face, she believed him.
The priestess of Vada, aghast at the interruption, began a babbling reprimand. Several officers and a senator added their ire. Sigh Saden’s wife screeched something about the ghastliness of it. Compared to them, the intruders seemed tranquil.
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