I blinked a few times, rubbed my neck. I could still feel his fingertips there, still detect the echoes of electricity on my skin.
“You don’t much look like a traveller, not in that tunic.”
“I’m n… I’m n…”
I forced my eyes to refocus and looked over at the man attending me. He was likely some kind of lower priest, by the look of him – I couldn’t imagine that Umbrion had many priests at all, and so I wasn’t surprised that a lower-ranking one had been trusted with a temple.
And though I was cognitively aware of the fact that this was a person who would soon be my subservient, all I could think about was the Night Father and how close he had been, and the implications of that closeness.
“Are you all right?” the priest asked. He was dark-haired, skin bronzed. “You look as though you’ve seen a shade.”
No, I decided – that was simply not possible. And beyond that, it was probably heretical to even consider it, somehow. Surely I’d misinterpreted it. Surely…
“I’m f-f-fine,” I said, willing myself to believe it, even though I could still feel those fingertips, even though the fading pulses of lightning still thrummed under my skin, even though my mind was still full of starlight. “I’d th-thank you for a b-b-bed tonight.”
The priest nodded slowly. “Certainly,” he said, not without some skepticism. “This way.”
I rose to my still-aching feet and followed him down the aisle, forcefully willing away all those lingering sensations. Unfortunately, past the Night Father, the only thing left to think about was my family.
Umbrion had told me that I had to forsake my family to flourish. It seemed like a strange and somehow ungodly command, but as I followed the priest through to the small barracks along the western wall of the temple, I could not help but think that perhaps he was right. Perhaps that dinner had proven as much.
And in her own way, perhaps Grandmother had also been right. Perhaps I had nothing to offer House Olen, nor House Olen anything to offer me.
“What’s your name?” the priest asked as we walked.
I was so deep in my own thoughts that it took me a while to climb back out of them.
“S-Silas,” I said shortly.
“Night Father’s blessings upon you,” he answered cheerfully. He opened up a small closet and produced a bundle of blankets, which he handed to me. “You know, our new Godspeaker’s name is Silas.”
After some consideration, I decided not to respond. I took the bundle. My silence seemed to make him nervous.
“Just pick whatever bed you like,” he said, gesturing to a nearby doorway leading to a room full of barracks. “You look like you need the rest.”
And I did. There was an exhaustion in me that ran bone-deep. The day had been too eventful, too full of heartache – too much.
And though there were so many more important things to consider as I fell asleep, I found myself going back again and again to the memories of Umbrion’s fingertips. The images carried with me into sleep, and I dreamed that night of starlight and lightning and the touch of his skin.
“Good to see you, Silas,” Greatmother Amira said when she came gliding out from the main door of the palace. She was once again decidedly not dressed to her station, this time wearing only a fitted, practical tunic, though she more than made up for her plain clothes with careful poise and effortless authority. The guards at the door bowed as she stepped into the sunlight of the courtyard. “Ready to go?”
I inclined my head. The camel-drawn carriage was waiting for us, not quite as stately as the massive, gilded one in which she had arrived, but still perfectly serviceable. I was about to open the carriage door when a footman did it for me, bowing deeply. I climbed inside, trying to act as though I wasn’t startled by such simple things.
“It’s all right,” she told me after she had climbed in next to me. “It will take you a while to get used to it.”
“Th-th-th-they treat m-me like I’m s-s-something special,” I said doubtfully. The same footman shut the carriage door, and I peered out the window just before he thumped the side of the carriage and it slowly pulled out of the courtyard.
“You are special,” she said, and I looked back at her with a frown. “I know it’s a difficult thing to accept – ugly, even. It’s hard to wrap your head around the idea that you are more special than the people you called equal a season ago. But ugly truths don’t age well unacknowledged. You are the voice of a god now, Silas. No one is going to forget that, so you shouldn’t, either.”
I supposed she was right, although it didn’t make it any easier to accept.
The carriage wheels started to rumble in earnest when we made it onto the aging, bumpy cobblestone of Ellorian. The walls muted the sound of the market to a dull, indistinct rumble.
There was a question hanging heavy in the back of my mind. Several questions, actually – ones that I didn’t know how to ask, or even how to approach.
“Wh-wh-what will we be d-doing today?” I asked instead. “S-s-specifically.”
“I’ll be checking up on the local hospice, for a start,” she answered, “and I’ll be meeting with the High Priest of Ellorian to receive an update on new recruits and other notable events. And I can never visit any of Sol’s temples without being roped into giving a sermon.”
The mere idea that I would have to give a sermon made me nauseous. “W-w-will I have to-to do that, t-too?”
“If Umbrion wills it,” she answered, smiling patiently. “But if I had to guess, I’d say no. The function of each Temple is determined by its patron god’s will. Sol willed her temples to be places of contemplation, worship, healing, therefore sermons occasionally fall under my purview. Elwen wanted monasteries and libraries, so Fiyera’s duties are scholarly and managerial; Aemor asked for temple courtesans and marriage registries, so Rolen functions as a chaperone; Lilline wanted the museums and art patronages, so Arana serves as a curator. Our duties as Godspeaker are as diverse as our gods.
“I’m happy to have you shadow me, but to really know what your duties will entail, you must think in terms of what Umbrion would want his Temple to be.”
It was certainly an interesting question, and one that had no answer at the moment. What would Umbrion will his legacy to be on Andelan? Perhaps I’d simply have to wait for more guidance, because I could not fathom it.
“Have you spoken to him again?”
I hesitated, but nodded.
“My goodness,” she said. “He really does like you.”
“He s-s-said…” But again I hesitated. Ever since it had happen, my mind had been a tangle. Umbrion had said and done quite a few things, a mess of thoughts and deeds and sentiments that left me unsure of what to bring up.
“What did he say? Greatmother Amira prompted when the silence grew too long.
“Has… h-has Sol ever m-m-mentioned – and I’m s-s-sorry if this is impolitic—”
“Oh, I’ll thank you not to care about that,” she said, giving the universal never mind it gesture. “Please.”
“—b-b-but has Sol ever m-mentioned her r-relationship with Umbrion?”
She raised both eyebrows at me. Clearly, that hadn’t been the direction she’d been expecting me to take. “Her relationship?” She asked the question as though she found it peculiar to consider that the gods had relationships at all with each other, and I couldn’t blame her. It was peculiar for me to consider, as well.
“He said…”
That is the hard-learned lesson, little bird. His words rang in my head, fresh and clear as though he was still present. The lesson that you must forsake your family to truly flourish. But if I can do it, you can do it.
“… s-something strange,” I concluded, rather anticlimactically.
“Well,” Greatmother Amira said slowly, “she loves all her children, which I can only assume includes the other gods.”
She paused suddenly, frowning as though remembering something.
“Now that I think of i
t,” she continued, “over the years, she has always sounded… sad, when she talks about Umbrion.”
“Sad?”
“That’s always how it came across to me,” she answered. “Then again, it’s not really our place to understand such things. Ours is just to communicate their message, not to know the deepest parts of them.”
Perhaps that was true. Perhaps it had always been presumptuous of me to think that I – that any Andel, Godspeaker or otherwise – could ever truly know the mind of a god.
But on the other hand, Umbrion seemed to think different. He saw a deeper connection and empathy between us.
That is our lot, little bird. We are different. We will never walk in their sunlight, never be what they want us to be. Why should we even try?
I felt the echo of his fingertips on my throat and shuddered.
“Why do you ask?”
Should I bring up Umbrion’s words? Should I try to divine some meaning or implication in them? Would Greatmother Amira be able to offer any insight? Would there even be any insight to gain?
After a moment, it occurred to me—
“Y-y-y-you were k-k-kissed by the W-W-Worldmother,” I said.
I’d managed to surprise her again.
“I m-m-m-mean,” I added, somewhat overhastily, “if the l-l-legend is t-true.”
“It’s true. Most legends have some basis in fact.” And she repeated, “Why do you ask?”
It was suddenly quite important for me to come up with a plausible reason, or at the very least a suitable distraction, so as to keep her from trying to guess. “The b-b-b-books always c-c-call it the B-B-Benediction.”
“Aye,” Greatmother Amira said, “a better descriptor than kiss. Don’t mistake me, it had all the mechanics of a kiss, and it was certainly meant to convey love, but it had less to do with me and more to do with all the Ansu people. It was her way of ending our suffering.”
I wondered if that was what Umbrion had intended – to end my suffering. And, for the thousandth time, I wondered if I had misinterpreted the entire thing, because why on earth would he ever want to kiss any Andel, let alone me?
“I’m still not sure what this is about,” she said, pulling me back out of my thoughts. “If I can help you, I will. But you’ll quickly come to discover that many of your questions will go unanswered by virtue of their nature.”
I frowned at her, and the question must have been in my eyes, because she kept going a moment later:
“Theirs is an experience far removed from our own,” she said. “In the same way a bird could not understand the depth and complexity of your inner life, so too are we ignorant to theirs. I’ve found that it is best to trust them, even when it’s difficult. Especially when it’s difficult. They’ve not yet led us astray.”
I turned her words over in my head for a while as the conversation lapsed into a comfortable silence.
It was a comforting notion, and – I hoped – a correct one. I found that I did quite desperately want to trust Umbrion. Surely it was the very least I owed him after he provided me with such a tremendous privilege.
And as our carriage rolled out of the city and towards Sol’s temple nestled in the heart of the jungle, I decided that I would. Surely, I thought, surely there was nothing to fear.
Never in my life before had I been, nor ever in my life forthwith would I be, so desperately, completely, and eclipsingly wrong.
The reason, I was beginning to suspect, that all of the Godspeakers came to Ellorian for the Queensday Tournaments, despite what must have been long and exhausting treks from all corners of Andelan, was not so much any real desire to observe as it was the forceful compunction of custom.
I hadn’t had any intention of actually going until I shared this news with Amon upon my return from Sol’s temple the evening before they were set to begin. He gave me a look of such abject horror that one would have thought he’d been slapped. Any hope I’d had of sleeping in after such a long journey to and from Sol’s temple was swiftly and ruthlessly dashed.
And so, still tired and more than a bit irritable, I woke up with the sun, dressed, and went down to the Queen’s Ring for the opening day of the Tournaments.
The whole experience was made so much worse by the fact that Soya, as my official plus-one, insisted on being so chipper about the whole thing.
“Which events are going on today?” she asked the moment she climbed into my carriage.
I rubbed my knuckles into my eyes. “I d-d-don’t know.”
“Are we going to be sitting with the other Godspeakers?”
“I d-don’t know.”
“You’ll introduce me, won’t you?”
“I w-want to go b-b-back to bed.”
“Come on, you must be at least a little excited!”
Somehow, startlingly, I couldn’t muster a single iota of excitement.
There wasn’t even enough time for me to nap in the carriage. I had spent the night before at the palace at the behest of Greatmother Amira when we arrived back later than expected, and the trip between the palace and the Queen’s Ring was a short one, just across the city.
The closer we got to the arena, the denser the noise became. Through the walls of the carriage, I could hear vendors shouting, children laughing, and the thrum and buzz of a city close to bursting with people. And somewhere, amidst all the noise, I could hear a low, rhythmic chanting – “Umbrion! Umbrion! Umbrion!”
“They’re chanting for you,” Soya said. She had drawn back the curtain over the window of the carriage and was staring out at the crowd, so close, mere feet away, throwing nightlilies.
“They’re ch-chanting for Umbrion,” I answered, looking away from the window.
By the time the carriage rattled to a halt, the volume was almost unbearable. The moment the door was pulled open, it sharped steeply upward to near-deafening levels.
“Umbrion! Umbrion! Umbrion!” The crowd seemed ecstatic, and I did my best not to panic at the sight of them, which I only accomplished neck deep in Umbrion’s ocean.
I climbed out onto the road, which was strewn with flowers, and the crowd gathered at the edge of the arena cheered even louder. I quavered under the intensity of their enthusiasm. I did my best to be grateful, but it was no easy thing. I hated strangers and I hated crowds. It was an intense and cruel irony that I’d likely have to spend much of my life around both.
Behind me, Soya climbed from the carriage and thumped me heartily on the back.
“You’re all right,” she said. “They love you!”
That fact comforted me less than she would have liked. I grabbed her arm and pulled her away, into the large passageway leading through to the vomitorium. The guards lining the walls came to sharp salutes as we passed.
The Queen’s Ring was already full when we came out into the sunlight in the middle tier of the arena. There was more cheering, but at least this time it was from a distance.
We made our way to the side of the arena, past rows and rows of spectators all gathered for the Tournaments, up toward the seats of honor. Greatmother Amira was already seated.
“Hello, Silas,” she said as I came into earshot.
“Good m-m-morning.”
“Who’s this?”
I looked back at Soya. It was pleasing, in a dark sort of way, to see her looking nervous and flustered for a change.
“This is m-my friend, Soya, f-f-f-firstborn scion of House Rhodan,” I said. “S-Soya, this is G-G-Greatmother Amira, Godspeaker to S-S-Sol.”
“Worldmother’s blessings, Soya,” said Greatmother Amira, and in answer, Soya made an extremely undignified squeaking sound. She bowed low. “I think I recognize your house. Is your patriarch, by any chance, Lord of Avenos?”
Soya nodded mutely. I wasn’t used to seeing her look so nervous. It was a tiny bit hilarious.
“I’ve had occasion to meet your Lord Father,” Greatmother Amira said. “Quite a man, and quite a Lord.”
“So I’ve been told, Your Holiness,” So
ya answered, barely.
I sat down on one of the handsome pine benches next to Greatmother Amira. Soya sat beside me and at once leaned in to whisper—
“I can’t believe we’re just sitting next to her!”
“She’s j-just a p-p-person,” I said, taking more enjoyment from her nervousness than I probably should have.
“She’s the mouth and the hands and the will of the Worldmother!”
“Are you excited for the Tournaments?” Greatmother Amira asked, and if she’d heard Soya’s frantic whispering, she was doing a good job of pretending she hadn’t.
“I’d r-rather be sleeping,” I confessed.
“So would I,” said a voice from behind – Rolen, as it turned out, Aemor’s Godspeaker, with a woman who I was willing to bet was his wife. “I personally don’t see much appeal in the entire concept of the Tournaments. What does being the fastest or the strongest prove?”
Soya gawked, and then elbowed me in the ribcage as if to ask is that who I think it is? I glared at her and rubbed the sore spot
“It proves nothing,” Greatmother Amira conceded, “but it does wonders to stimulate Ellorian’s economy. And it gives the citizens something to enjoy.”
“Ever the pragmatist, Greatmother,” Rolen said, sitting down next to Soya. “Who’s this?”
Introductions continued over the next few minutes as all the other Godspeakers arrived, all with accompaniment. Fiyera arrived with her wife, Arana with her sister, and then the cheering suddenly got much louder.
Just below us, I could see her enter – robed in gold with her crown gleaming in the sunlight, stately and powerful and proud: Queen Nerisa, her Lady Queen on her arm.
She had a special seat on the tier just below us, on a throne of polished brass and blue velvet cushions. When she moved to the edge of the balustrade overlooking the arena, she raised both her hands, and a hush fell over the crowd.
“Friends, subjects, countrymen – I bid you welcome to the twenty-ninth Queensday Tournaments!”
The cheer rose up at once, so loud that the rock of the arena rumbled as if cheering with them. It wasn’t until Queen Nerisa lifted her hands again that it settled down.
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