Godspeaker

by Tessa Crowley

  She grinned at me. “He’s fine,” she said, “just tired. He’s a hero of Ellorian now; he’s being given the best care in the capitol.”

  Perenor despised the hero worship his fan club gave him, so the idea of him being subjected to more of such treatment made me a little bit happy.

  “They told me not to wake you, that you had to sleep it off, but when I saw you sweating, I got worried. Bad dream?”

  The images had slipped so easy from my mind, like water through cupped hands, but when they came back, it was with full force. My chewing slowed and I licked my lips as the gravity of what had just happened settled in my mind.

  Because had I really just been kissed by a god? It seemed too preposterous a notion to entertain, and yet…

  “Good dream?” Soya amended, and when I looked up at her, she was grinning coquettishly. I hit her with my pillow and she laughed.

  “D-d-d-did they c-cancel the T-Tournaments?” I asked.

  “They have not,” she answered. “Remarkably, injuries and damages were very few. Perenor really saved the day, apparently. I don’t know if they’ll just declare him the winner of the tournaments outright, but they’ll definitely award him something.”

  I frowned. If they weren’t cancelling the Queensday Tournaments, that likely meant that they wouldn’t reschedule my confirmation ceremony, either, which was a shame for no other reason than I would have liked a reason to postpone it.

  “I’m glad you’re all right,” Soya said. I looked up at her. “Scared the fuck out of me, you know. I saw that fireball streaking down from the sky, headed right for the arena…”

  I smiled. Not for the first time, I counted myself lucky to have a friend like Soya.

  “I’ll m-m-make sure n-not to tell anyone th-that you l-l-like me so much.”

  “Good,” she said. “Can’t let word slip that I’m getting soft.”

  I laughed and I let her steal a piece of my ham steak.

  I was permitted to skip the last four days of the Queensday Tournaments, both to accommodate my speedy recovery – which I didn’t really need, because the injuries I sustained were very minor – and to continue preparing for my confirmation ceremony, which had been officially scheduled for the day after the Tournaments ended.

  And despite how frequently and feverishly I told myself I did not care, after a few days I went to check up on Perenor.

  It was no hard thing to find him. No one thought twice about a Godspeaker wanting to visit his brother, which made me glad they didn’t have the context necessary to realize how strange it actually was. A guard directed me to a room in the east wing of the palace, a luxury presumably afforded a newly-minted hero.

  I knocked twice and waited for an answer, but none came. I leaned forward to listen to the door, and could hear loud and animated talking – but the voice was not Perenor’s. I knocked again, louder, and pushed the door open.

  “—could hardly believe when I saw – oh!”

  I noticed several things all at once – the mountainous pile of get-well flowers in vases all over the room; my brother sitting cross-legged and profoundly uncomfortable on the bed; and a tall, attractive young man with bright mahogany hair.

  “Oh,” the stranger said. Then, “Oh! Your Holiness!”

  He bowed low. I still wasn’t used to it. I looked to Perenor. I knew most of his friends, and this was certainly not one of them. Perenor gave me a pleading look, the meaning of which I couldn’t quite discern.

  “I’m so sorry, I must not have heard you knock!” the stranger said. “I was just visiting your brother, thanking him for what he did!”

  I remained ungraceful at talking to strangers, but I inclined my head politely in the universal gesture of acknowledgment. I don’t think he noticed; he turned right back around and looked again at Perenor, twisting his hands together anxiously.

  “The whole city is talking about his bravery,” the stranger said worshipfully taking a half-step toward his bed. “And his strength! I could never have imagined that Craft could be so strong! To protect an entire arena and to dissolve that great fireball into dust like you did! Masterful – and so, so powerful.”

  Oh, I realized with a sudden and intense mirth, this was one of Perenor’s groupies. I did my best to choke back on the bark of laughter trying to fight its way up my throat, to middling success. It came out as a sort of snort, though Perenor’s fan didn’t notice.

  “I don’t know if they’ll name you the victor of the combat Craft tournament, but I think they should,” his groupie said. “You’re a hero of Ellorian, Perenor! Did you get the flowers I sent—?”

  Hilarious though it was, if only because I enjoyed seeing my brother in discomfort, I felt as though I should probably save him from it. I cleared my throat pointedly, and the groupie looked back at me.

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh, you probably want to…”

  I inclined m head again. He looked crestfallen, and he gave one last, longing look to Perenor.

  “Brothers,” Perenor said. “They can be so protective.”

  I choked down a second laugh.

  “Right,” the groupie said. “Well, enjoy the flowers.”

  “I hardly have a choice,” Perenor answered, gesturing to the western wall, which was mostly dominated by them.

  “Of course. Ah. Goodbye, then.” He looked to Perenor, then to me. “Your Holiness.” He bowed and left.

  The moment the door shut behind him—

  “Sol’s Light,” he said, collapsing back on the bed, and I finally stopped stifling my laughter. “That’s five in one day.”

  “Enjoy the f-f-flowers!” I crooned at him through my laughter. “How m-m-many did you get?”

  “Shut up,” Perenor answered, covering his face.

  “I im-m-magine your f-fanbase is bigger than ever,” I said, moving to the nearest bunch of flowers and plucking a note tucked behind a nightlily.

  “They won’t leave me alone,” he groaned. “And shut up! I said, shut up, didn’t I? What do you want?”

  “To r-r-revel in your m-misery, of course.”

  “You’re the worst.”

  “And y-y-you, brother-mine, are a b-b-brave and handsome sorcerer!” I read aloud from the card, laughing.

  “Give me that!”

  He climbed across the bed and tore the note from my hand, crumpling it up and throwing it across the room. His indignation, of course, only made the whole thing more hilarious.

  “G-G-Gods know why you’re s-s-s-so fussy about it,” I laughed.

  “I don’t want suitors!” Perenor said, voice a touch shrill. “And I certainly don’t want eight of them following me around like lovesick school children—”

  “P-p-p-poor Perenor,” I warbled, “subjected to the b-b-blind adoration of st-st-strangers! Fate has t-t-truly been c-cruel to you.”

  “I don’t want their adoration! And I especially don’t want the stupid love notes – what do you want, Silas?”

  I laughed again and plucked a nightlily from one of the bouquets, inhaling deeply. “I j-j-just wanted to ch-check up on you,” I said. “You know, m-m-make sure you’re still st-st-standing.”

  “I can stand, I just won’t,” Perenor said huffily. “That Craft took a lot out of me. And since when do you care about whether or not I can stand?”

  I rolled my eyes. “F-f-fine. Gods f-forgive me for c-c-caring about my b-b-brother. I’ll l-l-leave you to it.”

  I turned for the door. Coming at all had been stupid, of course, and now that I knew Perenor was fine, I could let him stew in his fatigue and groupies with a clear conscience. Before I could reach the door handle, I heard him say—

  “Wait.”

  I stopped and looked back. Perenor was frowning, arms crossed.

  “Grandmother said…”

  I frowned back at him. I had a feeling I knew where this was going.

  “Are you going to renounce House Olen?” he asked. His voice was surprisingly neutral – or at least, more neutral than I wo
uld have expected it to be.

  “D-d-d-did she t-tell you to talk m-me out of it?” It certainly wouldn’t have been out of her purview.

  “No,” he answered, and strangely, I believed him.

  “Then wh-wh-what does it m-matter to you?”

  “It matters to me like whether or not I’m still standing matters to you,” he replied.

  I kicked my feet on the flagstone floor self-consciously.

  “I th-th-think I will,” I said reluctantly. “Once m-m-my confirmation ceremony’s c-c-come and gone.”

  I watched for his reaction. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, which turned out not to be a problem, because Perenor didn’t seem to know how to react.

  “Will that make you happy?” he asked.

  What a strange thing to hear, coming from him.

  “M-my happiness is r-r-rather beside the p-point. And since wh-wh-when do you c-c-care about my happin-n-ness?”

  Silence lapsed between us. It was deafening, heavy with a lifetime of mutual resentment and a million unsaid words. I regretted coming. I should have just had a servant check up on him for me.

  “Enjoy your f-f-flowers,” I said, and left.

  So far as I could tell, the only good thing about the upcoming confirmation was that I wouldn’t have to do any public speaking. Umbrion would have to do some speaking through me, but I wouldn’t be in control of my own body while it happened, so presumably I wouldn’t do anything embarrassing like pass out from fear.

  Still, my nerves weren’t what you’d call soothed. Public speaking or no, I would still have to deal with the terrifying reality of being stared at by so many people, take up my mantle as Godspeaker officially, and pray to all the gods that I wouldn’t trip in front of the entire population of Ellorian and thousands besides.

  “Get plenty of sleep tonight, Silas,” Greatmother Amira had advised me the night before the ceremony. “You’ll need it.”

  So, in the spirit of how these things often go, I did not sleep at all.

  I did try, in my defense. I tried for hours, tossing and turning in my bed at the Palace, staring at the darkened ceiling, mind caught in an endless loop of the millions of things that could go disastrously wrong.

  It wasn’t until near pre-dawn that I gave up on the idea of sleep entirely. By my estimation, there was less than an hour before someone would come to wake me up, anyway, so I climbed from my bed and went to the large picture window on the western wall of my room.

  I knelt down at the foot of the window and stared out at the sky. The view was exquisite – a perfect division of land and sea, lit by the impossible colors and lights of the sky-river.

  I wondered if it would be untoward for me to pray to Umbrion for his blessings. Underneath his breathtaking night sky, I certainly felt an impetus to. As I was considering whether or not he would hear my prayer above anyone else’s, my eyes moved toward the horizon, and it was at that moment I noticed something – or, to be more precise, I noticed something was missing:

  The flying star was gone.

  For those of you confused as to why this realization frightened me to my core, allow me to explain the connections I made when I noticed its absence.

  First: Umbrion had told me explicitly that the falling star was an omen that he had made, a sign of things to come.

  Second: I had noticed before the Queensday Tournaments that the falling star’s angular diameter had increased, implying that it had gotten closer.

  Third: a fireball had nearly destroyed Ellorian five days ago.

  In Umbrion’s own words, the most interesting question I could ask about that fireball was where it had come from. The only conclusion I could reach, the only possible explanation for all of the facts, was that Umbrion had brought down that fireball.

  But surely, my frantic mind supplied, surely that was not possible. Surely the Night Father would never bring down such destruction.

  But as my mind went over all the conversations we’d had—

  “Your Holiness?”

  —hadn’t Umbrion said something about a great change? Hadn’t he mentioned the dawn of a new era? I hadn’t thought about it at the time, but—

  “Your Holiness, I’ve brought your breakfast.”

  —he had, I remembered, with rapidly spreading dread. He had called me a harbinger of a new age. If Umbrion had brought down that fireball, if he had the intent to cause so much destruction—

  “You should eat quickly; you’re needed downstairs for rehearsals in a quarter-hour.”

  There was a hand on my shoulder, and I wrenched around so abruptly that I startled the servant who’d arrived with my tray of food.

  “I n-n-n— I n-n-n-n—”

  The cursed words wouldn’t come, and I suddenly realized that I was so scared my hands were shaking.

  Was I misinterpreting this? Could there be some other explanation?

  I had to talk to Greatmother Amira. If I was wrong, I’d do nothing but make a fool of myself – and Gods know I was used to that.

  But if I was right…

  “I n-n-n—” I tried again, but the words still refused to come. “I n-n-n—”

  The servant, like most, was unaccustomed to my stutter, and though she did her best to be patient, I could tell she was in a hurry.

  “Your Holiness, you need to get ready,” she urged me. “The rehearsals will be starting soon.”

  “I n-n-n-n-need to t-talk to G-G-Greatmother Amira.”

  “I’ll try to arrange for something, Your Holiness, but for now, you must eat. The rehearsals?”

  I tried to calm myself down, through the shaking that was now pervading most of my body. I would talk to Greatmother Amira. I would talk to Greatmother Amira. She would know what to do. Surely she did.

  If I was right – if I was right—

  I spent the entire morning in rehearsals with several royal functionaries, who had me run through everything I would have to do come the confirmation ceremony that evening – where to stand, when to move, what to do and when. It would have been an exhausting day in its own right, but it was made all the worse by my lack of sleep and the fact that I couldn’t get my mind of that morning’s realization.

  The break for lunch could not have been more welcome. The moment I was released, I hurried toward the wing where I knew Greatmother Amira’s room was, but was startled to find her already heading down the hallway.

  “Silas!” she said. “Your servant mentioned you were looking for me.”

  I nodded frantically. All the nervous tension and fear that I’d been crushing for the past several hours was boiling up again. “C-c— c-c-c—”

  The words were stuck, and she raised her eyebrows in apparent acknowledgement of the seriousness of the matter. “Easy does it,” she said. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”

  “C-c-c-c-c-can I t-t-talk to y-you alone?” I stammered out at last.

  “Of course, of course.” She gestured behind me, toward the communal dining hall in the wing. I hurried inside, rubbing my hands together, and the moment I heard the door close behind us, I spun on a heel to face her.

  “I th-th-think that Umbrion b-b-brought down th-that fireball,” I said, because what point was there in not cutting to the chase?

  Her reaction was somewhat delayed. She turned around very slowly, eyes narrowed in some combination of skepticism and confusion. For several long, drawn-out moments, she did not respond. When she did, it was slowly and carefully.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and set off on my stuttering, rambling explanation – the falling star, Umbrion’s claim it was an omen, the angular diameter. Throughout the process, neither of us moved. By the time I came to the end of my explanation, the only discernible difference I could see in her was the fact that she had straightened in her spot, that her shoulders were set, that her dark eyes had become impossibly, unnaturally steady.

  For a while, I stared at her in silence, hoping beyond hope that she
could provide me with some simple explanation, that with just a few words and a burst of logic she could assuage my fears.

  That did not happen.

  Her silence stretched even longer, raising hairs on the back of my neck, a process of shivering that would only grow in intensity.

  Eventually, she slowly wet her lips.

  “Listen to me very carefully, Silas, because I am about to say words that I dare not repeat.”

  The fear in me only grew. I nodded.

  “We are Godspeakers, and as such, we cannot assume that our words are ever truly said in confidence. Do you understand?”

  And I did, with a horrible, sinking clarity, I did. Umbrion may already know of my suspicions.

  “Are… are th-th-they always—?”

  “Not always,” she answered, “but we must not let that make us complacent.”

  I nodded again, dread making my head light and my stomach heavy.

  “The gods are ineffable,” she began, at long last moving toward me in slow strides, “and it is not impossible that you have in some way misinterpreted all this. That said, I admit that if what you’ve said is true…”

  “It’s t-t-t-true.”

  “Then that is—” (she hesitated on the word) “—highly suggestive.”

  There came a wave of dizzy nausea wrapped in fear. What other way was there to feel, when it had been made clear that a god was trying to destroy Andelan? “Wh-wh-what do we d-d-do now?”

  “There’s very little we can do,” she said slowly. “One of the things that a Godspeaker must learn is that, for all the power their station affords them, they have no power over the gods. We are their consorts and servants, not their masters.”

  “W-w-w-we can’t j-just d-do nothing!” I said shrilly.

  “I’ll pray to Sol,” she said. “She is his mother. She’ll know what to do with this information. I just hope she answers in time.”

  The fear begins to grow into panic. “S-s-so that’s it? Th-that’s all w-w-we can do? J-j-just wait and p-pray? We have to-to-to at least t-tell Queen Nerisa—”

  “What good would that do?” she asked me. “What would be in her power that wouldn’t be in ours? How would we stop the Night Father from anything? And even if we had some idea, how would we find him?”