The echo of Umbrion in my mind was physically painful, and the pain got sharper as more and more memories came boiling up to the surface of my mind. I dug my fingers into the threadbare mattress on the bed, my shoulders shook, and no, not again, how could he do this again?
“How much do you remember?” Perenor asked, voice careful.
“Everything,” I whispered, and every inch of it hurt.
“Are you injured?”
“H-h-how m-many are d-d-dead?”
Perenor sighed. “Silas—”
“H-h-h-how many, Perenor?”
I looked up at him. The reluctance on his face told me that the number was higher than I wanted to hear.
“A few dozen at least. The entire temple came down; we barely got out in time.”
Something hard and sharp twisted in my gut.
I couldn’t keep going through this. I couldn’t keep having my hand forced in so much destruction. How many more people would have to die before I got to Avenos?
“They took us – Soya and I – into the barracks under the temple,” Perenor said. “They tried to talk us away from you. They said that your – that you were meant to stand judgment before the gods.”
At this point, perhaps I was. At what point did my own lack of complicity stop mattering? How many people would have to die before my mere existence was a threat to everyone around me?
“I didn’t believe them,” Perenor said. “In general, I tend not to believe anyone who says they know what the gods want if they haven’t spoken to one themself. We had to fight our way past the guards to break you out, but by the time we got there…”
I drew my knees up to my chest. My memory was full of crumbling stone and screaming, of the sound flesh makes when it is ripped open slowly.
“A lot of people saw, Silas,” he said after a while, voice drawn. “Aemor’s temple is – was – built within the city walls. The entire building crumbled before the gods and everyone. People watched you bring it down.”
I didn’t want to hear more. But I could not stop myself from hearing.
“Rolen made it out, somehow,” Perenor continued. “Or at least he vanished. I suppose you weren’t the only one with a god on your shoulder.”
Just the insinuation of Umbrion filled me with rage and heartbreak. I ended up making some pathetic sound, knotting my hands in my hair.
“I’m sorry,” Perenor said at once. “I’m sorry, Silas, I didn’t mean to upset you. Should – would it be better if I left?”
“N-n-n-n-n—” No, I wanted to say, please don’t leave, I’ll fall to pieces if someone doesn’t hold me together.
“Okay,” Perenor said. “Okay, I’ll stay with you.”
He climbed off his chair in the corner of the plain, wooden room and sat beside me. He put his hand on my back and hummed that familiar tune.
“I’ll protect you,” he said between notes. “I don’t care if the whole world turns against you. I’ll protect you. There’s nothing in the world that will talk me into calling you traitor.”
I hung onto his belief in my desperately, because I was rapidly running out of belief in myself.
“I’ll protect you, I’ll protect you.”
He pulled me into his arms, and we stayed there for a while. I let my brother fight away the darkness in my mind as best he could, as best my mind could remember the light.
Our ship was the Seabreaker, a fact I only learned because Perenor told me. I wasn’t keen to do much exploring. After everything that had happened, I wasn’t keen to do much of anything.
Perenor spent his days doing labor on the ship – the price of the ticket, no doubt – but in the evenings he came back to the little room and told me of his day.
The Seabreaker was a cargo ship, he told me, the last one to Avenos before the start of the monsoon. It would shave weeks off our journey, he told me; we would likely arrive before the storm made landfall.
In those days, Perenor proved a very assiduous big brother, which I was not used to. I would have thanked him if I’d been in any sort of shape to do so. He forced me to eat when he came back with meals, and always stayed awake until I was asleep.
I never asked why Soya did not visit me, despite being on our same boat. I think I knew the answer and was keen not to hear it out loud.
One night rather like the rest, I ventured out. Perenor was sound asleep, but I was kept awake by the ceaseless rocking, the sloshing of waves on the side of the boat. I crept from our cabin and moved slowly, quietly down the hallway, up a set of stairs, and then onto the deck.
I’d never seen this side of the ocean before. The waters were star-dappled, and the sky-river was higher than I was used to seeing. I knew enough about the night sky to know that it was a symbol of just how far I was from home.
The wind off the sea was salty and strong, and each fresh gust brought misting water over the balustrade, peppering the deck. I stood at the edge, bracing my hands on the railing.
It was at least a twenty-foot drop into the rolling, night-blackened waters. I swallowed the knot of fear in my throat.
At the time, I didn’t have a word for what was going through my head, but in the weeks between that black moment and where I sit now, I have learned it: suicide. Once an obscure term, now finding its terrible niche in Andelish vernacular.
It wasn’t that I wanted to die for the sake of being dead – far from it, now that I’d seen it up close – it was more the growing certainty that my death would likely mean saving many more lives. What was my life worth, after all, when its cost was so many other lives snuffed out? What benefit could my life bring that could possibly outweigh that terrible price?
Of course, ideation was one thing and action was quite another. The philosophy had convinced me, but what of the practicality? What happened to a thing when it died? Would it hurt? What came after?
Fear gripped me, and I gripped the railing. If I could just drop over the side – perhaps no one would even notice until morning—
“Silas?”
I shivered at her voice in time with a low howl of wind. When I turned, I saw Soya standing at the door the lead down into the underbelly of the ship. She had parchment in her hand, and she was staring at me guardedly.
“What are you doing up here?”
Without knowing the word “suicide,” I had no real answer for her. Even if I had the word, I likely wouldn’t have been able to say it to my best friend.
Slowly, I withdrew my hands from the side of the ship. The wind howled again, tossing my cloak and whipping my hair in front of my face.
“It’s late,” she said. “You should be sleeping. And you shouldn’t be where other people might recognize you.”
I lowered my eyes. The mistrust in her voice hurt more than I’d expected it to. I started past her, back towards the underbelly of the ship.
She caught my arm, which took me by surprise. I stopped and looked back at her. Up close, the mistrust was in clearer detail, but also tinged with now-visible traces of worry.
“Are you all right?” she asked me. “I haven’t had the chance to talk to you.”
“Y-y-y-you’ve had p-plenty,” I answered. Soya flinched.
“I suppose I have,” she conceded guiltily. “I’m sorry. It’s just – at the temple—”
“I know.”
“It was frightening, Silas. Seeing you bring down that building.”
I hated this. I hated her growing mistrust of me, hated the way she hated herself for it, hated how I couldn’t even be angry at her.
“I d-d-didn’t bring down the b-b-building,” I reminded her, doing my best to keep the heartache out of my voice.
“Right,” she said. “I mean, I know. That’s what I meant.”
The wind on the ocean howled long and low catching Soya’s long braid high in the air. She gripped the paper in her hand.
“A l-l-letter?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.
“To my father,” she answered. “The ship has a rooker
y, so I’m sending a crow ahead to Avenos, to let him know of our imminent arrival.”
I nodded. Before I could think of some further harmless comment, she said—
“Do you remember what you said to me back when you first showed me your Godspeaker’s crown?”
In the time it took me to remember the conversation to which she was referring, she had continued her thought.
“Because I’ve been replaying it in my mind ever since…”
The conversation came back to me. I knew what she was talking about.
“You said he understood you.”
He did. Or at least I thought he did. I wasn’t sure anymore. My eyes trailed to the gouged, gritty surface of the deck, and my heart ached, and my mind told me to drop into the ocean and end this cloud of death that followed me.
“You said he told you that you would change the world.”
I screwed shut my eyes. The only thing I wanted to think of less than my best friend’s growing distrust in me was all the sweet abominations Umbrion had said. Now I had no choice but to confront both.
“What did he say to you, Silas?” she asked. “Specifically.”
I knew what she wanted me to say, of course. She wanted me to reassure her that Umbrion had not told me in advance of his plans to kill Queen Nerisa and to break Ellorian, that I had not been complicit in his schemes. She wanted to know I was innocent.
“Please, Silas, I am losing sleep over this. I don’t mean to pry, I just…”
But what would be the point in telling her what she wanted to hear? I could tell her every word of every conversation I’d had with Umbrion, including his gentleness, including his destiny-forging kisses, but with the seed of doubt already growing in her, how could she trust that what I said was truth? Where would her assurance be that I hadn’t been in it from the start?
“I’m trying, Si,” she said when I didn’t answer. “I’m really trying.”
“I b-b-believe you,” I said.
“My heart knows you’re not capable of such blackness but my head draws these connections anyway.”
“I kn-kn-kn-know,” I said.
She paused, then sighed painfully. “And my soul makes me hate myself for doubting you.”
The wind howled as if in agreement. Soya gripped the letter tightly to her chest.
“I’m sorry, Silas. I shouldn’t be making this any worse for you than it already is.”
I doubted she could if she tried.
And then,one day rather like the rest, we arrived in Avenos.
If Ellorian was a city of gold, Avenos was a city of silver. When the lookout called land and I came up to the deck to see it, the silver was the first thing I saw – gleaming silver roofs, flashing, piercing the sky.
And if there was that desperate, terrible ache still in me, it was in some way numbed by the city’s exquisite beauty.
“Sol’s Light,” Perenor said when he came up beside me, Soya in tow.
The shining of the silver was almost painful to look at, the roar of the crowds almost deafening, even though we had not yet made it to port.
“Yeah,” Soya answered, “it’s pretty big.” She didn’t sound terribly enthusiastic.
“I never would have imagined a city could look like this,” Perenor continued as though he hadn’t heard her.
“Get it all out now,” Soya said. “Whatever you do, don’t let my father know how impressed you are, or you’ll get a sixteen-part lecture on its history.”
Soya’s father – I’d nearly forgotten. The Lord of Avenos. Lord-Regent now, I supposed, now that the Queen was dead. It was easy to forget that Soya, rough-and-tumble, foul-mouthed, inappropriate Soya, was the firstborn and scion of a noble line. I suspect she preferred it that way, as I’d never heard her speak of her house with anything more than dry neutrality. It was one of those subjects that we never really brought up.
The anchor weighed when we pulled into port. I kept my head under my cloak until we were sufficiently masked by the thrum of the crowd.
Avenos was just as impressive from the inside as it was the outside. Though I knew she hadn’t been there in at least a dozen seasons, Soya navigated the wide stone streets with ease and familiarity, leading us on an impressively long walk right up to—
“Is that your palace?” Perenor asked.
“It’s called Silverwatch.”
Any building important enough to have a name had to be impressive, and Silverwatch did not disappoint. It was all black spires and gleaming silver roofs, shining obsidian palisades and narrow windows lit with red-orange light. The palace in Ellorian seemed a bit prosaic in comparison.
“Come to think of it,” Soya said, “just don’t talk to my father at all. Let me do the talking.”
I wanted to ask why, but Soya was already several steps ahead, and it was a struggle enough just to keep up through the thick of the crowd.
When we made it to the front palisade, which was flanked by two guards in gleaming black armor, Soya strode right up to them with obvious intent to pass right through the open gates. The guard on the left stopped her with a pike.
“No admittance without a writ,” the guard said.
Soya growled and knocked the guard’s pike to the side. “It hasn’t been that long,” she said.
The guard paused, squinted at her. “Lady Soya?” she said.
“The very same,” Soya answered.
“Shit.” Both guards straightened at once. “I’m sorry, My Lady – do you need an escort?”
“It hasn’t been that long,” she repeated, more loudly. “Like I don’t know the way around my own stupid palace – come on, you two.”
Past the front gates was a long staircase, tapering upward toward the grand doors, black and shining, made from what I guessed was fire-glass. Soya heaved them open as though they were much lighter than they looked (but as it turned out, they were precisely as heavy as they looked, which I discovered when I tried to hold the door open for Perenor and failed spectacularly).
The inside of Silverwatch was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was all fire-glass and dark marble, beautiful but intimidating, with torches that lit the glossy surfaces in strange ways.
Soya guided us out and away of the main hallway, past the empty Lord’s seat, and into a large eastern wing. I could hear her muttering to herself about where “the bastard” would be at this time of day, but in the end, all we had to do was follow the sound of voices.
“… more refugees pouring in every day,” someone said, her voice gradually growing louder as we made our way down a narrow hallway. “The inns are at capacity. There’s only so much we can do further.”
“What of the other Lords?” returned another voice. “Are we the only noble line in Andelan?”
“That’s him,” Soya sighed, turning a sharp corner and pushing through a set of ajar double doors.
The room was brightly lit with a chandelier and a large stained-glass window. Tapestries hung from the walls, and there was a large table encircled by several people in rich silks. They were all standing, save for the man at the far end of the room, who did not seem nearly so astonished as the others by Soya’s sudden arrival.
“I suppose I should be more surprised.”
If I had been asked to try and picture what the Lord of Avenos looked like, I would have pictured something very much like him. I could see where Soya got her dark hair and rough handsomeness, but the similarities ended there. Where Soya was firm and strongly built, her father was lanky and hawkish, with a pointed chin and sharp eyes. He was all firm lines and hard angles, severe and cross-looking.
There was some strange combination of relief and sudden anger on the hard features of his face.
“Welcome back, my only scion,” he said waspishly.
“Hello, Father,” Soya said. She was speaking neutrally, but I could detect measures of well-concealed resentment in her voice.
“Ellorian breaks in twain, and it is only three days ago that I hear any word,” he cont
inued, voice gradually rising in volume.
“There were extenuating circumstances.”
“I sent two crows, Soya – two crows and a team to scout the wreckage of the city to search for your body.”
“I made it out, Father!” she cried. “I’m fine! Please don’t rush to embrace me! I sent you a crow the minute I had access to a rookery, didn’t I?”
He sat back heavily in his chair, rubbing the long bridge of his nose between two fingers.
“If you are making some effort to drive me to madness, you’re on the proper path, Soya.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She didn’t look like she was willing to budge.
“And who are these strangers?” Lord Rhodan’s eyes were sharp blue, and they moved from me, to Perenor, back to Soya. “You didn’t mention guests in your single, painfully brief message.”
Soya hesitated, though only for a fraction of a second. “This is Perenor of House Olen, sorcerer and firstborn scion.”
Perenor inclined his head.
“I have heard of you, Perenor of House Olen,” Lord Rhodan said evenly. “Your pedigree precedes you. And who’s this?”
“Close the door, Perenor,” Soya muttered.
Perenor closed the door. I shifted in my spot and tried to look as nonthreatening as possible.
“Soya?” Lord Rhodan prompted.
“This is Perenor’s brother,” she continued, “Silas of House Olen, Godspeaker to Umbrion.”
The silence that followed was about as tense as the reader might expect it to be. There was also a long, drawn, unnatural stillness, broken abruptly when one of the people standing at the table – a member of the Lord’s council, I was willing to wager – suddenly staggered backward, knocking over a standing candelabrum with a clatter.
“Before you say anything—” Soya began, shortly before being cut off.
“You brought Umbrion’s Godspeaker here?”
“Before you say anything,” Soya repeated, more loudly, “I beg you to consider the situation carefully.”
“Consider the situation!” Lord Rhodan bellowed, rising from his chair. He was very, very tall, and the velvets of his station hung heavily off his shoulders. “You bring the Traitor God’s hands into my palace, and you ask me to consider the situation?”
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