Chapter 71
71
A ALIA WAITED WITH ink in hand. A long, blank strip of parchment lay on the table in front of her. She watched the black ink in the crystal well roll back and forth with the motion of the imperial arrowsprite as it fled through the clouds. Out the tiny window near her elbow, she tried to judge the landscape passing below.
Green forest stretched in all directions, marking the woodlands of Myre Drysh. Directly ahead, a silvery waterway split the forest into two halves.
The river Styma…
She frowned. From the width of the river, she calculated they were much farther west of Styma’s headwaters than she had expected. If their destination was Kysalimri, it made no sense to be this far off course.
Where was the Augury— Tykhan, she corrected—taking them?
Aalia struggled with the many mysteries of the past day, determined to discover a path through them. She refused to stay idle and passive, something she had always fought against.
As the Illuminated Rose of the Imri-Ka, Aalia had been forever confined and restricted in her movements. It was a cage of perfumed oils, pampering, and idle days. She chafed at all of it, especially watching the freedoms allotted to her older brothers. Before her mother passed away, she had instilled and encouraged an active imagination, an insatiable curiosity, and a sharp mind.
A woman’s greatest weapon is her wits, her mother had once told her. Keep them as keen as any dagger.
Aalia lived by that philosophy, especially after her mother died. She had studied with private tutors in every discipline, only releasing her tutors when she could surpass them. With every passing year, she honed that dagger. All the while, she allowed herself to be primped and paraded, keeping secret what was in her heart. Once older, with the help of a maid, she often snuck away to explore the city, to learn more, to cultivate interests wider than the walls of the palace citadel. It was such study and explorations that slowly revealed the rot and decay and stagnancy of an empire in decline.
She had read of other kingdoms, of other dominions, of other beliefs.
Interest grew into discontent.
Discontent led to rebellion.
Rebellion brought her to the Shayn’ra.
Still, in one day, all she’d known about the world had been upended.
Irritated more than scared, she faced the ship’s long hold. The arrowsprite was designed for swift passage, little more. Certainly not privacy. A small wheelhouse closed off the bow. At the stern, a single cabin was reserved for the emperor. Between the two stretched an open hold. It was divvied into clusters of chairs and couches.
Near the back, Kanthe huddled with Frell and Pratik, surely discussing the mystery in bronze that was Tykhan. Ahead of her, Tazar and Althea whispered quietly, as if still trying to keep their secrets. Between them, the black clutch of Rhysians were playing a game that involved flipping daggers—possibly poisoned—and landing them between the fingers of an opponent. It was unnerving to watch.
The only others aboard were a pair of Guld’guhlian ruffians whom Llyra watched over. The guildmaster stood with her arms crossed, her features tight with anger. The Guld’guhlian who had lost part of his leg drowsed under a heavy draught of poppy’s milk. His stump had been bandaged and attended to earlier. His brother sat next to him, resting a palm on the other’s forehead.
Aalia stifled a flare of guilt at the sight of the wounded man, even though she had not ordered him maimed. She stared past Kanthe to the closed cabin door. Rami was in there with their father, who remained addled by some witchery of Tykhan. Despite her own frustrations with her father and the empire, fury at such a violation burned through her.
Still, there was little any of them could do. After the battle in Qazen, their group—some disguised under byor-ga robes—had fled through town to the mooring fields. They met little resistance, especially with the emperor in tow. Tykhan continued to exert some strange control over their father. He was able to get Makar to blurt out commands or offer reassurances. The emperor’s words, though, came out stuttering, accompanied by odd tics and mannerisms.
The Augury—who had refixed the oils over his face—had told anyone who showed concern that the emperor had been afflicted by enemy forces, likely poisoned, but Makar was mending and under the Augury’s auspicious care.
Eventually, they had reached one of the imperial arrowsprites and commandeered it. They replaced its wheelhouse crew with the leader of the Rhysians and a young cohort. The two managed to expertly guide the sleek ship away from the mooring fields, racing off with the excuse that Emperor Makar needed prompt care.
Before leaving, Tykhan had asked Llyra and Tazar to dispatch messages to their respective forces, to have them abandon Qazen and return to Kysalimri. Those that returned were to rouse as many of the Shayn’ra and Llyra’s low army as possible in the city and to be ready for further instructions.
Still, Aalia was at a loss. About nearly everything. She felt as manipulated as her father was, pulled by the invisible strings wielded by Tykhan. Everything was moving far too swiftly. Even now, she could not decide whether to fully trust the Augury or not. Still, in the haste of events, she had little choice but to be swept along his path.
At least for now .
As if summoned by this reverie, the door to the wheelhouse opened, and Tykhan reappeared. Aalia stiffened at the sight of him, at his startling transformation. Gasps rose from Tazar and Althea, who both retreated away. Tazar drew protectively closer to Aalia. She took the hand he offered, drawing strength from him.
Those behind her showed milder reactions, more curious than shocked.
Then again, the others had all witnessed such a miraculous creature before.
Though still wearing his black robes, Tykhan had washed off the black stain that had hid his true features. The hard planes of his face now swirled in mesmerizing hues of bronze and copper. Even the curls of his hair shone brightly, forming a sun’s corona around his head. But it was his eyes. They had always been a stunning dark indigo. Only now, his eyes glowed an azure blue, as if lit from within.
Frell drew Kanthe and Pratik closer to Tykhan. “You truly are a Sleeper, a being like Shiya.”
“We are alike,” he admitted. “You call her Shiya, but only because she’s forgotten her true name—along with most of the knowledge she needs as an Axis.”
Kanthe frowned. “What’s an Axis?”
“A long story,” Tykhan said. “And even I don’t know all of it. I’m just a Root, a lower caste of the ta’wyn. Little is shared with us.”
Aalia shifted to face Frell and Pratik. “ Ta’wyn? We read that word in those ancient pages. Ta’wyn. The undying gods. ” She turned to Tykhan. “That’s you.”
“ Ta’wyn actually means defender, but storytellers love to sensationalize and embellish.”
Frell frowned. “In those pages, it also spoke of a great war among the ta’wyn. Was that an embellishment, too?”
“Sadly, no. But as a Root, I was not privy to the full scope of events. Roots serve at a lower level. Construction, mining, and other scut work. All I know is that during or following the cataclysm, the ta’wyn were created to build great machines that would set the world to turning again if it ever became necessary. Once done, we were to bury ourselves deep and wait to be woken.”
“Sleepers,” Pratik said.
“Our creators also engineered living sentinels to monitor from the surface and wake us if any apocalyptic threat arose.”
Kanthe nodded. “Like the Myr bats.”
“And others.” Tykhan stared around. “But I know little about those details.”
“What of the war?” Aalia pressed, curiosity piquing through her.
“Yes, a shameful time. When the world stopped turning, the ta’wyn observed the great floods, the world-shaking quakes, the devastation that brought down mountains, the burning of seas to salt. Throughout it all, we watched those who still lived brutally trying to survive, clinging desperately to whatever foothold they could manage. The cruelty, the savagery of that time… it was beyond any imagining.”
“You’re speaking about the Forsaken Ages,” Pratik whispered.
Tykhan nodded, looking haunted. “And those barbaric and brutal people were once our creators. It was hard to watch. It broke many. In great dismay, a faction of the ta’wyn deemed you all unworthy of our further protection. They believed that the Urth should be cleansed of your stain, to make room for the reign of its new masters.”
Frell looked appalled. “The ta’wyn. ”
Tykhan sighed, acknowledging this. “But most of us adhered to the original definition of the name given to us. Defenders. War ensued. It lasted for a full millennium, long before the Crown ever formed. The defenders came close to losing, especially as one of our Krysts betrayed us.”
“Krysts?” Aalia asked.
Tykhan lowered a palm to his waist. “I’m a Root.” He lifted his hand to his shoulder. “The one you call Shiya is an Axis, a ta’wyn of higher status and knowledge. But a Kryst—” He shoved his arm as high as he could reach. “They truly are undying gods. ”
Aalia shivered, trying to contemplate such a being.
“It took every defender to finally defeat Eligor. He was as monstrous as any infernal god in the Klashean pantheon.”
Aalia shared a look with Frell and Pratik. “We saw that name in those pages, too.”
She pictured the looming figure of a man, holding aloft a thunderbolt.
Eligor.
“Though he was defeated,” Tykhan said, “some of his surviving members absconded with his broken body. They fled to distant corners of the world, still wreaking havoc. Before leaving, they damaged or destroyed many of our buried libraries of knowledge.”
Frell flinched. “I think we saw such vandalism. In a crystal librarie beneath the stones of the Northern Henge.”
Tykhan looked grim. “Such knowledge is needed by an Axis. They are the only ones who can ignite the massive forges and set the world to turning again. Without it, the Axis rise as newborns. They are driven by an insatiable desire to seek out that knowledge in order to fully restore themselves.”
“I believe we’ve witnessed that compulsion, too,” Pratik added. “With Shiya.”
“Unfortunately, continents and landmasses shifted and reconfigured during the long sleep, often separating an Axis from its librarie.”
Frell frowned, clearly frustrated. “Why didn’t your creators just steep that knowledge into an Axis from the beginning? Why bother with a separate librarie?”
“Our brains are not like yours. They are resilient, pliant, able to hold vast amounts, but the problem with such flexibility is that our means of storing knowledge is corruptible by time. The crystal arkada that you saw down in the vandalized librarie… if left intact, such volumes can retain their knowledge until the universe goes cold. Knowing that, our creators only instilled a core base of knowledge into us. Even I was greatly confused when I first woke in my eyran. ”
“Eyran?” Kanthe asked. “Do you mean that copper egg?”
Tykhan scrunched his brow. “I supposed that’s an apt enough description. When I was attacked there, I only survived due to a baseline of self-preservation. That and a Root’s inherent strength and fluidity of form. It allowed me to tear apart my attacker.”
“We saw a body in your copper egg,” Kanthe whispered.
“One of the enemy. Besides destroying libraries, they also tried to kill Sleepers. It was why I woke up so early. With my eyran destroyed, I could not return to my slumber. So I traveled down a longer path, one never attempted by a Root.”
“And what was that?” Aalia asked.
Tykhan looked at all of them, as if the answer were obvious. “Like any Sleeper, I waited through the passing millennia until I was needed. Though awake this entire time, my core directive remained the same.”
Aalia frowned. “Which is what?”
“I’m a ta’wyn, which means my primary goal is to defend.”
This answer was unsatisfactory to another. Her brother Rami had quietly stepped through the doorway of the stern cabin. He pointed back inside, his voice furious. “Is that what you call defending ? What you did to my father?”
Tykhan lifted a palm. “I said it was my primary directive. Around that, I’m allowed a fair amount of latitude and flexibility. Even for a menial Root. I found the role of Augury useful in manipulating and guiding this quarter of the Crown. All to prepare for the war to come.”
“With Hálendii?” Aalia asked.
“No, the greater war that is on the horizon.” Tykhan nodded to Kanthe. “Your seer has already dreamed of it.”
“Nyx?”
“Yes. But I wonder… is what she saw a prophecy or simply an inevitability due to your natures?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know that as moonfall approaches, war will come. So, I became the Augury. To try to steer the path as best I could.”
Rami stepped forward, challenging him. “So, to accomplish that, you killed the prior Augury and usurped his position?”
Tykhan frowned with disdain. “There has only been one Augury in Qazen since it was founded. Well, mostly one. As a ta’wyn, I’m untouched by time. I changed faces, voices, attitudes. I skipped a generation now and then to wander the breadth of the Crown, but ultimately, I’ve been the Augury of Qazen for over four millennia.”
Stunned silence met this announcement.
“How is that possible?” Aalia finally blurted out. “In all this time, no one discovered this ruse?”
Her words seemed to confuse him, then his eyes widened. “Ah, when I said I changed faces, that’s exactly what I meant. One feature unique to all Roots—due to the many tasks required of us—is fluidity of form, to change bodily shape to match our varying needs.”
Aalia remembered him saying something like this when he mentioned the assassin who tried to kill him. “What does that mean?”
“This.” He tilted his head slightly and the bronze of his face melted and flowed, remodeling and settling into new features, still coldly handsome but very different. “There are limits to such an ability, but it has sufficed to maintain my secret.”
His features slurred again, returning to the face first presented to them.
No one spoke for a long time.
Tykhan used this moment to turn to Aalia and point at the blank strip of parchment and inkwell on the table. “I see you’ve readied yourself as I requested?”
She struggled for composure after this shock. Before disappearing into the wheelhouse, he had asked her to prepare a message, a note that a skrycrow would deliver to Kysalimri.
“What am I intended to write?” she asked.
Tykhan’s eyes shone brighter. “Only the most important note you’ve ever written. One that could save the world.”
“And say what?”
“To declare yourself empress of the imperium.”