Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Aurelia
I don’t remember the walk back to my chambers. I look up, and there’s my bedroom door in front of me, as if someone conjured it there the moment after the medic tended to my feet.
I think the medic must have put my shoes on me as well. Rochelle couldn’t have. Rochelle?—
Images flash through my mind: my friend’s gouged body, the panther tearing into her arm, the bloody spittle flecking her lips.
The life in her eyes going out like a lantern snuffed.
How could it have vanished? She was so happy this morning, knowing her medic was waiting for her back in Garince.
I protected her, I circumvented the rules and prevented her execution—I wanted one person to come out of this charade with more joy than misery.
Maybe that was where I went wrong. I let myself start to hope again. I let myself imagine I could have joy and still do my duty.
I knew how that goes. She isn’t the first person I’ve cared about that the empire ripped from my life.
I thought I’d learned my lesson well enough the first time. Now she’s paid for it too.
I shouldn’t have let myself be tempted. I should have kept all my attention trained on the narrow path ahead of me…
But then she’d have died days ago during the trial when Marclinus declared her a failure, wouldn’t she? Would that really have been better?
My thoughts are too muddled for me to sort them out. The calm inside me has shattered, leaving only jabbing splinters. A dull but emphatic ache radiates from my chest into every other part of me.
I failed. I couldn’t keep even one person safe.
Do I really stand any chance of defending my entire country in the face of these tyrants? Even if I win the trials, even if I stand next to Marclinus through the rest of my days, what are the chances I’ll ever sway his mind so much as an inch?
Emperor Tarquin is a horror, but I’m starting to think his heir is even worse.
I could go through all this and yet accomplish nothing but my own suffering.
Voices farther down the hall prompt me into motion. My hand rises automatically to fish out my key and fit it into the doorknob.
The events of the incident before the trial have faded so far behind my anguish that in the first second, I’m startled by the stink that meets me. Then the rest of my memory clicks into place.
As I step into the defiled room, Melisse spins around where she’s standing in the middle of the mess. She’s lit a lantern that’s sitting haphazardly on the vanity, and the yellowish glow turns her face a sickly shade.
Or maybe that’s her reaction to the disarray, because her voice quavers with similar distress. “Your Highness… I’m so sorry. I thought—she said it would be some small prank—I never should have given her the chance. Please, if you report this to the emperor, I don’t know how he’ll punish me and my family. I’ll do whatever I can to set it right.”
I gaze at her blankly for a few heavy thuds of my pulse. I didn’t trust her in the first place, and I have even less faith in her now. But the thought of seeing more blood spilled on my behalf makes my stomach churn.
I can’t ask for another room without revealing what happened here. The fact that my maid turned against me enough to open me up to this vandalism might count as a strike against me as well as her.
What can I do but make the best of it?
The thought of anything about this situation being “best” brings a pained guffaw into my throat. I swallow it down and gesture vaguely toward the room’s ruined contents.
My voice comes out as vacant as the aching hollow inside me. “Replace the bedclothes so I can sleep. Clean up the worst of the mess as well as you can in the next hour. We’ll deal with the rest in the morning.”
Melisse bobs her head, a trembling picture of deference now. “Yes, Your Highness. Thank you, Your Highness. I’ll fix the bed right away.”
As she hurries over and starts yanking off the covers, my gaze drifts to the heaps of shredded gowns. Some small practical part of my mind kicks into gear long enough for me to add, “I’ll need new dresses first thing tomorrow. Whatever Madam Clea can supply that’s reasonably close to my size.”
A couple of sample gowns should be enough to hold me over until the final trial. The day after tomorrow, Marclinus said.
Three more competitors, two more days.
Then I’ll be empress-to-be or dead. Either I can commission whatever replacement clothes I like or they can bury me as I fell.
Melisse dips her head even lower, bundling the sheets in her arms. “Of course, Your Highness. I’ll speak to her the moment she wakes. I’ll be back to do more cleaning in just a few minutes.”
She scurries out of the room.
If I find myself empress-to-be, I reflect, I should also be able to pick whatever new staff I wish.
Briefly alone, I stare around me at the vast, desecrated room. The sour smell of kitchen refuse fills my nose.
My mind slips back to my bedroom at home in the castle at Costel—the bed heaped with the softest of blankets, the fire so often crackling merrily in the hearth, everything warm and familiar and safe.
Except it wasn’t really safe, was it? From the moment I was born to a king and queen under the Darium empire’s thumb, a king and queen who already had an heir, that castle wasn’t truly mine. The place I thought of as home was always going to be taken away from me.
I assumed I could make a new home with new comforts wherever I ended up. It’s hard to summon even a flicker of that kind of optimism now.
A wave of revulsion sweeps through me, every nerve recoiling from the idea of staying in this room while the maid who betrayed me scrubs, quivers, and fawns as if her life depends on it. It’s not as if I can sleep yet.
Where can I go? What can I do?
What am I doing here at all, if this is what all my efforts have led me to? Have I gone so far astray I’ve lost the path without realizing it?
I turn and step out into the hall. My still-stinging feet carry me as if compelled—past the rows of doors, past the last stragglers from the court heading to their private rooms, down the stairs and on to the east end of the palace.
The arched doorway to the palace temple looms at the far end of the last hall I step into. I haven’t ventured into it other than the second night of our starvation trial, haven’t wanted to deal with clerics and devouts who must be more dedicated to their imperial overseers than the gods they worship.
But I need my godlen tonight, and I don’t think I’m going to find the serenity to reach him in my sullied bedroom.
As temples go, the one attached to the side of the imperial palace like a small extra wing is modest in size if not in opulence. This space is meant to accommodate the spiritual needs of the emperor and his court alone, no one else. I caught a glimpse of the immense public temple in the middle of Vivencia on my journey through the city when I arrived.
Like that one, the emperor’s private temple belongs to the All-Giver along with all the lesser gods. Walking into the domed space, I pay more attention to the details I was too weakened to appreciate last time.
Nine panes of color stretch across the ceiling overhead, swirling into a spiral of silver and gold at the very peak. Golden statues of each of the lesser gods stand in alcoves spaced an equal distance around the curving walls. Silk curtains in their associated colors frame each recess, with matching cushions on the marble-tiled floor.
A few lanterns beam along the edges of the ceiling, but I don’t see anyone else inside at the moment. No doubt the imperial cleric and devouts have taken to their beds at this late hour.
So there’s no one to watch as I cross the room to the statue of Elox within his draping of pure white.
I sink onto the white cushion and peer up at the statue some past emperor must have commissioned. My godlen’s features look wrong sculpted out of the luxurious metal, a material I can’t imagine him having any use for unless it’s to pay to help those in need.
They’ve portrayed him with his typical flowing hair and beard, both reaching just below the level of his shoulders. In one hand, he holds a willow branch like a walking stick, curved at the top as if yielding to the wind. The other hand cups a real sprig of lavender that the temple staff must replace regularly.
His characteristically plain tunic and trousers contrast with the precious metal even more than his face. The gold is even etched with the lines of patches supposedly mended in the fabric.
He’s gazing down fondly at the two sheep nestled at his feet. A dove perches on his shoulder.
Despite the contradiction between the expense of the sculpture and the figure it depicts, the sight of my godlen soothes my grief just a little.
I tip my head back, my eyelids sliding closed. The lantern light glows through them. I picture the figure before me as if he’s made of that light rather than gold.
After tapping my fingers down my front, I press my knuckles against my godlen brand. Then my hands curl together in my lap, the sapphire on my ring pressing into the opposite palm. I let my stance sag as I give myself over to Elox’s guidance, emptying myself of personal will.
Elox, my godlen, I fear I’ve lost my way. Is it truly your intention that I continue on this course amid so much violence and pain? How can I heal what’s so very wounded? I would serve you, but I don’t want to cause even more harm. What would you ask of me now?
For the first several slow breaths, nothing comes to me. Then a gentle pressure settles on my shoulders like my mother might have rested her hands there when reassuring me. As if to say, I’m with you. I hear you.
I sink deeper into my meditative state. My awareness of the room around me dwindles. Even the ache of loss and guilt fades away.
There’s nothing but the steady rhythm of my breath and the thump of my pulse, on and on and?—
A vision swims up from some place beyond consciousness.
A sheep stands in a field of grass. The blades around it shine verdantly green; the rest droop, dry and yellowed.
A knife that’s little more than a glint of light slashes through the animal’s plump body from chin to chest. The sheep’s legs crumple into the gush of blood.
The crimson flood spreads out into the field—and new tufts of grass spring up in its wake, dappling the ailing areas with more and more vivid green while the creature deflates against the ground…
My eyes pop open. I stare up at the statue of Elox, a sharper pang resonating through my chest.
There’s a parable Elox’s devouts like to tell about a poor farming couple who begged for help against a band of raiders. Elox told them to slaughter their herd of sheep for the marauders.
“Surrender can be a weapon,” the godlen said, so the tale claims. “Sometimes blood must be spilled to prepare the ground for peace.”
My godlen believes I should shed even more blood than seeped from my feet tonight, however literally or metaphorically, before I’ve seen my duty through.
I can’t say I’m even surprised by the answer. More unexpected is the image that passes before my eyes as I lower them.
Just for an instant, with a shift in the lantern light, a beam streaks across my cupped hands in the shape of a butcher’s knife.
I peer at my hands for several heartbeats longer after the sign has vanished, as if I’ll find a clearer answer written there. But really, that’s as direct as the divine presences who watch over our world ever get.
The blade is in my grasp. It’s my choice whether I go forward.
Elox can’t force my hand.
Every cleric preaches that all people have free will regardless of what the gods might ask of us. But for whatever reason, my godlen felt the need to emphasize that point.
A choked laugh sputters out of me.
“Where else would I go?” I can’t stop myself from asking out loud, peering up at the statue again. “What else could I do?”
I remain poised there on the cushion for several more minutes, but he offers no answers to those questions. It’s my decision, and he’s told me what he thinks would be best. If I want to strike off in some other direction, I’ll have to figure that out for myself .
Here I am, then, with the cards I was dealt. I can throw them away and leave the empire’s fate—and my kingdom’s—to a woman like Fausta, or I can play the next rounds as well as I damn well can.
Gods help me, I might know how to surrender, but not to absolute oblivion.
I pick myself off the cushion, every inch of my body still filled with an unsettling combination of aches and numbness. As if every piece of me has hollowed out, leaving nothing behind but the lingering pain.
As I walk back through the halls, my mind has settled enough for me to take in the tapestries and paintings hanging on the halls. Around the bend from the temple, my feet jar to a halt in front of a particularly enormous gilded frame.
The painting encompassed in that frame stretches nearly to the ceiling and four times as wide as my arms can reach. I have to step back to the opposite wall to take it all in.
As soon as I do, I know why it caught my gaze.
Flames lick across a hilly landscape spotted with forests and towns. Trees have toppled, buildings have collapsed. Tiny figures flee in chaos across the terrain.
It’s a depiction of the Great Retribution. The punishment our greatest god, the All-Giver, rained across the realms in response to terrifying acts of brutal magic as a scourge of twisted sorcerers attempted to raise themselves above any higher power.
In the aftermath, out of divine disappointment and offense, the Great God abandoned our continent to the care of the lesser gods who remained. But the painting isn’t one of despair.
Right in the center of the epic masterpiece, a new city shimmers, sunlight catching off the spire of its temple and its silvery rooftops. There’s no mistaking the intended symbolism.
Just as the cleric said that past evening, out of the ruin of the Great Retribution, Dariu recovered first. It was during those early days of recovery that an emperor saw the opportunity to bring the surrounding countries under his sway. His armies swept across the continent while the rest of us were still picking up the pieces of our livelihoods.
The painting might as well be gloating about their victory at our expense. Still, even as I grimace, a fire of my own flares up inside me to fill just a little of the emptiness.
Hundreds of years ago, after the worst destruction the continent has ever faced, Dariu rose from the ashes and turned itself into something even stronger than before.
Who’s to say I can’t do the same?