Chapter Four #2
Adria has never talked to me before about her surrender to Ronan.
Seth had taken command of Father’s closest forces after Father had lost his duel with the new king, and he quickly surrendered according to their arrangement.
But Adria had been hundreds of miles away fighting in the southern desert near Minar.
When news had arrived of Father’s defeat, she refused to lay down her arms.
I’ve often wondered why she changed her mind. I’d imagined she’d die before admitting defeat. She was like Father in that way. But she had signed the treaty and given up our lands without so much as an insult, according to Typhon.
I know better than to ask her. I pull myself up and walk to the looking glass. The sandals are a bit too big for me, but I manage to walk in them okay, and I must admit they are a much better fit for the gown.
Adria joins me. I haven’t stood with her like this in a long time.
I was wrong about our lack of resemblance.
While our figures remain as different as ever, you can see the likeness in our faces more with each passing year: not just the eyes, but the same freckles on our noses and cheeks, the same pout of our lower lips.
She nods at my reflection, approving, and then she turns me to her.
“This is a costume you’re wearing. It’s a role that you’ll play, that you have to play so we can do what we need to do.
” I wonder if she said something like this to herself when she entered the throne room.
“They can’t take who you are from you. No matter what you have to say, no matter what you have to pretend to think or feel, they can’t change your heart. Only you can do that.”
She stands back from me. I find myself wishing I had Ronan’s power to know what she was feeling.
She’s my sister, but I’ve seldom felt love or warmth from her.
Anger, resentment, disappointment—I’ve felt those plenty.
But what does she know of my heart? How could she know my heart when I don’t know hers at all?
Still, the part of me that longs for her approval is ever-present at the back of my mind. I fear her, I envy her, but most of all, I want to make her proud.
“I won’t forget,” I promise her.
“Put your armor back on,” she says, turning back to the stairs. “Leave the silly things for when they’ll matter.”
I sigh, but I know she’s right. My armor hasn’t dried much in the dark, humid body of the ferry, but I wiggle back into it anyway. We’ll be at the palace soon, and who knows what dangers lurk there in the darkness?
We arrive in the early afternoon, a portcullis rising to allow the ferry into the royal moat. The river meanders into a cavern of ancient stone, reflections of light dancing off the water and up the rough-hewn walls.
The dock is bustling by the time we arrive.
All of Selara’s nobility will be arriving this week.
I’m including us in that list; we’re considered part of Selara again, and I need to make sure I remember that now that we’re in the capital.
We’ll all be staying in the palace for three months at least, though a Great Festival can go far longer if the king decrees it.
It's been at least ten years since the last Great Festival, since before the war began. It’s said that if you go too long without a festival, the gods will smite you and the people will revolt.
Ronan has been pushing his luck waiting this long, so everyone is expecting this to be the longest and grandest festival ever.
I don’t know any of the arriving nobility, but Adria recognizes members of House Juni, one of the closest allies of the royal house.
They politely nod to us from across the dock and exchange pleasantries about our journey and the beautiful summer weather, but their cold looks betray that they’d rather be talking to anyone else.
A man wearing a long, white garment just like Typhon’s approaches us.
He’s tall and imperious, with silver hair and a silver mustache that curls at the ends, and from the way that he surveys our group as if we’re nothing more than a bug under his shoe, I know who he must be: Lord Cyrus, Ronan’s Grand Vizier and Typhon’s father.
Typhon breaks away from us and approaches him, but rather than a hug or other familiar greeting, he simply bends at the waist and kisses a ring on his father’s hand.
“I’ll expect a full report after dinner,” Cyrus says quietly to his son. It’s fairly dark in the cavern, so I’m almost certain I’m the only one who can see Typhon’s cheeks turn scarlet.
“Welcome to the Vaylanian Palace. His Majesty God-King Ronan has requested that I personally greet you and show you to your chambers.” Lord Cyrus’s voice is unpleasantly nasal and full of condescension; it’s clear he didn’t personally agree with Ronan’s request, but what choice did he have when it came from the God-King himself?
“Please follow me and be careful of your step. We wouldn’t want you slipping and dashing your heads upon the cavern floor.”
I shoot a look at Larus. What an oddly specific warning. Larus shrugs his shoulders in response.
There’s nothing for us to do but follow Grand Vizier Cyrus, resident psychopath. He leads us through a torch-lit hallway and up a flight of stairs. “The baths are there,” he says, waving a thin finger in the direction of a passage.
“It’s almost as if his heart isn’t in it,” mutters Larus.
I smirk. “There’s the kitchen. And here’s where we’ll hang you if you misbehave,” I whisper back.
“Is there a question?” asks Cyrus.
The heat rises in my face in response. I hope he didn’t hear any of that.
I make a note to be more careful, especially once the king arrives tomorrow. “Are the baths separated by gender?” I ask, giving Cyrus the question he asked for.
Larus gives me a look that could kill, but gods, if I’m going to be stuck in this miserable place with these miserable people for months, I’ve got to find a way to have a little fun.
“No,” says Cyrus. “All bathe together, except for the God-King, of course.”
Well, well, well. There’s a little fun, at least. It’s been a minute since I’ve shared anyone’s bed. If I get desperate enough, maybe I can find a fire-born to fuck me and then fuck me over like they always do.
We leave the carved stairway for a much larger hallway that appears to be made of the same reddish stone, but in blocks rather than natural formations. It’s similar in style and structure to our castles back home; only the materials are different.
That and the nearly endless amount of gold.
It’s as if we left the cave and entered a pirate’s treasure hoard. Anything that could be gold is gold. Torch holders and hinges, the handles on the furniture, frames that hold the portraits, pots holding plants. It’s…a lot.
I mean, I get it. I guess if I’d discovered the secrets of one of alchemy’s greatest mysteries, I’d put that shit everywhere too.
And I guess there’s a chance that it’s just brass, and they just want us to think that it’s gold—
“Everything you see is real gold or at least plated with it. All made just down the road at the Alchemists’ Guild,” says Cyrus.
Made with the ash they’ve starved our people for. The price of this gold was Nithyria, and we paid it in blood.
I want to knock this stupid gold pot right off the table onto the floor. Someone in our villages was maimed so that this dumb little plant could sit here where no one ever even looks at it.
But making a scene isn’t going to do us much good if we’re trying to stay in the king’s good graces, so I put my hand in the pocket of my trousers to resist the temptation.
“Ah. Speaking of the alchemists, it’s the Guild Mistress herself.”
A petite figure treads down the hallway towards us, flanked on both sides by much larger men. All three wear the brown hooded robes and golden medallions of the Alchemists’ Guild.
It’s the same robe our own alchemist Hermes is wearing, though it barely covers his tall, bulky frame.
I hate the man on principle more than due to any actual slight.
In truth, he serves our house well in his duties, primarily brewing elixirs and overseeing the healers.
But the Guild is loyal to the crown, and the way Hermes in particular fawns over Ronan makes me sick.
It turns out he has a talent for fawning. He bows low to the Guild Mistress, kissing a golden ring on her right hand as she lowers her hood.
“She’s so young,” I say to Larus. The Guild Mistress looks like she ought to be an apprentice at best, not the head of the entire order. Her features are still soft and rounded, with large brown eyes and golden tan skin pocked with pimples.
“May I present the Guild Mistress of the Alchemists’ Guild, Zara of Eki,” says Hermes.
Eki. I can’t remember where that is exactly, but it’s a long way from here. It’s somewhere on Velmora, another continent entirely. I wonder how she came to be here and how she came to be the head of the guild while being only…twenty maybe? She can’t be older than me.
“Mistress Zara is one of the only light-born living in Selara,” says Cyrus, which explains it. “She was gifted by Vayla herself.”
“How wonderful,” says Larus. “We’re honored to meet you.”
I’m glad he’s here to remind us of our manners, because Adria and I were just staring dumbfounded.
Another light-born at the head of the Alchemists’ Guild. Can she feel our feelings as well?
We’ve never had a particular reverence for the light-born in our family.
Our parents didn’t give much credence to the ranking of the schools in the Codex, given what the royal House Alta, all light-born, had done to us.
Mother believed that the rankings were just the opinions of the person who’d written them down into the Codex, and that they didn’t determine our destiny.
It was one of her most radical views, pure heresy.
Definitely not the kind of thing you mentioned in a temple, or with someone around from the Alchemists’ Guild, given their close connection to the church.
Zara smiles warmly at me, if a bit shyly, and suddenly the air between us feels softer, gentler, almost as if sunlight has spilled quietly into the space without brightening a single shadow.
It’s…pleasant. Alarmingly so.
“I’m sure you must be very busy,” says Cyrus. He doesn’t seem to be affected by her presence; if anything, he seems annoyed by her, but maybe this is how he is with everyone.
“As always,” she says. “It was nice to meet you all.”
“She liked you,” whispers Larus after she disappears down another passage. “Did you see her smile? She’s probably lonely, surrounded by a bunch of old folks. She could be worth getting to know.”
I nod and almost run into Typhon, who has stopped in front of me. I turn to where he’s looking and see someone running down yet another staircase: a servant, judging by his uniform robes of red linen. He makes a beeline for Cyrus and begins whispering frantically in his ear.
“You’re certain? Right now?”
The servant nods and takes off through a door.
Cyrus is flustered, but he quickly regains his composure before he speaks. “It appears that there’s been a change of plans. The God-King has returned a day early. Follow me to the throne room; he’d like to greet you himself.”
I look at Larus and then Adria, and I see my own panic reflected in their eyes as well.
Oh, fuck.
Here we go.