Chapter Twenty-Five The Lady Fires the Silverthorn Pyre
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Lady Fires the Silverthorn Pyre
His Imperial Majesty moved for the path leading past the blasted ruins of the glassmakers’ guild, towards the Cauldron.
“There are fearful folk in that sinners’ den,” said a cautious lord. “Will you drag your lady into the midst of foulness?”
All eyes went to the new Queen Lia, fresh as a lily under the morning dew. She trembled as though feeling the first cold wind stir her tender petals, her gaze beseeching. Who could refuse a damsel in distress?
“I was born of the Cauldron,” said the Emperor of Eyam. “All the fearful folk in this sinners’ den fear me. But if my lady does not wish it, we shall not go.”
So the Emperor and his bride never entered the Cauldron.
The proud city of Themesvar celebrated their new ruler’s marriage and their belief that the coming of the divine Emperor would raise them up over all others.
That the shining maiden he had chosen would prove a golden bridge between the god and his people.
That her mercy would temper his power, and the god was tamed.
Gods cannot be tamed. Gods stay wild.
The Cauldron stood apart from the celebrations. In the dark, the Cauldron bided its time. The Cauldron made its own plans.
Time of Lies, ANONYMOUS
Emer stood at the very edge of the Cauldron, among a crowd choking the narrow street. Hidden in the shadows cast by the charred ruins of the glassmakers’ guild, they waited for the imperial procession to go by.
Lia had coaxed a tale about the procession from the old woman on Forge’s street, whose grandmother as a small child had watched the last parade from the last Queen’s Trials conducted in the old ways.
As the star of the prospective brides, the winner of the first round would be carried in a diaphanously draped litter.
The procession would go down the Chain of Commerce with the people waving torches made from the wood of silverthorn trees, split into sparks-and-dark kindling for this special occasion.
In the Square of Divine Union they would cheer for the lady’s victory, surrounded by festive frescoes showing the Great God and the Great Goddess’s wedding day, the Great Goddess smiling with red blossoms in her black hair.
Then the Emperor would join the favoured lady, riding a richly caparisoned steed. The bright pair would never venture into the Cauldron, but they would ride past this street, fire the silverthorn pyre in the Square of Sacrifice, and make a lovely light.
At the first sign of Lady Rae’s litter, Emer shoved her way to the front of the crowd. Lia followed.
Nobody from the Cauldron could hope to watch the Queen’s Trials. They waited hours in suspense, until Lia sweet-talked a kitchen boy from the palace into telling her if Lady Rahela had survived the first round.
Neither of them dreamed Lady Rae would win. Once they learned she had, they knew they must be on hand to help if there was trouble. None of the nobles listened to gossip in the marketplace. They couldn’t know how much the city hated Lady Rae.
Emer went as far as she could while staying within the boundary of the Cauldron. She had strong arms, pointed elbows and a naturally bad-tempered face, which was enough to secure her and Lia an excellent view as the imperial procession passed by.
The diaphanous curtains of the litter were flung defiantly open, and Lady Rae’s deep-blue skirts dripped from the silken pallet onto the cobbled street.
Her signature white and red had vanished, scrawled over with the Emperor’s colours; Lady Rae wore a black dress with a corset as tall and confining as a black tower, and jet embellishments so heavy they looked like dark armour.
The Abandon All Hope Diamond necklace glowed like a beacon above the black tower of her corset.
Rivers of blue sapphires streamed from her ears.
The crowd watched her progress in hungry silence. Lady Rae was lent dignity by darkness and beauty by the Emperor’s choice. If he wanted her, everybody else must too.
But this city had seen Rahela discarded by the king before now.
She could never again be a flawless porcelain vase for them to stuff every flowery fantasy of an ideal girl into.
Once sullied, a lady could never be clean.
And these days, rumour painted her the blackest of villains.
People wanted a true queen for their Emperor.
A few cheers rose uncertain into the livid cloud. Lady Rae waved to those who cheered, but her face remained wary.
Clearly, she didn’t love the city. Why should the city love her?
Rae was right to be wary.
Gold-masked guards formed the lady’s retinue, marching in step with the nobles’ horses.
Emer saw a flash of grey flesh between gauntlet and uniform sleeve.
The woman beside Emer took a step back, gagging.
Realization did not dawn, but fell like night upon the crowd.
The imperial guards were ghouls, and every soul born on the Edge had grown up in fear of the dead.
A voice broke from the crowd. “Lady of snow and flame? More like bitch of death and midnight!”
Lady Rae blew a kiss from bared teeth. “Stop, I’m blushing.”
“What did my sister say?” Lia asked anxiously from Emer’s side.
The crowd surged, anger overcoming fear. Emer saw the prime minister rein his horse in. The movement was sharp, deliberate and did not escape the notice of others in the procession. Emer watched the nobles let Rae’s litter go forward into the seething tumult, alone.
A guard moved to block the rush. Someone screamed, though Emer judged they hadn’t been bitten.
The scream was enough. The crowd was on the litter now, pulling down the diaphanous curtains in handfuls.
Wood splintered with a great crack against the cobbles, and the snowy veils tumbled down into the dirt.
Emer shoved her way viciously through the crowd, trying to see where her lady had fallen.
She found her lady by the glow of the cursed necklace.
Rae wasn’t in the wreckage of wood and white silk.
She had jumped clear with astonishing speed, and stood at bay in the Square of Sacrifice with gold-masked guards and the furious crowd closing in.
A huge fellow wearing a green jerkin lunged at her, shouting, “You’re no bride.
No true queen. Harlot of the Tower! Whore of the god! ”
Rae’s fists went up, enchanted gauntlets shining silver-bright. The bitch of death and midnight stood ready to fight.
Emer had her axe hidden beneath her apron. She surged forward, stopping only when the darkness fell. A shadow covered the moon, quenching the gleam of masks, gauntlets and jewels. The next instant, the night sky flared scorching white.
Blinking violently to clear her dazzled eyes, Emer saw a great flagstone turned to a cinder, curling up at the ends as if this great slab of stone had become a charred leaf. As Emer’s vision cleared, her mind did, too, telling her the unbelievable was true. Telling her what had struck the stone.
The god-Emperor had hurled a lightning bolt.
Wind ruffled the hair of the dazed throng as a great beast arced down from the sky, the arch of its wings skimming the rooftops.
From the beast’s back leaped a shadow, growing as it descended.
His cape swirled with the colours of night and evening, black blotting out the stars, blue silk lining reflecting the gleam of the procession’s torches.
The god landed crouched, back arched like an animal’s, red-gleaming orichal steel claws scoring long, deep lines in the charred stone.
When he lifted his head, his was not the face Emer remembered. The features might be the same, cut in a way no one else’s were, which had made Emer believe his father must be a sailor from some impossibly faraway land. But there was an ashen cast to the god’s winter-gold skin. And the eyes burned.
The Emperor went for the man in green bearing down on Lady Rae, though the man was backing away, babbling pleas and apologies.
The Emperor halted an inch away, steel claws catching the very edge of the green jerkin.
For a moment, Emer thought the god would listen to the man’s pleas. Wasn’t that what gods were meant to do, answer prayers?
Pleading fell away into silence, and into truth. The mortal met the god’s eyes. “We never truly believed you would come. We never truly wanted you.”
Almost sympathetically, the Emperor murmured, “I know.”
The Emperor let out a perfunctory puff of air, as if blowing out a candle.
The entirety of the man’s tall, muscled frame crumbled to ash, flesh collapsing into black dust in the space of a breath.
When the man was reduced to cinders at his feet, the Emperor smiled.
Horribly, that was the instant Emer saw the distorted flash of Key, who had once been her friend.
Even a young god didn’t seem youthful in a human way.
Legend said that he, as the gods’ child, was born and perished centuries ago.
But how were gods born? How did gods live, and die, and live again?
Emer had seen her friend killed mere weeks ago.
She’d choked with horror as his throat opened under the blade, watching him die so young.
The Emperor looked ageless. A thin line of leather and rubies clasped the god’s throat, hiding the scar, like a trail of red wax left by the sealing of an imperial letter.
No other vulnerability was betrayed. A dark jewel shone in the pommel of his famous sword, the God’s Eye captured between the jaws of a metal serpent.
Armoured claws enveloped the hands which used to wear cracked gloves, and his grey eyes were laced with red, like the heart of ashes that never entirely died but lay in wait for another opportunity for destruction.
Watching the legend reborn, Emer saw no sign her friend had returned.
Had he returned? Had Emer ever known him at all?
Had Lady Rae?