Chapter 16
EMERE
He must’ve dozed off in the dim tavern while waiting for this Devadas, because he was suddenly back on the plains of Arland. Loran stood at a distance and was looking in his direction. Her body was covered in scales. Her wings were half folded. Her left eye was a glowing ball of blue fire.
Emere was entranced.
“Prince Emere, you have finally come.”
The volcano in the horizon wore a halo of light as blue as that in Loran’s eye. Emere stared for a moment before speaking.
“Is this not the same place we met as before?”
Sensing Loran’s gaze was looking past his shoulder, Emere turned around. There was nothing there.
“Prince Emere. When I battled the Twenty-Fifth Legion, where did you find yourself?”
“… Under your orders, I was escorting the sorcerer Arienne to the volcano.”
“Do you regret doing so?”
Regret wasn’t strong enough a word. He despaired for not having fought by Loran’s side on that fateful day.
That he had never charged under the banner of the first king who taught him what being a king actually meant.
If he could’ve fought on that battleground for that single day, the long years before that would’ve been worth it.
Even if it had been a battle in another country and not Kamori …
But that was not to be Emere’s fate. He lowered his head.
Loran said, “You are about to meet the king, Prince Emere.”
Had Septima brought him to meet Loran?
“Your Majesty…?”
He took a step toward her but stopped when he saw her slowly shake her head.
“Not me, but the Sleeping King.”
“Who might that be?”
A light shone from Loran. The fire in her left eye had overflowed to cover her whole body. Emere could not take it any longer.
“Why do you keep speaking in riddles?” Emere shouted.
But the only answer he received was another riddle.
“Prince Emere, what does it mean that a destiny is decided, but not the future?”
The plains were now covered in blue fire too.
“That one cannot pick the moment of choice,” said Emere readily, “but the future depends on the choice one makes in that moment.”
Loran nodded. “The wisdom of the Tree Lords of Kamori. But that is not all.”
“If not all, then—”
“You must meet the Sleeping King.”
The sky, the earth, it was all covered in blue fire now, though the fire was not hot. The horizon had disappeared. So had the volcano and the battlefield and Arland. Loran herself was fading into the light.
At the sound of a door opening, Emere was startled awake, the short leg of his table knocking against the floor.
Calming himself, he looked around him. There was another lantern lit, but it was darker in the tavern than before. The shadow of a giant filled the doorframe. The stout man and Septima had their gazes fixed in that direction.
The giant entered and carefully lowered the burden he carried on his back onto Emere’s table. The burden was a person. A man. Maybe dead. The stout man stood up from his chair, lantern in hand, and took a closer look.
Septima stood. “Oh … Is he alive?”
The giant shrugged.
There were three bolts stuck in the giant’s shoulder and chest, and the man lying on the table also had three bloody bolts coming out of his chest. Septima brought a finger under the man’s nostrils, shook her head, and said, “Let’s take care of you first.”
As the stout man held up his lantern for her, Septima grabbed the end of each of the bolts in the giant and ripped them out.
She did it so forcefully that blood splattered on her face each time, but the giant didn’t even flinch.
His bleeding soon stopped, and his wounds slowly, miraculously began to close.
They shrank into star-shaped scars and then completely disappeared.
To a wide-eyed Emere, Septima said, “Councillor, this is Devadas. He is an Amrit from Varata.”
Emere had heard of Amrits when he visited Varata with Rakel.
They had been monks, practicing body magic for immense strength and healing.
Local legends said the greatest of them were able to uproot hills and come back from the dead.
By the time he visited, there had been none to be seen, as one would expect from an Imperial province.
All he saw was one of the mountain sites where a cloister had stood, turned into an Imperial-style square.
But the locals insisted that some were in hiding, passing down their magic.
Did they know an Amrit worked for the very Empire who had exterminated their order?
The giant Devadas rubbed his healed wounds and said in a deep voice, “Who was that woman outside? She was trouble.”
“The assassin who was after the councillor. What happened to her?”
“She’s dead. But she managed to kill our contact.
” Devadas looked Emere up and down. He seemed displeased.
Perhaps, like the stout man, he did not approve of Emere’s stealing of the Power generator in Dehan Forest. Emere returned his stare with a dispassionate one of his own.
Devadas’s nostrils flared, and his breathing was rough.
He took a menacing step toward Emere, and Emere stood up in response.
Devadas was two heads taller than Emere, a living tower of muscle. Emere had no choice but to look up.
Septima stepped in between them.
“You know what Cain said. Restrain yourself.”
Devadas scoffed.
Septima turned to Emere. “And Councillor, you must understand the disapproval of my men. Hundreds died in that fire.”
The tavern owner sat exactly as he did before, still staring into the distance. Emere sat back down, looked at the man who lay unmoving on the table, and asked, “Is this the man I was supposed to meet?”
“He is. Though, to be precise, our friend was supposed to speak to you through this man.” Septima sighed and rummaged through the man’s coat. “Do you know what’s under the Senate building?”
The Circuit of Destiny again. This could not be a coincidence.
“I’ve heard rumors,” said Emere. “Generators connected together. The Circuit of Destiny that can tell the future.”
Septima found a small burlap sack the size of a fist in the man’s inner pocket and nodded.
“Yes, as you say, the Circuit can tell us the future. They say it holds the whole of the past, present, and future within it. Our friend … he is an Arlander named Cain, and he is trying to learn everything he can about the Circuit of Destiny. In his investigations, your name came up.”
The moment Septima said Cain’s name, Emere felt a level of care underlying the tone of her voice.
Septima undid the sack’s string and dropped its contents on the floor.
A few silver coins made a clear ringing sound on the floorboards, and then two wooden carvings fell out.
Both human figures—men or women, it was impossible to tell—were raising their arms to the sky. Emere was familiar with the style.
“An Ebrian. This is their Nameless God.”
Perhaps surprised at his knowledge, Septima arched an eyebrow.
Emere explained, “I once traveled with one.”
Rakel had owned such a wood carving. She probably still had it, hidden away somewhere.
Septima clucked her tongue at the dead man’s personal effects. “This won’t do. We need to find another way to talk to Cain. This place is going to get dangerous, I think. We should leave.”
Emere held one of the carvings in his hand, running his thumb over it and feeling the texture.
“If the three of you are from the Ministry of Intelligence, why are you secretly meeting with a provincial who worships a forbidden god in a place like this?”
“Forbidden gods are a matter for the Office of Truth,” said the stout man, “not Intelligence.”
Emere kept his gaze on Septima. “You know that’s not an answer.”
Septima regarded Emere for a moment before answering.
“All right, Councillor. I shall explain.”
“We just met this guy!” the stout man objected, his lantern swinging as he turned to her.
“It’s fine. He was summoned here by Cain, after all.”
Devadas gave a nod as well. The stout man opened his mouth to speak but closed it again as he put the lantern down on the table. Emere could sense a certain reverence in the way the three of them carried themselves. The name “Cain” gave weight to the dusty air in the tavern.
It somehow reminded him of being taken for the first time to the sacred forests of Kamori as a child—the priests leading him to the Tree Lords, the huge trees that bestowed wisdom and blessed the country.
As the rustles of their leaves gradually turned into speech, Emere had found himself bowing his head with his hands placed on his chest.
Septima continued.
“Two years ago, Cain prevented a Star of Mersia from being set off in the Capital. Thanks to his efforts, only a few hundred died in the resulting fire instead of the whole of the Imperial heartland being destroyed. We have been cooperating with each other ever since.”
The Star of Mersia. The Powered weapon that could turn an entire country into a desert. Emere recalled the sight of the wastelands of Mersia, a desolate view that he had shared with Rakel.
“What Cain discovered while looking into the Circuit of Destiny was plans for a rebellion. We are trying to stop it.”
It was the kind of thing the Ministry of Intelligence would do. The Arland incident had happened only two years ago; they were right to be on edge.
Emere suppressed a grin. “And what province is planning a rebellion now?”
“It’s not a province. It’s the Office of Truth.”
Silence.
The stout man finally spoke up. “Grand Inquisitor Lysandros led the Office of Truth for over a hundred years. Ever since he was killed by a provincial, presumably, the Office has been up in arms. Those bastards have always been a pack of fanatics,” he nearly spat out.
“Once they come into power, they will purge everyone. No one is safe, Councillor.”