Chapter 39 Aiz
Aiz
As Aiz walked the battlements of a palace in the Imperial city of Estium, she thought of the old cloister of Dafra. Those weak, crumbling bricks. The peaked roofs and impractical buttresses that must have been an ode to the old world. A poor shadow compared to all they had left behind.
And yet, in that hellhole, there was one creature that never seemed hungry. The spiders. Aiz had watched them sometimes late at night, the moonlight lingering on their webs like the pale fingertips of a lover. They wove and spun and waited and ate. They did not suffer.
The other children feared the spiders. They were large and pale and furry, and if you poked one, it would bite you. But mostly, the spiders wanted to be left alone to make their home. To survive without interference.
Aiz understood. For that’s all she craved too.
Tel Ilessi. The voice came from beside her, just as Div’s had. Dear little Ruh, his spirit offering her understanding. His presence providing comfort.
You have fought so hard, he whispered. And for so very long. You’re almost there.
“Will it work, Ruh?” she asked quietly. “Will my people finally return home?”
Yes, Ruh said. The dreams I give you are truth, Aiz. Your truth. They will come to fruition. You have only to trust me. You will know when you see Quil Farrar again that the time has come to return to where this all began. Return to me, Aiz. I await you in the cave. And I will ensure your victory.
“And what of Cero?” Aiz said. “What of these claims that he is the Tel Ilessi?” She’d chewed on that horror since the moment Musa had hinted at it.
Now she couldn’t escape it. Rumors that Cero was the true Tel Ilessi had sprung up like mushrooms after rain.
Rumors that, Ghaz had told her, had begun with Noa and Olnas.
That had spread like pestilence among her pilots and troops—and even among the conquered Martials and Scholars.
Those two old women still lurked somewhere in Antium, slipping through all Aiz’s nets.
She cursed the day she’d brought them to the Empire.
What a fool she’d been, thinking that they loved her.
All they had done was spread lies. She should have known.
They’d always liked Cero better, even though he’d never hewn to the faith as she had.
“What if the rumors are true?” Aiz gave voice to her fears, as she could only do with Ruh. “Cero had such a good sense of what others were feeling. He was there at the fire and when I fell from the Aerie. He was there when Sufiyan Veturius stabbed me. I don’t remember healing myself. What if—”
Cero is far away over a stormy sea, Ruh answered her question. I have seen him and he will not harm you. It is you who first claimed the mantle of Tel Ilessi. Not Cero.
“All is in readiness, Tel Ilessi. Estium’s Resistance is quiet, for now, and the Sails are ready for deployment.” Ghaz appeared at the top of the stairs that led to the battlements. He was pale and drawn from grief. He had lost many members of his clan to the Martial attacks.
But in the end, their loss had been worth it. Because those deaths convinced Musa of Adisa that Aiz had no idea he was spying on them. He was so clever with his little wights. Sending message after message out to the Empress like a loyal hound.
And like the bitch that she was, the Empress fought tooth and nail for what she thought was hers, never believing that Aiz might be manipulating her.
The first test had been a small caravan of food heading south.
It had been waylaid a hundred miles out of Antium.
Then a weapons cache north of Silas, the missiles filled with firepowder gone inert after being exposed to water.
The Martials hadn’t seemed to notice that the explosion was much smaller than it should have been.
Aiz simply had to make the missions difficult enough that they felt like victories.
Aiz was a spider and her prey was close. In time, the Martials had grown comfortable. And Aiz had managed to track them to the Bhuth badlands, a twisty labyrinth of canyons and hoodoos and ravines that was difficult to penetrate by Sail.
But not impossible. Not if you knew exactly where your prey was lurking.
“You asked me to report anything about Cero bet-Dafra,” Ghaz finally said. “I learned that he was spotted in the south. Weeks ago.”
Aiz sneered. He’d abandoned his own people.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d had to drag his ideas out of him in that interminable year before they attacked the Empire.
He hadn’t wanted to be a pilot. Or a cleric.
He just lurked in those tunnels below the cloister and talked about how every Sacred Tale was a lie.
“He is a pathetic creature,” Aiz said. “Weak and disloyal.”
“That he may be,” Ghaz said carefully. “But the rumors about him seeking the path to Old Kegar have not abated. Noa and Olnas have spread their poison to many of the other clerics. Now there are those saying he will lead the Return.”
“Do not concern yourself with Cero,” Aiz said. “After I kill the Empress, I will crush the rumormongers. And if Cero isn’t too cowardly to return, I will crush him, too.”
Distantly, she felt the winds change. A line of hundreds of Kegari soldiers marched in formation to the front gate of Estium.
Aiz took a deep breath, settling her anger.
“A fine evening to put our troubles behind us,” she said softly, for the stars were gentle. “The Loha will be ours and we’ll be free of this place. I have seen it in my dreams. Go.”
When Ghaz left, Aiz spoke to Ruh again, knowing he was here now, with her.
“What do you think the stars are like in Old Kegar, Ruh?”
Different, he said, for you will look upon them whilst standing free in your ancestral lands.
“You are certain, Ruh?” she whispered. “I am the one?”
You are the one, Aiz, Ruh soothed her. You will save us all. But you must do as I bid. You swore you would. You will hold to that promise, or I will not aid you. You must have faith. Are you ready?
“Yes,” she whispered. “I am ready.”