Chapter 59 Quil
Quil
For a time, Quil was almost able to believe in the mantra his aunt had lived by: That work was a great healer. That action was the enemy of grief. That if you labored long enough and hard enough, you could outrun pain.
But perhaps Quil was a slower runner than his aunt. For, despite all that there was to do as Emperor, the ache of her loss lingered like a phantom limb. And the ache of S’rsha’s absence burned anew every day, a reminder of their broken bond and his fractured heart.
His aunt’s funeral, two weeks after his arrival in Antium, had been the worst day. Before they’d left the badlands, Quil had insisted on going back for her and Musa’s bodies.
In the end, Elias and Laia had not let him.
“Please, Quil,” Laia had said, though from the look in her eyes, Quil could tell it wasn’t a request. “I need this. I’ve lost too many people.
I cannot survive it without this ritual.
I need to—to see the bodies—Hel’s and Musa’s.
To shroud them. To mourn alone for two people I never expected to love but did, with all my heart. And I don’t want an audience.”
They brought back the caskets on a cart, draped in black. Musa was buried early and quietly, as Laia insisted he would have wanted.
But Aunt Hel was the Empress and required a state funeral.
Her remains were interred in Antium, alongside her parents’ and sisters’ in the Aquilla mausoleum.
Tens of thousands lined the street, silent, as her most loyal soldiers, led by Quil, carried her coffin past. Black banners draped the city.
There were speeches, though Quil remembered none of them.
What he did remember was his friends piling into his quarters after—Laia, Elias, Sufiyan, Arelia, Dex, Rallius, Tas, the Blood Shrike.
They’d sat with him and mourned with him and told stories of Aunt Hel for hours.
Afterward, every hour of every day was filled. As Rallius, his new seneschal, loved to remind him every half hour or so, many of his tasks had to be completed before the coronation, which was planned for the fall, almost exactly a year after Aunt Hel’s death.
So, Quil busied himself in work as his aunt had done her entire life.
He reestablished communications quickly; soon, the drums of the Empire, which had been silent for months, thundered out again across the land.
He signed a treaty with Cero and the Kegari.
He oversaw the burials of those who had died and the removal of that which was destroyed.
He regrouped and reorganized his army and navy.
It was impossible to do everything alone, so he assigned his Paters far more work than they were used to.
Those who didn’t rise to the occasion were promptly replaced.
He ordered the formation of an assembly, broad enough to represent Scholars, Plebians, Mercators, and Illustrians, for it was time for all his people to have a hand in the running of the Empire.
Building plan after building plan came across his desk for approval, including one for a new Blackcliff offered by its commander, Dex Atrius. Perhaps without quite so many dungeons, Your Majesty.
Tas dropped in regularly, the consummate spymaster, bringing with him information from near and far, weaving his own kind of magic. The Blood Shrike, meanwhile, watched over Quil like a mother hen, trustworthy and stalwart. He was relieved she was still by his side.
And every day, he walked among his people. Quietly, he gave them memories of how their nation had once been. Hope for what it one day could be again.
There were surprises, like Quin Veturius, Sufiyan’s great-grandfather, who’d ridden out the invasion in Tiborum. The man was in his nineties, but sharp-eyed and spry and able to manipulate the Illustrians like a smith with soft steel. Quil had come to rely on his wisdom.
Another unexpected surprise was the consistent aid of the Jaduna.
The Empire’s treasury had been looted, its lands plundered and ravaged.
Quil hadn’t expected to get back much, if any, of what they’d lost. But Raani Sh’ban had her trackers recover a great deal of the stolen gold.
And Raani A’yaneh’s crafters sped up the rebuilding.
After a few months, as more of his people returned to their homes and farms, Quil felt a sense of peace. The hole inside him was not healed. But it was bearable.
Tas often tried to tell him about S’rsha, because even though Quil had told him to leave her be, it was clear he was keeping an eye on her. But Quil always refused the information. He’d promised himself that if S’rsha lived, he would be content. He would hold to that vow.
Faster than he expected, his coronation arrived.
It was a beautiful, clear fall day in Antium. The streets were littered with yellow larch leaves, and the blue flag of Gens Aquilla flapped in a gentle breeze. Masks lined the streets and rooftops, for the coronation was in Taius Square and there were always those who wished to do the Emperor harm.
Despite the anticipation leading up to the day, it passed in a blur.
Quil knew that nearly all those he loved were present.
Arelia dressed in finery, with pockets rattling and Sufiyan at her side.
Elias and Laia, beaming from the front row with Zuriya, Ruh, and Karinna between them.
Even his other Farrar cousins came, shy and proud at once.
The Tel Ilessi sent his congratulations, but his people had only just completed the migration to Old Kegar.
He could not be spared. But the Eye of Ankana was present, along with the Mariner king and his family, two dozen Tribal Zaldars, a Sun Lord of Firan, delegations from Mehbahn, Armaana, Odista, and Thafwa, and a young Karkaun warlock—though the last was seated quite far from the dais.
The day was also marked with absence. Spiro Teluman, who’d forged the blade Quil wore across his back.
Musa, a friend he’d known all his life, whose humor and wisdom and sartorial sense were sorely missed.
Quil’s mother, who had died for this day.
His grandparents—those who hadn’t known of his existence and those who had tried to tell him that once, his father had been human.
And S’rsha, who would have laughed at the stuffiness of the Paters and listened as he tried to wrap his mind around the greatest absence of all: Empress Helene.
Quil felt his aunt everywhere. When he passed a tapestry that she once used for target practice. When he heard the clash of a scim in the training yard. When he saw maids wearing their hair in crown braids.
He wanted to ask Aunt Hel if this was how she had felt at her coronation, like the weight of the world was upon her, like she hoped she had the strength to carry it.
Every time he thought of her, the pain came anew.
When the Blood Shrike placed the crown of the Empire on his head, the same crown Aunt Hel had tossed in so many odd places, a memory flowed into him: Aunt Hel bowing her head for the crown, overwhelmed but looking down at her nephew, fast asleep on Tas’s shoulder, and thinking, For you, nephew. All good things are for you.
He came out of the memory to find tears on his face, and tens of thousands of his people cheering. In that moment, he felt her spirit, nodding in approval, relieved of the burden she had borne for two decades.
Thank you, Aunt, he said as the crowd roared. Somewhere, he hoped she would hear him.
After the coronation and the obligatory vows from Illustrian Maters and Paters, the celebration moved from the throne room to the palace’s many ballrooms. At midnight, and with parties still ongoing, Quil slipped away from the revelry, exhausted, hoping to collapse into his bed for a much-needed sleep.
Rallius found him on the way.
“Your Majesty, the Ankanese ambassador was hoping to speak with you before you retired. And Pater Tanlius was wondering—”
Loyalty or freedom? He’d asked his aunt this question long ago now. She’d always chosen loyalty, though he wished she hadn’t; she’d suffered for it.
The choice comes every day, Quil, she’d told him in the badlands. Every single day. Loyalty or freedom. I am not saying you should forsake the Empire. I’m saying some days, you should choose freedom.
“It can all wait,” he told Rallius. “I’m going to bed.”
Some days, he needed time for himself. His aunt, he realized now, had tried to find that time however she could.
On the back of a horse and while training or visiting Elias and Laia.
In the quiet journeys between cities, the ceaseless movement she subjected herself to so her ghosts could not catch up with her.
He dismissed his guards—now that he was Emperor, he could get away with it. In any case, they’d be lurking outside his door soon enough, so it wasn’t as if he would be alone for long.
The halls grew quieter as he made his way from the ballrooms thundering with dance and laughter and song, through a series of hallways still under construction. He passed the throne room on the way but noticed that lamplight burned within, spilling forth from a cracked doorway.
Strange. There shouldn’t be anyone in there right now.
Caution had him reaching for his scim and casting out his magic like a fishing line. Immediately, he realized there was someone in there, but their mind was hidden. Which indicated that they were expecting his magical incursion.
Quil gripped his scim tighter, his body coiled. He nearly called for his guards, but something stopped him. Instead, he moved silently for the door and pushed it open.
All the lamps along the walls were lit low, and the room was flooded with gentle warmth. The silver and gold of the tapestries, hung just days before, seemed to glow, and a single beam of moonlight from the windows above fell upon the throne.
Which was, to Quil’s surprise and delight, occupied by none other than S’rsha Inashi-fa.