24. The Hands That Guide
The Hands That Guide
The Jade Lattices were still dark when Lu’ma began her sweep.
The air coiled thick with Sahtra incense, its serpentine body curling along the mosaicked floors.
These were the breaths of the Jade Lattices between Council sessions, rituals, gatherings, and the chaos of the day.
Most considered these hours sacred. Or silent. But for Lu’ma, they were duty.
She moved without sound, a flicker of shadow and violet robes. Her bare feet whispered over crystal tile, shoes strapped tight to her waist. She passed beneath the carved archways of the Resh’Agar’s private wing, slipping past warded doorways and draped thresholds, each familiar as breath.
In her hands: a silver comb, a rune-etched cloth, and the iron dagger she kept hidden in her sash.
Her task was simple. Always the same. Check the bedclothes. The bathing pool. The furs and silks near the fluxhearth. Sweep the brushes, even the folded garments in the wardrobe. Anywhere one might have fallen—a strand of Her Radiance's hair.
Reflection: This Nameless has never seen Her Radiance shed a single one. But, every morning and every night, the Hands must search. Her Radiance isn’t like the painted vipers or the bloated Councilors. But with how her health has been, This Nameless cannot take a risk.
Her Radiance did not shed. Her body—small, strange, and sovereign—did not follow the laws of others. Even her threads were sacred. Kept in perfect number. As though her very soul refused to loosen anything the world could steal.
All in Krystopolis guarded their hair with their lives.
Reflection: The Choir Mother demonstrated once what disaster could be wrought with a single strand. The screams. The blood. Death was merciful.
Even now, decades after that example, Lu’ma sometimes dreamed of the horror of it.
All Hands know the story of Theren House. A curl taken from a sleeping bedmate was sufficient to bring ruin to the Selen District.
The resulting curse was so powerful that it forced the Council and the Resh’Agar to reconfigure all the wards within the Prismatum. Had caused an avalanche of laws changing the way all wards were created for Selen Temples.
Hair, to the untrained, was just detritus. But to the learned, it was power.
Power that could be twisted. Burned. Bound.
And so, each day, Lu’ma checked.
She circled the bathing pool, gliding a hand over its edge.
Nothing. She brushed Her Radiance’s hair comb lightly over her palm.
Clean. The silks at the foot of the bed were folded.
Untouched. Her Radiance still slept—barely visible through the veil curtains streaming from the canopy—her body curled close to the Resh’Agar’s.
He did not sleep. He rarely did. And any time Lu’ma’s footsteps neared, his blue eyes, glowing like sapphires in the dark, followed her movements with wariness, suspicion. He was kind to her, but he was far from blind. At times, Lu'ma wondered if he knew of her true origins.
That she was part of the Unspoken Choir.
That the Solutus sent her messages each Cycle.
Threats.
Demands.
And she wondered, too, if he knew that their patience wore thin. That when it did, both Lu’ma and Her Radiance would be in even greater danger.
Concern: If His Quintessence leaves for battle, who will protect Her Radiance if not her Hands?
If This Nameless is killed for disobedience, who will tend to Her Radiance while His Quintessence is away at war?
Who will search for her hair without the will to use it against her?
Who will hear her scream from nightmares and not spread vile gossip?
Who will press cooling cloths to her temple during a Flare and not fill her tea with poison?
Conclusion: Speaking to His Quintessence is inevitable.
She had to tell him, at least, the truth.
But now was not the time. Not when Her Radiance had just begun her true fight to be seen as his equal.
For now, there was no talk of war. There was no mention of Campaigns.
Until that time, she would hold her secrets close and bear the burden of his dark suspicion.
Safe to report: His Quintessence is suspicious of This Nameless, but for now secrecy is maintained.
Not safe to report: This Nameless is Fraying. Mind cycles on the fear of being sent away.
Finishing her sweep of the Resh’Agar’s quarters, she stepped out into the halls, slipping her cloth back into its lacquered case.
Now, to sweep the area around the wing. To ensure there were no prying eyes.
For the past three weeks since His Quintessence’s decree, none had dared to approach this area of the Lattice.
None had the gall to whisper dissonance.
But time had a way of introducing complacency, and after the impression Her Radiance had made at the Pouring of Grace—after those present had seen the Resh’Agar gift her his crest—the winds among the Attendants had begun to shift once more.
Whatever peace His Quintessence had bought them with the transfer of their quarters was about to be shattered, and Lu’ma was determined to be on the forefront of it so she could control the damage of the break.
She crept through the hallways and corridors, still barefoot, eyes taking in the smallest of details, ears attuned to the tiniest of sounds. At first, she was relieved. Another dead night. Another silent vigil.
Until something echoed in the air.
The sound of sleeves in motion.
Of signs delivered in excitement, impatience, fear.
Slowing her gate, she turned the corner.
Two Attendants were crouched near the base of a glass sculpture of the Sovereign Flame, their backs turned to her, hands moving in fast, furtive flickers.
Lu’ma stepped silently into shadow, eyes narrowing.
Her sharp gaze read their signs and facial expressions from a distance.
'At last, a strand has fallen,' one of them signed, holding up a tiny glass vial. It glimmered in the faint Polis-light.
'If you are mistaken, you will be Branded,' the other Attendant answered. 'The Host loves this punishment the most.'
'The Host of this Nameless is pristine in Her will,' came the angry retort from the first Attendant.
The second Attendant shook his head. 'You are becoming Frayed. Watch your back, or you will be reassigned.'
'This is her strand!' the first Attendant insisted, his hand motions heating. 'This Nameless will prove his worth to his Host. And the Sokar will weep as the Host reveals her filth to the Council at last.'
Lu’ma had seen just about enough. Her thoughts smoothed into water as she sank into the memories of her training.
She reached into her robes, fingers closing around the dagger hidden there.
She moved with the shifting shadows, blending into them, curving with them, until she stood just behind the two witless men.
They turned, their eyes growing wide, but it was too late.
The first did not even scream as her blade sliced a bloody curve into his throat.
The second made a strangled noise as she embedded the knife right into his beating heart.
Blood streamed like ribbons everywhere. Hot.
Sticky. Staining her robes in ways she’d long forgotten.
Yet the sensation of the thrill, the fear, the dizziness—that familiarity remained.
Long after the two lay dead at her feet, Lu’ma stared at the red stains on her hands and on the floor.
At the crimson liquid that looked black in the emerald Polis-light.
Observation: This appearance is unsightly. This Nameless must bathe.
She knelt down to pick up the glass vial from one of the men’s dead fingers.
Conclusion: Must find new robes. While at the Servitor, This Nameless should find Her Radiance some fresh fruit. It settles her stomach when she is unwell.
She popped open the vial and withdrew a tiny strand of hair from within.
Silver.
Beautiful.
Hers.
Shed? Or taken?
Either way, the Resh’Agar had to be informed.
But first—a bath.
Her appearance was unseemly, and she did not want to risk frightening her Host.
The corridors wound behind her as Lu’ma descended into the maintenance halls of the Servitor. A place of steam and forgotten piping, the under-veins of the Jade Lattices where the Unspoken Choir often held their dealings. Where Attendants sometimes went to beg for poisons or barter for favors.
And the only place where things could be destroyed with certainty. With permanence.
She’d already changed into fresh robes. Now, she needed to burn her old ones. And the hair. She had to burn it, too. Destroy it beyond doubt so that not even a scrap of ash could be traced or found.
For that, she needed the Null—the sacred forge used to charge the brand used for Purification.
In punishment, the Godblind was used on heretics and traitors to the Doctrine to brand them at the nape.
Not to scar, but to erase the link between their core and their soul so that their spirit could never again enter the Nine Rivers for reincarnation.
It was a punishment worse than Repurposing, said to be so horrific to witness that few dared to enforce it. Save for one Companion.
Zeera.
Purification was her punishment of choice, and over decades, she had labeled countless Attendants and rivals as blasphemers worthy of the Godblind.
None could go against her, for she was notorious and cruel in her fabrication of irrefutable evidence.
Combined with the influence she wielded, there were few who stood in her path.
Conclusion: That snake is overdue for Purification herself. Pity no one has dared it. Yet. Pity Her Radiance is too soft to ask for such a punishment despite all the ways in which that woman has hurt her for so long.