Chapter II
II
A PREVENTATIVE FOR THOSE WHO DWELL IN DARKNESS
Mix one crock of new goat’s milk with the crushed blooms of twelve paschalflowers. Consume twice daily to stave off the softening of the bones and pains brought on by withholding oneself from Bright Raea’s regard.
—EXCERPT FROM A SILITHIEN HERBAL
Hadrian Inver always took perverse pleasure in bleeding the Priest three times.
Or perhaps he really was that devout—it was hard to tell.
Possibly it was a bit of both. But the elder statesman invariably made his way directly to the Inver sanctuary upon his arrival in the capital.
In the dark cavern at the heart of his people’s mountain stronghold, he sacrificed to their gods.
A cut to the Priest’s right arm to satisfy Tyrus, god of war, whose altar stood upon a stain marking the place where Silith’s last Matria had bled out and died.
A cut to the left for Kidrien, Hadrian’s own patron, the god of industry and trade.
And another to the left for Mortis, who oversaw death and judgment.
Hadrian did not see fit to sacrifice at the altar of the hearth goddess, who had no name. Few Invers did.
At Mortis’s shrine, it was Hadrian’s habit to burn a great deal of incense and petition the gods on behalf of his son and heir, away at the front in Vesper.
Not many among the nobility still sent their children to fight in the Invers’ longest and bitterest war; the king’s pressers filled the army with conscripts from among the untitled and unfortunate, so it had gone out of fashion for those of higher rank to serve.
But Hadrian had sent his son Felix to Vesper without hesitation, the day the boy came of age.
He was a traditionalist, staunch and conservative to his core.
It was why he hated the Priest on principle, because the Priest’s very survival was an affront to Inver custom. The botched assassination attempt that had nearly killed the Priest and resulted in the loss of his eyes ought to have been completed. So most Invers thought, with one notable exception.
The sting of the offertory knife bit across the Priest’s arm a final time, widening the wound Hadrian had first opened for Kidrien.
Warmth from the altar torches grew into a small wave of heat as the Priest struck sparks from a patch box and kindled a fire from the blood-spattered embers resting in Mortis’s iron brazier.
Hissing sounds followed as Hadrian scattered shard incense over the flames, a potent blend of phelamon spice, helliath, and paschalflower.
A scent arose, at once acrid and cloying, with a base note of decay carried by the helliath.
Hadrian began to mutter his prayers and the Priest turned aside, thinking how tiresome it all was as he sprinkled powdered herbs over the blood-slick wounds on his forearms and bound them with clean linen.
He’d become a master of managing the wrappings with one hand and his teeth, though he kept his back to worshippers as he did so.
They believed him pitiful as it was, because he bled and because he lived.
Let them not see him tend to the hurts that Inver worship inflicted on him daily.
As if to remind the Priest that there were worse fates than his own, an eerie melody rose from somewhere in the vast, echoing cavern that stretched beyond the stone rise on which the altars stood.
Silith’s daughters persisted in this place—though the Invers had slain their bodies, they’d been unable to snuff out their souls.
The sorias’ ghosts were quiet in the Priest’s presence, but had a habit of alerting him to unexpected company.
They were never pleased to have Hadrian among them, and there was a sound of booted feet approaching from a distance too.
The old politician’s prayers were going to be cut short.
“Did they bring you the news?” a familiar and expansive voice said from up ahead, and the Priest’s ghosts fell silent. “Oh, Hadrian. You’re here too. Just as well, you can join us.”
“Yes, I’ve heard,” the Priest answered. His half brother’s heavy tread drew closer, boots scuffing a little as he ascended the altar rise.
There was someone else with him—the Priest could hear a stranger’s breathing, ragged and muffled, steps whisper-soft as bare feet dragged on cold stone.
“I won’t congratulate you—it seems like tempting fate, with the child not here yet.
But your queen’s relentless in her own way.
I’m sure she’ll see this new heir safely into the world. ”
Orden Inver, king of all Honoria, finished his ascent of the rise and strode directly to the central altar. It was always Tyrus, the god of war, to whom he went, and so of all the Inver gods, the Priest resented Tyrus most.
“I’ve brought a sacrifice for Ariana,” Orden said needlessly.
The Priest could hear him working, chivvying the panicked stranger forward, securing him with the manacles that were part of the war god’s shrine.
“I thought it might help things along if the gods had a fresh reason to look favorably on her and on our child. And on the rest of us, with Afon arriving soon and the new war coming.”
The Priest fought to keep his lip from curling with distaste.
He shared Orden’s disdain for Afon Caervallin, though he’d never met Caervallion’s king.
But the Priest had heard stories—everyone on the Hand knew of Afon’s taste for cruelty, and how he treated the moon goddess as an empty vessel to be filled with his own desires.
In a last, desperate bid for peace, the queen had prevailed upon Orden to invite Afon to his capital for a summer council, but she was indisposed now, and the talks were as likely to end in disaster as an armistice.
“Who’ve you brought?” the Priest asked his brother. “A Vesperin prisoner of war? Did you have a general in your dungeons, saved up for a special occasion?”
“No generals, and no Vesperin this time.” Orden sounded uncharacteristically morose—he was not prone to melancholy as the Priest could be on occasion.
Flashes of anger were more in Orden’s line—since boyhood, he’d been mercurial and intemperate in his passions.
“I’d have brought a Caervallin soldier if I had one, given the circumstances.
But they were all executed or sent home years ago.
It’s a guard called Tavian. One of my own men.
We’ve known each other fifteen years now.
I thought a personal connection for a personal petition would please the gods most.”
The Priest encouraged such speculation about the will of the gods.
As head of a young and brutal faith, he preferred to be nebulous in his pronouncements and interpretations, and often allowed his clan to do what suited them best, while calling it divine inspiration.
As a result, what suited them best was to keep the Priest in his position, despite the fact that he should not be alive while his brother ruled.
“Your Majesty is wise,” Hadrian said with gruff approval, pausing his prayers temporarily to offer the commendation. “Doubtless the gods will grant you favor and the heir you deserve. Tyrus must be waiting eagerly for our renewal of war with Caervallion, as well. A bold choice from a bold ruler.”
If the Priest still had his eyes, he’d have rolled them.
Orden would have seen and bit back an amused smile.
Until the declaration of war had gone out to Caervallion several weeks ago, Hadrian’s opinion of Orden had been tepid at best. He did not approve of the king’s penchant for making alliances, of his moderate approach to Inver tradition, of his choice of Priest or his choice of bride.
Hadrian had certainly not approved of the way Orden chose to harry Caervallion unofficially for several years rather than engaging them fully, either.
He believed covertcy was an affront to Tyrus.
With a clang of iron restraints locking, the king finished securing his sacrifice upon the war god’s altar.
“I would view it as a great favor if the gods allowed my queen’s trial to pass quickly.
I hate the waiting,” Orden said. He sighed heavily, the sound like wind in the darkness.
“Ariana’s had too many losses, and I’d have spared her another.
Hadrian, stop your ears for this, I’m speaking to my brother and my Priest, not you…
I offered to get a bastard with someone of no consequence—a woman who could be exiled or executed once the child was made heir, whatever Ari preferred.
I swore I would bring them up to be more loyal to her than even a child of her own blood would be, just as you’ve been loyal despite your provenance. But do you know what she said?”
The Priest did not want to know. The queen as he perceived her and as Orden did, were two entirely different people.
While he understood the necessity of it—why she should create the circumstances for such a gap in understanding—it turned his stomach to hear Orden speak of her.
It sickened him still more to hear his own vaunted devotion mentioned.
Some days, his allegiance to Orden felt genuine, but he was a pragmatist, and most often it served only as a means of survival.
“What did the queen say to you when you made your offer?” the Priest asked Orden, the question for Hadrian’s benefit rather than his own.
The old man was undoubtedly listening with avid interest, and Orden considered his queen to be peerless among women.
Hadrian could always do with reminding of that fact.
When Orden answered, the Priest could hear pride and pleasure in his voice. “She told me she would rather die in childbirth than live to see another woman’s whelps on my throne.”