Chapter Seventeen
The Temple of Vayla resembles the palace, and it’s more than just the stone it’s made from.
It’s the entire atmosphere: the airy, bright open spaces, the cloistered archways, the delicate white curtains blowing in the breeze.
And it’s the hustle and bustle too, dozens of people coming and going in a mad but oddly quiet rush, as if even the war couldn’t disturb the peaceful reverence of this place.
It’s lovely to behold. Vayla’s acolytes seem to float in their white robes, fluttering like moths from cot to cot in the undercroft, floating like doves in the great cathedral above as they greet the injured, the ill, the infirm.
Refugees and fallen soldiers, lost children and people with empty bellies and nowhere else to turn.
I know Ronan has his doubts about religion, but I can truly see him reflected here. He may not believe he’s the living embodiment of Vayla on earth, but I’ve seen few other places that live out his message of peace and goodwill more than this one.
We head first for a group of knights gathered near the back of the cathedral floor near the altar.
The Order of the Sun.
“Your majesty,” says a woman in gleaming silver chainmail trimmed with gold, the royal crest emblazoned on her breast and the white cloak on her back gleaming as she kneels before Ronan.
No one else recognized him as he passed through in spite of the fact he shed Soren’s face. His simple clothes and lack of crown blinded everyone to him.
But now they notice him, now word of his presence reaches the others in the room. Many of them—the ones that are able to—kneel.
“Rise, Ser Lucia.”
Ronan informs Ser Lucia and the others of the situation we encountered in the passage, and she sends several of the knights to secure the other entrance. Another of the Order leads the prisoners away, while a priestess comes over to help the lost boys and Prima find their families.
“Thank you, your majesty,” says Prima, kneeling low like Ser Lucia did.
I’m not sure if she’s meant to do that or if a simple bow would do—I forget to bow to Ronan all the time, something I really need to get better about now that we’re nearly back to the palace—but either way, Ronan doesn’t mind the gesture.
“And thank you all,” says Prima, turning to the rest of our small party. “Good luck to you.”
“And to you,” I say to Prima. “Take care.”
A priest comes over to help Larus with Seth, assuming he’s in need of medical care, but Ronan stops them. “He’s with us. Taran?”
Taran goes to take Seth from Larus, but he struggles as he wakes. “I need my bath now. Where is that water-born? Oh, here he is. Carry me to my bath.” Seth then collapses dramatically into Taran’s arms as Taran looks at me like, is this what he’s always like?
I shake my head and give him a look back that says, are you sure this is what you want?
To Seth’s credit, he’s still coming off of the sleep elixir. But it’s not too far from his normal behavior.
Ser Lucia personally accompanies us from the temple and over the bridge into the palace.
It’s my first time seeing Faros since I was taken and much has changed.
The streets are as busy as ever, but instead of festival goers, the people marching about are in chainmail.
Storefronts are boarded up, and the markets are filled with tents for living rather than selling, occupied by refugees and soldiers alike.
The roofs are covered in dampened leathers and furs to prevent fires, and up on the city walls, legions patrol and line up catapults and ballistae, the drumming sound of their projectiles underpinning the rhythm of the city at war.
But some things haven’t changed. Waiting for us on the palace steps, having received word from the knights, undoubtedly, is Lord Cyrus, Ronan’s Grand Vizier. He strokes his long, silver mustache and smooths his white robes as he waits to greet his king.
And behind him, sitting a few feet back from the ledge in a wheelchair, is Quinn.
Quinn’s red hair has been cut even shorter, and her face is gaunt, with dark, empty hollows beneath her brown eyes and dents in her cheeks.
She holds her head as high as she can as we approach, the muscles on her neck straining.
She’s a tall woman, but in the wheelchair, she barely reaches my shoulders.
She looks at me briefly, her expression blank, then she turns away and addresses Ronan.
“I see you found what you were looking for. And then some.” She gestures to where Seth is draped over Taran’s arms, her hands moving freely.
At least she can still use her hands. “Two Nithyrian traitors for the price of one.”
“Quinn,” says Ronan, a warning in his tone. “You will treat our guests with respect. Don’t make me ask you again.”
“Or what? You’ll paralyze my other legs? Oh, wait. I don’t have any.”
I feel an immense weight settle on my chest as I look at her in the chair. Quinn doesn’t strike me as the type of person who adapts well to change. I know this must be terrible for her now, even if she comes to accept it eventually.
And I know it’s my fault. She’s right to blame me for what happened in the throne room, for what Adria did. Not only should I have seen it coming, I could have stopped it if I’d acted sooner. If I’d had less misplaced faith in my sister.
Ronan returns to my side and wraps his arm around my shoulder. It’s as much a gesture of comfort for me as it is a message to Quinn about where his loyalties lie.
But I know he’s loyal to her too. I know it will take her a long time to forgive me, if she ever forgives me. But I hope she doesn’t force Ronan to choose between us in the meantime.
It would tear him apart.
I don’t say anything to Quinn, not here. I know she’ll only mock my apologies. Whatever needs to be said between us will have to wait.
There are more important matters to discuss.
“Your majesty, we’re gathering in the library to discuss our strategy over dinner. Should I make sure there’s enough for our guests?”
He’s asking Ronan if he intends to let us sit in on the war council, and judging by his tone, he’s skeptical of taking the risk and trusting us.
Ronan isn’t. Well, he isn’t reluctant to have me join at least. “Yes, of course. Taran, can you take Seth to my baths so he’ll stop his moaning? We’ll start the council without him.”
“Very good, sir,” says Cyrus.
Taran’s arms are straining from holding Seth for so long, but he doesn’t put him down. “Your baths, sir?”
“I can’t very well have the second-highest-ranking general of the Nithyrian army in the public baths. Take the servant’s route if you can. The fewer who know he’s here, the better.”
It’s a nice idea, but I imagine the word is already spreading like wildfire.
“Have fun,” I whisper to Taran, watching the flush hit his face as he walks away with my idiot brother.
“Now who’s encouraging him?” mutters Ronan.
The war council has moved from Ronan’s quarters to the library on the palace’s ground floor.
The room puts our small library in Kalla and even the larger one we had in the castle in Pyka to shame.
It’s much like the Great Library of Faros, or at least a single floor of it, though the walls here are square rather than rounded, so I imagine it took less effort to carve the wall-spanning shelves.
The items on the shelves aren’t as neatly arranged as in the Great Library or even the shelves in Ronan’s chambers, the books here stuffed with loose pages seemingly at random, piles of scrolls lying in heaps on the floor or crammed into gaps.
Seth is going to lose his godsdamned mind if they bring him in here.
The center of the room is dominated by a large rectangular table carved from a light wood with more than a dozen leather seats gathered around it.
Ronan’s map of Selara is sprawled across it, with small figures carved from stone representing my sister’s forces, Felix March’s Third Enezian Navy in the harbor, and the city’s meager defenses.
Faros looks terribly small on the map. Even at this grand scale, it’s no larger than the palm of my hand. I know the city has surprising strength, both in numbers and defenses, but looking at it there, surrounded on all sides by enemies, the harsh desert sands, and the sea, my heart aches for it.
After we left Pyka as a concession in the last war, I never thought I would feel like I was home again. Even Pyka hadn’t felt like home, not for a long time. Not since before the war, back when I was a child who knew nothing else.
I never thought I’d love a place again. I’d survived in Kalla, trying to carve out a new life there as we helped our people rebuild.
I’d tried to find my place in my family as we prepared for this war, but Kalla always felt like a steppingstone, a temporary stop before our triumphant return to the place I grew up.
But there’s just something about Faros. And yes, a lot of it is because of Ronan, but it goes beyond that.
There’s something about living here nestled in its walls, surrounded by its history.
Something about the way people from all backgrounds and from all over the world have come together here to live together, to share their food and their culture in the market, to create art in its galleries and theatres, to fight for glory in the arena, to advance their learning in the Great Library, that calls to me.
Faros is the center of everything, and that’s where I want to be.
And it’s not without its problems, of course. The grifters charging the toll for passage were proof enough of that, not to mention what the Alchemists were doing just a few months ago. But I’d rather be here, with all of its imperfections, than anywhere else in the world.
“It looks grim, doesn’t it?” says Ronan, taking his seat at the head of the table and gesturing to me to take the chair nearest to him.
I hesitate before sitting. Surely this chair should belong to Lord Cyrus, his Grand Vizier, or maybe Taran, as the head General of his legions.