Chapter 48 The Heretical North
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The Heretical North
Harrow Claver was ready to commit a series of violent crimes in exchange for a proper bed. Levan, to his credit, had provided the King’s Prophet with a steady flow of honeywine throughout their arduous hike, but Harrow had never had a blister in his life.
How unseemly. How unbefitting of a Highcloak.
Almere was just as he remembered it; a smattering of rain-slicked cobbles and stone bridges, cream-brown buildings and green-and-gold awnings, mossy balustrades and pooled lamplight, wide boulevards and narrow streams and a ravenous forest threatening to swallow the city whole.
All the same as it had been in his childhood—except for the crowd of protesters huddled around every portari gate in the city.
When the hodgepodge crew of Bloodmoons, prophets, and apothecaries reached the first portari gate, a few streets over from the Banq T’el Almèrue—a building Levan regarded with a curious amount of vitriol—they stopped dead in their tracks.
Several Augurests with shaven heads and tattooed eyelids had bound themselves to the carved axelmare arches of the gate, humming and chanting in eerie unison. Another two dozen Augurests circled like vultures, echoing the frenzied chants of the manacled.
Harrow discerned a clear theme to their chorus: that Queen Vune was a heretic who’d turned her back on the good word of the Augurests, who did not hold their warnings in high enough regard, who did not go far enough in ensuring Augurism was upheld as the state religion.
They demanded more funding for the upkeep of Augurest temples, more rigorous education around the doctrine of the Divine Augurtures, a harder line on Saints missionaries slipping over the border into the Augurest motherland.
Criminal convictions for the blasphemous, mandatory head shavings and facial tattoos for the most heretical of them all—including Queen Vune herself.
Saffron blanched pale as bone, which Harrow found curious.
To his knowledge, Saffron had no affiliation to the Augurests, and though she’d been raised a patron, she wasn’t especially devout.
Yes, they were traveling to find Sarcane’s Fifth Prophecy—an item hallowed by all the mages who chanted and charged before them, and which purportedly pertained to her. But it wasn’t as though—
Oh.
Suspicion hardened, crystallized.
The events of the past few months rearranged themselves from a series of scattered shards into a stained-glass window both beautiful and damning.
Saffron Killoran was a Timeweaver.
Harrow knew this with a sudden clarity, an unshakeable certainty. Why else would the Fifth Prophecy be about a jaded detective turned organized criminal? He met this revelation not with horror or anger, but a sense of vague entertainment. What a quest he’d found himself on.
“Let’s find another gate,” Levan muttered.
But around every corner they found the same thing: bald heads and spread-eagle limbs bound to the arches, hordes of angry protesters marching in circles around them.
Miret sighed knowingly. Rain fell in a fine mist, flecking the elderly scholar’s eyelashes. “Sancsari is upon us. I’ve seen many a tavern adorned with patron banners. No doubt the protesters want the Crown to outlaw Saints-based celebrations.”
“Queen Vune would never enact such a ban,” Harrow said thoughtfully.
“Though she herself is an Augurest, she’s always promised religious freedom in her country.
Last time a Bellandrian ruler tried to clamp down on the patrons, it triggered the Battle of Independence, and they lost the Eastern Republics. ”
Relar frowned. “And these fanatics think binding themselves to gates and caterwauling will make Vune renege on a long-time policy of secularity?”
Miret laughed, as though this were a very, very funny thing to say.
“Oftentimes, when people protest, it’s not because they anticipate actual change will occur.
They just want to give their anger somewhere to go.
To build a community around shared outrage.
Nothing is quite so valuable in human connection as a common foe.
They know Queen Vune will never relent, but they’re here anyway—not for the outcome, but for one another. ”
“Sancsari is in, what, two days?” Levan rubbed at his unshaven jaw. “Let’s lie low in the city until they abandon their posts. Find an inn somewhere.”
Harrow surged with excitement. The prospect of luxury! Of a real bed! “I know a place on Flacher Strast. Downy pillows, great honeywine.”
“Truly all that’s important.” Levan seemed grumpier now that their time camping in the bitter woods was over. What went through that mage’s head was truly beyond Harrow.
There were only three rooms left at Meraude’s Inn.
Miret offered to share with the apothecary’s grandson, and Harrow staunchly advocated for a room to himself, ostensibly so that if either King Quintan or the Whitewings reached out to him in the night, he would not be at the mercy of listening ears, but also because he was a pampered prince who did not like to share.
Neither Levan nor Saffron objected too heavily to sharing a room—Harrow tried to ignore the sting of jealousy.
They all went their separate ways, planning to freshen up and rest for a few hours before meeting downstairs for dinner.
Harrow’s stomach growled at the prospect of the herby butter inside Meraude’s famous venison pies, but before he allowed himself the luxury of a bath in the claw-footed copper tub, he crossed to the windowsill and lifted his wand tip to his lips.
“Et vocos, King Quintan of the House Arollan.”
The king’s answer was brusque. “Highcloak Claver. Where are you?”
Harrow looked out over the rain-slicked cobbles and babbling brooks snaking through the streets below. A blackfox with a stolen wand in its teeth trotted along the high edge of a bridge.
“Following a lead on the Bloodmoons. I’m in Almere, and the Augurest protests are intensifying.
They’re blocking all the portari gates into and out of the city, and the Vergard have made no efforts to disperse them.
I thought you might like to know that her approval is plummeting.
Just in case she continues trying to strong-arm us about the open border pact. ”
“Very well.” A fumbling as the king undoubtedly reached for some wine, followed by a thick glugging sound. “What of this Bloodmoon lead?”
I’m accompanying a crew of Bloodmoons and Timeweavers on their quest to find the Fifth Prophecy, which may ultimately lead to widespread war, depending on its contents.
A hefty secret to keep under his hat.
And secrets, of course, could quite easily become power.
For years, all he’d really wanted was to have a certain level of status without having to work terribly hard for it. To use his natural foreseeing ability to his advantage, to gather information on all the warring factions in Atherin so that he would always have a card to play if he needed one.
But was that lazy prestige still enough for him?
He’d rather perish than take the throne himself—too much bureaucracy.
Yet if he was honest with himself, did he have a preference on who should rule Vallin?
Until he figured out the answer, he’d keep picking up cards, laying down as few as possible, waiting for the right moment to make his move.
“No, Your Grace,” he said at last. “Nothing meaningful to report.”
“A pity. I met with the Grand Arbiter again this morning. The death penalty will be passed by noonday on Oparling, at which point royally approved prophecies will become admissible in court. You just became a whole lot more powerful, Highcloak Claver.”
Rather than filling him with any kind of satisfaction, this notion carried with it an undercurrent of dread. It was not too difficult to imagine a world in which the king would encourage Harrow to fabricate prophecies to ensure certain convictions.
If Levan, Saffron, and their other associates were captured, they’d certainly be executed.
There were two knocks on the door, the first timid, apologetic, and then the second firmer, as though the knocker had decided not to be so meek.
Harrow sighed. “I must go, Your Grace. I’ll keep you abreast of any further information—or any further prophecies I foretell on the road. Don’t reach out to me first. I’ll contact you whenever it’s safe.”
This was rather more dismissive than Harrow would usually be to his regent, but really, he had blisters on his feet.
He let the connection between the wands drop, then crossed begrudgingly to the door. There were many hardships he could tolerate, but not the further postponement of his much-needed bath.
Relar Zamorin stood on the other side, scholar’s cloak streaked with forest debris, boots trudging rain and soil through Meraude’s immaculate tiled corridors.
“Can we talk?” the boy said in a low voice.
“I was just about to—”
“I saw you at the Whitewing drophouse,” Relar muttered, half-apologetically, half-threateningly. “The night I cut the head off a Bloodmoon.”
“Ah. You’d better come in.”
Relar crossed to the windowsill. He was so tall that his scalp almost brushed the ceiling, and so thin that his clothes hung off him in tragic swathes of fabric. “I suppose Levan does not know of your involvement with the Whitewings?”
“He does not. Are you going to tell him?” As he asked the question, Harrow subtly drew his wand, hoping he would not have to use it.
Relar eyed the wand not with fear, but with a weary exhaustion, as though being threatened under peril of death were a regular and somewhat fatiguing occurrence. “I don’t plan to give anyone a reason to want me dead. You included.”
“So why are you here?”
“I want to know who you’re loyal to. White or scarlet. I’m navigating the same conflict of interest, and having someone in the same situation whom I could trust…”
“I’m loyal to no one but myself.”
Relar stabbed a thumb in the direction of Harrow’s wand. “What if the Whitewings contact you while you’re here? The kingpin will kill you in an instant.”
“He won’t,” Harrow parried easily. “I’m too valuable.”
The apothecary’s son rubbed his palms over his pimple-strewn face, blinking with exhausted red eyes. “Do you think the kingpin is true to his word? Is he really protecting my family?”
“Yes. He hates the Whitewings enough to undermine them, to take away one of the pieces on their board. But he also…I think he cares for you, in his own way.”
“Why?”
Harrow shrugged, stifling a yawn. The boy’s plight was not particularly interesting.
Relar looked out over the city of lush green and dark stone. “I still don’t understand why I’m here. On this quest. Why Levan wants or needs me.”
“Nor do I. Is that all…?”
“Does the fear ever go away? Fear of being caught between different parties who all want one another dead. Who think of you as an expendable piece on a board.”
“Being a piece on a board doesn’t make you a victim. Not if you’re playing your own game.”
Relar turned back, the smallest tug of a smile at the corner of his thin lips. “I like that.”
“Good.” Harrow stood pointedly, sweeping a hand toward the door. “Now go away, will you? I need to wrench my feet from these ruined boots, and it’s not going to be pretty.”