25. Thyra
Chapter Twenty-Five
Thyra
“We have no queens in Ember,” Miriam begins, her hand tightening on mine. “Ember kings do not take wives. They have harems from which all royal children are born, ensuring that no woman ever stands equal to the king.”
I reassess the women around me, addressing them with the respect they deserve. “You were the former king’s harem.”
“We were,” Charis says. “Chosen for our beauty.” She glances at the others. “Or for our skills. And no, I don’t mean in the bedroom.”
I want to ask her more about that, but Miriam continues firmly. “No woman may ascend to the Ember Throne. We are not allowed into battle. We must not ride serpents.”
Damn. In the Iron Kingdom, Galla Vividari ruled with impunity. In the Frost Kingdom, Lilis had full control of the army. But here in Ember, it seems I’m about to be exposed to a whole new set of rules.
“We are subject always to the control of first our fathers and then our husbands,” Miriam says. “As the former king’s sister, I had a small degree of agency over my life. But Zenaida, who is Maxim’s sister, has more autonomy than any woman before her.”
“Because of Maxim,” Charis says.
Miriam nods. “After his father died, Maxim was the first Ember King to try to elevate women, but the changes he tried to make were stifled when his fire grew too unpredictable for him to safely set foot in this underground city. When he lived here, he wanted to know which of these women was his birth mother.”
“We couldn’t tell him, so we did the only thing we could,” Charis says, rising to her feet and relocating herself at the side of the little table nearer to me. “We refused to speak with him.”
Before I can ask her why, Miriam says, “By doing this, they took a terrible risk. Maxim could have had them put to death, but he did what no Ember King before him would have done: he declared them all to be his mother, gave them the title of the Mothers, and gifted them this compound. A home nobody else may enter.”
“Oh, but there were consequences.” Charis reaches for Miriam’s cup, pours the last of the liqueur into it, and takes a sip, making a face. “Dear Goddess, Miriam, you made this syrup strong.”
Miriam shrugs. “I like it that way.”
Charis coughs against the back of her hand.
“Since we refuse to speak with the king, we must not speak with any other Ember Fae. We are shunned. This gives us more freedom because nobody will dare come near us.” Her shoulders slump as she stares into the cup.
“But we also had to give up any contact with our mothers and sisters.”
“I’m the only Ember Fae permitted to speak with the Mothers,” Miriam explains. “Maxim allowed this concession to ensure the Mothers have everything they need. I requested this, and he agreed given the bonds of friendship I already had with them. Even Zenaida must go through me.”
“The penalty for breaking our silence with anyone other than Miriam is death,” Charis says.
“Then you’ve taken a grave risk allowing me into your home,” I say. “And by speaking with me.”
“That may be,” Miriam replies. “But as the Oracle, Thyra, you must stand above all kings.” Her firm smile fades. “You must speak to all people. From the oldest to the youngest, the poorest to the richest, the powerful as well as the downtrodden, your voice is a weapon and you must wield it.”
My father’s command to Miriam all those years ago returns to me.
He said I would hold the darkness of the world in the palm of my hand and they must help me wield it.
Charis reaches for the carafe and drains the last drop from the flask, coughing again. “Oh, that’s biting.”
I can’t help responding to her warmth, some of the tension leaving my shoulders. Only to return. “None of that explains the pink pearls.”
A heavy silence settles around me. Miriam slowly reaches for the empty carafe, muttering, “Not enough liqueur in the world.”
The other women quietly rise from their cushions, one of them sliding the table away so they can pull their cushions closer and crowd in around me. They bring with them the soft scents of florals, spices, and citrus. Earthy and warm. Comforting in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever felt.
The woman now closest to me on my right speaks at a murmur, “When Maxim called us before him and asked us to tell him which of us was his birth mother, we couldn’t answer.”
“Worse, because of the way he phrased his question,” says another woman, this one to my left, “any answer we gave would have been a lie.”
“How so?” I ask.
Charis gives a heavy exhale. “Because his mother is no longer with us.”
My heart plummets. “She died?” My focus snaps back to Miriam. “When he was born? You said she was injured and needed help.”
But Miriam’s lips press together.
Around me, the grim silence resumes, an even heavier tension filling the air together with the beat of many pounding heartbeats.
“If only she had died,” Miriam whispers, before her hand flies to her mouth. “I must sound awful.”
The woman now directly to my right says, “Her name was Isha. The former king brought her to the harem out of the blue one day. We didn’t know whence she’d come or who her family might be.”
“It was a week after Zenaida was born,” Charis adds. “So we were already in strict seclusion. The isolation is to prevent anyone outside the harem identifying the birth mother of a royal baby. But it meant we had no way of asking anyone who Isha was.”
As Charis finishes speaking, the other women speak up in quick succession, a flood of disjointed information.
“The king kept us in seclusion for months.”
“He was smitten with Isha.”
“She was never far from his bed. Even when he called for one or more of us to join him.”
“Then she started whispering in his ears.”
“That’s when he got cruel.”
“He never hurt us before then.”
“Her pregnancy only made things worse.”
“A second seclusion before the first had ended. We were so isolated.”
“And still we didn’t know who she was.”
They fall silent again.
Cautiously, I ask, “What happened to Isha?”
The women look to Miriam, who runs a shaking hand through her hair. “When Maxim was born, it became clear that Isha wasn’t an Ember Fae.”
My brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“Within moments of Maxim’s birth, he burned hotter than any Ember baby should. It shouldn’t have been a problem. Ember Fae women are naturally protected during the birth process in case of birth fire; a protection that lasts months to allow for nursing.”
“Isha reached for him,” Charis says, her voice hushed. “She wanted to hold him. As soon as she’d touched him, he lit up like a fireball. If she were an Ember Fae, she wouldn’t have been hurt.”
I can’t stop my shudder.
“I didn’t hesitate,” Miriam says. “No matter the mystery around who she was, no matter how much discord she’d brought, I couldn’t leave her in pain. I broke all the rules and rode out on my serpent.”
“Where you met my father,” I say.
“Yes.” Miriam nods. “Except that by the time I returned, Isha was already healed.”
My forehead creases. Burns from Ember fire don’t heal. The scar on my arm still aches. Antony’s brother Victor’s disfigurement is lifelong.
“How is that possible?”
Miriam shakes her head. “We couldn’t figure it out.”
“After that, she refused to be anywhere near Maxim,” Charis says. “I was still nursing Zenaida, so I nursed Maxim, too. I would have understood Isha’s fear, except…”
Now, their silence feels charged.
Miriam’s voice is strained. “She tried to kill him.”
I catch my breath. “What?”
“I found her standing over him, a dagger in hand, blood on its tip.” Miriam’s hands are shaking so hard, she clasps them in her lap, her knuckles turning white. “I disarmed her, threatened her with my fire, and gave her a choice: to answer for her thwarted crime or to leave. She chose to flee.”
“We never saw her again,” Charis says. “By the time our seclusion had ended, we had been isolated for so long that if it weren’t for Maxim, we could believe it had all been a dream.”
“But her shadow remained.” Miriam’s shoulders are slumped while the other women all lean on each other.
“For the children’s safety, once they were weaned, I raised Maxim and Zenaida alongside my own children.
Meanwhile, my brother’s reign declined into a monstrous paranoia that culminated in him sending an assassin to kill a boy. ”
“To this day,” Charis says, “we still don’t know who Isha really was. Certainly, other Ember Fae don’t know she existed.”
“So you see, Thyra,” Miriam continues, “when Maxim asked these women which of them was his birth mother, they couldn’t tell him the truth.
To speak of Maxim’s mother would reveal he may not be a full-blooded Ember Fae.
His reign would be threatened and the lives of every woman in this harem, along with his sister’s life, would be in danger. ”
Charis gives a worried nod. “Every Ember woman associated with a king is only safe as long as that king’s power remains intact. Even Miriam could be threatened if Maxim’s birthright were questioned.”
“So you chose silence,” I say. “The only option.”
“Now you know one of our most dangerous secrets,” Miriam says.
“One of?” I whisper.
She gives me a wry smile. “The Mothers and I guard many secrets.”
I’m not sure I want to know any more.
What devastation could come from Maxim knowing the truth?
I take a deep breath. “Maxim won’t hear about this from me.”
“Oh, Thyra, but that’s the thing.” Miriam gives me a hard stare. “He must.”
I can only blink at her. “I’m sorry… What?”
“You must tell him.”
“But…” My focus races across the women. “Why would I ever put you in danger like that?”
Miriam reaches for my hand. “May I see your right hand?”
Reluctantly, I extend my arm. She gently turns my hand palm up, studying it again.
“I need to ask you a question, and I imagine you won’t want to answer.” Her tawny gaze pins me to the spot. “Did you pick up the hammer? And has the blood bind taken hold of you?”
Of all the questions she could have asked me…
“How did you know about that?”
She closes her eyes, releasing me from her sharp gaze. “There’s someone you need to meet. And something you need to see.”