The Bone Palace (51 page)

“You know they never found Kiril’s body,” he said at last.

She couldn’t stop a wince. “I know.”

“That’s because I took it from the tower.”

That broke through her fugue. Ouzo splashed her fingers as she startled, chilling as it evaporated. She drained the glass before she could spill the rest. “What?” She coughed on the fumes. “Why?”

“Because I know the choice that death brings for the likes of you. And I believe in the freedom to make such choices.”

Her lips peeled back from her teeth, and she wanted to say something vitriolic about his choices and their consequences. She couldn’t find the right words.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because if you’re anything like him, you’ll find out eventually.” He smiled wryly. “And I know you are. I left him in a safe place, warded from opportunistic spirits. I returned after the demon days, and he was gone.”

She had understood the possibility since Nikos had told her of the missing body, but it wasn’t any easier to hear again. Her left hand clenched till her scars ached.

“I thought you should know,” Varis said after a long silence. “Now, while you have time to think on it. I know how much you meant to each other.”

“Yes.” Her lips shaped the word but no sound followed. She drew a breath and tried again. “Thank you, my lord.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. The pain in his voice made her flinch. She preferred him glib and mocking. “So very sorry.”

“Yes, well.” She rose, less gracefully than she might have wished, and led him to the door. “We knew the risks when we took the job.”

She didn’t answer the door for the next two days. She wept, raged, flung books and muffled her sobs and curses in pillows. Her magic was still burned to the root, or she might have wrought worse destruction.

The second night she sat down in the ruin of her bedroom and knew she couldn’t stay. Kiril had asked if she could stand to see him as a demon. She knew she could. Even now her hands ached at the thought of touching him. If he came to her now, cold and lifeless, she would run to him as she always had. Nothing, it seemed, could burn her need for him so deep that it wouldn’t grow back.

She couldn’t go on like this, not with the wounds so fresh.

*   *   *

Dahlia came the following day, when Isyllt had stopped crying long enough to clean up some of the wreckage. She wouldn’t have answered that knock either, but the latch clicked anyway.

“I took your spare key when you were sick,” the girl said, lingering in the doorway. “I thought it might be useful.”

Isyllt snorted. “I suppose I’m lucky you didn’t steal the dishes while I was in St. Alia’s. Though the glasses might have fared better if you had.” She nudged a shattered wine stem with one toe and set the broom aside.

“I would have come sooner,” Dahlia said, closing the door behind her, “but I needed to think.” Her face was still sallow, thinner than it had been two decads ago. The effect aged her, made the androgyne clearer in her bones.

Isyllt waited, leaning against the cupboard.

“I want to be your apprentice,” the girl said in a rush. “If you’ll still have me. I don’t want to—to end up like my mother, or Forsythia, or any of those other girls. I want…” Her hands traced shapes in the air as she searched for words.

“Choices?” Isyllt suggested.

“Yes.”

She laughed softly; it made her chest ache. “I understand. And I would teach you, though I won’t be fit to anytime soon, nor fit company, but—”

Dahlia’s face was already closing. She raised her eyebrows as her jaw tightened. “But?”

Isyllt sighed. “I’m leaving Erisín.”

“Oh. Why?”

Her mouth twisted. “I’m running away. There are
ghosts here I can’t face. Decisions I can’t make. I need distance.”

“Oh.” Dahlia folded her arms across her chest. “I could go with you,” she said quietly.

Isyllt frowned, running her tongue over her teeth as she tasted the idea. “I suppose you could.” It was a bad idea; that was probably why she found herself considering it. “People have the habit of dying in my company.”

Dahlia laughed, as scathingly as only an adolescent could manage. “People have a habit of dying in Oldtown, too. I’d like to see something different before my turn comes.”

Coward,
she named herself, to take a child into danger because she didn’t want to go alone.

She met Dahlia’s eyes, already narrowed against the threat of rejection. Not quite a child, and no stranger to risk. Old enough to make her own decisions, perhaps.

Isyllt knew exactly how well making those decisions for her would go.

“Something different.” She pressed her tongue against her teeth thoughtfully. “I think we can manage that.”

Calendars and Time

Selafai and the Assari Empire both use 365-day calendars, divided into twelve 30-day months. Months are in turn divided into ten-day decads. The extra five days are considered dead days, or demon days, and not counted on calendars. No business is conducted on these days, and births and deaths are recorded on the first day of the next month; many women choose to induce labor in the preceding days rather than risk an ill-omened child.

The Assari calendar reckons years
Sal Emperaturi
, from the combining of the kingdoms Khem and Deshra by Queen Assar. The year begins with the flooding of the rivers Ash and Nilufer. Months are Sebek, Kebeshet, Anuket, Tauret, Hathor, Selket, Nebethet, Seker, Reharakes, Khensu, Imhetep, and Sekhmet. Days of the decad (called a
mudat
in Assari) are Ahit, Ithanit, Talath, Arbat, Khamsat, Sitath, Sabath, Tamanit, Tisath, and Ashrat.

In 727
SE
, the Assari Empire invaded the western kingdom of Elissar. Elissar’s royal house, led by Embria Selaphaïs, escaped across the sea and settled on the northern continent. Six years later, the refugees founded the
kingdom of Selafai, and capital New Tanaïs. They established a new calendar, reckoned
Ab urbe condita
but otherwise styled after the Assari. Selafaïn years end with the winter solstice, beginning again after the five dead days, six months and five days after the Assari New Year. Selafaïn months are Ganymedos, Narkissos, Apollon, Sephone, Io, Janus, Merkare, Sirius, Kybelis, Pallas, Lamia, and Hekate. Days of the decad are Kalliope, Klio, Erata, Euterpis, Melpomene, Polyhymnis, Terpsichora, Thalis, Uranis, and Mnemosin.

Selafaïns measure 24-hour days beginning at sunrise. Time is marked in eight three-hour increments known as terces. The day begins with the first terce, dawn, also called the hour of tenderness. The second is morning, the hour of virtue; then noon, the hour of reason; afternoon, the hour of patience; evening, the hour of restraint; night, the hour of comfort (also known as the hour of pleasure or of excess); midnight, the hour of regret; and predawn, the hour of release.

The Octagon Court

The Octagon Court refers to both the district in Erisín that houses Selafai’s eight noble houses and the governing body formed by the houses’ archons. Both were established in 134
AUC
, after the capitol was moved from New Tanaïs to Erisín. The Council of Eight gathers in Erisín twice a year, usually near the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, to discuss policy and meet with the king. A three-fourths majority of the Eight can override royal policy. The last time such a majority was reached was in the reign of Ioris Severos, who promptly ignored the consensus; the Octagon Court in turn removed him from the throne, bloodily.

House Alexios is the youngest of the Eight. Isola Alexios was a general at the time of the Hecatomb, and used her military influence to wedge her family into the gap left by the fall of House Korinthes. The Alexioi have traditionally been a martial family; following in Isola’s tradition, Typhos Alexios was a general before he led the coup
against Ioris Severos and claimed the throne for himself. Their family estate is in Nemea, and their crest is a rampant griffin, gold on blue.

House Severos came to power just after the founding of the Octagon Court, replacing House Kylix. It has long been thought that the illness that decimated the Kylices was very convenient. Their 106-year hold on the Malachite Throne was the longest unbroken reign of any house. Notable among their monarchs were Darius II, the sorcerer-king who stood with the Arcanostoi against the demon plague of 353 and brokered a truce with the vrykoloi, giving the vampires control of Erisín’s underground. Ioris Severos was also notable for being mad, or at least so venal and self-centered that the Octagon Court reached a majority to remove him. Severoi lands are in the northeast, bordering Ashke Ros and Sarkany. Their crest is a silver phoenix on black.

House Jsutien is a founding member not only of the Octagon Court but of the kingdom. In the sixth year of her reign, Pandora Jsutien oversaw the removal of the throne from New Tanaïs to Erisín. Her daughter Naomi was instead famous—to the chagrin of her family—for filling the newly renovated palace with scores of her lovers. Despite her excesses, the Jsutiens held the throne until Kallisto I died childless in 215, passing rulership to her Petreos husband and his kin. Years of thwarted ambitions to reclaim the throne have stung Jsutien pride. Recently they have allied themselves with House Aravind, increasing their wealth with southern trade. Their crest is a bronze hydra on crimson.

House Konstantin is an old house whose Selafaïn blood has been thinned by foreign marriages. Their family
holdings border Vallorn and Veresh, and they have many alliances among the northern peoples. They had strong ties to House Korinthes, but haven’t been close to any ruling family since the Hecatomb. Their presence in Erisín has been slight in recent years, but other houses eye their mountain stronghold with suspicion, and wonder when the Konstantins will appear on Erisín’s doorstep with a barbarian army in tow. Their crest is a grey wolf on white.

House Aravind retains the closest ties to the old blood of the Sindhi, the people who ruled the Sindhaïn Archipelago and southern coast before the coming of Embria Selaphaïs. Their southern holdings are rich in trade but weak in strength of arms. They have long been considered one of the least ambitious houses, but in recent history they have begun to ally themselves with the Jsutiens. Their crest is a green serpent on scarlet.

House Hadrian was once a military power to rival the Alexioi. Lately, however, their wealth has come from agriculture, and fewer of their scions rise to military prominence. They have grown to be seen as a sleepy, provincial family, and younger members flock to Erisín for lives of fashion and debt. Their crest is an orange lion on white.

House Petreos held the Malachite Throne for thirteen years, the shortest time of any house. Iodith Petreos inherited the throne at her father’s death, and ruled for ten years—she is most remembered for establishing the Vigiles Urbani, and for dying in a suspicious accident in 228, allowing House Korinthes to take the throne. The Petreoi hoped for a return to power when Nikolaos Alexios married Korina Petreos, but the marriage was loveless, and Mathiros Alexios favored his mother’s family no more
than his father’s. It is widely supposed that Korina’s ties to a Mortificant cult did nothing to help her relations with her husband and son; Sophia Petreos, the current high priestess of Erishal, tries to distance her house from such cults. The house’s crest is a cockatrice, vermilion on brown.

House Ctesiphon was another house present for the founding of Selafai. Though their star has risen several times, they have never held the throne. They are currently nearing the end of a thirty-year exile after their archon Kraetos attempted to assassinate Nikolaos Alexios. Their crest is a crouching sphinx, grey on indigo.

House Korinthes is not the only house to have fallen from glory, but is certainly the most notorious. Beginning with the rumors surrounding Iodith Petreos’s death and ending with the Hecatomb, their 73-year reign is generally considered a shadow on Selafaïn history. Demos I was a ruthless ruler, as was his daughter Damia. Demos II was a burgeoning tyrant when Tsetsilya Konstantin’s death triggered the destruction of the palace and the devastation of Erisín. Historians often speculate what sort of king Ioanis might have been, but most are just as glad not to know. Their crest was a winged boar, red on black.