“We announce a betrothal!” Broeck raised his daughter’s delicate hand in the air. Ilrida’s silvery-blond hair blew in the
faint breeze, and she looked very content. “Six years after the death of Queen Sena, King Korastine has finally agreed to
wed again—and he has chosen my beautiful daughter to be his wife.” The destrar wrapped his arms around the young woman, swallowing
her slim form in a large hug. “King Korastine is kind and wise, my dear. I know he will make you happy.”
Broeck stalked toward Mateo and pounded the young man on the back. “It is time for you to go back to Calay. Your training
here is finished. As your last duty, I ask that you be part of the escort to bring my dear Ilrida to her new home in Calay.”
After four years of living a shadowy existence in Olabar, Prester Hannes knew all the back streets, tangled alleys, and souk
labyrinths. He had found the best places to steal food and beg, the public wells and fountains that provided fresh water.
Most of all, he remained invisible.
Though he could have stolen finer clothes, he preferred the rags and hood that let him pose as a beggar or, worse, a leper.
The patches of healed but slightly waxy burn scars on his hands and cheek furthered that impression. Few people looked twice
at a miserable man they did not particularly want to see.
Obligated to demonstrate charity, the devout Urecari gave him brass coins, even an occasional
cuar,
and he gladly took their money. He made a habit of showing his scars, adjusting his filthy hood so that the burned part of
his face showed, while carefully hiding the unblemished skin, and he silently mocked the Urabans for their gullibility.
Each day he hoped for a sign from Aiden, while he watched for weaknesses that he could use against the enemy. No other Tierran
knew so much about the followers of Urec, their cities, their culture—or their blind spots—as Hannes did. Part of him wanted
to rush back to Calay to tell Prester-Marshall Baine everything he had learned. But not yet. He still felt that Ondun had
far more important work for him to do.
His favorite spot to sleep, both for its abundant comforts and for the sheer irony of it, was Asha’s abandoned villa. He bedded
down under the overgrown mulberry trees where she had once kept her tentworms.
After Hannes killed her and fled, the grieving soldan-shah had ordered her private villa boarded up, and Imir had never set
foot in the place again. The superstitious Urecari now believed the place to be a haven for ghosts and evil spirits, and even
squatters avoided it. Asha’s home would never be purged of its demons… and Hannes felt he might never be clean, either, after
what that woman had done to him.
Hannes had always tried to lead his life as Aiden would have wished, but it was difficult in this foreign place, with the
entire culture against him. Asha had contaminated him with Sacraments that he could not vomit out, though he had tried—finding
emetics in an apothecary shop and puking until he was so weak he could barely stand. He still felt the stain from within.
All alone in the moonlit mulberry orchard, he tore a thorny branch from one of Asha’s dying rosebushes and shed his cloak
to bare his back. Breathing hard, he leaned forward and thrashed with the thorny branch. He winced and hissed and struck harder,
whipping repeatedly. He could feel the blood running down his back, but he thrashed again and again. By flagellating himself,
he could at least show his heartfelt desire to be cleansed.
In all these years here, and previously in Ishalem, Hannes had been quiet and furtive, as Prester-Marshall Baine had instructed
him. But now he wondered if he had truly done enough to improve the world by the grace of Ondun, as the Book of Aiden’s Rule
of Rules instructed.
He whipped himself until blood flowed so freely and the pain was so great he became delirious. Even then he did not stop.
Feverish, swimming in his thoughts, listening to the pain and silent screams in his head, Hannes continued to beg for forgiveness.
He hoped that his dripping blood would purify this ground, make Asha’s villa a tiny foothold for Aiden against the heresy
of Urec. Hannes knew he remained tainted. If he was so corrupted, maybe his blood was poisoned too, and Ondun would never
accept this sacrifice.
But he could try, and he could hope. Somehow he would know.
When he was weak almost to the point of unconsciousness, Hannes cast aside the mangled rose branch and sank into a pain-filled
stupor beneath the mulberry trees. Fearing sleep but needing it, he clung to his faith and hoped that one day he would fulfill
his mission and serve Ondun in the way he was meant to.
Tukar, the half-brother of Zarif Omra, watched his mother’s glee when she sank his ship. “Diagonal move,” she said. “War galley
rams cargo ship.” She snatched an intricately carved piece from the game board. “You need to watch more carefully, my son.
You always fail to prepare for the unexpected.”
“I didn’t know that move was allowed,” Tukar said, abashed.
“Then you should spend more time learning the rules. Spend more time learning
everything
. You’re the son of the soldan-shah, not a normal man.”
Tukar assessed his remaining pieces: He had his captain, six sailors, and a small dromond warship, but Villiki still possessed
her coveted sea serpent, a rogue piece that could attack whatever and whenever it wished.
Xaries
had complicated rules, and though Tukar had played dozens of games with his mother, he had never won. She scolded him for
his lack of strategic prowess; she had even slapped Tukar once when he dared to suggest that
xaries
was only a game, and that winning and losing mattered little. “It is not a game. It is a
test
—which you keep failing miserably.”
Tukar would rather have been outside watching Uraban soldiers drill, the mounted warriors racing about the field in mock skirmishes.
Soldan-Shah Imir continued to build his armies against the Aidenists, though thus far he had been reluctant to launch them
all in a full-scale crusade. Shipments of armor plating, spear heads, arrow tips, and sharp swords arrived regularly from
the Gremurr mines on the north coast of the Middlesea. This morning, when the heavily laden barges had docked, Tukar had gone
to help unload the swords, planning to take one weapon as his own. But the curved blades with rough hilts were brutish weapons,
mass produced by the hundreds and “utterly unbefitting a prince,” his mother said.
Afterward, Tukar had spent the morning on a hunt in the forested hills south of Olabar, running with the hounds he had claimed
as his own after Asha’s murder. Tukar liked to occupy himself away from the palace… away from Villiki. His mother had expectations
and demands for him that he did not have for himself.
“You still smell like those dogs,” she said, finding something else to criticize. “And you’re sweaty. From now on, before
you play
xaries
with me, please bathe yourself.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Before marrying Soldan-Shah Imir, Villiki had been a sikara dedicated to the church of Urec. Priestesses often took many anonymous
lovers, calling it a part of rejoicing, but they rarely married. In deciding to take Sikara Villiki as his third wife, Imir
had caused something of an uproar. Everyone knew that sikaras were almost certainly not virgins, and by tradition the soldan-shah
was expected to take a virgin bride. But Imir had found something intriguing about Villiki, so he insisted. And when the soldan-shah
insisted, that was the law. Deaf to the protests of his advisers, he pointed out, “My wife is not getting a virgin husband,
either, so we approach this marriage on equal footing.” The Urecari Church had blessed the union, mainly because the priestesses
acquired greater influence by having a sikara wed the soldan-shah.
In the years since the burning of Ishalem, the sikaras had been using their leverage to demand a violent response to the Aidenists.
Now they complained—primarily through Ur-Sikara Lukai but also through Villiki—that Imir was not prosecuting the war with
enough enthusiasm.
The soldan-shah had responded by requesting clear guidance from God, and the sikaras scribbled a flurry of questions on strips
of paper, which they set blowing through the streets and out to sea. They wrote bold inquiries to Ondun and Urec on long ribbons,
which they flew from the towers of the churches, so the ribbons could flutter in the brisk winds to be read by divine eyes.
Though Tukar had dutifully studied Urec’s Log and listened to the sikaras, he didn’t recall that any such question had ever
been answered directly and clearly. Priestesses were good at raising questions, but offered few answers. Imir must have realized
the same thing.
By sending His two sons to explore the world, Ondun had meant to test them. Aiden and Urec had been ordered to accomplish
a certain unknown task… which apparently had not yet been achieved. Had Ondun sent the brothers out because He was disappointed
in them? Had He wanted the two to find something—a new Terravitae, perhaps? The Key to Creation? What had their goal been?
For generations, the Urecari had seen signs everywhere, in an oddly shaped cloud, a freak storm, or an unusual fish pulled
up in the nets. But no one really knew the answer.
Now, studying the
xaries
board with more intensity than he felt, Tukar picked up his dromond warship and aligned it to protect his remaining captain
and sailor pieces. He planned his next several moves and developed an excellent strategy, but Villiki grew bored and impatient.
She picked up the sea serpent piece and devoured his captain, abruptly ending the game.
“Learn that you cannot plan for disasters.” She always found a way to lecture him. “Though some disasters can work to your
advantage. Be prepared to become the next soldan-shah, no matter what.”
“Zarif Omra will be the next soldan-shah,” Tukar said.
“As I said,” Villiki retorted, her voice as harsh as a desert wind, “you cannot plan for disasters.”
It was no secret that the time rapidly approached when Imir would hand over the rule to his elder son. Since Omra’s wife,
Cliaparia, remained childless, the political machinations inside the Olabar palace were becoming more intense. Even Tukar
had noticed the shift, though he remained assiduously aloof from such things, despite his mother’s demands. Tukar did not
want to become soldan-shah, and took no part in his mother’s scheming. He admired his half-brother and felt that Omra would
be a good leader.
Weary of her constant berating, Tukar stood from the game table, ignoring the scattered pieces on the
xaries
board. “I know who I am, Mother, and I accept my place. I am content with my lot. Why can’t you.—”
Villiki lurched to her feet and slapped him, a sharp, vicious strike that made a sound like cracking wood. “Only the lower
classes can afford to be content. As the son of the soldan-shah, you are not meant to be content. You are meant to strive.
I have done so much for you, and yet you continue to fail me!”
Villiki knocked the
xaries
board to the tiled floor in disgust. The bejeweled pieces clinked and bounced away as though fleeing her wrath. “While you
amuse yourself with hunting dogs, I am planning great things on your behalf. Someone has to do it, or you will never get your
due.” Her eyes were smoldering coals fanned to life by a gust of wind. “And you, Tukar, better be ready to act when it is
time.”
At the mouth of the wide river near Calavik, Kjelnar and his dedicated shipwrights worked to adorn a special wedding ship
for Destrar Broeck’s daughter. Using chisels, mallets, and rasps, the Iborians carved a benevolent bearded face on the prow:
Holy Joron. The wondrous stories about Ondun’s last son and the tropical land of Terravitae had always been Ilrida’s favorites.
Since Mateo and his fellow trainees were neither skilled wood-carvers nor artisans, Broeck recruited them to tie ribbons on
the masts and yardarms, sweep sawdust and wood shavings from the wedding ship’s deck, paint the balustrades and cabin doors,
and polish the stylized fishhook anchor.
Wood-cutters from the thick forests cut hundreds of pine trees and floated the logs downriver to the Calavik bay and the waiting
wedding ship. Log herders would guide the cluster of Iborian pines to Calay as his daughter’s dowry.
When the wedding ship was decorated to his satisfaction, the destrar walked the decks and inspected the well-appointed cabin
where Ilrida would spend the passage and the clean but crowded berths reserved for the returning soldier-trainees.
When Broeck pronounced the ship ready to depart, his daughter came forward, preceded by five young female companions. Bearded
Iborian men pounded on round-bellied kettle drums, making a thunderous sound like charging mammoths. Broeck proudly took Ilrida’s
arm and accompanied her across the gangplank to stand on deck. The young woman expressed her delight in the beautiful ship,
the colorful ribbons, and the painted carvings, talking quickly in the northern dialect, still unable to speak formal Tierran.
In Calavik, Ilrida lived among locals who were fluent in the Iborian tongue, and she had never found a knack for languages.
Mateo, placed in charge of the young soldiers who would return to Calay as the wedding escort, let out a sharp whistle and
marched his men on deck. In short order, the ropes were cast off, the sails were unfurled, and the barge rode the current
out of the bay into the cold northern sea, with a train of pine logs in its wake. The strong southerly current would sweep
them down to Calay.
As they entered the Oceansea, a brisk wind gathered gray clouds that presaged rain, turning the coastline into a dim blur.
Mateo stood on deck with the destrar as cold droplets splashed down on them. Mateo pulled up his hood for warmth, but the
big destrar let his hair blow back in the breeze and smiled into the sloppy sleet. Ilrida joined them, watching the gray-shrouded
shore slide by. Though at first glance she appeared as delicate as an ivory carving, the cold and wet didn’t bother her, either.