“They look far better on you,” he said when he turned around. He dragged the fur rug over near the bed and grabbed another blanket from the barrel, throwing it on the rug beside the other one. I used the washbasin in the corner while he prepared for bed, throwing off belts and boots, and lighting a candle. He told me that the door in the corner led to a chamber closet. It was a small room and far from luxurious, but compared to my last few nights camping amid hundreds of soldiers with barely a shred of privacy, it was perfection. It had hooks for towels and even another of Dihara’s braided rugs that offered welcome warmth from the bare floor.
When I came out, he lowered the chandelier and extinguished the lanterns. The room flickered with the single golden candle, and I crawled into the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling above me dancing with long shadows. The wind howled outside and pounded at the wood shutters. I pulled the quilt higher around my chin. The emissary has a better chance of being alive at month’s end than you do.
I rolled over and curled into a ball. Kaden lay on his back on the rug with his arms crossed behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. His shoulders were bare, the blanket only covering half of his chest. I could see the scars that he said didn’t matter anymore but refused to talk about. I scooted closer to the edge of the bed.
“Tell me about the Sanctum, Kaden. Help me understand your world.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. The governors, the brethren, the others who live here.”
He rolled over to face me, lifting up on one elbow. He told me the Sanctum was the innermost part of the city, a protected fortress set aside for the Council, who governed the kingdom of Venda. The Council comprised the Legion of Governors from the fourteen provinces of Venda, the ten Rahtan who were the Komizar’s elite guard, the five chievdars who oversaw the army, and the Komizar himself. Thirty in all.
“Are you part of the Rahtan?”
He nodded. “Me, Griz, Malich, and seven others.”
“What about Eben and Finch?”
“Eben’s being groomed and will be Rahtan one day. Finch is one of the first guard who aid the Rahtan, but when he’s not on duty, he lives outside of the Sanctum with his wife.”
“And the other Rahtan?”
“Four of them were there tonight, Jorik, Theron, Darius, and Gurtan. The others are off meeting their assigned duties. Rahtan means ‘to never fail.’ That’s what we’re charged with, never failing in our duty, and we never do.”
Except for me. I was his failure, unless I did prove to be of value to Venda, and it seemed that would be determined only by the Komizar.
“But does the Council really have any power?” I asked. “Doesn’t the Komizar ultimately decide everything?”
He rolled to his back, his hands lacing behind his head again. “Think of your own father’s cabinet. They advise him, present options, but doesn’t he have final say?”
I thought about it, but I wasn’t so sure. I had eavesdropped on cabinet meetings, boring affairs where decisions seemed already to be arrived at, cabinet members spewing off figures and facts in rote fashion. Rarely did a speech end in a question for my father to answer, and if he raised a question himself, the Viceregent, Chancellor, or some other cabinet member would step in and say they’d investigate further, and the meeting would move on.
“Does the Komizar have a wife? An heir?”
He grunted. “No wife, and if he has any children, they don’t carry his name. In Venda power passes through spilled blood, not the inherited kind.”
What the Komizar had told me was true. It was so foreign to the ways of Morrighan, and all the other kingdoms too.
“That makes no sense,” I said. “You mean the position of Komizar is open to anyone who kills him? What’s to stop someone on the Council from killing him and seizing the power himself?”
“It’s a dangerous position to hold. The minute you do, there’s a target on your back. Unless others see you as more valuable alive than dead, your chance of surviving until your next meal is slim. Few are willing to take the chance.”
“It seems a brutal way to govern.”
“It is. But it also means if you choose to lead, you must work very hard for Venda. And the Komizar does. For years in Venda there were bloodbaths. It takes a strong man to navigate that line and stay alive.”
“How does he manage it?”
“Better than past Komizars. That’s all that matters.”
He went on to tell me about the various provinces, some large, some small, each with its own unique features and people. The governorship was passed down in the same way, through challenges when reigning governors grew weak or lazy. Most of the governors he liked, a few he despised, and a few were among the weak and lazy who might not be long for this world. The governors were supposed to spend alternate months in their provinces and the city, though most preferred the Sanctum to their own fortresses and extended their stays.
If this bleak city was preferable to their homes, I could only wonder how much more dismal those places must be. I questioned him about the strange architecture I had seen so far. He said Venda was a city built on a fallen one, reusing the available resources of the ruins. “It was a great city once. We’re only just learning how great. Some think it held all the knowledge of the Ancients.”
That was a rather lofty claim for such a wretched city. “What makes you think so?” I asked.
He told me the Ancients had vast and elaborate temples built far belowground, though he wasn’t certain they had all always been below the surface and that maybe they had been buried by the devastation. He said every now and then, part of the city would collapse, literally falling in on itself when buried ruins below gave way. Sometimes that led to discoveries. He told me more about the many wings of the Sanctum and the paths that connected them. Sanctum Hall, the Tower quarters, and other meeting chambers were part of the main building, and the Council Wing was connected by tunnels or elevated walkways.
“But as large as the Sanctum may seem,” he said, “it’s only a small part of the city. The rest spreads for miles, and it continues to grow.”
I remembered my first glimpse of it, rising up in the distance like a black eyeless monster. Even then, I felt the dark desperation of its construction, as if there were no tomorrows.
“Is there any other way to get in besides the bridge we crossed?” I asked.
He paused, staring at the beams above him. He knew what I really wanted to learn—if there was any other way out.
“No,” he finally answered quietly. “There’s no other way until the river widens hundreds of miles south of us and the current calms. But there are creatures in those waters that few will risk encountering, even on a raft.” He rolled over and looked at me, lifting up on one arm. “Only the bridge, Lia.”
A bridge that required at least a hundred men to raise and lower.
Our gazes were fixed, and the unstated question—how do I get out of here?—hovered between us. I finally moved on, asking more about the bridge’s construction. It seemed a carefully wrought wonder, considering the hapless construction of the rest of the city.
He said the new bridge was finished two years ago. Before that there had only been a small and dangerous footbridge. Resources were limited in Venda, but the one thing they didn’t lack was rock, and within rock were metals. They had learned ways of mixing them that made the metal stronger and impervious to the constant mist of the river.
It was no small task, extracting metals from rock, and I was surprised that they seemed to be accomplished at it. I had noticed the strange glint in the bracelets that Calantha wore, like nothing I had ever seen before—a beautiful blue-black metal that shone bright against her pale wrists. The circles of metal jingled down her arms when she lifted the platter of bones, like bells ringing in the Sacrista in Terravin. Listen. The gods draw near. For a people who discounted the blessings of the gods, the hush that had fallen when Calantha spoke had been startlingly devout.
>
“Kaden,” I whispered, “when we were at dinner, and Calantha gave the blessing—you said it was an acknowledgment of sacrifice. What were the words? I understood a few, but some were new to me.”
“You understand more than I thought you did. You surprised everyone when you spoke tonight.”
“It shouldn’t have been a surprise after my tirade this morning.”
He grinned. “Speaking the choice words of Vendan is not the same thing as commanding the language.”
“But there are still words that are foreign to me. None of you ever said that blessing over a meal in all our way across the Cam Lanteux.”
“We’ve grown accustomed to living many different lives. Some of our ways we have to leave behind once we pass the borders of Venda.”
“Tell me Calantha’s prayer.”
He sat up and faced me. The glow of the candle lit one side of his face. “E cristav unter quiannad,” he said reverently. “A sacrifice ever remembered. Meunter ijotande. Never forgotten. Yaveen hal an ziadre. Another day we live.”
The words bored into me and all the ways I had misinterpreted the wearing of the bones.
“Food can be scarce in Venda,” he explained. “Especially in winter. The bones are a symbol of gratitude and a reminder that we live only by the sacrifice of even the smallest animal and by the combined sacrifices of many.”
Meunter ijotande. I was shamed at the beauty of every syllable of what I had once called barbarian grunts. It was a strange emotion to feel side by side with the bitterness of my captivity.
There were so many times I had looked at Kaden back in Terravin and wondered what storm was passing through his eyes. I knew what at least part of that storm was now.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“For what?”
“For not understanding.”
“Until you’ve lived here, how could you know? Venda is a different world.”
“There was one more word. Everyone said it together at the end. Paviamma.”
His expression changed, his eyes searching mine and warmth lighting them. “It means—” He shook his head. “There’s no direct translation in Morrighese for paviamma. It’s a word of tenderness and has many meanings, depending on how it’s used. Even the tone in which it’s said can change its meaning. Pavia, paviamas, paviamad, paviamande. Friendship, thankfulness, care, mercy, forgiveness, love.”
“It’s a beautiful word,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he agreed. I watched his chest rise in a deep breath. He hesitated, as if he wanted to say more, but then he lay back down and looked up at the rafters. “We should get some sleep. The Komizar expects to see us early in the morning. Was there anything else you wanted to know?”
The Komizar expects. The warmth that had filled the room was swept away with a single sentence, and I pulled the quilt closer. “No,” I whispered.
He reached out and snuffed the candle with his fingers.
But there was still a question stabbing me that I was afraid to ask. Would the Komizar really send Rafe home piece by piece? Deep down, I knew the answer. Vendans had cut a whole company of men to pieces, my own brother among them, a massacre, and the Komizar had praised them for it. You did well, Chievdar. What was one more emissary to him? All I could do was make sure he didn’t perceive him as something valuable to take from me.
I turned toward the wall, unable to sleep, listening to Kaden’s breathing and his restless turning. I wondered about his regret at the choices he had made and all the throats he hadn’t held back from slitting. How much easier his life would be now if he had slit mine as he was ordered to do. The wind picked up, whistling through crevices, and I nestled deeper under the blankets, wondering about my own regrets to come, for the things I was yet to do.
The room closed in, dark and black and far from everything I had ever known. I felt like a child again, wishing I could curl into my mother’s arms on a stormy night and she could whisper away my fears. The wind punched and thrashed against the shutters, unforgiving, and I felt something wet trickle down the side of my face. I reached up and swiped the salty wetness away.
How quaint.
How very quaint.
Like believing some things last forever.
A tear.
As if that could make a difference.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KADEN
Enjoy your pet for now.
Every aspect of the words ate at me.
Enjoy.
Seeing Lia’s fear made it impossible to enjoy anything. Seeing her paraded through the hall in a sack made me sick in a way I hadn’t been since I was a child. Why hadn’t I thought it out? Was I as thick as Malich? Of course, the Komizar couldn’t treat her as an honored guest. I hadn’t expected that, but seeing her grasping at fabric to cover herself—
I slammed a cupboard shut and rummaged through another in the larder under the scrutinizing eye of the cook. She didn’t approve of me raiding her kitchen.
“Here!” she snapped, slapping away my hand when I reached for a wheel of cheese. “I’ll do it!” She grabbed a knife to cut off a chunk for me. I watched her move about the kitchen, gathering more food.
Your pet.
I knew how the Komizar perceived royals. I couldn’t blame him. It was how I had perceived them too, but she wasn’t selfish fluff wearing a crown. When she had defied all of us and killed Eben’s horse, that wasn’t fluff.
For now.
Temporary. Fleeting. Provisional. But bringing Lia to Venda was a forever move for me. An ending—and a beginning. Or maybe it was a return to some part of me I didn’t want to die. Don’t do it. The words had beat through me back in Terravin as I had watched her walk alone through the woods. They had tapped in my skull again as I had sat in the barn loft, drawing my knife across my whetstone.
I had never defied an order before, but I hadn’t disregarded his command just because I fell for the charms of a girl. Lia was hardly charming. At least not in the usual way. There was something else that drew me to her. I’d thought just getting her here would be enough, and that once she was here, there’d be no reason to kill her. She’d be safe. She could be forgotten, and the Komizar could move on to his other plans. I’ll decide the best way to use her. But now she could become part of those plans.
Lia’s words on the battlefield had echoed through my head since the day she said them—for evermore—and for the first time, I was starting to understand how long that was. I was only nineteen, and it seemed I had lived two lifetimes already. Now I was beginning a third. A life where I had to learn new rules. Living in Venda and keeping Lia alive. If I had just done my job as I always had before, I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. Lia would be another forgotten notch on my belt. But now she was something else. Something that didn’t fit into any of the rules of Venda.
She asks for another story, one to pass the time and fill her.
I search for the truth, the details of a world so long past now, I’m not sure it ever was.
Once upon a time, so very long ago,
In an age before monsters and demons roamed the earth,
A time when children ran free in meadows,
And heavy fruit hung from trees,
There were cities, large and beautiful, with sparkling towers that touched the sky.
Were they made of magic?
I was only a child myself. I thought they could hold a whole world. To me they were made of—
Yes, they were spun of magic and light and the dreams of gods.
And there was a princess?
I smile.
Yes, my child, a precious princess just like you. She had a garden filled with trees that hung with fruit as big as a man’s fist.
The child looks at me, doubtful.
She has never seen an apple but she has seen the fists of men.
Are there really such gardens, Ama?
Not anymore.
Yes, my child, somewhere. And one day you will find them.
br /> —The Last Testaments of Gaudrel
CHAPTER TWELVE
I startled awake, gasping for air, and looked around, taking in the stone walls, the wooden floor, the heavy quilt still covering me, and the man’s shirt I wore for a nightgown. It wasn’t a dream. I really was here. I glanced at the rug on the floor next to me, empty, the blankets from last night neatly folded and returned to the top of the barrel.
Kaden was gone.
There had been a storm last night, winds like I had never heard before, loose bits of the city battering against walls. I thought I would never sleep, but then when I did, I must have slept hard, drawn into dreams of endless rides across a savanna, lost in grass waving far over my head, and stumbling upon Pauline on her knees praying for me. Then I was back in Terravin again, Berdi bringing me bowls of warm broth, rubbing my forehead, whispering, Look at the trouble you get into, but then her face transformed into my mother’s and she drew closer, her breath searing hot on my cheek—You’re a soldier now, Lia, a soldier in your father’s army. I thought I had sat up awake, but then beautiful, sweet Greta, a golden crown of braid circling about her head, walked toward me. Her eyes were blank, sightless, and blood dripped from her nose. She was trying to mouth Walther, but no sound would come out because an arrow pierced her throat.
But it was the last dream that actually woke me. It was hardly a dream at all, only a flash of color, a hint of movement, a sense I couldn’t quite grasp. There was a cold, wide sky, a horse, and Rafe. I saw the side of his face, a cheekbone, his hair blowing in the wind, but I knew he was leaving. Rafe was going home. It should have been a comfort, but instead it felt like a terrible loss. I wasn’t with him. He was leaving without me. I lay there gasping, wondering if it was only the Komizar’s prediction haunting me. The emissary has a better chance of being alive at month’s end than you do.
I threw back the quilt and jumped out of bed, inhaling deeply, trying to lift the weight on my chest. I looked around the room. I hadn’t heard Kaden leave, but neither had I heard him the night he came to kill me in my cottage while I slept. Silence was his strength, while it was my weakness. I crossed the room to the door and tried it, but it was locked. I went to the window and pushed open the shutter. A blast of cold air hit me, and goose bumps shivered up my arms. A glistening, dripping city was laid out before me, a raw, smoky pinkness to it in the predawn light.