“And mine,” Xhum said, “hearkens back to the days before, when the Moon Wizard Raj Y’Zir fell to live among us and teach us the love of a father for his child. But regardless, our faiths are not mutually exclusive, young Winteria. Indeed they are intertwined. You are young in your knowledge of Y’Zir, but there are many passages about the Machtvolk and their role. Perhaps this one will interest you.” He looked from her to Ria, and Winters followed the glance and saw the worry upon her face. “ ‘In the Winter of Days, a daughter shall be born and named for the season of her arrival, and she shall call forth the true Machtvolk by blood in the shadow of the Deicide’s pyre to take back that which was promised and heal that which was broken.’ ” It correlates with a passage from your own father’s dreams that I suspect you have not read.”
The words were unfamiliar to her. “I have read the Book of Dreaming Kings since my earliest recollection,” she said. “I’ve not read any passage similar to that.”
The regent looked to Ria again, and the woman smiled only slightly. “No, I suspect you haven’t. But I digress. My point is that our faiths are built one upon the other. And more than that, they are intertwined one with the other.”
She wanted to argue with him. She wanted to list the ways that they were different, but she saw clearly now that though he spoke of reason, there was no reasonable way to convey those differences. Her Marshers had skirmished with the Androfrancines and their neighbors, bellowing out War Sermons of a promised home as they did. They’d murdered for their faith even as surely as the Y’Zirites had. They’d raised their children in the certitude of those beliefs, baptizing them in mud and ash when they were old enough to walk. She swallowed, and her eyes darted again to Jin Li Tam. The Gypsy Queen’s face was a mask, but her eyes bore both worry and curiosity.
Finally, she looked back to the regent and her sister. “Our faiths may be related, but they are not the same. And though parents may raise their children in the traditions they themselves were raised in, that does not make their belief necessarily compulsory.”
The regent smiled. “Our way is not compulsory, though I think you believe for some reason it is.”
Winters’s eyes narrowed. “I know about the camps for those who dissent. I know about the children you are training on the blood magicks and the marks your priests cut over their hearts. I’ve visited the schools myself and heard your version of history.”
The regent stepped toward her. “You believe the Y’Zirite faith is being imposed here. Very well. What assurance would you have from me that this is not the case?”
Winters looked out over the crowd. The gathered masses remained silent, and their faces were a kaleidoscope of emotion. Some were ecstatic, some frightened, a few even angry. What would serve my people best? “I intend to leave these lands,” she said. “Your beliefs are an abomination to me. If you would assure me that your faith is not compulsory, then permit those of my people who wish it to follow me as I follow the Homeward Dream. Grant them the choice.”
The regent and Ria exchanged glances. There was anger on the woman’s face, though she tried to hide it. But Eliz Xhum simply nodded slowly as his smile widened. “That is something I could agree to,” he said. “But I would ask something of you in return, Winteria the Younger.”
Winters saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and when she realized it was Jin Li Tam’s hands, she forced herself to glance slowly and interpret the coded message from her peripheral vision. Be cautious here, Jin signed. Their bargains are never what they seem.
She knew this. She remembered the look of despondency and hope on Jin’s face when Jin watched Petronus killed and then raised, then begged for her son’s cure from the woman whose magicks had been so compelling. Like this night, it had also been before a crowd. “What would you ask of me?”
“On the Eve of the Falling Moon,” he said, “it is customary to select one to go beneath the knife that their blood might be given to the earth for our sins upon her.” He reached behind him to a waiting guard and took a large burlap sack filled nearly to the brim with bits of parchment from the man’s hands. “Honor us by drawing the name of our blood-giver, and you and any who wish to leave with you may do so. But you will leave in the morning and you will not look back.” Ria’s face was red, but the regent continued. “I promise it,” he said, and his voice rolled out and away.
Winters looked at the sack and then looked out over her people. “It is by lottery?”
He nodded. “That is the custom. It is a great honor to be selected.”
“To be cut upon in the name of Y’Zir?”
“Yes.”
Winters looked to the cutting table and saw the knives lying upon a velvet cloth nearby. She’d seen the table in the blood shrine with its dark stains and knew that Ria had killed upon it. And she’d heard the stories from the Tam survivors of what that family had been subjected to upon that island. She’d dreamed of Neb stretched out and staked, writhing and screaming beneath salted blades.
Reaching out, she took the sack from Xhum’s hands and held it. She drew in a deep breath, and when she spoke, she looked out over her people. “When I became queen, the charge of those who went before me was that I love my people as a shepherd and study the dreams for them that they might find a better home.” She looked at Ria and her voice rose. “When I climbed the Spire and declared myself, this was the promise I bore in my heart.” She lifted the bag of names, and as she did, she heard Ria gasp and then caught the momentary flash of rage on the regent’s face. “I will not harm my people,” Winteria bat Mardic cried out. “I will not let them suffer beneath your knife.”
Then, she hurtled the sack of parchments down from the platform and watched the scraps of paper scatter on a cold wind that suddenly moaned around them.
The regent’s voice betrayed impatience. “You are-”
But Winters interrupted him, her own voice sharp. “You will still have your blood, Eliz Xhum, and I will hold you to your promise.”
She looked to Jin Li Tam, and when their eyes met, she knew the woman understood. The Gypsy Queen broke eye contact first, but not before Winters read the emotion clearly framed there.
She is afraid for me.
But in that moment, Winteria bat Mardic, Queen of the Marsh, was not afraid. She felt nothing but resolve. Fixing her eyes upon the moon where it hung high and inviting in the night sky, she walked to the cutting table and slowly started to undress.
Charles
The field lay shimmering white beneath the moon, and Charles squinted out over it to the hillside. Once the sun had dropped, the temperature had as well, and the freezing sweat beneath his clothing from hiking the snowdrifts added to the chill.
He’d come across the tracks hours ago and had known them instantly. The stride was far too long for any human, and the footprint was not dissimilar from those of his re-creations. The metal man-or Watcher, if that was its designation-had run this way, no doubt bound for the night’s ceremony.
He’d retraced the prints with ease until the light went, mindful that his own tracks would give his path away as surely as the Watcher’s had done. He’d pressed on into twilight, and when the dark settled in altogether and the moon rose, he found himself at the edge of the clearing.
He took a tentative step forward and then jumped when a voice of many waters roared out through the forest, resounding from the hills.
“May the grace of the Crimson Empress be with you.” It was a woman’s voice.
For a moment he thought he heard the distant roar of cheering, and then after more words, the woman launched into a discourse. Charles was familiar with voice magicks-they were distilled from blood and forbidden by the Articles of Kin-Clave, but the Marshers had never cared for, nor endorsed, those articles. They did not raise his curiosity nearly so much as the sermon she preached.