“It is my belief,” she said, “that – barring accident – he will survive the rigors of the kazha, my Empress. Well does he fight, and well does he seem to understand the Way, as Thy daughter has taught him.”
“Yet,” the Empress asked, “his blood does not sing?” Tesh-Dar heard it as a statement, not a question.
“It is so, my Empress,” she replied woodenly, for she knew that her words sealed Reza’s fate as surely as if she had thrust a knife into his heart.
The Empress looked thoughtfully upon her sister. Tesh-Dar had served Her well, as she had the Empress who had reigned before. And among all the countless warriors who now lived and breathed, Tesh-Dar stood highest among the peers, upon the second step from the throne. Many scars did she carry from innumerable Challenges, and then – after the humans had come – from the battles she had waged against those who were not of the Way, contests fought to the thrill of the Bloodsong that was the will and spirit of their people. To live in Her light, with Her blessing, and to die honorably in Her eyes: these were the things to which all aspired, and no better example existed than the woman who now stood beside Her.
Yet, there was a melancholy about her that the Empress did not understand. About this one thing, this human child whom Tesh-Dar might once have killed simply to sharpen her talons, was the warrior priestess distraught. To the Empress, it was a simple matter: the animal’s blood did not sing, therefore it had no more soul than a steppe-beast or winged gret-kamekh, and would be killed when it proved of no further interest. But she could feel the blood that coursed through her sister’s veins, and knew that her mind was not at ease in the matter.
“Tesh-Dar,” she said, lifting her hand to the great warrior’s chin, tilting it gently so that their gaze met, “what is it that troubles you so? Surely, if the humans are the soulless creatures we believe them to be, their hearts and blood silent to the ears of the spirit, the life of this one individual, this child, could not mean so much? What trouble is there, to such a warrior as yourself, to taking its life?”
“My Empress,” Tesh-Dar said, averting her gaze in deference and embarrassment at what she felt compelled to ask, “I beseech Thee to let him live until the seventh great cycle of his learning is complete. Five cycles has he lived among us, two more remain. I…” she paused, grasping for the words to explain the strange things that ached in her heart. “I have heard whispers from the Ancient Ones,” she said at last, “that at once seem clear in my mind, but which have no meaning for me.” She looked into the eyes of the one who commanded the lives and aspirations of countless souls, wondering what worth a single human life might hold for Her. “They know of him, Empress,” she said slowly. “They do not speak his human given name, as do we at the kazha, but they watch him through our eyes. They watch the human and Esah-Zhurah as if they were one, and they wait. They helped her to save him from death in the Lo’ar River.”
The Empress looked away into the garden for a long moment, Her eyes focused on places and times that were remembered now only through crumbling stone tablets and withered parchments. For Her memory was that of all those who had gone before Her, who had worn the simple gold band that now adorned Her neck. Accepting the ornaments of the Empress was to accept the spirit and knowledge of the thousands who had once walked in the Garden, and to know the thoughts and feelings of countless billions. All bowed to Her will. “I, too, have heard these whispers,” She said slowly, “and many times have I beseeched them for their meaning. But I cannot believe the answer that I hear.”
“Then it is true,” Tesh-Dar said softly. “He may be the fulfillment of The Prophecy.”
“The thought is a most absurd one,” the Empress replied, but Her voice betrayed Her own growing suspicion that She could not rule out the possibility, however faint.
The priestess kneeled, humbled by the Empress’s remark, but nonetheless determined in her conviction that it could be true. “Yes, my Empress, but it is a thought I am unable to banish from my mind.”
The Empress recalled the words that made up The Prophecy. It had been passed down from generation to generation since the death of Keel-Tath, millennia long past. It gave hope that someday their atonement might be made, but nothing more. None knew if the First Empress had spoken it, for She had gone away into the Darkness, and Her people had to live on as their Way demanded. So long had it been, that even the Ancient Ones had long ago given up any hope of redemption, believing Her Children to be cursed for all Eternity. Until now, perhaps.
And as the Empress thought of where the Way had taken Her people over these many generations, the nearly forgotten words of a passage from The Prophecy came to Her:
Of muted spirit, soulless born,
in suffering prideful made;
mantled in the Way of Light,
trusting but the blade.
Should this one come in hate or love,
it matters not in time;
For he shall find another,
and these two hearts they shall entwine.
The Way of sorrows countless told,
shall in love give life anew;
The Curse once born of faith betray’d,
shall forever be removed.
Shall return Her love and grace,
long lost in dark despair;
Mercy shall She show the host,
born of heathen hair.
Glory shall it be to Her,
in hist’ry’s endless pages;
Mother to your hearts and souls,
Mistress of the Ages.
The Empress turned away, looking down the path they had been following, Her eyes tracing the smooth cobblestones. Each stone, like the plants around them, had been brought from a different planet in the Empire. Set into the paths that wound their way through the garden, they formed a galactic mosaic beneath the Empress’s feet, the richest mineral collection among the ten thousand suns that were home to Her Children. The Empress knew precisely how many of Her predecessors had walked down this path and had stopped in this very spot, deep in contemplation. Better than anything else, She thought, the stones that She paced each morning of Her life represented the strange thing that was their Way: countless pieces of stone or flesh, it did not matter, for they were all bound to Destiny. It was Destiny, She knew, that eluded even Her vision, just as did the path, turning behind a grove of trees with crimson flowers, a relic of a planet that had long since been turned to dust, the onetime home of an enemy of the Empire.
She could not see the future. But Tesh-Dar’s concerns, and the interest of the Ancient Ones, She dared not ignore. If they watched the human child and his tresh, the daughter of Her Own blood, there was good reason. She herself could not hear their voices as clearly as the Desh-Ka priestess who stood beside Her. But she trusted Her blood sister’s judgment with all Her ageless soul.