The runes glowed, fiercely bright.
“Please give my best regards to Crown Prince Vyshla when you see him in the next few moments,” the man said. “How lucky it is that you have lived all your life in Sorbold, Serenity. The climate here should be a good preparation for what is to come.”
With a sudden contraction of muscle and will, his fingers clutched the top of the small skull and squeezed mercilessly.
A blisteringly bright line of light appeared in the flesh of the empress’s head at the precise line where the crown was worn. It jumped, as with a life of its own, in a blazing arc, lighting the woman’s contorted face, into the violet scale, exploding with brilliance and sending frenetic waves of colored light spilling in ever-replenishing waves off the scale’s tattered edge.
The man’s body convulsed violently, orgiastically, as a harsh guttural sound ripped forth from his throat. His body stiffened and became opaque, growing instantly warm with the sensation of power and authority visited upon him. He shuddered, trying to maintain his stance, and fell to one knee, overcome by the lore of dominion over the land, its treasures, and its people.
How long he knelt, regaining his breath and his balance, he was uncertain, but eventually when his legs could bear his weight again he struggled to a stand, and looked down into the royal bed.
The Dowager Empress of the Dark Earth was gray and cold, the color of clay. Her body no longer trembled, her chest giving only the slightest of indications of breath. All the pigment that had tinted her skin, her hair and eyes had faded from her, leaving her pale, colorless. Not even a hint of defiance remained in her glassy stare, but her skeletal hand still clutched the Ring of State in a death grip. The man exhaled slowly, amusement returning. They would have to pry it from the claw of her dead fingers. It seemed fitting.
He bent over the shell of the dying empress and softly kissed the cold, papery skin of her forehead.
“Thank you, Serenity,” he whispered.
Then he stepped back into the moonlight. The illumination wrapped him in its glow, making him shine, translucent again, against the heavy damask silk of the royal bedchamber’s draperies.
He waited thus, unseen, as the bells began to ring frantically down the hall, watching the understanding of their import pass through the reflective stare in the old woman’s eyes.
In her last moments of fading consciousness, the empress could make out the whispered words on the other side of her heavy mahogany door, spoken in a voice clogged by tears.
“Should we waken her?”
A long moment of silence followed, finally broken by the final words the dowager heard.
“No, let her sleep. Morning will come soon enough; give her one last night of happiness before we tell her that her son is gone.”
17
“Come away from the balcony, Aria.”
Rhapsody looked over her shoulder and smiled. “I’m waiting for dusk, so that I can sing my sunset devotions,” she said, turning back to the sight of the all-but-empty town square and the dry rock formation at its center.
The five days Achmed had believed would pass before the water would return had come and gone; Grunthor had remained three more until the moon began to wax full, then departed for the Canderian border, shaking his head.
“Don’t know what’s keepin’ it,” he had muttered as he mounted Rockslide “Shoulda been ’ere by now.”
“Be careful traveling alone through the areas near the mining camps to the west,” Rhapsody had said, handing him a kerchief tied with a knot. “That’s a fairly rough area.”
“Oi’m tremblin’.”
Rhapsody laughed. “Well, be careful anyway. Once you get in range of the border, things will be better. The people of Canderre tend to be a friendly lot; many farms in the eastern part of the province. It reminds me a good deal of where I grew up.”
Grunthor reached down and caressed her small cheek with his enormous hand. “Look after yerself, Duchess, and don’t be a stranger. Come back for a turn in Ylorc; don’t ya miss Elysian?”
Rhapsody exhaled deeply at the pang that was summoned by the reference to the beautiful underground cottage in the center of a subterranean lake in the Bolglands where she and Ashe had fallen in love. It was a haven for them both, a place away from the world and its cares. “Yes, more than I can say. But not as much as I miss the people in Ylorc. I will try to come and visit, Grunthor. I just can’t say when it will be. There are a few things that require me to be close to Haguefort for the time being.”
“All rightee. Well, fare thee well, miss. Be’ave yourself.”
“I promise nothing.”
“An’ kiss Miss Melly for me; give my regards to my mate, the young Duke o’ Navarne. Tell ’im next time we meet Oi’ll show ’im ’ow to pick ’is teeth with a fallen enemy’s ’air. Works with yer own, o’ course, but it’s much more fun when it’s a foe.”
“I shall tell him.” Rhapsody clenched her jaw to stem the sadness she felt at his leaving, the loss that ached intensely whenever she was parted from him, or from Achmed, the only two living people who really knew her in her other life.
“What’s this, by the bye?” Grunthor had asked, lifting the kerchief and taking the reins in hand.
“A memento of Yarim, just for you, since you were so good and didn’t consume any of its inhabitants. Even though I know you really were tempted.”
“Damn right,” Grunthor had chuckled. “With all of ’em standing around the square all day, it was pure torture. A lot like workin’ outside a bakeshop and never able ta go inside for a taste.”
Rhapsody, still at the balcony, smiled, remembering the exchange, and hoping he had enjoyed the gingerbread men decorated with horned helmets like the ones the Yarimese guard wore, and the note—Eat vicariously. She was certain he had enjoyed the joke.
The door closed quietly behind her, and she felt Ashe’s shadow fall on her from behind; he often came to listen to her evening vespers, the requiem that Liringlas sang for the sun as it sank below the edge of the world, welcoming it again in the morning with the dawn aubade, the love song to the morning sky. He always stood in respectful silence until she was finished; Ashe had Lirin blood in his mother’s line, but not from the Liringlas strain. Nonetheless, all Lirin were called Children of the Sky, so it seemed fitting that he share the devotions she kept to the sun, moon, and stars, the other Children of the Sky.
She began the vespers, an ancient melody, in sweet major tones that turned quickly minor, a song of natural sadness and daily loss, resolving to a major key again, hopeful in its ending, a pledge of devotion that would last the long night and be there to greet the return of the sun in the morning. It was a song handed down in Lirin families from parent to child; in her case, her Lirin mother had imparted the melody to her, a twice-daily ritual that now brought her comfort in the memory.
Her human father had stood, much as Ashe did, in the shadows during these times, listening to the beauty of her mother’s voice, and her own awkward attempts to imitate the sacred air. Her brothers, their Lirin heritage an afterthought to them, ignored the tradition, busying themselves instead with farmwork in the golden light of the morning sun, still at work in the red light of its setting.
A tear crept down her face, unbidden. It dried on her cheek in the warm wind.
Strong arms, comfortingly strong, encircled her.
“Lovely as always. Coming inside?”
“In a moment.” Rhapsody pulled his arms tighter around her and laid her head back against his chest. She closed her eyes and felt the wind on her face, the heat of day beginning to wane with the cool of oncoming night.
Behind her eyelids she could remember the placement of the evening star; its memory still burned bright in the darkness, much like the ones she had just been recalling, though all the people bethought had long since passed into the realm of the Afterlife.