ASH
Anyone using their eyes or ears would have already worked it out – Aphorai City will soon come under attack. But hearing it out loud still causes a hush in the room. I try to catch Nisai’s eye again, to read his thoughts from his expression, but he’s using that measured-movement gaze he employs when he wants everyone in the vicinity to feel included in the conversation.
Everyone except me. Before all of this started, it would be a completely normal state of affairs for me not to be actively involved in a relatively public occasion. But after everything, the realization stings.
“How long do we have, my Prince?” Luz enquires.
“Scout reports suggest days. A quarter moon at most. The walls have never been breached, so we remain convinced this is the best place to make a stand. The imperial treasury won’t last for ever – a protracted siege will see loss of mercenaries in the attacking force. Even so, we must know exactly what we’re dealing with.” Nisai leans forward, addressing me directly at last. “Ash, when you were back in Ekasya…”
It should be like the sun has finally decided to shine upon me, but now I’m the one who looks away. This is not something I want to get into here, in front of relative strangers, without having the proper chance to sit down with Nisai. And truthfully, it’s not something I ever want to burden him with. He’ll take it on, bear it as his own. Judging by the looks of him, and the circumstances we find ourselves in, he’s got enough on his plate. Nothing good can come of me labouring over the sordid details. “I was in the dungeons. Imprisoned by your father’s physician, of all people. And he has others. Much younger than me. We need to find a way to free them.”
“Zostar? Zostar Alak?”
I nod stiffly.
“But how could he have control over the penitentiary without…” Nisai’s features work as he processes the information, quickly moving through the implications to draw the logical conclusions. “When you were incarcerated, did you witness anything that proves my brother is in league with Zostar? Is this a knowing partnership he’s entered, or is it calculated opportunism on Zostar’s part?”
“Zostar heavily implied he had your brother’s ear. How much credence you give the rantings of a reprobate is up to you.”
“Even reprobates can speak the truth,” Luz observes.
The muscles in my jaw ratchet tighter – what matters is freeing Mish, Del and the others, not the precise level of blame we should assign Iddo. “I don’t know exactly where Iddo stands in this. What I do know is that Zostar is chasing something. And he thinks I’m key.”
“It does seem you were a fixation,” Nisai agrees.
Seems? I was tortured, I want to roar. But I bite down on the inside of my cheek until the taste of metal fills my mouth.
“What we need to know,” he continues, “is what does understanding your power, the remnants of Doskai’s magic, actually achieve for Zostar? What would he actually do with that knowledge?”
“The Lost God was into tearing things apart,” a voice rumbles from behind me. Kip. “My province lives with the consequences of the Shadow Wars to this very day. The Wastes are a godless place. And we’ll be like chaff under a scythe if he actually manages to create and control a new shadow army. Figuring out how the Lost God’s children work and how to control them is a logical first step.”
I flinch involuntarily at “one of his children”. You’re no child of mine, my father used to say, as if I was more curse than boy. It makes me think again of Del and the others beneath Ekasya. Either stolen from their families or maligned by them. Now, they’re relying on me.
Luz twists at one of her silver rings. “Bring back the warriors, bring back the Wars.”
Kip gives her a tight nod.
Nisai’s brow furrows. “I always knew Zostar was ambitious. But nobody rises from obscurity – or from disgrace – to become personal physician to the Emperor without cunning and intelligence. I simply can’t comprehend how any thinking person could wish to plunge us back into slaughter and chaos. Wanting power is one thing, but that implies there would be something or someone left to wield that power over.”
I close my eyes, inhale slowly through my nose, gathering myself to give a reply that sounds rational.
“My Prince.” Luz beats me to it. “If I may. To me this bears the hallmarks of divine ambition. It doesn’t have to be logical. Ancient scripture foretells of Doskai’s struggle to seize power by being the only one among his brethren left standing with worshippers. If this Zostar’s a true zealot, he doesn’t need there to be an Empire to rule over when the ashes stop burning, because he thinks by then he’ll have become one of the Lost God’s most favoured in a new regime. Copperlocks, you’re the history expert. Is that about the right of it?”
Ami’s eyes are wide, but she manages a nod.
Nisai massages his temples. “Most favoured of a god? Zostar is in his twilight turns, and as head of the Guild of Physicians, he must have had a wealth of knowledge before this. Could he truly believe that?”
“I’ve been face to face with him,” I say. “I wouldn’t put it past him to think he will be made new again by his god in return for his service. Made immortal, as he seemed to be testing to see if I was.”
Nisai’s eyes light up. “You’re immortal? I’ve always known you to heal quickly but … truly?”
“Of course I’m not immortal,” I snap, suddenly frustrated that he’s more fascinated with what I am than what I’ve been through to survive and make it back to him.
He reels as if I’d struck him, and I immediately regret the sting in my words. What is wrong with me? None of this is Nisai’s fault. He didn’t ask to be poisoned. Didn’t ask to have to flee the only home he knows because it’s become a nest of vipers who want him dead. He didn’t even ask to be heir.
Then the Aphorain guard shifts. Barden. He squeezes Nisai’s shoulder. You don’t simply touch the First Prince of the Empire. I want to slap his hand away, or twist it behind his back until he…
I give myself an inward shake.
Luz clears her throat. “All right, Copperlocks, what do you have for us?”
Ami looks up more than a little nervously. “It might be nothing.”
“Let us be the judge of that,” Nisai says gently.
“We know from the histories that at the end of the Shadow Wars each of the small kings pledged never to harness the Children of Doskai for another battlefield, yes?”
“That is the accepted version of things,” Luz agrees.
“But it was a full cycle, 125 turns, between then and the Founding Accord. A time of darkness and unrest. In many parts of the Empire, the crops failed. In other parts, there weren’t enough able-bodied left to harvest them. A high proportion of those who had survived the conflict succumbed to starvation. There wasn’t time or energy to spare on scholarship or history. People were just trying to survive.”
“Almost anything we know of that time,” Nisai picks up, “comes from spoken stories that weren’t committed to parchment until after the Empire was founded, and some of those accounts were revised again during the Great Bloom.”
“We have no accounts from anybody who actually lived to see what happened?”
“Precisely.”
“Still,” Ami continues, gesturing to the piles of scrolls on the table before her “even stories that have been handed down a hundred-fold usually have a kernel of truth at their core. And many of the stories talk about the provinces putting in place plans for the future. Safeguards, should they ever be caught in the same position again, neighbour declaring war on neighbour under the influence of the Lost God.”
Luz props her chin in her palm. “Safeguards? Is it possible our ancestors were simply indulging a flight of fancy?”
Ami unfurls a scroll, weighing it down at the corners. She gnaws at a fingernail. “When multiple sources speak of the same thing, I suspect corroboration over coincidence. If there’s anything the histories agree on, it’s that the shadow warriors, the wraith forms of the Children of Doskai, were untouchable by sword or spear. Arrows passed straight through. But the accounts say there was a weapon. Something that could combat them.”
I push back from the table and walk away several paces, then turn, jaw clenched. “Forgive me, my Prince.” My voice is strained, formal. “But why this talk of weapons? Why not concentrate on stopping those who share my curse from being used for ill in the first place? Those children are innocent. They need our help.”
“It’s not that simple,” Nisai says, eyes on his notebook.
“Seems straightforward to me.”
Luz holds up a hand. “Let’s say we can each bring ourselves to believe such a weapon exists, and that if Zostar works out how to raise a shadow army, we can be equipped to oppose him. Where might we find this weapon?”
“We’ll keep working on joining the dots,” Ami says as she unfurls a scroll and weighs it down in the corners. “Between Nisai’s personal research over the turns, and what I’ve gleaned from Es—” She stops still, staring down at the scroll for one, two, three slow blinks. Then she clears her throat. “From what I’ve gathered, we’ve been able to see a pattern. Of the sources that do talk of such a weapon, they hint at them being hidden beneath the ground in undisclosed locations. Closely guarded secrets through the generations.”
My posture is now entirely rigid. “And when you acquire this weapon, will I be the test case?”
The question hangs in the air. Ami shifts in her seat. Even Barden has the sense to look uncomfortable.
Rakel has been uncharacteristically quiet all this time. Now, she sits forward. “So, we’ve got a rogue Regent who wants to be Emperor so bad he might lay siege to his brother’s home city, who has teamed up with a doctor who is trying to create a magical doom army and, what, take over the entire Empire? Because said doctor may or may not be possessed by a god who thinks everything is his for the taking? And if that’s true, the only chance we have is finding some legendary weapon? Is that pretty much what you’re all saying?”
She looks at each of us in turn.
Nobody disagrees.
Rocking back in her chair, she lets out a long, low whistle.
“Well then,” Luz says, “my Prince, Copperlocks, may I suggest you continue narrowing down the possible locations for these ancient weapons? A little insurance never hurt anybody.”
Nisai inclines his head. Ami is already back to her reading.
“Petal,” she says to Rakel, who, to my surprise, doesn’t balk at the name. “I expect Yaita will appreciate your help. The Affliction doesn’t need curing any less because we’re staring into the abyss of a siege.”
“Lostras, Amber” – Luz points in turn to Kip and Barden – “you two fine specimens make friends with the temple guard officers. Put their people through their paces. You’re fresh blood, and we need to know if there’s any weak spots we need to address to make sure our imperial highness is safe during his stay. I don’t want security to be lax with all these distractions.”
“You.” She jabs her finger in my direction. “Help them out. Don’t make me regret bringing you along for the ride.”
Or you’ll finish the job you started back at the Library? I want to say. But I give her a grudging nod.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m overdue a meeting with a certain bureaucrat over the ill-considered commandeering of a certain perfumery.”
“Am I losing my senses,” I wonder aloud after Luz strides from the room, “or are we all just going to take orders from a perfumer-spy who, half a turn ago, none of us knew from a bar of soap? Why in Kaismap’s far-seeing name would we do such a thing?”
Nisai folds his hands on the table and gives me one of his most sage expressions.
“Because she has the best ideas.”