Azariah stood on the balcony outside his temple office, gazing out over Ancris as the dark sun glowered over the mountains to the west. Though his eyes were covered by his ivory-and-gold mask, he saw the city clearly. The ritual that had ruined his eyes at the age of twenty-five had granted him his second sight, allowing him to see in all directions at once. Even as he gazed out at the halls of government, the temples, and the market district, he saw the lantern on the desk behind him, the inlaid gold filigree on the wooden door beyond it.
For the most part, his vision was shades of gray, as if the city and the mountains beyond were made of clay. It made Nox’s angry violet light appear all the brighter. An iridescent blue curtain hung over the city as well, a gauze so thin he could barely see it. That curtain and the seventeen pillars that powered it were known as the palisade. It was a public work, a monumental feat of engineering and alchemy, one of Azariah’s crowning achievements in his time as illustra. Azariah couldn’t see all the pillars from his current vantage—Mount Evalarus, on which the temple was built, blocked seven of them from his view—but he could see ten of them. Each was a spear of cerulean light in the gray landscape of his second sight. Above and between them, the palisade’s curtain shimmered like oil on water, protecting everything beneath it from the dark sun’s harmful rays.
A short while ago, he’d sent a request to Highreach for Tyrinia Solvina to attend him at the temple, and he’d come to his balcony to wait and reflect. He found viewing the palisade calming. It gave him perspective, which he needed after his discussion with the Hissing Man. Something about his son, Cassian, had come up during their talk, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it was. He remembered the struggles and the joys of raising Cassian after his mother had died in childbirth. He remembered playing with him in their apartments after his priestly duties had been completed. He even remembered Cassian blossoming into a fine young man and becoming a priest himself. But when he tried to recall the circumstances around Cassian’s disappearance, the memories were like so much sand in a sieve. He recalled Cassian pacing restlessly in his apartments, but then the memory slipped away, replaced by one of a much-younger Cassian running along the halls of the temple while Azariah chased him.
It made him feel broken. A man who couldn’t remember the circumstances around his son’s disappearance? Well, he was no father at all, was he? He often had the urge to ask Japheth to fill in the details, but he was so embarrassed about the gaps in his memory that the only person he confided in was the Hissing Man. He felt calmer when he did, but also hollow, as if the Hissing Man had merely helped him to paper over a hole instead of fill it in.
Footsteps approached his office door. A knock came, and Azariah returned to his office and sat down at his desk. “Come.”
The door swung open, and Japheth, Azariah’s most trusted servant, stepped inside. He wore the uniform of a high shepherd: a hooded tabard with Alra’s full, eight-pointed starburst, a double-circle at the center, on his chest. His head was shaved, his beard trimmed. From his wide leather belt hung a book of proverbs from which he often recited before rendering judgement on the wicked. He bowed and said, “Your Radiance, the Domina has arrived.”
“Very good. Show her in.”
“At once, Your Holiness.”
Japheth left and returned shortly with the Domina Tyrinia Solvina, a stately woman in a thread-of-silver dress. She was Quintarch Lucran’s wife.
Azariah gestured to the upholstered chair across from him. “Please,” he said.
Tyrinia nodded and sat. Japheth left.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Azariah said.
Tyrinia was well into her fifties—the same age as Azariah, more or less—but looked much older. She had worry lines around her mouth and eyes and pale makeup and rouge that failed to hide them. She might be merely tired and aging, but if Azariah’s informants were right, it was more than that. Word was she was once again assuaging her grief by partaking in rapture, a euphoric that, over time, sapped one’s vitality. Too much left one a withered husk. From the look of her, Tyrinia was halfway there.
Tyrinia bowed respectfully. “Your message said it was urgent.”
“It is, but before we get to that, please indulge me. There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about for some time. I’m aware of the ceremony you held recently in the catacombs to honor your beloved son.”
Tyrinia’s son Ransom had died from an overdose of rapture some fifteen years ago. Several days ago, Lucran, Tyrinia, and their daughter, Skylar, had attended a brief ceremony to honor his memory. Mere hours later, Lucran had left Ancris on dragonback to rejoin the effort to quash the rebellion in Syrdia.
As any mother would, Tyrinia had been heartbroken over Ransom’s death. She also felt responsible, and Azariah could hardly blame her for it. She’d been taking rapture for rheumatism when Ransom was wounded by a Syrdian gryphon. The wound was slow to heal, so he started taking the drug as well. But rapture was a sly seductress. They both became addicted, each giving the other permission to take more, until Ransom took too much.
Tyrinia readjusted herself in the chair, and her gaze darted around the room. “Why do you mention it?”
“I have an offer to make,” Azariah said, “but I hesitate because I’m worried you might take it the wrong way.”
“Go on.”
“You’re aware of how the Kin revere wisps.”
“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I always thought it vulgar.”
Azariah waggled his head, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “I see no issue with the practice myself. Honoring the dead is a sentiment I think we can all agree on.”
“But to treat them like they’re holy? It’s unnatural . . .”
“You’re right. Most souls are undeserving of such praise, and they can hardly know which one is which, can they? But wouldn’t you agree there are some wisps who likely deserve recognition and praise? Who deserve to be honored?”
“Is there a point to all this, Your Holiness?”
“You’re likely aware that the Church knows how to quicken a wisp?”
Tyrinia leaned forward in her chair and furrowed her wrinkled brow. “Are you suggesting you quicken my son’s soul?”
“Only if you’d like. We’re in the mountains, not some distant corner of the empire. The power of the Holt will cause it to happen one day anyway, whether any of us likes it or not. That will be decades from now, generations, centuries, perhaps. But you could have his wisp now, to honor. To cherish.” Tyrinia opened her mouth to protest, but Azariah quickly continued. “There’s evidence Alra knew how to quicken wisps.” He made a circle with two fingers, Alra’s sign. “May her memory abide.”
Tyrinia made Alra’s sign as well. Then her shoulders slumped and she sighed. “The goddess did?”
“Yes, and she used the ability twice. Once to speak to a paragon who died in the days leading up to the final battle with Faedryn. And another time, many years earlier, to wish peace upon a troubled soul.”
The first was true. The second was a lie meant to give Tyrinia the sense that it wasn’t a single, desperate act on Alra’s part.
Tyrinia was silent for a moment. Then she asked, “Will it prevent his soul from rising to Déu?”
“Far from it. I suspect a quickening will hasten his contemplation and allow him to meet Alra that much sooner.” Another lie. Azariah had no idea if that was true or not. And of course he left unsaid that Ransom’s soul, weighted by sin, could be drawn down to the seven hells of Kharos. “No one need know. The offer I make is for you and you alone. I’ll quicken the wisp myself, in secret. Once it’s in your hands, you can do what you wish with it. Share it, or not.”
“And what will this cost me?”
“Nothing, Domina.”
“You invited me here for a reason, Your Holiness.”
“I did, but that’s separate from—”
“Just tell me what it is.”
Azariah composed himself. “I’ve been made aware of an expedition that’s being organized. It’s leaving today, in fact.”
“The expedition to Tortoise Peak . . . ?”
“The very one.”
“My daughter mentioned it to me.” Tyrinia shrugged. “What of it?”
“It needs to be called off, today, and the alchemysts returned to Ancris.”
“Are you aware of the delays in the renovation of the shrine?”
“To some degree, yes.”
“They’re unacceptable in the Church’s eyes.”
Three years ago, Master Renato, Quintarch Lucran’s chief alchemyst, conducted a survey of the shrine and found that the white quartzite stones were becoming brittle. Azariah knew why—it was a direct result of the palisade—but he could hardly admit that to Master Renato or anyone else. He’d needed a distraction to keep them from looking too deeply into the matter. The very findings of Renato’s survey had been the perfect solution. He demanded funding from the imperial coffers to renovate the shrine before the stones’ degradation got any worse.
He might have authorized the project using Church funds, but the Church was forbidden by imperial decree from funding such projects—the failure of the Holy Rebellion decades ago had seen to that. It was far from an insurmountable problem, though. Every year, the shrine drew untold thousands of pilgrims to Ancris, which poured rivers of gold into the empire’s coffers. Azariah used it as a lever.
Lucran eventually agreed but had insisted on overseeing the project. At first, Azariah resisted any oversight, but he soon bowed to Lucran’s will. The point was not the renovation itself, but to occupy the city’s alchemysts to such a degree that they wouldn’t look too deeply into the underlying causes of the problem.
Things had been going smoothly ever since, but now came the expedition to Tortoise Peak. It could lead to the alchemysts worrying about the palisade, or worse, heading into the Holt to find more such examples. They might stumble onto the crucible.
“It is merely a one-day expedition, from what I understand,” Tyrinia said.
“Yes, but how much planning went into it? What sort of research will occupy the alchemysts’ time in the days, weeks, and months ahead? I won’t stand for it. I cannot. The shrine must be preserved. Then there will be time for such research.”
Tyrinia considered, then took a deep breath. “It isn’t an unreasonable request, truth be told—the shrine is taking an excessively long time to complete—but Skylar is the one who authorized the expedition.”
“Then unauthorize it.”
“Yes, well”—Tyrinia twisted her wrinkled mouth into a smile—“you’re aware that my husband, our quintarch, granted both Skylar and me certain responsibilities before he left for Syrdia. They don’t overlap, I’m afraid, and Skylar is the Consul of Ancris. She has authority over the city’s public works and related projects.”
Azariah was well aware of the arrangement. He would have summoned Skylar if he’d thought he could convince her, but the young woman was famously intractable, at least toward him. He had a much better chance with Tyrinia.
“As much as it galls me to admit,” Tyrinia went on, “I don’t have the authority to unauthorize it.”
“As you say, Skylar has authority over the city and its internal affairs, but you, as Domina, have authority over the Ancran province.”
“Yes. And?”
“If I recall, Tortoise Peak lies well outside the borders of our city. Tell them it’s a matter of imperial security. Tell them the peak is under threat of attack. Tell them another quintarch expressed interest in it, and you promised them they could study the peak first. Choose whatever excuse you wish. Just send them home so they can get back to work on my shrine.”
“This seems rather important to you, Azariah. Why?”
“Is the wellbeing of the shrine not enough?”
“For me, yes. I’m asking what it means to you.”
“Vanity,” Azariah said. “Pride. Alra’s glory is my glory, Domina. I want that shrine made whole.”
“Well, that’s . . . I’m not really sure what that is,” she said as she pushed herself to a stand. “Nevertheless, you’ll have your precious alchemysts.”
“And what of Ransom’s wisp?”
Tyrinia hesitated. For a moment, Azariah thought she might decline. Then she said, “Tell me when it’s ready,” and left in a rush.
As Tyrinia’s footsteps faded, Azariah sighed and wiped a drip of sweat from his brow.