CHERENTHISSE STRODE INTO the infirmary wing of the palace and was met by a mortal medic and one of her junior officers.
“How is she?” she said, as they showed her into one of the private rooms. “Can she speak?”
“A little,” said the medic.
A newly recovered Thousand Eye lay on the bed, her eyes open but bleary.
“Remind me where she was found?” said Cherenthisse.
“Aboard the wreck of the Kindly Bane, First Commander,” said the officer. “No way to know who she was, I’m afraid. Her stasis circle had been buried in sand some distance from the ship, which accounts for why it took us so long to find her.”
The majority of Cherenthisse’s troops were those of the Thousand Eyes who had been in stasis aboard the Blessed Awakening, but over the past fifteen years they had recovered a few dozen more. As a matter of principle Cherenthisse met with each of the newly awakened, however busy she was, even now when the preparations for Midsummer occupied almost every waking hour. The Thousand Eyes had served loyally, through many lifetimes. This was the least they deserved from their First Commander.
She sat down beside the bed, a respectful distance from the Thousand Eye on the bed, and dismissed the others. She remembered the pain and confusion of her own awakening, and preferred to do this alone.
“Do you remember your name?” she said softly.
The Thousand Eye made a strangled noise, trying to speak.
“Take your time,” said Cherenthisse. The impulse to take her hand was very strong, and Cherenthisse had to remind herself that it would be no comfort to the soldier on the bed, not yet.
The Thousand Eye coughed, doubling up with a painful tremor. “Thalarisse,” she managed. “Eight-Five-Two.”
Cherenthisse nodded, and marked it down on her tablet. Thalarisse, Eight Hundred and Fifty-Second of the Thousand Eyes, woke again for the first time in three thousand years. Cherenthisse would see what could be found out about her, if any of her history had been preserved in the Blessed Awakening’s fragmentary records.
As Thalarisse struggled to marshal the fleshy tongue of her prey aspect and to make sense of her new helplessness, Cherenthisse introduced herself and began to explain what had happened, to her and to them all. The curse of Iriskavaal, the destruction of Echentyr, the loss of their true aspects. She paused. It usually took a few minutes for the full import of this to sink in, but none of the others would have to suffer as Cherenthisse had, with the knowledge of what was lost and without hope. She told Thalarisse of the sacrifice of the Most High Atharaisse, the dominion of the God-Empress, the new place of the Thousand Eyes in upholding her law.
“My ship—” Thalarisse managed. “Lost too?”
“Yes,” said Cherenthisse. It was no good softening the blow. The warship Kindly Bane had been shot down by rebels one month before the cataclysm, lost in the Maze with all hands. They had recovered much from the wreck, but there had been only a few Thousand Eye officers in stasis on board. The rest of the crew were dead, and would stay so.
Thalarisse was silent a while longer.
“We have been given a second chance,” said Cherenthisse. “We have a new God-Empress, a new chance to prove ourselves. We have been given a gift.”
A fleeting expression of misery and terror contorted Thalarisse’s face before she could suppress it. “I know my duty,” she said.
“I know,” said Cherenthisse. “You served bravely. You fought for many centuries. You have done what was asked of you.”
“Injured before,” said Thalarisse haltingly. “Many times. Hurts.” The Kindly Bane had burnt, Cherenthisse recalled. The wreck was little more than a smear of black ash splashed across the abyssal plain.
“I know,” said Cherenthisse. At Tsortanapan, on her first assignment, Cherenthisse had almost drowned in mud. She remembered the feeling of it clogging her mouth and nostrils, the panic and then the utter darkness.
“The gift we have been given is a choice,” she said. “Fight for Echentyr again, and the strength of the goddess will be with you. But if you cannot—if you have given all you can—then we do not ask more than that. I can give you a peaceful end, and your memory will strengthen us.”
There was a long pause. Thalarisse squeezed her eyes shut.
“I would fight,” she said. “I would serve. But—not like this. Not in this form.”
“I understand,” said Cherenthisse.
This was part of the cost of what they were doing here. Some could not accept what the worlds had become. If they could not bear it—too revolted to be severed from their true aspect, too heartbroken by the destruction of Echentyr, or simply consumed by a soul-deep exhaustion after lifetimes spent fighting in vain—Cherenthisse could not blame them.
“It won’t hurt?” said Thalarisse. The spark of hope in her eyes cut Cherenthisse like a knife.
“No, it won’t,” said Cherenthisse. She took her sheathed dagger from her belt and laid it on the table beside the bed. “The mercy of Iriskavaal. The kindly bane indeed.” She smiled weakly at her own joke.
The God-Empress had granted Cherenthisse a private stock of the ancient venom for this purpose. It killed instantly and without pain.
“You don’t have to decide at once,” said Cherenthisse. “Take your time.”
“No—First Commander—please. I know.”
Cherenthisse touched Thalarisse’s cheek. It was cold, damp with sweat.
“Everyone dead. All gone. I can’t,” said Thalarisse. “Please.”
“You’re certain?” she said, and got a look of such agonised assent that she felt a pang of guilt for asking.
“Your will is just, beloved Lady,” said Cherenthisse, and drew her dagger.
The blade was very sharp, with a faint iridescent sheen. A small nick was all it took, made delicately in Thalarisse’s wrist. Death followed at once, like a veil drawn closed.
Cherenthisse brushed Thalarisse’s hair back from her brow and closed her eyes.
Not everyone had the courage to struggle on through this diminished world. Thalarisse had needed rest, and deserved it. Once upon a time Cherenthisse had longed for rest herself, but she had found the strength to endure, and now—well, now she was First Commander of the Thousand Eyes, and all would be well, and rest would come when the great work was done. She could last that long.
The God-Empress was merciful. When Echentyr was born anew, those who endured in patience and loyalty would be reborn, restored to perfection, and Cherenthisse would be whole again. In the meantime Cherenthisse kept Thalarisse’s vigil, as she kept it for all the dead.
She sighed, running her hands back through her hair. It was never easy, but at least there was a purity in it. Dealing with Thalarisse had not made her feel tainted and dishonourable, as this next meeting certainly would.
She got back to her office to find Keleiros Lenarai already waiting there.
“You’re walking a fine line, Lenarai,” she said.
“Am I? Usually, I suppose,” he said.
“I asked you to keep me informed of the Hand of the Empress’ activities. Not to seduce her.”
“She’s a very lonely woman,” he said, with a hint of a smile.
Prey coupling had always been a rather unclean topic, and all these years in the shape of prey had brought Cherenthisse no closer to understanding the appeal of an activity that sounded messy and undignified. Some among the Thousand Eyes had begun to experiment, but Cherenthisse felt that was their own business. They all had to cope with this new world as best they could, and if they found some aberrant solace in their prey aspects, then who was Cherenthisse to judge?
Still. She did not like Keleiros Lenarai’s faintly mocking expression, and she did not like the idea that there might be some region of Shuthmili’s motivations that she hadn’t fully charted.
“She may be more likely to confide in you,” said Cherenthisse.
“You’ll be the first to know if she does, First Commander,” he said. “But I wanted to tell you, there is something that’s been bothering me.”
Cherenthisse stalked into the Turret of the Hand without knocking and found Shuthmili sitting by the fire, staring into a cup of coffee. She looked translucent with exhaustion, pale as a shed husk of skin. Cherenthisse’s lip curled. Hollow, that was right.
“So, here’s what I’m wondering, Shuthmili,” said Cherenthisse.
Shuthmili looked up vaguely. “Oh, First Commander,” she said. Her eyes were unfocused. Cherenthisse wondered if this, like so much else, was a pose. “What brings you here?”
“So,” said Cherenthisse, standing over her. Shuthmili did not rise, which aggravated Cherenthisse still further. “Suppose I know who the saboteur is.”
It had all made sense. She could have kicked herself for failing to see it sooner. The translator glyphs, the prison wards, and possibly worse. At this point she would believe Shuthmili capable of anything. Behind Keleiros’ self-satisfaction she had seen real fear of his supposed mistress.
“I am supposing,” said Shuthmili. She didn’t sound worried, only bored and tired as always, as though Cherenthisse were a hatchling that she tolerated only because it was easier than putting her out of the way. Cherenthisse crackled with fresh anger. “Go on.”
“Suppose I don’t yet have hard proof,” said Cherenthisse. “Do you think I should wait and see if they slip up, or should I just kill them before they can make a mistake?”
Cherenthisse had brought her sword. She meant it.
“Are those your only choices?” said Shuthmili. “I mean, nothing, or else murder is a very Thousand Eyes approach—”
“Do you have other suggestions?” said Cherenthisse.
“Well. I certainly don’t recommend confronting the object of your obsession, particularly if the two of you are alone in a confined space and the other significantly outmatches you,” said Shuthmili, languidly. “Interrogate your feelings, Cherenthisse. As I’m sure one learns in snake school, emotion is weakness. Has it occurred to you that what you are experiencing is not suspicion but jealousy?”
Cherenthisse shrugged. She could tell Shuthmili was trying to rile her, but her anger had crystallised into something pure and unbreakable. Knowing what she knew now, Shuthmili had nothing to hold over her.
“I suggest,” Shuthmili went on, “That you focus on being the very best little soldier you can be, and don’t compare yourself to others. Concentrate on your own achievements. What makes you you? What do you have that nobody else has?” She gave Cherenthisse a smile whose sweetness rang utterly false. “I’m sure there’s something.”
Cherenthisse still said nothing. Her mistake in the past had been to react to this kind of needling, to let it throw her off course. Her silence seemed to unsettle Shuthmili, who tried a different tack.
“I know you do not trust me, Commander,” said Shuthmili. “But I assure you, and the Empress knows it, that all I have ever wanted is to share a place at that table, to be trusted as you are trusted. Let’s put this aside. Surely you’ve had enough of fighting like children?”
“Fighting?” said Cherenthisse. “Who’s fighting? I came to ask your advice.”
Shuthmili rolled her eyes. “What’s brought this on, Cherenthisse? You’ve been accusing me of treason about once a year for the past decade, and you’ve never had the guts to do more than threaten to tell the Empress. What makes you think you’re right this time?”
Cherenthisse took her time over this next bit, savouring the moment of her triumph.
“Keleiros,” she said.
Shuthmili rose, and there was no vagueness in her eyes now. They were hard and black as beads of onyx.
“What have you done to Keleiros?” she said. She tried to keep up that languid tone, but Cherenthisse could hear the cracks in it now. She sounded genuinely angry. Perhaps she really did care for the secretary.
“He came to me,” said Cherenthisse. “He told me what you’ve been up to. Profaning the wards.”
“And does he have any proof?”
“Would I tell you if I did? Do you really think I’m that stupid?” said Cherenthisse. She had all the proof she needed in her pocket. The God-Empress would see that.
Shuthmili seemed to make an effort to restrain herself, and then—something Cherenthisse could not recall ever seeing before—that restraint failed. “Yes,” she said, quite simply.
Cherenthisse felt a flush rise to her cheeks, but she held steady. Shuthmili stared at her, open loathing contorting her features. This was new. If Cherenthisse hadn’t felt so certain of that bright diamond of rage that burnt in her heart, she might even have been alarmed.
“You know what I wonder about you,” said Shuthmili, almost spitting the words. Her eyes were wide as though startled by the venom spilling out of her, but once a person lost control, it was hard to stop. “When you’re off duty, do you ever read? Do you enjoy long walks on the beach? What is it that makes life worth living for you?”
“None of your business,” said Cherenthisse. “Still trying to make me lose my temper? As if it’ll help you?” It was almost working. The sheer calculated rudeness of it. Shuthmili ought to be afraid and ashamed. She was in Cherenthisse’s power now, even if she didn’t realise how much, and she ought to show some respect.
“Do you lie on your bunk in the dark and think about drowning people?” said Shuthmili. “I suppose there’s no accounting for taste, but I think I’d get bored.”
“No. I serve the Empress. I don’t need distractions,” said Cherenthisse. She thought of Keleiros, and her lip curled. Shuthmili had always tried to seem so aloof, so detached from mortal things, but she was prey, tangled in base instincts like all the rest. How had Cherenthisse let this prey creature manipulate her for so long? She couldn’t believe how long she had been taken in.
“This is what fascinates me,” said Shuthmili. “What is it that makes you think our beloved Empress cares for you personally? Why are some people so keen to strap themselves to the wheel of whatever megalomaniac can treat them worst? I suppose what I’m trying to say is … who hurt you, First Commander?”
Cherenthisse moved without knowing it, and hardly felt the impact. The next thing she knew, Shuthmili was thrown back across her chair, limbs awkwardly askew. Blood dripped from her nose to her chin, splattered across the arm of the chair.
Cherenthisse grabbed Shuthmili’s head by the braid and pulled her upright, leaning in close to hiss.
“Talk about her like that again, and I’ll break more than your nose.”
The potential of the moment sang in Cherenthisse’s blood. They’d never come to open violence before. It might really be this easy. Shuthmili wasn’t even fighting back. Cherenthisse didn’t know what she might do next.
“This is extremely forward of you, First Commander,” said Shuthmili coldly. She managed to sound almost calm. Blood dripped down her chin and onto the neckline of her gown. “Get your hands off me, or I will start to take it the wrong way.”
Cherenthisse let go. The moment soured. Solid certainty began to crack under her feet. Her heart pounded in her head, no longer energising but sickening.
Shuthmili stepped back out of reach, dabbing at her bloody nose with one hand.
“Fine. Let’s take this to the Empress, if you’re so certain,” said Shuthmili. “Otherwise, get out of my quarters.”
Shuthmili’s nose was still bleeding by the time they reached the throne room. Cherenthisse was certain she was doing it on purpose.
That afternoon the throne room had opened to display a map of the imperial territories. It was set into the floor, inlaid in slivers of agate and chalcedony, bounded in gold. The Empress stood over it, wreathed as always in the Mantle, layers of translucent matter that made her look like a statue, as though she had risen up herself from the glossy surface of the map.
Her eyes were fixed dreamily on the expanse of jasper which represented the Speechless Sea. She was always so beautiful, a changeless and perfect beauty that was all of a piece with an unending weariness. Cherenthisse felt a tightness in her chest, a yearning that felt very much like her yearning for Echentyr.
The God-Empress looked up at Shuthmili and Cherenthisse as they entered, and her lips curved up in distant amusement, which did not so much cut through her weariness as cast new light upon it.
“Majesty, the saboteur—” Cherenthisse began.
“I would like to lodge a complaint against First Commander Cherenthisse, Majesty,” said Shuthmili coolly, speaking over Cherenthisse as though she had not heard her.
“Perhaps one of you had better begin at the beginning,” said the God-Empress, still smiling. She seemed almost mortal, though in Cherenthisse’s vague recollection, the mortal Csorwe had never looked so lovely.
“Oh, by all means, explain yourself,” said Shuthmili sourly.
Cherenthisse explained what Keleiros had told her, concluding, “And finally, my informant tells me that this morning he followed the Hand to one of the outer security bounds and observed her produce a bottle of some reagent, which she poured upon the wards and rubbed away certain among them with a cloth.”
“Yes, and I suppose he heard me say to myself, Ha ha, what a lovely morning for crime?” said Shuthmili. “This is ludicrous. Ma’am, this morning, as you know, I was receiving delegates for the Feast. Niranthe Charossa can confirm it, if you’re really thinking of giving this any credence.”
“My informant—”
“First Commander Cherenthisse does not explain that her informant is my companion Keleiros Lenarai,” said Shuthmili. “Keleiros has been upset with me recently, for reasons I don’t entirely comprehend. I have no doubt this is his attempt to cause trouble for me.”
For a moment all Cherenthisse could do was stare at her. She sounded entirely composed, despite the blood speckling the front of her dress. There was no trace of the anger Cherenthisse had noticed earlier. There was something Cherenthisse had missed. Something was going wrong, and she had hardly even had a chance to put her case across.
The Empress no longer looked particularly amused. “We have better things to occupy our time than mortal squabbling. Cherenthisse, did thy informant give thee anything in the way of proof?”
“Yes!” said Cherenthisse, feeling her way back to solid ground once more. She had the bottle Keleiros had given her, a small, insistent weight in her coat pocket. She was right. Shuthmili was lying. She produced the vial. “This is the reagent she used.”
“Let me see that,” said Shuthmili irritably, reaching for it. Cherenthisse held it away from her.
“My informant was able to retrieve it from her desk when she returned to her office,” Cherenthisse went on.
“Is that so,” said Shuthmili. “For heaven’s sake, First Commander, how can you expect me to defend myself if you won’t let me see the evidence? That is certainly one of my reagent vials, but I have no idea—” She swiped for the bottle again, and Cherenthisse jerked it back. “You are behaving like a child,” she said, and tried once more to snatch it. Cherenthisse felt the sharp, insistent jab of magic trying to unbalance her. She tightened her grip on the bottle, but it was too late.
The vial slipped from her hands and shattered on the stone map, splashing the jasper desert with blood.
For a moment, Cherenthisse just stared at it. “This is a blatant attempt to destroy the evidence, Majesty,” she managed. Blood trickled into the crevices of the map, making red rivers.
“I’m not the one who dropped it!” said Shuthmili. “Majesty, you see what this is—Cherenthisse knows she does not have a leg to stand on. This is entirely manufactured. I don’t believe you even spoke to Keleiros,” she added, darting Cherenthisse a poisonous glance. “You must have stolen the vial from my office yourself.”
“I—” said Cherenthisse.
“Perhaps we should bring Keleiros up and see what he says about it,” said Shuthmili.
The God-Empress sighed. “No, that will not be necessary. Cherenthisse is not a liar. We are inclined to blame the mortal boy for this. Let him be put to death in whatever way seems best and let us hear no more of this.”
Cherenthisse hardly heard Shuthmili’s objections. She wasn’t a liar. She had clung to her faith, even in this place of liars and false images. The God-Empress understood that her heart was still true. Shuthmili was irrelevant. She was a mortal, and no doubt a traitor, but the God-Empress saw all things as they truly were.
“Majesty, you have always permitted me to discipline my staff as I see fit,” Shuthmili was saying. “Keleiros meant nothing by this, I am sure.”
“He meant to deceive us,” said the Empress. “We know he is dear to thee, but a traitor cannot be pardoned.”
“Dear to me—” said Shuthmili.
Cherenthisse heard the ripple in her composure and smiled to herself. She did not doubt that Shuthmili had manufactured this situation somehow. Perhaps she and Keleiros had stitched it up between them. She had always longed to see something blow up in Shuthmili’s face.
“There are so few things that are dear to me,” said Shuthmili, controlling herself. “In your mercy and your wisdom, I would request that you leave me one.”
The Empress reached for Shuthmili and carefully dabbed at her face with the corner of her sleeve, cleaning away the blood that had dried there. Shuthmili went very still, not even blinking.
“Why should such a small thing matter so greatly to thee?” said the Empress softly. “Have we not given thee all that ever thou desired? Power, and knowledge, and liberty, and the esteem of all as our Hand. Is that not sufficient?”
“It is certainly far more than I deserve,” said Shuthmili. Her voice caught again.
The Empress’ smile faded. She looked bewildered, as if she had been presented with a wailing infant and was not sure what to do with it.
“He meant to turn us against thee, little one,” said the Empress. “Out of jealousy, no doubt. It is not seemly for thee to beg for such a life.”
“Seemly or not,” said Shuthmili. She swallowed, seeming to gather herself. “You know what it is to forgive treason, ma’am. Echentyr turned against you, and even so, the great work—”
“Yes,” said the God-Empress. “Very well. Deal with Keleiros as thou wilt. But leave us now. We would have words with Cherenthisse.”
Shuthmili murmured her thanks and left. For once, Cherenthisse almost wished she hadn’t. She didn’t know whether she was pleased or angry or disappointed, and being left alone with the God-Empress was like looking directly into the sun.
Somewhat to her relief, the God-Empress did not immediately say anything, but wandered away from the throne. The splash of blood had drained away into the floor, and the shards of glass were gone as if they had never been. The Empress shed her outer robe, inspecting the sleeve which was now stained with Shuthmili’s blood.
“There is little liking between Shuthmili and thee,” the Empress reflected.
“No, ma’am,” said Cherenthisse. The Empress understood she was not a liar. “I have done my best, but—”
“But?”
“She isn’t one of us, ma’am,” said Cherenthisse, because to complain about Shuthmili’s personality did seem immature. “She talks well, about the great work and the return of the empire, but she can have no personal stake in the matter. She is faithless to her own country.”
“Thou wouldst rather an honest Qarsazhi patriot than a turncoat on our side.”
“Well, I—yes,” said Cherenthisse. She thought she could have respected Shuthmili as an enemy. Having to work with her sullied them both.
“She is crafty and tenacious,” said the Empress. “Thou art a true lodestone. We need metals of both tempers.”
“Thank you, Majesty,” said Cherenthisse, feeling herself blush. “All the same, there is something about her that shifts. I do not understand her.”
“Thou hast the right of it in one respect,” said the Empress. She paused, running a fingertip over the diamond tusk. By now even the tusks suited her, Cherenthisse reflected, close enough to fangs that they seemed perfectly fitting. “Her loyalty is all to us, to me, for love of the vessel, and thou needst not doubt it. She will die before she sees us harmed.”
“As any among the Thousand Eyes would,” said Cherenthisse, feeling she ought to stand up for her own people. Willingness to die for the God-Empress was not a unique quality, after all. “Our loyalty is ever undimmed.”
“Of course,” said the Empress. “But—as thou hast observed—she has no true commitment to the restoration of Echentyr. Come, Cherenthisse, we would show something to thee.”
She took Cherenthisse’s hand in hers, cool and surprisingly strong, and the palace shifted around them. An archway opened, swallowed them up, closed behind them, and Cherenthisse found herself in a vast greenhouse.
High overhead, a dome of paned glass glittered like a wasp’s wing. The air was thick with the cool metallic smell of wet soil, the heavy perfume of blossoms on the brink of overripeness, the sharp astringence of sap. Vivid mosses blanketed the walls, looking soft enough to sink into. Trees swelled with fruit, pink and gold like small suns glowing among the leaves.
Cherenthisse felt tears start in her eyes. She couldn’t at once tell why, and then:
“It’s home,” she said. “It’s Echentyr.” She had hunted among forests of such trees on her own estate. Here were the meadow grasses, with their nodding violet flowers—there were the blue-green creepers which had grown on the walls of the hatchery. All this life which had died with their world.
“Yes,” said the Empress. The light that came in through the glass roof rippled over her face like sunlight on deep water.
“How?” said Cherenthisse, wiping her eyes fiercely with her knuckles.
“A cache of seeds aboard the Blessed Awakening. Shuthmili has been of assistance. Though she has never visited this place,” the Empress added, and Cherenthisse’s heart swelled.
The Empress plucked a fruit from one of the trees and handed it to Cherenthisse as if this impossible treasure were nothing at all.
Cherenthisse had eaten these fruits back at the hatchery: one of the few pleasures she remembered from that time, all the more clearly because the demands of her training had otherwise been so bleak. She peeled it herself, watching her strange little hands carry out the task with the ease of years of practice.
“Back in the hatchery a servant would have done this,” she said. She hadn’t intended to speak it out loud, but the Empress did not seem to mind.
She ate a segment of the fruit and had to stop. The sharp sweetness was almost too much for her, the flood of memories even sharper.
The Empress picked another fruit for herself and began peeling it. She wore claws of polished jade on her fingertips, and they cut through the peel like knives.
“There were a hundred of us in my year,” said Cherenthisse. “A dozen of us left by graduation.”
“Our world could be a merciless place, could it not?”
“We were tempered in fire, ma’am,” said Cherenthisse.
“A very correct formulation,” said the Empress. She pulled away a coil of white pith and twirled it around her index finger. “Echentyr asked so much of thee. So very much.”
Unwillingly Cherenthisse recalled the death of Thalarisse, and of all the others who had been unable to face the future.
“Your will is just, beloved lady,” she repeated, without thinking.
“Nevertheless…” said the Empress. “Doubt never troubles thee?”
It sounded almost as if she were asking for reassurance. Cherenthisse’s every instinct was to offer it, but the Empress deserved her honesty.
“I have doubts,” said Cherenthisse. “I doubt sometimes whether the price is too high. Whether our people can keep paying it, when they have already paid so dearly. Whether we will have the strength to carry through to the end. Whether it can be done at all. But a noble cause does demand much. I was proud to serve Echentyr and to serve you, and I am still proud.”
The Empress let another loop of peel fall from her hand. “I am glad,” she said, and caught Cherenthisse’s eye with a gleam of delight. Her unhappiness was gone, almost as if it had been a mask. She held up the peeled fruit in one hand, a translucent globe like a small shining world, and bit into it with evident relish.
Cherenthisse realised, with mingled relief and disappointment, that it had been a test, and that she had passed.
“We will show thee what we truly brought thee here to see,” said the Empress, when she had finished eating, and led her further into the garden.
Here they were almost in darkness, under the shade of great broad-leaved trees. It was eerie to stand in a forest without wind, without the sound of birds. Cherenthisse felt as though she had walked into a tapestry. In the place of deepest shade was a great stone basin, freckled with moss and brimming with dark water. The surface of the water was almost entirely covered with giant water lilies, each one large enough for Cherenthisse to curl up inside it.
“The water lilies of Saar-in-Tachthyr were sacred to us,” said the Empress. “From their nectar the priests distilled a swift poison, a killing agent of tremendous purity and gentleness. It destroyed without pain. It was said that its victims experienced great joy in the moment of death. It was reserved for the most perfect sacrifices. The highest form of the kindly bane.”
The water lilies floated like pale moons. Knowing that each one was freighted with poison did not diminish their beauty.
“Thou knowest not whether it can be done at all,” said the Empress. “It is true that to regenerate a blighted world is a very great magic, but most certainly it can be done. And it will require a truly great sacrifice.”
All at once they were back in the familiar throne room. Cherenthisse felt dizzy, and not only from the sudden shift.
“What are you asking of me, ma’am?” she said, and yet she saw now that it had been inevitable, that all this talk of doubt and pride had led to this moment. That it was her death which was called for.
To Cherenthisse’s great shame, there was a part of her which did not welcome the honour. A large part. In fact, she did not want to die at all. It would be a noble cause to restore Echentyr, yes, but she had always imagined she would be returned to her true aspect, she would see the orchards and the rivers for herself again, she would play a part in putting it all back as it had been.
And yet, if her goddess asked it of her, she could not decline. Would she fail her people and her world, even if it meant she would never see them again? Of course not. I am a true lodestone.
The Empress’ eyes widened, gold as the pollen at the heart of a lily. “Oh, Cherenthisse. Oh, my dear. Best of all the daughters of our dominion. No. Thou wilt taste the fruit of victory. We would not ask this sacrifice of thee. Besides, thy life alone would not suffice, though we doubt not thou wouldst give it gladly. The resurrection of Echentyr demands the blood of this vassal world.”