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THE NEXT MORNING, AFTER the old queen’s chambers had been aired out, Kamene’s household was finally summoned to return. The servants brought them to a hallway blocked by a thick wall of fog. Cyrele shivered at the sight of the Karit’s magic at work in front of her.
“Per his eminent highness’ request, please refrain from ever touching the fog,” one of the servants told them. “It will hurt anyone who comes into contact with it.”
Just then, the fog parted to create a pathway down the hall. The servant gestured them forward—as if it was a simple matter, to cross through a deadly fog that could close over them at any time. But they had no choice. Cyrele followed after Kamene and Enosis, hardly daring to breath until she’d reached the other side of the fog. Then path behind them closed up again.
Whatever was in that fog, whatever made it too dangerous to touch...it would trap the three of them inside the Raya Wing just as much as it would keep others out.
Was this Avenah’s idea of protection? The hallways remained just as empty of people as before. Just as unguarded as before. And though the fog would stop anyone who didn’t hold the power of the third temple, the attacker had been able to set Kamene’s bedchamber ablaze without so much as waking the princess. The fog would do nothing to prevent a repeat performance. Didn’t Avenah know that? It was almost as if he was daring the attacker to try again...or as if he were unconcerned about the attacker at all.
Inside the rooms, the bedchamber was walled off, though a faint trace of smoke still lingered nearby. It provided a stark reminder of what had happened the night before, making it impossible to relax.
Kamene stormed towards a balcony within the chambers, calling back to demand that she be left alone. That left Cyrele and Enosis inspecting the rooms, ostensibly in case the servants had failed to clean all of the ash left over from the fire—but Cyrele was looking for traces that someone had been here, someone who didn’t belong. She searched for any sign that something had changed since she and Enosis had gone to bed. Displaced furniture, doors that had been forced open. Anything at all that could offer even a hint as to what had happened last night.
Because something wasn’t right. If someone who’d wanted Kamene dead had made it all the way into her bedchambers the previous night, why had they failed to kill her? Surely if they’d wanted her death to look accidental, smothering her with her covers would’ve been at least as effective as a spontaneous fire in her bedchamber?
But if this hadn’t been an assassination attempt, then what was it? An attempt to frighten the princess? What for?
After a fruitless search through what appeared to be some sort of study—complete with an old but well-made desk holding a set of unlit candles—she continued her investigations in the adjoining room: The dark, dusty library with the strangely blank scrolls.
The servants had evidently not taken advantage of the night they’d spent cleaning to remove the boards from the library’s windows. So Cyrele opened up a random scroll, using glyphs to transform its blank canvas into a light source—except as soon as the light came alive, the scroll was no longer quite so blank.
Because there was suddenly glyphwriting all over it, hidden until the moment the light had touched it. And there, at the bottom of the scroll, was an explanation as to why: glyphs that specified how the writing should remain hidden unless revealed by the light from a glyph. Not sunlight, not candlelight. Specifically the light from a glyph.
Cyrele felt her heart race at the discovery. These chambers had been abandoned since the time of the Purge, which meant any of the glyphwriting she found in here pre-dated the fall of the Order. There were so many scrolls crammed into the queen’s library—did all of them contain hidden glyphwriting? What had the queen been doing with them?
Rifling through the glyphwriting in the library for answers was a slow-going process, because naturally, these glyphs were almost as difficult to understand as the glyphs in the Temple of Lost Hope. But there was one saving grace: these writings came with explanations. Still difficult to understand, still assuming knowledge that had been lost, but explanations nonetheless.
And the reason why these scrolls had explanations was that didn’t contain functional glyphwriting like the Temple had. They contained theories, research, records of experimentation—the type of writing the Maelstrom had targeted with particular vigor. The type of glyphwriting that the Order had assumed that he’d successfully eradicated from the world. Hidden within his own palace, by his own wife.
Did anyone know about this? Surely, the Karits couldn’t. Nor Aralath either, or she would have been studying this incredible repository of lost information instead of searching for a Viemian glyphwriter.
But all of them would surely kill to know of this great secret that Cyrele had stumbled upon by accident. She suddenly felt like she’d committed the metaphorical equivalent of walking into a room filled with oil and sulfur while carrying a torch. One wrong move and it would all go up in flames.
And the worst part was that she didn’t even have time to make use of it! She had inadvertently placed a time limit on herself when she’d altered the glyphwriting in the third temple. Had she left it alone, she might’ve pursued the information preserved in this old writing at leisure, learning more of the old magical technology than she’d ever dared to hope for...at least until the Karits dragged her further into their plans.
But now? As soon as the Karits discovered that someone had meddled with their temple, her opportunities for meddling further would dwindle into nothing. And she wasn’t satisfied with the prospect of losing her window of opportunity to change the future. All she had done so far was to set the stage for a power struggle. She had no way of knowing if it would turn out worse than if she hadn’t acted at all. She couldn’t stop here, because she hadn’t done enough. Not yet.
There must be some use she could get out of finding this treasure trove of glyphwriting. Anything at all.
Looking carefully, Cyrele realized that some of the scrolls stuck out of the shelf a bit, as if a servant had tidied up the shelf before they’d been returned, but not after. Then were these scrolls the most recently used? Grabbing three of them, Cyrele perused them for something of interest.
The first contained theories that would take too much time to piece together, so she quickly put it aside. The second one was more interesting, enclosing a discussion written in two different hands where the authors complained about the extensive work needed for something called the Temple of Shattered Dreams—likely one of the Karit’s temples, considering the disheartening naming convention. Cyrele skimmed over the scroll, looking for any information that might be useful among the grumbling and overly advanced jargon.
The most she could piece together was that the Temple of Shattered Dreams served as the first temple in the sequence and that it guarded the Karit’s mind-affecting powers. That was new information, true, but it was frustratingly clear that the authors understood so much more that they’d failed to adequately explain. The scroll was practically dangling information on the temples before her, just out of reach.
The glyphwriting in the third scroll differed from the writing in the other two scrolls because the glyphs looked like they had a practical function. As far she could tell, the third scroll was some sort of artifact in its own right, designed to protect the bearer against...something. Cyrele couldn’t figure out what, beyond a smattering of words like ‘power’ and ‘vitality’.
“Cyrele,” Enosis called from the hallway. “Someone is here for you.”
Cyrele promptly destroyed her little glyph light before anyone else could see the secrets of this room. She hesitated over the scrolls for a moment, before deciding to leave them here for now. So long as no one had a reason to examine this library, they would still be there when she came back.
Just as Cyrele stepped out of the library, she spotted Enosis at the entrance to the study. Enosis stepped aside to allow their visitor past her...revealing Aralath, standing behind her as if she had any business inside their chamber after Avenah had surrounded it with a magical fog. Still, Aralath was one of the Cyrele’s options for finding the first temple. And she had finally reached out to Cyrele.
There wasn’t much time left. Cyrele needed to make a decision soon—and perhaps speaking to Aralath would enable her to do just that.
#
WHEN ENOSIS HAD TOLD her there was a visitor, Cyrele naturally expected a Karit who could wield the power of the third temple. Probably Matiser or Avenah, seeing as how they were the ones responsible for locking Kamene’s household behind a magical fog. She had most certainly not expected Aralath, who had no power to speak of.
“How did you get past the fog?” Cyrele asked her.
Aralath gave her an amused smile, as if she knew something Cyrele didn’t—which was likely true many times over, unfortunately. “The fog isn’t meant to stop regular visitors,” Aralath said. “It will part for anyone taking the main entrance into the Raya Wing. I imagine the princes have someone in place to watch who comes and goes, but they won’t concern themselves with servants carrying messages.”
So the fog was completely useless, then. All it did was close off every other entrance into the Raya Wing to anyone who wasn’t a Karit. But then, at least Cyrele wasn’t trapped inside like she’d first imagined. She wasn’t shut away from every potential ally and advantage she could find in this palace.
Not that she had a great supply of allies...but she did have Aralath.
Aralath, to whom she could theoretically tell everything, if she trusted her enough. Aralath, who might agree to give up her designs on the Karit’s power, if only Cyrele could persuade her...or who might fight Cyrele with everything she had, if she decided that Cyrele was standing in her way.
Of all the memories Cyrele had shared with Aralath—the two of them dancing around each other’s knowledge, relying on each other to survive the temple, commiserating over Osena’s passing—now that she saw the woman again, she found one overpowering the rest. The image of Aralath inside the vault, defiant at the notion of leaving without the third temple’s power. Desperate to claim it.
In the end, she hadn’t, of course. But Cyrele had taken a glimpse inside her soul that day and found a craving for the temple’s power that was beyond her understanding, something as alien to her as the most complex glyphwriting she’d seen inside the temple. How could she decide whether or not to trust Aralath, when she couldn’t understand even a sliver of Aralath’s motivations?
If any similar doubts about Cyrele ran through Aralath’s mind, the other woman didn’t show it. Her stance was confident as she regarded Cyrele with a raised brow. “It’s barely been two days, Elei Cyrele, and already you’re at the center of all the excitement.”
“No, I don’t believe so,” Cyrele corrected, as Enosis took the opportunity to excuse herself. “Rather, the Princess Kamene is at the center of the excitement. I’m simply unlucky.”
Aralath peeked into the dark library Cyrele had stepped out of with curiosity. “The servants haven’t taken off the boards yet?” she asked.
“No, no yet,” Cyrele said, trying to keep her voice calm even as it occurred to her that the dark room gave Aralath too good of a reason to create her own glyph light. “But I imagine you didn’t come here to critique my new living space.”
“Call it a favor for a friend.” Aralath leaned back against the old queen’s desk, oddly relaxed compared to the other servants who’d grown jittery near these chambers. “You wouldn’t believe the gossip that’s spreading through the palace, with Kamene’s placement in Queen Amese’s old rooms. People are leaning towards believing Prince Avenah is besotted, but it’s such an ill omen for her to stay in these chambers that some have started whispering about the parallels between Kamene and Amese. Saying that the coincidences are too great to ignore, that history is repeating itself.”
The thought made Cyrele stiffen with dismay. “Why would they say that? Amese’s execution was the opening chapter for the Purge. Surely they can’t want something like that to happen again.”
“I’m sure they imagine that, whatever drama unfolds, they’ll be spectators rather than victims. But that isn’t even the best part. In all of the stories about Amese, she is accompanied by her loyal, steadfast servant. A nameless woman who stood vigil outside the tomb her mistress was left to die in. The court isn’t serious, of course, they’re just having fun—but nonetheless, they’re debating whether you or Enosis better correspond to the nameless servant from the tales.”
Cyrele couldn’t help but stare at Aralath in confusion. “But why would every person from that time have a parallel? Are they suggesting that Kamene is the reincarnation of Amese while Avenah is the reincarnation of Shilanar?”
“They’re not far off, are they? For now, the court is simply entertaining themselves with stories. But if they keep talking like this, more and more people might start to believe it. And I doubt the Karits will discourage the notion. Avenah could do worse than finding himself named the second coming of Shilanar.”
“But wasn’t Shilanar...” Cyrele trailed off, unsure if she should call the first Maelstrom a mass murderer in the palace he himself had built.
“The greatest and most terrible of all the Maelstroms?” Aralath finished for her, tone sardonic. “Yes, that’s exactly why Avenah could do worse than link himself to Shilanar’s name. Every Karit would love to have such a fearsome reputation. Though of course, the court likes to conveniently forget the string of bad luck that followed his reign and instead focus on his great prowess in winning the civil war against his family.”
“What bad luck?” Cyrele asked, intrigued at the idea that the man who’d changed the world might have faced any significant setbacks.
“He’d used his magic to great effect, of course, but so many of his projects faced complications. The cargo on his trade ships would disappear without a trace, his buildings would collapse, fires would break out. The records were very careful about how they framed the problems in his reign at the time, but the rumors passed down through the generations are a little less censored—which is why I know about the worst incident of Shilanar’s entire reign. The time when the magic carrying the river through the air failed.”
Cyrele imaged the floating waterways throughout the city collapsing. To think that all of the boats along the river, all of the goods and people in transit, could suddenly plunge towards the ground inside a torrent of water. How terrible would the damage have been? Even after the magic was reestablished, would the people have truly trusted it? Or would they have feared another accident?
“Of course,” Aralath added, “after Shilanar disappeared, his successors had none of these problems.”
But wait—he’d disappeared? “He didn’t die?”
“He left on a metamorphosis journey and never came back. His body was never recovered, though his successors tried to find it, ostensibly so that they wouldn’t have to fear that he’d return in a rage that someone had taken his position. To this day, some still like to whisper that one day, the first Maelstrom will return. Though the rumors about Avenah being Shilanar reborn might be putting those whispers to rest at last.”
With a shake of her head, Cyrele said, “I can’t understand these palace politics.”
A flicker of regret crossed Aralath’s expression, before disappearing as if it’d never been. “Then all the better if we rid ourselves of them sooner rather than later, no?”
Ah. Aralath wanted something, didn’t she? Of course she hadn’t come here to warn Cyrele about the palace gossip. She’d come here to further her own goals. And yet, even as Cyrele couldn’t suppress a flicker of disappointment, she recognized that what Aralath wanted had some overlap with her own desires. It only made sense to listen.
“What did you have in mind?” Cyrele asked.
“The Maelstrom’s metamorphosis journey. I’d never heard of any of the Karits planning a metamorphosis journey so carelessly before, but that only means that this a prime opportunity. Luckily, one of the servants who joined the Maelstrom’s traveling party is a contact of mine. He probably won’t be allowed so much as a glimpse past the storm, but he’ll have an approximate idea of where the barges stop. I can get those locations from him.”
“I keep hearing about this journey,” Cyrele said. “What do you know of it?”
“Not much, but I believe the Karits perform it by visiting the temples. To be frank, I’m not interested in why. Only in how it can lead me to the other temples.”
“But even if you find the temples, there is still the storm to contend with.”
“Which is why I’m speaking with you,” Aralath said, determination behind her eyes. “I’ll be honest. I don’t know of anyone other than you who stands a chance of getting us past the storm. I need your help.”
If Aralath had a way of finding the first temple, the only practical concern to enlisting her help was gone. But there was still the matter of what would happen once they reached the temple. She and Aralath had braved the Temple of Lost Hope together, kept each other alive...but there was a real possibility they could be the death of each other inside the Temple of Shattered Dreams, after they learned the truth about one another.
“Let’s imagine I do somehow find a way past the storm,” she found herself saying. “Is fighting the Karits with more power truly the best way to beat them? What if we found a way to take the power away from them instead?”
Aralath shook her head. “It’s a nice idea, Cyrele, but unrealistic. Even if you somehow pieced together a method that would work, someone—the Karits or perhaps someone even worse—would in turn discover a way to get around it. You never win a game by refusing to play it.”
And that was answer enough in itself, wasn’t it?
“I’ll think over the problem with the storm,” Cyrele finally said. “But while you’re here, can you tell me anything about the princess Senna? I found myself caught in the middle of an uncomfortable conversation between her and the princes.”
A trace of commiseration appeared behind Aralath’s eyes. “Your luck has been miserable lately. Senna rarely confronts the princes anymore, but when she does, the lot of them are always irate for days afterwards.”
“Why?”
“Years back, Avenah’s brother died from poison. They never did discover who’d done it, but the Karits believed the punishment for moving against them must be great enough to dissuade any who’d try again. The Maelstrom declared that everyone who’d failed to stop the poisoning would pay for it—from the servants who’d prepared his meals to the physician who hadn’t been able to save him.”
Unease began to creep up Cyrele’s spine at the thought that so many innocents had suffered. She’d known from her interactions with them that the princes weren’t benevolent men. She could have reasonably assumed that their grandfather, the only person in the world that they had to please, would be the same way. Yet this...the way the Maelstrom had lashed out at people who not only didn’t do anything, but who didn’t even know anything...
“The exact nature of their punishment,” Aralath continued, “he left to his heir, Avenah. And Avenah ordered every member from all of their families put to death.”
For a moment, Cyrele stopped breathing. Avenah’s cruel little smile appeared in her mind’s eye, almost taunting her for not realizing the depths to which he could sink. Did you imagine I had limits? it seemed to ask her.
“Yes,” Aralath said, watching her with sympathy. “Our Maelstrom-to-be is no prize. Unfortunately for Senna, her closest friend was the physician’s daughter. She fought to have the physician’s family spared, screamed at her cousin and brother first in private and then, after they failed to listen to her behind closed doors, in public. It made no difference. Avenah would not budge—and her own brother, the little boy she’d helped raise herself, not only agreed with Avenah’s order...but he carried it out himself.”
By this point, Cyrele found herself simultaneously dismayed and unsurprised. Of all the Karits she’d met, Matiser unquestionably frightened her the most, his politeness to her notwithstanding. It was almost harder to imagine him as a once-loving brother than it was to believe he’d betrayed his sister.
“Thank you for telling me,” Cyrele said.
“You understand why Avenah can’t become the next Maelstrom,” Aralath said, voice hard. “I know you do. Please help me as much as you can.”
Cyrele gave her a nod, agreeing with the sentiment if not with Aralath’s preferred method. But her mind was made. Aralath would never agree with her, which meant Cyrele would have no choice but to betray whoever she trusted to bring her to the first temple. And the truth was, she would rather betray Senna than Aralath.