97: THE LAW OF DAYNOS
(Teraeth’s story)
The first day of the hearing, the entire group gathered together and finally left the resort. Teraeth had to admit he enjoyed the looks on everyone’s faces when the whole party just materialized, seemingly teleporting to the location in exactly the way no one typically could. Unfortunately, that was the only reason he had to smile. After two weeks of cajoling, threatening, bribing, and in several cases, killing, Khaeriel had been forced to admit an uncomfortable truth:
They didn’t have enough votes.
“You know it is possible that I might actually sway people, don’t you?” Valathea said. “Isn’t that the entire reason you restored me?”
Khaeriel’s nostrils flared. “I wanted to be certain.”
“Nothing in life is, my dear.”
Khaeriel scowled in reply and said nothing more. Teraeth couldn’t help but feel some sympathy. She had to be under pressures that he could only pretend to understand. If the day turned out well for her—
If the day turned out well for her, Khaeriel might still be dead by the end of it. If she succeeded in winning back the throne, her reward would be her own death enacting the Ritual of Night.
So with those cheerful thoughts in mind, Teraeth himself, along with Xivan, Talea, and Senera, was relegated to the upper-level viewing stands. They were unsurprisingly packed to capacity.
The outcome of this decision would have major ramifications for the entire nation, and everyone knew it. They just didn’t know how major.
Everyone stood as the king and queen entered, but Teraeth’s eyes were for exactly one person, who followed close behind the royal couple: Janel.
She wore a revealing gown of icy-blue silk. It was the sort of thing that Janel would never, ever normally wear simply because it was so impractical for fighting, never mind the color. White crystals studded the hem of the gown, sparkling in the hall’s light. They’d put something in her hair to change its normal red sheen to blue and threaded it with silver. Gems—almost certainly diamonds—sparkled from around her neck.
He felt Xivan shift next to him, and he reached out and put out a hand. “Not yet. We have a plan. Follow the plan.”
She ground her teeth and sat down again. “She’s right there.”
“She’s right there being protected by the finest archers in the world,” Teraeth pointed out, “and believe me when I say that lovely sword you’re wearing won’t do much good against vané arrows.”
“What’s the queen’s problem with—” Talea stopped and then exhaled. “What’s their queen’s problem with our queen.” She pointed down to where Queen Miyane was staring swords, knives, and every kind of deadly weapon at Queen Khaeriel before ignoring her completely and sitting down by Kelanis’s side.
“Oh,” Teraeth said. “They used to be married.”1
Talea glanced sideways. “Really?”
“Shh, it’s starting.”
Daynos came to the center of the room. Teraeth saw Valathea and a number of other Founders waiting in the wings, but it was really only Valathea he was interested in. She held a small group of papers together. One of those pieces of paper included a very, very small sigil drawn in the corner. It was easy. Literally all Valathea had to do was her normal job. She’d be close enough to Janel that the sigil would be within the required distance all day long—more than enough time for the beacon to do its work. Next to Valathea, Teraeth’s father suddenly drew in his breath sharply, his eyes unfocused and distant. He put his hand on his wife’s arm, pulled her to the side, and whispered something to her.
Teraeth frowned. Doc looked upset, and by the time he was done talking to his wife, Valathea looked even more upset. She shook her head as if to deny or refute something.
Daynos began to speak. “Together we have assembled to contemplate the ways of our people and the rules of our nation. Given the scope, complexity, and ramifications of today’s decision, all Founders have joined us—”
“That’s not true,” Doc called out. His voice easily carried to every corner of the hall.
Arguably, it shouldn’t have. The Assembly hall was designed to acoustically carry voices in the center to all the onlooker seats and muffle noises made in those same seats. Magic helped seal the effect.
His voice still carried to every corner.
A clamor broke out immediately.
Teraeth rose to his feet along with everyone else. “What is he doing?” Teraeth said. “This wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Quiet!” Daynos said. He turned to Doc. “Terindel, you have not been given permission to speak.”
Doc shrugged. “It’s still not true. You don’t have all the Founders here. May I come to the center?”
Daynos gave the man a mighty frowning, before nodding once.
Doc hopped over the low barrier and walked to the middle of the room. As he arrived, he was suddenly holding a small bag that he hadn’t been holding a moment before. Without prelude or explanation, he upended the contents of the bag on one of the tables.
Gemstones bounced against the carved wood. At least a hundred, possibly more, all glittering with blue or violet flashes of color.
Every single one of them was a star tear diamond.
It took a moment for Teraeth to understand. The number of star tears that had just spilled out on that table was worth so much money, it beggared all understanding. Priceless was the only descriptor with any meaning. But in the context Doc had presented here—as though these star tears were themselves somehow missing Founders …
Teraeth felt his gut twist. He’d grown up on stories of his father and his many crimes—the worst of which by far was the fearfully whispered story that Terindel had slain the entire Kirpis vané court when he’d usurped the throne from his brother.2 Rather than allow those souls to pass on, he’d cruelly kept them as tsalis, hidden away forever. Teraeth had always dismissed this tale as too sensational to possibly be true.
And yet …
“The Star Court,” Doc said. “The tsali stones containing the souls of one hundred and fifty Founders. Do with them what you will, but I assume you’ll want to take them to the Well of Spirals before we begin to hear arguments.”
He walked out of the hall.
Teraeth said, “Now that’s a complication.”
Xivan started heading for the doors well before the rest of the crowd realized nothing else interesting was going to happen that day and they should probably all go home. And Teraeth almost thought that she was simply ahead of the game before the expression on her face registered.
No, that’s not what was happening here.
Xivan was going to plan C.
“Damn it,” Teraeth cursed and sprang up from the bench to chase after her. He practically leaped over two rows in his haste to reach the door before she did. Xivan paused, her expression murderous.
“We have a plan,” he repeated.
“The plan failed,” Xivan spat. “Your father just tore the plan into little, tiny pieces and scattered them all over the parliament hall floor.”
“We can wait a day!” Teraeth said. He saw a flash of confusion cross her features and raised a hand. “Do you even understand what just happened back there?”
Senera and Talea caught up to them.
“Everyone seems to think Terindel just screwed himself over, as near as I can tell,” Senera said. “He’s apparently infamous for having murdered his entire royal court and trapping their souls. Why he would think restoring them is a good idea is frankly beyond me. They’re not going to vote in his favor.”
Teraeth drew himself up. “We’ll ask him. I know my father well enough to know that he wouldn’t do something like this to make our situation worse. He must have some kind of plan.”
“Get out of my way,” Xivan growled. “She’s going to be leaving any second now.”
“Xivan, wait until they reconvene,” Teraeth said. “This isn’t your only chance. You think I don’t want the woman I love back?”
Xivan paused and studied him for a moment, confused. “But I thought Kihrin—”
“Whatever. The woman Kihrin and I both love.”
She looked past him toward the door, looking like all her hopes and desires lay just on the other side of it. Then she seemed to deflate. “Fine.”
Teraeth studied her a second, decided that she truly seemed to be serious about allowing matters to lie for the moment, and then opened the door for them both.
Janel—no, Suless—stood on the other side of the door with two dozen archers behind her.
“I didn’t think you lot were ever going to leave.”
Teraeth felt a moment’s flash of both panic and exhilaration. She was here. Suless had come to them. He almost glanced at Senera, but then looked away quickly. He could only hope she had the same thought he did, because he had no way to communicate it to her without giving the whole thing away.
Xivan’s eyes went wide, and she started reaching for her sword. Talea followed suit, while Senera looked around as if to check for witnesses.
“Stand down!” Teraeth ordered. “Right now!”
Suless watched Xivan’s reaction and just smirked. “I thought you and I might have a little talk, Xivan.”
“The only conversation I want to have with you involves this blade,” Xivan spat.
Suless didn’t seem to take it personally. “Oh, I don’t think that’s true.” She reached down the cleavage of her dress and pulled out a small star tear diamond. “Or you might not recover this.”
“Xivan,” Senera warned. “We need to go back inside. Right now.”3 She clasped an art journal to her chest as though it might somehow prove a shield.
Behind them, a number of vané started to use that exit, saw the soldiers, and then decided that perhaps the lines elsewhere were shorter. Senera let the door close behind her, where it banged shut with an ominously loud noise.
“Those star tears suddenly aren’t so rare anymore,” Teraeth said. “You can’t possibly think Xivan can be bribed?”
The woman who was not, not Janel flashed a feral grin at him. “Oh no. Just like the souls that your father just dumped out on the table in there, this is a tsali. Turns out that Xivan’s dear husband, Azhen Kaen, is an old soul. I know, you’re wondering how I brought him with me. Trust me, it was easy enough if you’re as good at magic as I am.”
Talea did put her arms out to keep Xivan from moving forward.
“With it, you could restore your husband,” Suless explained. “He’d be no more truly alive than you are, but there’s a sort of symmetry to that, I suppose. All for the quite reasonable price of you and your friends walking away from here and never bothering me again.” Suless paused. “Oh, my apologies. I guess I do think Xivan can be bribed.”
The hallway wasn’t quiet. Teraeth could hear the sound of the archers’ bowstrings creaking, the murmur of the vané crowds leaving the parliament building and debating what had just happened and its significance. No doubt a great many stories were being told to younger vané about exactly what the Star Court was and how it had come to be.
But no one in this hallway said a word.
“You should leave,” Talea said to Suless, “while you still can.”
Suless gave the warrior a disgusted look. “I remember you. You’re nobody.” She smiled. “Oh wait, that’s not true, is it? You’re like Senera’s puppy. Except Xivan’s the one who holds your leash. Do you think little Rebel’s going to make any great difference in the world? No. She’s there to look pretty and wag her tail when she’s pet.”
Talea raised her chin. “I don’t like you.”
Suless scoffed. “I’ll somehow find a way to live with myself.” She looked past Talea to Senera. “Ready to come back to me, daughter? You’re one of mine, after all.”
“Fuck you,” Senera said.
Suless shrugged and turned back to Xivan. “Last chance before I send your husband’s soul into the void, where he will spend eternity screaming.”
Xivan’s expression was set in stone. “You’re a fool to think I would agree to anything you want.”
“Ah, but this is far more about what you want,” Suless crooned. “Don’t you want your husband back? Or do you not care now that you’ve found your cute little piece of tail here.”
Xivan seemed to take a moment to collect herself. “You currently hold a great many things that do not belong to you,” Xivan finally said, “and none of those thefts are crimes I can or will forgive.”
“This could have been easy,” Suless said. “But you of all people should know just how nasty I can be when provoked. Nothing is beyond my hate.” She reached behind her, and this time when her hand came up, she held Teraeth’s arrowhead necklace.
Teraeth forced himself not to react.
“So who gave this to my daughter Janel, I wonder?” Suless let the necklace swing on her finger. “It’s not her normal style, and it seems to me to be the sort of thing that has sentimental rather than material value.” She ran a finger over one of the beads. “Someone’s been using it as a talisman. I wonder if I used it as a focus for my magic, who will feel the pain?” She grinned that feral, nasty smile at Teraeth.
Teraeth met her gaze calmly. He had been using it as a talisman, which meant Suless knew perfectly well who it belonged to; their auras matched. And this wasn’t anything that Suless needed to do. It didn’t support her cause. Suless had no reason to think Teraeth was anyone important to Xivan. Suless was doing this for precisely one reason: because she could.
“It’s not a gaesh,” he said. “You can use it to hurt me, but you can’t control me.”
“But what if I only want to hurt you?” Suless closed her fist around the arrow.
He felt the pain like she’d shoved it straight into his heart. Teraeth inhaled sharply and ground his teeth. Then it increased. He made fists at his sides and stood there, while the pain rolled through him like waves crashing against the shore. “Is that all you have?” he said, forcing a strained laugh through his throat. “That tickles.”
Suless growled at him and closed her hand so tight around the arrow, blood dripped down from her closed fist. The pain flashed purple and red at the periphery of his vision, so great now that he was starting to lose sensation as nerve endings decided to simply quit working.
Then, abruptly, the pain stopped.
He almost collapsed but caught himself, only staggering slightly instead.
Suless had an indecipherable expression on her face. She looked around as if expecting someone to arrive any minute. “Don’t say I never showed you mercy.” Suless walked away first, with the archers covering her retreat.
When she was gone, they all remembered how to breathe again.
Senera slapped Teraeth’s arm. “Idiot! She would have killed you.”
“I was buying you time,” he told her through clenched teeth. “Tell me you redrew the sigil.”
She rolled her eyes and turned the journal around so he could see the marks on the page. “I didn’t have to. I made a second one while we were waiting for everything to start.”
“It didn’t work,” Talea said, sounding heartbroken. “Damn it. It didn’t work!”
“We may not have given it enough time,” Xivan said. “She wasn’t here for very long.”
Teraeth couldn’t fault her reasoning. “Nice job on the acting, by the way.”
“Acting?” Xivan raised an eyebrow at him.
He paused. No, it probably hadn’t been acting at all. “Never mind.”
Senera raised an eyebrow at him as she passed. “You know, for someone who claims he just follows orders, you give them pretty well.”
He scowled. “We’re just starting to get along, Senera. There’s no reason to be nasty. Let’s catch up with the others. I want to have some words with my father.”
The others hadn’t waited for them, which meant it had taken Teraeth and Senera working together to sneak their way back past any patrols. When they finally returned, they arrived to chaos and fury, to put it lightly.
“What. Was. That?” Khaeriel was asking. “The Star Court is real? You had it this whole time?”
Doc paused as Teraeth, Xivan, Senera, and Talea entered the room. Teraeth had the feeling that his father immediately changed whatever answer he had been about to give. He also suspected his father would have preferred to speak with Khaeriel in private, but Khaeriel clearly hadn’t seemed inclined to wait that long. He was honestly surprised his father didn’t force a private setting using Chainbreaker.
Then Teraeth realized there was no way to know if he had.
“I found you the votes, Khaeriel,” Doc said. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“Found me the votes?” Her mouth dropped open in outrage. “One hundred and fifty people that you murdered aren’t going to vote to overturn the Law of Daynos!”
“They will. Now, we both agreed to this plan, Khaeriel. I’m not stopping now, so don’t mess with the plan.” Doc crossed his arms over his chest in a way that suggested there would be no more said on the matter.
Teraeth frowned. There was no reason for Doc to have kept this a secret, no reason for him to have pulled a last-minute improvisation. So why had he?
“Excuse me?” Talea held up a hand. “If those are tsali stones, why do they look like star tears?”
Valathea turned in her direction. “Oh, that’s because they are star tears. Any star tear you’ve ever seen either currently holds or once held the souls of one of this world’s original settlers. The first generation who were born … somewhere else. My tsali stone would look very similar.”
Talea made a small, “Oh.”
Khaeriel rubbed her eyes, clearly still upset. “Can you be sure they’ll vote in our interests?”
“I’m more sure of them than I am of anyone else,” Doc admitted.
“Why?” Teraeth asked. “Every story about the Star Court says you murdered the lot of them. Why would you think they’d vote for you?”
Doc gave him an irritated glance. “They’ll do what I ask. That’s all you need to know.”
Teraeth shook his head. “You screwed up our chance to get Janel back with your little stunt back there. We deserve—”
“No,” Doc said. “You don’t deserve anything. I’m sorry about Janel, but I have every faith you’ll find a way. This is more important than one person.”
He vanished.
“Son of a bitch,” Xivan muttered.
“I see my husband’s going to be very difficult to pin down when he doesn’t feel like having an argument. I’m as surprised by this as any of you. I’ll talk to him.” Without waiting for anyone to respond, Valathea swept out of the room.
Teraeth turned to Khaeriel, but she simply raised a hand, shook her head, and left.
The room fell silent. “Fuck!” Teraeth finally screamed in pure aggravation.
Senera sat down in one of the chairs and turned the page in the art book. “I don’t know, Teraeth. I’m not entirely sure he did ruin our chance to recover Janel.”
He turned on her. “Oh? Is she here and I just missed it?” He turned and looked around. “Funny, I don’t see her here anywhere.”
She kicked up her feet. “Yes, I understand you’re frustrated, in every possible sense of the term, but you did notice Suless’s expression when she left, didn’t you?”
Teraeth stopped. “What do you mean?”
Senera looked up at him from whatever sketch she’d started. “I mean, maybe you convinced her to stay close to us for long enough. When Suless left, she looked like she’d seen a ghost.”