Vrath was bored.
The court of Hastinaga was not officially in session. An official session would have required the presence of Dowager Empress Jilana. This was simply a conference of the kingdom’s ministers regarding sundry matters. The majority of these matters concerned administrative and procedural issues. The hows and whys of the actual business of political governance. There was a time when Vrath would have sought an excuse, any excuse, to recuse himself from such a conference. Such things bored him at best, infuriated him at worst. What was the point of making up endless rules and byrules for every single thing? Why not simply use one’s judgment as each matter arose?
He knew the answer: a king overlooking a small kingdom could afford to be autocratic. A large kingdom like Hastinaga could not be overseen by any one man, even a man as omnipresent and sleepless as Vrath. And the Burnt Empire was a hundred times—nay, a hundred times a hundred—the size of an average kingdom. It required a small army of administrative staff just to keep pace with the endless procedural, diplomatic, and trade oversight matters that cropped up on a daily basis. Each of those many departments themselves required oversight, by a competent honest minister, and each minister had questions, doubts, problems, challenges, that needed to be answered and dealt with on a regular basis. For the entire empire to function smoothly—or as smoothly as any large juggernaut could manage—it required a system. Checks and balances. Protocols. Procedures. Rules. Byrules.
Which meant conferences like this one. Someone had to oversee these overseers and ensure that nobody amongst them or farther down the line was attempting to get rich at the empire’s expense. Or worse.
And because Vrath was the prince regent of the empire, this onerous responsibility was his burden. Dowager Empress Jilana was an important symbol of the late emperor Sha’ant’s rule, especially since Vrath had sworn a life vow to never himself sit on the Burning Throne. Her presence authorized every court session as law, even if she didn’t speak a word, as was often the case. The actual burden of governance fell on Vrath’s broad shoulders.
After decades of enduring such sessions, he had come to accept it as his lot. It didn’t make these conferences any easier, or less tedious. But it helped him restrain himself from reacting to every irritating debate over irrelevant matters of protocol. Like the present debate over whether a feather-hatted emissary of a foreign kingdom with a title that had no correspondent in the Burnt Empire should be met by a minister, a secretary, a clerk, an ambassador, or even, as one bright spark suggested, a courtesan.
This last was presumably suggested as a way of eliminating any possibility of giving offense and providing a warm friendly welcome at the same time. Did these idiots even remember that he was a sworn celibate? Could they be deliberately dragging out the discussion because he was a celibate? He dismissed the thought at once. Fools they might be, but not foolish enough to risk angering him.
Vrath was listening to this bizarre and quite pointless debate with the growing suspicion that his ministers were deliberately prolonging the discussion because of its greater entertainment value rather than because it genuinely merited such a long discussion, when he felt the change.
It began as a rippling in the air. The scent of lotuses. The cool breath of the glacier that birthed her.
The far wall of the sabha hall, fifty times the height of a man, shimmered and dissolved like vapor.
Like a tidal wave, Jeel burst through the high wall and into the great chamber.
The great river roared into the heart of Hastinaga, raging torrentially across the throne room, washing over the royal dais and disappearing behind it. The Burning Throne, simmering with its usual banked red glow when a Krushan liege was not seated upon it, hissed and gave off a cloud of steam that was instantly suppressed by the rushing torrent.
The ministers, the guards, the assorted palace staff and servers, all remained unaffected, as if they noticed nothing amiss. This was a sight meant only for Vrath, not intended for mere mortal eyes.
As Vrath watched, the cascading water sculpted itself into the shape of a mortal woman. The shape coalesced into a liquid statue. The statue of living water glistened and gleamed wetly in the afternoon sunshine as it stepped on the royal dais.
Jeel, clad in a garment of shimmering translucent white, touched the back of the Burning Throne with fingertips formed of water. Droplets coalesced on the glistening stone and remained there, a divine blessing.
Vrath went at once to her, bending to touch his mother’s feet. “Mother.”
“Vrath. I have grave news for you.”