HAMISH HAMLAYTON SPOTTED me in the corridor after I left the Emperor’s bedroom. “Do you need help?” he asked.
I couldn’t hide my self-deprecating smirk. If he only knew the thoughts and worries churning in my mind. But I understood what he meant. “This place is a bit of a labyrinth.”
He nodded. “Back to your rooms?” he asked.
I hesitated. “Actually, could you take me to the chapel?” I’d been there once before, when I was a boy and my father had volunteered my services as a candle bearer during an Empire Day service. I’d never been very religious, even then, but when Nedra had felt hopeless, she’d found some sort of peace at the Yūgen chapel. I didn’t know if she ever found answers there, but if I couldn’t feel closer to the gods, perhaps I could feel closer to her.
We turned again and then went down a set of stairs to the ground floor, walking in relative silence until Hamish stopped in front of an arched wooden door.
I pushed it open, then turned back to Hamish. “Thank you,” I said.
Hamish looked at me with consternation, as if he wanted to tell me something important but couldn’t find the right words. Finally, he said, “The Emperor has condemned all homes and lands held by . . .”
“Traitors,” I supplied, biting off the word.
Hamish nodded. “They’re to go to temporary control of the closest relative. Your father’s estates . . . I’m handling the paperwork myself. I’ll expedite the process as they go to you.”
“Thank you,” I said, because I could think of nothing else to say.
“It’s fallen on me to allocate residencies. The Emperor made note that you’re to stay in the palace as long as you like,” Hamish added. “I just wanted to make sure you knew you didn’t have to.”
I frowned. Before I could answer, Hamish nodded in farewell and strode back down the hall.
The chapel jutted out from the main castle, three sides in the center of the courtyard. The clear windows along the west and east walls looked out onto flowering sakoola trees, the soft yellow petals dancing on the light breeze outside. The north wall was dominated by the circular eye window, shades of blue and green and brown juxtaposed with dark gray grout, symbolic of Oryous’s eye ever watching over us. Colorful light from the stained glass played with the shadows at my feet.
I took a step closer to the center of the chapel, my shoes echoing on the stone.
I didn’t know what to do.
I was raised to claim a religion but not to believe in it. My family was Oryon because the Emperor was; everyone in the Empire was. We prayed at funerals and hosted holy day feasts.
But there was never a moment in my life when I had felt there was no one I could turn to but the gods.
What did Nedra say when she prayed? Did she find answers or only more questions?
I closed my eyes, but that felt ridiculous. I opened them but had nowhere to look. Finally, frustrated, I turned on my heel and strode back to the door.
But I stopped, my hand on the iron loop of a handle. I didn’t want to go back to the rooms the Emperor had allowed me in the castle. I didn’t want to go back to Yūgen, a place that had so easily turned its back on Nedra. I didn’t want to go back to the house I had been raised in; my father was a traitor on the run, and there was no memory there I wanted to relive.
I wanted to go home, but the only home I had left was Nedra herself.
And I wasn’t sure she wanted me.