5. A SIMPLE FAVOR

Sheloran’s story

The Ivory District, the Upper Circle of the Capital City of Quur

The day of Vol Karoth’s escape, morning

“We should have asked Thurvishar to open a gate directly into the Rose Palace,” Qown complained.

Galen chuckled as he squeezed the other man’s arm. “I don’t think he wanted to be attacked by several hundred twitchy House D’Talus guards,” the D’Mon prince responded. “And that’s not even counting Sheloran’s parents.”

Sheloran said nothing. She continued watching the riot.

It was, undeniably, a riot, although she was unclear if it was a riot composed of suspiciously early risers or if they’d simply stayed up all night looting and burning. Sheloran could taste the hatred in the air, although she could be forgiven for confusing that with the lingering stench of burning flesh and buildings. The trio perched on top of the Temple of Bertok, one of the more minor gods,1 trying to stay as unobtrusive as possible as the tide of people heaved through the streets below. Most of the rioters were from the Lower Circle. Under normal circumstances, they never should have made it up into the Upper Circle. Somehow they had, and now the riots seemed determined to lay siege to the Court of Gems.

As a result, Sheloran, Galen, and Qown hadn’t made it anywhere near their intended destination.

They were trapped, although at least none of them was dressed like a royal. The Zheriasian clothing they’d worn for the past few weeks while traveling was the only thing keeping them from becoming open targets for rioters.²

But even that wouldn’t mean a thing if anyone ventured close enough to notice the color of their eyes.

“Maybe the center?” Qown suggested.

The princess blinked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Toward the center,” he repeated, pointing for emphasis. “Toward Arena Park, where Thurvishar, Senera, and Talea went? I don’t know how well Taunna will react to seeing us again at the Culling Fields, but I’m sure she must know that what happened wasn’t our fault … It has to be safer than here.³ Surely there’ll be a way to get a message to your mother?”

Sheloran frowned. She wasn’t comfortable assuming that would be possible or easy. The most obvious method of contacting her mother (besides walking into the Rose Palace) would have been visiting the Temple of Caless in the Ivory Quarter, but it lay on the opposite side of the district from their present location. Given the way the rioting was spilling out of the Court of Gems into the temple district, she thought that would be only nominally safer than braving the crowds to reach the D’Talus palace directly.

Perhaps Qown’s idea held merit. She didn’t relish the idea of fighting her way through rioters to reach the palace. They could; the three of them were hardly defenseless. In point of fact, they’d left the Lighthouse with a number of specialty glyphs and protections custom designed for their needs, including a variation of Relos Var’s “need help” signal.

Of course, they meant to use that against Relos Var, not Quuros rioters. It would be a matter of grave embarrassment to come here with so simple a task as “please go talk to your mother” and almost immediately need to have Senera or Thurvishar rescue them.⁴

Riots seldom happened without a reason. For the citizens of the Capital to be so incensed that they were willing to fling themselves against the Royal Houses?

Something had gone very wrong.

Sheloran’s eyes met Galen’s. He shrugged. “The army’s guarding everything near the imperial palace. I imagine it’ll be safer if only because fewer people will be allowed in the area.”

The three of them all turned toward the center circle of green, and the few buildings that surrounded it. It did seem peaceful compared to the chaos below. Suspiciously so. One could imagine that the magical bubble that surrounded the Arena had expanded outward until it protected the entirety of the city center.

Part of that calm was undoubtedly attributable to the fact the rioters were focused on the Royal House palaces. Those areas formed the outer ring of the Upper Circle. People hadn’t yet shifted the blame to the empire itself.

Although that would come.⁵

Sheloran shivered. She felt naked and exposed for more reasons than just returning to the Capital to find it awash in fear and anger. They all had much more personal reasons for thinking themselves at risk.

“Let’s try it,” Galen said. “If trouble finds us, run. We can’t afford to be dragged into a fight.”

“Trust me, fighting is the last thing I want to do,” Qown said. He stared at Galen, and something about what he saw (the intensity of that gaze, the color of Galen’s eyes, oh, it could have been anything) made Qown blush and look away.

Sheloran stamped down on a sigh. Her boys. It didn’t even matter that Qown had admitted he liked Galen too. The former priest was still as skittish as a feral kitten. She put a hand on her fan, tucked into her belt sash, and only at the last minute reminded herself that she was not under any circumstances to use the damn thing. It was too clearly valuable, too obviously the sort of monstrously expensive item only a royal would be able to afford. At that moment, being identified as a royal wasn’t in her best interest.

Galen climbed down off the roof and helped the other two down. Qown was especially flustered when Galen’s hands ended up on his waist.

Honestly. The entire empire was falling apart, and Qown was discovering puberty. Which Galen was gleefully, purposefully encouraging. She knew her husband far too well to believe that all this touching had been “accidental.” It would have been adorable—at any other time.

As it was, if she bit her lip any harder to keep from sighing or rolling her eyes, she was going to leave permanent scars.

Sheloran pointed toward an alley. “That way should lead to Arena Park.”

The Arena was technically the land inside the magical field of energy where the Imperial Contest was held, so it naturally fell that the area surrounding that was called Arena Park. It was larger than most people realized, housing not only a few businesses and the Citadel but several other important government buildings. Including the Soaring Halls—the imperial palace.

So it was not entirely unexpected to find the entrance to Arena Park blocked by a large contingent of Quuros soldiers, accompanied by Academy wizards and even some witch-hunters. Certainly, more than enough to keep out any rioters who might have mistakenly thought this an easier target.

“How are we going to get past them?” Qown whispered.

“Why don’t we tell them the truth?” Galen suggested and darted forward.

“What? Damn it, Galen!” Sheloran missed grabbing the man’s misha. She didn’t dare use magic, for fear of setting off a nervous retaliation from one of the wizards or witch-hunters at the scene.

Qown sighed in exasperation and ran after him.

D’Mons, Sheloran thought.⁶

She followed, her pace quick but nothing like Galen’s annoyingly long-legged run. By the time she reached her husband’s side, he was already deep in conversation with a guard, gesturing wildly.

It wasn’t going well.

“I don’t care if you’re the empress herself.”⁷ The soldier practically vibrated with anger. “Nobody comes in or out without a pass, which you don’t have.” The guard examined Galen with a sneering regard. “You’re not a royal, are you?”

Galen was about to answer when Sheloran grabbed his hand. “No,” she said quickly. “If we were, we’d be sheltering at one of the palaces, wouldn’t we?”

The guard narrowed his eyes at her. “You have god-cursed eyes.”

“Yes, well, it turns out you don’t lose those just because you’re an unacknowledged bastard,” she answered.⁸

The guard huffed. “Whatever. You can wait with everyone else.”

Galen sighed. “All I need is for you to deliver a message to my cousin Eledore Milligreest. I know she’s in there.”

Recognition flashed across the other man’s face. For just a second, Sheloran thought Galen might have dropped the right name. Then the guard’s face shuttered away all expression save anger, and he gestured for Galen to step back. “Not my problem. Now walk away. You’re not the only person here waiting for the chance to waste my time.”

Which was sadly true, even so early in the morning. They weren’t the only people attempting to gain entry. Most of the others appeared to be merchants and workers who wanted nothing to do with the chaos and bloodshed but couldn’t shelter behind palace walls. Their numbers included a distressingly large number of children. Sheloran could remember a time when these streets had been spotlessly clean and kept largely deserted by regular guard patrols. Now they were a mess, filled with people, many of whom seemed to be actively living on the streets.

Were any demons to show themselves just then, a great many people would die.

She touched Galen’s arm. “Let’s go.”

Qown’s mouth twisted. “Go where?”

“I have an idea,” was all Sheloran said. Which she certainly had no intention of spelling out in front of this many witnesses. She turned around and began walking across the street, toward a ruined shop that appeared to have once sold flowers. Said flowers lay strewn about the ground, trampled and burned, but there might be some undamaged stems if one searched carefully. The air was an unsettling mixture of orchid, jasmine, and scorched wood that matched the devastated state of the shop itself. It would need to be torn down and rebuilt, assuming its owners were in any condition to do so. More likely, the owners were dead.

Galen and Qown followed her. Galen gave her an especially bemused look. “And why are we picking flowers?”

She paused. “They’re a standard prayer offering, Blue.”

“Oh!” Qown blinked at her. “Your mother—”

She nodded, fighting down the fluttery feeling of dread that idea gave her. There would be no denying that she knew the truth after that. Was she ready to confront her mother about her secret—that Sheloran knew her mother was really the god-queen Caless, Goddess of Love?

Galen began looking for flowers as well. He hadn’t been doing so for more than a minute or so when he crouched behind an overturned cart.

“Why, hello there,” he said. “Aren’t you a cute little thing?”

Sheloran glanced over at him. It would be just like Galen to have found a stray dog or an alley cat. He liked to pretend that she was the soft touch for strays, but he had always been the one who really—

Then Galen said, “Where are your parents?”

Sheloran froze.

Whoever was hiding underneath the cart—most certainly not a puppy—burst into tears.

“Um.” Qown crouched down next to Galen. “Oh dear.”

Sheloran looked around. No one was paying any attention. Certainly not the sort of attention one might be expected to pay to one’s own offspring in distress. It was impossible to say, though—too many people looked too upset, too numb. Any one of them might be missing a child or might not have noticed that theirs had wandered off.

Meanwhile, Galen and Qown were still trying to coax the child out from its hiding place.

“This isn’t—” Sheloran cut herself off before she said something she’d regret. There was absolutely no way that either Galen or Qown was going to leave a child terrified and abandoned on the street, no matter what else they were in the middle of doing. She rubbed her forehead.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Galen whispered.

Sheloran pulled one of the shanathá filigree pieces off her fan. She studied it, let its tenyé hover heavy and sweet, a veil of invisible energy weaving around her fingers like delicate lace. She willed the tenyé to change, the metal to shift in response, so that the transition was a minor, delicate thing, easily overlooked. The Upper Circle was always awash in magic. As long as she didn’t do any casting right in front of the witch-hunters, she was probably safe enough. She opened her hand and tossed its contents into the air. Food would undoubtedly have been a better lure, but she’d work with what she had.

A metal dragonfly hovered, delicate wings beating fast, then flew under the cart, landing on the broken wheel.

Someone under the cart let out a small gasp.

“Leave them be,” Sheloran said. When both the men turned to her, angry retorts on their lips, she laughed. “Have you never tried to lure out a scared cat? The harder you push, the more they hide.” She gestured to the steps of the burned-out shop. “Help me clear this so we can set up a shrine.”

The two men stepped away from the cart with obvious reluctance. They shoved aside debris while Sheloran knelt. She peeled away another piece of metal filigree from her fan and let this one go molten, pouring it between her fingers until it formed a perfect, mirror-bright circle on the ground. She solidified the metal and then set her gathered flowers on top.

Sheloran ignored the snuffling noise coming from the wagon, the sound of someone rubbing a runny nose.

Sheloran bowed her head. “Caless,” she said out loud, “please accept this poor offering, token though it may be from your daughter.” That part sounded normal enough, even if it was less of a metaphor in her case than for other worshippers of the Goddess of Love. “If you can hear me, please know I’m trying to enter Arena Park through the South Jade Road.”

With that, Sheloran set the flowers on fire.

She heard a small shriek and couldn’t tell if it was fear or laughter. She glanced backward. A small child—impossible to say if they were a boy or a girl—had climbed out from under the wreckage and gazed at the three of them with a stare both wary and fascinated.

The child held up the now-inert metal dragonfly. “Make it work, please.”

Sheloran’s mouth twisted. The child’s accent was baby soft, but surprisingly coherent for their age. Surely not older than three years. It was difficult to say if the child had been raised in an Upper Circle household or not. They were filthy and their clothing was in rags, but again—that didn’t mean anything, given the current state of the empire. They seemed educated, but that was a lot of guesswork to hang off the word please.

Galen knelt next to the child. “You said please. That’s very good. Now what’s your name?”⁹

The small child looked at Galen with a blank expression, like they had found themselves faced off against a tiger and didn’t dare move for fear of being eaten. They looked about five seconds from diving right back under the flower cart again.

Sheloran set the dragonfly’s wings beating, letting the movement catch the child’s attention. The ploy worked brilliantly. The child gasped again, staring at it, any concerns about strange people forgotten.

The ploy worked too well, as the small child ran into Sheloran’s arms.

Sheloran rocked back to keep from being pushed off balance and falling. She didn’t quite know what to do. At all. She gave Galen a helpless look and motioned for him to take the toddler away.

Galen shook his head, his lips quirked in an obvious attempt to forestall open laughter. “Oh no,” he said. “He clearly wants you.”

She glared at him, but her husband was too busy enjoying this to feel guilty. She put a hand under the toddler, the other around its waist, and carefully stood. The child was back to crying again, although this seemed more like relief than fear. Apparently, Sheloran was “safe.”¹⁰

The princess sighed. She could feel the child wiping snot all over her raisigi.

Galen’s expression slipped, turned bemused. “I thought you liked children,” he whispered.

“Oh, I adore them,” Sheloran agreed. “Most especially when someone else is taking care of them.” She gave one last wistful glance around—if only she knew how to summon up a nanny just with longing! But no such babysitter appeared.

Qown held out his arms. “I’ll take them.”

Never mind. That would do.

“Him,” Galen said. “It’s a boy.”

Qown frowned. “How can you be sure?”

“I can’t. But it’s safer for him if he is, regardless of the truth.”

Qown clearly didn’t understand but didn’t ask for an explanation either. Instead, he unwrapped his agolé from his waist and twisted it around his torso. Then he made gentle soothing sounds—as though he were talking to a particularly skittish horse—while he pried the child away from Sheloran. To her surprise, the child allowed this without protest.

“Sheloran.”

She turned at the sound of her mother’s voice. And stared, because for a split second, she hadn’t recognized her own mother. Lessoral’s bright scarlet hair was now a dark Marakori red. Her eyes were as brown as any Quuros woman’s rather than furnace hot. Her clothing was clean enough, nice enough—but nice for a merchant’s wife, not nice for a high lord’s. Definitely not nice enough for a god-queen. She had a permanent frown plastered on her face, where Sheloran was used to smiles. If she wore the Stone of Shackles (and Sheloran had to assume she did), she’d hidden it.

The two women stared at each other, while the men looked awkwardly uncomfortable, and the child continued to try to burrow into Qown’s chest.

There could be no hiding. Sheloran knew that her mother was really Caless, the Goddess of Love or Lust or Whores or all of the above depending on whom one asked. And Caless knew that Sheloran knew. She felt her throat close up, her body overwhelmed by so many different emotions she didn’t know if she should be feeling anger or relief or bitter resentment.

Then Sheloran was in her mother’s arms, powerless to stop the tears. She had no idea which of those emotions was responsible. Perhaps all of them.

Caless pushed her daughter away from her. “Where have you been? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be wandering the city right now? They’re killing—” She swallowed whatever she’d been about to say and looked around herself with frantic zeal, scanning for anyone who might be too close. “When no one could find you, we thought the worst. How could you?”

“I love you too.” Sheloran scowled and plucked at her mother’s clothing. “What’s this? Are you … are you hiding?”

Caless sniffed. “It’s not safe to be a royal at the moment.” She gave the two men an unfriendly stare; Sheloran felt the back of her neck prickle. “We’ll have to do something about your eye color and clothing.”

Galen stepped forward like he was stepping in front of a sword. “When did the rioting start?”

“A few days ago.” Caless sneered as though it were a stupid question to which Galen should have known the answer. “Right around the time the food shipments stopped.”

The three young people all stared at each other, wide-eyed.

“Um…” Sheloran had no idea what to say. The food shipments had stopped? The Gatestone system linked every part of the empire. Even in the middle of a Hellmarch, the Capital City still had access to food. Or should have had access to food. If that had changed, then the rioting made a great deal more sense. In point of fact, if that had changed, the rioting became mandatory.

“Follow me, and stick close,” Caless ordered. She began walking back toward the entrance to the imperial grounds.

Sheloran started to move when she realized Qown hadn’t put down the little boy.

She raised both eyebrows at him, but he was defiantly unapologetic. “Where’s his family?” Qown mouthed over the boy’s head.

Sheloran examined the street and sighed. These people looked like refugees who’d decided to go inward to safety rather than outward. They were still singed from fires, bloody from injuries. For all she knew, the child’s family could be right there.

“Bring him,” Galen said. The child’s head swiveled, and the toddler frowned. It was rather cute, like he was deciding whether or not this was a good idea.

A better idea than staying on the streets until something horrific happened. Sheloran and Galen sponsored several orphanages in the Lower Circle, although at the moment, she could only hope that those places remained safe. Assuming they were, however, then at least they had a place where they could put the boy and possibly find his family later. Staying with Sheloran, Galen, and Qown long-term wasn’t viable. Or healthy.

Her mother noted the exchange, but made no comment on it. She simply walked up to the guards, who had so vehemently resisted letting them have access, and spoke a few words. The man waved the other guards aside so they could pass. Many of those same guards scowled at Galen and Sheloran both, as though contemplating whether or not they should be placed under immediate arrest.

Once past the barricade, their journey became smoother, although no less hectic. Here, instead of riots, it was army encampments. The military had bivouacked in the fields surrounding the Arena in preparation of leaving through gates to other locales. Although in order to accomplish what, Sheloran didn’t know. They weren’t needed in Devors anymore. That situation had been handled.¹¹

But no. The food shipments had stopped. That was the emergency now. An empire the size of Quur lived or died through its infrastructure. If that system had failed …

Galen leaned over to Sheloran. “I’d never have thought of praying. That was smart.”

“I have my moments,” Sheloran murmured, but her attention was largely focused on her mother, who seemed remarkably ill-tempered and out of sorts. Probably because she’d been forced to abandon the Rose Palace. “Why are you staying in the Soaring Halls?”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Why aren’t I under siege back in the Red District, you mean?”

“Am I supposed to think that a mob of rioters would be any threat to you or Father?” Sheloran responded to her mother’s rhetorical question with one of her own.

Caless snorted. “Just because they can’t hurt me doesn’t mean I need to suffer through watching them try. And the servants are easy enough to kill.” She scowled, her expression that of a person tasting something off. “There’s a great deal that’s happened. But let’s go back first. Your father will want to know that you’re still alive. Then we can talk.”