52. THE HEIR

Tyentso’s story

Lady Lessoral’s quarters, the Soaring Halls

Late evening

“Does no one sleep anymore?” Tyentso asked as she appeared in the room. “I honestly expected that you’d scream at me for waking you, but instead I find that not only are you still up but…” She frowned. “You’re taking care of a small child. Why?”

Lady Lessoral D’Talus looked up from where she was tucking a blanket around an adorable little moppet of a child. Then the most delicate of frowns crossed her face. “Perhaps instead I should yell at you for teleporting into my quarters without asking. It seems that people have been coming and going all night. But I won’t, because as you said, there’s a baby. How may I help you, Your Majesty?”

Tyentso’s mouth quirked. Lessoral really did a good job of playing up the “high lady” bit when she felt like it, although Tyentso had her suspicions there was a lot more going on with the royal than the obvious. “There are a few things,” she said. “First, I’ve been trying to locate the Milligreests, only no one seems to know where they’ve gone. Second, I just found out that the High Lord of House D’Aramarin, Havar, is apparently the god-king Murad. And I thought to myself, That’s interesting. I wonder how many other high lords and ladies are secretly god-kings. Obviously, anyone who’s still alive is a suspect. I know High Lord Cedric D’Lorus wasn’t, and Therin D’Mon would have had a very different life if he was hiding that kind of secret. But then I thought of you.”

Lady Lessoral’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

“I just want to know which goddess you are. And what you can tell me about Murad.”

Lessoral sighed. She stood up from the couch where the small boy was resting and wandered over to a different chair so she could collapse into it with practiced weariness. Although no. Perhaps Tyentso wasn’t giving her enough credit. The woman did seem exhausted. Like she’d just been through a magical duel.

“Where’s your husband?” Tyentso asked.

“Resting,” Lessoral murmured. “He’s not feeling well.”

“So he’s not a god-king?”

She pursed her lips. “Oh, he is. This is somewhat irregular.” She said it with an understated gravity, the same way one might look at a scene of mass slaughter and say there’d been a mild disagreement.

“You don’t look like you’re feeling fantastic yourself.”

“I’m tired. For so many reasons tonight. But there is a curious malaise that seems to have befallen the palace. Perhaps everyone is taking a collective breath now that the army has vacated?” She didn’t look like she believed it.

Tyentso sure as hell didn’t. Whatever had been causing the emotional changes in everyone must have left when the army did. And in its wake left people drained and tired. The changes had happened quickly too. Half a day, at most.

She was not at all pleased about the ramifications. But she was also aware of just how much of this was a distraction.

“So you were explaining which god-queen you are?” Tyentso continued.

“I wasn’t,” Lessoral said.

Tyentso smiled tightly. “We’re not enemies.” But that could change went unspoken.

Lessoral sighed.

The two women stared at each other. Tyentso sure as fuck wasn’t going to back down.

Finally, Lessoral growled. “It’s less and less a secret these days, anyway, I suppose. Caless.”

Tyentso blinked. “I wouldn’t have expected…” She swallowed back any commentary. “All right. Caless it is. And your husband?”

“Bezar. And as for Murad,” Caless continued, “I can’t provide a great deal of clarity for you except that he’s not who he says he is.”

“I know that,” Tyentso said irritably. “I just told you—”

Caless dismissed her protest. “I don’t mean Havar. I mean that Havar—or Murad—is voras. You can tell by the aura if you know what to look for. One of the originals. Do you understand what that means?”

What Tyentso understood was that Caless was being condescending as hell. But on the other hand, Tyentso had just appeared in her rooms unannounced in the middle of the night confessing she hadn’t known that there were god-kings in the royal families. The empress swallowed her sneer for the purpose of keeping the woman talking. “No, I must have missed that class in school.”

“We first became god-kings out of necessity. The creation of Vol Karoth had blanketed the whole planet in a cloud of ash that lasted years. The demons were still free. The Guardians were dead. And the voras were now mortal. In the aftermath of all that, my father used the Stone of Shackles to enslave my mother and force her to teach him the secret of becoming a god-king. And he would have kept that secret to himself and damn anyone unwilling to propitiate him for protection. He wanted to rule humanity. Mother was ordered to say nothing to anyone who wasn’t family.”

Tyentso was about to order her to get to the damn point, but then that point stabbed her in the gut. If Cherthog had meant to keep it secret, why were there any other god-kings at all? If Suless could only tell family, how had the secret gotten out?

Tyentso gave the Goddess of Love a pointed look. Oh. Presumably, Daddy hadn’t thought to order his daughter not to share.

Caless smiled. “Now you get it. There wasn’t a single one of the early god-kings—save my parents, of course—who didn’t first share my favor and my bed.” She shrugged. “Which creates a narrow window, you understand. All those voras were suddenly mortal, their life spans measured in decades. Murad only had those same decades to learn the secret, either from me or from someone I had taught. I made it a point to be familiar with every single god-king back at the beginning.” She stage-whispered, “But I don’t know him.”

Tyentso rubbed her jaw. “So what are you saying? He faked his identity? That he used to be a different god-king?”

“It can be done,” Caless said. “You of all people should know that appearances are malleable.”

Tyentso scowled and looked away. The fact that Tyentso was an Ogenra was perfectly obvious, but this was the first time that Lessoral—Caless—had ever indicated that she knew Tyentso wasn’t her real name. Perhaps a lucky guess. Perhaps not.

When Tyentso didn’t respond to that bait, Caless continued, “But why would most god-kings bother? It takes years to develop a portfolio, a church, the worshippers to sustain immortality. It’s a great deal of work. Why would anyone start from scratch if they didn’t have to?”

“Do you know which one he is? Or, I guess, which one he used to be?” Tyentso narrowed her eyes at Caless. She really did wish the woman would just spell out what she knew. “If you’ve fu—” She winced.

“Just say fucked.”

“Yeah, well. Who’s missing?”

Caless poured herself a glass of water, then one for Tyentso as well. “Quite a few. Mostly because Godslayer exists. Still, we can eliminate some candidates. Our Havar likes green, but he’s not particularly keen on snakes. I don’t think Ynis would be able to hide that obsession. I don’t consider Khorsal a viable candidate for similar reasons.”1

And even before Urthaenriel had come onto the scene, a lot of god-kings had probably died fighting each other. Even assuming one limited oneself to the men …

Well. Caless had been a busy girl.

Then Tyentso realized Caless was watching her. Was waiting to be asked.

“Who do you think he is?”

A corner of Caless’s mouth quirked up. “I really don’t know, except … I remember a god-king who was good at making portals. Portal barriers too. He had his entire kingdom hidden under one so strong not even the vané could break it. They were extremely frustrated by the experience.” She paused for the tiniest of seconds and then said: “Nemesan. The timing would be right too. When he died, versus when Murad first appeared.”

“Nemesan? But Nemesan’s…” Dead. Everyone knew Nemesan was dead. Killed by Simillion—no, wait. Not killed by Simillion. The first emperor was assassinated before he could finish the job, leaving it ultimately to one of his successors.

The Crown and Scepter helpfully provided all the details, frustrating in their inadequacy. A corpse was found, yes, but already cold by the time the emperor had arrived—presumed a suicide when Nemesan was too proud to surrender after the defeat of his army. Not nearly enough investigation had been done. They’d been far too eager to announce their victory and annex Laragraen—now Kazivar.

“It’s a guess,” Caless emphasized. “It may be someone else entirely.”

The boy whimpered and turned over violently, flinching in his sleep. Both women turned and looked at the child, now tossing from a nightmare.

Tyentso sighed. She supposed everyone was having nightmares these days.

“Might I ask a favor of you?” Caless moved over to the boy and gently touched his forehead, but she was still talking to Tyentso.

“You can ask.”

“My daughter and her husband—” Caless stopped and sighed. “Hmm. It just occurred to me I’ll probably have to be the one to tell Galen the truth about his grandfather. Anyway, they’re fond of this child, but I really don’t think any of us are in a position to look after children at the moment. My daughter asked me to care for him; I intended to entrust the child to the Milligreests. They already have a boy this age, so why not two? I was wondering if you might drop him off with them?”

“This is where I remind you that I don’t know where they are.”

Caless seemed unconcerned. “I’m sure you’ll find them. You’re very resourceful.”

Tyentso stared. Was this woman seriously expecting her to be a baby-delivering service? She had more important things to do than—

Wait.

She looked down at the boy again. “Who is he?” Tyentso asked softly.

“No one important. A foundling,” Caless answered, “of unknown provenance. Likely an orphan.”

Tyentso nodded. “All right,” she said. “It’s not a problem. But I’ll need your help with one more thing first.”

Caless raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“How good are you at faking god-touched eyes?”