Page 181 of The Cradle of Ice

Tykhan lifted a palm. “I said it was my primary directive. Around that, I’m allowed a fair amount of latitude and flexibility. Even for a menial Root. I found the role of Augury useful in manipulating and guiding this quarter of the Crown. All to prepare for the war to come.”

“With Hálendii?” Aalia asked.

“No, the greater war that is on the horizon.” Tykhan nodded to Kanthe. “Your seer has already dreamed of it.”

“Nyx?”

“Yes. But I wonder … is what she saw a prophecy or simply an inevitability due to your natures?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know that as moonfall approaches, war will come. So, I became the Augury. To try to steer the path as best I could.”

Rami stepped forward, challenging him. “So, to accomplish that, you killed the prior Augury and usurped his position?”

Tykhan frowned with disdain. “There has only been one Augury in Qazen since it was founded. Well, mostly one. As a ta’wyn, I’m untouched by time. I changed faces, voices, attitudes. I skipped a generation now and then to wander the breadth of the Crown, but ultimately, I’ve been the Augury of Qazen for over four millennia.”

Stunned silence met this announcement.

“How is that possible?” Aalia finally blurted out. “In all this time, no one discovered this ruse?”

Her words seemed to confuse him, then his eyes widened. “Ah, when I said I changed faces, that’s exactly what I meant. One feature unique to all Roots—due to the many tasks required of us—is fluidity of form, to change bodily shape to match our varying needs.”

Aalia remembered him saying something like this when he mentioned the assassin who tried to kill him. “What does that mean?”

“This.” He tilted his head slightly and the bronze of his face melted and flowed, remodeling and settling into new features, still coldly handsome but very different. “There are limits to such an ability, but it has sufficed to maintain my secret.”

His features slurred again, returning to the face first presented to them.

No one spoke for a long time.

Tykhan used this moment to turn to Aalia and point at the blank strip of parchment and inkwell on the table. “I see you’ve readied yourself as I requested?”

She struggled for composure after this shock. Before disappearing into the wheelhouse, he had asked her to prepare a message, a note that a skrycrow would deliver to Kysalimri.

“What am I intended to write?” she asked.

Tykhan’s eyes shone brighter. “Only the most important note you’ve ever written. One that could save the world.”

“And say what?”

“To declare yourself empress of the imperium.”

72

“HAS AALIA GONE mad?” Prince Mareesh asked. “Or is she as addled as our father is said to be?”

Jubayr shook his head, struggling to keep abreast of the rapidly changing events of the past night. He listened as the dawn bells rang over the city, using the moment to compose himself, to try to fathom the intent and meaning in the skrycrow message sent by Aalia a short time ago.

He sat at the head of the table in the strategy room, a seat normally reserved for his father. The table and room were packed. All eyes stared toward Jubayr: Shield Angelon, Wing Draer, Sail Garryn, a dozen lesser-ranked leaders of the imperial forces, and half of his father’s chaaen-bound and three of his own.

They all waited for some guidance from Jubayr.

But it was his brother’s eyes that burned the hottest. Prince Mareesh sat across the table, seated in Jubayr’s former seat. Mareesh had returned yesterday aboard the Falcon’s Wing, victorious in his destruction of the Shield Islands. But there had been no celebration, not with a brother to mourn.

And now this.

Sail Garryn, the commander of the imperial naval fleet, cleared his throat. “Could your sister have also been tainted by the Hálendiian poison that debilitated Emperor Makar? Could it have addled her, too?”

“Something must have,” Angelon agreed firmly. “There has not been an empress of the Klashe in over seven centuries.”

“But prior to that, it had not been so rare,” Chaaen Hrash added. As the oldest of those bound to the emperor and the closest of his father’s advisers, Hrash was highly respected and his counsel was welcomed by all. “As to her being addled or tainted, I know the curve of her ink. It was steady, her wording cogent, and in Aalia’s distinct tone. To me, she seemed of sound mind, and I know Emperor Makar held his daughter in high regard, not only for her poise and beauty, but also for her intelligence.”