Page 9

CHAPTER

Nine

“W ELCOME TO COURT, Contender Valit,” Neema said. “I trust you’ve settled in comfortably?” The Tigers had been the last to arrive on the island, sailing up Dragon’s Mouth Bay in a swift, three-masted yacht—a journey designed to avoid setting foot in the capital. Abbess Glorren was a child of Samra. She loathed the very existence of Armas, the city built to diminish her own.

Ruko did not answer Neema’s question; he had not summoned her here for small talk. He turned to his contingent, dismissing them with a look. The abbess remained at his side. It was said that the faithful sometimes grew to look like their favoured Guardian. If so, Rivenna Glorren was a true believer. A black woman of middling years, her appearance was distinctly feline—wide cheekbones, pointed chin. Even her expression was catlike—unblinking and filled with disdain.

And she had style, Neema had to admit. The Tiger abbess cut a sleek, sophisticated figure, her forest green robes more regal than spiritual in design. The beads in her hair were formed of tiger’s eye stone, polished to a smooth sheen. Around the middle fingers of her right hand she wore a gold ring, shaped in an eternal eight.

“I will speak to the High Scholar alone,” Ruko said.

The abbess lifted her hood to conceal her annoyance. Her student, her Guardian-son , ordering her as if she were a servant. But to protest was beneath her. “As you wish,” she murmured, and moved away.

If she had a tail, Neema thought, it would be waving.

“I visited the imperial archives today,” Ruko said. “To view your work.”

Neema lifted her eyebrows, surprised. “My work?”

“The Order of Exile.”

A chill spread through her. The way he’d said it. No feeling, utterly flat.

“The name had been cut out,” he said.

The name. Yanara. She was called Yanara . “Yes, they do that—”

“Once death is confirmed.” He spoke in statements, even as he looked for answers. “They saw the body.”

Had he been hoping that his sister had survived somehow? For a second, Neema’s heart went out to him. No one survived exile. No one survived Dolrun. “Yes.” She swallowed. “We should not be talking of this, Contender Valit, the law is clear—”

“You read the report,” Ruko pressed, “before it was destroyed.”

She nodded, feeling sick, as she always did when she thought of it. Shal’s report. His account of Yana Valit’s final days. Her cruel and lonely death. Seventeen , he’d written, more than once. She made it to seventeen before we killed her. May the Eight forgive us and remain Hidden.

Don’t ask me if she suffered, Neema thought. Please don’t ask.

The party smeared around them like a carousel.

“It was beautifully done,” Ruko said.

Bile rose in her throat. The exile? His sister’s body left to rot? Beautifully done? What sort of monster was he?

“Your brushwork,” he added, seeing her expression. “You have an exceptional hand, High Scholar.”

He was talking about the Order of Exile again, she realised. She raised her glass to her lips. It rattled against her teeth. She lowered it without taking a sip.

In the distance, the sound of drums.

“The emperor’s coming,” she said. Thank the Eight.

The doors to the banqueting hall had been closed, for the sole purpose of opening them again. The room turned as one as they swung wide and the trumpets blared. Neema felt goosebumps rising along her arms. Yasthala had entered through those same doors fifteen centuries ago, to the same fanfare. Walking across a painted floor just like this one, she had taken her place on the dais, and recited the Five Rules in front of the first contenders.

1. No ruler shall govern for more than twenty-four years.

2. Rulers may not choose their own successor.

3. No child of an emperor or empress may take the throne.

4. Instead: seven contenders will compete in a series of Trials; champions from each of the anats. The Dragons, who desire not the throne, shall send a proxy in their name.

5. The winner shall rule without exception, and all shall bow before them.

That these rules had remained unbroken for fifteen hundred years was a source of pride throughout the empire. These were the rules that had kept Orrun safe from civil war, from dynastic rule, from tyranny. For the faithful—these were also the rules that had kept the Guardians Hidden, and prevented the Last Return. Tonight, the emperor would recite them again, and the Festival would begin.

The familiar, pungent scent of frankincense and patchouli invaded the air. Eight Officiates of the temple followed, swinging censers. The perfumed smoke was so heavy it would seep into the courtiers’ clothes and never quite leave it—a lingering scent memory of the evening.

Next came the music: thunderous drums that reverberated beneath the skin, pipes and flutes twirling over the top. Performers from the Monkey palace matched the music with a martial dance with long staffs, leaping and spinning as they cleared a path for those coming behind. Neema counted the beats in her head, watching for mistakes. There were none. Everything was going to plan.

The tempo shifted and the dancers kept pace, processing down the hall. Weaving through them, teams of servants set up the feasting tables, decorated with traditional portraits of the Eight. The servants wore matching Guardian masks, eyes rimmed white, lips painted black. Another detail Neema had found in a contemporary account of Yasthala’s Festival—simple but arresting.

The music rose to a crescendo, and the dance was done. Musicians and dancers bowed low to warm applause from the jaded court. It was working just as Neema had hoped. No one was more revered than Yasthala. She stole a glance at Ruko—a direct descendant of the great Raven empress. His face was blank.

More drumming, more fanfare, and the emperor’s advisers strode into the hall. Fenn Fedala had teased Neema for weeks that he would turn up in his overalls and old boots, but there he was leading the way in cape and sash, and a velvet hat with a feather. As far as Neema knew, this was the first time the High Engineer had worn his ceremonial robes in fifteen years at court. He didn’t look pleased about it, but that would be asking too much. Behind him, and much more comfortable in her fine white robes, came the High Servant of the Temple, her shaved head painted with a golden ∞ . As for High Justice Kindry Rok, he strutted in chest first, nodding graciously as if he were guest of honour.

Hol Vabras came next, but no one noticed him, because he did not want them to.

Ruko said to Neema: “You should be with them.”

She kept her eyes on the procession. “It’s easier to direct things when you’re not performing.”

“And you are more comfortable on the periphery.”

“I don’t think standing next to you counts as the periphery, Contender Valit.” And it certainly wasn’t comfortable.

The ministers were all through. Now came the emperor’s private household—his mistress, Lady Kara Kandraga of the Venerant Kandragas, a few favoured retainers. No family. Bersun, having chosen the Way of the Bear, had been estranged from his younger brother Gedrun for decades.

And finally, the High Venerants—direct ancestors of those who had taken part in the original procession. Tursuls, Arbells, Ranors. The Justs and the Majans. The powerful dynastic families Yasthala had fought with and against in the War of the Raven’s Dream, and eventually brought together in a truculent peace. The Valits should have been among them too—historically they had been the richest and most influential of all the High Families. But there was no one left to invite. Those who were not killed in the purges had chosen to abandon the name, to avoid its stigma. Only Ruko remained—for some, a symbol of renewal. For others, a warning.

Neema felt him stir next to her. He had shifted into a fighting stance. Who could rattle the great Tiger Warrior?

Ah yes. His mother.

Princess Yasila floated through the doors, dressed as always in the ocean colours of the Dragon. The hall was now crammed with guests, servants, guards, tables and chairs. The only place left to stand comfortably was the space around Ruko and Neema. Yasila hesitated, then glided towards them.

Conversations stopped, as people craned their necks to get a better view. No matter that the emperor was only seconds from arrival. This was the moment everyone had been waiting for: the reunion of the princess and her estranged son.

A held moment in the hushed room. Yasila did not acknowledge her son. He was not there. Instead she studied Neema. Took in her elegant gown, her silver shoes. The amethyst choker. A flicker of feeling—revulsion, perhaps. She muttered a stream of words beneath her breath, like a prayer, or a poem.

And Neema couldn’t move. Logic told her that she could, but when she tried to shift, nothing happened. She tried to speak, and found she couldn’t breathe. Her throat was closed, her lungs burning. She had sunk to the bottom of the ocean, weights pressed upon her chest.

A second passed. And another. Locked inside her body, Neema started to panic, started to choke.

White pinpricks formed in front of her eyes.

And then, without warning, she was released. Neema sank to her knees, gasping for air, eyes streaming.

Trumpets blared, and a herald stepped forward. “His Majesty, Bersun the Second. Kneel before your emperor!”

Everyone joined Neema on the floor. The timing was so close, no one but Ruko understood what had really happened. As he kneeled down next to her, she noticed a tiny bead of sweat at his temple. It slid down his hairline as she watched, and melted into his skin. That’s what Shimmer Arbell would have painted, she thought. Human after all.

A squad of Imperial Bodyguards marched through the door in their red tunics with black slashes. And there, in the middle, a good head taller than those who would protect him: Emperor Bersun. The Old Bear.

The musicians struck up a tune, a brisk battle song. Bersun’s coronation hymn. For twenty-four years it had been his anthem, played at every formal occasion. Once he abdicated, in eight days’ time, it would never be heard again.

“All hail His Majesty, Bersun the Second, Emperor of Orrun, Warrior Brother of Anat-garra,” the herald called.

“See How Orrun is Restored in His Name!” the room replied, as one.

Bersun did not miss a beat. He strode to the dais with the same brisk manner he brought to all official gatherings.

Neema got back to her feet, still struggling to catch her breath. Yasila rose at the same moment, her back turned.

If she was going to retaliate, it had to be now. Before the moment passed, and she persuaded herself that nothing had really happened. Nothing more than a clever trick Yasila had picked up from her childhood with the Dragons, some subtle form of hypnosis.

Neema leaned forward and whispered in Yasila’s ear. “I saw you on the balcony.”

Yasila gave a start, then caught herself.

Six words.