In the House of Five Dragons
20. Stitches
“It is said that knowledge is the mother of power. Nowhere in the world is that so clearly demonstrated as in the rise of the Carcaen Empire. A century ago, Carce was a kingdom of scholars, but when their research pierced the veil between the worlds, they rose to become masters of the known world.”
— From Our Red History, by Avilla Sallusi
“My father is still wounded, Tychon,” Gaius said. “I’m sure you understand.”
Emperor Castum Tychon sat forward on an overstuffed couch and drew his white brows together into steep lines. His eyes flashed angrily and he held a glass out to the pretty girl waiting nearby. She refilled it from a golden ewer, then bowed — no simple task in her short tabba — and returned to her seat at the emperor’s feet.
“I understand that your lovely mother is very busy these days,” Tychon snapped. “And I suppose she can’t see me, either?”
“She hasn’t seen my father in more than thirty years. Of course she’s busy.”
The emperor leaned back into his chair and drained his wine. His crown sat askew on his brow. “Laura certainly didn’t worry overmuch about Rikard before Njorn Pass. What’s she telling him now? That she’s been a good wife? That she’s kept the flame burning?”
“My mother’s been faithful to his memory.”
“Only because it suited her purposes,” the emperor answered in clipped tones. “I admire Laurael Mazrem as much as anyone else in this pit of vipers, but she’s the most poisonous of the lot. Still, she believes in the empire. Gaius, you have to tell me about your father! What’s he going to do? What does he say of me?”
The salon in which they sat was not one of the largest in the sprawling imperial palace, but it was private. Emperor Tychon’s guards stood vigil outside the thick oak doors and for all her beauty, the serving girl was probably deaf and mute. Exotic Ruan tapestries draped every one of the windowless walls. Ruan stylings ran a little to the abstract for Gaius’ taste, but they were chosen more for their thickness than beauty. No one outside the room would be able to hear what was said within.
“My father says very little that makes much sense,” Gaius said cautiously. “As I said, he’s still recovering.”
“Black blood of Saerus, do you take me for a fool? Don’t parrot your mother’s lines back at me, my boy. I know that Rikard’s injury is to his mind, not his body. It will take more than bandages to heal him! How bad is it? You have just as much to lose as I do if your father takes it into his head to denounce me.”
The old bastard had a point, but Gaius wasn’t ready to give up the fight just yet. “What are you talking about? Even if the great Rikard Mazrem decries you, I’m his son. What do I have to fear?”
“Don’t be ignorant, Gaius! And don’t think that I am. You’re my heir in all but name and that suits us both just fine. But if Rikard speaks against me, the Lyceum will call for me to step down. VEIL will side with their hero, of course, and that won’t leave me a stone to stand on!”
“I still don’t see where this bites me, Tychon.”
“Who do you think the Lyceum — bloody hell, all of Carce — will put on the throne? Not you, my boy, but your legendary father. But Rikard hasn’t aged a day since he was plucked out of Njorn Pass. He’s younger than you are, Gaius! You’ll never succeed him.”
“What about my mother?” asked Gaius.
“You’re the only thing in this world or the next that Laura gives two acorns about. She would do anything for you, Gaius, but for all her wiles, she can’t hold a candle to Rikard’s popularity. Don’t you understand? No one can challenge him!”
“What if the Lyceum discovers my father’s madness?”
“I doubt anyone would believe it who hasn’t seen it himself,” Tychon sighed regretfully. He swirled his fourth glass of wine contemplatively. “I’m not sure I believe it, in truth. Rikard was a good, solid man before he left for Fiore. Not that I knew him, but General Darius has given me detailed accounts. No, the Lyceum will never believe it unless they are shown, but your pretty mother would not permit that. Her fame — and yours, Gaius — are based entirely on Rikard’s impeccable, unassailable nobility.”
Gaius almost spat out his own wine. When he did manage to swallow, the taste was biliously sour.
“What the bleeding hell are you suggesting, Tychon?” he asked. “You’re not thinking of throwing us under the chariot, are you? Discredit my father and let us fall with him?”
The emperor gave Gaius a wintry smile. “You’ve always been like a son to me, my boy.”
“Hae, because you could never keep your tabba down and settle long enough to spawn a legitimate son. Even if you did, you know that the Lyceum would favor me over them!”
Tychon tipped his glass at Gaius and his smile slid up into a smirk. “Hae, all true. As I said, you’re like a son to me and I’m quite happy to pass the empire to you, when the time comes. Until then, I just want to continue on as we have these past thirty years. If the revered Captain Rikard Mazrem doesn’t intend to create trouble, then we have no reason to change any of our plans, do we? So I ask you again, Gaius… What does your father intend to do?”
“Nothing,” Gaius answered. “He’s just happy to be home. All he wants is to remain there.”
It wasn’t a lie, exactly. Rikard seemed content enough simply to vent his rage at Tychon upon innocent flowers. Would that be enough to satisfy the emperor? Tychon leaned back, stroking the serving girl’s blue-black curls. When he looked at Gaius again, his smile was much more pleasant.
“Good. Very good. We want to keep Rikard Mazrem happy, don’t we? Well, I’m sure he can’t want to stay home forever. He’ll need something to occupy his time.”
“You could always return him to his previous position,” Gaius suggested, eager to prove his helpfulness to the back-stabbing royal old coot.
“No, I don’t think so. We can’t have the hero of Carce serving as a simple captain, but I can’t replace any of the generals. They’re all good men, in their own right.”
Useful men. Ones that you can control, amended Gaius silently.
“Your father deserves a promotion,” Emperor Tychon said. “I think the time’s finally come to reunite the VEIL courts, don’t you? Who better to do it than Captain… ah, Legens Mazrem? When he’s feeling better, of course.”
“Hae, Imperial Majesty,” Gaius agreed through clenched teeth. “What a wonderful idea.”
Rikard visited the family shrine before dinner. Laurael declined to join him, citing important business with their house steward. His family was wealthy and important enough to need a steward, Rikard marveled as he picked his way through the twilit gardens. He passed a pair of guards, dressed much the same as the Lyncean he had attacked that morning.
“I’m sorry, my lord, the gates are closed for the night,” one of them told Rikard when he approached.
The guard gestured down the hill. In the deepening dark, it was hard to make out the details of the thick crowd beyond the front gate, just a mass of black blobs holding starlight aloft. Lanterns. He could hear them, though, calling his name like cracks of booming thunder.
“Captain Mazrem! Captain Mazrem! Hae!”
“I’m sorry, my lord,” the guard said again.
Rikard shook his head. “No. I’m not raising sails to song tonight. Just the shrine. Wind… where is it?”
“That way, Lord Mazrem,” replied the other guard, pointing up the hill behind Rikard. “The rotunda with the blue lights. Do you need an escort, my lord?”
Rikard contemplated that. Did he? The guard… Rikard reached for the man’s name. Deon.
Deon knew where the shrine was. He could keep it in one place should the shrine decide to hide itself. Rikard almost nodded before he remembered that Terran buildings didn’t hide. At least, not once you knew where they were. Rikard followed Deon’s finger. There was the shrine, a humped turtle-shape, just as the guard said, ringed in blue light.
“No, I don’t need you to hold it,” Rikard said.
He started up the hill, leaving the two guards to shrug at one another in shared confusion. The entrance to the shrine was an open arch of polished granite — the bones of the worlds. There was granite even in Alterra. The hard, grainy stone was good for building, though it resisted all but the most basic carvings. Instead, this was smooth-polished and hung with strands of tiny seashells. Stone for Saerus, shells for Surma — father and mother of all life and all worlds.
Lamps sat in alcoves around the outside of the shrine, their flames danced like exotic underwater creatures behind thick blue glass. Everything was so beautiful, so different than Rikard had left it thirty years ago. It was only right that he thank the gods for his family’s good fortune.
Rikard stopped in the doorway. The foster was following him. She thought she was being quiet with her feet — and she was — but her curiosity was too loud to be ignored. Rikard turned around just in time to see Thainna vanish around the far side of the shrine.
Why was she hiding from him? The strange Fiori girl’s motives were layered and confounding, as difficult to peel apart as sheets of brittle mica. Thainna acted — in part — on Laurael’s orders to attend him. But there was more to it. Those thoughts were locked away. Even Thainna didn’t want to ponder them. With a shrug, Rikard ducked into the shrine.
Oil lamps lined the walls inside, as well, all shielded in sapphire glass. He brushed his fingers over one of them, but the hot glass burned his hand and Rikard jerked back.
An intricate mosaic of the two interlocking worlds decorated the shrine’s floor — Terra and Alterra, blue and white globes edged in shiny bronzed tiles. The shrine’s circular walls were vaulted into eight wedge-shaped sections. Rikard stood in the door that filled one of them. Six others each bore altars to the original Carcaen gods, all standing opposite his or her divine twin. Rikard went first to the altars of Surma and Saerus, the gods of life and death. He touched first the white alabaster, then the black basalt.
“Blessed mother, watch over my wife,” Rikard said. “Give her long life and good health. Cold father, turn your eyes from my son. He is young and not ready to come to you.”
These were familiar words, the prayers he made every night on the long march into Fiore. He went next to the gold- and silver-filigreed altars of Lucaen and Laurael, god of the sun and goddess of the moon.
“Bright lord, grant me strength and honor in the days to come. Gracious lady, give me wisdom to… to understand this new world.”
Rikard was not a farmer and had nothing to say at the altar of Haer, the god of the harvest. When he went to Haer’s sister-bride, Hanna the storm goddess, he knelt. He struggled to find the right words.
“I fought in snow and stones. I cursed your name when ice buried Kaenus and Haden. Forgive me, Lady of the Snows,” Rikard said at last.
He touched his brow to the cold quartz of her altar.
The final wall contained no altar. There stood another arch, identical to the one through which Rikard had entered, except that this door led nowhere and was filled instead by more smooth-polished granite. Rikard closed his eyes and pressed his cheek to the stone. It was not an altar, but a homage to Terra’s twin, the dream-world of Alterra.
I remember the doors. I saw them from the other side. Thousands, millions. They filled the city of Mask, on the shore of the Petrichor Sea, where our worlds were closest. Flickerdim took me to Mask once, in the early notes of the war, before the city fell. I could never understand the place, so near to Terra but still so strange.
Flickerdim could never explain, really… Ever the wisdom — full of insight, but no explanations. He gave my questions to the care of a little bird. A curiosity, a young one… Stumble. He showed me doors like this one, made real by the remembrance and reverence of the Terrans who visited them.
And then… then… they were falling to dust even before the Shatter broached the city scales… But how? Why? I can’t remember…
Why am I here, Flickerdim? Why did you send me home again before my time?
Rikard trailed his finger over the polished granite. His bloodcap clicked on the stone. What happened? Why was it so hard to remember? How had Mask fallen if not in war?
He felt curiosity behind him again. Stumble? Rikard turned just in time to see bright red hair vanish from the doorway. No, it was the girl.
“I know you,” he called.
Rikard realized that wasn’t exactly what he meant, but it was close. He waited and then Thainna appeared in the doorway again. In the aquamarine light of the shrine, it was difficult to see clearly, but Rikard thought that the young foster might have been blushing.
“I’m sorry, Captain Mazrem,” Thainna said.
“Why?”
“For… for following you, my lord. Isn’t that why you called me?”
Rikard shook his head. “No. You were being… loud.”
“Loud?” Her curiosity took on a new cast, like water frozen to ice. This was harder, more personal. Thainna looked down at her sandals.
“Not outside your body. Within,” Rikard said. “You wondered what I was doing.”
“How do you know that?” Thainna asked him. “Maybe I’m just trying to keep an eye on you after what happened this morning.”
“No,” Rikard answered.
Why did she lie about such a simple thing?
Thainna shrugged and sighed. “Well, Captain Mazrem, what were you doing? I’ve never seen anyone at one of those Alterran doors. I don’t even see them in most shrines anymore.”
“I was… listening very hard. Remembering. I want to remember the rest, what I’m supposed to do here. But Flickerdim is silent. Stumble is silent. I remember only Mask.”
“Mask? You remember a… a mask?”
Thainna looked around the shrine, nervous when she found none. She tensed visibly, ready to bolt. The morning’s fight flashed through her mind, all blood and screaming and dirty skin.
“Mask. It’s a city, like Dormaen, but out in Alterra. No, not like Dormaen. This is like… like a night of dreams that leaves you weary when the sun rises. Mask was the city of doors and eyes.” Rikard reached out to touch the granite again. “It died, but not in battle with the Shatter. Mask is gone. All of those doors are gone. You said that… that you don’t know them?”
“Not for years. There was a door like this — but bigger — in the temple of Surma before they expanded it to make room for the fostral. I saw it once before Thain… before I became a foster there.”
“And now it’s gone?” Rikard asked, surprised.
“That was eight years ago, I think. I was a little girl. This is the first one I’ve seen since then, but I don’t go to a lot of shrines. Other shrines. Since… since I work in a temple.”
She was lying again, and not very well, but Rikard thought of Mask again. All gone, all crumbled away to nothing. By the time the war reached the city, Mask was nothing more than sand and sighs.
Is this why? Have the Terrans forgotten…?
Thainna watched Rikard in silence, still full of questions but unwilling to risk the knight’s volatile anger. He unclasped the cap of his cannula and drew a circle of blood on the stone, a larger version of the one Nikas had so quickly scrubbed off his forehead in the Moon Court archouse.
“I do not forget,” Rikard said quietly.
Behind him, Thainna took an unsteady half-step further into the shrine, reaching as though she might restrain Rikard from his gesture, but then stopped herself. She lingered anxiously in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Why did you do that? Alterrans aren’t going to tear it apart, are they?”
“No, it’s a… a symbol. A gesture of respect.”
Thainna’s discomfort was raw and unpleasant. Rikard turned away, swearing silently to visit the shrine again, and soon. But right now, his stomach rumbled. It was time for dinner.
“I need food,” Rikard said.
“Hae, my lord. I’ll take you up to the house.”
He remembers! Stumble exulted, extending his legs to impressive kajja-lengths to dance a tight, jubilant circle. He remembers me! He remembers the forgotten! It’s done, isn’t it?
Not just yet, Flickerdim disagreed. A step taken, but the march is not over.
Stumble deflated into golden eyes staring out from a pile of feathers. Flickerdim coiled himself around the younger Alterran until Stumble could summon the interest to fluff his body back into being. But the still wind kicked up, scattering the fallen feathers into the air. Flustered, Stumble pulled his shape into a wheel of soft yellow cheese. He rolled along the branch and bumped gently against Flickerdim’s insubstantial length.
What about the girl? asked the cheese. She burns.
But she is spiked by lies, Flickerdim thought. The shadow serpent wove his long, sinuous body back and forth, flickering with veins of deeper midnight darkness. At the center of her lies is love.
Isn’t that good? Terrans like love.
Rikard’s wife has love, too. For his son, Flickerdim returned. The girl’s love isn’t for him, either. She belongs to someone else.
I think she might help, Stumble thought.
She may destroy everything.
Flickerdim crackled with violet lightning. Stumble was tired of his non-answers and wobbled off through the Uprising’s huge giggle-green leaves to explore his new form. Flickerdim was much older and a powerful Alterran general. What place did a simple curiosity have doubting him?
Still, Stumble wondered about the strangeness of Terrans. Both the false foster and the cold wife wore lies like a VEIL knight wore his armor — a practice that never ceased to mystify Stumble, and about which he never stopped asking — and carried a strong, unshakable love at their core.
Gaius was waiting for them in the house. For Rikard, at least. He dismissed Thainna with a curt nod. The fire-haired girl made polite farewells to her masters and left.
Rikard watched her go. Thainna told so many lies, some of her making, some crafted by others as carefully as a chef prepared a meal. Did she even know the truth? The world of his birth was just as confusing as Alterra.
Gaius followed his father’s gaze and leapt to the entirely wrong conclusion.
“A little bony for my taste, but not bad,” he said. “Mother would skin you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Did Gaius think that Rikard could ever feel for any woman but Laurael? Though, as he had confessed the night before, even that was a disconcertingly incomplete feeling.
“Of course you don’t understand. Worry not, I won’t tell Mother,” said Gaius with a wink. The sour note in his voice undercut any sort of camaraderie.
Still confused and inexplicably ashamed, Rikard followed his son through a pair of carved oak doors and into the triclinium — the largest dining room reserved only for the final meal of the day. Laurael lay on one of three couches, eating dark purple grapes from a copper bowl and arguing with Bastil. The steward fell silent as Rikard lay down beside his wife.
“I’ll discuss the matter with my husband tonight and notify you of our decision.”
Bastil bowed. “Hae, great lady. Please enjoy your evening.”
“That depends on what’s for dinner,” Gaius said.
He sat back on another couch and waved up one of the half-dozen servants waiting at the edges of the triclinium. They set out plates of sliced bread and smoked fish covered in clots of jellied berries, a bright-feathered wild pheasant stuffed with mushrooms, butter-yellow gourds steamed in goat’s milk and sprinkled with some green herb that Rikard did not remember. Such opulence was still strange and new to Rikard. How could he possibly choose what to eat?
Gaius tore a drumstick off the pheasant, peeled back the feathered skin and took a bite.
“A little dry,” he commented, but the critique clearly was not enough to keep him from continuing his meal. Gaius accepted a tall cup of wine from a server and gathered a heaping plate of the evening’s bounty.
Laurael sighed and sipped lightly from her own wine.
“Eat lightly,” she told Gaius. “You’re getting fat.”
“I’ve been getting fat for years, Mother, if you’re to be believed. As long as I never actually get there, I’m perfectly happy.”
“You sound like Tychon,” Laurael said. “Speaking of which, you met with the emperor today?”
“Hae.”
Rikard had plucked a grape from Laurael’s bowl and rolled it across the table. It bobbed unevenly along its path. He didn’t like hearing his family bicker, but talk of Emperor Tychon drove even that smaller unhappiness out of his thoughts. The grape fell over the edge of the table and bounced across the floor.
“What did Tychon want?” he asked sharply.
“Just to talk,” Gaius said. “He wanted to know if you’re well. He’s going to promote you, too.”
“He does? He is?” Rikard was surprised.
Surely Emperor Tychon knew that Rikard hated him. His fury blazed so huge and so dark that it must have been visible across half the world! But Terrans can’t see such simple things, Rikard had to remind himself.
“Hae. The emperor wants to make you legens of VEIL. As soon as you’re able, Father.”
Laurael arched her dark brows. “Really? There hasn’t been a legens for a century. Interesting that he would resurrect the office. It was Castum’s own great grandfather who separated VEIL into the three courts.”
“That was a political move and not a popular one,” Gaius said, glancing sidelong at his father. “Reinstating a legens will be much better received.”
Laurael seemed about to argue, but simply nodded. Maybe they were weary of quibbling over unimportant matters. Rikard smiled at Laurael as she turned to face him. She seemed pleased at the emperor’s decision. Rikard remembered his wife’s defense of the man the night before. Maybe she was right about Tychon. Maybe not. A true answer would only come from Emperor Tychon himself. For now, Rikard was simply happy to be home and at peace.
“Legens of VEIL,” Laurael said contemplatively. She took a pomegranate from the plate of fruit and pried at the tough red rind. “Very fitting for you, my lord. You will be a good master for VEIL. There will be many congratulations, I’m certain. Which leads me into another topic of importance.”
“And what’s that, Mother?” Gaius asked.
Rikard took the pomegranate from his wife and broke it in half for her. She took one of the pieces back and pried out a few ruby kernels.
“The foster says you may have visitors, my husband,” Laurael said. “A few and only for short audiences.”
“Thainna said that?” It was insulting to be treated like a sickly child. “Sever the branches! I don’t need to be pampered. I’m a soldier, Laura!”
“A knight,” she corrected him. “And the new legens, when you’re up to the challenge.”
“I’m ready now!”
But is that true? Rikard wondered. I wasn’t very old when I made captain and I made so many mistakes… Like letting Emperor Tychon send my men into Fiore in winter! Am I really ready to serve as legens over all of VEIL?
So perhaps Rikard wasn’t ready to become legens, but seeing a few visitors was hardly a trial! Laurael carefully touched Rikard’s shoulder to regain his attention.
“General Darius, in particular, wants to visit his old captain,” she said.
“Saul Darius?” Rikard laughed delightedly. His anger melted away like morning frost before this warm, welcome news. “Saul is a general now? Hae!”
“Of the Star Court, no less,” Laurael told him.
“I want to see him!”
“Emperor Tychon wants an audience with you, too,” Gaius said.
Rikard bristled. “No!”
Laurael put her hand over his. “The decision is yours, my lord.”
“Mother, don’t you think refusing the emperor might be just a little bit stupid?”
“I only want what is best for my family,” Laurael said. “There’s another request, from a knight named Gallard. He’s the one who brought you to the Moon Court archouse. Will you consent to see him?”
Rikard could think of no objections, so he nodded his agreement. Laurael smiled and kissed him softly. Discussion through the rest of dinner was casual and light, carried mostly by Rikard’s son and wife. They gossiped about people he did not know and fashions he had never seen. Rikard lay quietly, enjoying his food and listening to his family.
The red-haired foster girl tended Rikard’s wounds after dinner and then he tumbled once more into a deep, healing sleep with his head pillowed on Laurael’s breast.
When she was certain that her husband wouldn’t wake, Laurael slipped out of bed. Donning a pair of doeskin slippers and covering her sleeping wrap in a flowing robe of shimmering white silk, she glided from the bedroom.
Pale and silent as a ghost, Laurael Mazrem moved through the halls of the house, outside and across the moonlit lawn to an only slightly smaller manor. A leather-clad guard bowed and opened the door for her.
“Where is my son?” Laurael demanded of a plump, pretty young maid with tousled curls inside.
The girl covered her surprise with a deep bow.
“He’s gone to bed, my lady,” she said.
Lady Mazrem raked a frosty gaze over the maid.
“To bed, maybe,” Laurael said. “But not to sleep. Go fetch him.”
“Hae, my lady.”
She scurried quickly away. Laurael found a sitting room decorated with VEIL paraphernalia, including Rikard Mazrem’s sword, famously left behind after his disappearance from Njorn Pass. While she waited, Laurael studied the sword closely. It wasn’t an artifact she ever thought about except to keep until her son was old enough to receive it.
Rikard’s sword was a simple steel thing, with a straight, double-edged blade and an unadorned crosspiece over a hilt wrapped in worn brown leather. Unlike the weapons of nations with a longer tradition of war, like the legendarily quarrelsome Nian and Lyncea or barbaric Fiore, the swords of Carce’s VEIL knights were unassuming blades. VEIL’s power, after all, was not in strength of arms, but in blood.
But in this time of peace, were the Alterra of any more use than a sword? Even the sword of the famous Captain Mazrem was no more than a display piece. Blades and blood pacts were antiques, either forgotten or feared. Money and favor were the preferred weapons now. And so much more civilized.
“Bloody hell! What do you want, Mother?”
Laurael turned to face her son, who stood in the wide doorway wearing an expression of such boyishly petulant irritation that he managed to look even younger than his father. His black Star Court saela was unbuttoned and draped unflatteringly open around his bulging belly. Gaius raked his fingers through his black-dyed hair.
“What was that at dinner?” Laurael asked him, her voice deceptively soft and quiet.
Gaius knew her too well to think that her question was harmless. He narrowed his brown eyes.
“What was what?” he asked her. “It’s far too late to play guessing games, Mother.”
“You want your father to see the emperor. Why? You know perfectly well that he hates the emperor. He will make a fuss. What did Tychon say to you?”
“Why are you trying to protect Rikard, Mother?” Gaius asked. “Since the moment he appeared, you haven’t spared a moment for me! Is that your plan, to put him on the throne instead of me?”
“How dare you?” Laurael hissed. She took a long step toward Gaius and raised her hand threateningly. “Everything I have ever done has been for you. Don’t you dare be ungrateful!”
“How exactly does hiding Father behind your skirts help me? You want to know what Tychon asked about? Rikard, of course. I’ve spent more time serving VEIL than Father ever did. Yet the emperor is going to promote him right over my head, into a position that’s been vacant for a century! I’m sure that suits you just fine, doesn’t it, Mother? It’s only a short step from legens to emperor, isn’t it?”
“I keep your father here because he’s mad, because it will ruin us if anyone makes that general knowledge! The great man, the hero of Carce is no better than a rabid dog in the Rows,” Laurael fumed. She closed her hand into a fist and, with an effort, pulled it down to her side. “What would the people say to that? What would Emperor Tychon do?”
“Praise the gods, probably,” Gaius muttered. He wiped his brow with the sleeve of his saela. “Hae, Tychon said you would probably stand with me, but the only thing he really cares about is whether or not Father is going to depose him. He couldn’t care less about the rest.”
“Then why promote him to legens?”
“To appease Rikard and keep the man busy. It would look strange if Tychon did nothing. Maybe he thinks that it will keep the hero happy and quiet. What else can he do? If Father wanted to take the imperial throne, VEIL would back his claim, regardless of rank. I still don’t see how this helps me. Everyone adores Father! He’s younger than I am and… and everything! Why not abandon me, Mother?”
“Don’t you dare say such things. You are my son, my pride and joy. My life. You deserve the throne. All Rikard did to earn his fame was die. You and I have labored our whole lives for this! Gods know we deserve it.”
“Very well, Mother,” Gaius said with a sigh. “You win. But none of this sounds anything like a plan. We can’t keep Emperor Tychon at bay forever, or keep him from promoting Father.”
“I will think of something,” Laurael said. “We can’t risk exposing your father’s madness to the world. I will figure out the rest… The foster has said that his audiences must be few and that they must be brief.”
“Smart girl,” Gaius said, smirking. “How you always manage to get everyone to agree with you, I’ll never know.”
“I’m keeping Thainna on hand during these meetings, too. She will back me if I call an end to any… problematic audiences. But you’re right. We won’t be able to keep him here forever. When your father finally rejoins VEIL as their legens, I will no longer be able to shoulder this burden alone. You are a knight of VEIL and it will fall to you to keep him under control.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“You’ll think of a way,” Lady Mazrem answered confidently. She gathered up her robes and prepared to leave, but Gaius grabbed her arm.
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry to shove Father out the door, Mother.”
“You are a grown man, Gaius, and it’s time you did your part. You can handle this. It will be good practice for when you rule an entire empire.” She paused, sniffing. The air around Gaius was thickly spiced. “And stop smoking that ophellion. It’s a disgusting habit. Your father never did anything like that.”
“Do you think I care–?”
“You’re supposed to be a better man than he was.”
“You know, I just noticed something. You never call Rikard by his name,” Gaius said, leaning close to whisper into his mother’s ear. “Why might that be?”
“It’s an ugly name from the barbaric old days. Have you also noticed that you don’t share your father’s name?”
Laurael pulled her arm from Gaius’ grip and stalked away.
Stumble was still exploring, rolling up and down the branches of the Uprising and trying to ignore the blank, broken gray ground far below. At his aimless approach, a snow-white flower opened and filled the air with the scents of breath and honey. Long, slender petals of blink unfurled like scrolls. Stumble rolled closer on his cheese-rind. Where the petals came together in the center, they took on a blushing pink color and darkened to a coy, embarrassed flush deep inside the flower.
In the old days, these blossoms had been common, spawned every time a Terran warmed with the first stirrings of love. But now the worlds were growing apart. Stumble hadn’t seen one in years. The curiosity alighted on the branch and twinkled in fascination.
Something went wrong. The flower curled and froze as though caught in a snap frost. A glassy nothing sprouted from nowhere, wound and webbed its way across the twisting petals, consuming the shriveled white with lazy voracity. Where it passed, the hungry frost left only a transparent lattice behind, a quick-fading sketch of what had until a moment before blazed with life.
Stumble fell back, startled. The whole Uprising shuddered and even that colorless tracery shattered, falling away into obscurity.
Flickerdim! Stumble cried. They’re here! The Shatter have reached the Uprising!
