“Is it too much to ask?” she asked softly. “Must I do everything?”
He turned away, languid.
Oh, to be so free of concern! She couldn't blame him. This was the world she'd made for her children. He could afford to sneak off for secret trysts and love that precious girl. Gishna couldn't enjoy the world's pleasures, though. No, she had sinned against it and must make amends. That was her part to play. What she'd done to the Toshtolin consort was nothing compared to what she'd already done, and what she intended to do. Julissa would be the one to live a sweet, virtuous life, and her daughter after her.
She twisted her shoulders and peered through the skylight at the crater's jagged peaks. Winter had arrived a week earlier than expected. It pressed on the crater with heavy, billowing clouds. The puul berry trees surrounding the solar were just sticks. So fragile.
She grabbed at her shawl.
Survive until spring, she commanded her body.
One more season. Just one more.
SPRING
Power guarantees nothing.
Some people have every gift. Lush lands, pleasant weather, and still they die out.
The Mornae had to die before power became more than a trick.
You’ll say I’m cryptic and vague, avoiding a simple explanation. But how to explain the nature of it, the infinite striving? It is a desperate act to seek this kind of power. Once embarked, once it sticks you with its hooks, piercing your marrow, gripping you to itself, all you can do is continue.
That was the ideal, and only a handful ever saw its full potential. The rest of us grabbed hold of whatever we could, what help and steps we could avail to climb the heights. The greatest of these steps was the Alcar blood within us for ten thousand cycles.
It could only take us so far.
FROM MEMORIES BY JEVAN LOR’VAKAYNE, SON OF SAVRA.
29
The crowd roared as the final trial began. The first two had been laughable, but still the Mornae loved their Zauhune champion. Of course, it had taken two excruciating bouts to win them over. The man had heart.
Ren sat in the top row of the commoner section from where he could watch the crowd. The court’s arena was minor compared to other tournament venues, but it was deep, like peering down into a dark pit. It was a pit because the ancients had carved it out of solid kith. The commoner’s seating was mostly granite, but the kith still warmed their asses.
Despite the peasant’s exhilaration, Ren sulked. He’d felt so proud entering the crater, having crossed Vaidolin for the first time as part of a throng of workers. Daushalan soldiers had herded them through the crater. They’d gawked like nomads at the monumental estates and citadels, and mostly at the temple spire. He’d expected the crater to attack him, stealing away his strength, but he was true Mornae. Unlike others in the crowd, who complained of the cold and headaches—one even gushed blood from his nose—Ren walked through unharmed, feeling stronger than ever. Crater Mornae stared at them, disgusted, as they tramped through their pristine home. He knew himself to be better than them, but he suffered their derision. None could deny Maunyn’s preferential treatment in selecting Ren for this task. Surrounded by his trusted lieutenants, dressed in their silks, tassels and sashes and ribbons fluttering, his master had called him close. They’d lifted their chins when he approached. He was a bug to them, nothing more, and a fiery heat had burned in his gut.
Trust nothing these high lords say or do. Be on guard for their tricks, his mentor had told him.
It wasn’t the finery or superior qualities that bothered him most. He’d been angrier since they took the boy, his son. He could have been his son. He’d imagined the start of a new life far from here. The arena’s craggy walls loomed behind him, and he felt like fleeing, now, down the West Valley Road, away from it all.
A man next to him slapped his shoulder with a straw hat and yelled something incoherent. Ren just squinted. He refused to stand and cheer. The pain of losing the boy dampened all enthusiasm.
He’d been that boy once. Nightmares plagued him, too. Tall shadows standing over him with cruel knives at his throat.
The crowd roared their approval. He didn’t see what the fuss was about. The Zauhune champion couldn’t even keep his footing in the Dark. Heat rose through Ren’s feet and up his spine. He glanced about, but no one else seemed to have felt it. No, and why would they? The goddess didn’t favor them as she did him. Ren’s mentor had always said this was a decayed age, spoiled by the successes of the past, having nothing to show for itself, and that truth played out before him. What was Roturra thinking, sending in their champions clad in foreign steel? Hadn’t they learned their lesson already?
Unless, of course, that was the point. This time they’d sent one in rust-colored steel. Something new.
That lad, the Zauhune champion, was wielding a legendary spear with the skill of a farmhand. Certainly he was of an ancient lineage. No one could deny his appearance. Ren’s eyes narrowed to slits and he hissed.
“Unworthy of it,” he said.
None heard him. The din was unbearable as the champion sliced his opponent in two, like a sacrificial pigeon used by the nomads to ask the wind which way to go.
“Goddess above, what is he thinking?” he asked as people jostled him, pressing down toward the rail surrounding the arena.
It should be him wielding that legendary weapon. Didn’t the Dark beckon him with sweet whispers—sultry whispers, if he was honest—to show all his talent?
“He almost sliced his own foot off,” he tried to tell a priestess.
Her face was a crazed, awed mask.
Not everyone loved the champion, of course. Roturra agents and supporters scattered throughout because their own section was full, threw fruit, or worse, rocks. The champion peeled himself from the arena’s floor, unrecognizable from the blood—mostly his own—and black sand. He stood before the judge, the headmaster of Isilurra, Gael Lor’Baronar. Roturra didn’t have proper important people like other houses but relied on its four bloodhouses to make its power felt. It was in worse shape than Hosmyr.
Lord Baronar was talking to the champion, and the court grew silent. Everyone wanted to hear what he was saying to the young champion. He let out a hearty chuckle, slapping his knee. The man really was like the great bear, the Mauler, the Baronar sigil.
The Roturra stands were deathly silent, staring daggers at the judge’s back. He didn’t seem to care and just laughed louder. The carcass in the arena wasn’t of his house or his vassals.
The champion stood proudly, vaunted spear at his side, cutting an impressive figure.
“Well, at least he’s good at posing,” Ren said.
“What’s that?” the man next to him asked. His face was ecstatic, as bad as the priestess.
“Nothing,” Ren whispered. The court had gotten far too silent.
“He’s the goddess’s own son,” a man behind Ren yelled. The crowd cheered in response.
