He could do one more thing; one last, final, absolutely pleasing act to assuage the goddess’s wrath. The shell darkened in response. Do it, it seemed to whisper. The pale clay face of the acolyte, lips pouting and almost blue, spoke to him. A surety welled in him, absolute and perfect, just like the tall, long-legged statue across the way.

Did they have to make her so lovely, so irrefutable? Who could deny her?

The man had left while he wrestled with his thoughts. The sun was up now, and the crater was silent as a Yatani’s tomb.

His skull tingled with warmth like he lounged in a scented bath. Another face came to mind then: that strange, flat-faced boy with the beady eyes. No one in that house cared for him. He stood alone, forgotten. His own matron mother—if she was his mother—had looked at him with a sinister, hateful eye. Someday they’d trade him or sell him or… Maunyn’s cast off. Just like Ren. Thoughts of his own boyhood, so desperate for his family, stripped away from them to pay off a debt that was a fabrication...

Rage replaced guilt.

The acolyte, the Benthrae boy, the stolen children, the broken faces, the bullied and bribed, the dead dropped into gorges… Hosmyr was to blame. He could make his ultimate act one of justice as well. He’d take his last stab at the house that had brought him misery and reward one of those it had seen fit to punish.

Ren the god at last.

44

Zaidra seemed pleased, though it was difficult to tell. Gishna’s steward had picked the absolute best pears from every crate. Only thirty percent had met the standard. There were bigger things than pears in play, though. Unlike Joumina, Gishna came prepared to soften Zaidra Vakayne.

She wouldn’t let Zaidra bully her. Not this day; not when it was clear Zaidra was not what everyone thought. Gishna twitched her head left and right, trying to find a window on the world she could gaze out of. The white had claimed most of her vision now, though.

“Really, now, Gishna,” Zaidra muttered, as if she should put herself out of her misery. “Is the assassination of an acolyte in broad daylight—in a sanctuary school, no less—your idea of peace?”

“I’ll not toss myself out of the highest tower,” Gishna said, “if that’s what you think. That’s not something Hosmyr matrons do.”

Zaidra seemed to shrivel. Matron Vounia, from the time between the first and second accords had tossed herself from a Vakayne tower for reasons now forgotten to time. Zaidra looked tired… exhausted. If the girls were hers, it could explain her rapid decline. But she had been pregnant, that much Gishna knew. She’d wafted the air around Zaidra and briefly tasted the pregnancy. It was a Hosmyr talent, quite unused these days, to gauge growth, to touch the living power. Kandah had helped her enhance it to do more than just read. Soon it would be the only way she could experience the world.

She sighed with a rattling breath.

“I’ll not settle anything for my daughters,” Zaidra said. “Though I have many offers.”

“And you must appease your blood houses,” Gishna reminded her. “It is Kiseyl’s right, is it not?”

Kiseyl had given two sons to Vakayne since the Fall and received nothing in return.

“I’ll decide what is their right,” Zaidra said. “They’ve no claim.”

How could she say that? Something was very wrong within Velkamas. Gishna’s spy had reported a secret consorting between a Kiseyl priestess and a Zashtrin squire. This was Zashtrin’s second act of defiance, bypassing the order of things, bypassing their high matron… and yet Zaidra did nothing. There was only one way to understand this: Vakayne’s bloodhouses were in rebellion.

“A deeper union between our houses would benefit all,” Gishna said. “It is time, don’t you think?”

“Why now?” Zaidra bristled. She was not in control. It was not her decision to make!

“There are changes that will impact us all soon.”

“What? Those globes in the far south? That abomination ruining our trade with the Dragonlands? Do you think me ignorant?”

“Not at all, sister,” Gishna said softly. “I know the power of your network.”

Her words rattled Zaidra. This was a first. Had Vakayne depended on the southern empress and her ancient tombs, as Hosmyr did?

“I meant simply that another significant shift is coming,” Gishna said. “Foreigners, heathens swamp the Southern, I hear.”

“They’d not dare enter Vaidolin.”

How easily Zaidra forgot the turmoil of the past.

“Of course not,” Gishna acknowledged. She shifted in her seat. How could she introduce the return of the valmasin? She leaned forward and wafted the blue flames stronger, increasing the power of the silence. Zaidra’s brow arched.

“I have something unique to offer,” Gishna said.

Zaidra recoiled from her. Was she so powerless? Gishna wondered then if she should share the truth of her seer, of her records, and all the rest. Zaidra covered her hair with a veil and shawl, but at least one strand should fall. She’d have her people scour Zaidra’s seat and surroundings. Gishna had focused on the daughters; did the answer lay with Zaidra herself?

“I will make amends for my house’s great crime,” Gishna wheezed.

“Which crime, Gishna? There are so many. What will you do about this acolyte’s murder? There is no greater offense against the goddess… against all Mornae. The flesh of the acolyte is sacred. Without that, we crumble! Don’t you see that? What’s keeping savages from striking us? Or our own savages?”

Gishna stared ahead, resisting the urge to snap. Did this woman think to teach her the base lessons of their society?

“I would think the fire summoning priestesses of your house could manage savages easily. Anyway, Hosmyr has only one great crime,” Gishna said.

Zaidra’s eyes widened. “Surely you are mistaken. You cannot atone for that offense. Not now, anyway. Even if you could, what use is that power when all have fallen so far?”

Even Vakayne? Gishna wondered. This meeting had proven to be invaluable for all Zaidra revealed. Goddess above, what was to become of them all?

Gishna’s face turned to stone. She would fight on until her last breath. “Now is precisely when we need it,” she said hoarsely. “Don’t you think? It would bring your blood houses to heel, would it not?”

“What makes you think they disobey?” Zaidra asked. She could no longer restrain her annoyance, which Gishna now understood was a mask for her impotence. “They, above all, know their duty.”

Gishna hoped they were talking about the same thing. She’d never seen Zaidra so defensive.

Zaidra’s eyes narrowed to slits. What was going on in Velkamas? They’d broken off all communication with Hosmyr for six centuries because of that ancient crime against the valmasin and traded with them only out of dire necessity. Their pride and honor could only suffer so much austerity, but now its matron was reluctant to have it redressed.

“Are you worried what it may reveal about your daughters?” Gishna asked. It was a risk to press, but she must settle it soon. She must understand that convoluted bloodline.

Zaidra twisted in her seat and then stood. She looked like a deer about to bolt. Gishna acted like she’d not noticed, hacking loudly and wheezing. Between two bouts, Zaidra sat again, taken aback by her own reaction.

I see, Gishna thought. It’s not your daughters you’re worried about… perhaps you’re concerned what they’d see in you?

“It doesn’t matter,” Zaidra said confidently. “The valmasin are destroyed at last. My spies in the south confirm it.”

So Vakayne had deals with the southerners as well. What knowledge had they looked for in those tombs, or perhaps from the gigantic, sky-grazing gates she’d heard of?

“You must be right,” Gishna said, wiping her lips and tucking the pink-stained linen in her sleeve. There could be no bargaining with Zaidra on this matter. “I had hoped to recover their power for our benefit. As it once was.”

Zaidra huffed, trying to regain the advantage her superior position as a Vakayne granted her. “We can’t turn back time, Gishna, and undo those horrors. They are gone, and we continue.”

At that moment, Gishna’s chest cramped. The seer was so precious now, and what game was he playing, saying his comrades would come to Vaidolin? He must know more than Zaidra. Of course he did. His power was outside theirs, of a different nature. They’d survived hidden and secret for thousands of years at a time… and then waking like a plague to wreak havoc on the living.

“Like a wildfire,” she said under her breath.