Chapter Text
This was before the end:
Word that the aging Emperor ’Kazeth had fallen into a coma from which he was not expected to wake reached the University of Melcena by special courier, just past midnight. The courier’s message threw the Imperial Guard into chaos at once. Of course the Crown Prince had to return to the capital immediately, and so there were supplies to gather and horses to saddle and passage by ship to arrange.
No one expected the Crown Prince to do any of the work. It wasn’t hard for him to find a time when everyone was looking a different way, and creep very quietly out of the Imperial Residence.
The cool night air brushed gently by Zakath’s face, and if he blinked at it more than usual there was no one to notice. The grounds were brightly moon-lit and quiet, with only a few drunken male voices attempting a song to which they apparently knew neither the words nor the tune. Zakath steered well clear of the larger residence halls, taking a shortcut by the College of Economics building to the three-story complex where the female students lived.
He would miss the classes, as dull as most of them were when not even the teachers dared to voice an opinion in his presence. He would miss the raucous students who rarely attended classes, a few of whom actually did seem to like him--or else just thought it would be a lot of fun to see a prince get drunk, in which case they were out of luck. The freshly caught seafood with clearly visible tentacles had been an acceptable challenge, but Zakath couldn’t risk alcohol lowering his defenses too far in the company of his guards or his future administrators.
Most of all, Zakath was going to miss the study sessions and long arguments with Miria, the only person at the University who didn’t seem to care who he was when she thought he was dead wrong.
Almost a quarter of the University’s students were women. The majority of them were enrolled in the College of Economics, because their fathers thought it would improve their chances of finding a good marriage--which worked more often than not. Melcene businessmen were keenly aware of the advantages of having a wife who could keep accounts accurately and drive good bargains.
Most of the girls on campus therefore spent their time working, one way and another, to catch a husband. They were only a little better than the women at court, in Zakath’s opinion.
Miria took her own classes cheerfully enough, but her real passion was the history of Mallorea, military and political. She had managed to get a seat in several of the lectures Zakath was also required to attend, and after about two weeks of noncommittal professors and silent students and a constant pressure for the Prince to share his opinion, she’d finally snapped and given a five-minute critique of Emperor Korzeth’s judicial system. Sheer exasperation, she’d admitted to him later, with a blush. Zakath was grateful for it.
He couldn’t imagine losing Miria. The rest he had always known he would have to give up.
Miria’s window was on the ground floor, fortunately. If he’d had to throw rocks whenever he wanted a chat, he’d probably have broken every window within ten yards by now--his aim was the despair of his arms-master. Zakath rapped sharply on the glass.
A young woman whose golden-brown hair framed her classically beautiful face in rather tortured curls unlocked the window and leaned out, her low-cut nightgown showing her to advantage. “Why, hello, your Highness,” she purred.
Zakath cleared his throat. “Hello, Penna. I’d like to talk to Miria, please.”
“I can’t see why,” Penna complained, rolling her eyes, but turned away to prod her roommate into wakefulness.
Miria wore loose trousers and an old tunic to sleep, and came to the window without hesitation, rubbing a hand over her eyes. Her dark hair stood up in strange places, and she only half managed to hide a yawn. By court standards she was very plain, with lips more expressive than beautiful and thick eyebrows that grew unshaped. Zakath’s heart caught in his mouth at the sight of her.
Concern creased Miria’s forehead as she looked at him, but she didn’t ask why he’d come without warning in the middle of the night. “It’ll just be a minute while I find boots,” she said.
Zakath nodded, and tried to get his thoughts clear while Miria poked through the room’s clutter in the dim light. There wasn’t much time. His guards would be on high alert the moment they realized he had slipped away. He really didn’t want to be the object of a full door-to-door search, so it had probably been stupid of him to go at all, but he needed this one moment free from watchful eyes.
Boots located and fastened, Miria climbed nimbly out the window, landing in the smooth gravel with a crunch. Penna called softly, “If you’re not back in an hour, I’m going to sleep.”
“She’ll be back by then,” Zakath said. Miria had never actually had any trouble with the door-wardens, who had been pleased, on the whole, to find that the Prince of Mallorea caused so little fuss. It was still easier to avoid the whole issue.
There was a small hedged garden at the back of the building. As they walked toward it, Miria moved into the crook of his arm, wrapping hers around his waist. “What’s wrong, Zak?” she murmured.
He gritted his teeth, the words not wanting to line up in any sensible fashion. “My father is dying.”
Miria was silent a long moment, though she tightened her arm in a gentle hug. “If they sent for you, they must be sure.”
“He would have died three years back if not for that Dalasian healer,” Zakath said. “She says there’s nothing more to be done.”
His father’s death was hardly a surprise. Like many Emperors of Mallorea after the chaos of Kal Torak’s brief time in power nearly five hundred years ago, ’Kazeth had waited nearly past middle age to marry and produce an heir. Ambitious princes were potentially dangerous to a healthy ruler. It left the Imperial bloodline dangerously thin, to Zakath’s mind; his closest relatives were third and fourth cousins at several removes, and one badly timed accident could collapse the Empire entirely. He certainly wasn’t going to follow that tradition.
“I’ve got to go right away,” he sighed. “The moment people at court find out how ill he is, everyone will be claiming he supported their private cause.” Vultures, all of them, he’d always thought so--and likely to be his constant company for the rest of his life. “I’ve got to remind them there’s still going to be an Emperor.”
A night bird sang, low and mournful, from the eaves. Miria’s boot scuffed the ground as they walked, and she leaned her head lightly against his shoulder. “I wish we had more time,” she said at last, “but you’ll be a good Emperor, Zak, I know you will.”
He shook his head. “I’m not ready for it, not yet. You’ve read all the same books I have, you know the kind of things I’ll have to do--I don't think I can. And the thing is, being Emperor, I don’t think it’s possible to make small mistakes.”
The garden included a stone bench, and Miria drew him toward it, letting go of him to sit down. The night felt suddenly much colder. “You’ll do whatever you have to do for the sake of your people,” she said. “You probably won’t enjoy any of it, but you will do a good job, and I hope you find some benefits in the end.”
Benefits. There had better be at least one. “I'll send for you as soon as I can, Miria,” he promised, and hastened to add, “you and your family.” She was not much closer to her father than he was to his, her exasperated but dutiful affection an interesting counterpoint to the respectful fear that had always characterized fatherhood to Zakath. Still, it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to travel alone.
She blinked up at him, her puzzled face pale in the moonlight. “Send for me?”
His heart sank. “You will come to Mal Zeth, won’t you?” He tried to imagine holding the Empire together without Miria there to make him laugh, argue with him, and generally keep him human, and the bleak picture made him shiver.
“Zak, I'm hardly halfway done with my degree,” Miria protested. “I can’t just leave.”
“You never wanted a degree in economics anyway,” he countered, as persuasively as he knew how, “and you can study Imperial history just as well in Mal Zeth, I can get all the books you want. You’d be bored here without me to argue with.”
Miria laughed reluctantly. “I will be, you’re right about that. But, Zak--”
“Please, Miria,” he entreated, half-kneeling to take her hand in his. “I’m going to need an Empress, and you’re the only one I want.”
Her eyes went wide. “What, me?” she gasped. “They’d never let you!”
“Either I’m Emperor or I’m not,” Zakath said, “and if they want me they’re going to have to accept you.” There would certainly be a lot of commotion over it, all in the painfully polite style of the court, where yes, of course frequently meant if it can just be delayed long enough you’ll see you’re being an idiot. He set his jaw at the thought. If he couldn’t force this through, he’d never be able to carry the Empire at all.
Miria leaned forward to cup the back of his neck with a warm, delicate hand. “That is possibly the most awkward proposal of marriage I’ve ever heard of,” she said, “certainly worse than Penna’s last two young men. I ought to tell you no and make you try again, just so you won’t take me for granted.”
“But you won’t?” he pressed hopefully. It hadn’t sounded like a refusal.
“But I won’t,” Miria agreed, and kissed him, soft and lingering. She drew back and squeezed his hand. “Listen, Zak--whatever happens, whatever you have to do as Emperor, I know you’ll do it for the right reasons. I trust you. And I will always, always love you--nothing can change that.”
Something twinged in his gut, trained in paranoia by his father’s lectures and a hundred tiny betrayals over his childhood years. Miria meant it, of course, but it was so exactly the kind of thing that people would say to manipulate him. Promising love, promising affection.
He shoved the fear down, and kissed her again.
After a while, they walked mostly in silence back to Miria’s window, and he boosted her inside. Everything had already been said; besides, Penna was an inveterate gossip, and didn’t need any more fascinating news tonight.
Out of view of the window, Zakath curled one hand in a small but imperious signal, and the soldier who had been shadowing them since they left the garden faded into clear view and saluted in response, one fist over his heart.
“Lieutenant Atesca,” Zakath greeted the Melcene recruit. “You found me very quickly. My thanks for your patience.”
The soldier bowed stiffly. “I hope your Highness will return to the Guard now,” he said. “People do panic when their primary responsibility goes missing.”
For all that Atesca was as blandly humorless on the surface as any of the Angarak soldiers, Zakath liked him rather better; in addition to being very competent, the Melcene didn’t seem to take himself quite so seriously. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t vanish again.” He would shortly be Emperor, and what little privacy he’d been able to snatch before was gone forever.
The lieutenant hesitated, then added, in a softer tone, “Permit me to say, your Highness, that I wish you and your lady every happiness.”
Zakath smiled, too wide and honest an expression--it really gave too much away, he’d have to work on that. “Thank you, Atesca,” he said. “I hope for that as well.”
This was the end, and the beginning:
Packing, traveling, facing the unfamiliar challenges of the imperial court, Miria had often worried that her agreement to come to Mal Zeth would end badly for everyone. She could never have predicted this.
Her throat was raw, and the stone was cold and rough against her shoulder and cheek, painfully hard underneath her. The edge of the heavy metal cuff bit her wrist and the chain dragged it down, but she had fought it and pounded the wall with both fists until her hands bled, screaming until the last hint of reflected sunlight was gone from the corridor. Then she had kept on doing it until her body rebelled. She could smell the drying puddle of bile, which had wholly missed the tiny wooden bucket.
No one was coming, and no one would come; she’d known that all along. The soldiers had put her in a cell without windows, and walked away. Miria was accused of high treason, and the taint could spread too easily for anyone to risk. The next footsteps she was likely to hear were those of her death approaching.
Miria rubbed her hands on her dress, which was silk and the only thing in the cell that had any capacity to soothe. Dried blood was beginning to stiffen the fabric under her fingers, blood and tears, but that hardly mattered now. The maids would never scold her over these stains, and the dress would never find its way back to her closet. It only had to last her until the morning.
“Please,” she tried once more, hopelessly. Her voice was as rough as the walls and barely made it to a whisper. “He’s got to know I would never hurt him. Please...”
No one could hear her. The stone walls were too thick, the doors too solid, and there was no one who cared to listen. In the silence, Miria’s heartbeat throbbed in her aching wrists and behind her eyes, a frantic flutter as though her heart sought to pack all the years that might have been into these last few hours.
Not even her father and uncle, somewhere in the same prison, were close enough for speech--and Miria didn’t think she could bear to speak to them anyway, her fury burning too hot and bright. Treason against His Imperial Majesty, the officer had said, and they had frozen. She recognized guilt when she saw it in her father’s eyes. Miria bent her head into the cool touch of her palms, tasting bile sour on her tongue. How could her own family have betrayed her like this?
Her father had taken a bribe from enemies of the Empire and claimed Miria would murder the Emperor on their wedding night. He’d accepted Murgo money, and sold away her honor and her happiness. Miria had known there were debts, because there were always debts, between her uncle’s ambitions and her father’s poor business sense; she should have questioned it when her uncle began to buy her silk and real jewels, but she’d thought it was in hope of imperial patronage.
Treason was an unpardonable crime, and whole families had regularly gone to the block by way of example throughout the history of Mallorea, even if not every individual had been involved. Miria had argued that it was unjust, in that first class with Zak at the University of Melcena. The Crown Prince had said it was necessary. Nobody but Miria had quite dared to contradict him, since the grim-faced soldiers standing to attention in the back of the class made an eloquent kind of statement on their own.
Did Zak think she had been planning to kill him even then, plotting to catch his attention?
He was trying so hard to prove himself the kind of Emperor who could hold Boundless Mallorea together. If he thought she had to die for the sake of his empire, there was no one who would argue him out of it now.
Zak , she thought desperately, as though thinking it hard enough could somehow convey her words to the emperor’s ears. Zak, please, don’t...don’t remember me as a traitor, I can’t bear it. I wouldn’t have done it, I didn’t know.
I did love you...I do...please, someone, anyone, hear me...
A peculiar hum shivered somewhere deeper than her ears, a hushed murmur like the sea that grated oddly in her back teeth. It was the only distraction there had been for hours, so Miria could hardly help focusing on it.
Who calls? The woman’s voice was gentle and puzzled, distantly familiar, and sounded close enough to touch; behind and around it, the whispering continued. But there was no one in the hall, no sound of footsteps.
“Please help me,” Miria begged, unashamed of the tears that spilled over again, wondering if this had any connection to reality or if hallucination had set in. “Can you hear me? Where are you?”
Child of my people, calm thyself, the voice soothed. I know thee not, but I will do what I can to aid thee. Where art thou, and what is thy name?
Miria caught her breath. She knew what this was now, the distant memory of a story her mother used to tell her. No privacy with the Dals, her mother had said, all your cousins wanting to read your thoughts; Melcena, the enormous bustling center of commerce, was quieter. Her mother had died more than ten years ago, and Miria had dismissed the story as metaphor.
Tonight, she’d had privacy enough to sicken her, and any alternative was a rescue past all hope.
The terror and desperate need poured out of her in a flood, nearly drowning out the distant whispers. Compassion washed back in response, and Miria knew without asking that the other mind belonged to Andel, a dedicated healer who had served in the palace five of her thirty years. Who was so close to Zak that Miria’s heart leapt for the impossible chance.
The Emperor is enraged, Andel warned her. I do not think he will hear me. But I will try. She hesitated, then offered, See with me, if thou wilt.
Between staring at stone walls in the dark, and one last chance to see Zak, there really wasn’t any question--even like this, even when he was probably about to have her killed. Gratefully, she allowed Andel to draw her closer. Between one blink and the next, the darkness had bloomed into a torchlit palace corridor, but there was no pain, no sense of adjustment to the sudden light.
It was some small comfort that Andel had believed her instantly and without question. The echoes that passed between them told Miria that no one could get away with a lie in connection like this. There would be no such advantage with ’Zakath.
The image bobbed forward a bit unevenly as Andel walked. On a normal evening, Zak’s night shift of bodyguards would have been outside the imperial suite, protecting their emperor’s scant hours of rest as diligently as his life. Tonight the heavy doors hung open, as though the last few people through couldn’t be bothered to close them, and the three soldiers on shift had apparently followed their commanding officer into the lavish receiving room.
Andel knew all the men, some better than Miria did herself, and no one offered the healer any challenge as she entered. They were too busy watching the argument.
Although Andel’s gaze took in the whole room with careful observation, Miria could only see ’Zakath, standing rigidly straight with a grim-set expression and fists so tightly clenched that they trembled. He was still in his velvet robes from the day’s audiences, now crumpled and hanging crookedly, and the dark red color deepened the shadow under his eyes, highlighting his pale and bloodless face. Miria’s heart ached for him.
Facing him were General Ranisk of the palace guard, his own uniform showing the day’s use, and the Chief of the Bureau of Internal Affairs, Tallor, whose expression was faintly, unforgivably smug. Tallor had never liked Miria or the notion of the Emperor marrying a poor Melcene girl from no notable bloodline, and might therefore be the only person actually pleased by any part of the whole horrible situation. From the day Zak first introduced her at the palace, the bureau chief had looked at her with the same air of polite disgust her uncle had given the stray kitten Miria had adopted on the way to Mal Zeth.
“Surely your Majesty can see the need,” Tallor was pushing, in his usual obsequious way. “If this terrible plot has gone any further--”
“No,” ’Zakath snapped. It was close to the flat voice that signaled danger, but there was a fraction of a crack in it.
Enough weakness, apparently, for Tallor not to take the hint. “Thus far my men cannot track down the Murgo agents, and any information is vital, your Majesty. I am only trying to be certain this will not happen again.”
The general remarked, “Traditional procedure does include--”
’Zakath slashed a furious hand down, cutting off both men. “If either of you say another word about putting Miria to the question, I will have you crucified,” he hissed, deadly earnest.
Miria recoiled violently, and her head thumped against the stone wall. Of course they’d want to make sure they knew everything she knew, and the possibility of torture hadn’t even occurred to her.
“Then the execution will be carried out at dawn, as usual?” General Ranisk inquired.
’Zakath turned his head toward the public execution grounds, and flinched, a tiny twitch that spoke like a scream to Miria. “In private,” he contradicted. “Tonight.”
Zak had defended her this far against the people he relied upon the most, his father’s closest advisers, even believing she’d betrayed him; at least she had this much of his heart. The terrible mercy crushed the breath from her for a long, painful moment.
“Your Majesty,” Andel chose her moment to interject, bowing her head in polite submission, “your pardon, but I see no reason to act in such haste. With the Murgo conspirators as yet uncaptured, the investigation cannot be complete.”
Tallor offered her a condescending smile. “I assure you, Healer Andel, the evidence we have is quite conclusive. Your compassion does you credit in your own work, but this is a political matter.”
Andel ignored the bureau chief. “Emperor ’Zakath?” she prompted gently.
Please, Zak...please... Miria bit her lip, twisting her hands together.
The young Emperor met Andel’s gaze for a split second, then broke away, the cracks in his hard-fought armor too visible. Pain, and grief. “I can’t spare her, Andel,” he said quietly. “Even if she wasn’t...entirely complicit, even if she didn’t intend to follow through, her family conspired to kill me. I can’t save Miria. Don’t speak of it again.” The accompanying threat was unvoiced this time, but remained clear.
Miria tasted blood in her mouth, drew a long, careful breath, as though the air might shatter her. How many breaths left to her now?
I am sorry, Andel murmured. Miria didn’t dare risk her control in a verbal reply; if it slipped, she would scream and never stop; still, she tried to send her gratitude for Andel’s effort.
“But I will not have her execution made into a public spectacle,” ’Zakath went on, firmly, and looked at his personal guards.
“If your Majesty permits,” Andel interrupted again, “I have herbs that can send the girl to sleep before your soldiers carry out their duty. She need feel no pain.” This much at least I may do for thee, she added, and Miria could feel the bitter taste of her failure in the words.
Zak half-turned, gave Andel a slow nod. “Accompany them to the prison, then, if you are willing.”
Miria clung to Andel’s sight for one last moment, and traced the sharp lines of Zak's face for a short eternity. Then Andel had to turn away, and Miria pulled back, opened her eyes to the darkness of her cell and found her face wet with tears. “Oh, Zak,” she whispered.
The worst part of it was, he was right . Nothing could move the world enough to allow them happiness now, not with the cloud of treason hanging over her family. Even if she’d been found innocent by some miracle, he couldn’t marry her after this, and he certainly couldn’t afford to spare her life because he loved her. Too many people would believe their young Emperor was weak, too many people would take advantage, and the empire would tear itself apart, as Angarak society always did at the first sign of weakness. Miria had made excellent marks in her history classes.
Waiting at the back of her mind, Andel pushed very gently for attention. I value thy memories as my own, she said, and thou hast not given them to our people. Thou art very young, and it has been too short a time to ask this of thee, but we have no more. Wilt thou share thyself with us, past and future?
Miria couldn’t claim to understand the question completely, but she could feel Andel’s deep fear that Miria might be lost forever, as no Dal ought ever to be lost: not just dead but forgotten. There was very little that Miria cared to keep secret, but strangers had already tried once to use her as a weapon against ’Zakath. Swear my memories will never be used to hurt Zak, she demanded.
Thine own feelings shall defend thy beloved, Andel assured her. None who remember thee will ever seek to harm him.
That didn’t sound like such a poor legacy to leave behind. And if Andel’s people remembered her, maybe someday Zak would know she’d never betrayed him. All right, Miria agreed, hesitant. What do I do?
The world opens up behind her eyes, all at once. The Dals have been watching, caught up in Andel’s urgency; Miria hadn’t even noticed the background whispers fading to an attentive hush.
There is too much to take in, too much to grasp, but Miria is suddenly part of an enormous family--from Kell to Dal Perivor to the Isle of Verkat, the people she’d never acknowledged as kin welcome her into their minds, compassion echoing and re-echoing. There is so little time, they say. Forgive our haste, child.
If there were time, she would share with one at a time, form friendships and exchange memory and grow gradually deeper in the pool of memory that ties her people together, as all of them echo to her--but there is no time, and if her memories are to be saved at all it will be like this, scattered all at once to the corners of the earth.
There are no words, there is no time for words, but her people sing approval in a vast chorus, and Miria smiles for the first time since the soldiers came.
And then something entirely different unfolds behind her eyes, and Miria is elsewhere--
The darkness surrounds her, velvety black, but the glory before her drowns it out, a ball of fire greater than the sun. She gasps, but there is no sound.
“The conditions are met,” a voice says in her ear, dry and emotionless. “Hail, Miria, child of Melcena, child of Kell.”
“The conditions are met,” a second voice echoes in agreement, though how she knows that when they sound so identical she isn’t sure. “Hail, Miria, beloved and twice betrayed.”
She can’t see anything but the great lights and the darkness. “What conditions?” she asks, but her own voice is missing.
One of them, possibly the second one again, says, “Conditions necessary to your task.”
“Will you accept the task?” The first voice. There is a difference between them, but she cannot tell what it is.
Miria has no idea what task they mean, but as she is just about to be executed, if they want her help it had better not take long.
“It will take you longer than you have yet lived,” the second one says.
Something is wrong. Something moves where it should not, and the glorious lights tremble and flame and go out, and she can see a crack in the darkness, twisted and foreign--
“The universe is divided against itself,” the first voice tells her. “You must make the Choice, lest all be destroyed. Choose one of us and thereby choose the future.”
“Will you accept your task?”
There ought to be someone else, someone more suited, more important, but she feels the attention of the universe like a weight on her shoulders, and apparently there is only her. “I accept the task,” she says, and the words ring through the stars like a bell.
And then she sees--
a mirror that reflects a young woman, with Zak’s eyes and an open Dalasian face. Tiny, lopsided flowers weave through her dark hair, and her smile is quiet and joyful. “Well met, Mother,” she greets, and the touch of her mind is clouded by distance and something more, but her love is very clear. “I am Anthia, thy firstborn and Emperor Zakath’s, if thy Choice lead to me, and here thy beloved is well and happy with thee.”
Yes , Miria cries soundlessly, I choose this! Tell me how to reach you!
“All may be well,” Anthia assures her, “but the instant of the Choice is not now.”
The image of her daughter fades suddenly, like a dream, and then harsh daylight floods an empty palace corridor, smashed open to the sky by some tremendous force. Smoke and distant screams drift in the wind, and something that feels terribly wrong stalks through Mal Zeth.
A fragment of the mirror, shattered across the floor, catches a reflection, and she knows the mind for Andel but the face is lined and bloodstained. “Thou must not let this happen,” Andel whispers, and her eyes drift closed--
Andel! What do I choose to stop this? s he asks in desperation.
“The instant of the choice is not now,” the second voice tells her.
But how can I know what choice to make? Miria demands.
Both voices say, very dryly indeed, “You can’t.”
Miria opens her eyes to her cell and the first faint glimmers of torchlight, gasping for breath with the intensity of the vision. In the back of her mind, the whole of the Dalasian people breathe with her, shock and joy and dismay all intermingled.
Holy Seeress! they cry, acknowledgment and recognition--and fear. Losing a new-found child is a tragedy, but losing a Seeress with the touch of vision still upon her is unthinkable, and losing her--the Prophecies have marked Miria as the one Seer the Dals have awaited for long ages, and if she dies now who will Choose? And the torchlight is growing stronger.
“She will be the focus of all your people, and the instrument of the Choice. Do you accept her?” a dry voice demands, and Miria can’t hear the difference at all anymore. But the knowledge is there, suddenly, shared between the Dals as Miria’s memories are shared. She must begin as an infant, and she must allow the focus, as no infant could properly choose to do. This is Necessity.
And all the Dals know her now. We accept, the choral answer comes swiftly. Well met, our Cyradis, Thou Who Must Make the Choice.
A distant Seeress touches Miria more directly and whispers, Well met, foster-daughter. Long have I expected thee.
In Mal Zeth, a young woman accepts her fate with a peculiar calmness that the guards take for shock, and her last audible words are to the Dalasian healer: “Tell Zak I have always and will always love him...tell him to look after my cat.” Before the dark sleep takes her, she catches Andel’s mind again and pleads, Keep him safe, for my sake . And the healer pledges faithfully.
In Kell, the Prophecy moves, and what was one is now two; a Seeress and her husband begin to count the months before the birth of their infant girl, and the foster-child who shares the womb.
She knows nothing, and she remembers everything. The song of her people carries her, holds her up, floats her gently through the pain. She is no one, and she is everyone, and she is--herself.
We name thee Cyradis, for thou art the One Who Chooses, they tell her, in choral affirmation. Daughter, sister, mother, choose well.
Packing the knowledge of eighteen years into a child’s brain felt, even on good days, like trying to catch a waterfall in a leaky pot--and that was without touching the vast oceans of knowledge that passed freely from mind to mind among the Dals. Cyradis had quickly learned not to try to hold it all herself. The memories would be there when she needed them, safeguarded by her very extended family.
There were some memories that she clung to with fierce determination, however. A few were events from her first childhood, the faces of Miria’s parents, but most of all she insisted on remembering ’Zakath, no matter how many times her foster-mother had to rescue her from nightmares of that last day.
Andel, I pray thee, I must know, Cyradis pleaded.
Though there were things that fluttered beyond her grasp, she knew that ’Zakath belonged to her, in ways both like and unlike the way she belonged to the Dals, and that she had left him in pain. She might be the one who’d died, but she had a family now, many minds to quiet her fears and a foster-twin who loved her--Ninal was as ordinary as a seeress’s daughter could be and thought Cyradis was very strange indeed, but nevertheless played with her at every opportunity, plucked flowers to crown her hair, and hugged her when she wept.
There would be no soothing presences in ’Zakath’s mind, no family to give simple unquestioning comfort. Cyradis hoped he might not be entirely alone, but feared he was.
It was the week after the seventh anniversary of her second birth, which made it three and a half years since Cyradis had realized Andel knew more about ’Zakath than she had yet shared. It had been a simple conclusion, since Andel only ever said that he was alive, that he didn’t hate Miria, and--when pressed--that he was taking good care of her cat.
The healer’s mind was muted now as ever, which might have been from distance but which Cyradis knew was much more by deliberate choice. When thou art old enough, she replied, and slipped away again.
Andel! Cyradis shut her eyes and gave pursuit. I have lived six and twenty years, and I remember my own death. I am thy Holy Seeress, and thou hast hidden thyself from me these seven years. I am old enough.
It had never worked before, but this time she felt Andel hesitate. The vision is not yet upon thee, Andel said.
Not since her death had that other light touched Cyradis, nor did she understand the Book of the Heavens except through the eyes of the older Seers. It was hard enough coping with the combined presence of every Dalasian mind; no one had been particularly surprised that their Seeress was taking some time to grow up. Vision or no, I have need of this memory.
Toth, surely she is yet too young, Andel changed tactics. The silent, gentle guide had thus far spent his time playing Hunt the Thimble and making flower chains with Cyradis and Ninal rather than actually guiding Cyradis in the traditional sense, but he could almost always hear anything to do with his chosen Seeress, his mind resonating strongly with her own.
She will never seem old enough to thee, Andel . Toth’s voice, always louder to Cyradis than any other. I would defend her from all the world, but not from truth.
Triumph and fear sparked sharply together in Cyradis, and faded under the wave of resignation and guilt from Andel. Very well , the healer agreed, and allowed Cyradis close for the first time since the execution, reluctance dragging heavily at her mind.
The memory Cyradis wanted was clear as the day it had happened, and she found herself once again seeing a palace corridor through Andel’s eyes.
She carried a wicker basket, closed and bound with stout twine, and on top of that a small plate of smoked fish. The occupant of the basket mewled in discontent, for which Andel could find very little sympathy. It had taken most of an hour, with several false starts, to get the young cat safely inside and away from the suite that would soon be cleared of all the late residents’ belongings. The lure of fish had proved too weak; Andel had been forced to resort to quick bundling with a blanket, and the cat clearly resented the indignity.
The men outside the Imperial rooms were not the same as the men who had come to execute Miria, but Andel knew them all; the Imperial Elite Guard had the highest training-injury rate of any unit in Mal Zeth. “Healer Andel,” the older one greeted her, with a curious look at the basket. “His Majesty does not wish to be disturbed.”
Andel hadn’t seen Emperor ’Zakath since he had ordered Miria’s death, but palace gossip had informed her both that the Murgo spies had been caught that same night, and that after attending their interrogations the Emperor had shut himself away. Apparently he’d told three servants that the next person who tried coaxing him to eat would be executed on the spot. Speculation as to the cause varied with the gossiper. “I know,” she said, “but I believe he will want to speak with me.”
“If you’re wrong, he’ll probably have you killed,” the guard warned.
She nodded, well aware. This was probably much too soon to bring Miria’s last words to ’Zakath, but the promise she’d made to Miria sat heavily in her heart. The Holy Seeress would be extremely unhappy if she grew up and learned Andel had let the Emperor starve himself.
The guard shrugged. “It’s your head to risk, I suppose,” he said, and slipped inside the first set of doors to announce her presence to Emperor ’Zakath. Andel shifted the basket in her arms, as the cat’s restless movements constantly threatened to unbalance it.
It was a nervous but short wait before he returned, and held the door open for her with a polite nod. “Careful,” he advised, under his breath. “It takes too long to find a replacement healer.”
The door closed behind her with a hollow thud. The Emperor was not in the outermost chamber, so Andel moved with some trepidation toward the second door.
’Zakath was sitting on the embroidered couch in his private study, and the rigid pride that had held him up when she had seen him last was gone now, leaving a crushed and weary boy. A badly creased velvet robe lay abandoned on the thick carpet, and now the Emperor wore only plain linen, equally wrinkled. “Andel,” he said, without bothering to look at her, and there was no trace of emotion in his voice. “I hope you are not planning to make this a habit.”
She set the basket down with some relief, and offered the appropriate courtesy. “No, Sire. Please forgive my intrusion.”
“If you’ve come to tell me that you were right, I suggest you leave now,” ’Zakath said, turning fractionally toward Andel. Even without the echoes of Miria’s frantic affection fluttering in the back of her mind, the bleak expression would have torn at Andel; the Emperor’s dark eyes were cold, with an emptiness she had never seen in a living face.
The sharp edges of Imperial grief could claim more lives than a small plague. “If there has been more information, I have not heard it,” Andel said carefully.
“Hasn’t the gossip caught up, then?” ’Zakath grimaced, a thin, painful look. “I suppose you might as well know; you were the only one who spoke for her. The Murgos were quite certain that she was not actually aware of their plot as yet. Apparently there had been some disagreement with her father on the subject.” He looked up at her, sudden and piercing. “So. You were right, and I have killed an innocent girl.”
The proof of innocence Miria had believed impossible, arriving after all, but too late. This had been the longing in Miria’s heart, but Andel suspected Cyradis would take no pleasure in its fulfillment. Andel bowed her head. “Permit me to grieve with you,” she murmured, though it was the Emperor for whom she grieved most.
’Zakath’s gaze was no longer fixed on her, but somewhere far distant, and whatever he saw there twisted at his face. “I told myself I couldn’t save her,” he said softly, “but of course I could have. I’m the Emperor. If I had really believed her, really trusted her, I would have found a way, wouldn’t I?” It was clear he was no longer speaking to Andel. “She always seemed...too good to be true, someone who didn’t care about my cursed crown. I suppose I was waiting for some kind of betrayal from the beginning.” He closed his eyes. “Why are you here, Andel?”
Miria’s name had not yet passed his lips, Andel noted, not surprised. “I came at Miria’s request,” she said, gentling her tone further still. “Will you hear her words?”
He didn’t move, but his jaw tightened. “How brave of you. Speak, then.”
“She asked me to tell you that she has always and will always love you.”
The Emperor flinched, as though the words had been a slap. And perhaps they were, to him. Andel knew Miria had never meant to hurt, but there was nothing to do with her that would not hurt ’Zakath now. “And then,” Andel went on quickly, “she asked you to look after her cat.”
’Zakath opened his eyes and shot her an incredulous glance, and his gaze fell on the basket. “Oh, of course she did,” he muttered, and something too bitter to be a smile wrenched at his mouth. “And here would be her cat.”
For Miria, it had been an equation too simple to require thought: she loved them both, and they needed each other. Andel pried apart the knots and lifted the lid away. The young black-and-gray tabby stalked out in deep offense, sat down beside ’Zakath’s leg, and began to wash herself vigorously.
The Emperor’s face softened a tiny fraction, watching the cat. “Do you know, I never--does she have a name?” he asked eventually.
“I don’t know if Miria named her, your Majesty.” This was a lie. Andel had been close enough to catch quite a lot about the cat in the general rush of memory. Miria had in fact called the tabby Little Empress, strictly in the privacy of her own mind--a joke full of innocent hopes as well as a reference to the usual feline attitude of complete entitlement. The joke was no longer remotely amusing.
From the look in the Emperor’s eyes, she rather suspected that in his mind the animal would be called, only and always, Miria’s cat. He reached a tentative hand to smooth the soft fur. “You’ve delivered your message,” he told Andel. “Leave me.”
Andel set the little plate of fish closer to the couch, and gathered the basket, which had a distinct odor about it. “I can have someone bring a box of sand,” she offered. “And the cat will need food, your Majesty.”
He offered her a mirthless smile. “Don’t worry. The cat will be well cared for. It’s the only thing I can do...that, and wipe every stinking Murgo I can reach off the face of the earth.”
There was no change in tone or face with the chilling words. Andel stared at ’Zakath.
“Healer Andel,” he added, “I am...grateful for your efforts. However, please realize that if you speak of this to anyone, I will consider you guilty of treason and have you killed.”
Andel made a respectful, silent acknowledgment, heartsick, and fled the room, hoping it would be a long time indeed before Miria’s younger self requested this memory from her.
Cyradis would have pulled back if she could, but the waves of seven years’ memory struck her, less vivid but no less painful: the revenge ’Zakath had begun to take in Miria’s name, and the fearful respect he had cultivated, allowing no one close. She wept, silent tears spilling down her face as her grief poured into the bonds of memory.
I am sorry, Andel whispered. I tried. I did not want to show thee so soon.
Not if I had outlived Belgarath would I be ready for this, Cyradis choked through the tears, but I had to know, Andel .
Her Zak had died with Miria, and neither of them would ever be innocent again.
This is the end of the beginning:
The Empress Cyradis of Mallorea stared at the clutter of jewels and gold and silver chains with a frown. Three months now since her marriage, and the city jewelers still insisted on sending her samples of their work. Quite lovely samples, some of them, the colored gems delicately shaped into near-perfect likenesses of flowers. A few had even managed to catch the lopsided charm of Adara’s rose, the bloom she wore as often as the limited supply permitted.
She wished all of them would stop. No doubt the cold gems would be more convenient than plucking living flowers, but the weight of the metal and the sound of the chains were unbearable in the familiar hallways.
A quarter-century since the guards had carried her from her room in Mal Zeth, and yet it took so little to bring back the fear.
“Cyradis?” Eriond was dressed simply and carrying one of the half-grown kittens; he might have looked like a servant, except that he had forgotten not to glow. He offered her the young tabby. “Horse and I don’t mind him being in the stable, but I think the grooms do.”
The kitten made a soft, disgruntled yowl, and dug his claws lightly into Cyradis’s shoulder. She managed a smile for the new God of Angarak. “Clearly they do not realize how he has honored them with his presence.”
Eriond watched her for a moment, his eyes very deep. “You ought to tell Zakath, you know,” he commented.
The kitten’s fur was soft under her fingers, but her silk dress, smooth and flawless, itched where it touched her skin; she hadn’t been able to avoid the dressmakers nearly as well as the jewelers. It would have been nice to pretend Eriond meant the perfectly ordinary news that she looked forward to sharing with her husband. “We have been very happy, these months,” Cyradis said.
“I understand why you wanted to be married first.”
It was easier to keep her eyes on the kitten, who had begun to purr, but Cyradis forced herself to meet her God’s gaze. “The chance to begin anew was valuable for us both.” Zakath had spent so much of his life grieving Miria and regretting his choice, seeking revenge or death, and Cyradis had watched most of it through Andel’s eyes, unable to aid him or speak to him--because he would not have believed her, but also because the completion of her task depended upon it. Necessity had driven her to be merciless, just as politics had driven her beloved.
Eriond nodded. “You haven’t wanted to reopen the wound,” he said. “I know. But if you wait much longer, the secret will come between you.”
It had been quite a while since anyone had lectured Cyradis on the future, and she found it rather strange. Even so, Eriond was right. “I will tell him,” she conceded, “if thou wilt do me the favor, my God, of ensuring no one else may hear.”
He looked pained. “Just Eriond,” he corrected, “especially to you, Cyradis. And of course I will. I have been.”
A smile struggled to break softly across her face. In all her preparations, she hadn’t considered that the new God of Angarak could be any kind of friend, until the day she had met young Errand in the snow of the Vale of Aldur. He probably knew how much that meeting had affected her final desperate Choice, but she never intended to admit it. “My thanks, Eriond.”
“I want you both to be happy,” he said, very seriously. “You’ve gone through so much, and most of it ended up being for my benefit.”
“For the sake of the universe,” she reminded him, “and by our own decisions.”
He smiled at her, a gentle expression that never failed to lift her heart. “Even so. You and Zakath were the first of my people to accept me, and if I can’t reward you, what good is it being a God?”
And then he was gone, in the sudden way he used more and more as the demands on his time increased.
A mirrored wall caught her gaze for a moment. There had been no time for mirrors while the Choice lay ahead of her, and the image always made her think first of her foster-twin, with light hazel eyes and honey-gold hair where some part of her still expected to see darker shades on her own reflection. There was a stronger Dalasian cast to everything now, but something familiar in the shape of her face made her feel at home in it in spite of the differences; she wondered if her husband had noticed.
It took no special gift to predict that Zakath would appear at their door in short order, with concern written in his eyes. “Cyradis, is anything wrong? Eriond just made a divine appearance to tell me I should talk to you.”
She hadn’t even had time to pack away the jewelry, although the kitten had seized an especially threatening ruby rose and retreated to the far corner of the room to kill it. Zakath scowled at the entangled mass. “Are they still sending those? I can make them stop if it’s bothering you.”
Cyradis dismissed the latest enticements of the jewelers with a tired gesture. “They are no matter. Eriond welcomes the donations, and soon or late these deliveries will end.”
“But there is something wrong,” Zakath guessed, stepping closer to fold her into a warm embrace.
She sighed, leaning against his shoulder in search of comfort for a long moment before pulling him toward a chair. “I hope in time thou wilt see this as something right, but it is not an easy matter to speak of, for thee as for me; it has been long-buried but never forgotten.”
Zakath sat willingly enough and raised his eyebrows in expectant inquiry. “I’m not going to be angry with you, Cyradis, if that’s what worries you,” he reassured.
She shook her head, watching his expression. “We must speak of Miria.”
Her husband went dead white in the space of a breath, his dark eyes flat and hard. But he met her gaze and exhaled once, shakily. “Anything you want to know,” he offered, simple and full of pain.
Wincing at Zakath’s obvious anguish, she said quietly, “It is I who have kept secrets from thee in this.”
Surprise lightened his face somewhat. “I don’t understand, Cyradis.”
She closed her eyes, calling back the memories of her life as Miria. They were all present and complete, but her new mind had learned language by the touch of the Dals, past and future, and she had needed to distance herself from Miria’s sharp emotion for a time. The archaic speech felt the more natural on her tongue, after twenty-five years of little else--not only from the collected memories, but because the difference between singular thou and communal you, though it had become outdated in much of the world, was a necessity for speaking where an entire people could overhear.
But now she spoke only to her husband.
“Miria’s mother was a Dal.” It was a poor way to start off, but there was really no good way; Cyradis forged on. “It mattered little before the night of the, the execution.”
A sick horror flooded Zakath’s eyes, and his hands clenched the soft arms of the chair. “And nothing any Dal remembers has ever been forgotten,” he choked out. All the companions of the Child of Light had learned that much of the secrets of Kell. “So you--Cyradis, you remember how I--”
She dropped to her knees to press her hands over his cold ones. “It’s all right now,” she promised fiercely, holding his gaze with her own. “All is well.”
Zakath shook his head, clear denial although the shock had stolen his voice.
“The two Prophecies needed someone to choose between them,” Cyradis began with what he already knew. “Someone impartial, someone who could accept all the power of the Dal race at once from before birth, and someone with everything to lose if the Choice failed to happen.”
Her husband frowned, not following the connection. “And that was you.”
“They could not lay this Choice, the final Choice, on any child; it had to be someone who knew what was at stake, but the process had to start with an infant.” She shut her eyes and tightened her grip on his hands. “Cyradis is my name now, but it was a title from the old tongue, given to a Seer who makes one of the Choices...I was Miria.”
He jerked away, involuntary recoil rocking the chair backward. Cyradis folded her hands together, already missing his touch, and waited.
“That isn’t...that isn’t possible,” he whispered. The events leading to the Choice at Korim had opened Zakath’s mind immeasurably, but this was more personal and therefore harder to believe.
Cyradis took no offense. The concept had come as something of a shock to her as well, that night of despair. “Eriond or Andel will bear me witness, if there is need,” she suggested.
But Zakath shook his head at once. “I don’t doubt your word, Cyradis,” he said, voice stronger than she had expected.
She sighed, not sure herself whether it was relief or sorrow. Things could never be quite the same now that Zakath knew the shadow of his past was neither gone nor forgotten. “I have always and will always love thee, my husband,” Cyradis whispered, and risked a smile, though Zakath’s face was still bloodless and forbidding with the weight of the knowledge she had handed him. “Thou hast cared admirably for my cat. And her descendants.” The kitten in the corner growled fiercely at his prey.
Zakath heaved a breath as though it had been years since his last, and his eyes glittered with tears. He reached out a hand to frame her face, feather-light, as though seeing the familiar features echoed there. “Miria.”
“All is well,” she repeated softly, turning her cheek toward the trembling hand. “Thou and I have given much for the sake of the universe, and beyond hope reached this reward.”
He moved sharply, setting her aside and springing from the chair with the tense movements of a trapped animal. “No!” he growled, turning back to face her, features twisted in pain. “I won’t--you can’t possibly want--” Zakath struggled for words, shying from Cyradis’s touch. “I’ll do my cursed task, you don’t have to stay with me like some kind of--of bribe--I don’t need a reward.”
“Cease these foolish thoughts!” Cyradis snapped, striding forward to grip Zakath’s wrists firmly, and forcing him to look at her. “Don’t be an idiot,” she added, very deliberately, Miria’s speech pattern so long neglected. “Thou art my reward, Zakath, and I have waited these many years for thee because we could never be together else. Do not begin to dream that I would ever give thee up.”
Zakath closed his mouth and stared at her, eyes shadowed and vulnerable. Cyradis took the opportunity to reinforce her assurance without words, leaning in to meet his lips with her own.
“But I killed you,” he whispered against her, after a moment. “How can you forget that? I never could.”
“Never forgotten,” she replied, “nor excused, but forgiven.” She did not plan to tell him just how many years that task had taken. Forgiving her father’s death, her uncle’s, and even her own, had actually been easier than accepting his actions afterward. Zakath already knew quite well the harm his search for revenge and power had caused, and did not need reminders; but the years had been very long. “Forgive thyself also, Zakath.”
He didn’t answer--she hadn’t really expected him to--but his arms wrapped slowly around her once more. Cyradis closed her eyes in contentment. “I have simpler news for thee as well,” she said, after a moment, and drew Zakath’s unresisting hand to rest over her womb, where she could not yet feel her daughter’s presence. “It is eight months now before our daughter’s birth.”
Zakath went perfectly still. “We’re going to have a baby,” he said, in far happier shock.
Cyradis nodded quiet, joyful confirmation, and added, “She is a beautiful girl, with eyes very like thine.”
Her husband breathed a soft laugh. “A little girl,” he repeated, wonderingly. “I suppose you know what we’re going to name her?”
Well met, Anthia, Cyradis greeted her daughter in silence, and smiled.
This came after:
That night, when he was quite certain that Cyradis...Miria...that his wife was asleep, Zakath let himself silently out the heavy wooden door into the enclosed Imperial garden. It had no other entrance, and the blank walls allowed some measure of privacy.
There was no need to call on his God, because Eriond waited for him underneath the ornamental cherry tree, casting shadows in the moonless night. The faint guilt on his luminous face made him look almost like the young man Zakath had traveled alongside, instead of the ageless God he’d become. “I did know,” he answered the question Zakath had not yet asked. “Cyradis was afraid you’d be stupid about it if she told you before you were married, and I was afraid she was right.”
Zakath supposed being stupid here had the unique meaning of not marrying the woman he had murdered, who ought by all logic to hate him. Cyradis had spent an entire lifetime devoted to saving the world, and she’d told him herself, long before the instant of Choice, that the world would need the Emperor of Mallorea to fulfill his task of supporting the new God. He was still more than half convinced that she stayed with him as some kind of sacrifice to preserve his sanity, but, to his shame, he was too desperately grateful for it to protest again.
“It isn’t like that, Zakath,” Eriond said, gently. “I’d have told you--I wouldn’t let her do that, not for me and not for the world. She’s earned better.”
He felt his lip twist bitterly. “She’s certainly earned better than me.”
Eriond’s smile was sudden and bright. “But you’re the only reward she ever wanted. You wouldn’t take that away from her, would you?”
Anything Cyradis wanted was hers, for as long as Zakath lived. Of that, at least, he had no doubt at all. Even if he still couldn’t believe that she could possibly want to be near him, much less...everything else.
A baby. A little girl with his eyes, and, Zakath hoped, his wife’s lovely face. Cyradis never had told him the child’s name, but he knew that would be beautiful too.
Another innocent all too likely to be drawn into the murky politics that surrounded the Imperial throne. He couldn’t imagine why Cyradis would want him as her husband and the father of her children, if it wasn’t a matter of duty.
The garden door swung silently on well-oiled hinges, with only a soft click as it closed. Zakath looked back, startled, as Cyradis padded into the garden on bare feet, her white linen nightgown catching Eriond’s glow. The worry in her eyes twisted at his heart all over again. Then her chin went up in fierce decision, and for a breathless moment in the pale light Zakath could see Miria in her face. “Dost thou doubt my word?” she demanded.
“Of course not!” It came out sharper than he meant it, her words a slap on a wound already raw. He should never have doubted Miria, a long lifetime ago.
She glared. “What cause hast thou then to doubt my love?”
“The right answer here is, ‘Of course I know you love me,’” Eriond advised under his breath.
Really, the new God of Angarak had spent far too much time around Alorn humor, Zakath thought darkly. He took a long, painful breath, and said, “I know you love me.” He couldn’t do Miria the injustice of questioning that, ever again.
His wife smiled, and tucked herself warmly into his arm, where she fit like the missing part of his soul. “And well I know thy love for me,” she said. “There will be time enough for all else.”
“There will be if I have anything to say about it,” Eriond noted, and offered Cyradis a conspiratorial grin. “And I do.”
His wife had studied the future with the same detailed attention she had always given the past, and Eriond was obviously not above plotting with her. Zakath had spent decades making certain that no one dared tell him what to do, as far as possible. It really should have bothered him more that his life was being so carefully planned now.
Instead, thoughts of the future warmed him with a peculiar peace. He’d never really understood the word faith, but it was just possible, Zakath thought, that he had found it.
This is at the heart, and has no end.