“To the best of my knowledge no other recipient of the Ally’s blessing has undergone this particular trial. Some have been killed of course, assassinated or fallen in war, such is the nature of Volarian politics. But, once blessed, none have tried to exist without feeding.”
She opened her hand and let the hair fall to the floor, pausing a moment to flex her fingers in the shaft of sunlight, a faint smile on her lips. “Strangely, I find I don’t miss it at all. Mortality, as it transpires, has its compensations.”
A clattering of locks and the tramp of boots told of a visitor. I rose to regard the tall figure coming to a halt on the other side of the bars, an imposing fellow with handsome if somewhat weathered features and close-cropped hair that now had more white in it than grey. “Hevren,” I said, taking note of his uniform and the star embossed onto the centre of his breastplate, the crest of a Cohort Commander. “Promoted at last, I see.”
“Lord Verniers.” His tone was neutral, though his eyes betrayed a deep caution as they tracked from me to Fornella. “Who is she?”
“Fornella Av Entril Av Tokrev,” she said, getting to her feet. “Late of the Volarian Empire and now ambassadress on behalf of Queen Lyrna of the Unified Realm.”
Hevren returned his gaze to me. “Named a traitor and now you appear in company with a Volarian. I must say, my lord, I do begin to question your vaunted wisdom.”
Named a traitor . . . For all its falsehood the accusation still stung. All I have given, all the years of service, and this is my reward. “Might I know who has slandered me so?”
A spasm of anger flashed across his face and he stepped closer. “You are named traitor by Empress Emeren herself,” he grated. “And I therefore advise you to exercise great care over every word you speak.”
There was a time I would have retreated from such a man; these brutes always did make me excessively nervous. But it seemed constant exposure to their kind had dispelled much of my former timidity. They were just men after all, men who could kill, as could I. “The particulars of the charge?” I asked, meeting his gaze.
My absence of fear seemed to give him pause, his anger fading as he moved back. “All in due course, as dictated by law.” He paused, regarding me with grim reluctance. We had never harboured any affection for one another but there had always been a mutual respect of sorts, however grudgingly offered. “All you had to do was watch him die, Verniers,” he said. “Would it have been so hard?”
? ? ?
It’s said the Merchant Kings of the Far West possess palaces so vast they resemble cities, sprawling over many acres and housing innumerable servants. However, greatness is not measured only by size but also wealth, and I have never been able to conceive of any building that could outshine the Alpiran Imperial Palace in sheer architectural opulence. It stood atop a tall hill, its steep slopes rising from the broad waters of the Tamerin River, crowned with a building born of a time when modesty and restraint were not chief among Alpiran virtues. It was essentially a great six-pointed star of a building, the wings extending from a circular centre topped with a dome, and it was the dome, of course, that captured Fornella’s immediate attention.
“Do your Emperors like to blind their people?” she enquired, shielding her eyes. The midday sun was high overhead and the dome blazed bright enough to conceal its shape. I had always thought it best viewed at sunset, when the orange glow would play over the silver surface like a candle-flame, flickering towards extinction as night fell. Sometimes Seliesen and I would ride out beyond the walls, watching the spectacle from a hilltop. He said he had a poem in mind which might do justice to the sight, but if he wrote it, I never knew.