The Garden of Stones

chapter ELEVEN





“There is as much freedom as there is bondage in resolve.”—Kelumba, Zienni Scholar at the Inauguration Ceremony of Queen Neferi VII (461st Year of the Shrīanese Federation)


Day 317 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation


Mari wandered quietly through the near-monastic stillness of the Feyassin’s sanctuary, her Feyassin’s armor and weapons packed in their white enameled cases. Voices carried, always quiet, always in another room. No matter where she went, she was alone. No doubt her former comrades knew she was there. They would present themselves to her when they were ready.

She came to stand barefoot in the training arena under lengthening afternoon shadows. The white sand had been freshly raked. It was warm beneath her feet. Soft, welcome after two days of being locked in her rooms with a guard outside the door to ensure she went nowhere without her father’s knowledge. The warren of hidden corridors that riddled the walls of the villa had come in handy for her escape. For all her family knew, she was locked fuming in her room.

She clenched her toes in the sand. The sensation of the sun on her face, the sound of the breakers on the shore, made her smile. They reminded her of more innocent days. A gentle breeze flowed through the sun-bleached fretwork screens of the small training area in which she stood. Pennons snapped at the ends of tall poles. Gulls cried, seeming to hover motionless in the air over the endless advance and retreat of the small waves that lapped at the shore. The breeze smelled of scorched sand, brine, and dried seaweed. She felt perspiration trickle down her spine. Tiny prickles of moisture had sprung up across her shoulders and arms.

She knew she was taking a risk being here. Regardless of the outcome, she needed to face what she had done. In the privacy of her room, she had wept in her grief, had railed against and bruised herself in frustration. Guilt had welled up in her, leaving her breathless at times. How had she fallen so far, to betray a man who had done her nothing but good? It was something for which she did not think she could ever forgive herself. Nor would others.

The door to the training area opened and a dozen or so Feyassin emerged. They talked among themselves: the light banter, the easy laughter, the good-natured teasing of those who held each other’s lives in their hands. Mari attempted to smile at her friends, her only friends, though she felt the expression as little more than the halfhearted stretching of her lips. Uncomfortable under their gaze, she looked down to the cases that contained of her armor and amenesqa.

It had been one of the proudest days of her life when the Asrahn had given her the cases with his own hands. Her hearts lurched with the knowledge she would never wear what was within them again.

“What are you doing here, Mari?” Qamran’s hand tightened around his wooden training sword. Once her peer as a Knight-Major of the Feyassin, Qamran now wore the white-gold lotus insignia marking him as the new Knight-Colonel of the Feyassin. He looked down at the armor and weapon cases at Mari’s feet, then lifted his gaze to meet her own. “We’d hoped to see you again almost as much as we hoped you were dead.”

Mari felt her smile freeze. The Feyassin had spread out in a loose cordon between her and the door. She caught the fury in Mehran’s expression as he came to stand behind Qamran. The young warrior-poet she had assaulted at Iron Street Park leaned forward to whisper in Qamran’s ear. Whatever Mehran said made Qamran smile. “It would’ve been safer for you had somebody else returned our property to us.”

“It was something I had to do.”

“You’ve brought shame upon the Feyassin!” Mehran almost choked on his rage. “Since I was a child, I wanted nothing other than to defend the Asrahn and hopefully have jeshemûr, the glorious death at the hands of a gifted enemy. Now? We’re to be the Teshri Guard! Why? Because Asrahn-Vashne trusted a haughty—” Mehran stopped himself as years of training in sende took over. One did not insult those of the royal caste, no matter what they had said or done. The adolescent was too young to intellectualize the difference between Pah-Erebus fe Mariamejeh and Knight-Major Mariam of the Feyassin. One was a princess of the blood royal. The other, a career soldier who had betrayed her oath. It did not matter that the physical person was one and the same.

“I’m sorry for what happened,” Mari whispered.

“Sorry?” Qamran murmured as he threw his practice sword at the sand at Mari’s feet. Thick grains danced across her toes. “There’s only one way a Feyassin makes amends, and it’s not with words.”

“Am I still a Feyassin, Knight-Colonel Qamran?” Mari felt her hearts beat rapidly. Her mouth was dry. Her breath deep, slow, even. This was what she had come looking for. Redemption, however she could find it.

“I don’t know. Did you come here as a Feyassin or the Pah-Mariamejeh?”

Mari slid her toes under the practice blade. With a flick of her foot, she kicked the sword upward into her hand. She stretched her wrists and ankles in the few moments it took the others to pair up. They took positions around her, save Qamran, who leaned his back against the door.

“I came as a Feyassin, though I’ll not leave as one.”

“Of that there’s no doubt.”

The first pair of warriors leaped forward, battle shouts echoing from the walls.





Mari remembered finding a quiet place deep within herself. Though the pain would not go away—though she had felt the strikes to her body and limbs, the pain of impact in her wrists and feet, knees and elbows, her shoulders, as she had struck blow after blow while the sand became stained with rust—she had managed to find a quiet place. Her breathing had become her center. Time had become meaningless. According to the Sēq, all things existed in a single shared moment. Her moment was one of agony.

Had she walked from the training ground? She remembered Qamran’s expression, torn between admiration and contempt. There was a recollection of walking. A fugue haze of concentration. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. The color had faded from the world. Everything had been shades of gray or vivid white where the light played in contrast to the bottomless pitch of shadows. Her head had felt like it was filled with wool. She was uncertain when she had accepted the invitation to the warm velvet of unconsciousness.

Mari’s eyes cracked open. They felt gritty. Sore. As if she had been crying in her sleep. Vivid brightness shone through a patterned shutter. A butterfly-drake prowled the foliage of a potted weeping fig tree, its translucent wings half-furled against the iridescent bronze-yellow scales of its body.

She pressed her face deeper into the lavender-scented sheets. They were a rich cotton, soft against her skin. Her fingertips tingled. She felt the constriction of bandages about her torso, her right wrist, and shin. Mari felt the distant echo of a pain she knew should have been far worse than it was. She had been healed often enough by scholars to suspect what had happened. The questions were: How had she been brought to wherever she was, how long had she been there, and who had healed her?

Mari sat up. Tentatively at first, then with more confidence when there was no pain. She poured herself a goblet of water, quietly satisfied to see her hands did not shake.

A robe had been folded on the bed. Mari wrapped it around herself and padded across the plush rugs on the floor to open the door of her room.

The corridor outside was cool and quiet. Oil lanterns burned on small wrought-metal frames on the wall. The gleaming floorboards were bleached to a near white. Tall vases were spaced on narrow tables, the flowers carefully arranged in subdued colors. In the distance a clock chimed brightly, once for the half hour.

She came to a wide entryway, which led into a high-ceilinged room hung with lengths of pale-yellow and white silk, as if the room were actually a large marquee. One wall was dominated by stained-glass doors that had been opened to the sun-drenched garden beyond. A small stream flowed down a formation of worn red stone into a series of narrow ponds, where black swans drifted on the water’s mirrored surface. The perfume of lavender and gardenia drifted about her.

People were gathered on wide couches around a table of blue-green quartz. Ziaire sat at the far end of the table, exquisite in repose. Femensetri sat slumped in her chair, booted heels on the table, crook nestled up against one shoulder. Nazarafine leaned forward to pour herself tea from a large iron pot. She reminded Mari of a favored aunt, ample and red-cheeked. Siamak of the Family Bey, the marshland sayf with the muscles of a blacksmith, sat darkly tanned in his worn oranges and browns. The last person was a Tau-se male in a loose jerkin and kilt of plain felt. His long mane glittered with silver and gold fortune coins, while bracelets of gold and polished lapis beads encircled his wrists. His tail swished idly. Kembe, the High Patriarch of the Tau-se prides.

Ziaire caught sight of Mari and gestured for her to join them. There were a few moments of awkwardness as she took her place among some of the most influential names in Shrīan: names who had made no secret of their antipathy for the Great House of Erebus.

“Your Feyassin comrades bid you something less than a fond farewell,” Femensetri croaked. “Was your father such a gold-dipped bastard he ordered you back to them?”

“Setri!” Nazarafine admonished. The Speaker for the People poured a cup of tea, which Mari took gratefully. “I doubt Mariam appreciates you talking about her father.”

“Why?” The Stormbringer narrowed one opal eye at the Speaker.

“I’ll leave you to your discussions, so I won’t hear anything else sende requires me to shed blood for…” Mari rose from her chair. She swayed, light-headed.

“Nonsense!” Femensetri chuckled as she gestured to the chair. “I see you’ve not lost your spirit. That said, you’re still some way from defending anybody’s honor.”

Her limbs shook with the effort of standing. “How did I get here?”

Femensetri stretched her long legs. Mari noticed the deep cracks and seams in her old boots. “The Feyassin left you at the gates of the villa on the Huq am’a Zharsi yesterday afternoon. Your father had Belamandris bring you here, since your father’s healer was nowhere to be found. The Healer’s Gardens at the Hai-Ardin have no more room and most of the hospitals and surgeons’ rooms in Amnon are full. I healed you and kept you asleep until the worst was over. You’ll be weak and sore for a little while, though that’s something you’ve experienced before, I’d expect.”

“Where is here?”

Ziaire smiled at Mari. “You’re in Samyala, the Mansion of Paradise for the House of Pearl in Amnon. Your brother brought you here.”

“Is he here?” Mari asked.

“He was quite devoted, staying until Femensetri had healed the worst of your wounds.” Nazarafine cupped her tea in both her plump hands. “His Anlūki are now the Asrahn-Elect’s personal guard. He was called away to oversee your father’s safety. He left knowing you would recover nicely.”

“Sadly,” Kembe rumbled, “the same cannot be said of Vashne, or his family. As for Ariskander, who knows?”

“For which I’m as sorry as I am responsible. I don’t deserve your kindness in taking me in.” Mari’s felt her face flush with shame. She looked to Ziaire, who returned her gaze with a gentle smile.

“It was my pleasure to help,” Ziaire said.

“I should have died defending them,” Mari choked out.

“Truer words have rarely been spoken,” Siamak observed.

Mari inhaled sharply. She blinked rapidly to dispel the tears that marshaled at the corners of her eyes. Her hearts felt too large for her chest. Her face was warm. There was a hollowness, not quite pain yet not far off, in the pit of her stomach. She tried to master her breathing, making it calmer than the stammering in her lungs it had become.

“The burden isn’t yours alone, Mari.” Nazarafine reached out to rest her hand on Mari’s knee. The Speaker’s hand was surprisingly hot and dry against Mari’s skin. “We know you tried to intervene for Ariskander, Daniush, and Hamejin. We owe you our thanks for that.”

“If not for your part in luring Vashne to his death.” Femensetri leveled a baleful glare at Mari. The Scholar Marshal’s mindstone flickered with a dark corona. “While you didn’t hold the blade that killed Vashne, you might as well have murdered him yourself. And Ariskander? Your actions have delivered the one man who could replace Vashne right into Corajidin’s hands.”

Mari clutched the arms of her chair in an iron grip to steady her hands. “How did you know?”

“Somebody survived to tell their tale,” Kembe revealed in his velvety voice. “Though you did not harm, nor did you hinder. It is doubtful your father will permit you to be punished by the law as you deserve. He has been most…persuasive on your behalf since Vashne’s death. To hear him tell it, there was little you could do against the fictional rebels who assassinated the Asrahn. I am intrigued to hear your version of events.”

“Leave it be!” Ziaire’s voice held a surprising tone of command. She turned to Mari, her green eyes bright against olive skin. “Mari, did you agree with what your father intended to do?”

“What?” she asked. “No! I don’t think even my father wanted to do what he did.”

“But you knew he was going to murder Vashne?” Siamak snapped. “And abduct Ariskander?”

“Yes…” she whispered. She lifted her chin, prepared to accept their judgment. “I begged him not to, but—”

“Why did he do it?” Siamak asked.

“My father…” Mari began, then paused. How to say he thought he was the agent of destiny? Between Wolfram and his oracles, Yashamin’s ambition and Corajidin’s illness, her father was not entirely himself. “My father acted out of necessity.”

Kembe’s rumble betrayed his skepticism, if his features did not.

“To a degree,” Mari amended. She leveled a defiant gaze at the other guests. “Why are you asking me all this? You know what I’ve done.”

“I’ve watched you for a while now, Mari,” Ziaire said. “And I know what you did wasn’t something that sat easily on you. I also know what happened to you with the Feyassin and, I suspect, the guilt that drove you to seek out such a punishment. Are you saying, after all you’ve done to show contrition, that you don’t want the chance to set things right?”

Mari flushed under their appraisal. Hope buoyed as much as her guilt kept her grounded. “You can trust me. I need to…”

“We understand.” Ziaire nodded.

“I saw part of what was in your mind when I healed you, girl,” Femensetri said. “You were delirious and teetering on the Well of Souls. Your thoughts were pretty transparent to me. I know you’d do it differently another time round.”

“I would.” Mari nodded. Then with more certainty in her voice, “I will.”

“What are our options?” Siamak asked Femensetri, though he eyed Mari with uncertainty. “Can the Sēq act against Corajidin? Traditionally they’re still the keepers of the law. You’ve authority over the kherifes or any Arbiter’s Tribunal.”

Femensetri scowled. “If we were in Pashrea, certainly. In Shrīan? If only. There are few of us left and we’re under enough scrutiny. People still haven’t forgotten the Scholar Wars. Besides that, there are factions within the Sēq who no doubt support Corajidin and his actions.”

“We know Corajidin murdered Vashne.” Siamak rested his forge-burned hands on his knees. “Without a Jahirojin to legitimize his actions. To prosecute him we require evidence. Even with a witness there are no guarantees an Arbiter’s Tribunal will find Corajidin guilty. He has too much influence.”

“Vashne’s death was only the beginning,” Kembe growled. “Ariskander’s abduction has cleared the way for Corajidin’s ascension. We have all heard the stories of what is happening in the city. The violence, the oppression of those suspected of being in league with Far-ad-din. I receive petitions daily from people seeking the protection of my Tau-se warriors.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Siamak grinned, then sobered quickly. “There’ll be an exodus from Amnon unless something is done.”

“It will become little more than a barracks for the army.” Ziaire drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. “And Amnon will wither without its workers, artisans, and merchants.”

Mari listened as the others spoke of their options. Where were Ariskander and Daniush being held? Was it possible to oppose or depose Corajidin? What were their chances of disbanding the armies now? Were they prepared for a civil war? With Vashne and Ariskander gone, what action would the Iron League, or the neutral nations, take against a monarch who for years had publicly denounced all things non-Avān? Mari took a deep breath. No doubt her Ancestors would judge her sooner or later for what she was about to do.

“Mari”—Femensetri leaned forward, opal eyes fierce—“we need to stop what’s happening in Amnon. We’ve the Imperialists who want to close our borders to any influence that isn’t Avān. The Federationists want to strengthen our ties with the Empress-in-Shadows, as well as to make peace with the Iron League. Shrīan balances on a knife edge and she is vulnerable, no matter what side she comes down on.”

“The House of Pearl has been in talks with Kemenchromis, the Empress-in-Shadows’s rajir, for months now.” Ziaire adjusted the silken pleats of her kilt, then inspected the stitching on the curled-up toes of her high boots. When she spoke next, it was almost as an afterthought. “The Empress-in-Shadows cares more about what happens here than the Imperialists comprehend.”

“Kemenchromis?” Mari stopped her jaw from opening in surprise. Kemenchromis was Femensetri’s twin brother. He had been one of the Empress-in-Shadows’s advisers, alongside Sedefke. As rajir, he was the empress’s Lore Master and one of the most influential voices in the Sussain. Being an immortal prior to the empress’s heresy, Kemenchromis had not been changed when the empress called upon Īa to preserve her people during the Human rebellion. Where Femensetri was the Stormbringer, her twin had been named the Skybreaker, equally as powerful and brilliant as his sister.

“We’ve also sent envoys to High Palatine Navaar of Oragon.” Nazarafine stood to stand beside the window. Mari followed her gaze to where gorgeous women and men in short pearl-gray tunics knelt, meditating, on the sculpted lawn. Each one had a curved wooden knife at their knees. An older woman knelt in front of the group, her mouth moving, though Mari could not make out the words. At a clap of her hands, the students stood, paired off, then began the slow, stylized moves of the complex knife dances. “Like the empress, Navaar has been content to watch and wait. As our neighbor, his position might change if Corajidin becomes Asrahn of Shrīan.”

Navaar, a half-breed Avān, was a mercenary commander of common birth. He and his Silver Company of elite cavalry had served in the Conflicted Cities in Tanis, then as a unit of heavy horse for the Serpent Princes of Kaylish against the corsairs of the Ebony Coast. He had been called home to his home country of Ygran to support the ruling family in a civil war. However, when the fighting stopped, the royal family was all but destroyed. The aging Prince Cervanto had adopted Navaar as his heir and left him his legacy of a nation of racial tolerance. In the past decade, Navaar had wrestled his nation into a state of peace, though he still commanded a large, experienced, and blooded army.

“My father and the Imperialists will like an alliance with Ygran even less than one with the old empire,” Mari muttered. She thought of Kasra and his belief that he had unearthed a Torque Spindle in the Rōmarq. If Corajidin could make his own soldiers, what would he do if he was cornered? “My father believes Shrīan can be made strong enough to resist any enemy. You need to convince him—”

“Your father is wrong about a great many things.” Kembe’s deep voice was like the echo of an avalanche. “Corajidin needs to be stopped. Permanently.”

Mari recoiled from the massive Tau-se monarch. “I love my father. Misguided as he may be, I’ll not help you kill him.”

“We don’t want to kill him, Mari,” Femensetri countered. “There’s been enough death already. We want to stop him from making corpses of us all.”

“You don’t understand what motivates him…the desperation that drives him beyond where most others would falter.” With each word she felt the floodgates open. Each word a step further away from any redemption she might have with her father, for he would not appreciate her betrayal of his secrets. “He’s had his political aspirations since my grandfather died, but his current state only makes things more immediate. My father is losing his mastery of his Awakening.”

“Why hasn’t he said anything?” Nazarafine gasped.

“Once a rahn has lost mastery over their Awakening, it’s the beginning of a long descent into agonizing death.” Femensetri chewed on a ragged fingernail. She spat a fragment onto the floor, at which Ziaire cursed quietly. “I’ve seen it before. Similar things happen to scholars and witches. As for Corajidin? The ahm, the disentropy all living things produce, will become like venom coursing through his veins, corrupting everything. Mari, how long has this been happening?”

“Almost a year now…” She was not certain. Her father might well have suffered longer without telling anybody. Mari had always expected he would be cured, yet to hear Femensetri’s words she feared otherwise. “I know it’s why he and Kasra spent months searching for Erebus’s diaries. It’s what drives his obsession with Sedefke’s lost works, which he believes are hidden in the ruins of the Rōmarq. He’ll do anything to find a solution to what’s killing him. He sees himself as the instrument of destiny, his head filled with the words of Wolfram’s oracles.”

“Oracles?” Femensetri’s expression was sour. “Fakirs preying on the desperate. But it’s impossible for the effect to come before the cause. Wolfram’s oracles can’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Unless they’ve experienced the effects of tomorrow,” Ziaire argued. “They simply plot the causality you Sēq love so much as a string of effects, then theorize the causes. Even the Sēq have admitted the Time Masters could travel through time.”

“Hypothesized.” Femensetri shook her head. “Never admitted. Truth is we’ve no idea what the Rōm could or couldn’t do.”

Mari leaned forward in her chair. “But does that mean Wolfram—”

“Wolfram’s reckless, dealing with powers better left alone.” Femensetri lanced Mari with a look. “I’ve created a Possibility Tree of my own. Given what you’ve told me, your father’s involvement in Ariskander’s disappearance takes on new meaning—”

“The Näsarats have unbroken knowledge of Awakening, from the first of the Scholar Kings to now. Why do you think he wants Ariskander in his possession?”

“To steal the most ancient knowledge of the Awakening process?” Femensetri’s lip curled in revulsion.

“How does he expect to have allies”—disgust was etched on Siamak’s face—“if he’s willing to betray his peers and his people?”

“I fear for my father, as much as I love him.” Mari looked the others in the eye, one by one. “I also fear more will suffer unless he’s persuaded to stop. If you’re willing to help him, I’m willing to help you.”