Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

Why do I let her do this to me? I’m not a child in my first century. Nor am I insignificant. I am—

“I’ve been appointed to tutor the prince,” Arion said.

“But not in the faith of our lord Ferrol, I take it,” her mother responded without looking away from the Door.

“Of course not, Mother. I’m Miralyith now. I have been for nearly a thousand years.”

“Oh, you’re right,” she said without a bit of surprise in her voice. Instead, a colorless, odorless poison coated her words.

“You know, most mothers would be proud to have a daughter rise to such an important position in the fane’s court.”

Nyree made a sound with her nose, less than a snort and more than a sniff but most certainly unfavorable. “If the fane were a devout member of the Umalyn tribe rather than a godless Miralyith, I’d agree.”

“We aren’t godless, Mother. At least no less so than the other tribes.”

“Oh, no? I’ve heard the rumors. Miralyith claim the Art has elevated them above everyone else. Some even declare themselves gods. I’ve never heard a member of any other tribe making such blasphemous claims.”

“The Rhunes believe the Instarya are gods. Why aren’t you complaining about them?”

“That’s different. The Rhunes aren’t Fhrey. They’re barely one step above rabbits. They see gods everywhere. The only Fhrey they’ve ever met are the Instarya, and I’ve never heard of anyone from that tribe claiming to be gods. I can’t say the same about the Miralyith. Besides, what a Rhune believes is of no consequence. I’m sure ants consider mice to be gods, too. Such notions don’t diminish Ferrol.”

“If you took the time to talk to a few Miralyith rather than basing assumptions on hearsay, you might discover any ideas of divinity are in the minority.”

“And are you in this minority?” Nyree asked.

“No.”

Nyree smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from her asica. “Well, I’m sure it won’t be long before you join their ranks, what with you becoming so important and all.”

“I don’t want to fight,” Arion said.

“Fight? Who’s fighting?” Nyree leaned back, folded her arms, and lifted her chin so that she was looking down her nose at the Door.

“I came here for a few moments of tranquil contemplation. Nothing more,” Nyree added.

Superior even to it, Arion thought.

They sat again in silence, and Arion wondered if she should leave. She hadn’t expected to meet her mother that morning, although she should have. All the Umalyn high priests and priestesses were in the city of Estramnadon to witness the coronation of the new fane, and her mother always took every opportunity to visit the Door. Given that Nyree was a morning person prone to early-dawn meditations, Arion could have calculated her mother’s Garden visit down to the minute, but she hadn’t. Nyree spent countless hours contemplating the disappointment otherwise known as her daughter, but Arion gave no thought to her mother. This stab of guilt prompted her to make one last attempt before departing.

“Is there nothing positive you wish to say to me?” Arion asked.

Nyree appeared surprised by the question. She didn’t look at Arion, but she no longer stared faithfully at the Door. Her sight fluttered across the ground while she thought. After a long moment, during which Arion’s heart sank with each passing second, Nyree nodded, straightened, and smiled. Arion suspected the grin wasn’t born from pride in her daughter but from the pleasure of beating a dare.

“I’m pleased to see you in the Garden. I wouldn’t have thought you came here. It’s good to find that despite turning away from your tribe to join the ranks of the new ruling class, you still revere the faith enough to contemplate the mysteries of the Door.”

As backhanded a compliment as it was, Arion simply nodded. She didn’t have the heart to tell her mother she had been cutting through the Garden because it was the shortest route to the palace.

Perhaps Nyree wished to leave her daughter on a positive note or wanted to quit while ahead, but whatever the reason, she stood up. “And I’ll leave you to do just that, as I wouldn’t wish to deprive you of what is certainly the high point of your day.”

“Will you be here again tomorrow?”

Nyree shook her head. “I’m only here to grant blessings on the new fane, which we did yesterday. We witnessed that ridiculous ceremony and watched as the new fane planted his exalted backside on the Forest Throne. Then we saw the whole city go insane in celebration. A bunch of your deranged Miralyith flooded Florella Plaza; did you know that?”

“Those were students, and they were trying to make a sculpture of Fane Lothian out of the waters of the Shinara River. They weren’t successful.”

“No, they weren’t, because success is only achieved through physical labor, faith in Ferrol, and determination of the spirit. I still pray that one day you’ll come to understand those truths.”

She walked away before Arion could say anything more, even goodbye. Arion lingered on the bench, watching her mother go.

I’ll never see her again. I wonder if she cares.

Neither Nyree nor Arion was young. Nyree was pushing twenty-five hundred, and Arion had recently turned two thousand. Fhrey rarely lived more than three thousand years. Since the previous fane had ruled for nearly twenty-six hundred years, and it had taken a coronation to bring Nyree into the city, both of them would likely be dead before another opportunity arose. Of course, Arion could visit her mother, but she saw no point in traveling for days to repeat this encounter.

Arion sighed, flopped against the back of the bench, and looked at the Door. She couldn’t help it; the thing was right across from her. She walked by the relic every day, but she hadn’t really looked at it in more than a century. Like her mother, it hadn’t changed.

Most people wondered what was on the other side, and Arion was no different. This unknowable truth was the reason for the benches. Fhrey would come to the Garden to sit and contemplate the transcendent world beyond.

Maybe it was guilt brought on by her mother or perhaps because she hadn’t done so in such a long time, but Arion closed her eyes, cleared her mind, and prayed.

—

“She’s wrong.”

Arion was pulled from her meditation when she heard the voice and opened her eyes. Sitting on the next bench over, a fellow in a dingy, brown robe leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring at the Door as people usually did, just as she had done.

“Success,” he continued, “is achieved most consistently through cruelty and deception. Determination of the spirit certainly helps, but faith in Ferrol is a currency as valuable as a pair of shoes two sizes too small.”

“It’s not polite to eavesdrop,” Arion replied. “That was a private conversation.”

Arion stood to go. She’d already lingered too long and might be late for her first instruction with the prince. The lad was only twenty-five years old and in desperate need of training in the ways of the Art. His previous instructors had been too lenient, leaving the prince with a woeful lack of skill. Before Fenelyus’s death she had asked Arion to take over her grandson’s education. He’ll rule one day, and I fear he will be a curse if something isn’t done, Arion’s mentor had said.

It had come as a surprise when the new fane agreed to honor his mother’s wishes. Arion had been convinced that Lothian disliked her and was jealous of his mother’s attention toward someone who wasn’t related. You should be more like Arion, Fenelyus used to say, oblivious to the insult to her son and unconcerned about the possible trouble it might cause Arion once Lothian assumed the throne. So far, the new fane had surprised her.

Arion took a step toward the palace, but the fellow spoke again. Pointing across from them, he said, “That Door can’t be opened. Ever try? You could cleave it with an ax, ram it with a tree, or set fire to its wood, and nothing would happen. Even a master of the Art can’t breach it. Such a small simple door, but all the power of nature is useless against it. So the question is, how did she do it?”