“Tell me,” Maia said. “Can Chancellor Walraven truly be trusted? My heart is unsure. I feel . . . betrayed by him, yet I also believe he is on our side. I am sorely conflicted.”
“Of course you are,” Sabine said, patting her arm. “You have every reason to be distrustful. He is a senior member of the Victus. They are the ones who control the politics between the kingdoms. They scheme and plot amongst themselves to choose which kingdoms will go to war against each other and to provoke the outcome they desire. They broker the truces and arrange for the payment of ransoms and the murder of rivals. They are superstitiously hostile against the mastons, fearing any power that they cannot manipulate or control.
“You see, Maia, when the first ships returned, the Naestors laid a cunning trap. They welcomed the mastons as the rightful rulers of the land. They had learned a great deal from the artifacts left behind . . . and developed some small, distorted understanding of the rituals and customs. They revered knowledge and hoarded these artifacts, like the Leerings we passed when we left. The jewelry you were wearing, the necklaces and rings and bracelets. That was melted aurichalcum, Maia—the melted tomes from the ancient generations, fashioned by goldsmiths into jewelry. The Dochte Mandar believe that those jewels have great power because of what they were made from. But the power of the Medium is not transmitted that way.” She shook her head and chuckled.
“It was the intent of the Naestors all along,” Sabine continued, “to enslave the mastons. They suspected, because of the Earl of Dieyre’s writings, that they would return someday, and they feared losing the abandoned kingdoms they had claimed. When the mastons returned, they greeted them with celebrations and festivals and honors. The Naestors acceded the lands and abandoned cities to the mastons with the intent of re-creating the kingdoms of the past and restoring the fallen realms to their previous glory. You see, they lacked so much of the knowledge the mastons possessed—how to build, how to make music, how to restore the ruins that were left behind. Their only request was for their own religion—that of the Dochte Mandar—to remain among the populace, allowing the people to decide between it and the maston ways. The goal of the Dochte Mandar was to learn the crafts they did not know, corrupt the mastons through generosity, and then turn on the mastons and enslave them before the abbeys were finished. They suspected, and rightly so, that not all the mastons had returned. They began seeking Assinica, knowing it existed, and sent multiple expeditions into the sea from Naess to hunt for it. They were not willing to risk that the balance would be destroyed and the mastons would conquer them.”
Maia stared at her grandmother. It was difficult to keep up with so much information, but it meshed well with what she had learned in Lia’s tome and from her predictions of the future and with what Corriveaux had said to her.
“But according to Lia’s tome, your mother kept it secret,” Maia said, “that the Apse Veils were still closed. She knew that if the abbeys were rebuilt, not only would the doorway to Idumea open, but also the doorways that connected the various abbeys . . . including Assinica.”
“Exactly! The Dochte Mandar have efficient spies and can move information quickly between the kingdoms, but never as quickly as the mastons could move when the abbeys were fully functioning. They fear this most of all, that they will lose their power over the populace once the Veils open. They would rather destroy the abbeys again than relinquish the power and wealth they have accumulated. They are so desperate to prevent this, Maia, that they were willing to unleash the hetaera in order to stop it.” Her face was grave and serious. “I was able to persuade Chancellor Walraven of this finally. You see, I was at Muirwood when your father and mother’s marriage was on trial. I was there in secret, or your father would never have come. As the High Seer, I would never sanction the divorce.”