With a scarf wrapped around my face to conceal everything except my eyes, I clank my spider past fields and orchards and several deserted Efean villages before I come back into sight of the city walls. To the west, the East Saro army is kneeling, weapons thrown to the ground. They number in so many thousands, so packed together, that the fields they’ve trampled in their maneuvers lie invisible beneath them. From ground level I can’t even see the Garon and West Saro banners that must be flying west of them.
The King’s Gate to the city is open, guarded by ranks of soldiers. They cheer as I stamp into view, thinking I am one of the courageous spiders who had a hand in the stunning triumph over Nikonos.
I call out, hoping they will mistake my perfect Saroese and low voice for a Patron man’s since they can’t see my face and body.
“Where is the army assembling? What happened to the king?”
“The king and queen mean to make a victory procession down the Avenue of Triumphs. Victory to you and yours, brave spider!”
What a pang the praise twists through my heart.
I take the long path around the base of the King’s Hill past the Temple of Justice and reach an intersection with the Avenue of Triumphs right where it starts up its steepest incline. From here I can see up the avenue to the golden sea-phoenix gate of the king’s palace. Its stone wings unfold as if it is about to take flight across the city, reborn from the foam of the waves.
So many people line the avenue that I fear to push forward, afraid I might crush a child. I can’t help but notice that most of the people out celebrating are Saroese, not Efeans. This is a victory for Patrons, not for Commoners.
“Spider! Spider!” The onlookers call my Fives name not knowing it is really mine. They make way to let me through to the street, throwing flowers just as they would at the Fives court. I decide it makes sense to wait here for my father.
Triumphal horns announce the swinging open of the palace gates. Even given how long it took me to cross the countryside to get here, I’m still amazed a royal procession has been assembled in such haste. First march the proud horse guards, the king’s personal cavalry. Their splendid gold uniforms hang tattered and bloody. Some are wounded, with an arm in a sling or a leg wrapped in a stained bandage. They have deliberately left gaps in their ranks in tribute to the men who have fallen earlier today. Half their number is missing. It’s a grisly toll, and yet they shine.
This is the world my father loved and taught his girls to love. I can’t help it: my heart swells as they pass, seeing what he saw in these stalwart soldiers who nobly sacrifice their lives to protect the land they love. Many of the soldiers salute me with their whips.
Next come the royal heralds carrying the white sea-phoenix banners. The fanfare from their curved trumpets announces the royal carriage.
The cheers grow deafening. Flowers pelt the avenue.
King Kalliarkos sits alone in the royal carriage. Like all the processional carriages, it’s open, not enclosed, and shaded by a silk awning. He stares straight ahead, still wearing his field armor and gold-and-purple royal tabard and carrying his feathered lion helmet under one arm. He does not wave or smile. His stiff expression might as well be that of a statue despite the clamor of people calling his name over and over. He stares as into a chasm of horror that only he can see, all traces of easy lighthearted grace erased from his features.
The ecstatic cheers quiet abruptly as the carriage rolls on and the crowd sees what’s behind it.
In a grotesque imitation of a funeral procession, Nikonos’s corpse is tied to the royal carriage and is being dragged down the Avenue of Triumphs to the City of the Dead.
It’s so shocking, so impious, but death has always been the price we pay for our victories. I don’t mourn Nikonos. But I am horribly afraid for Kal. What if the nectar of power is starting to taste sweet to him?
Yet I must stick to the path I’ve chosen through these Rings. If I want to reach the victory tower I have to take the risk that I’m right about him, that he’s not completely lost.
As the next carriage rolls into view, this one escorted by firebird veterans, people recover their breath and cheer with renewed enthusiasm. There sits Father, looking as stern as ever, wearing polished leather armor and holding a gold-studded general’s whip but in no other way adorned with highborn spoils.
I think of Mother weeping tears of joy to see him honored with a general’s rank, on the last day our family was still together.
I think of what it means that Kalliarkos has placed him in the next carriage, ahead of the lords who ought to take precedence.
This is the opening I was hoping for, and I take it.
I swing in behind Father’s carriage. Of course he notices the movement. His gaze fixes on the dent that shows mine to be the spider he patrolled in for so many years. He’s had weeks stuck inside a besieged city to inventory his army and get news from the desert frontier via messenger pigeon. It’s possible he knows this squad went missing.
He taps his whip twice against the side of the carriage. An adjutant runs up, then darts forward to the infantry honor guard. The infantry adjust their marching order from four abreast to eight abreast so they fill up the avenue, making it a tiny bit harder for me to charge through and attack the king, if that is my goal. Father reaches under the bench and pulls out his sheathed short sword, which he sets on the cushion beside him.
The king’s carriage halts at the wide intersection where the processional way meets the Avenue of the Soldier. The slope of the land and the height of my spider give me a good view as a pair of closed carriages rolls up the Avenue of the Soldier from one of the western gates. Attendants wearing the gray of palace stewards swarm the forward carriage. When the door opens, a frail Princess Berenise is assisted into the royal carriage, where Kal greets her gravely. After her grandmother is settled, Meno? steps out, needing help to negotiate the steps because of her pregnancy. Her hair is braided into a beribboned fan studded with jeweled flowers. Her exquisite features appear serene as she acknowledges the crowd’s cheers by raising a golden fan.
She sees Nikonos.
She walks over and kicks the corpse in the face.