Meno? has collapsed into Kal’s arms; she’s not weeping and she hasn’t fainted but she looks as if the world has given way beneath her, and it has. Kal’s gaze snags on mine. I shake my head. He can’t help us, not for this.
The curtain of the litter is being held open by an attendant so Princess Berenise can see. She’s not looking at me because I was never anything to her except a tool she could use to get Kal to do what she wanted. She’s looking at Gargaron.
“Ro! I need Princess Berenise’s litter. Now.”
Of course Kal’s gaze flashes to Ro, then back to me. Of course Ro leaps to obey, paying no attention to Kal.
The princess’s attendants refuse to move.
Kal orders, “Let them take the litter.”
Only then do the princess’s attendants assist her to get out. Firebird soldiers carry the litter to us. I rip down one of the curtains. We slide the cloth under Father and lift him onto the cushioned platform. Even jostled as he is, which must be agony, he makes not one sound, but his hand tightens on Mother’s fingers until tears start up from her eyes. She grits her teeth and lets him hold on as she stays by his side.
We walk in procession, leaving as we came, only there are fewer of us now: the baker’s youngest son and the woman he loves and two of his daughters, attended by some of the trusted veterans he led in war.
When we reach the Queen’s Garden I lead us to the overgrown thicket. The dented spider sits where I left it, dappled by sunlight beneath the foliage. We set down the litter, but Father’s hand has gone limp. His whole body is slack. At first I think he’s stopped breathing, that he’s dead, that it’s too late. But then Mother bends close to him, trembling as she brushes her mouth to his as in a kiss.
“He’s still alive.” She exhales her breath into him, as if her will can make it so. “Do it now, Maraya.”
With remarkable composure, Maraya says, “Hold his arms and legs.”
I do as she asks but I watch my mother’s face as Maraya casts the netting over our dying father, cracks his breastbone, and cuts out his heart. Mother ignores the grisly surgery. She looks only at his face as his eyes flutter open from the shock, and he sees her so close, just as it used to be, and he smiles.
32
Father’s spark leaps from the netting into the brass of the sleeping spider. The metal flares as brightly as if the sun has plunged from the heavens to inhabit it, and we all cover our eyes.
The glow fades. When I lower my hand the spider gleams with traces like the ghosts of heat lightning chasing shadows through its metal skin. Maraya’s hands are bloody yet she wears a look of peace. She neatly tucks the lifeless heart back into the red gaping wound in Father’s chest as she might put away a tool. After she rolls up the net and stuffs it into the bag, her gaze flashes up to meet mine with grief-stricken eyes. It scares me a little that she dared to try it, that she holds a terrifying capability in her hands, but then she smiles her comforting eldest-sister smile and I remember that after all she is Maraya, not a Saroese priest with the power of life and death over the land.
Mother cups her hands around Father’s face, now emptied of the spark that fuses the five souls together. His shadow is cut into patches by the heavy vegetation around us. Unbidden and unasked, the soldiers who served with him speak of his deeds, stories I haven’t heard, for he never boasted of his exploits. All he is to me is my father, who flew to Efea nourished by air and courage, who fell in love with a girl he met in the market, and who did his best.
When the witnesses fall silent, Mother sits back on her heels and wipes a smear of his blood onto richly embroidered silk.
“This palace curtain will be a fitting shroud, for he let ambition goad him into forgetting those he cherished most and yet in the end he turned aside to walk the righteous path.”
“A shroud?” I murmur. “Will he not be interred in a tomb?”
“He fought for Efea, so he will receive an Efean funeral.”
When the Saroese soldiers murmur discontentedly she rises to face them. All fall silent before her grief. We roll his body up in the bloody curtain and lay it on the cushions of the litter. Men of his Firebird Guard become his bearers and we his entourage. When I step away to climb up into the spider, Mother catches my arm. Her grasp is harsher than usual as she fights to keep a composed face.
“Please stay beside me, Jessamy. Another can be found.”
So another person takes the levers of Father’s spider to lead the procession as we head back to the Temple of Justice.
As we come out of the Queen’s Garden near the walls of the Lantern District we meet a seething crowd of Saroese who have set up a barrier to close off their residential neighborhood. They fall silent and let us pass, confused by our purpose and intimidated by the clanking spider. The gates of the Lantern District are guarded by Efean soldiers. They stare belligerently at our numbers, and one of their sergeants approaches us.
Even in shock Mother retains her wits. When she pulls on her butterfly mask, the sergeant touches hand to heart and lets us pass.
As we cross the lower slope of the King’s Hill back toward the temple, uniformed men wearing the firebird tabard come pelting down in squads from the King’s Hill above. They line the street and pound swords against shields in tribute to their commander. More spiders swing in before and behind us as we cross the Avenue of Triumphs, and so the Honored Custodian returns to the Temple of Justice as might any Saroese queen attended by a martial honor guard in a land imperiled by war.
She leans heavily on me as we ascend the steps and enter the temple hall. As strong as she is, without Maraya and me on either side of her holding her up, she would fall.
We move forward down the center aisle. I’m so numb that at first I don’t realize Kal keeps looking at me, trying to get a response. I shake my head just once but he must already know by the way Mother can’t even stand on her own.
When we reach the Honored Protector, Inarsis indicates that Mother should sit. I help her onto a stool and kneel, leaning against her for fear she may topple over. Yet despite everything she sits with back straight, like the queen she is.
The proceedings do not falter to accommodate our entrance. It is Saroese custom that once a trial begins it must end with a decision.
A Saroese priest finishes reading out loud from the extensive list of evidence that Maraya, Polodos, and their assistants have compiled from various documents.
“Documents may be altered or forged.” Gargaron stands at the railing, in the place allotted to the accused.
“For the eleventh time, my lord, you have not been given leave to speak,” says the High Priest in the tone of a man who knows his words will be ignored yet again.