In Severluna, the youngest son of King Arden IX tied on his apron deep
beneath the intersection of Severen Street and Calluna Way, and edged behind
the water bar of the ancient cave. The apron was striped blue and green, the
colors of water and moss, of the river goddess Calluna, from whose warm,
steamy, smelly fountainhead within the stones behind the prince, the infirm,
the depressed, and the curious had come for millennia to drink.
Prince Daimon picked up the sacred water pitcher, toasted the comely ticket-
taker who sat on a stool at the cave entrance. He began to fill the little
blue and green paper cups lined along the bar. The water, at least, was free.
The god Severen, whose river began in the great, jagged snowy peaks to the
east and crossed the land to merge with the Calluna and the bay, was
worshipped for the precious metals he carried in his waters. His shrines were
everywhere, even there at the holy birthplace of the goddess. His gold,
silver, and copper changed hands upstairs at the ticket window, the coffee
bar, and the ice-cream bar whose specialty was blueberry-pistachio in honor of
the goddess. Below, near the entrance to the sanctum, there was the small
prayer pool in which pleas to the goddess were accompanied by gifts of coins
and the occasional semiprecious stone. Despite the heat, the strong mineral
odors, the depths to which visitors must descend seeking the goddess in her
underworld beneath the streets, the domed and tiled antechamber seldom stayed
quiet long.
Raised voices on the stairs, a gabbling echo of high-pitched bird cries,
indicated a busload of young schoolchildren gamboling down the steps. Daimon
brought up more cups from underneath the bar as the first of them exploded
into view. A couple of tour guides from the upper regions divided them
expertly, took one group through the jagged stone opening into the ruins of
antiquity around the pool, while the others tasted the holy waters in the
cups. The children made the usual gagging noises after a sip of warm liquid
laced with lithium salts. Daimon showed them the spittoon-shaped vessel in
which to pour the dregs or spit the unswallowed mouthful, while their gimlet-
eyed chaperons watched.
“Skylar, either swallow or spit into the pot—don’t you dare spit that at
Sondra.”
Finally, the second group snaked through the narrow opening; for a moment,
there was peace under the dome.
Daimon took a mop to some spilled water on the mosaic floor, which had been
painstakingly repaired a century earlier after the streets had been laid down
above the river, and somebody got around to wondering where the goddess’s
cave had gone. One of the chaperons, who had lingered in the quiet, took a
second look at the young man behind the water bar.
“Prince Daimon!” she blurted. “What are you doing down here?”
“Serving the goddess,” he answered, and wrung the mop sponge into the
spittoon. He recognized the woman: Lady Clarice Hulte, whose elderly husband,
Sir Lidian Hulte, was one of the king’s knights. Her daughter, a plump, prim
little girl with pigtails, had dumped her water into the hair of an obnoxious
boy scrabbling for coins in the prayer pool, an action which the goddess, who
had issues with the greedy Severen, would surely have approved.
Lady Clarice, whose pale, protuberant eyes her daughter had inherited,
transferred her stare to the mop handle. “You’re a noble of the realm, not a
housemaid.”
“We choose the weapons that best serve the goddess,” Daimon said mildly. “I
was in my father’s service last week, putting his weapons to use. This week I
’m in the queen’s. She asked me to work in the shrine, learn the rituals of
the goddess.”
“But she is not your—” Lady Clarice began, addicted as she was to arguing
points of protocol. Then her mouth snapped shut; she flushed an interesting
shade of plum. Behind her, the ticket-taker caught her lips between her teeth
and stared raptly at the floor.
“Technically, no,” Daimon agreed. “The queen is not my mother, so I was not
dedicated at birth to the goddess. But I see no reason to displease either of
two such powerful women. Do you?”
A faint squeak came out of the ticket-taker, a similar sound out of Lady
Clarice. “I do beg your pardon—” she managed faintly.
Daimon shrugged a shoulder and began lining more cups along the bar. “What
for? Nobody cares. Even if I weren’t a bastard son of my father, I’d have to
outlive four siblings and their offspring before I could possibly be king of
anything. And when you consider—”
The ticket-taker straightened abruptly on her stool. “Oh, stop. Forgive him,
Lady Clarice; his true mother took one look at him when he was born and
dropped him on his head.”
Lady Clarice, stunned and swaying to stare at the ticket-taker, recognized the
youngest offspring of Queen Genevra and King Arden. She swallowed audibly.
Princess Perdita gave her a friendly smile, then shifted her gaze to frown at
her half brother.
“Shame, Daimon. Apologize to Lady Clarice for teasing her.”
“I am sorry for teasing you, Lady Clarice,” Daimon said amiably, turning a
spigot to refill the sacred water pitcher. In the silence before the water
began to flow, the distant voices of children deep within the cave echoed
incomprehensibly off the stones.