“I’m fine,” Ott spat blood as he spoke. At his side, Saad lay facedown on the stones, his chest unmoving, his body still. The priests who had acted as assassins were all dead, having drunk the poison they vowed to consume. Ott and Sarra were alone in the throne room of the Soleri. It was the second such chamber she had seen and it was no less glorious than the first.
She sat with her back to his, supporting her son. Through her robe she felt the steady beating of his heart, the expanding and contracting of his lungs. Her son was alive. That was all she needed to know. So she sat there in the dust and ash, taking in the great throne room of the Soleri.
“It must have been glorious,” Ott said, breaking the stillness.
Through centuries of dust and cobwebs she saw the empty throne, the unlit braziers, the many flower-topped columns, the empty pits where water had once splashed in pools. She saw the curious symbols of the forgotten script, the empty cups, the vacant chairs, the cracked pews. In the depths of the chamber, barely visible, she saw the vacant cages in the menagerie, the mats where men once kneeled and the drums that were once played to entertain the emperor. Burnt murals ornamented the walls, their once ornate patterns now charred and indecipherable. Above the walls sat arched ceilings, exquisitely curving vaults illuminated by jeweled mosaics, a wondrous filigree of palm and lotus motifs set in stones of agate and sapphire.
Sarra spoke, her voice hushed. “This”—she indicated the burnt throne—“has stood here for centuries, unseen and unknown. Doesn’t it make you wonder?”
“About?”
“How we got here. The map, that journey through the Shambles, and the bodies we found beneath the mountain. How did we do this? How did we unearth what no one else could find?”
“You think someone helped us?” Ott asked. He too was whispering. The sight of the chamber was likely just too much to absorb. Too much splendor covered in too much dust and ash. The calamity of the thing made one want to whisper.
“Perhaps,” she said.
“It makes some sense.”
Sarra grunted.
“Who? The priest from the Wyrre, Noll?”
“It’s just a hunch. He was the one who sent the first translations, the letters that led us to the grain silo and the chamber with the carvings. He found the map on the ceiling, and he translated it. And when we were in the Shambles, he was the one who pointed out the lights on the cliff, when I was ready to go home.”
Ott was still looking at the chamber, sighing as if it at all were one big mystery, which it was. “Curious.”
“It is curious—isn’t it?” she echoed, her eyes settling on the Amber Throne. “When this is done—when we’ve hidden what happened here and I’ve taken my place in the Antechamber of the Ray—we will need to learn more about the dead boy, Nollin Odine. There is a mystery there. I’m certain of it.”
61
The morning after the duel in the Chathair, Kepi woke with Dagrun at her side, his chest rising and falling, gray covers swaddling their naked bodies. She slipped from beneath his arm and sat at the edge of her bed, listening to the distant call of the kite. The floor was cold on her feet, the room dark, and the shutters drawn, leaving only cracks of light at the window’s edges. She stepped toward the light, padded across the floor, noticed Dagrun’s sword was gone, but gave no care. The servants were always coming and going, moving and removing clothes or furniture. That morning a servant had delivered a crock of amber and a platter topped with ripe blackberries. Half-asleep, she had seen Dagrun drink amber, then slip back beneath the wool covers.
Now Kepi swung open the shutters, but the light was too bright. She closed the wooden flaps, but not fully. The remaining light illuminated a gray patch of floor, her clothes and Dagrun’s tangled in a pile, left where they had tossed them the day before. Spilled amber had turned his tunic a ruddy brown. She stuck her toe in the syrupy spill.
Dagrun groaned in his sleep.
Kepi closed the shutters and slipped once more beneath the covers, the lambswool scratching her limbs, making her itch, but not unpleasantly. Dagrun embraced her from behind, the heat of him warming her skin as he wrapped his arms around her slender waist. Then he rolled her to her back and kissed her neck.
He raised her hips and took her until she cried out, gasping, little sounds of mixed pain and pleasure escaping her lips. With a groan, he finished and they lay again together, shoulder to shoulder in the darkness, hearts beating in the satisfied quiet.
Afterward, alone, naked in the darkness, Dagrun drank and ate, and they talked of the war and the warlords that were gathered not far away. At times they were quiet, neither one of them speaking.
“What is it?” she asked, sensing some hesitation on his part.
“There is news from Solus.” A messenger had arrived the night before. The long-delayed messages had at last come through. Her father was made Ray, but his tenure was short. Dagrun described the light on the mountain, the banquet in the Cenotaph, the trial by fire, and Arko’s passing. He told her what he knew.
Kepi listened. She waited, her smile flat, eyes distant. She showed no grief, though her heart held more than she could bear. She hoped her father was at peace. More than any man, the king of Harkana had longed for, but not found, peace in his life. Perhaps, she hoped, if he could not find solace in this world he might find it in another.
“I don’t know what to say … I thought he was dead. I…”
“It helps to talk,” he murmured, still groggy. “Tell me something about him.”
“He was a hunter,” she said, thinking, welcoming the distraction. “More than anything he loved to hunt. There is a place in Harkana, the Shambles, where all things are old, where even the rocks are shattered and the trees are broken. It is a morbid place, but my father loved it and I never knew why, never understood why he went there, why he hid from his duty and now he is gone, dead, and I will never know what made him love that place, why he hunted amidst the ruins of his father’s army, the crumbling towers and burrowing caves.”
“We can go there together,” Dagrun said, rubbing his forehead, looking pale, his eyes bloodshot.
“No.” Kepi wrapped the wool around her. She had mourned her father’s passing once and did not have the heart to do it again. His arms enveloped her and she lay there, trying not to think about the past.
The room was quiet, and the hall outside was quiet too, the pacing of the guard absent. Then—footsteps rang in the corridor, a cry, a thud, and the sound of something heavy dragging across the floor. The door was flung open. Kepi startled, drawing the covers around her naked body.
More commotion, footsteps, and Dagrun was off her. The door lurched closed. What’s happening? From her place on the bed, Kepi saw only darkness. She heard someone, a man’s voice—no, a boy’s—telling Dagrun to leave her alone, let her be. “You … you took her!” said the voice, and Kepi knew it was Seth. Seth had come in and seen them together. “Get away from her, you brute!”