“Two decades ago, when Raden Saad and the armies of the Protector failed to hold back the San, it was you who sent their hordes scurrying back into the High Desert. You twice defeated their riders, while ours were forced to retreat. It was Raden’s defeat that led to the expansion of the outlanders in the first place. And if Amen Saad’s father could not hold back the hordes, surely the son cannot do any better. The house of Saad is unfit to rule, as is the Mother Priestess, who would only use the post to advance the interests of her cult. I’ve spent a great deal of time contemplating the matter. In a way, I’ve pondered this choice for your entire life.” The old man paused, his eyes were fixed on some inner distance, some memory. “I saw you once before, you know. Long ago, when you were only a child, during the second rebellion—the Children’s War. You must not have been older than four, sitting atop a horse at the head of your father’s soldiers as he rode out to meet Raden Saad on the battlefield.”
My father. The Children’s War. The second revolt. Suten was talking about the day Arko’s father stood against the empire and secured his freedom. On that day, after the battle, Raden Saad, the former Protector, had agreed with a handshake that Arko Hark-Wadi would still be owed to the emperor, but the empire would not collect him, not that day or any day after. Not until today.
“You were there?” Arko guessed the Ray was at least ten and twenty years when Koren met Raden in battle. “I never knew.”
“No one did. I rode along in disguise, as one of Raden’s guard. I wanted to see firsthand the man who would destroy the empire.” Again, the old man’s eyes went out of focus, as if they were probing some unseen depth, a place seen only in memory. “Your father was a strong man. I admired him for his courage, for his conviction in denying your entry into the Priory. He nearly destroyed his kingdom to protect his family.” Suten stood up straighter, stretching as if his limbs hurt him. “My own father did little to protect his. My only brothers were murdered as my father quibbled over power. Your father rode out with every man in Harkana to protect you. My father despised Koren for that act, but I feared him, feared what Koren would do. In turn I feared and punished you and your family. I sent your son to the Priory as soon as possible. I married the Harkan beauty to a man who would not appreciate her, a lord with no power or prestige. I wed your younger girl to that miserable little lordling in Feren. I thought it would ruin your alliance with the Ferens, and it did.”
“We have no need for an alliance with Feren,” Arko said.
“Some feel otherwise, our generals are among them. They fear the lower kingdoms.” Suten gave Arko an admiring glance, “Lately, I have come to see my fear as nothing more than jealousy. Your father loved you enough to wreck his kingdom for you, how could I not envy such a man?” Suten stood up straight and looked him in the eye. “We are all children of the Priory. Where others have succumbed, your line has tried to do what is right, in spite of everything I have done. You carry the blood of Koren Hark-Wadi—you have more strength than you guess. Stop mourning your setbacks in the old wars and use that strength. Think on this: Sola was not always an empire and its leaders were not always conquerors. The rulers of the Middle Kingdom were wise and compassionate men. You could restore the values they once instilled in our people. The empire is a tool; it can be used for good as well as evil. The men you despise, the ones who subjugated your kingdom, are mostly dead. I am one of the last and I choose to begin anew. You are that beginning.” Suten glanced one last time at the great throne room. “I am done here.”
“Where will you go?”
Suten smiled, his gaze distant. “To my vineyard in the Denna hills. It is quite lovely this time of year. I hear this year’s harvest is excellent.”
“And if I say no? If I refuse the position?” Arko had no interest in fulfilling this man’s designs, Devouring or not. Suten Anu had engineered the marriage of his youngest daughter to Roghan Frith and given his eldest to a man who could not love her, and when Ren was three years old, he had demanded Arko deliver him to the Priory. Some did not surrender their boys until they had reached a decade in age at least.
Arko had more than once pictured his hand on Suten’s throat. He had dreamed of taking back the Amber Throne of the Soleri. He could start now, he could take Suten’s life, expose the emperor’s absence—a good enough start to a revolt. He took an aggressive step toward the Ray.
Suten retreated but did not wince, and Arko guessed he was not the first king to menace the Ray. “You will not refuse. I offer you the Soleri Empire. Only a fool would refuse such an offer and you are no fool.”
Arko’s head was spinning. The world had no center anymore, and he—he would be First Ray of the Sun. By all rights, he was the emperor. Free to arrange the world as he saw fit. Was he really capable of such a thing? To decide who lived, who died, who received power and who had it taken away? Was this really where his life had brought him? He saw that it would be foolish to deny Suten’s request. No hatred he held for the man could overcome the appeal of what Suten offered. Arko Hark-Wadi would be the First Ray of the Sun.
But what of Suten?
Arko studied the aging Ray. A vineyard in the Denna hills was it? A peaceful retirement after a life spent in service to the empire?
Suten held out his hand and offered Arko the glowing citrine, the stone that had once rested on his own forehead. “Take this,” he said. Suten picked up Arko’s hand and placed the jewel in his palm.
It was heavier than he guessed. He tightened his fingers around the stone, his thoughts revisiting the grief Suten had thrust upon his family—Ren’s gaunt face, Merit’s bitterness, Kepi’s tattered dress.
There would be no vineyard and no peaceful retirement. Not for a man such as this.
Arko Hark-Wadi swung and in a single blow took the life of Suten Anu, First Ray of the Sun.
In death, Suten looked like any other man, old, withered, and afraid.
Arko pressed the jewel to his forehead. “A life for a life,” he said to the empty throne room. “You are correct, I do carry the blood of Koren Hark-Wadi. And my father was not a forgiving man.”
And thus would begin Arko Hark-Wadi’s stewardship of the empire, wrought in blood and light, marked by the cries of a dying man.
THE WAKING RITE
22
Sarra Amunet wore black on her first day in Desouk.
The sun had not bowed to the emperor. The crowds in the city of the Soleri had torn her surrogate from the wall. Mithra had shown his displeasure. As the Mother Priestess of the cult Sarra felt it necessary to acknowledge these indignities, so she went to the temple of Mithra at Desouk and told the Dawn Crier to leave the temple. Today the Mother Priestess would perform the duty of her lowest acolyte. As the morning light raked the temple columns, she sang to the statue of the sun god an ancient hymn, “The Song of Changes,” a sweet and simple tune about the sowing and growing of the amaranth. She didn’t much like singing or the recitation of prayers, she preferred her scrollwork, but she sang the song anyway. She needed her priests to believe that she had been saved by Mithra’s hand, so she walked the prayer circle, tracing a careful ring in the temple’s center.