In a far-off niche, a girl sang a hymn. “The Song of Days,” Wat called it. It accompanied the meal and was sung from sunrise to sunset. Beautiful but pointless, Arko thought, his mind starting to turn hazy from the alcohol. Like everything else in Solus.
As the girl crooned and the dome faded from darkness to light, the Feast of the Ray would be served in twelve courses, spanning from sunrise to sunset, so that all who attended could observe this cycle of the sun and stars. “Like some damned torture session,” Arko had moaned, but Wat had turned up his nose and said he hoped not. At the cycle’s end, Arko would perform his first public duty as Ray: a simple address thanking the gods, the emperor, and the highborn citizens in attendance. Arko was looking forward to his address. He wanted to show the gathered priests and viziers, dressed in their colorful silks and muslin wraps, how a man from the lower kingdoms spoke, how a king from a rebel land commanded his subjects.
A bell announced the start of the feast.
Wat stepped down from his seat and raised his hands. The doors opened at the far end of the hall, admitting priestesses in white robes, their arms filled high with greenery. They came first with bundles of palm leaves, then rushes wrapped in date twine and poppies. They laid out strings of vine woven with golden safflower, wreaths of acacia, and heaping olive-leaf bouquets that overfilled the table. In a tribute to the kingdom of Harkana, they had woven garlands of willow leaves over gnarled ram’s horns and hung the bony festoons among the wreaths.
A priest brought out a horned glass and filled it with date wine.
Arko downed it in one long gulp, then signaled for another. It wasn’t the good, strong amber of Harkana or even the sweet wine of the southern islands, but he could get used to it.
While the priestesses adorned the walls with garlands of cornflower and softy polished beads of carnelian, Arko again emptied his cup and asked for another. The women lit dim fires. The stars above burned brightly in their mock nighttime display, adding glimmer to the beads and dressings. The priestesses carried deep-blue faience bowls and poured water to the vessels’ rims. The white-robed women placed a bowl at each setting and gestured for the dignitary to rinse.
Arko gulped another cup of wine.
A tall priestess with fiery eyes caught Arko’s gaze as she laid a floral collar over his head. The smell was overpowering, but Arko saw only the woman in front of him. Something in her eyes reminded him of his wife. He hadn’t seen Sarra in a decade, but he knew she came often to Solus. He realized he had been expecting to meet her at nearly every moment since he had been named Ray. He murmured to Wat, “Where is the Mother Priestess, Sarra Amunet? Is she in the city?”
Wat shook his head. She had gone to Desouk, he said, after the Devouring, and no one knew when she might return. He told Arko what transpired on the last day of the year, how some said the crowds had torn the Mother from the wall, while others said the pilgrims had shielded the Mother from the rioting. Sarra herself had sent news to Solus telling her followers that she had emerged unscathed from the riots.
“A hoax then, that was not Sarra Amunet on the wall,” said Arko, dismissing the story with a wave of his hand. A shocked look crossed Wat’s face, but the man gave no reply. Perhaps he felt Arko’s accusation was sacrilege, but Arko didn’t care. He knew the woman well and understood how her mind worked. “Tell me when you hear that she’s returned to Solus. She is … unpredictable, remember that.” Arko touched the white stone at his neck. He thought of his childhood, the time before he was king, before he truly understood the concessions his kingdom had made to keep him out of the Priory, before he felt the weight of his position, of his father’s decisions. He remembered his tutor, Magnus, and the girl his tutor brought with him from the Wyrre. Arko stroked the white stone and breathed a little deeper.
Wat rumpled his lip, a sign of disapproval, but Arko paid him no attention. His thoughts were on Sarra. A confrontation with his wife was inevitable. If he knew her like he once did, he guessed she would seek him out when she returned to Solus, and he wanted to make certain he was ready. Arko emptied his cup in a single draught and pushed aside his plate.
“Did Suten Anu go through all this misery,” Arko asked Wat, “when he was made Ray?”
“He did and he saw to the details himself,” Wat replied with a faint smile.
More dishes arrived—candied citrons and cherries, cakes of dried dates and figs. In the gap between plates, Arko insisted Wat speak to him. His mind was on his family. “Have my letters,” he said in Wat’s ear, “reached Harkana yet?”
Wat replied that it was too soon, that in another day or two, word would come.
“I hope so,” he said. “It’s not like my daughter not to answer.” Merit would know what to do, he knew. He hoped she would visit Sola as he had requested. “One more thing. My good friend and captain, Asher Hacal, accompanied me to Harwen. The soldiers sent him home, but he stayed outside the city walls, said he’d camp there till I was gone. Can you search for the man, see if his tent still sits outside the wall?”
Wat agreed, motioned for a page, murmured in the boy’s ear, then sent him away.
When they cleared the plates, the last pinhole of light faded from the dome and a eunuch lit the mighty brazier at the center of the Cenotaph. The room came alive with dancing flame. The girl who sang “The Song of Days” emerged from her niche to wander the dark chamber, humming her tune, hearing the words echo across the dome.
To an appreciative roar of the crowd more men carried immense beasts—the horned oryx and addax, roasted whole on a spit—into the chamber to be sliced and served. They brought slabs of wild oxen and cakes of black pudding, reminiscent of a Harkan favorite Arko had loved as a child. The black and bloody dish brought back memories of his father, of the war he had fought with this very empire, with the Ray of the Sun.
Such power in my hands now, Arko thought. I shall reshape the empire. I will ease the tributes and end the practice of sending ransoms to the Priory. Arko swore that there would be no more marriages blessed by Tolemy, and no more slaves across the empire, that all citizens would be free men and women as in Harkana.
Arko had asked for a gathering of the highborn families, a congress with the viziers, as well as a meeting with the Protector, but Wat had told him to wait. The city was on holiday due to his ascension as Ray. There would be no meetings, and when the holiday was over a series of rites and initiations must be observed before he could hold office. Arko had grumbled loudly. The position was all ceremony—he yearned for action.