“It’s nearly time for you to speak.” Wat interrupted his thoughts. He cautioned him, indicating the cup of wine with a slight wave of his finger, begging Arko to cease his drinking, but Arko ignored the old man.
The servants came to take the plates while the viziers and generals stood, soaked their hands, dried them, and waited for the next plate. Arko, head spinning wildly, turned to Wat, who shook his head and laughed. Was his unease that obvious? “Thank Mithra for the dimming fires,” Wat told him. “Otherwise all of Solus will know that you despise them as much as they’ve guessed.”
Arko laughed at that. Indeed, the room was nearly dark and Arko had had more than his fill of wine.
“Is something funny, Harkan?” a voice growled. “Do you find our ceremonies amusing?”
Arko leaned forward, but he could not see who had spoken—all the guests had the same unpleasant looks on their faces. Only Amen Saad set down his cup, wiping the dregs from his beard. He raised his eyes to Arko’s. “Not at all,” said the new Ray, pushing the plate aside. “I choose not to indulge myself while there is war in the kingdoms. A regent suffers the same hardships as his soldiers. That’s what a Harkan king would do and what a Ray ought to.”
“The customs of Harkana won’t hold here.”
“True,” Arko said, unexpectedly. “Those customs don’t hold here—they haven’t for some time—a deficiency our emperor has chosen to correct.” He said no more, but his implication was clear. Change had come to Solus, the Anu family was gone and a Harkan wore the Eye of the Sun. Surely more changes would follow.
The Father Protector opened his mouth to speak, but no words came forth. His uncle, Mered Saad, put a cautioning hand on his nephew’s shoulder. Saad bit his lip and turned to one of his generals and laughed at some joke he had probably not heard. The young commander was brash, crude, but still uncertain. He did not yet know what to make of this new Ray.
A finger tapped Arko’s shoulder. Wat, who had heard the whole exchange, leaned over to whisper, “The new Protector is still feeling threatened in his position. He takes every word as a slight.”
“Good,” Arko said, sipping his wine. “He should.” The room went quiet and for a moment all eyes were on Arko. He shrugged and took another drink.
When the next plate landed, the great brazier burning dimly, he realized the night had passed into day—the cycle was done. Before departing, the eunuchs served walnuts and fresh dates, raw honeycombs stacked on bright-green leaves, hard cakes of emmer and dried apricots mixed with red berries Arko had never seen before, small and tart. It was time for him to stand, to address the grandees of the feast, to show his strength to the men and women who would be his subjects. He motioned to rise, but when the doors opened, he paused, waiting for the final course to be served. The priestesses who had begun the meal carried in the final offering. The women arrived once more in long lines, this time their robes black as night. A cold evening wind flooded the Cenotaph. The same bright-eyed priestess he had noticed before placed another collar on his neck, this one woven with smoke grass, the marble-white flowers blooming in the late night air.
Arko smelled the smoke flower. The Elden Hunt. How long had it been? And now he was an old man, and all his mistakes still lay on his shoulders. But it did not have to be that way. This was another beginning, another rite of passage into a new and different life. He was the First Ray of the Sun, the right hand of the emperor. As good as emperor, in a world without a center. Time to stand, time to speak. He was going to address the drought, make them see their ceremony as the excess it was. This would be the first of many addresses, the seed of something larger. Arko moved the cup to his lips, but it was empty and he dropped it. He motioned to retrieve the cup, but faltered.
Darkness obscured his vision and he fell to the ground.
When Arko regained his sight and his wits, his head was spinning and Wat was gesturing to a servant, urging him to bring water. The boy set two cups on the table, then retreated. The music was gone, the girl had wandered out into the streets, and the murmur of the crowd had vanished. The room was cold, and a night wind whistled through the open doors. Arko saw the great table, the chairs, and a scattering of garlands, but no generals or priests, no Saad, no one but Wat and the servants of the Ray.
“What happened?” he asked, but his adviser’s shaking head and disapproving glances told Arko all he needed to know. “How long was I out?” the Ray asked.
“Long enough for the wellborn and wealthy to lose patience.” Wat tapped the table with a wrinkled finger, his eyes downcast. “Long enough to offend the men and women of our city.”
Arko stood up and sipped the water.
The drink was cold and it made his skin prickle. He felt sobriety return to him. There would be no speech, no opportunity to show his strength. Arko masked his disappointment with a hard cough and a grim smile. He stood straight and walked to the door. He kept his chin up as he exited, but his fingers were trembling.
39
“The San,” said Ott. “They’ve lit fire to the desert scrub.”
Sarra saw an orange glow against the black horizon, columns of gray-black smoke swirling in the air. She’d spent days tracing the old road and all she had found was an ashy corridor and a few abandoned towers. She still did not know what to think about the burnt-out chambers she had found below the first tower. Robbers might have lit the fires, but she doubted that was the case. The road concealed something of importance, she felt it, but she did not yet know its nature. So she continued onward, following the map, searching for the symbol at the end of the road, hoping it would lead to some discovery that would justify the journey.
As morning turned to afternoon, the burning desert scrub blocked out the sun, making it difficult to tell where they were going or how much daylight was left. They searched for landmarks, trying to stick to the old road, but they kept getting lost, taking a wrong turn at an old creek bed, a crack in the earth they mistook for a rut. They pushed on, but the trail grew fainter with each step. When the last traces of the path disappeared, they dismounted. The soldiers cleared rocks and pushed away tumbled boulders, but it was no use—the Amaran Road was lost.
Sarra forced the Harkans to reverse course, to scour their tracks, to see if the path branched or turned, if they had missed a fork or overlooked a trail. Hours passed, the light faded, but they found no trace of the road. The Harkans looked to Sarra, and she told them to halt their search while she considered her next move.
She turned to Ott for advice and found him sitting on a rock. He was bent over, back arched, head pressed awkwardly close to a hand-inked drawing. He turned as she approached, his face wrenched into an unfamiliar look—confusion, she guessed.
“What is it, Ott?”