“Yes.”
“I am sorry.” It was her fault. She had been unable to tame the boy, unable to protect her people, unable to make Saad cower. Sarra gritted her teeth. “It’s a fresh game of Coin.” She paced, glancing at the pool, the statues, wrinkling her nose. “Why is he trying to pick a fight so openly? On the last day of the year, why did he murder a priest on these same temple steps?”
“Maybe he wants us to retaliate. Think on it, Mother. Picture the conflict and how it might unfold: a pair of priests disappear, then a general is poisoned; three acolytes fall from a wall, then four officers die in a brothel. If we retaliate, if it looks like the priesthood is at war with the army, Saad will have his justification to act against us—if only to restore the peace. But if he attacks without provocation he risks the ire of the highborn families, or the emperor and his Ray.” Ott tapped at his palm feverishly.
“We’ll tread lightly then. I won’t give Saad cause to attack us.”
“He already has cause. He bid you not to return to Solus,” said Ott.
“I know—I was there when he did it. We must hope my performance in the Protector’s Tower will give him pause.”
“Doubtful,” he said.
“Doubt is all I have of late.”
“Do you still doubt the Soleri?” he asked, changing the subject. Behind the pool, golden statues of the twelve Soleri stood upon a plinth of black granite. Ott walked toward it. “It was a vision—seeing them in that circle and knowing that they are real, that they exist.”
“They did exist,” Sarra added. “Until someone snuffed out their light.”
“Was it the Anu family?” Ott offered. “Suten’s family benefited more than any other from the absence of the Soleri. They took control of the empire and held it until now.”
“No.” Sarra flattened her lips. “Suten’s family did not assault the Soleri. They concealed the emperor’s absence, sealed the Shroud Wall, and seized the empire for their family—I see that now, but they did not murder the twelve. In the Shambles, we saw stone turned to ash, the bodies of the twelve reduced to obsidian. Could the Anu family produce such fire, such heat—could anyone? No. The one who did this, whoever it was, wielded a strength as great as the Soleri—who else could kill a god?”
“I don’t know, but I’m eager for answers—aren’t you? Who murdered the twelve and why do they remain hidden?”
She had no answer for him and so she turned her back on the twelve and walked to the edge of the pool, the place where the Soleri first touched the desert floor. The water was now yellow. The spring was nearly empty. It had been years since anything much had bubbled forth from it. On most days, her priests had to add bucketful after bucketful of water to the pool, just to keep it from going dry.
“I had hoped that one day the amaranth would again blossom, but I fear it will not. The gods are gone and soon the last of their precious gift will be gone too. Someday soon after that, all of this”—she gestured to the sanctuary, to the city beyond—“will be gone. Saad senses this. He feels the end. That is why he is nervous—desperate to hold on to power, why he haunts our temple and steals our priests, why he seeks the Ray’s seat. He feels the desert closing in on Sola. Everywhere in the empire, it is felt. The drought, the wars. The scarcity of the amaranth. The failed eclipse. The outlanders swarm in the west. Barca marches in the south. For three thousand years the Soleri held back the sand and the wind and the sun, but that time is ending. The gods that held this empire together are dead,” she said, stepping away from the pool. “We must prepare for what comes next.”
41
Unseen and unheard, unable to leave his post, Arko Hark-Wadi paced in the shadows, prowling like a dog in a cage, one impatient for its supper. More ceremony, more tedium, he thought, swigging wine and watching the procession of highborn citizens through a screened window, one that hid all but his shadow from view. He did not see why he actually needed to be present for the ceremony when no one could really see him, but Wat had insisted that the ritual was vital to his new position—that he must regain what respect was lost during the ceremony in the Cenotaph. “If you do not attend,” Wat had said, “the priests and viziers will know. If they do not see your shadow through the veil, they will take offense. If you want to rule the empire, sir, you must demonstrate your understanding of the empire’s customs.”
Arko smirked. “Are you sure you’re not having me on, Wat? Making me sit through all this nonsense just to watch me squirm?”
Wat had almost smiled. “No, sir. It is simply an advantage of my position.”
So Arko prowled the dim chamber alone, only statuary for company—one female figure in each corner, arms raised, hands open, each balancing a disk upon her head that bore the weight of the ceiling above. Their faces were cloaked, hidden from view as they stood facing the emperor’s empty throne. Arko picked at the stone-carved shroud, tracing the folds that looked like cloth but were made of stone. Even the sculptures were not permitted to gaze upon the emperor’s face, the emperor who did not exist.