The Hidden Queen, page 12
I want to believe her, but by her own admission, this is a woman who makes plans that play out over decades, assisted by her prophecies. Am I being manipulated, even now?
“How did Chavis get your blood for a casting?” Inevera asks.
It’s information I could hold back, but proof of veracity will make the prophecy more valuable.
“The Nanji Watcher whom Micha killed in my bedchamber when I was four,” I watch Inevera closely, but there is no sign of surprise, “had a partner who escaped with a bandage from my scraped knee.”
“Tsst.” Inevera hisses at the latter half, which means she already knew about the Watcher Micha killed. Whoever Inevera’s spy in Hollow was, Favah or Micha or Mother herself, Inevera seems privy to all my secrets, even those the dice choose not to reveal.
“Not taken from your flesh by force,” Inevera notes. “The blood was untainted for prophecy, but you did not consent. Tribes have gone to war for less.”
“I wish no war with Majah,” I say. “Whatever blood debt they owed me was paid on alagai talons. When I am back in Hollow, I will open trade lines to them, and offer military aid, though I do not think Aleveran will accept my warriors in his lands.”
“Certainly not,” Inevera agrees. “What was Chavis’ prophecy?”
The question is surprisingly blunt. A seer asking for another’s prophecy is not forbidden, but it is…rude.
Still, the events have already come to pass—at least I believe they have—so I can think of no reason not to share the words with the Damajah now, save their value to her. I learned in Desert Spear that every boon of the Skull Throne comes at a price. I will not give this away for free.
“I want a prophecy in return.”
“Tsst.” Inevera’s hiss confirms the rudeness of asking for a prophecy. “I can pry the information from Belina’s lips. I do not need to pay for it.”
I cross my arms, giving her a wry smile. “Belina, I know. She will not give you the information without extracting a price. Better to pay me for her prophecies, and leave her with nothing to bargain with.”
Inevera smiles, noticing the emphasis I put on the plural. I feel I’ve passed another test. “What is it you seek?”
“The prophecy your daughter Amanvah cast in my birthing blood,” I say. “In exchange for Chavis’.”
“Your mother did not see fit to share it with you,” Invera notes. “Nor did Amanvah herself. It is not my prophecy to give.”
I roll my eyes. “I could say the same about Chavis’. Knowledge, once claimed, claims the learner in turn with the responsibility to protect, or to share.”
The words are from the Evejah’ting, the holy scriptures of Inevera’s order. A reminder I am not uninitiated in the rules she is attempting to dissemble.
Another smile, this one more predatory. “I have Amanvah’s dice pattern cemented in place. You are welcome to view them yourself, but I understand your studies in the Chamber of Shadows were…wanting.”
The words confirm my deepest fears about her invasion of my privacy, but they are freeing, too. Inevera knows who I was, perhaps, but not who I am.
“What could I find,” I don’t bother to hide my fading patience, “that you, Mother, and my sister did not?”
“Very well,” Inevera says. “Tell me.”
“The exact words, as Belina related them to me, were, The storms will end when the heir of Hollow joins blood with the Majah, and the princess stands in the eye,” I say.
Inevera grunts, absorbing the words.
“But the symbol for ‘princess’ is not gendered, or necessarily singular.” I can’t help but editorialize. “It could be ‘prince.’ ”
“Or ‘princes,’ ” Inevera notes.
This is why I cannot put faith in prophecy. Each symbol has enough meanings to make a foretelling say almost anything.
“Princes Chadan and Iraven were with me when we entered Alagai Ka’s greatward and faced him,” I say. “Selen is a princess of Hollow, and Micha of the Kaji. Even my spear brothers are known as Princes Unit.”
“But it was you, the Father of Evil fled before.” Inevera is watching me closely, no doubt looking to confirm whatever version of events Rojvah provided before this audience.
I shrug. “Perhaps.”
“Kneel with me, Olive vah Leesha.” Inevera rolls to her knees before a small casting table affixed to the floor. The surface is pure white marble with a raised edge.
I glance back to the crowded court, still kneeling. How long will they wait like that?
Forever, I realize. Or at least as long as the Damajah wishes to meet. It is a display of power that makes me uneasy, but it would not be wise to show it. Instead I move to the table. My father’s Jiwah Ka is already kneeling, and so there is no submission in kneeling across from her.
Inevera reaches into her hora pouch and produces her legendary dice. It is said they were carved from the bones of a demon prince, coated in precious electrum to protect their powers, even in brightest sun.
Inevera places one die on the table in front of me. “Sharum.”
She sets another, at a precise angle to the first. “Dama.”
I’ve seen this pattern before. “This is about my divided nature.”
Inevera pauses before setting the next die, raising an eyebrow. “Why say you so?”
I regret the interruption. Not only was it rude, but now it may bias what Inevera says next. But it’s too late to take it back.
“Another prophecy,” I say. There have been so many. “The next symbol will be domin.” The word means “two,” and Belina supposed it was the two lives I lived, raised first as a princess, then trained in military sharaj as a prince. But there was much about me Belina did not know.
Inevera places the next die. “Ka.”
I blink. The symbol for “one.”
“Sharum, Dama, Ka.” I may not be a seer, but I know enough to read that. “You think I am the Deliverer?”
This time Inevera seems less patient with the interruption. “Deliverers are made, not born, Princes. The alagai hora speak of potential. Of what may be, not what is.”
I may be the Deliverer? The idea feels ludicrous. Laughable. “So this is a common pattern?”
“I have seen it before.”
“Favah taught me to be truthful, but volunteer nothing,” I note.
Inevera smiles. “Favah is fond of that lesson.”
I hold my tongue while the Damajah sets the remainder of the dice with quick precision. This is a pattern she knows well. No doubt she and Mother have been studying it my entire life.
Favah often told me I would have been cast from the Chamber of Shadows for incompetence if I weren’t a princess. Still, much of what I learned by rote remains. I know the symbols on the faces of the alagai hora as well as the letters of the alphabet.
Moravan.
Simikar.
Ala.
My heart thumps as Inevera places the last die.
Irrajesh. Death.
Inevera watches closely as I stare at the dice, reminding me so much of Mother it sends a chill down my spine. Zahven, indeed. Every moment a test.
It’s powerful, to see at last the pattern that shaped my life. Mother has never shared it, but I know something in these dice made her decide to raise me as female.
There are seven dice, each with a different number of sides. Seventy-six faces in all, with one reserved on each for the ward of prophecy. The remaining sixty-nine faces have a large symbol at their center, and other, smaller ones at the edges.
The symbols are technically genderless, but in the Krasian language, words customarily default to male, unless the female ’ting suffix is added. One of the lesser sides of the eight-sided die has a Ting symbol. I take a moment to find it, and cast my eyes in the direction the die points. Its trajectory misses Irrajesh.
“Mother thought I would die, if not raised female,” I say.
Inevera clucks her tongue. “Perhaps Favah judged you too harshly.”
She brings a manicured nail to the Sharum die, gesturing to how it intersects Irrajesh directly. “Amanvah and your mother read this as he will die, if raised to the spear.”
“And you?” I ask.
Inevera shrugs. “Those raised to the spear tend not to die in their beds. Your death does not concern me. Only what you may accomplish before you walk the lonely path.”
Again, I wonder if I have judged Mother harshly for trying to guide me into a feminine role that never truly fit. What parent would willingly choose a path that would lead to their child’s early death?
“My concern is this.” Another flick of Inevera’s nail, pointing to the die showing Ala—the world—and how it intersects with Irrajesh and the other dice.
I may have impressed her early on with my dice reading, but this is too much for me. “What does it mean?”
“Death of Ala is another term for Sharak Ka,” Inevera says. Literally “the First War,” Sharak Ka is the holy war between humanity and demonkind. “It means taking up the spear put you on a path whereby your actions may bring us victory, or utter defeat.”
It feels like all the warmth leaves my body as I digest the words.
Then I take a breath and shake it off. “Again I must wonder at the point of all this. Mother did everything she could to keep me from the spear, and instead the spear came to me.”
“Perhaps that is what was needed, to forge you into steel,” Inevera says.
“That grouping,” I say. “Sharum, Dama, Ka. How many times have you seen it before?”
Inevera meets my eyes and does not hesitate. “Twice. In your father, and in Arlen am’Bales.”
The words are a punch to the gut. I expected a dozen at least, perhaps hundreds. Not…me and the two men everyone worships for saving the world.
“You are rare,” Inevera says, “and powerful. What was the other prophecy you spoke of?”
I make my face a blank, casting my thoughts into a fire in hope it will clear my aura.
“You must trust me, Princes,” Inevera says. “The Death of Ala concerns us all.”
“It is hard to trust, here in your place of power,” I say. “Surely you can understand.”
Inevera nods. “I have nothing to gain by hindering your return to Hollow, and your own seat of power. You are the leader the North needs if they are to raise their spears in time. We must seize every advantage if we are to win Sharak Ka.”
All my life, people—Mother in particular—have warned me not to trust the Damajah. The ale stories speak of a sorceress who seduces all with her beauty and leads them to her own ends. A manipulator who leaves you doing her will and thinking it was your idea all along.
Yet there are similar stories about Mother, and I know the real woman beneath them. The woman who gave everything to her people, and saved nothing for herself.
Can I do any less? If the demon king succeeds in hatching a new queen, it may well be the Death of Ala. What value have my secrets against that?
“Belina cast the dice before I was raised to the black,” I say.
“In blood freely given?” Inevera asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“Can you arrange the dice and show me?” Inevera flicks her fingers at the casting table a little too eagerly.
“I am not sure,” I admit. The casting was memorable, but it was many months ago.
“Try,” the Damajah urges, and I reach for the table, rotating Ka to Domin, and lifting the other dice, turning them over thoughtfully. I remember the face wards—air, sand, lightning, and mind—but their exact orientation, which brings the lesser symbols into play, is more difficult. It takes several minutes before I am at all confident.
“That is the best I can do,” I say. Inevera, who watched with cool detachment, leans in now, examining closely.
“A storm,” she reads. “With a prince of the abyss leading it.”
“That much, at least, came true,” I say.
“Perhaps,” Inevera says. “Or perhaps it has only just begun. I will consult Belina and consider this.”
She looks up at me. “What are your intentions toward my wayward Jiwah Sen? What gives your claim to Belina precedence over mine?”
“Did Belina lay hands on your royal person?” I ask. “Torture you? Throw you in a box and drag you halfway across the world? Did she cast you into the demon-infested Maze, with none but your blood enemies to set shields with?”
“She did not,” Inevera agrees. “And so I ask again what your intentions toward her are.”
“I have no intentions,” I admit. “I did not expect Aleveran to give her to me. I did not want her given to me. I do not want her now. But she has a debt to me, and it must be paid.”
Inevera nods. “Of course. Would you like her put to death after I am through…questioning her?”
The question is casual, as if putting a woman to death were no great thing. My response is anything but. “Creator, no!”
“Service, then?” Inevera says. “You will take her as a slave?”
“There are no slaves in Hollow.” I do not intend to growl, but that is how the words come out. Is this what it means to be a leader? To not care at all for the lives of those below me? Do I have the strength for it, if so?
“Then what, in your estimation, would pay this debt?”
Inevera’s question is fair, yet impossible to answer. How can I estimate the cost of my dignity? My body? My entire life?
Is there a cost, at all? Even if I could have that life back, I don’t want it anymore. If, as a direct result of Belina’s actions, I discovered my true self, and am left the better for it, am I owed a debt at all? Belina did not act out of malice. Like all these old witches, she was simply doing what she believed the dice were telling her to do.
“If Belina cannot repay her debt to you,” Inevera says, “perhaps she can pay one of your father’s.”
“Ay?” I ask. “And what debt is that?”
“Prince Asome betrayed the Majah while your father was in the abyss with Arlen am’Bales,” Inevera says. “I threw the dice the day they left, and the prophecy was clear. If the gates of the Desert Spear close behind the Majah, they will not open again without bloodshed.
“Your father had power enough to bring the Majah to heel at any time,” she continues. “He stayed his hand because it was not worth the price.”
“But now I have shed blood there.” Understanding dawns on me.
“Yes.” The word comes as a hiss. “The time to heal Krasia’s wound is now. I have a solution that will bring Desert Spear back to us in peace, but it will require Belina.”
“What solution?” I say.
“Think on this, while I…speak to Belina,” the Damajah says. “If we come to accord, I will share my plans, and you can decide for yourself.”
Again, I hear the Jongleurs’ tales of the Damajah. No doubt when she presents me with the choice, it will feel like no choice at all.
“And if I wish a casting of my own?” Inevera asks. “What price would Princes Olive ask in return?”
I cross my arms. “Trust.”
Inevera does not hide her frown. “What does that mean?”
“It means you have asked for trust again and again, but have given little in return. I will let you take seven drops of my blood, one for each die,” I see her eyes glitter at the words, “after you let me take seven drops of your own.”
Inevera leans back, and I wonder if anyone has ever had the audacity to make such a request of her before. “Why? You haven’t the skill to cast and read them alone. Do you even have alagai hora of your own?”
She leaves unsaid what we both know. The blood does not just aid in casting. It would allow me to target her with other, blunter, spells if I wished.
I simply shrug. “What I do with the blood will be up to me. That is the price of my trust.”
Inevera stares at me for a long time. “Very well. I will take three days to prepare my questions. We will exchange blood then, in trust and…sisterhood.”
No one dares a whisper while they kneel, waitin’ for the Damajah’s private audience to end. Quiet enough for most, but to me it’s still more than a hundred folk sighing and breathing and shifting their weight. A hundred heartbeats, resonating in the air.
All save the Pillow Throne, where the Damajah’s wards of silence have created a kind of bubble. Instead of passing through, sound skitters and bounces off its surface like rain on glass.
Arick keeps drumming his fingers as we wait, and wait, and wait. I close my eyes against the sights, breathe through my mouth to dull the smells. I focus all my touch into my fingers, feeling the strong protective grip of Selen’s callused hand, and Rojvah’s softer, smaller one, squeezing gentle support.
Then I filter out the sounds by focusing on Arick’s beat. I doubt Arick himself can hear his fingertips strike the cloth, but his timing is perfect. Soothing as Master Roller’s metronome. I wish I could take out my pipes and play along, but attention has finally drifted away from me. Last thing I want is to draw it back.
Slowly, I begin to feel like myself again.
How long have Olive and the Damajah been talking? Minutes? An hour? More? I’ve lost all sense of it. I know only that Arick has been tapping his fingers a very long time.
At last, I hear a whoosh as the Damajah deactivates her wards of silence and sound resumes its normal trajectory around the room. The curtains rise and everyone gets suddenly to their feet, leaving Selen and me scrambling to follow.
Amanvah is waiting at the bottom of the steps as Olive comes out of the pillows and descends from the dais. The curtains close behind her, and conversations resume around the room, over a hundred people all talking at once.
“The circus is concluded,” I hear Amanvah whisper to Olive. “You and the others will follow me to a private hall before one of our brothers takes it upon himself to answer your foolish challenge.” They walk purposely toward us, and we fall in line like ducklings as they pass. I’d follow anyone who gets me out of this room.
