Though it’s broad daylight, each line of mourners carries braziers billowing forth with smoke. The water-soaked wood of the white-garbed mourners produces thick clouds of white smoke, while the sooty coal of the black-garbed mourners belches out bulky, black plumes.
Nazar’s voice soars high above the procession, a melody weaving around us.
We are born in the Light, and we die in the Light.
I listen to the hypnotic cadence of his words, following along as best as I can. The path we tread in between those two exalted states is never fully without the Light, but it’s also hung with darkness. Those who learn how to balance both will gain treasures without seeking—at least if Nazar is to be believed. How he’s remembered such songs after so many years in the Protectorate, I have no idea, but his voice is loud and clear, reaching all the way up the line to me.
I long to turn around to see the impressive sight of the light and the dark, to be anywhere but here, actually. Instead, I keep my eyes respectfully and stoically on the backs of the two men who have done so much for the Protectorate, according to all who have been told the tale—Fortiss and the head of the Imperial delegation.
It is the only way, Talia.
I sharpen my eyes on Fortiss’s back. Since he wrenched Rihad’s crown from his head and placed it on his own, our thoughts have been a hopeless tangle of connection, impossible to separate. But at least the answers I so desperately sought have finally come to me. My crown, Ehlyn’s crown, was cast into darkness and sank into the rock of the Western Realms forcenturies. It’s battle hardened and true, and its edges are far rougher than the beautiful, pristine circlet that Rihad claimed for his own, handed down for centuries since Mirador gifted it to the First House at the dawn of the Protectorate.
Though both crowns remain safely in my satchel, their characteristics are echoed in the two warriors who have now claimed them. I am hardened and bitter, rough in my disavowal of the pomp of this ridiculous funeral procession. Fortiss, however, carries himself like the true leader he is…shiny and bright, but also far more polished in the deception of this day than I will ever be.
It’s a lie, I remind him harshly, hating every plodding step of this false procession.The way of the warrior is truth.
No. It is strategy. And with this strategy, we secure all that we honor in the Protectorate.
I accept his assessment mulishly, my lips turning down at the corners, though I know he’s not wrong. And, for all our differences, I also realize anew how we balance each other perfectly—my rough edges against his polish, my impulsiveness against his strategy. Where I would burn bridges, he builds them; where he might hesitate, I charge ahead. Together, maybe we can make something stronger than either of us could alone.
We continue along the path for another full hour at this stately pace until we reach the coliseum. We ride into the fabled space, and even I can’t stop my gasp of surprise and admiration. There, where barely a day before bodies of warriors and carcasses of snakes littered the ground, the space has been transformed.
A sea of silken carpets has been rolled out in a luxurious, overlapping blanket, leaving only a wide corridor for our procession, until, about a quarter of the way into the great space, the great warrior’s pyre awaits Rihad. Scattered across the carpets, some standing, some sitting, some weeping, somestaring with wide-eyed interest, are the residents of Trilion, as well as many spectators from farther afield, I suspect. To gain entry in this space and to the feast that will follow in Trilion, all they had to do was give their names and troth to follow the lead of Fortiss, the new lord protector.
The pageant continues, and Nazar announces to all who will listen the tale of the First House’s glorious defense of the realm.
Rihad was a testament to the Protectorate and the Imperium, Fortiss his rightful successor. Both contributed equally to protecting the First House and, by extension, all of the Protectorate from the loathsome threat of the twisted powers of the Western Realms. At Rihad’s tragic death, the transfer of power between him and his beloved nephew was peaceful and blessed by the Light.
Nothing to look at here.
A chorus of singers finally lapse into silence as we reach the great pyre. We draw our horses to the side, but only Fortiss dismounts to accompany the bearers of Rihad’s heavily wrapped and draped body to the pyre. Together, he and Nazar shoulder the body of Rihad alongside the other carriers. They mount the pyre, then lay the body to rest atop it.
Idly, I wonder what poor structure had been sacrificed to provide the great stack of wood, and I catch Fortiss’s dark mutter as the thought slips through my mind.
Look closer.
Frowning, I edge my horse slightly to the side to see past my father, and blink. Behind the thinnest layer of stacked wood, the interior of the pyre is filled with snake carcasses.
“Fitting, I should think, that he burn with the darkness he cultivated.” I stiffen as my father angles his horse back to be even with mine, his gaze also resting on the snake carcasses as he speaks his words in low tones that only I can here. He glances over to me, and I see in his eyes a weariness I’d never markedbefore. “I should have died too in that battle. Deservedly so. And yet, you not only spared me, you…”
He tightens his mouth, looking away as his eyes shine mirror bright. Then he turns back to glare at me. “Why?” he asks tightly. “I gave you no reason to treat me so fairly. I gave you no grace or compassion, not once. Why did you trust me?”
I hold his gaze steadily, my own heart thudding, as a faraway hooting call sounds deep in my mind—a call of pure, undiluted joy. “Because you gave me Gent,” I say simply. “He would never have been mine if he had not been yours, first.”
We stare a moment longer, and a tear does slip from his eye then—maybe mine too. Neither of us wipes it away.
“Today we send a warrior into the Light!”
Fortiss’s shout echoes off the walls of the coliseum, and I jerk my glance up again as the attendants descend the pyre, leaving only Fortiss and Nazar atop it. They both lift their arms high as a chant lifts all around me, so loud it seems to shake the walls.
“To the Light! To the Light!”
I watch as they both heft the braziers of white-and-black smoke and pull lit tapers out—setting the platform around Rihad aflame. They step back as the fire licks and curls around the structure, then move with stately grace down the stairs as the fire gains momentum. The cheering continues around them, lusty and full-throated, and I finally get my horse angled enough to see the faces of the Imperial delegates as they watch the conflagration.
They look…satisfied, I think.
Satisfied is good. They will carry this story back to the Imperium and hopefully never return—or at least not for generations to come. That is enough, this day. Because all I want is to stay here in the Protectorate—with Fortiss, our people…and my beautiful, powerful goliath, who even now is singing far awayin the Blessed Plane, so close but still so far away. I haven’t dared to summon him directly yet, but…I can, I think. I can. I will.
