Rodian didn’t want to leave the valley he’d grown up in, didn’t want to never see the midnight sun again.
But the fjord and its town was no longer his road.
“As the Midnight Star wills it,” Rodian rasped, breathing in the crisp scent of the valley, knowing he’d never find the peace he’d lived with in his once simple life ever again.
Two
ARKADI
Matriskav, the capital city of Urova, the most northern country on Maricol, was decked out for a muted celebration behind the tall city walls that kept revenants at bay. At any other point in the country’s history, the streets would be filled with laughter and music, buoyed by an atmosphere of excitement for a splendid coronation. In the aftermath of war, where Urova’s forced surrender was ordered by their neighbors to the south, coming to terms with a new political reality for its citizens wasn’t exactly easy.
It didn’t help that the old Isar, the country’s ruler, had been murdered by arionetkaat the behest of a so-called ally. So too had many other men and women who had held power in Urova’s royal court, peerage, and military. The decimation of ruling ranks was seen by all the other countries on Maricol as a fitting punishment for the Isar’s choice to aid Daijal in invading Ashion and E’ridia.
Now, the country was adrift, a political pariah, and the land outside every walled city and town was wretchedly overrun byrevenants. Of the tens of thousands who had died in the war to the south, many had risen as the walking dead, overrunning the poison fields of every country. The wardens, those neutral people tasked with cleansing Maricol’s poison fields and eradicating revenants, had been decimated by a surprise attack during the war. Their recovery would take generations, and part of Urova’s punishment would help with that.
Every country tithed children to the wardens under the Poison Accords to ensure Maricol’s continued safety. The surviving wardens had informed the remnants of Urova’s government that no warden would set foot in their country to provide aid against revenants until they surrendered and agreed to triple the tithe amount for the next four generations.
It was a crippling punishment, one Urova could not decline and had not. But they needed an Isar to sign off on that treaty, and so many who could have taken up the crown were dead.
Arkadi, ivoryan of a family whose influence resided more with the religious Star Order than the military, and had thus escaped a fate others had not, shifted on his feet where he stood with other surviving ivoryanin in Constellation Square. Due to his family’s status in the Star Order, Arkadi had been accorded a spot close to the stage to witness the coronation of their new ruler.
The square was packed with people of all social ranks, from aristocratic ivoryanin down to lower-class workers, all of them facing the capital’s grand Star Order temple, where the coronation of Urova’s new Isar was happening. The ceremony was pure pageantry, as the new Isar had already taken the oath to rule before arriving in the capital. After everything that had occurred during the Infernal War, the people needed to bear witness to the crowning of their new ruler, hand-picked by the Midnight Star himself, if rumor was to be believed.
Tavi leaned in close from his right as yet another speech began, the other ivoryan’s beautiful winter gown shimmering in the weak winter sunlight beneath the white-furred overcoat she wore. The white-furred hat on her head was pulled low over her ears and forehead. Some strands of blonde hair had escaped the neat braid to frame her face in soft wisps. The coronation was occurring during the few hours of sunlight the capital saw during the long days of winter. That didn’t mean it was warm.
“I heard it tookweeksfor the palace guard to locate the new Isar. Apparently, they finally found him herding reyndeer in his family’s tiny estate on the fjords way up in the far north.” Tavi wrinkled her nose, her disgust of hard work plain to see. “I heard he wanted to bring some of the animals with him to the capital. Can you believe such nonsense?”
Arkadi shrugged before looking forward again. He was taller than her, easily able to see what was happening on the temporarily erected stage before the Star Temple.
“Reyndeers are integral to the economy of the towns up north. You can’t fault him for wanting something that might remind him of the home he had to leave,” Arkadi said, keeping his voice mild.
Tavi huffed out a breath. “Well, at least he’s not married.”
Arkadi tipped his head in silent acknowledgment of that singular fact, which had ripped through the ivoryanin like an avalanche once gossip had confirmed the country’s new Isar was finally ensconced in the palace. The royal court was going to become a feeding frenzy of matriarchs attempting to maneuver any available daughter or son of theirs into the position of being courted by the new Isar for the role of consort.
Arkadi had his finger on the pulse of every beat of gossip that was the lifeblood of any ivoryanin looking to rise in the social ranks of the royal court. For all that the ivoryanin were attempting to reorient themselves amidst the deaths of so manyof their peers, he knew no one would pass up any opportunity to gain the attention and favor of the new Isar.
He shifted on his feet, rolling his shoulders a little to subtly adjust the weight of his ankle-length furred overcoat. The tailoring of his outfit beneath it was outwardly no different than any other, but his personal manservant always adjusted the fit to account for the several hidden weapons Arkadi never went anywhere without.
His family might have dedicated themselves to the Star Order, but that didn’t mean they ignored politics. Arkadi was merely the latest Blade in a long line of those who hid in the shadows and helped shape their country’s politics as needed. That he was ivoryan meant it was easy for him to glean information where other Blades of lower social status could not go.
When Daijal cleaved itself from Ashion during that country’s civil war a few hundred years ago, the Star Order in that new country had taken note of Urova’s hidden assassins and trained their own. Now that it had once again become part of Ashion, making that country whole, Arkadi wondered what would happen to that former country’s Blades.
Brass trumpeters cued up the notes meant to announce an Isar’s arrival, pulling Arkadi out of his thoughts. Movement on the stage drew the crowd’s attention, quieting everyone in the square. Arkadi craned his head a bit, watching as the doors to the Star Temple with their carved relief of a snarling bear were pulled open by attendants. The Star Order’s high priestess for Urova walked out with her ceremonial staff, her temple robes and furred cape colored glacier-blue and snow-white in honor of the season.
Behind the high priestess came the Master of Ceremonies, who held the Urovan crown in all its golden glory on a velvet cushion before him. The trumpeters let the notes hit high asthe man they had all gathered to see stepped through the star temple’s door onto the stage. The murmur of the crowd was almost loud enough to hide Tavi’s sharply indrawn breath full of interest.
“Not quite a country bumpkin after all,” Tavi murmured.
Arkadi had to agree.
Isar Rodian was a man who towered over those onstage, the breadth of his shoulders broad enough to easily carry the heavy ceremonial pelt of the white tundra bear, its snarling head hanging over the Isar’s right shoulder. His muscles seemed to stretch the seams of the dark blue coronation outfit with its gold adornments fit for royalty that he wore. His hair was dark, falling to his shoulders in neat waves. The shadow tracing his jaw was a beard that gave their new Isar a gravitas appropriate for the moment. Arkadi wished he could see the color of the man’s eyes, but the distance was too far for that.
Arkadi pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth, letting his gaze drift over the Isar’s strong figure up on the stage as the ceremony formally got underway. Isar Rodian was definitelynotthe ugly, unappealing country bumpkin gossip had anticipated him to be. No, the handsome man standing before the crowd as their new ruler was anything but unappealing.
In appearance, at least.
Politically, well, neophytes were terribly easy to manipulate, and there were plenty of ivoryanin who would scheme to do just that.
