Flower petals from the Bear Queen’s Day of Days celebration still filled gutters and showered rooftops by the time the funeral procession started. For want of a body with which to repay the sea, the priests of the Kept sacrificed a wild bear and adorned its pyre with roses and stone fruits and fragrant salts.
They set it adrift at sunset in a lengthy ceremony that saw half the city dressed in white, wading into the surf, and launching paper lanterns into the sky after it. Yemi watched the scene from the cliffs at her mother’s feet. She couldn’t go among the people just yet. Not without an animus.
Her mother’s statue stood tall atop its marbled base, facing the palace with the seas at her back. Luzon had to return to Muris. The deaths of royal allies had a destabilizing effect, and he was needed to project strength. But he’d gifted her with pale pink drop-blossom trees her conservators had planted in a path between the Bear Queen and the palace. At night, coal braziers would be lit beneath the keystones of stone archways between them—in case either Yemi or her motherhad to find each other in the night. Her animus armor was laid to rest beside that of Yemi’s father in the crypts.
The Kept still prayed furiously below, and thick clouds of incense smoke were whipped away into wisps before they reached her.
The gravel crunched on the garden pathways behind her. She turned, hoping to see Nova, who’d been all but absent as her new roles took effect, but instead found the lanky and rather disappointing visage of Lord Cerro.
Yemi sighed. “Shouldn’t you be down there?”
“On the contrary, my place is by your side. I consider it my honor to guide you in matters of the spirit in times like these.”
“Brother Lain is my spiritual counselor. If I have a matter, I will take it up with him.”
“It is customary that heads of state consult with heads of faith. The two of them together guide the fate of nations.”
Yemi clenched her jaw, irritated. “So what you’re saying is, Lain is due for a promotion.”
Cerro’s face fell, uncertainty twitching across it as he tried to gauge whether she was serious. A pity that her grief made her too tired to find it funny.
“What is it you want, My Lord?”
He cleared his throat a little, regaining his poise. “Broadly? The same as your mother: a free and prosperous Ixia under the gods.”
“My mother humored you and your gods, though she knew nothing of them.”
“She knew herself, though. As do you. A blessing for us all.”
The hymn carried on the wind changed to something more joyous than somber. Mourning en masse seemed to lessen the pain of loss, while here she was in the frigid company of her own loneliness and the weight of responsibility. If she was to be a good queen, the fury she felt would have to remain impotent.
But the rest of them could sing songs.
“I regret my failures with the Bear Queen.”
“What? Your failure to properly convert her?”
“To understand her.” He frowned. “Why could she wage war for her people but not leverage her blood ties to the Old Gods to see the nation flourish? I could never truly tell what it was she wanted, so I could not advise her or protect her in the end. You, I believe, I understand better.”
She scoffed. “And what is itIwant?”
“Power. Respect. All any god has ever wanted.”
Yemi turned to stare him in his long, dour face. His pale eyes twinkled mystically in the waning sunlight. Wind blew the white gauze of his robe against his spindly limbs. His posture was perfect, his hands clean, well manicured, undecorated, and folded before him. But he lacked the humility of a holy man. She could smell his ambition like summer heat on a running dog.
“And what is ityouwant?” she asked him. “Not broadly. What do you, as a man, require?”
He was silent for a moment, as if choosing his words carefully according to the way he wanted to play her.
“All any god has ever wanted,” he said with a naked, honest breath.
Yemi nodded and turned back to the coast. The effigy’s sarcophagus was small and distant now, barely distinguishable from the white glints of sunlight on the waves.
“Deliver the people to the gods, and both the peopleandthe gods will flourish,” he continued, passion building as he made his pitch for her compliance. “Their leaders most of all. You reside in both worlds. Allow me to guide you. We can return prosperity to our fishermen and forge a lasting peace where the gods protect us in war so we never need lose another Ixian life in a battle with heathens.”
Yemi said nothing. She’d never been so tired of listening, of observing. Of being the center of so many worlds and yet soinsignificantas to not warrant a fucking moment to herself.
“Tell me, Cerro,” she said darkly. “If I am your god, then what need do I have of your guidance?”
