sick. He’d been that way from the very beginning of his memories. If an illness were passing through the staff of the palais, he was certain to catch it; he was constantly assailed by coughing fits, by difficulty in breathing. Any physical exertion left him quickly exhausted and gasping. Yet somehow Cenzi had protected him from the outbreak of Southern Fever when he was four, though the illness had taken his older sister Marguerite, named for her famous great-matarh and primed to be the Kraljica on their vatarh’s death. Her state funeral-a long and somber ceremony-was one of his earliest memories.
It should be Marguerite standing here now, not him. Audric hoped this meant Cenzi had a plan for him.
He drew in a long breath and this time held back the cough that threatened. “There, you see,” he told Sergei. “Just the damp, and having to answer all the Maister’s damnable questions.”
“At least the maister’s questions have definite answers. The solutions for a Kraljiki are rarely so clear-cut, as you already know.” Sergei put his arm around Audric, and Audric leaned into the man’s embrace. “Trust ca’Rudka as your Regent,” his vatarh had whispered as he lay on his bed during that final day. “Trust him as you would me…”
The truth was that Audric had never quite trusted his vatarh, whose temperament and favor had been erratic at best. But Sergei… Audric felt that his vatarh had made a final good choice with the man. Yes, he might chafe under the Regent’s hand more and more as he approached his majority, he might be irritated that people at times treated Sergei as if he were the Kraljiki, but Audric could not have asked for a more loyal ally in the chaotic winds of the Kraljiki’s court.
It didn’t matter to him what the whispers of the courtiers said about the Regent. It didn’t matter what the man did in the dungeons of the Bastida, or with the grandes horizontales he sometimes took to his bed.
“I suppose we must draft a statement for the Hirzg’s death,” Audric said. “And we must listen to ten different councillors requesting that we respond in twenty different ways. Then ten more advisers to tell us what we need to do about the Hellins in the west.”
Sergei laughed. His arm tightened around Audric’s shoulder, then released him. He rubbed at his silver nose as if it itched him. “No doubt,” he answered. “ I would say that you have learned all your lessons very well, Kraljiki.”
Sergei ca’Rudka
His August presence, the Kraljiki Audric, hunched in his padded, elevated seat alongside Sergei, coughing so desperately that Sergei leaned over to the boy. “Do you need some of the healer’s draught, Kraljiki? I’ll have one of the attendants bring it over…” He started to gesture, but Audric caught his arm.
“Wait, Sergei. This will pass.” Audric said it in three breaths. Wait, Sergei (breath) This will (breath) pass… Just the effort of grabbing Sergei’s arm visibly tired the boy.
Sergei rubbed at the polished surface of the false nose glued to his face, his original nose lost long decades ago in a youthful sword fight. “Would you prefer to return to the palais, Kraljiki?” Sergei asked. “The smoke from the censers and the incense can’t be good for your lungs, and the Archigos will understand. In any case, she’ll be over to see you as soon as she’s finished here.”
“We’ll stay, Sergei. This is where I should be.” We’ll stay (breath) Sergei (cough breath cough). This is (breath) where I (breath) should be…
Sergei nodded. In that, the boy was right. The two were seated in the royal balcony of the Archigos’ Temple, on the South Bank of the River A’Sele in Nessantico. Below, the main floor of the temple was packed with worshipers for the Day of Return. Archigos Ana stood with several of the a’teni in the quire of the Temple, her hair-streaked with bright, gray-white strands at the temples-gleaming in the glow of the teni lamps, her strong, fierce voice reciting the lines from the Toustour. The Day of Return was the Spring solstice ceremony, preparing the faithful for the eventual return of Cenzi to the world He had created. It was the duty of Kraljiki Audric to attend, which was why the temple was crowded to its very sides with the chevarittai, with the ca’-and-cu’, with those lesser-ranked families who could cram into the remaining space, all of them there to catch a glimpse of the young Kraljiki and perhaps to also catch his eye: for a request, for a petition, or perhaps because he was not yet officially betrothed to anyone despite the persistent rumors that the Regent intended to make arrangements soon with one of the great families of the Holdings.
They also would have noted the Kraljiki’s deep, barking coughs punctuating the Archigos’ reading. Even Archigos Ana stopped once in the midst of her recitation to glance up with concern and sympathy toward their balcony. She nodded almost imperceptibly to Sergei, and he knew that she would hurry to the palais after the ceremony. Sergei leaned over again, whispering into the boy’s ear. “The Archigos has promised to come by after we’re done here and pray for you. She always helps you, I know. You can endure this, knowing you’ll feel better soon.”
Audric nodded wide-eyed, muffling another cough with a perfumed handkerchief. Sergei wondered if Audric knew-as Sergei did-that the reason the Archigos’ “prayers” helped him so dramatically was because, against the laws of the Divolonte that governed the Concenzia Faith, Ana used her skills with the magic of the Ilmodo to heal Audric’s ravaged lungs. This was something she had done since soon after Audric’s birth, when it was apparent that the boy’s life was in jeopardy. She had done much the same for Audric’s great-matarh, the much-lamented Kraljica Marguerite, in her last days, keeping her alive when without intervention she would have died.
It had been a month since Archigos Ana’s last visit for that purpose; it was obvious that the illness in the boy was returning once more: as it always, inevitably, did. Audric folded the handkerchief and put it back in his bashta; Sergei saw flecks of red caught in the linen. He said nothing, but decided he would send word to Ana that they would instead meet her immediately after the service, in her chambers here. The boy needed attention quickly.
Sergei sat back in his chair as Archigos Ana strode toward the High Lectern for her Admonition to the gathering, as the choir in their loft began a Darkmavis hymn. The ca’-and-cu’ stirred in their finery. Sergei could see Karl ca’Vliomani standing near the side of the Temple, lifting his hand to Sergei in acknowledgment-ca’Vliomani, the Ambassador of the Isle of Paeti and of the Numetodo Sect, wasn’t a believer but Sergei knew that the Ambassador and Archigos Ana had been, if not actual lovers, then friends and confidants since before the Battle of the Fens twenty-four years ago. During that battle, the young Archigos Ana had used both the Numetodo and her own magic to snatch A’Hirzg Allesandra of Firenzcia from her vatarh and hold her as hostage against the Hirzg’s retreat. The plan had worked, though Firenzcia and her neighboring countries had seceded from the Holdings in the wake of the hostilities to form the Firenzcian Coalition.
Sergei found himself wondering, again, whether Ana’s defeat of the Firenzcian forces had truly been the triumph they had all thought it to be, whether it might not have been better for the Holdings had Hirzg Jan taken the city and become Kraljiki. Had that occurred, both Ana and Sergei himself would be dead, but in all probability there would be only the Holdings and no rival Coalition. There would be only one Concenzia Faith. Had that occurred, then the new Kraljiki could have dealt with the Westlanders’ uprising in the Hellins fully, with all the resources of the Garde Civile and without having to worry about what might happen to the east.
Had that occurred, then Justi the One-Legged Fool would never have become Kraljiki and Audric never his heir, and Nessantico would be flourishing, not languishing.
Sergei, frankly, had never expected Archigos Ana to be able to retain her title-she had been too young and naive, but the fire of the Battle of the Fens had tempered the steel within her. She had proved stronger than any of the a’teni who might have tried to take her place, stronger than her rival Archigos in Brezno, and certainly stronger than Kraljiki Justi, who had believed he could control the Faith through her.
In the end, Justi had been able to dominate nothing: not Ana, not the Faith, not the Holdings. While Ana showed herself to be surprisingly successful as Archigos, Justi had been a catastrophe as Kraljiki.
Justi the One-Legged squandered in two decades what it had taken his matarh and the Kralji before her more than five centuries to create, and we are left to pay for his incompetence with both the Holdings and the Faith sundered into East and West factions. And now the troubles in the Hellins compound the issue while we have a boy on the Sun Throne who may not live to sire an heir himself.
Sergei sighed, closing his eyes as he listened to the choir. He would go to the Bastida tomorrow morning, and he would assuage his worries with pain. He’d find solace in screams. Yes, that would be good. The ending chords
