before. Here was life, and it was a fine thing, free of fear, radiant.
The mood held through to that evening. They dined on the back terraces of Corinn’s gardens. Servants brought up standing torches that ringed the diners and fought back the evening’s chill. They ate braised eel in a ginger sauce, served over sticky rice that Aaden insisted on forming into balls with his fingers. Corinn let him. They were not on display this evening, not even among the court. They were alone, all the family she could have near at hand. When Aliver pinged Aaden with a long bean, Corinn laughed as loudly as anyone. When Rhrenna toasted the queen’s victory in Teh, Corinn sent a charm snaking up her arm and into all the glasses as they clinked together, just a further lightening of the mood, a feeling like bubbles floating in the air around them, popping in gentle kisses on their skin.
They talked of nothing pressing. Aaden peppered his uncle with questions about his youth. Aliver responded with tales of his boyhood, of his journey into Talay in exile, of growing to manhood there. After dinner, he acted out his laryx hunt with a spear fetched from one of the statues in his hallway. He made the whole thing seem deathly frightening and hilarious at the same time. By the time he finished, Corinn’s stomach ached from laughing. That was a pleasant pain she had not felt for many years.
“Is it just me, or does the harbor seem busier than usual?” Aliver asked a little later, as they sat on the crescent balcony that offered a dizzying view out over the harbor.
Corinn thought of the ridged back of some beast that she had seen cutting through the water earlier, but that was not what he meant. Since nobody else had seen it, she knew it was an imagining for her alone. She was almost used to seeing things that were not real. It was a small price to pay for having the song coursing through her.
What Aliver referred to were the hundreds of very real ships that bobbed on the sea. They choked the harbor and spread out into the open water itself. Black shapes and white and red sails rode the swells, many of them torchlit like an aquatic constellation.
Rhrenna licked lime cream off a tiny dessert spoon. “It appears that we’re being flooded by pilgrims.”
“Pilgrims?”
“Most are from Talay, but not just there. They come to praise Corinn. To pray for Aaden. To spot Elya on the wing. But mostly because of you.”
“Rumors of you have spread far and wide already,” Corinn said to Aliver. “Considering that you strolled through the lower town this morning in broad daylight, we’ll soon be flooded with many more than what you see here.”
“I should go down to greet them,” Aliver said, setting aside his porcelain bowl and spoon as if he would do so at that moment.
“You will,” Corinn said, “but let them talk a bit longer. Let them all talk, from here to the Senate and the league great ships and beyond. Let them talk you into a god. Then we’ll show you to the world for real, and they’ll be all the more amazed. We’ll soon announce your coronation. It will be abrupt, but we’ll already have half the empire floating around us.”
Just then a servant girl dashed into the courtyard. She drew up and stared at the group with frightened eyes. “Your Majesty, pardon me, the-the eggs, Your Majesty, they are cracking. Hatching, I mean.”
Corinn would have chosen to witness this alone, but there was no keeping Aaden and the others from dashing through the hallways with her. Aliver made a show of racing Aaden. Rhrenna asked who would get to name the young. Aaden himself was too giddy with excitement to do anything other than run.
They rushed onto the terrace balcony that had served as Elya’s private hatchery. The creature snapped around. For a moment there was something fierce in the glare of her eyes and the way her head slipped low on her subtle neck. It only lasted a moment, though, and then she was gentle again. When Aaden threw himself around her neck, burying his face in her plumage, Corinn’s fine mood flooded back. She approached carefully, touching first her son’s shoulder and then Elya’s soft back. She leaned forward and gazed into the basin.
And there they were. Elya’s babies. Two of them were completely free of their shells. They squirmed at the edge of the basin, clawing at the fabric that lined it as if they wanted to climb right out and face life. One still stretched and struggled with its shell, and the fourth was but a small snout protruding from a crack in its egg. They were tiny versions of Elya in many ways, plumed with a sleek coat, with serpentine necks and delicate claws. The feathers around their heads were a bristling confusion, though, and they were variously colored. One was crimson at the head and fading to black, while another displayed yellow stripes across a brown back. The one kicking free of shell was sky blue, and the last, from the look of his protruding snout, was all black.
Corinn said, “Look at them. Little beauties.”
At the sound of her voice, all three of the exposed heads turned toward her. They blinked. One’s nostrils flared. The red one cocked its head. The one in the shell thrust its head through in one great effort. It, too, set its gaze on Corinn. My smart babies, she thought. My little dragons. She extended a hand toward them. All four of them followed it with their yellow eyes. When she was near enough, the red one slammed the crown of her head into Corinn’s fingers like an affectionate cat. The others clamored over one another to do the same.
Elya shifted sideways. She touched her shoulder to Corinn’s side and pressed her back. When Aaden tried to stroke the young as well, Elya slipped her own head in before him, pushing against his chest so that he had to step back. She exhaled an impatient breath.
“All right, Elya, care for your children,” Corinn said, pulling back. “Raise them strong for me and for the empire.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Are you sure?” Mena asked.
Perrin nodded. He was red-faced from the cold and from the brisk hike that had brought him out to meet Mena and the main column of the army. “That’s Tahalian.”
“It looks to be a ruin.”
“It’s seen better days.” He studied the view a moment and then added, “It’s a bit nicer inside.”
“It would have to be.” Mena glanced back at the ragged line of troops moving like a slow river through the valley behind her. Realizing that her eyes were scanning them in search of Melio, she lifted her hand and pressed her eyes closed for a moment.
“Is it habitable?”
“Yes. I might not have thought so a couple of days ago, but two days’ work can fix a lot.”
Perrin and a small corps had gone ahead on horseback to open the fortress and get the steam vents pumping hot air. Judging by the gaping mouth of the thing before them and the plumes of mist that billowed out of several outlets and hung above the place, he had achieved that. His efforts had done nothing for its forlorn appearance. Tahalian huddled close to the ground, more like a huge pile of debris than the grand structure that had once housed the entire Mein race. Its massive pine beams were bracketed together with iron rings. The wood had been silvered by weather. The whole mass was edged with ice and pocketed with early snowfall. The beams canted at angles that were hard to make sense of but that seemed no work of intentional design.
Pointing at a long, low mound a little distance away, Perrin said, “That’s the Calathrock. We’re having trouble opening the vents to it, but we’ll get the place heated soon. It’s impressive, Mena, most of it is dug down into earth. It’ll serve us well.”
I hope so, she thought. I truly hope so.
T hat evening she arranged for Haleeven Mein to be brought to her in the Calathrock. She stood awaiting him in the massive chamber, inhaling the dank air. It was sulfurous from the partially functioning vent system. The beams that supported the roof fitted together in an intricate lacework that left an open space largely free of columns beneath it. Workers had lit several of the large lanterns. Though their mirrored backings cast considerable light, Mena could barely make out the darker edges of the space. She knelt and ran her fingers over the hardwood floor. Worn to a smooth polish, it was crisscrossed with scrapes and gashes, the telltale signs of the years of martial practice that had gone on in this room, hidden from the Known World. Right here was where Hanish Mein had fought his Maseret duels. Right here he had honed his army, devised his plans. From right here he had launched the assault that nearly ended the Akaran line and that had changed Mena’s life in so many ways.
Perrin appeared in one of the large entranceways some distance away, behind him three others. Mena picked
