Chosen of the Gods

the snow had stopped, he wasn’t sure when-and through the garden’s trees the velvet black of night was giving way to violet. The red and silver moons hung low in the east, both razor-thin crescents, and beneath them, the clouds were glowing saffron. He blinked. Dawn had been hours away when he’d left the manse. Had he truly wandered the Temple’s gardens so long?

As he was wondering, a dulcet sound arose from the basilica: the chiming of silver bells within the Temple’s tall, central spire. The crystal dome caught the sound, ringing to herald the coming dawn, and the Temple grounds suddenly burst into Me as priests and priestesses spilled out of the cloisters, answering the call to morning prayer. Many exclaimed in wonder at the unexpected snowfall, and Kurnos watched as they made their wide-eyed way past him to the basilica.

Suddenly, he began to weep.

He tried to hold it back at first, but soon his cheeks were wet. The tears he shed were not born of sorrow, however, but of joy. He even laughed, his heart singing along with the music of the bells. Smiling, he wiped his eyes, clearing his vision-and stopped, sucking in a sudden breath.

Down the path, in the shadow of a great ebony tree, was something that did not belong in this place: a tail, grim figure swathed in black. It was a man, his dark hood covering his face save for the tip of a thick, gray beard. He stood motionless, and though he couldn’t see the man’s eyes, the First Son was sure the dark-robed figure was looking at him. The chill in the air seemed to sharpen as he met the man’s gaze.

Yes, hissed a cold voice. The hooded head inclined slightly. It will do.

Suddenly terrified, Kurnos cast about, searching for one of the Knights who patrolled the Temple grounds. There was none nearby, though-and what was more, none of the other clerics bustling past seemed to see the shadowy figure at all. Swallowing, Kurnos turned back toward the tree, intending to do something, perhaps cry out…

And stopped. The dark figure was gone.

He stepped forward, peering deeper into the shadows, but there was no sign of the man. Kurnos swallowed, shaken. Perhaps I imagined it, he told himself. I’m tired-jumping at shadows, that’s all.

In his mind, however, the dark figure remained, lurking and watching as he turned toward the basilica to greet his first day as the Kingpriest’s heir.

Chapter One

Fourthmonth, 923 LA.

The drums of war hadn’t sounded in Istar for years.

The empire had not known peace in all that time, of course-goblins and ogres still lurked in the wildlands, for one thing, despite repeated Commandments of Extermination from the Temple, as did cults that worshiped dark gods. And while most realms paid homage to the Kingpriest, some- notably the distant Empire of Ergoth-refused to do so. It was enough to keep the imperial armies from growing idle, but Istaran hadn’t fought Istaran in over half a century, since the end of the Three Thrones’ War.

The Trosedil, as the church tongue named the war, had arisen when three different men, each with their own fol-lowings, laid claim to the throne. Such factional splintering had happened before, when a Kingpriest died with no named heir, but this time it was particularly tragic. For two decades the dispute had bloodied the empire’s fields, until Ardosean IV, also known as Ardosean the Uniter, had defeated his rivals, beheading Vasari II and imprisoning Theorollyn III, thereby becoming the one true sovereign.

With the war’s end, prosperity returned to the empire. Gold flowed freely, filling the coffers of castle and temple alike. By the time the Uniter died, ten years after the Trosedil’s ending, the realm was almost completely healed, the old divisions forgotten.

Not everyone shared in the bounties of peace, however. Taol, westernmost of Istar’s provinces, had no spices, no silks. Its hills yielded copper and iron, not rubies and opals. Its people had been barbarians at the empire’s dawning, until the priests came to pacify them and teach them the ways of Paladine. Even now, they remained simple borderfolk, and though they were poor compared with people who dwelled in the lands to the east, they had long been content with their lot.

Ullas obefat, the old saying said. All things change.

The troubles had begun the previous autumn, with a blight that devastated harvests all over the borderlands. Famine followed, and with it came plague, a terrible sickness called the Longosai-the Slow Creep-that started at the provinces’ fringes and worked its way from town and town as winter came on. When they saw the troubles their people faced, the Taoli nobles had acted quickly, sending riders to the Lordcity to plead for help. Before the messengers could reach the lowlands, however, the snows had come, vicious buzzards that buried the lands and choked the roads. The riders vanished into the storm and were never seen again. The food and healers the borderfolk needed never came. The Longosai spread, made worse by starvation.

Even then, however, matters might have mended, had the first travelers to ride into the highlands when the thaws came been traders, priests, or even Solamnic Knights. Instead, however, it was the Kingpriest’s tax collectors who sojourned to Taol when the roads cleared at last. They came as they always did, at the dawning of springtime, to collect the annual tithe from the borderfolk to bring back to the holy church. What they found instead, however, were sickness, empty larders, and men and women made desperate and angry by suffering.

Inevitably, it came to bloodshed. The Scatas, the blue-cloaked imperial soldiers who accompanied the tax collectors, killed several bordermen who tried to fight The highlanders struck back, slaughtering soldiers and clerics alike. The survivors fled bask to the Lordcity, bringing word of a peasantry risen in revolt. The Kingpriest closed the roads that led to Taol and issued an edict demanding the heads of the rebels’ leaders. By the time the last snows melted, the borderlands were dry tinder, awaiting a spark. The war drums hadn’t sounded in Istar for years. They wouldn’t remain silent much longer.

Tancred MarSevrin thrashed and thrashed, fighting with all his might. He was too weak, though, and his struggles soon began to weaken, his cries grew silent. Finally he slumped, defeated, his wild, fearful eyes staring at nothing. His legs kicked one last time, then were still.

Cathan kept his hand over the dead man’s mouth, counting slowly to ten and fighting the urge to scream. Finally, knowing it was done, he pulled back and stood above the bed, staring at the body. He ran a shaky hand over his face, then reached down and closed Tancred’s eyes. Sucking in a shuddering breath, he drew a blanket over the pinched face.

“Farewell, brother,” he whispered.

The bedchamber was plain, stone below and thatch above, a closed, wooden door leading to the front room. A second blanket hung over the lone window, drenching the room in shadows. The furnishings were spare: a straw bed and two wooden stools, a foot chest with no lock, a clay chamber pot crusted with filth. The only ornament was a sacred triangle of white ceramic hanging on the east wall. No one had changed the rushes on the earthen floor in some time, and their sweet smell had long since yielded to the sour reek of sickness.

Cathan looked down at the shrouded corpse, feeling hollow. When the tears came, he let them flow.

The Longosai was a terrible way to die. It began as an innocent-looking rash on the hands and feet, but that hannlessness didn’t last long. It steadily worsened, erupting into weeping sores that crawled up arms and legs and blossomed on swollen groins and throats, wasting away the flesh and turning its victims into skeletons wrapped in loose folds of corrupted skin. As the end came on, so did madness, bringing a wild sheen to the eyes of the dying and bloody froth to their lips. Death soon followed.

The plague had missed the village of Luciel as it raged across Taol, somehow leaving it untouched all winter while ravaging the hamlets nearby. Oveth, Fliran, even Espadica only two leagues away had all succumbed, but when the snows finally began to melt, Luciel remained intact. The townsfolk had sighed, thanking the gods they had survived such a harsh season… then, on the third day of spring, they’d begun to die.

Drelise had been the first victim. A priestess of Mishakal the Healing Hand, she had been an old woman-the winter just past her ninetieth-and her goddess hadn’t been able to spare her from the Creep’s killing touch. Both her