“The goddess is eternal. She was there at the birth of the dragons. She was there all through the Dragon Empire, but the only references I see to the Righteous Servant or the Sinir Kushku come at the very end, during the final war. And then they talk about it as if Morade created it, the way Asteril made the Timzinae or Vailoth made the Drowned. I just don’t understand how that can be right.”
“Perhaps then it cannot,” the priest said. “You should put less trust in written words, my friend. They are the stone eggs of lies. Here. I will show you. Read something from your book there.”
Geder flipped the pages, fingertips shifting across the words until he found a passage that was easily rendered.
“It was the fourth century of the Dragon Vailoth’s rule when these policies changed.”
“Is that true?” the priest asked him. “Is it untrue? Do you mean what you say? No, old friend. It’s neither. Your voice carries nothing. They are only words you repeat emptily. To write a thing down is to kill it. Only in the living voice can the truth be known. My brothers and I have listened to one another, passing the voice of the goddess down from generation to generation, and with every new speaking from the start, we have known what we heard to be true. These books you have? They are ink on paper. Objects. Soulless. You would be wiser not to put your faith in them.”
“Oh,” Geder said. “That’s… I’d never looked at things that way. Does that-?”
“Geder?”
Lerer Palliako stood in the doorway. His tunic was the blue and gray of House Palliako, formally cut with silver buttons on the sleeve. His hand clutched the doorway, as if he needed it to keep himself steady.
“What’s the matter, Father?”
“We have a visitor. You should come with me.”
Geder rose to his feet, alarm tightening his skin. Basrahip looked from the doorway to Geder and back.
“Stay here,” Geder said. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
Lerer walked in silence through the halls. The servants, usually buzzing through the rooms like bees in a meadow, were gone. At the door to the private meeting chamber, he stopped. For a moment, Geder thought he would speak, but instead he shook his head, opened the door, and stepped in.
The private chamber had been designed for comfort. Candles glowed from polished silver sconces, doubling their light and filling the room with the scents of honey and heat. A fire grate sat unlit and soot-blackened in its corner. Light spilled from the western window, and the pale silk chairs caught it, seeming almost to glow. A boy in a grey tunic looked up at him solemnly, and Geder felt he should have recognized the face. On the far wall, a huge painting the size of a standing man showed a green-scaled dragon towering above figures representing the thirteen races of man. And looking up at the painting, King Simeon.
The king turned.
Lerer bowed and said, “Your Majesty.” Geder bowed a moment later, quickly and with the sense of trying to catch up. The boy was the prince. Prince Aster and King Simeon.
“I am pleased to meet you at last, Geder Palliako,” the king said. Geder took the use of his given name as permission to stand.
“I… Um, thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Majesty.”
“You are aware that tradition calls for the prince to be taken in by a house of the highest reputation and nobility. A family that will swear to protect him should the need arise.”
“Ah,” Geder said. “Yes?”
“I have come to ask you to fill this role.”
“My father, you mean? Our house?”
“It’s not me he wants,” Lerer said. “It’s you.”
“I… I don’t know how to raise a boy. All respect, Your Majesty. I wouldn’t have the first idea what to do.”
“Keep him safe,” the king said. His voice didn’t sound commanding. It didn’t sound formal. It sounded like a man on the edge of begging or prayer. “Just keep him safe.”
“Right now everyone in court loves you or fears you, my boy,” Lerer said. “Half of them are saying you’re the first hero Antea’s seen in a generation, and the other half won’t mention you for fear of drawing your attention. I’m not sure it’s a good reason to take the title of protector.”
“I’m not doing it,” Geder said. “I’m no one’s protector. It’d be you, Father. You’re the Viscount of Rivenhalm.”
“But you are the Baron of Ebbinbaugh,” King Simeon said.
“Ebbinbaugh?” Geder said.
“Someone has to take Maas’s holdings,” Lerer said. “Seems that’s you.”
“Well,” Geder said, a grin spreading across his lips. “Well.”
Prince Aster rose and walked to Geder. He wasn’t a large boy. Geder had always thought he was taller. He had the gray eyes and serious face of the dead queen, but his father’s jaw.
“I owe you my life, Lord Palliako,” the boy said. The cadence of his voice made the phrases sound rehearsed. “I would be pleased to have you as my protector, and swear that I should do honor to you as your ward.”
“Do you want to?” Geder asked. The boy’s formal expression faltered. Tears appeared, glistening in his eyes.
“They say I can’t stay with Da anymore,” he said.
Geder felt himself starting to tear up as well.
“I lost my mother when I was young too,” he said. “Maybe I could be like an uncle? Or an older brother.”
“I don’t have any brothers,” Aster said.
“See? Neither do I,” Geder said. Aster tried to smile. “We’d probably need to visit your father a lot, though. And mine. God, am I going to have my own holding? Father, I’m going to have my own holding.”
“You will,” Lerer said. “I think his majesty didn’t want to be the only one in the room losing a son.”
Geder barely heard him. This morning, he’d been a hero. Now he had a barony of his own and a place in court that men fought and sometimes died to get. Sir Alan Klin would soil himself when he heard that he’d made an enemy of Prince Aster’s protector.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. I accept this duty and honor, and I’ll make sure Aster’s kept safe. I swear it.”
The king was weeping, tears streaking down his cheeks, but his voice didn’t waver when he spoke.
“I put my trust in you, Lord Palliako. I will… I will make the announcement at the close of court. I’ll see you’re seated appropriately for your new station. This is a brighter day for the kingdom. And I thank you for that.”
Geder bowed. He wanted to run out in the streets, capering and singing. He wanted to go brag to all of his friends, starting with Jorey Kalliam and…
“Can I borrow the prince?” Geder asked. “Just for a few minutes? There’s someone I want him to meet.”
In the sitting room, Basrahip had moved to Geder’s chair. The huge hands turned the pages slowly, the broad face twisted with disdain. Geder cleared his throat. The priest looked up, his eyes shifting from Geder to the prince standing at his side.
“Basrahip, high priest of the goddess, may I introduce my new ward Prince Aster. Prince Aster, this is Basrahip.”
The prince walked forward, stopped the appropriate distance away, and bowed his small head. He looked like a kitten greeting a bull.
“I am very pleased to meet you, sir,” the prince said.
Basrahip smiled.
“No,” he said, softly. “You aren’t. But give it time, young prince. Give it time.”
