Sister Agika straightened and addressed the lords. “High Inquisitor Gemon has set his signature and seal against this authorization to use these ‘truth’ pills in the trial of Sherzal. This will allow the Inquisition to avoid inflicting physical harm upon its prime instigator, which would be highly regrettable were she to prove innocent of the charges against her. Furthermore it will permit a swift and public resolution of the matter with the Sis as witness. And—”
“Poison!” Sherzal shouted. “I will not be fed poison from that woman’s hand!”
Sister Agika picked a pill from her palm between thumb and finger. “The High Inquisitor’s own seal attests to their safety but I am sure that the abbess will not mind taking one herself to set your mind at ease.”
Glass minded very much. She understood Sherzal’s objections perfectly. For a woman whose power was built upon secrets the compulsion to speak the truth was indeed poison. “I would be delighted, Sister Agika.” She smiled and nodded.
Melkir returned with one of the black pills in his hand. He raised it towards Glass’s mouth.
“I request that only Judge Agika be permitted to ask me questions, and only those that she plans to put to the prisoner. I know many of the Church’s most holy secrets and will not be able to resist betraying them if asked inappropriate questions.”
Sister Agika inclined her head. “A reasonable request.”
Glass opened her mouth, then closed it. “I’m told the taste of this mixture is incredibly bitter. If I choke or spit it isn’t because I am being poisoned.” A smile towards Sherzal. She opened her mouth again.
The taste when Melkir placed the pill upon her tongue was far worse than anything Glass had imagined. She clamped her jaw tight, sucked her cheeks in hard, and screwed her eyes shut, willing herself not to vomit or cry out.
It was shouts and exclamations of shock that forced Glass to open her eyes. When the commotion reached through her distress she wondered if the pill had perhaps done something ghastly to her appearance. Then, on focusing her vision, she wondered if Apple’s concoction really had poisoned her and the scene before her was hallucination.
Sera had fallen to her knees, hands at her throat, crimson with the blood pulsing between her fingers. Safira stood behind her, knife held steady, its edge scarlet. Sherzal had shaken off her chain and moved from the rail. Several of her house guards flanked her as she approached her throne.
Glass spat out a bitter, black mess from her mouth, pressing her puckered lips into a grim line. Such an attack had always been a possibility but she had felt that the weight of probability lay with Sherzal throwing herself upon her brother’s mercy. If Crucical had any murderous instincts towards his siblings then they had certainly given him enough past excuses to act upon. Likely this time he would have banished Sherzal to the ice. The ice being the symbolic punishment, the banishment real. From the ice, no doubt burdened with funds, Sherzal would have been able to return to some other country along the Corridor and live a comfortable life in exile. That was how Glass had anticipated events unfolding. However, she had always known that the chance Sherzal would throw caution to the wind and take to violence was a real one.
Sherzal reached her throne and turned in an imperious swirl of white. “My friends, lords of the Sis, I brought you here not just for the pleasure of your company but to make an announcement.”
Sera pitched forward with a clatter and lay still in the spreading pool of her blood. Melkir, ashen-faced, bared his steel and went to stand with the judges, placing himself between them and Safira.
“The moon is falling.” Sherzal stood before her throne, hands moving to underscore her words. “The ice is pressing, closing its jaws upon the empire, squeezing all of us from the lowest peasant on the margins to each of you, my brothers and sisters of the Sis. The same ice advances on the Durns and on the Scithrowl, and on their most distant borders it presses equally on the witch-cults of Barron and the Kingdom of Ald.”
Lord Jotsis stood up from his chair. “Your servant just murdered an Inquisition enforcer! I demand an explanation, not a lesson in geography!”
“My brother cannot save this empire!” Sherzal carried on as if Lord Jotsis were still silent and seated. “His armies can barely contain the Durns. Our coast is washed by the Marn but three miles out it might as well be called the Durnsea.” She gestured east, waving an arm towards the banqueting hall. “When the Scithrowl come they will not be stopped. These mountains have been all of the empire’s strength in the east but they are no longer tall enough to hold back this tide.”
The scattered protests at Sherzal’s assertion rose above a background of worried silence. Word of the Scithrowl numbers had been spreading westward like a plague.
“The moon is falling!” Sherzal raised her arms. “Listen to the words. We say ‘When the moon falls’ and by that saying we mean never . . . but I’ll repeat myself. The moon is falling.” She scanned the room, her stare challenging any dissent. “The moon is falling but it has not fallen yet. It will fly a lifetime more, and another perhaps, but in that time the northern ice will hasten its advance towards the southern.
“What do the Scithrowl want with us, my lords? Why brave the harsh slopes of the Grampains? Why spend their blood here instead of racing across the hills of the Ald?” Sherzal allowed no time for answers. “The Ark can control the moon. She who controls the moon owns the Corridor. Adoma, battle-queen, knows this. She also knows that my brother would break the Ark asunder before he let it fall to those who had destroyed our empire, and rightly so.”
Lord Jotsis, still on his feet, found his
