She was the Empress ...
Then, for a reason she could not have explained, her attention suddenly focused on Jass Kebessa, a minor member of the Degen Jassi to whom she had previously paid scant, if any, heed. Yet now, as he knelt on one knee before her, bowed his head, and began to recite the ritual words, Tiyana heard him clearly. The internal distance that had muffled the words of others had disappeared.
“Mesfin, my life is yours,” Jass Kebessa intoned, as had all the others who preceded him; as would those who were behind him.
“I pledge you my fidelity,” Jass Kebessa continued. “I will serve you and the Empire well.”
Still on one knee, he raised his head and looked at her.
Why are his eyes shifting, Tiyana wondered. What is the meaning of the drops of sweat standing out on his brow?
Jass Kebessa waited for her to give the nod that would send him on his way. It was taking longer for him to receive the time-honored signal than it had for others. Stinging perspiration crept into his eyes.
A slight touch from Kyroun prodded Tiyana into giving the awaited nod. Jass Kebessa rose, bowed, and made way for the next member of the Degen Jassi to give the Empress her pledge.
And, once again, grief put a distance between Tiyana and the words that would be repeated endlessly that day.
4
Much later, Tiyana lay awake in her bed at the Beit Almovaar. Despite the entreaties of the more tradition-minded members of the Degen Jassi, she had refused to sleep at the palace this night. She could not bear the thought of spending the night in her father’s bedchamber. As it was, sleeping in the bed she had shared with Keshu carried its own complement of sorrows. But here, at least, she could wrap the sheets she had hoped to share with him forever tightly around her body, and she could still feel him and smell him as she slept the sleep of one who was completely drained, both physically and emotionally.
The burdens of her new position had not eased after the pledges of fealty were finished. After the Degen Jassi had departed, Kyroun had taken her aside and told her all of what had transpired in Khambawe during the time she had spent in the Uloan Islands. He told her about the continuing progress of the rebuilding, and the re-establishment of the links that had once held the Empire’s territories together. He told her about the unexpected departure of the Tokoloshe.
And he told her the tale brought to him and her father by the kabbar Eshetu, who had seen survivors of the second Fidi ship among the Thabas, far to the south. He had discussed the implications of the latest Thaba incursions under their formidable chieftain, Tshakane, who appeared well on his way to becoming an emperor in his own right among the cattle-herding tribes of the highlands. And he told her how he and Gebrem and planned to act upon this convergence of events.
As well, he suggested ways in which she could quell the disquiet rampant in Khambawe in the wake of the tsotsis’ treacherous attack, and how she could reassure the Matile that their Empire would retain its newfound stability and momentum even in the face of the assassination of Gebrem. And he had discussed how vengeance could be exacted against the perpetrators of the killings. The shadows, as it seemed, had not been sufficient.
Tiyana had only half-listened to him. She understood the gravity of his words well enough. But she could only vaguely attach what he said to herself, or to the future. As well, part of her harbored an unfair resentment toward him because he was alive and her father was not. And another part was mortified that she could wish death on the man who had saved the Empire.
Sensing the extent of the conflict within Tiyana, if not its exact nature, Kyroun brought the one-sided conversation to an end.
“We are all weary,” he had told her. “Better that we get whatever rest we can. But heed this, Tiyana – the responsibility that has passed to you is yours until the day you die. It is what defines you now. I know you wish that did not have to be so. Yet so it is, and you cannot change it. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Tiyana said in a voice devoid of feeling, as though someone other than herself had spoken the words.
Kyroun had departed from her then, and Tiyana had returned to the Beit Amiya. Now she finally breathed in the slow rhythm of deep sleep, the white cotton sheet bunched and tangled around her body, which was curled into itself like that of a frightened child.
She was in her familiar bedchamber ... yet, at the same time, she was somewhere else ...
5
Tiyana stood in the midst of a landscape of sand. Plains and mountainous dunes stretched farther than her eyes could see, the horizon touching a sky the color of saffron. A gentle breeze blew grains of sand against her skin. But the sand did not sting her. Instead, the touch of the grains was like a thousand tiny caresses.
The sheet from her bed was draped around her like a chamma. Its ends stirred in the breeze and tickled her legs. Her many braids blew around her face, at times obscuring her vision.
Although she had never been in this place before, Tiyana knew it was the Realm of Almovaar. Kyroun had described it to her, and so had her father. At those times she had envied their access to the deity, and wondered if Almovaar would ever deem her worthy of
