Govnan’s voice brought Tuvaini back to the council table.
“The emperor is a Carrier and his brother is dead: what remains to us? Who will guide the empire and keep it whole?” The old man looked unsettled.
“The emperor may yet be healed.” The priest of Mirra drew his cream and gold robes about him.
“Has any Carrier yet been cured?” Tuvaini asked. “Any single one?”
Dinar studied his palms, stained black with the Tears of Herzu. “Beyon’s own law requires the death of all Carriers, death by stone and fire.”
“Eyul knows his duty. Beyon’s remains will be cremated before sunset.” Tuvaini felt his heart quicken. He reached for his scroll and resumed his seat at the table.
“We must look to the records,” General Hazran said. “Texts remain sealed in the royal treasury. Beyon’s father worked to prune the Reclaimer’s line for two generations, but there will be an heir if we reach back far enough.”
Lurish snorted. “Some minor noble from the outer provinces? Some halfsavage who knows nothing of the empire?”
“Perhaps a solution lies closer at hand?” Master Herran spoke in a soft voice, but the table listened. He fixed Tuvaini with his pale eyes. “Have you a suggestion, Lord High Vizier?”
Tuvaini returned the gaze. This man misses little.
“I have a document here. The Reclaimer’s tree, taken from the Axus Library before the fire. It shows the line from the time of Beyon’s greatgrandfather.” He unrolled the tightly bound parchment and smoothed it out upon the table. The great and good of Cerana left their seats to crowd at his shoulders.
“Here.” He laid a finger on Jemal, second of the Reclaimer’s sons. “A prince set aside when his father died and his elder brother took the throne.”
“The child had talent,” Govnan said. “The Tower petitioned that he be spared, just as we sought to protect Prince Sarmin, but he was lost when the Yrkmen looted Nooria.”
“He was lost,” Tuvaini moved his finger down the scroll, “but not without issue. There was a girl, a servant, I suspect-she is unnamed-but there was a child born before the Yrkmen came.”
“How could such a child have been spared?” General Lurish asked.
Tuvaini shrugged. “The emperor had his own sons by then. Perhaps a younger, illegitimate, cousin was not considered worth killing.”
“And who was this child?” Dinar’s deep voice commanded attention.
“My grandfather on my father’s side.” Tuvaini rose from his seat. “We have an heir, gentlemen.” He climbed the first step of the dais. “And it is I.”
He took the second stair and turned to face them. “You have your heir: a man who knows the empire and its ways, a man who knows you and your ways.”
The throne-room doors swung inwards, so silently that none of the council noticed, or turned their heads.
Tuvaini stepped backwards, reaching the Petal Throne. “You have an heir: a man who will destroy our hidden foe and who will let this empire be greater than we have dared to dream.”
“I would follow such an emperor.”
The men of the council looked at the newcomer. From the doorway Arigu smiled and bowed.
Tuvaini returned the smile and sat upon the throne. He set his hands upon black stone armrests, amid silver flowers. It felt like coming home.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Fifteen paces, left turn, twenty paces, left turn. Sarmin trailed his fingers across the wall fabric, listening to the whispers beneath the hiss.
He thought of Tuvaini’s door, of Grada coming from the tunnel, her knife in her hand. His walls were less solid than he had thought. The ceiling gods were paint and gold leaf, the work of deft fingers and a skilled wrist.
“There are no angels.” He set his hands across Aherim. “I could scratch you away, like an itch. A man could make a blank page of this room with a bucket of plaster.”
Silence.
“Answer me.” Silence.
“I will not die here. I can leave at my will.”
Sarmin crossed to the door. Govnan had said it would be left unlocked.
He set his hand on the wood. His fingers trembled; his whole hand, his arm, his body shook.
“I can leave.” Bile flooded his mouth, burning the back of his throat.
He steadied himself against the wall with his other hand, head down. His hair fell over his face and a trail of sour drool extended from his lips. “I have opened doors before.” He gasped the words. “Doors where men don’t go.”
His fingernails bit into the edge of the door. Ten breaths, deep ones. “I… can… open… this one.”
He hauled, and the door swung inwards, crashing against the wall, shockingly loud.
And there it was: the world beyond, an area of paved stone six feet by six feet, empty now, but polished to a shine by the feet of hundreds of bored guards, and the tower steps curving down, out from sight in a tight spiral.
Sarmin tried to step through, but his legs failed him. He crouched on the carpet, retching dryly.
What would she think of him now, his horsegirl? Grada, Mother, if they could see him weeping and broken before an open door?
He tried to crawl forwards, though his tears had left him blind and his arms had no strength.
For an age he lay there, a wet cheek to the rug, the silk fibre tickling his lips, staring at those steps. The threshold was a precipice. It held all the terror of the fall from his window, the long drop to his dead brothers, before they sealed it again with a thin alabaster pane.
Out there they thought him dead-out there he was dead.
“I can’t.”
He crawled back to his bed.
My bride. Sarmin turned once more to his walls and what might be seen there. Among a million twisting lines he found the curve of her cheek. He traced it with a finger and found her smile. She watched him. She was close, he knew it. Out there, beyond the threshold, she was close enough to hear the call of the Tower mages. Come to me. Please.
Mesema struggled with the pomegranate. Even the fruits here were strange and unhelpful. Still, her efforts had won her a small pile of segments, like pale rubies in her dish. They were beautiful, but disappointing in the mouth. She would have preferred an apple.
“Who was that man who scared you?” she asked Lana. The old man who had come out of the wall and spoken to Mesema as if he knew her.
Lana frowned and considered every word she spoke, as if picking her way through a field of secrets.
“His name is Govnan.”
Mesema added another segment to her pile on the silver plate. Something tugged at her: a memory of Beyon’s? Imagination?
“And who is Govnan?” He was clearly someone important, for he had sought no permission to enter the women’s wing.
“He is High Mage Govnan,” Lana said.
“A mage?” Mesema turned a seed in her mouth, thinking of the pattern. “What kind of mage?”
Lana kept her eyes on the floor, studying the mosaics. Juice beaded her nails as Mesema tore the remains of the pomegranate apart. The mage hadn’t looked dangerous, he had looked tired and old-and yet he had called freely upon the emperor’s time.
“What did he say to the emperor?” Mesema had seen them exchange words by the door. Govnan had spoken only once, and Beyon had nearly stumbled, putting a hand on the old man’s shoulder, as if for support. They left
