L. Modesitt - Scion of Cyador

I would be remembered in the morning breeze,

in a single daffodil above late snow,

in slanting sun through trees,

and distant hills where cold winds blow.

Do not wear mourning green;

you have seen what I have seen.

Is that the way Toziel would like to be remembered-or as the father figure that the Emperor always must be?

Ryalth’s eyes are bright, and her blue eyes meet Lorn’s. “I wonder.”

He closes the book, then takes the note from her hand and slips it inside the front cover, before he hands her the book. “We each have a copy.” He smiles. “Since you have entrusted yours to me these long years, I will entrust mine to you.”

Jerial steps into the green-walled salon of the Empress. Her eyes circle the room, then come to rest on the man in the silver-trimmed green tunic and trousers who stands from where he has been sitting on the white divan, beside a red-haired woman in formal blue tunic, trimmed in both green and silver.

A small boy in green trousers and tunic turns. “Jehwhal!” His legs pump, carrying him toward the healer in green.

Jerial bends and scoops him up, hugging him.

Lorn and Ryalth follow their son.

“This is all…hard to believe,” Jerial says, shifting Kerial to her left shoulder.

“It’s hard to believe you won’t be staying in Cyad,” Ryalth says. “I worry about Kerial…with you gone.”

“You and Aleyar can do all that I could.” Jerial turns to her younger brother. “You know it’s better this way. All I’ve ever really wanted was to be free and to help you as I could, and with you on the Malachite Throne…”

“I know,” Lorn says heavily. “We still worry.”

“I’ll be fine. Ryalth has arranged a villa for me in Lydiar…and a position as the healer for Ryalor House there.”

“Eileyt will ensure that we know if you need anything,” Ryalth confirms.

“It was good you gave him Ryalor House.”

“Besides Lorn, he worked the hardest to build it. But he didn’t get everything,” Ryalth says. “You’re getting the two thousand golds, and we did keep a little, in an account with the Trader’s Exchange. It has to be mine. Lorn cannot own anything.” She smiles. “If anyone had thought about a lady trader as Empress-Consort…they would have forbidden that, too, and someone will probably make sure it does not happen again.” She laughs gently.

“I wish you could be here for the ceremony,” Lorn says.

“The longer I stay, the harder it will be to leave, and if I try to be free here, I’ll always be looking over my shoulder. And you will worry about me, and then I will be caged by your concerns.” Jerial eases Kerial back to Ryalth.

The healer and the heir embrace, and then Ryalth and Jerial embrace.

After a time, Jerial looks back once, at the door, before she steps from the salon.

Do times make the man? Or does the man make the times?

His Mightiness, Lorn’elth’alt’mer, looks at the malachite-and-silver throne, then at the Empress-Consort who follows him, their son in her arms, as he walks slowly from the doors of the Great Audience Chamber toward the Malachite Throne.

On the immediate left side of the Great Hall are the Magi’i of Cyador, and their families. In the group of Magi’i stands Tyrsal, who will be the Hand of the Emperor, and knows it not, and Aleyar, who doubtless does. Beside Tyrsal stands Vernt, who believes he is there solely because he is Lorn’s brother. The First Magus, the sad-faced Liataphi, stands to the left at the base of the dais.

Also to the left is the newly-promoted Majer-Commander Sypcal, who will never fully recover from his poisoning, and who is slowly dying and knows it, and behind him, Captain-Commander Brevyl, who yet protests his triple promotion and who still does not care personally for Lorn, but for whom honesty and duty remain more important than personal tastes. Behind them are the remaining senior commanders, and the newly-promoted overcaptain Cheryk.

On the right side of the hall are the heads of the merchanter houses, and those who head the trading firms too small to be houses.

Lorn steps toward the Malachite Throne, each step measured.

Do times make the man? Or man the times?

Does it matter? Except to acknowledge that, either way, the costs are high?

Lorn bows his head as he approaches the Malachite Throne, not in respect for the throne, but in homage to all those who have paid those costs, one way or another, from the innocent grower’s daughter who still at times haunts his dreams, to Myryan, and to Tyrsal, who will pay more than he knows for Ciesrt’s death. He bows, too, in respect for all those who have paid whom he does not know and may never know.

…and in respect to the ancient Emperor whose words helped in ways the writer could never have imagined.

…and the new becomes the old,

with the way the story’s told…

So shine forth both in sun and into night

bright city of prosperity and light.