S Farrell - A Magic of Dawn

Elissa touched Allesandra’s arm with a tentative finger, then looked at the fingertip as if it were a foreign object. “She’s cold,” Elissa reported. “And kind of hard.”

“That’s what happens when you die.”

“Oh.” Elissa seemed to consider that. “Her face looks pretty, though.”

Brie could hear Jan’s voice, talking with Sergei ca’Rudka, Starkkapitan ca’Damont, and Commandant ca’Talin to one side of the quire. Talbot, Allesandra’s aide who had agreed to stay on as Jan’s aide, cleared his throat near the pews. “Hirzgin, they’re ready to let the ca’-and-cu’ enter the temple. I’m going to go get the Hirzg and the others-you have a bit yet, but…”

She nodded to him, and he stepped away. “Don’t touch that,” she told Elissa, who was reaching out with a tentative hand toward the ring. Elissa snatched back her hand as if she’d burned it.

“I wasn’t going to touch it,” she told Brie. “Is that going to be Vatarh’s ring?”

“Yes, very soon,” Brie told her.

“And will it be mine one day?”

Kriege glared at Elissa. “That’s not fair, Matarh,” he howled, his voice shrill under the dome. Brie saw the white lines of the teni ripple and someone laughed, a quick sound that was choked off. “She gets everything.”

She could hear Talbot chuckling as he strode across the nave toward Jan. She laughed, too. “No one’s going to get the ring-at least not for a long, long time, when you’re all grown up. We’ll see then. It may be that neither of you will want it.”

“Then I’ll take it,” Caelor interjected. “It’s a pretty ring.”

Brie laughed. “Come on,” she told her children. “We need to take our seats…”

The wind-horns called mournfully, their low wail sending the pigeons erupting from the ground on the plaza outside. Inside, Rochelle could feel the temple wall throbbing against her back. She’d slipped into the temple via a back door much earlier, picking the lock well before dawn, sliding up to the choir loft and along the side to a shadowed corner behind the arch of one of the buttresses, where she could look down at the quire, the bier and the closest pews.

She thought she could smell smoke here: not just the spiced aroma from the censers on the altar, but a fume that was a remnant of the black sand bombardment of the Tehuantin, lingering here below the painted arches of the dome. She had sat there hidden for several turns, waiting. She’d watched the white-robed teni file in; the choir settling into their seats not far from her.

She’d seen her vatarh and his family enter to view the body midmorning, had watched Brie escort the children forward after she and Jan had paid their own respects.

The children… The thought came to her that this could have been her matarh and her, if only things had been different, but then she shook her head. No, she told herself firmly. Their relationship could never have survived the falsehoods and Matarh’s madness. It would never have been. This was never meant for you. Don’t lie to yourself. You can only be his bastarda, never his true daughter.

She wondered what her future held, and she had no answer for that. Her hand went to the jeweled hilt of the knife she’d taken from her vatarh, the knife with which she’d hoped to kill the Kraljica. The smooth wood of the pommel seemed to throb against her fingers.

The family stepped back from the bier. She saw them settle into their pews, heard the doors open as the wind-horns began their throbbing, mournful call once again, and the ca’-and-cu’ entered the temple. The choir, startling her, began to sing one of Darkmavis’ ethereal, mournful pieces. The rising tones and the close harmonies echoed, loud and insistent, near here to the dome of the temple that they enveloped her like a cloak.

It seemed to take forever for the mourners to enter between the lines of white-robed teni and settle in their pews. From her hiding place, Rochelle watched the front pews, gazing at her vatarh and her half siblings, as well as the woman who had taken her own matarh’s place: Brie, whom they were calling the Victor of the South Bank and who the crowds cheered as loudly as they did Jan. She could see Sergei in the row behind them, sitting next to the Numetodo woman, who had a child in her arms.

And beside her was Nico, fidgeting like a bored child. The A’Morce kept turning to him and speaking softly to him, and Rochelle noticed that Sergei was watching the young man closely. Nico-she wondered if it was true, what they said of him, that his wits were gone and that he was no more than a child. Seeing him this way hurt most of all, she thought.

A’Teni ca’Beranger finally emerged from behind the quire and began the service, attended by a covey of high-ranking teni who fluttered around her with censers and goblets, with the staff of the broken globe, with the scrolls of the Toustour and Divolonte. Rochelle half-dozed through most of it, stirring only when Jan arose to give the Admonition. She watched him move to the High Lectern-walking like an old man, leaning on a cane with one arm clutched tight to his body. Talbot moved to assist him, and she saw Jan shake his head at the man. Slowly, he ascended the steps of the High Lectern, refusing to allow his injuries to stop him. She saw him gaze out over the crowd, then stare at the body of his matarh for several breaths before speaking.

“It’s customary to say how kind and wonderful one’s matarh was in life,” he said finally, his baritone voice swelling with the fine acoustics of the temple. “I won’t tell you that lie. She was not, perhaps, the best matarh I could have had. I was her only child, but I was still not the child she cared most about.

“That child, her only true child, was Nessantico. The Holdings. To Nessantico, she was an excellent matarh: a strong and forceful one, who accomplished what few others could have. She restored Nessantico when the city was in ruins. She kept the Holdings from falling apart when in lesser hands it would have crumbled and dissolved. She protected Nessantico when, for the second time, it came under the attack of foreign invaders. She gave all her love and all her energy and all her attention to this city and this empire, and when the sacrifice was demanded, she was willing to give Nessantico her life as a final payment.”

He paused, taking several breaths as if speaking had exhausted him. Rochelle leaned forward. I was willing to take her life. I would have, Matarh, but I was too late. Her hand was still on the knife hilt. Her vatarh glanced upward, as if he’d glimpsed her movement or could somehow feel the pull of the knife she’d stolen from him. She slid back into shadow. His eyes, far below, seemed to hold her despite the great distance.

“Celebrate Allesandra ca’Vorl,” Jan continued, his gaze returning to the audience. “Celebrate her stewardship of the Holdings, because in a time when the Holdings teetered on the brink, she kept the empire from the edge. That was masterful. That was genius. That was passion. Those were the qualities that Matarh possessed in abundance. They were exactly the qualities that Nessantico needed, and she arrived at exactly the time Nessantico required her presence. Nessantico was fortunate to have her-with her abilities and in this moment. Even if I didn’t exactly appreciate that most of the time.”

A faint chuckle ran through the crowd at that comment, sounding out of place in the temple. “We have emerged victorious from a terrible war,” Jan said, “in no small part because of Kraljica Allesandra’s actions. I can only hope, in going forward, that I am able to emulate her, that I can be her son and build upon her legacy. The Holdings are one again, the Faith is one again, but there are challenges ahead that will test us-all of us. I know that she will be watching from the arms of Cenzi. I hope that we can make her proud of what we accomplish.”