Peter Brett - The Core

Now he was dead, along with so many others. Now there were spears everywhere, pointing at her heart, the heart of everything she and Ahmann had built.

Even her Jiwah Sen could no longer be trusted. All save Belina now had their sons in direct control of their respective tribes. They had their own wealth, their own power. They had become wilful, and Inevera’s tools to bring them in line were few.

—Your fates are intertwined— the dice said of Inevera and Abban. They needed to pool their strength to bend with the wind of Ahmann’s passing.

‘Because Everam does not care what weights we bear,’ Inevera said. ‘Everam cares about one thing, and one thing only.’

Ashia nodded. ‘Sharak Ka.’

‘Something your husband has forgotten,’ Inevera said. ‘His efforts in the night were for political gain. He has the throne, but no strategy in the First War. Someone must keep focus on that. The khaffit is an advantage, and every advantage must be seized. If Abban does not return soon, I fear he will find his nephew has taken everything from him and given it to Asome.’

And with that, she closed her eyes and whispered her prayer to Everam, feeling the alagai hora warm her fingers as their power was called forth, tuned to Abban’s aura.

She threw, watching the wards of prophecy flare, twisting the dice into a glimpse into the unknowable.

—The man who is not a man has him.—

Inevera breathed, keeping her centre. If Hasik had Abban, the khaffit ’s prospects were grim, but Hasik took no greater pleasure than in the suffering of others. He would not want to kill Abban right away. He would hurt him, over and over, until Abban bled out from a thousand cuts.

Perhaps there was time.

‘Hasik,’ Inevera said. Ashia needed no further instruction, moving quickly to the cold room where Inevera stored the blood of almost every man, woman, and child of note in Krasia.

Normally, Inevera would cleanse the dice between throws, but since Abban’s and Hasik’s fates were now tied, she left his essence to help the spell. Ashia returned with Hasik’s blood, and Inevera fell into her breath, relaxing as she freshly coated the sticky dice.

‘Everam, giver of light and life,’ she prayed. ‘Your children need answers. I beg you for knowledge of Hasik asu Reklan am’Kez am’Kaji, former brother-in-law to Shar’Dama Ka. Where can he be found?’

—Spreading like poison in the North.—

—Nie’s power grows in him.—

—He has turned from Sharak Ka.—

‘Shar’Dama Ka!’ The guards stamped their spears as Asome entered the throne room.

Inevera lounged on her bed of pillows atop the dais beside the electrum-coated Skull Throne. Her pose was practised, artfully appearing relaxed, disinterested, and submissive when she was anything but.

Inevera could not deny her second son looked the part. Like his father, he now wore a warrior’s black under his white outer robe. He carried expert forgeries of the Spear and Crown of Kaji. From a distance, they were indistinguishable from the originals, lost when the Par’chin carried Ahmann into darkness.

The Evejah forbade male clerics from blade weapons, and none save the Deliverer had worn a crown in centuries. They were a message to all that Asome had transcended.

At his back was Inevera’s third son, Hoshkamin the Sharum Ka, followed by their ten Damaji brothers, each fifteen years old and commanding an entire tribe. All of them looked worshipfully at their elder brother.

As he drew closer, Inevera could see his spear and crown didn’t have a fraction of the wardings engraved into the originals, but she had observed them in Everam’s light, and they glowed with power not to be underestimated. Made from electrum and priceless gems with cores of alagai hora , they were covered in the familiar fluid scripts of Melan and Asavi. A betrayal months in the making.

The Damaji wore a single warded gemstone in their black turbans. Gems were effective for conducting and focusing magic, and each had been warded by his Damaji’ting mother to give him some small powers.

But Asome’s crown – like Ahmann’s – had nine horns, each set with a different gemstone. Even Inevera could not guess the full extent of Asome’s magic when he wore it, and she had never seen him outside his wing of the palace without it.

Likely she could still overwhelm him in a battle of magic, but not easily or without risk, and Asome knew it. He was careful not to test his magic against his mother.

Ahmann, confident in his powers and position, had kept his courtroom shielded from sunlight, that he and Inevera might use magic freely. Asome had torn down the thick fabric blocking the great windows of the Deliverer’s court, bathing it in light from east and west and proclaiming court only be held in Everam’s light.

She wanted to believe it was because he feared her, but in her heart Inevera knew it was wisdom, not fear, that guided his actions.

There is too much of me in you, my son, Inevera thought sadly.

‘Mother.’ Asome reached the top of the steps and gave a slight bow.

‘My son.’ Inevera extended a hand.

Asome could not in politeness refuse, but he was careful as a snake handler as he took her hand and bent to kiss the air above it, offering her no advantage in grip or balance.

‘If I meant to throw you from this dais, I would have done it weeks ago.’ Inevera’s voice was too low for others in the court to hear.

Asome gave her a peck and pulled smoothly back. ‘Unless the dice told you to wait.’ He turned and went to his throne. ‘They have ever been more important to you than blood.’

Below, similar gazes crossed the aisle as the new Damaji and their Damaji’ting mothers met eyes. For centuries, they had been groups of twelve, but since the Night of Hora there remained only ten of each.

Dama Jamere stepped forward from the writing podium Abban had occupied for so long. Since the disappearance of his uncle, the young dama had been left in full command of Abban’s vast holdings and inherited his uncle’s place in the Deliverer’s court.

Jamere knelt before the steps, putting his hands on the floor and his head between them. ‘You honour the court with your presence, Deliverer.’

Like Abban, Jamere was utterly corrupt. But where his uncle had been corrupt in ways Ahmann and Inevera could use, Jamere’s loyalties were unreadable, even when she peered into his aura in Everam’s light.

And Asome knew Jamere from Sharik Hora. They were of an age, and Inevera hadn’t needed to see his aura to know they had been lovers. Asome and Asukaji were infamous in their class of nie’dama , and there were few boys unwilling to lie with them in hope of finding favour with their powerful families. With Asukaji dead, how long before Asome resumed his ways?

Her eyes flicked to her son, watching the richest man in Krasia prostrate himself. There was a slight quirk to Asome’s lips. Perhaps he already had.

I must find Abban, and soon.

‘Rise, my friend,’ Asome said, beckoning with his spear. ‘Your presence is a vast improvement over the court khaffit. ’

‘Few can abrade like my dear uncle,’ Jamere said. ‘ Inevera , he will return safely to us.’

Asome nodded. ‘Or if he was lost on my brother’s ill-fated attack on the forest fortress and you are now a permanent member of my court, then that, too, is inevera. You may take the sixth step.’

Jamere rolled smoothly to his feet, smiling as he climbed the steps. He stopped at the sixth, a step below the dais. His head was well below Asome’s, but close enough to whisper words so softly even Inevera strained to catch them without magic.