“Like you,” Arn said.

  “Yes, like me. But the gift means more than just turning into a big scary cat. That wasn’t its purpose, not at first, not before Miquo was invaded. We were meant to speak with the dead gods of our pantheon. We were to share in their past existence and to ensure their knowledge and guidance survived long after their mortal bodies perished.”

  Her hand settled softly upon his arm. At last she looked to him. There was no worry in her eyes, no reluctance. Only compassion to set his insides aflame.

  “Arn… would you like to speak with Velgyn?”

  That flame turned to frost. His hands shook.

  “I fear to,” he said.

  “I’ll be with you.”

  Arn brushed the charm’s fur across his calloused fingers.

  “She died in Vulnae, thousands of miles from here. Are you sure it is even possible?”

  Mari squeezed his hand. Her smile grew ever so slightly. He felt a child again, sitting before a teacher so much wiser and learned in the ways of gods and faiths.

  “Prayer knows no distance.”

  Arn had spent many years running from his brother, but the current fear in his breast was a thousand times worse at imagining such a confrontation.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Please, Mari, spare me such a torment. You think you offer me comfort, but I crushed the fox goddess between my gauntlets. I felt her bones break. She will not offer me absolution, only condemnation.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “And neither do you.”

  Mari took the charm from his hands and held it before her. Eyes closed, she breathed in as if inhaling its essence.

  “Whoever you were then, it isn’t who you are now. Know the offer remains however much time it takes. I hold faith it will not be so long as you believe.”

  Arn bunched his fists, shame swelling like burning coals in his neck and face. His eyes grew wet, and he clenched his jaw tight to fight the feeling off.

  “You expect much from this coward,” he said.

  “You’re not a coward,” she said, sliding off the bed. Her free hand cupped his face, a loving touch he did not deserve. He leaned into it with eyes closed, and his need to weep increased tenfold. Gods help him, she was so kind, so beautiful. “Only wounded. When your heart is ready to cease its bleeding, come to me. We’ll do it together.”

  Before she left, she pressed the little foxtail charm into his hands. She made him hold the proof of his most vile deed. She forced him to cling to the memory that had broken him. A memento of when he started his path toward becoming something new. A betrayer. A criminal.

  A heretic.

  CHAPTER 28

  SINSHEI

  Sinshei ordered a chair brought to Keles’s bedroom before she returned. She sat in the center of the room, her hands folded in her lap, and observed the imprisoned Orani heir. Keles was sullen, her gaze averted, and what random glances Sinshei did receive were furious glares.

  She’s so young, and yet her heart is scarred and old, Sinshei thought. A familiar sight, if she was honest with herself, for she had been to many recently conquered nations. Youths forced into battle, their world around them crumbling, their gods dying, their beliefs challenged to their core as they witnessed death and bloodshed on a scale that would break even the hardest of minds. Keles had endured the prisons and narrowly avoided hanging on the Dead Flags due to the forsaking ceremony. Now she had witnessed the rebirth and subsequent death of a false shadow of her beloved Lycaena. Most people would break from less. Keles, so far, had not.

  That would change.

  “What do you want from me?” Keles asked, seizing the conversation before Sinshei might start. The young woman sat on the edge of the bed, a slight improvement over hunching in the corner. Her brown eyes looked up, meeting Sinshei’s. Challenging her. Despite the word-lace she wore around her throat rendering it unnecessary, Sinshei answered in native Thanese.

  “Soma told me of the battle against the false Lycaena, and in great detail. Most curious was your intimacy with the Vagrant. Soma insists that you know who he is, who he truly is beneath the mask and cloak. He is a thorn in the side of peace, a torch setting fires of rebellion that will consume all and aid no one. You can tell me who he is and how to find him.”

  “I will not give him up to you,” she said. That she did not deny this knowledge was a huge tell. The emphasis she put on the “you” at the end told Sinshei even more. This matter was deeply personal.

  Someone close to her, she thought. Family? A friend?

  But something else was there, something she had not anticipated. Anger. Whoever the Vagrant was, Keles bore a deep fury toward him, and Sinshei could only guess as to the reason. Someone dear, but someone who had hurt her. Someone she could betray, but only if the betrayal was committed by her own hands, and not the empire’s. Sinshei struggled to keep her smile hidden beneath a veneer of calm.

  Perfect.

  “Thanet is still lacking a proper regent,” Sinshei said. The task was set. It was time to reveal the reward. “And given the difficulties we have faced, and the great distance between here and Gadir, we need a strong ruler whom the people trust. Perhaps one they would even love. That could be you, Keles. We will spread the truth of your island’s past, at least in regard to your bloodline. We will show them the sins of the Lythan family and declare you the returned Orani queen, our regent in all but name.”

  She could see the desire the young woman fought to hide. It warred against her pride, perhaps honor, or a sense of loyalty to the island over any agreement with their conquerors. It was close, though, so very close. Keles was a hundred times broken, her faith twice shattered. When captured by Soma, she no doubt expected death, and yet now she was offered a throne. A false throne, perhaps, but a throne nonetheless.

  Sinshei leaned closer. Her voice softened, as if with understanding. As if she somehow knew exactly who the Vagrant was, and why he was so closely connected to the troubled woman.

  “You don’t need to give me a name, Keles. You need only bring me proof of his death.”

  “I could…” She hesitated. “Even if I agreed, I could never defeat him in battle. Surely Soma told you that as well.”

  No hiding this smile. Sinshei rose from her chair, and she offered Keles a delicate hand.

  “I know,” she said. “Come with me.”

  The pair rode a carriage south out of Vallessau. Keles wore no bindings, a gesture of trust toward the woman Sinshei would make an ally. No conversation was held between them. It felt like they rode toward an execution, and in many ways, it was one. The sun had begun to set, painting red and yellow streaks across the sky. The island was beautiful, Sinshei had to admit. One could spend many happy years wandering the beaches, the tall mountains, and the rolling fields deeper within the heart of Thanet. She might have, if she had come not as an Anointed. For a time, the empire had sent missionaries to pave the way for the armies that would follow. God-Incarnate Lucavi had ended that practice within his first year. First conquest, then conversion. He was an impatient deity when it came to the ever-hungry borders of his empire.

  The road roughened, and they descended from the higher rocky fields back toward the beach. Once they exited, Sinshei bade the driver to return to the city. There would be no witnesses for this ceremony except those Sinshei invited. One was Soma, who waited at the beach with an enormous chest at his feet. Within was the work she had requested of their smiths, performed admirably given the time constraints. Behind him, standing in a circle, were ten followers of Dagon.

  Keles broke her silence at the sand’s edge. It seemed she was nervous to come closer to the smiling paragon.

  “Why are we here?” she asked, and gestured to the waiting crowd. “Why are they here?”

  “Among the paragons, there is a special designation,” Sinshei explained. “A paragon penitent. They are paragons who have gone astray in their faith but seek to return to the fold. I would have you become one such penitent, Keles, only the power will not come from any faith in the God-Incarnate in Eldrid. It will come from those who are loyal still to the god Dagon, and who recognize you as possessing his divine blessing.”

  “What you’re offering is blasphemous to the Uplifted Church,” Keles said, and she was not wrong. “Why would you allow this?”

  Sinshei turned to Soma, not yet ready to answer such a question.

  “Go to them, and make sure their hearts are ready,” she ordered.

  “As you wish,” Soma said, and he dipped his head low.

  Sinshei pulled her braided hair over her right shoulder so it hung down to her knees. Silently, she debated as she watched him go. Keles shuffled beside her, nervous and agitated. They were alone on this beach, just the two of them. She was asking so much of young Keles. Something must be offered in return. A sliver of honesty. A secret pain Sinshei had never shared with others.

  “My mother’s name was Valshei,” Sinshei said. “She was a concubine in service of the God-Incarnate, taken from Aethenwald upon its conquering as a momentary infatuation. I was born in Eldrid and heard only stories of Aethenwald. My mother, she would tell them as she braided my hair, painting beautiful pictures of the deep oak woods, the looping cities full of shadow, and their rivers so deep only the strongest divers could hold their breath to reach the bottom. A beautiful land, full of strange customs. ‘Never cut your hair,’ my mother told me. ‘Let it grow until it reaches the floor, and drag it behind you as a train to your gown if you must. Bear the weight. Never cut it.’ It was important to her, so I listened. And then one day, we returned to Aethenwald.”

  Sinshei paused to collect the memories. She did not think of her mother often. The images were distant, and tinted with hurt. To dwell on them might make her vulnerable. Even worse, they might lead her to heresy.

  A smirk crossed her face.

  Too late for that.

  “Aethenwald was considered an easy victory, but it was due to clever manipulation of our ambassadors. The Aethenean people thought they would have a level of autonomy upon joining the empire. More than a few royals were eager to give up their cloying, sentimental gods if it meant power concentrated in their tri-throne rule instead of split with their priests. When we broke their thrones and appointed a regent, the riots began. Treasonous poems and songs filled taverns. It was a black eye upon many in Eldrid’s court, particularly those who thought a less militaristic absorption of other nations was possible. And so I traveled to Aethenwald, but not with my mother. I rode there with my brother, Galvanis vin Lucavi.”

  Sinshei paused for a breath. The scent of the ocean teased her throat, and she relished the feeling. It fought away the distant panic. That carriage ride had taken a month, which had felt like forever to her ten-year-old self. Galvanis, twenty years old and beaming with the confidence and glory of one recently declared Heir-Incarnate, had decided he would use that month to properly instruct her on matters of court and faith. He would tell her things the Uplifted Church thought inappropriate for children to understand. He would list the great many heresies her mother had supposedly committed with her tongue and flesh.

  She remembered insisting her mother would never do such things. She swore to her older brother that Valshei was just, and true, and faithful to the God-Incarnate. Galvanis had only laughed and called her a naïve child.

  “When I arrived in Aethenwald’s capital,” she continued, “I noted the different styles of dress, the thicker cloth to match the often stormy weather. They were visions from my bedtime stories, and it was exciting to see them real and yet… disheartening, without the luster of my childhood imagination. Stranger still, each and every man and woman was completely shorn of hair. At first I thought… I thought that was why my mother had insisted I never cut my hair. It was a sign to the God-Incarnate of our loyalty. If Aethenwald’s people kept themselves shaved, we would do the opposite. My brother, he must have noticed my expression, and the way I was staring.”

  Of course he had noticed. He always did. He watched her like a hunting hawk. She was so often a disappointment to him, yet it never prevented him from acting invested in her. Whatever successes she achieved, he would smile and treat them as if they were his own. He never needed to voice that opinion. The look in his eye would be enough.

  “My dearest Galvanis then told me a story of Aethenean culture. Each man and woman, from the moment of their birth, did not cut their hair. It is only upon marriage that the two lovers, on the day of their wedding, have their hair decorated, braided into each other’s, and then cut. A ‘coupling braid,’ it is called. That braid is then set in a place of honor within the household, be it a fireplace, a doorway, or a window visible from the street. It symbolizes the love and unity between the two, and thereafter, cut or trimmed hair is seen as a mark of adulthood, of maturity.”

  Sinshei remembered the way Galvanis had shared this fact, the inflection in his voice. Like it had been cute, in the same way children playing pretend were cute. There was no respect for the act, only amusement. It was the exact opposite of how her mother had told her stories of her home.

  “I asked him if that was why everyone was shaved. My brother, he laughed. He laughed. ‘No,’ he told me. ‘They are shaved because I ordered them shaved. They are now married to the God-Incarnate in their hearts, each and every last one of them.’ And then we exited the carriage, finally arrived to the reason we had come all that way. He never told me. A month in a carriage, bored and alone, and he never let me know my mother was in an accompanying carriage. Bound. Imprisoned. Condemned.”

  It had been years since she cried for her mother, and never in the presence of others. Tears were dangerous. Sorrow expressed for a heretic? Even more so. But here on this foreign shore, she let Keles see every ember of the fire that awakened within her. It was hotter than she anticipated.

  “They tied my mother to a pole amidst a pyre made of a thousand cut braids. Before that crowd, Galvanis cut my mother’s hair with a jagged razor and then lit it with a torch. Then he stood at my side, took my hand, and held it while we watched. Ten years old, I watched her burn. I never said a word. Neither did Galvanis, not until it was over, and her screams had ceased. Then he finally spoke.”

  The words had stuck with her forever, haunting her, flooding her nightmares with demons that chased with bleeding gums and smelled of burnt hair.

  “‘I’m proud of you.’”

  The waves crashed along the shore, the only noise to fill the silence. Sinshei stared at the men and women gathered at the beach, but she did not see them. She saw a crowd standing, shocked still as the pyre burned. At least the smell of salt was on the wind. Far better that. Far better.

  “My brother, Galvanis vin Lucavi, is set to become the new God-Incarnate of the Everlorn Empire. For six hundred years, he shall reign. Unless he is stopped. Unless I stop him.” Sinshei’s mind returned to the present. No more tears. No more aching sorrow for a childhood that ended upon a pyre. “I know the Everlorn Empire is not perfect. I know there is a sickness within the Uplifted Church, allowed to fester and rot over a millennium. Others know it, too, and there are many of us in Eldrid seeking change. I could be the one to change it, Keles. It would not happen in a day, but I would have more than a day. I would have six hundred years.”

  “You speak as if I should care for the workings of your empire,” Keles said softly.

  “There are millions of imperial lives I could make better, but even if you do not care for them, I know you care for your people here on your island. I shall give Thanet back to you. I will have no need of it. For the first time in the three-thousand-year history of the Everlorn Empire, I will turn our eyes inward instead of outward. All I ask is for you to be an ally when I require it most.”

  “And the Vagrant?”

  “A complication that must be eliminated. A test for you to overcome. They are one and the same, but only if you are willing.”

  Keles looked to the ocean. Together, they listened to the waves. Sinshei could only guess at the whirlwind of emotions within the young woman, but she trusted the final answer.

  “I know nothing of Dagon. He is a story to me, a trickster villain long slain. How do I put my faith in him?”

  “You need not hold love in your own heart,” Sinshei said, and she offered Keles her hand. “You must only trust in those who do. Your blood was chosen. Whatever lingering strength the fallen deity possesses, let it become yours.”

  Keles accepted the hand, and they walked to the waiting ring of followers. The youngest was perhaps forty, with most participants elderly and gray. They had dressed in loose robes that resembled one another in style, and Sinshei suspected they were handmade re-creations of the official garb worn by Dagon’s faithful hundreds of years ago. She imagined them as they had once been, full of wealth and color, with vibrant blue robes sashed in gold and decorated with sapphires and seashells. Not these mismatched, hand-sewn pieces, more gray than blue. Such a perfect example of a nation holding on after the Everlorn Empire’s arrival. They would dress in rags if it meant pantomiming a long-lost past.

  Forfeit the elders, and instead tend the hearts and minds of the young, she thought. It was one of the Uplifted Church’s axioms that guided their expansion. The elderly would stick to their old ways. It was the new generations one must mold.

  The ten shuffled closer, quiet, reverent. A woman grasped Keles’s wrists, and she gazed at her with milky eyes. Her hair was white and wrapped in a pale scarf. She wore a pendant around her neck decorated with stones carved and painted to resemble blue fish scales.

  “Long I dreamed of this moment,” she said. “Yet never did I believe it would happen in my lifetime. A return of the true blood. A loyal Orani seated on the island throne.”

  “The Returned Queen,” an even older man said beside her. He removed a pendant from around his neck and slipped it over Keles’s head. The young woman accepted it silently. “Praise be. Praise be.”