Shadow Scale (67 page)

The ityasaari did not care to spend one more night in the Garden of the Blessed, and neither did I. I had everything moved back to my old suite as soon as possible.

Blanche, Od Fredricka, and Gianni Patto took up residence at Dame Okra’s large ambassadorial residence in town while she
made arrangements for them to return to Ninys. “They’re going to need protections and assurances, to say nothing of support,” she explained, bustling about officiously, when I visited her at home. “Count Pesavolta isn’t certain he wants them, said they’re ‘disruptive’ and ‘polarizing.’ Well, I expect I can hammer some certainty into him.”

“They’re welcome to remain in Goredd,” I said. “The Queen said—”

“I know,” she said, her froggy face puckering sadly. “But you must understand, now they associate Goredd with … well, with that time. You can’t blame them.”

I didn’t, but I wished things were different.

Lars stayed at the palace for now, although he did not return to Viridius. The old man used me as a go-between. I told Lars that Viridius forgave him and wanted him back, but Lars just smiled sadly and said, “I cannot yet forgive myself.” He drifted through the palace like a ghost.

News reached us that Porphyry had dissuaded further Samsamese aggression with a decisive naval victory. The Porphyrian ityasaari wanted to set out for home before winter made the roads difficult. Gaios, Gelina, and Mina spoke of taking off on new journeys after escorting the others back. They were only waiting for Camba and Pende to be well enough to travel.

Camba was healing; she began to take her first hobbling steps around the palace gardens with a cane. Pende, alas, was not so fortunate. I had been hoping against all reason that Jannoula’s departure might bring about some kind of recovery for the old priest, but he still lay inertly, his condition unchanged.

Ingar brought him outside into the wan autumn sunshine to watch Camba practice walking. The old man stared at nothing, his wattled chin sunk to his chest.

I was helping Camba keep her balance while Ingar adjusted Pende’s lap blanket. “I feel terrible about Paulos Pende,” I said quietly, adjusting my arm around Camba’s waist. “If I could have unbound myself sooner, maybe—”

“I also tend to blame myself first,” said Camba. Her head was still shaved for mourning, though she’d rehung her golden earrings. “The world is seldom so simple that it hinges on us alone. Pende played his own part. He told you your mind was bound and that it was a problem, but did he make even the slightest attempt to help you?”

“He doesn’t deserve this,” I said, unsure where her argument was leading.

“Of course not,” said Camba. “And neither do you deserve all the blame. Sometimes everyone does their best and things still end up wrong.”

While I considered this, Ingar approached us, smiling widely. I ceded my place to him. “I think we can keep the old man comfortable as we travel,” said Ingar. “There are carriages designed for invalids, with good springs so they don’t jostle too much. I’ll take Phloxia to procure one; if there was ever anyone born to deal with merchants, it’s her.”

I noticed the pronouns. “You’re going back to Porphyry, Ingar?”

“I didn’t get enough time at the library,” he said, kissing Camba on the cheek. Camba kissed his bald head.

“Your own library is here now,” I said, surprised that I wanted him to stay.

His eyes softened apologetically. “I’ve read all the books in
my
library.”

“Of course,” I said. “How silly of me.”

I embraced them both together. Camba held on to me for a long time.

“You will come to us in Porphyry again,” she said. “There will always be a place for you in our garden.”

“Thank you, sister,” I said, my voice constricting.

The Porphyrians were ready to leave within three days. It hurt to let them go, but it hurt the most with Abdo.

The boy, bless him, had not stopped talking since he arrived, but at least he’d finally worked out how to whisper. It hadn’t been trivial; he could broadcast his voice to the entire city if he wished. We had all been subjected to random bursts of Abdo’s spooky, disembodied voice. Speaking softly, or to just a few people at once, took more finesse.

On Abdo’s last evening, I joined him, Kiggs, and Selda in a small parlor in the royal family’s wing of the palace. Abdo seemed finally to have realized he was leaving, and was quieter than usual. “You’re welcome to stay,” said the Queen gently. “We have plenty of good uses we could put you to. Maybe even devious uses.”

Abdo shook his head. “I have to get home.” He looked at his fingers, the strong and the still, twisting in his lap. “I need to make up with my mother. When I saw …” He paused, as if looking for the words. “What was it like for you, Phina, when you opened your mind wide and saw everything?”

Blood rose to my cheeks. I hadn’t discussed it, except for what I’d told Kiggs (which seemed a bit embarrassing now). I didn’t feel capable of talking about it. “There was a great brightness and, um … Imagine what it would look like if you could see music, or thought.”

Glisselda’s gaze grew distant, as if she were trying to picture it; Kiggs leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and asked, “Was it Heaven?”

That question took me aback, but Abdo answered it: “That’s how your Saints interpreted it. It looked like our gods, to me—not literally, not the way they’re depicted in statues, but the vibrant space between them, where Necessity is Chance and Chance flows into Necessity. The world is as it must be, and as it happens to be, and those are the same thing, connected and right, and you understand and love all of it, because you are all of it and all of it is you.”

“In love with all the world,” said Kiggs, quoting Pontheus.

That was exactly what I’d felt—it almost brought tears to my eyes to remember—but Abdo’s eloquent explanation still didn’t capture it. You couldn’t put words on something like that. Heaven, gods—these were concepts far too small.

I said, “So what happens when you make up with your priestess mother? Will you join the temple you once scorned?” It sounded harsh when I said it aloud, but I did not see how Abdo was going to fit everything he had experienced into the confines of a temple.

But then, I was managing to fit into myself.

“Something like that,” Abdo said, smiling.

“I think that’s very admirable,” said Glisselda, raising her chin
and giving me a stern look. “If your priesthood is anything like ours, Abdo, they need good-hearted people like you. You’re going to help your city.”

I couldn’t tell whether I thought that was a bad idea or whether I was just going to miss him terribly.

Abdo took his leave soon after, bowing to Glisselda and shaking Kiggs’s hand. They wished him a safe journey. When he came to say goodbye to me, tears welled in my eyes. I hugged him a long time in silence, and he said to my mind alone:
I won’t be far from you, Phina madamina. You don’t go through what we’ve been through together and not leave some of yourself behind
.

I kissed his forehead and let him go.

Blanche, with quigutl assistance, restored Glisselda’s communication box, and we finally heard from Ardmagar Comonot. He’d reached the Kerama, but not without difficulty. “We were outnumbered two to one,” he said, “but you would not believe how those exiles fought. They were impassioned. I’ve never seen the like. And to some degree, we got lucky. I made it to the Keramaseye—the great amphitheater in the sky, where the Ker meets—and took up the Opal of Office. All around us, the fighting died as the Old Ard saw what I had done, and they remembered there was more to being dragons than their pernicious anti-human ideology: there are traditions, and protocols, and the correct order of things. And the correct order of succession is that
I may defend myself, with law or with talons. No more cowardly backstabbing or costly war.”

He had ended the war; Kiggs and Glisselda congratulated him heartily. There were still months, or perhaps years, of debate and negotiation ahead—whether to disband the Censors altogether, how to integrate the exiles, whether the Ardmagar should be elected and be subject to term limits—but Comonot seemed to relish the prospect. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes. We’re debating instead of biting each other’s throats out, and that is entirely for the good.”

I told him about Orma’s condition, and he grew quiet. “Eskar may have insights into what the mind-pearl trigger could be,” he said at last. “It will be several months before she can travel, however. She’s imparting memories to her egg-to-be, but once she’s laid it, she can leave it in a hatchery.”

Glisselda met my eyes with a quizzical look, not sure how to respond to this news. “I’m so pleased for you, Ardmagar,” I said, although I was a little disheartened for my uncle.

“Don’t congratulate me yet,” said the old saar gruffly. “I see how these Porphyrian-born hatchlings carry on. There really is more to this than neck-biting, I fear. And, Seraphina,” he added, “I heard your tone just then, and recognized how it contradicted your words. That’s how astute and sensitive my experience has made me.”

I rolled my eyes for the benefit of the royal cousins. “And?” I said.

“And you needn’t fear for your uncle,” he said. “Eskar has done
her service to the Tanamoot, and she’ll be at his side again, first opportunity she has. Once I would have judged her harshly for it and sent her to be pulled apart. Now I only marvel at the capaciousness of her heart.”

Kiggs and Glisselda were married before the end of the year.

The three of us agreed it should happen. Consensus came surprisingly easily, although I think we each had different reasons. Glisselda couldn’t bear the thought of marrying anyone else; if she had to marry someone, let it be the dear old friend who knew her better than anyone and would keep their partnership strictly political. Kiggs, for his part, felt practically married already—to Goredd. It was his grandmother’s wish that the cousins should rule together, there was duty and honor involved, and I was able to convince him that I didn’t mind.

And as strange as it may sound, I didn’t. We three knew what we were to each other; we would plan and negotiate and build our own way forward, and it was nobody’s business but ours.

Glisselda was still a consummate traditionalist in her own way; the wedding had to have the proper nightfest, cathedral service, wedding journey, and all. It was to be Goredd’s wedding, the opening salvo of the new reign of peace.

A nightfest is exactly what it sounds like: it lasts all night. First came feasting, then entertainments, then dancing (once dinner was sufficiently digested), then more entertainments, then strategic napping (followed by vehement denials of napping), and
finally the service at St. Gobnait’s cathedral just as the sun was coming up.

I organized the entertainments, of course. It was both strange and comforting to fall back into that work. I performed on flute and oud over the course of the evening, and danced twice, unobtrusively, with my prince.

What I didn’t anticipate was the awed silences. The way people paid special attention when I played, watched me dancing, gathered in a silent circle around me while I took my refreshment, and sneaked tugs at my gown.

These people had seen something. Even in the tunnels, I’d heard, they’d been able to see Pandowdy’s light and feel the rumble of his voice. A stone had been cast, and we’d only just begun to see its ripples.

I shared a carriage to the cathedral with Dame Okra. “You’re awfully sanguine,” she said, watching me with carefully affected casualness. “You weren’t overrun, so you won’t know this, but Jannoula’s mind leaked into ours sometimes. She knew what the prince was to you.”

“Do all the ityasaari know?” I said, less alarmed than she probably hoped.

She shrugged, a smirk on her froggy face. “Possibly. I just have one question: What will you do about the fact that Queen Glisselda will be expected to produce an heir?”

Absurdly, I found her nastiness—the sheer normalcy of it—reassuring. I said, “We shall have long meetings where Kiggs agonizes and Glisselda teases him. That’s the pattern so far.”

“And you?” she said, leering. “What do you do?”