Beyond the Shadowed Earth Page 12

  Niren knelt beside Eda’s chair, her fingers brushing lightly over the book. “It’s the original. The library has my copy. It’s filled with the old stories we both love so much. I thought you should have it.”

  Eda swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Niren, you can’t give me this.”

  Niren smiled. “Not even an Empress should turn away the heartfelt offering of her closest friend.”

  Eda bowed her head, humbled. “Then we are still friends?”

  “Though death and time should drive a wedge between us, we will always be friends.”

  For a moment, they stared at each other, Niren’s words bitter with foreboding. But then Eda smiled. “Thank you, Niren. I will treasure it.”

  Niren smiled, too, swift and bright. She pressed Eda’s hand and, rising, left the room.

  Eda sat staring at the illustration of Tuer’s petitioner for a long, long while.

  She tried to tell herself that the marks on Niren’s brow were just shadows. They had to be. Because Tuer had sent her back—his fingerprints ought to have faded.

  She touched the image of the god on the page and wondered what his petitioner had offered him and how high a price Tuer had demanded in return.

  Eda shut the book and went to bed.

  But she couldn’t sleep, the weight of Niren’s gift heavy on her mind. At last she got out of bed and brought the book over to the window, where moonlight flooded in, making the pages shine. Eda opened it at random, and began to read. The words leapt out at her. Devoured her. She couldn’t look away.

  Long ago, when the world was young but not quite new, a man dared stand against a god, and the god struck him down. The man’s name was Tahn, and he wished to take a seed from the great Tree that had stood from the beginning and travel west with his brothers and sisters to plant a new Tree, and so help mankind to flourish and grow.

  But the god, Tuer, did not want him to go, and so he slew him.

  Death entered the world, darkening its edges, staining its joy.

  And the god was haunted by what he had done. He had poisoned the world he was supposed to make beautiful and broken the people he was supposed to guide.

  To atone for his sin, Tuer decided to seek the soul of Tahn, to bring him back to life and by so doing help to heal the world.

  He prepared for a long journey, arming himself with Starlight and a sword made of Tree bark, forged in fire. He bound himself with Words of protection, and then he came out of his mountain and opened a door in the world.

  He stepped through into darkness and strode a long way, shadows slithering over his feet. He had entered the void, the space beyond Endahr. But there was nothing to hold Tahn there, nothing for his soul to fix on. And so Tuer knew he was not there.

  Long Tuer walked in the void, gathering it and binding it into a sphere that compassed the earth, so that it would catch any other souls that happened to perish before he could put an end to dying. And he named that sphere the Circle of Death. When he was finished, he made a door and stepped from the Circle of Death to what lay beyond.

  And it was there that he forgot.

  He forgot his name and his purpose. He forgot mankind and the Tree. He forgot about death and life and all other things.

  Stars wheeled round him, swirling shapes and colors he did not understand. There were rivers of light and shining pools of a substance he had never seen. He wandered an eternity before he thought to look in one of the pools, and found what filled it up: it was memory. Memory of what had happened, memory of what was yet to be. Every pool teemed with it, and the memories reached up and pulled him under.

  He saw all the ages of the world pass before his eyes. He saw its making and unmaking, saw his own death, saw all the lives of all mankind spinning out before him.

  And he saw the soul of Tahn, shining like a star, dwelling in the realm of the One who made the world and existed outside of it.

  And then he remembered his name and his purpose, and he stood and freed himself from the pool of memories.

  With his sword and the light that blazed inside of him, he drew the memories from the pool and bound them all together. And he made a second sphere, and built a door out of it, and that he called the Circle of Time.

  But he still had not reached Tahn or the realm of the One who was before all things. He had come to a nothing, a nowhere place that had less substance than the void.

  He couldn’t see or hear. He had no form. He didn’t properly exist at all. He needed something to forge a pathway between the Circle of Time and the One’s dwelling place.

  But what is greater than time? What can contain it?

  He didn’t think of love, which would have led him straight to the realm of the One and then home again, for he had not experienced love in the same way as mankind.

  But he had known sorrow.

  And so he wove around himself a sphere of sorrow, large enough to encompass the Circle of Time, large enough to fill up all the space left in the universe.

  But as he wove, the sorrow weighed on him, binding itself into heavy shackles around his ankles and his wrists. He built a door, but he could not bear to go through it. How could he go to fetch the soul of Tahn, drag him back through all the Circles to live again, when he was content in the realm of the One?

  And so Tuer bowed his head and let the chains grow up around him like brambles.

  And there he sits still, in the midst of the Circle of Sorrow that he made for himself.

  Centuries ago, the Festival of Uerc had been a solemn occasion, a single feast of remembrance for the fallen god. Now it was a raucous celebration spread out over nine full days that mostly consisted of parties and feasting and betting on horses. Every morning there was a horse race. Every evening there was a ball.

  The ball held on the sixth night of the festival had always been Eda’s favorite—it was the most traditional and actually paid homage to the god of animals. This year, it marked only three more days before she made Ileem her husband—and her Emperor. It was also the last time Eda would see Ileem before their wedding, as she was going to adhere to the traditional Denlahn custom of isolating herself for the two days leading up to the ceremony. The custom seemed particularly important to Ileem and she wanted to make him feel as at home in Enduena as possible since it was very unlikely he would ever return to his homeland after they were married.

  She planned to enjoy the evening to the absolute fullest, which would be easier if the story from Niren’s book would stop gnawing at her mind. And there he sits still, in the midst of the Circle of Sorrow that he made for himself.

  Is that what Shadow Niren and Raiva had meant? That to fulfill her vow she was supposed to go and find Tuer in the Circle of Sorrow?

  She dismissed the thought, as she had over and over since reading the myth. How could Tuer be trapped, when a piece of him walked the earth so freely, imbued with power? Who was to say the shadowy god she’d struck a deal with as a child wasn’t Tuer himself?

  But she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  She swept into the ballroom anxious and distracted, but the instant she saw Ileem she relaxed. He was waiting for her in the center of the room, dressed in black and gold, his jaw freshly shaved and his ear cuff glinting in the light from the chandeliers. He came to join her, and she slipped her hand in his.

  Music flooded the ballroom, a quintet of Odan singers dressed in yellow robes; their haunting voices filled the silence, and Ileem drew Eda close.

  They danced, slowly, his breath in her ear, his chest next to hers. For a while, she forgot about myths and gods and vows, allowed herself to soak up his presence.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  He kissed her hair. “My god has blessed me greatly, bringing me to you.”

  She kissed his cheek and cursed the rules of propriety that kept them from kissing any more intimately than that.

  “Are Rescarin’s mercenaries disbanded?” Ileem murmured, playing with a stray curl of her hair.

&n
bsp; “Scattered like so many ashes, so say the latest reports.” The reports had also informed her that Rescarin had been buried, but that was another thing Eda didn’t want to think about.

  As the moon rose outside the ballroom, Eda and Ileem settled onto the dais to watch a mingled host of Odans and Itans perform a pantomime about the gods Uerc and Huen. Eda had seen it a dozen times before, but this year it struck a chord. Uerc, lord of the beasts, and Huen, god of the earth, were great friends until jealousy drove them apart. For centuries they wrestled together in Huen’s halls deep below the ground, until Uerc was blinded in the light of Huen’s great Star. Stricken with grief because he could no longer see the beasts he loved, Uerc climbed the great cliffs where his eagles lived and cast himself from their heights. Huen was consumed with guilt, because it was his actions that led to his friend’s death. He retreated into his underground halls, and was never seen again.

  When the pantomime was over, the courtiers gathered for one final dance. Eda tucked herself under Ileem’s arm, and noted with satisfaction that Niren was paired up with a handsome count. The Odan singers picked up an ancient, haunting melody, and the Itans joined in, ringing scores of tiny pitched bells in an intricate counterpoint.

  Eda laid her head on Ileem’s shoulder and shut her eyes, letting the music and the movement wash over her. She had never felt more at peace.

  And then someone screamed, and she opened her eyes to see Niren dropping like a stone from the count’s arms.

  Chapter Seventeen

  NIREN COLLAPSED TO THE FLOOR, her head knocking against the marble, blood soaking her hair with red.

  Eda was instantly at her side, screaming for a guard, a doctor, anyone.

  It was Ileem who scooped Niren up in his arms, carried her through the ballroom and down the corridor all the way to Niren’s bedchamber. He settled her into the bed, his face stricken.

  “GET THE PHYSICIAN!” Eda screeched.

  Ileem nodded once and disappeared.

  Eda sank onto the bed, gathering Niren into her arms, wiping the blood from her temple. Niren was breathing, but only just—dry, awful rattles in her chest.

  “Niren. Niren, stay with me. Niren.”

  Niren’s body began to shake. Eda held her tight, unconsciously sobbing. The world blurred before her. She wound her fingers through her friend’s.

  Niren’s breaths became fewer, with too much space between. The pulse in her wrist faltered.

  “Stay with me,” Eda whispered. “Stay with me. I’m not letting you go. I saved you. I saved you!”

  But Niren was suddenly, horribly still. Her breathing stopped. Her pulse was gone.

  “Where is the physician?” Eda demanded. “WHERE IS THE PHYSICIAN?”

  “Here, Your Imperial Majesty.”

  The physician rushed into the room, Ileem hard on her heels.

  Eda clung to her friend. “Bring her back. Do you hear me? BRING HER BACK!”

  The physician stepped over to the bed, felt for Niren’s pulse, shook her head. “I’m sorry, Your Imperial Majesty. She’s gone.”

  “She can’t be gone.”

  “Eda.” Ileem came up beside her. He loosened her hand from Niren’s, drew her to her feet. “She’s gone, Eda. She’s gone.”

  Mutely, Eda allowed herself to be led from the room, ears ringing, eyes unseeing.

  It didn’t make any sense.

  Gods above, it didn’t make any sense.

  She couldn’t be gone.

  She couldn’t.

  And yet somehow, she was.

  They laid Niren to rest in the Place of Kings the night before Eda and Ileem were to be married. Ileem stood beside her, both of them breaking the Denlahn custom of isolation. She was glad he was there, glad he deemed her more important than his traditions. His presence made the world a little less sharp, a little more stable. Even so she could hardly bear to stand there, watching the guards lower Niren’s coffin into the ground, while Niren’s ghost stared at her from among the other tombs.

  Besides Ileem and Eda’s guards, the only other person in attendance was one of the new priestesses. There hadn’t been time to send for Niren’s family, and Eda was ignoring all kinds of rules by burying her friend in the Place of Kings. But Niren deserved to be laid to rest with honor. She deserved to be among kings. It was all Eda could do for her.

  Tuer’s voice, forgotten almost in the weight of the years, echoed in her mind: The gods will have their payment.

  Ileem folded Eda’s hand in his own, steady and solemn beside her.

  The priestess, a girl of perhaps fifteen, uttered the formal words of burial in her wispy voice: “May your spirit be gathered beyond the Circles of the world and your body rest quiet until the end of time, when the world is unmade.”

  “Until the end of time,” Eda, Ileem, and the guards chorused together. “When the world is unmade.”

  Eda turned away as the guards shoveled earth into the grave and erected the memorial stone. She couldn’t watch. She let go of Ileem’s hand and wound through the other memorials and tombs to the old temple’s doorway, following the steps down into the darkness. He didn’t follow, sensing her need for solitude. She lit a candle and placed it on the ancient altar. A smear of ashes and oil still stained the floor from her last visit. The air was close and dank in here; she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

  She paced the tiny chamber, footsteps raising clouds of dust.

  Every part of her blazed with anger. Every part of her pulsed with pain. She beat her fists against the stone, like she’d done as a child. She screamed her wordless rage into the echoing room, and dropped at last to her knees.

  “You tricked me,” she spat at the dust. “I kept my promise, and you took Niren anyway. You tricked me.”

  The words from the story in Niren’s book filled her mind:

  But what is greater than time? What can contain it?

  He didn’t think of love, which would have led him straight to the realm of the One and then home again, for he had not experienced love in the same way as mankind.

  But he had known sorrow.

  She climbed the stairs back out into the night, where Ileem was waiting for her—the priestess had gone, and the guards hung back at a respectful distance.

  And there he sits still, in the midst of the Circle of Sorrow that he made for himself.

  Eda and Ileem wandered together to the edge of the hill, where Eda put her hand on one of the ancient pillars that had stood through centuries of time and war and peered out into the desert. Stars glittered in the black sky. Somewhere, an owl called to its mate.

  “My god came to me, in the night,” said Ileem softly beside her.

  Eda pressed her fingernails against the stone so hard a few broke off, leaving her with rough, jagged edges. “He did not come to me.”

  “He told me that Niren is safe. That she is honored. That her death was not in vain.”

  From the corner of her eye, Eda saw Shadow Niren flicker into view beyond another pillar. Anger hardened into stone. “Did he take her? Did Tuer take her?”

  “Eda—”

  “Did he?” She wheeled on him, not heeding the tears running down her cheeks.

  Ileem glanced away. “Yes.”

  She could barely choke out her next question: “Because of me?”

  He put one hand on her arm. “The temple isn’t what he wanted. It didn’t fulfill your vow.”

  Eda shook him off. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said viciously. “I built the temple for him. What does he want? Why won’t he speak with me himself?”

  Ileem looked at her intently. “Have you sought him, Eda? Truly sought him? Ask him to come to you. Ask him to give you his mark. He’ll come.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  Ileem brushed his fingers across her brow, and she longed to lean against him, to shut her eyes against the horror that was eating her up from the inside, to wake to a safer, better world.

  “Honor the gods. Honor your
friend. And keep asking until he does. But I’ve lingered too long. It’s unlucky to speak with my bride the night before our wedding.”

  “Please stay,” Eda whispered. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

  He kissed her gently on the cheek. “After tomorrow, we will never be parted.”

  And then he walked away, leaving Eda on the hilltop, alone with her sorrow and her ghosts and a thousand wheeling stars.

  Chapter Eighteen

  SHE PASSED THE REMAINDER OF THE NIGHT in the new temple, kneeling before Tuer’s altar. She sacrificed a goat, as she had the night before her coronation. She smeared her forehead with blood and ashes and oil. She pleaded with Tuer to come to her, to tell her what he wanted from her, to tell her why he took Niren. She slammed her fists against the stone. She screamed. She wept.

  But Tuer did not come.

  Two hours before dawn, a guard came to bring her back to her chambers, where an army of attendants were waiting to prepare her for the ceremony. Eda allowed herself to be bathed and dressed, sat quietly while her eyes were painted with kohl and her hair swept up in the previously discussed arrangement. Sapphires were hung about her neck and threaded through her ears. A gold cuff engraved with the ancient Denlahn phrase “loved of the gods” was fitted onto her ear, a wedding present from Ileem. Her skin was painted with gold-flecked oil to make her gleam. Jasmine essence was dabbed at her throat and behind her ears.

  One of the attendants pressed a mug of cardamom tea into her hands and made her drink it, then proceeded to feed her orange slices and strips of honeyed flatbread like she was a parrot. She wouldn’t have thought to eat, otherwise.

  Last of all came the veil, a shimmering, gossamer gold that was draped over her hair and her face, hanging to her knees in front and her heels in the back.

  The attendants ushered her from her chambers and outside the palace, where a quartet of guards handed her into a palanquin and hoisted it onto their shoulders. They carried her up the long, steep path to the Place of Kings just as dawn showed over the horizon and with it a dark mass of boiling clouds.