The Five Queendoms - Arca E-Book

G.R. Macallister

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

An ambitious page-turning fantasy, full of deadly magic, court politics and ruthless women, perfect for fans of House of the Dragon, R.F. Kuang, and Tasha SuriA few years have passed within The Drought of Girls, an odd plague which has caused no girls to be born across the Queendoms. In these matriarchal societies, having the monarchy pass onto a prince is causing rifts and stressing long-buried tensions between the Queendoms.Now, we find the Scorpicae upon the borders of Arca, setting camp within the desolate red stones of this haunted land the Arcans shunned. The Scorpican queen, Tamura, has become vicious and eager for war, and yet there are larger stirrings. The undead shades of the Underworld roaming, and dark magics are gaining power. The passage between worlds is opening, and something terrible is coming.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Major and Recurring Characters Listed by Queendom

1 The Senator

2 The Vote

3 Chaos

4 Face-to-Face

5 Arrival

6 The First Drops of Rain

7 Jesephia

8 Only the Queen

9 Celebration

10 Feast

11 Need and Rot

12 Vipers

13 Daughters

14 The Gods’ Wedding

15 Every Sigh

16 North

17 Summoning

18 Intersections

19 Ascension

20 Control

21 Home and Hunting

22 A Messenger

23 Falling and Rising

24 A Duty

25 Plans

26 The Second Battle

27 Aftermath

28 Mother

29 Trialed

30 Instructions

31 Challenge

32 A Burning

33 The Open Gate

Acknowledgments

ARCA

Also by G. R. Macallister and available from Titan Books

SCORPICA

ARCA

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Arca

Print edition ISBN: 9781789099348

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789099355

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First Titan edition March 2023

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 G.R. Macallister. All rights reserved.

This edition published by arrangement with Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Inc, in 2023.

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

TO MY SON,

TIRELESS ADVOCATE FOR

THE THEORETICAL FIVE QUEENDOMS

VIDEO GAME ADAPTATION

MAJOR AND RECURRING CHARACTERS LISTED BY QUEENDOM

ARCA

ALISHER, a courtier of the Binaj matriclan

ARCHIS, a high-ranking courtier with all-magic

BEYDA, royal scribe assigned to Arca, a Bastionite

BONMEI, youngest courtier of the Merve matriclan

COLENA, a courtier and earth magician, mother of Dellica

DELLICA, youngest courtier of the Binaj matriclan

EMINEL, queen of Arca, Well of All-Magic, Master of Sand and Destroyer of Fear

GOLOJANDRA, known as Gogo, an earth magician and resident of Jesephia

ISCLA, a courtier talented at shielding minds

NISHTI, a courtier of the Binaj matriclan, earth magician

PARVAN, a courtier of the Ishta matriclan, fire magician

SARA, a courtier and air magician

SOBEK, a courtier and mind magician

VERMU, member of the Queensguard

WODEVI, a courtier and body magician

XERIO, a courtier of the Binaj matriclan

YASAMIN, a courtier of the Volkan matriclan

PAXIM

AMA, the Kingling’s bodyguard (born Amankha dha Khara)

ASTER, Stellari’s child

AURELI, a senior senator

BARIS, a member of the King’s Elite

DECIMA, consul of Paxim, friendly with Queen Heliane

DELPH, senior member of Queen Heliane’s Queensguard

EVANDER, son of the most powerful family in Calladocia, married to Stellari

FARUZEH, minister of war

FLORIANA, a military commander

HELIANE, queen of Paxim, mother to Paulus

INBAR, Queen Heliane’s cosmete

ISOLDE, a senator

JOVAN, commander of the Swans

JUNI OF KAMAL, head of the Assembly

KINT OF KETERLI, member of the Assembly

MALIM, a senator

NEBEZ OF HAVARRAH, a talented fighter, member of the King’s Elite

PANAGIOTA, matriarch of the most powerful family in Calladocia

PAULUS, kingling of Paxim, only surviving child of Queen Heliane

RAHUL, Stellari’s secret lover, publicly nursemaid to Aster the Shade, a talented fighter

STELLARI, a high-ranking senator, holding the office of magistrate

TUPRAH, member of Heliane’s Queensguard

YESIKA, member of the King’s Elite

YUSUF, member of the King’s Elite

ZOFI, also known as Zo, daughter of Queen Heliane (deceased)

SCORPICA

AZUR DHA TAMURA, an adopted Scorpican and mother to Madazur, known as First Mother

DREE, a warrior

GOLHABI, armorer of the Scorpicae

GRETTI DHA RHODARYA, a warrior, former adviser to Queen Tamura

KHINAR, a warrior

LU, a warrior and member of the Council

MADAZUR DHA AZUR, first girl born after the Drought

MARALE, a warrior

MARKISET, an adopted Scorpican

OLAN, a warrior

OORA, an adopted Scorpican

ORLAITHE, a warrior

PAKH, a warrior

RIVA, an adopted Scorpican

SARKH, a warrior

TAGATHA, a warrior of advanced years

TAMURA DHA MADA, queen of Scorpica

ZALMA DHA FIONEN, a smith

ZIBIAH, a warrior

   1   

THE SENATOR

The fourth day of the fourth month of the All-Mother’sYear 502 Ursu, capital of PaximStellari

There was nothing Stellari of Calladocia could not imagine, and once she had imagined something, achieving it was just a matter of time. Politically, this nimble imagination was her greatest gift. From a single choice, Stellari could visualize dozens, even hundreds, of possible consequences, all of which she held arrayed in her mind’s eye like the stars. Then she’d choose. If she wanted a law passed, she’d quickly puzzle out who was most likely to support it, then unspool a complex chain of favors wherein she’d persuade three or four fellow senators, no more than five, who would go on to persuade all the rest for her. She never planted a seed without envisioning the eventual tree.

Her imagination hadn’t served her nearly as well outside the Senate, she supposed. Potential friends quickly tired of hearing her test out unending scenarios, breathlessly recount her victories, torture herself over the rare losses. Lovers bristled at being treated like tally marks. But for Stellari, the difference between the personal and the political grew more faint until it vanished entirely. Let strangers stay strangers, let lovers turn their backs and go. She was extremely happy with what her imagination had done for her, all told.

She was, after all, the unlikeliest of senators. First off, she was not a landholder, or at least she hadn’t been. She’d come up through the Assembly. All the best families of Paxim were represented in the Senate, their wisest and strongest women handing down laws from the comfort of the capital. It had been that way as long as there had been a Paxim. The Assembly was a newer experiment, two centuries old, including members of the poorer classes. Stellari had made a name for herself initially as the Assembly’s representative from Calladocia, a remote southwestern district, a position she’d gotten mostly because no one else wanted it.

But that put her on the pathway to power. When Calladocia’s most important landholders fell on hard times, their female line dying out and the senatorship under threat of dissolution, the head of their household summoned Assemblywoman Stellari. The matron Panagiota offered Stellari the chance to marry her last remaining son, lay claim to their family lands, and take on the vacant senatorship. Immediately seeing the ways in which it would put greater strength in her hands, Stellari had readily agreed. She’d met Evander of Calladocia twice and he’d seemed perfectly lovely, if a bit timid. At their second meeting, the marriage contracts were signed. There-after, Evander remained at home in their district, leaving Stellari free to live as she chose in the capital.

And Stellari’s climb had not stopped there. In only a few short years in the Senate, she’d already ascended to the role of magistrate. She was not yet even thirty years old. Gossips whispered that she seemed likely, if Decima stepped down, to rise to the position of consul. Once Stellari overheard a fellow senator call her consulship inevitable. She liked that whisper best of all.

But today Stellari was just another citizen of Paxim, kept in the dark. She hated the dark. All her cleverness and vision couldn’t get her the one bit of knowledge she most needed: Would the widowed queen’s coming child, almost certainly her last, be a girl or a boy? Stellari had already determined what action to take in either case, but the wait was interminable. She was better off than most, knowing what only a handful of high-ranking officials now knew: the queen’s labor had begun. The rest of the truth would come when the child did. The augury had been unclear, and besides, thought Stellari, practical women did not trust auguries. Predictions were half shams and wishful thinking. Only facts were facts.

This queen had birthed two girls and two boys over the years—a stillborn boy, then a living girl, then a set of girl-boy twins—but only the youngest girl remained. A single child was bleak ground on which to stake the country’s entire future, especially when misfortune seemed to covet the queen’s company. The stillborn boy had been a bad omen in the early years of Heliane’s rule. The arrival of a girl the next year was heralded as a sign of better things to come. As for the twins, the boy had always been sickly, quick to bruise at the slightest touch. The world proved too much for him before his first year was out. His sister Zofi was stronger, with no sign of her brother’s ills; in fact, she was a daredevil of a child, willful and mischievous. Then fever flooded Ursu, a whimsical pox that carried off the healthy young—including the queen’s eldest daughter—and left the elderly and lame untouched in their beds. Then, only months ago, one more misfortune struck: King Cyrus, too, sped to the Underlands, wasting with a disease not even the medical experts of the Bastion or the gifted healers of Arca could cure. Now only Queen Heliane and Queenling Zofi remained. A second heir would secure the nation’s confidence. This child would determine the future.

Stellari would have to wait for the signal smoke—black for a boy, white for a girl—just like everyone else.

Being like everyone else was perhaps the thing Stellari hated most in the world.

She lifted her head from the pillow and stared out the high, square window toward the triple spire of the palace. The sky above the central spire remained stubbornly blue. No smoke. No way of knowing how long it would be before smoke appeared.

“Do I need to yank the child out of her wrinkled muoni with my own two hands? Time is wasting,” she complained to Rahul, who was sprawled out on the bedclothes next to her, his back still sweat-slicked and gleaming.

“You think this afternoon was a waste?” he answered.

She turned over with a lazy smile. He was inviting a compliment and she knew it. It was one of the ways in which they were so well-matched: both delighted equally in giving and receiving flattery. Looking at his long body stretching out, tawny and beautiful against the pale sheets, she was reminded of other ways in which their match was excellent.

“Time is never wasted with you,” she said. “And your dedication to distracting me was delightfully . . . thorough.”

“I aim to please.”

“You strike your aim.” She offered her neck and he leaned over to kiss it, running his lips up its curve until he reached her jawline, then flicking out his tongue to take a light lick of salt from her skin.

He relaxed back onto one elbow, letting her take a good look at the full length of his body, and she happily indulged. He was all sinew and grace, his jaw broad and square, his thick brows low over deep brown eyes. His face was too rough-hewn to be attractive, but there was a magnetism to him she found more compelling than beauty. Any Arcan man could look good through the use of their inborn enchantments. Rahul was different. His magical talents lay elsewhere. Not one Arcan man in a thousand had his particular manifestation of magic, which was why he was the first Arcan man she’d ever chosen to share pleasures with, and she strongly suspected he would be the last. Not, of course, that she would tell him so. Complacency was a risk she didn’t care to run.

Rahul raised a hand, and she thought he might use it to reach for her, but he ran it over his own head instead, exposing for just a moment the white scar dividing his black hair at the scalp.

She was the one who reached out, then, for the only thing he wore: a glass amulet dangling from a cord around his neck, resting in the curls of his lightly furred chest. The double teardrop shape remained firm under her touch, of course. It had been forged by a fire magician to withstand any force, magical or otherwise. The level of the glittering sand within, a shadowy, changeable gold in color, was what she examined.

“Running low, then?”

“Likely all right for a few months. It depends on what’s needed.”

She hummed noncommittally and kept turning the hourglass shape in her fingers, watching the sand tilt and settle, enjoying the charm’s seamless, flawless curves. It felt warm against her fingertips. She never knew whether that was from the magic used to bind the artifact or from Rahul’s own steady, welcome heat.

He prompted her, “Will you need my assistance in the wake of the child’s birth, do you think?”

She tried to read his eyes, but as always, it was difficult. She enjoyed that about him. He wasn’t entirely trustworthy, but he was also dependent on her, and his need was something she could trust. No one in Ursu but Stellari knew that he was Arcan; he was safe here. While some in Arca would worship him as a hero if they recognized him, there were others who would attack him on sight. He would risk it, of course, for her.

“I don’t expect to,” she said. “I want to save you for when I need you.”

“Ahh,” he sighed, and this time when he raised his hand he did reach for her, letting his nimble fingers drift down, down, down. “I expect you’ll be needing me again very soon.”

She let out a little gasp of pleasure as he reached his goal. This, too, she trusted.

As she shifted her body to open to him, her gaze drifted toward the window. The sound in her throat turned from sigh to squeak. Every part of her went rigid.

He opened his mouth to ask why she’d stopped, but when he followed her gaze, he shut his mouth without speaking.

Out the open window, above the skyline of Ursu, rose a twisting billow of smoke.

Stellari’s throat closed. How long since they’d lit the torch to signal? How many minutes had she lost?

The smoke was black. Dark as jet. No mistaking it.

“The All-Mother’s muoni. A boy,” said Rahul, half to himself.

But Stellari was already on her feet, splashing herself quickly with water from the basin, her attention gone. Within moments she had stepped into her magistrate’s sky-blue robe, wrapping and belting as she went, heading for the door. At least she’d left her hair up in the braided crown that marked her as a senator, she told herself. The interwoven plaits were disarrayed from her afternoon in bed, no doubt missing most of their pins, but there wasn’t time to call a servant to replait them. She’d do the best she could in motion.

In ten minutes she would be in the halls of power, ready to whisper, I’m sure I must be the only one who has concerns into the right ears, settling her fingers on the arms of certain senators. For others she’d stroke the braid above her ear and peek meaningfully over her shoulder, then muse, Of course I’m loyal to the queen above all others, the monarchy is eternal, but if something were to happen to the queenling, who would follow after? It just doesn’t seem wise to allow a son to rule. Didn’t our foremothers, who laid down these laws, know best?

She was ready to sow discontent, but she needn’t start from seed alone. The freshly widowed queen had many allies in the Senate, it was true. But other legislators were more like Stellari, disdainful of the very idea of monarchy, no matter who wielded its reins. These women had their own goals and ends in mind, for the nation and for themselves. Discontent was already there, in sprouts and seedlings. All Stellari needed to do was help them grow.

What Stellari didn’t know—because no one in the Five Queendoms could yet know—was that the birth of this royal son would usher in a new age, one beset by questions. There were girls born the same day as Paulus, but the next day only boys, and the same was true the next day and the next day and for fourteen long years thereafter.

Nor did Stellari know that three years into the Drought of Girls, in the irrepressible Queenling Zofi’s seventh year, she’d ride out on a spirited sun-gold mare that had been a gift to Heliane from the High Xara of Sestia. The golden mare would return hours later, panting, with a damaged leg and an empty saddle. Heliane’s young son Paulus, her only remaining child, would become the queen’s sole heir, just as many had feared.

Stellari didn’t know that year after year after long year would pass with no girls’ names written in the scribes’ official record books, the lack of girls wreaking havoc throughout all five queendoms, weakening their careful peace until it crumbled. She didn’t know—how could she?—that the renegade sorcerer Sessadon would break Queen Heliane’s back at the Rites of the Bloody-Handed, leaving the monarch fragile and fading. Stellari could, it was true, imagine anything. But that day, as she rushed toward the Senate, smoothing down her crown of braids and rehearsing her whispers, she didn’t imagine the Drought of Girls.

Years later she would look back on the fourth day of the fourth month of the All-Mother’s Year 502, on that last moment before she stepped into the Senate, as the end of something. Of innocence, for many. Of peace, in a number of ways. It was both the key moment of Stellari’s rise and the seed of her eventual fall.

Ten minutes after she spotted the black smoke, Stellari took a deep breath and swept into the Senate, head high, mind already spinning in a hundred directions.

“May the All-Mother be praised!” she called brightly. “A son for our queen. And healthy, yes? How blessed she is. How blessed we are. A miracle.”

   2   

THE VOTE

Eight years laterThe All-Mother’s Year 510Stellari

Stellari’s swollen belly preceded every step she took, her sky-blue robe stretched tight across its round, exaggerated curve. Pushing the limits of modesty was, of course, no accident. While the more conservative senators might raise an eyebrow, she’d calculated the impact on each and every member of the senate, and her clinging robe would do more good than harm. On a day this important, every advantage was needed.

She strode as quickly as she dared through the streets, thronged on every side by the busy market day, ale-mongers and cheesemakers calling for attention, shoppers haggling and scoffing to pay as few coppers as they could. She realized she hadn’t eaten that morning, but there was no time to rectify it now. If she didn’t press forward, she might miss her turn to speak. That would be utter disaster.

All-Mother, but these streets were awful. Crowded and close. Say what one would about the poor reaches of Calladocia, her home district, but at least the dirt and noise and ugliness there had room to breathe. There, in a hurry, one could travel by cart. On streets this narrow, feet were the only reliable transportation, and Stellari’s feet were not what they’d once been. Swollen by advanced pregnancy, they constantly ached as if she’d been stung by two dozen blunt-tailed bees. Still, they got her where she needed to go.

Almost there, finally. She lifted the hem of her blue robe to her bare knees and skirted a pile of ox dung as she took the last turn to reach the Senate. She paused a moment to gather herself on the steps, smoothed the shoulder of her robe, and crossed the threshold regally, as if she had all the leisure in the world.

On any given day in the Senate, one or two dozen senators were not present in the room, their usual places left open, like missing teeth in an incomplete smile. But today there were no empty spaces, only the one Stellari stepped into, taking her position just in time for the opening bell to toll.

Still catching her breath, Stellari surveyed the room for Decima. Her gaze glided over the sea of robes in a remarkable variety of tints and shades of blue. Some senators’ robes were dyed with woad, others with a heated mixture of copper and sand, still others with a rare clay found only near the border where Paxim gave way to Godsbones. Within the infinite variations, the robes had one thing in common: they’d plainly cost a great deal. And every woman of the Senate wore her dark hair in an intricate crown of braids, the higher and more complex the better, her head held high.

Stellari was ready to play her fellow senators like the strings of a harp. The outcry of the Senate was her favorite music. Without fire and passion, they were just women in expensive blue robes, passing time with no more urgency than a cluster of needle-beaked crakes foraging along the lip of a pond. She would give those crakes something to squawk about.

Ah, there, thought Stellari, finally locating Decima, who wore an elegant pale blue to flatter her deep golden skin. Quickly Stellari noted the mismatch between the consul’s robe—impeccable, smooth, lavish—and her comparatively simple plaited crown. Why so few braids? Had Decima’s cosmete not been available to dress and prepare her that day? Or perhaps Decima had passed the night in a home not her own. The smudges under her keen eyes spoke to a lack of sleep that rivaled Stellari’s. Did Decima have some other plan for the day?

“In the name of the All-Mother, the queen, and the peace of Paxim,” intoned the caller, “let the senators gather for the commencement of this session.”

Stellari took one more look around the room, reading faces, noting looks, and braced herself to begin. Today was the day. Her committee would report its findings; she would recommend a course of action, and they would vote. On the face of it, a simple set of actions, but within that structure, a wild gambit of invention—and, if the pieces lined up correctly, reward.

Decima, in her simple plaits, rose. When the consul put forward the ritual question, “Do we agree to examine the day’s business?” only the ritual answer was expected. From their first day, senators learned to open the session by nodding, slapping one’s palm against the robe on one’s thigh, and declaring, “Yes.”

One hundred twenty-four blue-robed senators—including the consul Decima herself—nodded, slapped palm against thigh in unison, and called out, “Yes.”

A moment later the one hundred twenty-fifth senator, Stellari, rose to her feet and boomed in her loudest, throatiest voice, “I speak the question all others here are thinking. Where are our girls?”

The instant outcry was gratifying beyond belief.

Stellari managed to keep a smirk from her face, but just barely. Instead she raised her hands for quiet, even though it was not her hands that mattered. What mattered was the gaze she fixed on the consul in that moment—a strong but not challenging gaze, a question and not a command, and to her gratification, the consul responded exactly how she’d wanted.

The consul said, “Magistrate Stellari, this is unusual.”

One hand on her belly, Stellari feigned remorse. “We live in unusual times. I apologize. I could not keep my tongue a moment longer.”

“Yet you were already first on the docket to speak today.”

Stellari offered nothing but silence, and she could practically see the thoughts flitting through Decima’s head. Should I offer some reproof? Punish her? No, that’s too much. The harm is already done, anyway.

Decima said, “Next time, more care?”

“Yes, Consul,” Stellari said, dipping her head.

“Then let us proceed. Our first order of business,” said Decima, “is to hear our committees report. First, the committee investigating the Drought of Girls. Magistrate Stellari?”

Stellari shifted from foot to foot, her unbalanced weight robbing her of a bit of her usual grace, and addressed the crowd unsmilingly. “Thank you, Consul Decima. Fellow senators, I bring you the benefit of careful study and examination. I regret to report that despite our extensive efforts, we cannot say with certainty who is responsible. Yet we all agree on this point of utmost importance: whoever is responsible must pay.”

She’d known the committee was a fool’s errand when she’d taken it on; of course there was no way to know what had caused the Drought of Girls. They had explored all scientific or magical causes, with methods open and secret, for months. They’d even held a quiet, confidential discussion with a committee of Bastionite scholars who’d been charged with the same task and come up equally empty-handed. Nothing else the committee heard rattled Stellari but this. If the Bastion did not know a thing, it could not be known.

“But Magistrate Stellari,” said Decima, her patience now obviously thinning, “surely you understand that sounds, well, like nonsense.”

“Perhaps,” said Stellari, maintaining her imperious air, though she felt a squeeze in her lower abdomen that weakened her knees. “Perhaps only the sagest minds among you can understand the paradox.”

Outrage subsided into hubbub, hubbub into chatter, chatter into whispers, whispers into silence.

Stellari said, “Eight years now. Eight long years. Years we have spent in hope—yes,hope—that the swell in any given sister’s belly might yield a new daughter of Paxim. Yet each time our hopes are dashed. Possibility dies on the vine. A boy, a boy, a boy, a boy.”

She spread her hands wide, her tone generous, warm. “And we welcome those boys into our world with open arms. They suckle at our breasts and play at our feet. They will become the husbands of this generation, siring the next. They are needed. They are loved.”

Careful now, she told herself. The next bit was the trickiest.

“But they are not girls,” she said to the assembled, hushed crowd of senators. “And without girls, we will not grow. We will not succeed. My friends and fellow senators: without girls, we will not survive.”

Whispers, too soft to tell whether they boded agreement.

Stellari forged ahead. “We are lucky in Paxim. We are ruled by a gracious, generous, intelligent queen, wise senators, a capable Assembly. The gods smile on us. All five queendoms enjoy a peace forged and preserved by the women of Paxim, by our hard work, our unflagging attention to our responsibilities.”

She let her brow crease and lower. “But if the worst happens—a generation without girls—the nation of Paxim is doomed. And if Paxim falls, the queendoms tumble into chaos.”

Whispers into muttering, muttering into shouts.

Stellari raised her voice higher, louder, stronger, as strong as it had to be to keep command. She could not fail now. Now was her moment.

“So perhaps the question is not, Where are our girls? Perhaps the question is, Who took them from us? Who stands to gain by stealing our future?”

Shouts grew louder, fists rose in the air.

A single voice rose up too loud to ignore. “But all five queendoms suffer! It is not just our girls that are gone!”

Stellari nodded, giving the other woman’s statement just enough time to sink in. And then she spoke: fierce, direct. “So we have been told. But does anyone know?”

She waited for the ripple of excited little exclamations to make its circuit of the Senate and subside.

Something swarmed in her head, a feeling she didn’t recognize and couldn’t quite identify. Pain or power. Perhaps there was no difference between the two.

“All we know,” Stellari went on, “is that Paxim has no girls, and we know only one nation could be responsible. Not the warriors of Scorpica, no scholar of the Bastion, no priest of Sestia. Only one nation wields the power to wreak this kind of havoc. Surely we suffer at the hands of the magicians of Arca.”

Thunder. Anger. Shock.

Shouting to be heard, Aureli grumbled, “We know nothing,” and Stellari turned without rushing to acknowledge her. Aureli was a notorious naysayer, but also one of the most senior members of the Senate. She had to be treated with respect.

“The esteemed Senator Aureli is right!” Stellari began.

Aureli made a loud, skeptical huff, but said nothing, opening the way.

“We know nothing. That is the truth,” intoned Stellari, looking out over the worried faces of her fellow senators. “Yet this is even more true: we must be ready for anything.”

“Be plain, would you?” challenged the senior senator, her arms folded under her dark blue robe, eyes bright with skepticism.

But Stellari had one more thing to say, one more brick to move into position. “I pray that this child in my belly is a girl,” she began, curling an arm protectively around the swell of her belly, supporting it from underneath. If anyone had mistaken the message of her clinging robes, they could no longer deny it.

“A daughter is what I’ve always wanted most in the world. Every day I pray, and every day I hope,” Stellari went on. “We have feared and worried these eight long years. We have also hoped. We can’t live without hope. But hope is not a plan.”

Now, at last, it was time to make her point. A military had to be established, even if it would be years before the senators were ready to go to war. One did not plant an apple seed and expect to eat the fruit that very season. Stellari shrugged off another pain—a sharp yet somehow lingering squeeze—when she was interrupted.

The outer doors swung open, admitting the last woman Stellari expected to see that day on the floor of the senate: Queen Heliane herself.

The queen moved into the chamber smoothly, almost as if floating, a purple island in a blue sea. The crown on her head was not only braids. Atop her ink-black hair sat a thick gold circlet, a single ruby gleaming in its center like an all-seeing eye.

“Queen Heliane!” Decima stepped forward, eyes bright, first to greet the queen. “This is an unexpected honor.”

But Stellari wasn’t fooled. She’d read the look on the consul’s face when that door swung open. This visit was no surprise, not to Decima.

The queen inclined her head, gave the consul a measured smile. “Thank you so much for your welcome, Consul Decima. You know I would not have interrupted your business if it weren’t of the utmost importance.”

“But I—butwe—” Stellari began, quickly pivoting to address Decima instead of the queen. Only the consul had the right to speak directly to the queen in the Senate chamber. Stellari forced herself to calm down, at least outwardly. She felt another twinge deep within, ignored it. “We have not yet completed the business underway.”

“The queen has requested that we shelve that business temporarily. It can wait a few minutes.” Without pausing to look at Stellari’s face or anyone else’s, Decima said, “Queen Heliane, the Senate is yours.”

There was a movement at the back of the Senate, and Stellari focused on it. A woman whose robe was a pale, undyed yellowish-white, not blue. Stellari knew her, of course, as she knew all politicians. Juni, head of the Assembly. Not the same head that Stellari had come up with—that one had retired—but a younger woman, elevated to preside over the Assembly not half a year before. Stellari’s surprise at seeing her in such a powerful position hadn’t yet worn off.

Juni had been a green girl from nowhere, much like Stellari. Juni’s large eyes and small mouth made her look innocent, credulous. She’d been both those things and more. Always a little awkward, too direct, never taking time for pleasantries. She had the best memory Stellari had ever heard of outside the scribes, never forgetting a fact or a face, but her endless awkwardness seemed to doom her ascent. When they’d both been new Assemblywomen Stellari hadn’t befriended the girl, assuming she had no future in politics. How wrong she’d been.

If the head of the Assembly was here, that meant the queen’s announcement must be related to the Assembly. Stellari realized immediately what the announcement must be. The very thought gave her a pain in her belly. But she would not let it show, in case anyone was watching her as closely as she was watching them.

At the front of the room now, her face solemn, the queen faced her senators. She didn’t even raise her hands for the Senate’s attention. She had it.

“We are all aware we live in trying times,” the queen began. Her voice wasn’t particularly loud, Stellari noticed, but in the respectful hush, she could still be clearly heard. “Unprecedented times. And as queen of this proud nation, I have felt the heavy weight on my shoulders of bearing us forward into the future.”

Her voice rising now, soaring over the crowd with firm resolve, the queen said, “Even as much as things have changed, some must remain the same. The balance between old and new is absolutely vital to our future as a country. Our stability will stabilize the world, whatever may come. The wise minds in this room will continue to provide essential guidance within Paxim and beyond. The Senate remains constant.”

Stellari joined in the applause, though it was mostly for form. No one could be genuinely moved by this obvious pandering. But senators were happy to applaud themselves, given any provocation or none.

“And so it is to our Assembly we look, to the representatives of the people, and we choose to open their doors wider. Again, much will remain the same. Candidates for office must be of age, and they can have committed no crime. Thus it has always been, since our first mothers gathered around the cook fires and made sure all were supported by the community, receiving gifts equal to their contributions.”

Impatient, Stellari watched the faces of those gathered. The senators seemed untroubled, their faces turned up like sunflowers, genuinely curious and eager. It made Stellari want to scream. Why scrape and bow to a woman like this, whose only qualification was the family she was born into? Stellari herself had needed to be intelligent, savvy, and strong—some would say relentless—to rise to power. Her burning need to prove her worth gave shape to her life. All the queen had done was drop into the world from between the right set of royal thighs. It was appalling if you gave it any amount of thought.

“This is a proud day for our nation,” said the queen. “The sign of a healthy government is to grow and change with its circumstances. With its people. And so it is with pride that I make this announcement: men of Paxim will be allowed to stand for Assembly offices. If elected, they will serve alongside the women of the Assembly as provisional members.”

The queen looked out over them all, sweeping the crowd with her gaze, and gathered her breath for one more declaration. “We believe that this change to our Assembly will nurture our growing republic. We honor our citizens and trust them to choose wisely, determining the direction of our nation’s future.”

I’ll tell you its future, Stellari wanted to scream. Paxim will burn. Open the door just a crack to men, and we will all burn.

Whatever the words out of the queen’s mouth, whatever she claimed to do here today, Stellari saw right through this farce. Assembly offices were not the point, not at all. Two-fold citizens, those who were both male and female in one body, had already been eligible to serve for years. This wasn’t an indication of greater tolerance, greater inclusion. Heliane was laying the groundwork for a king. A king who ruled Paxim. This woman would not be happy until her son sat on the Paximite throne after her. This was just the first course of an entirely poisonous meal.

But no one else seemed to see it. They swallowed Queen Heliane’s words as if she meant them. The senators clapped politely, their faces masks of pleasant approval. The consul smiled. The head of the Assembly smiled. Stellari was not a violent woman, but she wanted to crunch her fist against their gleaming, bared teeth.

Instead she smoothed her robe over her belly, sipped at the air through her own thin smile, and readied herself to make a dazzling, eloquent objection. She braced her feet and parted her lips to speak.

But suddenly a sharp pain bent her double, stealing her breath. How odd she felt. She put one hand on her belly and one on her back to force herself upright, but she could not, another cramp bending her forward sharply. Then she felt a peculiar sensation, one she’d never yet felt. The child inside her moved, but not to kick or turn or settle. Inside her belly it felt like the child’s heavy skull was shifting—pressing—downward.

No, she thought. No. The child couldn’t be coming, not now. It must be Stellari’s fury at being thwarted that made her heart race and her guts twist. Or perhaps it was because she hadn’t eaten; she’d feel steady again after a midday meal. She snapped the world back into focus. The queen’s business was almost concluded. After that, Stellari could force the Senate’s attention back to the Drought. Then she’d call the vote on the military question. Then, victorious, she’d go home.

“Magistrate Stellari?” called Decima, though Stellari was sure she’d said nothing aloud. “Are you quite all right?”

Stellari wanted to say, Yes, it’s nothing, raised her hand to wave nonchalantly, but her breath was even harder to catch now. She needed another moment to steady herself before speaking.

“Is her time near?” the queen asked Decima, her voice low, concerned.

“I think so,” someone said, but Stellari could not tell who. The faces around her blurred. And she needed to know her allies. If she did not know where everyone stood, she couldn’t be sure she had the support she needed. Everything would fly apart like a glass jar flung to the tiles.

She opened her mouth to brush off the queen’s concern and the pain came upon her so sharp it drove her to her knees.

No, thought Stellari again, no. But for once, there was nothing she could do. She wasn’t in control. All the same, she didn’t have to go down without a fight.

“Magistrate Stellari!” said Decima. “Your time is obviously upon you. We will escort you from the chamber.”

Stellari’s hand flew to her belly, unbidden, but her voice was iron. “No. No. I call the vote.”

“No vote matters as much as your child’s health,” came the queen’s voice, loud but unsteady, a broken note underneath. “You will go.”

Voices pattered in and out as Stellari tried to grip the rail in front of her, but it slipped out of her grasp. Like a bad dream, she thought. Everything she needed, wanted, taken from her. A few more minutes, that was all she needed. Just a few. She knew she had the votes, but only if she herself voted.

“No, take mine. Bearers! Now!” called the queen. “Bear the magistrate home. Hurry!”

Stellari realized there must be blood. She wouldn’t look down to confirm it, but she felt wetness on her hands and the air had begun to smell a little less of myrrh and more, much more, of copper. Then another pain was on her, driving her back down as surely as if a woman twice her size were pushing down on her shoulders, holding her to the floor.

“Here,” came the queen’s voice, closer now, firm and strong again. Stellari felt hands, real hands now, lifting her. In that moment she had no strength to fight them. She’d thought there was nothing she couldn’t fight, but cold fear flooded through her, and she went still. What if she didn’t survive the birth? Was this how her story, her magnificent rise from nothing, ended? The child had made it clear that what Stellari would not give, the child would take.

As they bore her away, she twisted on the litter so forcefully and suddenly she almost fell off. She would have plunged to the ground if a quick-thinking, quick-moving bearer hadn’t shifted and used his own body to block her fall.

“Don’t let them hold the vote,” she moaned, but it was too late. Her words, barely a whisper, couldn’t reach the right ears. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t think quickly enough to accomplish what she wanted. Her body had been hijacked, exactly like a wagon stolen by bandits; she’d been shoved off the driver’s seat.

Hours later, as soon as Stellari emerged from an insensible haze, once her body was no longer overtaken by the animal business of expelling a child, she sent a messenger to the Senate. She was exhausted, torn, and desperate, but she absolutely needed to know what had happened after she’d been borne away.

It was exactly as she’d feared. They’d voted without her. The motion to begin the establishment of a Paxim military was deferred for later discussion, until the head of the committee returned; that was all right. She could shape that vote again. The matter of allowing men to stand for election in the Assembly, however, passed by the thinnest of margins, with sixty-seven senators for and the same number against, the consul Decima breaking the tie.

Holding her squalling infant in her arms, Stellari burned with fury. She looked down at the child and looked away again, the resentment too powerful to focus.

It wasn’t really the child’s fault. Even in the worst moments of her rage, Stellari knew it wasn’t. It was only that, from this vantage, she saw no one else to blame.

   3   

CHAOS

Six years laterThe All-Mother’s Year 516, after the Sun RitesLeaving Sestia for Daybreak PalaceEminel

Eminel would never quite remember how she’d gotten from the maelstrom of the amphitheater to the silence of the Arcan queen’s luxurious carriage, leaving the capital of Sestia—and the dead, broken body of the sorcerer Sessadon—behind.

The moment of Sessadon’s death during the Sun Rites was clear in Eminel’s mind, a perfect, painful recollection. Of what followed, though, her memory provided only flashes. She remembered the moment the blue snake necklace touched her skin, how cool it was in the heat of the chaotic crowd, but she did not remember it curling in on itself, locking into place. Something in her thought she remembered a tiny blue glass tongue flicking out to taste the air, but of course that was impossible. Ridiculous. Other images were clearer, more certain: the faces of the remaining Arcans turning toward her, their expressions full of shock and wonder. She even remembered some advancing in her direction. But had they spoken to her, put hands on her? Carried or dragged or gently encouraged her? She couldn’t be sure. She’d swayed weakly on her feet, chaos crashing like waves around her, and there the memory ended.

She awoke in the gently rocking wagon, leaning against a heap of pillows in the corner, dizzied and exhausted. It might have been minutes or hours or days. She wasn’t familiar enough with the geography of Sestia to know where she was or how long it had taken to get there. She only knew they’d left the city behind. Through a narrow gap in the curtains she saw a latticework of green rolling hills dotted with rams and sheep. Daylight—lateafternoon?—brightened their creamy wool, painted the rams’ horns golden. The sight would have been beautiful if she could focus long enough to enjoy it.

She lifted a weak hand to draw the curtain closed, then leaned back against the plush cushions. She felt like a shell, not a living young woman. But the blue snake necklace lay so heavy on her neck and chest she could not forget she was—suddenly—also a queen.

She forced herself to examine the interior of the lush carriage more closely, to see the smallest details. She turned her gaze upward to the clear quartz globes strung near the carriage’s ceiling, each no bigger than the first joint of her thumb, glowing with a gentle, steady light. Like everything else in the carriage, the lights spoke of careless luxury. They matched the unspoken message of the plush cushions, the swaying curtains, the saffron-colored carpet under her feet. It took serious magic to cast a lasting enchantment on an object. Sessadon had taught her that.

Sessadon had taught her nearly everything she knew about magic, thought Eminel. Sessadon had also murdered Eminel’s mother, along with countless others, and lied to Eminel from the moment they met. But before Sessadon’s lies came to light, she’d been Eminel’s constant companion and mentor. Some part of Eminel felt the sorcerer’s absence and regretted it, even though she’d been the one to kill Sessadon. That death was the one thing Eminel did not regret.

Eminel remembered the power that had welled within her, that energy with the feel of polished wood, helping her distract Sessadon while simultaneously pushing the queen of Scorpica to break the sorcerer’s neck. The moment Sessadon died, that power ebbed out of Eminel like a wave. That must be why she felt weak, she decided, like she’d been emptied out. Emptied of magic, but not just that; emptied of optimism and joy, of love and faith, of everything she’d once thought she knew.

She would rest. She needed rest. She let herself sink into the yielding pillows, let the gently swaying wagon rock her back to sleep.

And she dreamed.

*   *   *

The woman is as blue as a sapphire all over, from the crown of her head to the tips of her outstretched fingers. There is even something blue about her voice, its chill, the lack of warmth in her repetition of the single word she speaks. Chaos. Chaos. Chaos.

Eminel, in the dream, feels no surprise. Chaos is the thing this figure says because chaos is what she wants. Eminel doesn’t seek chaos, but neither does she fear it. Eminel watches a crackling energy grow between the outstretched palms of the blue woman, and she can’t help but reach out with her own fingers. Her own body is not blue, but there is a blue cast to her hands. Because of the nearness of the glowing light. The blue woman has begun to glow.

Eminel’s hands touch those of the blue woman. Like lightning, the power sears its way through her, yet she feels no heat. Is she freezing? Burning? Impossible to tell, and besides, is there a difference? Temperature is pain the same as power is pain and fear is pain, and she quashes the pain inside her because she has enough power now that she can force herself not to feel anything she doesn’t want to feel.

She lets the power swim through her veins, lick the underside of her skin. She soaks up the power. It radiates through her bones, her blood. Power inhabits her.

Then, in the dream, Eminel lets the power fly, cracking in the air like a whip, and she sees things fall: branches, birds, stones. She lets the power fly again, and this time the sky sings with a low, warm music, a sweet tune on the wind circling and echoing until it fades away.

Little spheres of light swirl through the air and then sink toward her, gather themselves to cluster around her ankles, her waist, her wrists, her throat. She laughs at their cool, playful touch. Thoughts flow into her head—from the blue woman?—and she strokes the motes of light on one wrist, tapping and teasing them until they dance into a new pattern and fuse together, and she wears cool, blazing blue light on her wrist like jewelry. She moves to touch the lights around her neck, but they only dance along the length of what is already there, the snake necklace that marks her as queen. A surge of satisfaction runs through her. Yes, she is a queen. The girl who hid in the back of a bandits’ wagon, crouching, skulking, no longer has to hide from anyone or anything. She is wreathed in light, in power. She looks up to see what her dream-spirit thinks of her.

The blue woman neither smiles nor laughs, but the blue cast of her glow shifts and changes and Eminel knows, somehow, that she approves. This woman wants her to succeed. This woman wants her to have everything.

Eminel herself is drawing her hands away from each other, watching the power crackle in the spaces between her fingertips like dew-strung spiderwebs between tree branches, when cold air rushes down her throat and she breathes and then she is awake.

Eminel opened her eyes to the barest hint of thin sunlight peeking around the edges of the carriage’s curtains. At first she felt a pleasant haze, the aftereffects of a half-remembered dream, but when the reality of cold air reached her, the soft feeling slipped away. Struggling to orient herself, she shifted against the pillows, but both her arms prickled and tingled as she attempted to move. She must have been asleep, she reasoned, though she didn’t feel rested in the least.

When she came fully to herself, Eminel realized she lay belly-down on the padded bench, one arm pinned under her body, the fingertips of the other dangling down to brush the carpeted floor. She must have slept the night away, now waking in the cool of early dawn. She shivered in the chill and reached for the dream. Hadn’t it been a pleasant one? It felt like something she should remember. Instead the image of Heliane falling from the sky flashed in front of her, vivid and sharp, and suddenly her heart was galloping.

Visions, dreams, images in her mind. None could be trusted.

That vision of Heliane, it reminded her of something, and the next shiver that ran through her body had nothing to do with the temperature in the carriage. She’d had a vision just as vivid after her mother’s death, one that had sent her scurrying in fear from the Rovers. That vision, she’d learned far too late, had been placed in her mind by magic. By Sessadon.

No. No. Sessadon was dead. Eminel was queen of Arca now, she reminded herself, chosen for the honor by a holy, magical item that never erred. She had more important matters to deal with than fleeting dreams and memories.

She was still alone, but that wouldn’t last. That carriage door would open, and when it did, she couldn’t be lying here like a snail without its shell. She needed to be ready.

She’d start with food. Ah, there it was. On a small round table, an elegant little thing with a double circle of wire lining its edge to protect its contents from rolling off when the carriage was in motion, she saw fruit piled high in a bowl. Apricots and figs, small oranges and large cherries. All she needed to do was stand up, take two steps to the bowl, and pluck fruit from it with her fingers. It was a relief to have a task so simple, so clear.

Her empty body didn’t want to move, but she brushed that away. She didn’t need to touch something to move it, after all, not when all-magic bubbled and burned inside her.

Two fingers on her right hand she raised, then crossed and uncrossed, and beckoned an apricot through the air in the hopes that it would land either in her hand or within her reach on the soft, plumped cushions.

Only it didn’t move, not a bit.

She focused and frowned. She pushed her left elbow underneath her and was pleased she could raise herself on it, pressing her palm against the cushion under the pillows for better balance. She reached out again for the fruit with her mind, thinking deliberately about which of the six types of magic to call on, choosing earth. Fruit was a plant, once growing. The apricot should heed her call.

It didn’t.

The sun was fully up now, daylight setting the luxurious curtains aglow. Eminel levered herself up higher on her elbow and stretched one more time, pointing two fingers as if she could spear the fruit on them, calling each fruit to her in turn. Peach. Fig. Orange. Last, a bright red cherry. Come. Fly to me. Such a small object, yet it didn’t even quiver.

What if she’d lost her all-magic entirely? She wouldn’t stay in charge of a nation of magicians long without it, that was for certain. She’d told herself, back in the Holy City, that she was willing to die in order to erase Sessadon from the world. Was Velja—a god she’d never prayed to, not until that moment during the rites—forcing her to make good on the promise?

Half-afraid, half-angry, she shifted her back against the padded seat and beckoned once more at the nearest cherry, one of Fasiq’s favorite curses springing from a long-neglected corner of her mind. Fly, you cock-for-brains.

The cherry whistled toward her at frightening speed.

Eminel’s eyes flew shut instinctively. The speeding cherry struck the carriage wall next to her ear with a loud, startling thwack.

After a long, silent moment, Eminel opened her eyes. But the silence was fleeting; she both heard and felt the shudder of the carriage as it slowed, bumped, and listed dangerously to one side. Terrified, she wrenched herself upright and clutched the padded cushions around her.

The carriage righted itself, rolling again on all four wheels. She heard a shout from outside, then another shout, answering. Both sounded more annoyed than panicked, at least through the thick swaddling of the padded carriage walls. She kept her arms braced tight just in case, but blessedly, the carriage slowed further, with no more fuss than a few creaks. Moments later she felt its wheels grinding to a halt.

Eminel shifted to inspect the wall behind her head and was stunned to see a hole the exact size of a cherry pit, ringed in a smear of red. Less than a handspan from her ear, the hole was too small to look through, but large enough to let in a stream of golden daylight, even brighter than what the curtains let through.

Eminel was still struggling to figure out what this meant about her power when she heard a hand turning the ornate handle of the carriage door.

Quickly she turned in the direction of the door and pulled herself as upright as she could, hoping her stern expression cloaked her fear.

The figure rising up into the carriage looked familiar: a young woman no more than a few years older than Eminel herself, her long dark hair marked with an unusual white streak. Eminel had seen her in this very carriage before, but somewhere else, too. The memory hit Eminel vividly: that white streak splattered with red, back in the amphitheater. The woman looked calmer now, ready for anything. She was also dressed less formally, in a simple tunic and leggings, though the quality of the fabric gave her away as no mere farmer. One of her arms was marked with a wicked scar that looked for all the world like claw marks, deep and old.

“Queen Eminel?” asked the new arrival, bowing, her voice deferential. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but we all thought it was important to let you know . . .”

When the woman lifted her head and her gaze settled on Eminel, her voice trailed off. She gave a little gasp of surprise.

What was it she was reacting to? Eminel didn’t trust herself to speak yet. After a childhood spent hiding from sight as the Rovers crossed Paxim on the hunt, her natural inclination was to watch and wait. She did so now.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, mumbling downward. “Queen, I—I’m here to tell you the reason the caravan stopped. One of the oxen dropped in its traces. We’ll be on our way shortly. I hope—I promise it won’t take too long to fix.”

Eminel kept her face impassive. She couldn’t give away that her power was uncertain, her body weak. She knew almost nothing about the Arcan royal court, but she knew better than to trust any of them.

“I’m sorry,” the woman with the streak in her hair said again. “I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Archis. My matriclan is Jale. I was—am—part of the queen’s entourage, both during the rites and back home.”

When she did find the strength to speak, Eminel’s voice rasped. “Are you all-magic?”

The woman’s demeanor changed immediately: the shift was slight, but clear. Distrust slid into her gaze, where before there had been only deference. Archis attempted to cover it with a forced giggle. “Velja has blessed us both! I should have known you could tell. Yes, besides the previous queen, there were only two of us at court with all-magic. Now there’s just me.”

“And what do you . . . do?”

“Anything I want,” the woman said, her pride evident. She flexed her fingers, wiggled them, smiled. “Would you like to see?”

“I meant,” said Eminel, trying to sound royal, “what did you do for the previous queen? Your role?”

“Whatever she needed. We don’t carve our court up in little boxes, not like those pompous braid-crowns in Paxim with their ministers and magistrates and advisers to the royal cloak-weaver.” The derisive note in Archis’s voice was impossible to miss. “The queen tells us what she wants done and we do it. If you have an assignment for me, I stand ready to serve.”

As she listened, Eminel tried again to stir her magic. If she could listen in on the woman’s thoughts, she would know right away whether what she said was true. But no thoughts came to mind, Archis’s or her own. Either Eminel’s magic was still not working or the woman could block her powers. No way to tell which.

Eminel decided the most direct route was best, at least for now. “Were you hoping to become queen?”

Archis tilted her head, spoke lightly. “Such decisions are out of my hands. If Velja willed it, I’d be wearing that necklace. She clearly favors you.” Her fingertips rose to brush her own neck, possibly unconsciously, and suspicion crept back into her voice. “Yet before yesterday, no one had ever heard of you. Or if they had, we weren’t told. All-magic girls always report to Daybreak Palace. Always.”

Eminel ignored the implied question and asked what she wanted to know. “Is that who decides succession? Velja?”

“It happens as it happens. There’s only been one succession in my lifetime. Mirriam was slain and her daughter Mirrida woke up wearing the necklace, and we recognized her as queen.”