Skull, skeleton, sickle in hand –

  this absurdity, all lies:

  “Death will come and

  she will have your eyes”

  Joseph Brodsky. Still Life

  (trans. Anthony Hecht)

  The city dressed in mourning and, for the first time, fell silent. The echo of its teeming life no longer woke Mikena at dawn. The early cries of shopkeepers had ceased, the clatter of shutters, the loud clop of hooves on cobblestones at the changing of the guard, the unhurried patter of donkeys laden with goods. No bright girlish laughter trickled anywhere. He could not hear the children whose kite had snagged on the tips of the garden cypresses. Everything froze in wordless expectation.

  Ur was deemed a worthy emperor, the father of the Drowsy Shores—not warlike, but a strong ruler who knew the needs of his people. Now he was gone, and mourning—dark blue as the night sky—cast its shadow over Mutaaresh.

  Even the weather had changed. The sky, always blue, was veiled in gray clouds; the wind had grown colder.

  Mikena spent long hours shut indoors. The guards, speaking broken Sihemic, mumbled apologies—said it was because of the attack, that they only wished to keep the general safe.

  Silence had never pleased him; it heralded ill things not only in the southern traditions. The Wolf’s Maw fell just as silent whenever grief came. Silence pressed knives into his temples and burned his eyes; it bent him toward the earth before the coffins of the departed. First his parents, then his brother—and each time the same mute veil of mournful glances wrapped him round. People kept their distance from grief—and so only wounded the more.

  He caught himself listening for footsteps beyond the door, for the jingle of the guards’ weapons—hoping someone, anyone, would come. Even that accursed Mádyè. He felt himself dissolving into the hush, and soon he would vanish with it.

  Lost in thought, he had come up with plenty of barbs to fling at that bronze mask—to see what might happen. The advisor, it seemed, took pleasure in teasing him every time. Well then, Mikena had prepared for battle—only the foe did not come. Mádyè, who had promised to visit him, had not appeared for three days.

  In recent days the general had weighed ways and means: to escape, to take his own life, to attack… yet in the end he realized he wanted to live. Whatever evils fell on him, he would overcome them, as the king of the mountains had asked of him in that bright dream.

  “I will walk my path,” the general whispered.

  He stood at the window, gazing at the gray curtain of clouds—monotone, formless, an impenetrable dome. They neither drifted nor billowed, but hung there, massive and still. The world around had stopped. The silence, already thick and heavy, turned almost tangible. A coolness brushed his neck, and he turned, nearly starting at the sight.

  “Your strength is worthy of admiration.” Her voice chimed like a bell.

  “Princess…” Mikena breathed, bowing, not at all hiding his surprise.

  By habit he had expected the bronze mask—but his visitor was the young empress.

  How had she entered so unnoticed? Not even the door, usually his ally with its warning creak, had betrayed another’s presence.

  He saw her for the first time, but of course knew her at once: a stately woman who knew her worth, a woman who had not only broken the course of the war but might now be able to end it.

  Was it at her command that Sardas had been destroyed? Was it she who had brought death to the city?

  The empress’s gray eyes shone with steely will.

  “It is an honor to greet Your Majesty,” he said, masking his turmoil. Why had the empress herself come to a captive? “And I offer you my condolences on the death of His Majesty Ur.”

  “Thank you, General.” Even her simplest words rang with exactness. Everything in her was perfectly balanced. Even her refined, exquisite garments were in perfect harmony with her bearing.

  A fine circlet crowned her head; dark-blue mourning clothed her closed gown; a heavy silver belt bore the emblems of the Heavenly Houses. The Sun at the center: the Flow of Gifts—Prosperity, and the Flow of Equilibrium—Balance. A slim lunar crescent to the left: the Flow of Silver Threads—Connection, and the Flow of Wanderings—the Path. And four-pointed stars to the right: the Flow of Stardust—Freedom, and the Flow of Boundlessness—Inspiration.

  Every detail was precisely judged.

  “How may I serve you?”

  She smiled at the corner of scarlet lips. “I came to speak with you.”

  Came to speak in person, the general thought. What is happening here?

  “If you do not mind, I shall sit.” All her movements held a feline grace and caution. The princess took Mikena’s favorite spot at the table by the balcony. “First, I wish to express my regret for the attack in the Hazei Palace. That was my mistake, and I promise it will not be repeated. Nothing threatens you on our lands.”

  Mikena stilled the hand that would have touched the bandage at his neck. The wound had not troubled him—but now, oddly, it stung.

  “Such things happen, my lady. I would not presume to accuse you.”

  “Do you know who is behind it?”

  Her question sent a shiver down his spine. Was there some hidden meaning in it?

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “I have suspicions—but nothing firm.”

  “You likely suppose it was Mádyè. It was not. He had no part in it.”

  Stranger and stranger.

  Mikena had already imagined that the advisor’s disappearance was somehow tied to Niobe’s arrival—perhaps he had fallen into disgrace, perhaps been accused. But the princess still trusted him, it seemed.

  “You were attacked on the orders of the Three-Headed Hound. This group opposes Mádyè, fearing his power, and sees you as a weapon in his hand.”

  Anger stirred within, but the general was cautious. He needed to think before he spoke.

  “It must sound strange to you,” Niobe said, meeting his eyes. “Why should I tell you such details? It is all… very difficult,” she sighed. “Incredibly tangled. And even were you my enemy, I would not wish you to face what is happening in Erida’s political life.”

  And he had thought the backstage games of the Palace of Five Gardens exhausting. His notions of Mutaaresh’s calm and laziness—the unhurried idleness of southern life—were splitting at the seams.

  “Even if it is important for me to hear this, I still do not see to what end.”

  “The war began when I was eleven. I knew little then. I thought my father had only to set more soldiers against Sihem and it would all be settled in a day. And here we are,” she looked away in sorrow, “so many years later. Mutaaresh still shines—but you cannot imagine how the Drowsy Coast has been drained. How much we have lost. I have seen what the war has done to my people…” Her keen gaze turned to him. “And to yours? Was this what you wanted when you marched off for the first time?”

  Mikena was silent. What could he say? Of course he had wanted something else. The war had shattered his family too, had beggared the already-poor Wolf’s Maw. They had hoped the subjugation of other peoples would enrich them, and met only hatred and resistance. Now they fought not only outer foes but many within. Riots, uprisings, hunger, death—these had become familiar.

  The princess went on. “I will be frank. I deem Kafar a tyrant who has set his people on a false path. This war profits him—and only him.”

  The general clenched his teeth. He was not ready to endure such charges—he served not only the people but also the emperor—yet he would not oppose Niobe.

  Perhaps Kafar was a tyrant—but could it be otherwise?

  “Princess—”

  Niobe raised a hand to stop him. “Please, hear me out. I do not know what you know—but the power of Prosperity over him is strong. Not the Flow of Gifts itself, but its shadow—consumption, insatiability. Each year he wants more, and he seems ready to stop at nothing. Do you think the fall of Sardas frightened him? Sobers him? No. Your emperor is marching on Mezz. What will follow, General? What befell that city… is truly a tragedy in which I blame myself. I let an unbridled force slip its leash—and I will have no more such sacrifices. You could be not merely a voice of reason in this chaos, but perhaps lay the first stone of new relations between our peoples. That is why I am here. That is why I came in person.”

  “Princess…” Mikena began, and his voice shook. He meant to object, to defend Kafar—but he remembered the orders not to exchange prisoners for the grain the Eridians had offered, even as famine raged around the capital. “I am only a general. One among many. Why me?” he managed at last.

  “Because I have not yet lost hope. The privilege of the young,” she smiled gently. “You and Mádyè will go to Sardas,” she added suddenly, and Mikena frowned. “I wish to be sure we are doing all we can for those whose fate is now our charge.”

  The general nodded—more to his own thoughts. Sending him and Mádyè out of the capital to quiet the Three-Headed Hound, at least for a while, was a sound move.

  “And also,” the princess rose and drew a small envelope from her belt, extending it to Mikena.

  He was so taken aback that he accepted the thick sheet of paper.

  “On the road you will meet Lady Moremei. Deliver this message to her.”

  Was this the road the mountain king had asked him to walk?

  “I am flattered by your trust, but… I am still an enemy.” He held the letter like a ripe pomegranate—bright, full of juice, yet ready to burst and stain everything with blood.

  “And will you not do me so small a favor?” Her voice had a note of Mádyè in it, as if she were teasing him. “I won’t insist—but I have seen to your people, and now I ask only a little kindness. Besides, it is a personal letter; it bears no state seal.”

  Their eyes met, and for a while they merely studied one another. He tried to read anything at all in her face. It could be a lie, a ploy. And yet…

  “Why can’t Mádyè do it?”

  “As I said—everything is most complicated.”

  “If I do this, can I be sure the tragedy of Sardas will not be repeated?”

  A shadow of grief crossed Niobe’s face. She kept silent—and that silence weighed more than words.

  “I will do all I can,” she said at last, very softly.

  Mikena closed his fist around the letter. The words cut his heart; even so, he nodded. If his people lived, he must go on. For them. For the path the king of the mountains had shown him.

  “Then so will I.”

  The princess left him, and all around sank back into silence. And perhaps he hated it so because in silence his own thoughts sounded too loud.

  He spent the rest of the day turned inward, turning over what had happened—and what might.

  When the black armor caught him unawares, he could not have guessed how it would end. There were no simple choices here. What was he now—the edge of a sword bearing ruin in his country’s name, a broken blade stuck in the earth by an unmarked grave, or perhaps a snapped spear, a weary traveler’s staff?

  Mádyè thirsted for war, Niobe spoke of peace—did they walk toward one goal by different paths, or were they merely playing him like a piece on a chessboard?

  He remembered his men—were they alive, did they still believe in him? Must he hold on for their sake—for whose else? The Wolf’s Maw lay emptied, the western army shattered, Sardas had fallen, and the capital still rang crystal at its feasts, blind to the hunger beyond its walls and the endless funeral trains.

  The Puma had ordered him to go forward. Her eyes—the eyes of the Trial—still burned in memory. Niobe’s letter was a live coal. Should he carry it, burning his hands, or cast it aside—refuse the errand and the road?

  Evening stole in unnoticed. The wind drove off the heavy clouds, and the sky—dark blue in funeral garb—filled with myriads of stars. And with it Mutaaresh woke. First dim lights flared on the flat roofs, in windows, on terraces. Candles. Sparks of hope multiplied, trembled in the dusk like fireflies in the garden on Hazei Hill. People came out of their houses, bearing warmth and light, and the three-day silence began to melt, giving way to sound.

  From the depths of the city rose a voice—low, drawn-out, like a moan. Another joined it—thin and trembling—then a third, and soon a river of voices poured through streets and alleys, rising upward toward the three Heavenly Houses that watched over the lands of men. The Eridian words merged into a single swell, but Mikena caught the refrain: of the sea that takes and returns, of stars that gutter and kindle anew. They mourned Ur, father of the Drowsy Shores.

  It struck him so that he too extinguished every lamp in the room and left only one.

  Would they ever mourn Kafar so? And him—Mikena—would anyone remember the captive general? Was there anyone to light a candle and sing for him?

  The song gathered strength. Voices plaited into a mighty chorus, and lights—thousands of tiny stars—flowered on the roofs of Mutaaresh. He stepped onto the balcony and drew in the cool air, scented with candle-smoke and echoing with voices. His heart clenched—not with grief, but with something greater. He was not alone. The city sang, and in that singing was life.

  “I will walk my path,” he said again, this time more firmly, the words taking on weight. “I will do all that is in my power.”