Chapter 91: The Emperor's Voice

A raven came at noon the next day, through the kitchen window, and sat on the rim of the heavy blue teapot as if it owned it, and held out its leg.

Helena untied the note and gave the raven a crust without being asked. The raven ate the crust and then looked pointedly at the honey biscuits, and Helena said "No," and it left.

The note was in my father's hand. Very short. Written on the back of what looked like a page torn out of a hymnbook.

Arrived at dusk. Went in the back. Took boots off at the garden door. Sang the verse badly. She laughed and let me in.

Stayed the night by the loom. She asked a great many questions. I answered all of them.

She has not said yes or no. She says she will think. She says I may stay while she does. Her fish soup is very good. You shake the pot.

U.

* * *

Iselle read it four times. Then she sat down on the garden step in the sun and read it a fifth time, with her right hand open on her knee, and didn't say anything for a long while.

"She laughed," she said at last.

"Yes," said Mary.

"She hasn't laughed in her letters since I was twelve." Iselle looked at the note. "Not once."

* * *

My mothers waited up for the voice that night.

Not because anybody asked them to. Because my father was in a valley between two mountains, eating fish soup by a loom, and they didn't want to be in the big bed in the east wing without him, and they didn't want to be anywhere without each other. So they came down to the little kitchen at ten o'clock in their dressing gowns and sat on the bench by the fire, the two of them, very close, and waited for two in the morning.

I came down at eleven to get warm milk for little Uriah, who'd decided that sleep was something other people did. And I stopped in the doorway, the way I've stopped in that doorway a hundred times in my life, and looked at them.

Adriana had her head on my mother's shoulder. My mother had her hand in Adriana's hair, the long dark Lyradon hair, working her fingers through it slowly the way she does when Adriana's tired, the way she's done for as long as I can remember. Neither of them was talking. The fire was low. Helena's kettle was on the hob, ticking as it cooled.

And as I stood there, my mother turned her head and kissed Adriana on the forehead. Not quickly. The way you'd kiss someone you'd been kissing for twenty years and expected to be kissing for twenty more.

Adriana smiled with her eyes shut.

* * *

I want to put this down, because it's true, and because I've noticed that people who don't know us sometimes get it wrong.

My father has two wives. Everybody in Avarra knows that. What people who don't know us sometimes don't know is that my mothers aren't only his. They're each other's. Just as much. Just as completely. They always have been.

They fell in love in the chapel.

My mother told me the story when I was twelve and asked, rudely, why Adriana slept in her room when Father was away. She sat me down on the end of her bed and told me all of it.

It was in the war. Carol and I were very small. The Lyradoni came through the gate with almost nothing, Queen Mirelle and her household, soldiers, farmers off the terraces, children, and asked my father for asylum. He gave it the same afternoon, without making them ask twice.

On their second day in Greykeep, Adriana and her sister Cassia came to find my mother. They found her in the chapel down in Havenreach, where she went every day then to sit for an hour between the infirmary and supper. And they sat down on the bench beside her, very straight, both of them, and asked her, very formally, whether the King of Greykeep would ever consider taking a second wife.

"It wasn't love," my mother told me. "Not then. It was a treaty. They'd lost their kingdom and nearly everyone in it. They were guests in somebody else's castle with nothing but the clothes they'd come in. And guests can be sent away. A wife can't. They wanted their people safe. Married in. Family. So nobody could ever turn the Lyradoni out."

"What did you say?"

"I said no." She'd laughed. "Very kindly. And then they asked your father. Cassia asked him in council, twice, in front of everybody. Adriana asked him on the stairs. He said no too. Every time. He said their people were safe already. That they'd been safe the moment they came through the gate, and nobody needed to marry anybody for it."

But Adriana kept coming to the chapel.

Not to ask again. Just to sit. Every evening, between the infirmary and supper, on the same bench. And then Io started coming too, through the gate from Concordia, because she'd heard there was somewhere quiet in Havenreach where you could sit down without anybody calling you Majesty. And the three of them sat on that bench every evening, all through that winter. A healer from Valewood, and a princess with no kingdom, and a queen who'd once burned down a siege tower because it blocked her view of the sunset.

They became best friends. They still are. If you ever want to find Io when she's in Havenreach, look in the chapel first, and you'll find all three of them on that bench.

And somewhere in that winter, on that bench, my mother and Adriana fell in love.

"I didn't expect it," my mother told me. "Neither did she. And then one evening she put her head on my shoulder because she was tired, and I put my hand in her hair, and neither of us moved for an hour. And Io looked at us, and got up, and went home without saying a word." She'd smiled. "Io always knows before anybody."

And Adriana had fallen in love with my father, too. Quietly. On her own. Not for a treaty; for him. She told me once herself that she'd admired him before she knew him, and then she knew him, and found out he complained about meetings and left his tools on tables, and loved him anyway.

So they went to him. Together. Hand in hand. And told him. All of it.

"He listened," my mother told me. "Every word. And then he looked at us for a long time. And then he asked Adriana whether she'd like to marry him. Properly. Not for Lyradon. Not so her people would be safe, because they already were. For her. So that she'd never have to be anybody's secret. And she said yes." My mother had smiled. "And then he asked me whether I minded. Which was the most ridiculous question anyone's ever asked me, because by then it had been my idea."

I'd asked her whether that was strange.

"Strange?" she'd said. "No. It's just love. Some people only have room for one. Adriana and I have room for each other and your father. And he has room for both of us." She'd ruffled my hair. "We're bisexual, Garrick. Both of us. We always have been. That's all it means. That there's room."

* * *

So that's what I saw in the doorway of the little kitchen, at eleven o'clock, the second night my father was away. Two people who love each other, waiting together for the third, and keeping each other warm while they did.

My mother looked up and saw me.

"Milk?" she said.

"He won't sleep."

"He's like his grandfather," said Adriana, without opening her eyes. "Uriah doesn't sleep when there's weather coming either."

"There's no weather coming."

"There's always weather coming," said Adriana. "In this house."

My mother got up and warmed the milk for me herself, at the stove, the way she did when I was small. And when she sat back down, Adriana moved over to make room for her without opening her eyes, and settled her head back on my mother's shoulder as if it had never left.

* * *

The voice came at ten past two.

The Castellan came for Carol this time, not me. Carol came down the hundred and forty steps of the north tower with Ignatius, and stopped at my door, and knocked three times, and I came out. And Seraphina came with me, with her tea. And we went down the cistern stair together.

My mothers were already there. In their dressing gowns, at the bottom of the cistern stair, outside the iron room door. Holding hands.

"We heard the Castellan go past," said Adriana. "We'd like to stand in the doorway. If you'll let us."

Carol looked at them for a long moment.

"Yes," she said. "Please."

* * *

So we were all there. Eleanor with her key. Loki, who'd come up from somewhere without anyone seeing him come, leaning on the wall by the door with his arms folded. Mary, with her book and her pen and a candle on a little tin dish, sitting on the bottom step of the cistern stair. Ignatius. Seraphina. My mothers. Me.

And Carol.

She took the key from the string around her neck and unlocked the iron room door herself. And pushed it open. And walked in.

Alone. Into the cold. To the end of the rows, where the six taffy links lay on the stone floor.

But not alone. She'd made us promise. She stopped at the end of the rows and turned around and looked at me.

"Garrick," she said. "In the room. Please. Not in the doorway. Here."

So I went in. And stood beside her, a little behind her left shoulder, where I've stood all my life. And everybody else stood in the doorway, with the door wide open.

The link was frosted.

And it was speaking.

* * *

"Carol," said the voice. "You came down."

It was the same voice as the night before. Low and quiet and patient. Warm, in that tired way, like someone at the end of a long day by a fire. If you hadn't known whose it was, you might have liked it.

"And you brought them all," it said. "Your brother in the room. Your Ignatius. Your Seraphina, who'd like to melt me into the floor. Your clever ward-maker. The god of lies, by the wall." A pause. "Your mothers. Holding hands."

I felt Carol go still.

"That's all right," said Malachar. "I wanted them to hear this. I want everyone you love to hear it. So they'll know I'm not hiding anything. I've never hidden anything from you."

The frost spread a little way across the floor.

"I told you I'd say the rest," he said. "Here it is."

* * *

I'm going to set down what he said. All of it. As near as I can remember, and Mary's book helps, because Mary wrote down every word, by candlelight, on the bottom step of the cistern stair, without once looking up.

I'm going to set it down because it matters that you know how it sounded. How reasonable. How kind.

That's the thing nobody tells you about him. He's kind.

* * *

"I'm old, Carol," he said. "Older than your father. Older than your Aurelia. Three hundred years I've held my half of the world still. Every sea. Every storm. Every god who'd have torn it apart. I've held them all, so that nothing breaks. So that nobody drowns. So that the grain ships come in every autumn and the children grow up and the old die in their beds."

A pause.

"It's very heavy. You know that. You've felt a little of it. In the river. In the dream."

Carol's hands were at her sides. Open. I watched them.

"I want to put it down," said Malachar. "Not all of it. I'd never ask that. But some. I want somebody beside me who can hold it too. Somebody whose hand is the right size." His voice went very gentle. "You're the only one there's ever been, Carol. In three hundred years. The only one."

* * *

"So this is what I'm offering," he said. "And I'll say it plainly, because you're the kind who likes things said plainly."

"Come across the sea. On your own two feet. Nobody will carry you. Nobody will chain you. That was a mistake; Kessavel's mistake; I've told him so. Walk onto a ship at Westmere and sail to the golden city and walk up the hill to the palace, and I'll meet you at the door."

"And everything I hold, I'll share with you. Half. The seas. The storms. The held gods. All of it."

"You'll sit above two continents. Not beside me. Above. Every god in Kethra will kneel to you, the way they kneel to me. Every god in Avarra too, in time; they'll come, once they see what you are. They'll worship you. Not because you make them. Because you'll be the most beautiful thing they've ever seen, holding the whole world still in your two hands."

* * *

The cold in the room got deeper.

And then he said the thing that made Carol's hands close.

"And nobody will ever ask you anything again."

Carol's breath went out of her.

"I know," said Malachar softly. "I know how tired you are of being asked. You said it once. In your tower. To your Ignatius, in the chair by the window. 'I'm so tired of being asked.' I heard you, Carol. Through the piece of me you carry. I've heard you every night since." A pause. "Every night something asks you your name. Every day somebody asks you to go somewhere, or hold something, or stand at the front of a room. Every god in Avarra wants something from you. Your own family asks you a hundred times a day. May I. You can say no. Will you."

His voice was very kind.

"In the golden city, nobody will ask you anything. Not ever. You'll never have to say yes, and you'll never have to say no. You'll just be. Still. And safe. And quiet. Holding everything, the way you liked it in the dream. I felt you like it. You did, didn't you."

Carol didn't answer.

But I felt it, through the middle. She had. She'd told me so herself, the night of the dream. It was so easy. Like setting down something heavy.

* * *

"And one more thing," said Malachar. "Because you're kind, and you'll be thinking of the others."

"The day you walk through my door, I'll open every hold."

Nobody in the doorway moved.

"The Hollow Choir. Every god Kessavel ever took a name from, back to whoever they were. Every held storm. Every Hushed, unsworn, with their voices back. Every man and woman taken off every coast for three hundred years, and kept below the decks, and the cells, and the quarries. All of them. Home. On ships. To every harbor they came from." His voice was very quiet. "Your father taught you about the forty-one, I think. On the deck of a grain ship. I heard that too."

I went cold all over.

"I'm offering you all forty-one," said Malachar. "Every forty-one there's ever been. For you. Just you. Walking through my door on your own two feet."

* * *

The silence went on for a long time.

Then the voice turned. I felt it. The way you feel a lamp swing toward you in the dark.

"And you, brother," said Malachar.

I didn't answer.

"I felt you last night," said Malachar. "You're growing. You're going to keep growing. I can feel it the way you can feel the sea come in." A pause. "There's a throne for you too. Beside your sister's. Every god you've ever borrowed, and every god you've never met, and every power in two worlds within your reach. You'll grow so big no room in Avarra could hold you. Come and grow somewhere big enough."

And something in me leaned.

I want to be honest about that. I've tried to be honest about everything in these pages, and I'm not going to stop now. When he said it, something in me leaned toward the voice. Not the part of me that's Garrick. The other part. The part that's every god in the room, and is getting bigger every day, and doesn't know yet how big it's going to be. That part heard somewhere big enough and turned toward it like a plant turns toward a window.

And out past Westmere, very faintly, I felt the sea stir.

* * *

I didn't answer him.

I put my hand on my sister's shoulder instead. And felt her, through the middle, put her hand over mine on her own side. And the leaning stopped.

Not because I stopped it. Because she did. Because I was in the room with her, and she was in the room with me, and that's been the size of things for us since before we could talk. Big enough. It's always been big enough.

"Ah," said Malachar, very softly. As if he'd felt that too.

* * *

"I won't ask you to answer tonight," he said to Carol. "That would be unkind. Think about it. Talk to them, if you like. Talk to your mothers." The voice was warm. "Ask them what they'd want for you."

Carol's head came up.

"Tomorrow night," said Malachar. "At the same time. One word will do. I'll be listening."

The frost began to draw back across the floor.

"Good night, Carol," he said. "Sleep well. Nobody will ask you anything until morning."

And the link was just iron.

* * *

Carol didn't move for a long time.

Then she turned around, slowly, and looked at the doorway.

At Seraphina, with her tea gone cold in her hands and the white-gold standing in her eyes. At Ignatius, whose face I couldn't read. At Loki, very still against the wall. At Eleanor. At Mary on the bottom step, still writing.

At our mothers.

They were still holding hands. They hadn't let go the whole time. My mother's thumb was moving, very slowly, back and forth across the back of Adriana's hand. The way it does. The way it's done my whole life, across the dinner table and in the south solar and on the bench by the fire.

Carol looked at their hands for a long time.

And I felt something in her, through the middle, settle. The way a boat settles when it comes in off the swell into the harbor. Not deciding. Not yet. Just finding where the bottom is.

"Tomorrow," she said. To the room. To the link. To all of us.

And walked out past us, up the cistern stair, with Ignatius behind her.

* * *

Mary wrote it at three in the morning, on the bottom step, before she'd let any of us go up.

A raven from Uriah at noon. He went in the back. She laughed. She has not said yes or no. He may stay while she thinks.

Evelyn and Adriana waited up together in the little kitchen. Then in the doorway of the iron room. They held hands the whole time.

Malachar spoke again. He offered Carol: half of everything he holds. A throne above two continents. Every god kneeling. Worship.

He offered her: that nobody would ever ask her anything again.

He offered her: every hold opened. Every held god, every Hushed unsworn, every taken person home. All the forty-one.

He offered Garrick a throne beside hers. Somewhere big enough. Garrick did not answer. Carol put her hand over his.

He said: answer tomorrow night. One word. He said: ask your mothers what they'd want for you.

Carol said: Tomorrow.

And under that, much later, near dawn, in Carol's hand. She'd come back down, alone, without the Castellan fetching her, and sat on the step beside Mary for an hour without saying anything. And then she'd asked for the pen.

I asked them. In the little kitchen. What they'd want for me.

They looked at each other first. Then they told me.

I know the word.