The Lotus Ascension Page 2

“Sillara and Soren. Beautiful names. Beautiful, just like their father.” Ajalira reached back and played with Kamen's dreadlocks.

  “All their loveliness comes from their mother.” He kissed her lips, and Konas looked away.

  His gaze returned to baby Sillara. “Sillara,” he whispered. “Lovelier than any star. You shine more brightly, and the stars' beauty insults yours, which is incomparable. There is no name to call your beauty.”

  He bowed to her once more and left the room. He had an urgent letter to write.

  ****

  Brother,

  When you wrote to me with good news, I thought it would be of Kamen's death. I have no intention of marrying the Itenu brat. It is Ajalira I want—have always wanted. You should have known this. Write me again when Kamen is dead. It cannot be long, no longer than the burning of a candle. I wait in Duildal.

  Ever your loving brother,

  Tivanel

  Chapter One

  Sillara twisted one long lock of her midnight hair around her forefinger and sighed. Though she stood at a distance of the entire length of the corridor from the chamber in which her parents stood, though the doors were shut, and though her parents and Konas all spoke in lowered voices, still she heard them. It was a blessing to have such keen hearing. She knew that. Or at least, she told herself so. In truth, it did not please her to know the secret conversations of every inhabitant of her father's house.

  “Lord Konas.” The voice was Ajalira's, a low, pleading note suffusing it. “You have been Sillara's tutor. You know our daughter best.”

  He does not, thought Sillara. Second-best, perhaps.

  “Tell me,” said Kamen. “Is this madness permanent, do you think? Is there hope that she will return to sanity? That she will be able to face—” Her father's voice caught, but it was only for an instant. He continued smoothly, his Ausir accented but correct. “Face her brother's death and acknowledge it?”

  Sillara shook her head, and she swept down the corridor. As Konas spoke idle words of comfort, she pushed the door open. “Father, Mother.” With the proper behavior of Sunjaa daughter, Sillara touched her hand to her brow as she greeted her parents. When she turned to Konas, she bent at the knees in the greeting of pupil to her master. “Lord Konas.” Then she smiled. “I am not mad, you know.”

  Kamen inhaled deeply, and Ajalira's breast heaved. “My son,” said Kamen, “my firstborn, my pride, is drowned in the Meshkenet Sea. His ship went down, and you, my daughter, would mock my sorrow?”

  Ajalira's eyes flashed, despite the tears in them. “Sillara, you are cruel to us.”

  Frustration welled up in Sillara's breast, but she forced it down. “My brother is not dead. Not only is he not dead, he is happy. He is, indeed, half-distract with excitement.” She looked from her father, with his sorrowing black eyes, to her mother, with her bowed head and loosed hair, and Sillara knew that there was no more she could do to comfort them. “I cannot explain to you how I know this, but I do. I know that he is alive. Soren is well.” Sillara turned then to Konas. “And is not today my oral examination on the history of the Seranimesti House?”

  A sob caught in Ajalira's throat, and Kamen put his arms around her. “Lord Konas, humor her.”

  As Konas escorted her from her father's receiving chamber, Sillara could not help but hear Kamen whispering.

  “She will be forced to face it, my Lira. Today was the day his ship was due, and tomorrow she will have to acknowledge it.”

  “My son will have to rest as a Tamari, for his body cannot rest as a Sunjaa's. It is … gone.” Ajalira's tears flowed freely, and Sillara was not sorry to be left alone with Konas. Though she suspected he did not believe her either, at least he did not try to force her to pretend her brother was dead. They walked through the spacious apartments of her father's Arinport house, and Konas was silent. Sillara did not mind. She was in the midst of composing a song in her mind, a more complex piece of music than any she had composed before, and she hoped it would be ready in time for the party she was planning for Soren that night.

  “Your Grace.” Konas gestured for her to go ahead of him into her school-room. It was a large apartment overlooking the sea, and the scent of ocean-spray filled the room. Sillara loved the smell. It reminded her of Soren, for he had been two years at sea.

  “I am ready for the examination, Lord Konas.” Sillara seated herself with her back to the window. The sea breeze ruffled her hair, and she found herself mentally calculating the distance from her chair to the deck of a ship a dozen miles from Arinport's harbor. Having to determine the difference between a heavily-laden ship, as Soren's would doubtless now be full of plunder, and a ship carrying only sufficient provisions for its sailors was a pleasant diversion. The fact that she sat in a tower a fixed height from the ground would otherwise have made the question too easily solved to occupy her mind while Konas took his seat and got out the three texts he used for the history of her soon-to-be House.

  “I'm not going to examine you today, Your Grace.” Konas did not yet have the books out, but Sillara had already finished her calculations.

  “Why not?” Sillara hoped it was not that he considered her to have gone mad.

  “Because you could probably write those books from memory.” Konas laughed as he gestured behind him to the shelf, and Sillara smiled.

  “So what lesson will you give me then?”

  “One not written in any text, for it is the secret treasure of the Seranimesti House.” Konas pulled his chair closer to hers. Though he rarely neglected to give her the title due her as the Queen of the Ausir, he was otherwise as familiar as their long relationship authorized. He had been her tutor since her official schooling had begun at the age of five, and even before that he had been a daily visitor to her father's home.

  “Tell me, Lord Konas, for I must know all the secrets of His Grace's House.”

  “You know that my father was only the younger son of his father,” said Konas.

  “Yes. Your uncle was Lord Faloth, heir to the Seranimesti lands and title, and he became the first High Priest of the goddess Abrexa. Followed,” said Sillara with a smile, “by my great-uncle, Prince Nethrin.”

  “And they both, therefore, died without issue.” Konas shifted uneasily in his chair, and Sillara heard the slight increase in his breathing.

  “Why 'therefore'?” asked Sillara. “For there are, now at least, priests of Abrexa who marry.”

  “That is so, but prior to the death of King Kiltarin the goddess Abrexa dwelt among us mortals.” Konas's eyes dropped as he went on, but Sillara ignored the lapse. “She actually lived in the King's house, and the High Priest would go to her and worship her body … with sex.”

  Sillara laughed, though her cheeks burned. “She allowed that?”

  “She required it,” said Konas. “And outside the Seranimesti sons, no one has known of this, for it seems that High Priest Nethrin never spoke of it.”

  “She required it?” Sillara tilted her head to the left. “But was she not wedded to the King? Why would she desire another lover?”

  “Because she was—is—a goddess. No one so far beneath her as King Kiltarin, despite the touch of divinity in his blood, could satisfy her. She was meant for the Master-Smith.”

  Sillara considered this. According to the priests of both orders, Abrexa River-goddess had received her golden chain from Veirakai, and he had become her lord and lover. But only a few hundred years ago she had dwelt among mortals, veiling her divinity, and apparently fucking two men at once. “So she was unchaste?”

  “No,” said Konas. “Her husband liked it, wanted it, too.”

  Sillara did not know where to look.

  “And the goddess has favored the Seranimesti House ever since. Lord Faloth's love and worship pleased her so greatly that she granted the crown to the Seranimesti.”

  My father did that. Sillara did not speak her thought, however, but said instead, “And the Seranimesti have worshiped Abrexa solely ever since. But though
I will be pleased to worship Abrexa, for she is the River-goddess of the Sunjaa, I cannot give up the worship of Alaxton.”

  “You would not be expected to.” Konas laughed. “You are of Tamari blood. How could you be expected not to worship the Battlebringer?”

  “Alaxton Battlebringer is also Alaxton, Keeper of the Word.”

  “And Abrexa River-goddess is also Abrexa of the Golden Chain.”

  “The goddess of love.” Sillara heard distant footsteps approaching her chamber.

  “And the goddess of lust,” said Konas. “They go together for Abrexa.”

  “And how should this be?” asked Sillara. “How should it be that the Ausir King shared his wife with another man? Would not the Ausir then despise her as a whore? Is it not the Ausir way to keep the virtue of their women unsullied and above all reproach?”

  Konas's wry smile told Sillara that he understood as well as she did the incongruity of the Ausir attitude toward sex. “As a goddess she was above mortal morals, and, besides, she was too much for any one mortal man.”

  Sillara's cheeks were burning afresh. She knew that her own mother had been, because she had trained as a Lotus, considered a whore and prostitute by Konas's brother, her own soon-to-be-husband. She heard the alteration in Konas's breathing, and she knew he sensed her discomfort.

  “Why are you so hopeful your brother is alive?” asked Konas.

  Sillara could almost have laughed at the abruptness of his change of subject. She knew that he was always careful of her feelings, and this was only another fresh instance of it. “It is not hope. It is knowledge.” Sillara had no other words to express her certainty. She knew that Soren was living as surely as she knew she herself drew breath.

  “Your Grace, I will not say that you must—”

  The footsteps Sillara had earlier detected were now at the door, and it opened. “Mistress, there are three invoices requiring your signature.” One of Sillara's body-slaves brought forward three rolls of papyrus.

  Sillara smiled, and she glanced over the contracts. “The dancers are to be engaged for the entire night.” Sillara made a slight emendation to one of the contracts. “Otherwise all is in order.” She signed the papers with the quill the slave provided.

  “You are certainly sure of yourself.” Konas gestured to the retreating body-slave. “It must have taken all your personal funds for six months to pay for this celebration.”

  “Do you think that I would allow my brother to return and not have his first long leave properly celebrated? He has served two years.” Sillara paused. Those two years had been the hardest of her life, even though she had known all the while of Soren's safety and well-being. “Thank you so much for letting me have the use of your city house for this. My parents would not let me attend even the first hour of a party anywhere besides your house or the King's, and … I could not give my brother the sort of party a sailor wants if I had had to hold it in my personal apartments.” She smiled then. “And when you do not even believe me that he is alive—”

  Suddenly the sound of the harbor horn echoed through the city, and Sillara rose to her feet. Konas joined her, and they both darted to the window. The voices and cries that spread through the city in waves soon reached their ears.

  “Orien returns!”

  Sillara turned her shining eyes on Konas. Orien was Soren's captain, and his return meant the return of his men.

  “The Scourge is defeated!”

  Sillara and Konas exchanged glances. The Scourge was the most vicious pirate in all the Meshkenet Sea, and it was supposed to have been in battle with him that Soren's ship had sunk.

  “It appears you were right, Your Grace.”

  Sillara laughed and threw her arms around Konas in her joy. Then she turned and fairly ran through the halls to her father's receiving chamber. There she saw Kamen and Ajalira holding each other, and she ran to them.

  “Sillara!” Her father pulled her into their embrace, and Sillara could not help laughing. She was as joyous as they were, but their sudden change from such sorrow to this unlooked-for delight had left her parents half-dazed.

  “Please, may I go to the docks?” asked Sillara. She disengaged from their arms and made a low curtsey in the Ausir fashion. “I want to meet my brother.”

  “But, daughter, we cannot.” Ajalira's eyes were more green than blue, and Sillara recognized the unmistakable sign of happiness. “We must wait here for Soren to come home.”

  Sillara knew what her mother meant. As nobles, it would hardly be appropriate for their family to trek down to the docks. The stir it would cause would be disproportionate for what was supposed to be the expected return of but one ship in the King's navy. The fact that this ship was returning after having been thought lost would not make any difference.

  And still Sillara did not care. She dropped to her knees, and whether by Ausir or Sunjaa standards it was a shocking action. “Please.”

  “There was a time I would've taken a horse to the docks myself,” said Kamen, reaching down to pull Sillara to her feet. “But this isn't the time. This is Orien's victory, his ship, and if we, first family of Arinport outside the King's own, show up at the docks then we will be upstaging him, stealing his glory.”

  Sillara did not take her father's hand and remained on her knees. “I will go quietly, privately. Just, please, let me go.”

  “You cannot go quietly,” said Ajalira. “You are the Queen of the Ausir.”

  “That is why you must not do anything,” said Kamen.

  Sillara heard Konas's breathing in the doorway, but she did not bother to turn to him. He would, doubtless, agree with Kamen. “I just want to see my brother,” she said. “It has been two years since I have seen his eyes.” She pressed her forehead to the cool marble of the floor. “I shall not move until you give me leave to go.”

  Konas was at her side immediately, and he was prostrate on the floor with her. Sillara knew that because she was, having been betrothed to Konas's brother on the day of her birth, the Queen of the Ausir, he would not elevate himself above her.

  “She is your daughter,” said Kamen, and Sillara, though her eyes were fixed on the floor, heard her mother's low laugh. “I suppose you may go, but you shall not go alone. We will all have to go. Konas and I can take to horse, and you may ride in your mother's litter.”

  Sillara rose, and Konas followed. “Thank you!”

  Within five minutes' time, Sillara was standing beside her mother's litter. Kamen and Konas were standing not a dozen paces away, and their horses were being led from the stable. Sillara watched them both mount their horses, and the differences between them brought a smile to her lips. Konas was an Ausir, with the wide, large eyes and high cheekbones of his species. His horns, unlike Sillara's own, did not curve back around his skull but rather branched up and out through the gold of his long hair. His green eyes were more purely emerald than Ajalira's, and his skin was an almost marble fairness. Kamen was as dark as Konas was fair, but his black dreadlocks were streaked with grey. Though Konas was as old for an Ausir as her father was for a human, Konas, being Ausir, did not show his age on his face.

  As soon as Ajalira was settled into the litter, Sillara followed her. “I am sorry your gown is so hot,” said Ajalira, and Sillara swallowed the laughter that bubbled up in her.

  “I am well, Mother.” Sillara smoothed down the pale blue silk of her Ausir-cut gown. The high neck and fitted bodice were, admittedly, more confining than the translucent Sunjaa linen her mother wore, but Sillara had been wearing Ausir fashions for the past ten years. She was used to them. What amused her was that her mother should think of her clothes. “It will not matter,” said Sillara, suddenly understanding Ajalira's real thought. “No one will be thinking of me at all anyway. It will not be seen as an official reception of Captain Orien's ship by the Ausir Queen just because I am wearing Ausir clothes. I do not care about the ship. I am just a girl going to meet her sailor-brother after his first two years of service.”

  �
��I know,” said Ajalira, patting Sillara's hand. “I suppose I am just worried because I can't really believe that he's back, that he's alive. How can you be so calm? So collected?” Ajalira was, Sillara knew, only half teasing.

  “Because I was never worried. Unlike you, Mother, I am not now in a different state from the one I was in an hour ago.” The litter shifted beneath them, and the even tread of the litter-bearers ate up the distance between the Itenu estate and the docks.

  Though Ajalira kept the curtains closed, Sillara did not need to see to know that the streets were packed with people. The crowds, of course, made way for the Itenu entourage. Sillara smiled. She supposed there were about two dozen guards around her litter. This was the first time she had been outside the gates of the Itenu estate in six months, the last time having been the King's private celebration upon the birth of his latest son by his second concubine. She traced over the little Itenu falcon just over her heart on her left breast. Soren had gotten his the day before he put to sea, and her parents had been furious over hers, which was the same design, only smaller. Ausir did not tattoo their flesh. That was a human convention, and she was to be the Queen of the Ausir.

  Sillara fidgeted. She was of noble birth on her father's side, royal on her mother's, and she would never dream of failing in her duty. But King Tivanel Seranimesti of the Ausir was only a name to her, and she did not look forward to leaving Arinport for Tivanel's city of Duildal.

  Despite the fact that she had not been to the docks for two years, not since Soren's ship had put to sea, in fact, she remembered each street with perfect clarity. She knew that they were now within sight of the harbor, knew that within three more paces they would be able to see Soren's ship.

  And at three paces, the litter jarred so strongly that Sillara was pitched into her mother's lap.

  “Abrexa's chain!” Konas's muttered curse was only a little softer than Kamen's low whistle.

  Sillara pulled apart the curtains and looked out at the harbor. There, with the serpent flag of the Sunjaa King flying just above the speared boar of Captain Orien, was not the sleek Sunjaa caravel in which Soren had set out. Instead she saw a large galleon. It rode low in the water, obviously full of plunder, and the figurehead was an upraised fist with a trailing scourge clasped in it.