The bricklayers place the fourth course. Dawn lightens the air.
Lord Gargaron strolls into view from the other side of the tomb, accompanied by Garon soldiers. His glance takes me in with the merest flicker of surprise, and he changes course to cut me off.
“Here you are, Jessamy. I suppose I should have expected it.”
“Why should you have expected to see me, my lord? Garon Palace has already paid its respects and given its offerings to the dead man.”
He glances toward the tomb with a thin smile. “Yes, so we have.”
In that smile lies the truth: their fate was determined from the moment Lord Gargaron decided he wanted a new general.
He nods as he examines my expression and draws his own conclusions about my thoughts. “You have something of your father’s instinct for strategy. I saw it when I watched you run against my useless nephew. You calculated each obstacle. You found a way to lose without making it obvious you had thrown the game. That makes you an adversary to reckon with.”
All my caution flies out the window. “You came here to make sure they were bricked into the tomb, did you not?”
He considers me with a look I cannot fathom. “A man cannot serve if his heart lies in two pieces. General Esladas must not be distracted.”
“She’s pregnant!”
“We are at war,” he says as if that answers everything.
“I’ll tell the priests! It’s blasphemy!”
“Do you think you will ever be allowed to get close enough to the priests to speak to them? Do you imagine anyone will listen to the mad rantings of a mule?”
The last group of women crawls out over what is now more a window than a door. The song of the priests drifts out from inside, the final blessing during which they cut away the dead man’s shadow and seal his flesh into the coffin. Over time his self will dissolve and his heart decay, but as long as the tomb stands Lord Ottonor’s name will remain alive in the world.
The oracle was telling me what I could not yet understand. Death might be a mercy.
“Put me in there with them, I beg you. That would be propitious, would it not? Like the Silent Orchid and her four obedient daughters. Let me go with them into the tomb. Please!”
“I think not. You will bring glory to Garon Palace, just as your father will. I will accept nothing less from you than the heights of the Illustrious.”
The priests crawl out of the tomb, the last to emerge. With hands raised on the porch, they sing the hymn of triumphant justice while the bricklayers stand atop benches to finish the final courses and seal the tomb.
A scream of despair rips out of my throat and breaks through my body as I dissolve into grief-racked sobs. But all of Lord Ottonor’s household is wailing too, in the customary manner. The women scratch at their chests and the men throw dirt onto their heads. My voice is so lost among theirs that it stops me cold.
I am not the screamer.
Why is Bettany not screaming and shouting? What of Amaya’s piercing whine? Have they smothered them as was the custom in the old country?
Are they dead?
The prayer of the priests reaches its crescendo in praise of the heavenly triumvirate of gods who have given the people prosperity, justice, and victory. In what was once a doorway the bricklayers leave only a thin gap for air like a mouth barely parted as it gives up its last breath.
My knees dissolve, all strength gone. The soldiers do not even glance at me. I am nothing to them.
I am nothing to myself. I am no longer Captain Esladas’s daughter. My mother is no longer a woman named Kiya but a faceless and voiceless ghost. My sisters are gone.
I collapse over my thighs, fists on the dirt.
Lord Gargaron’s feet shift in front of my face. I lift my head and see him motion to a captain, who escorts Denya to a carriage. Tears and exhaustion stain Denya’s face, yet even so I see how pretty she is.
I remember what my mother said when she came home from the City Fives Court on the day Father’s clothes were washed in Lord Ottonor’s blood: He was poisoned.
Lord Gargaron has taken everything he desired from the ruins of Lord Ottonor’s household.
“Bring her,” he says.
I walk before the soldiers can drag me. My legs stump like weights that belong to another person. Ahead wait two carriages. Lord Gargaron climbs into one. Denya is escorted to the other. I make ready to trudge behind the carriage but to my surprise the steward orders me in with her.
Its blue awning floats like the heavens, painted with cranes and sunbirds. I climb inside.
Denya looks up sharply, scrubbing tears from her cheeks. “Jessamy Tonor!” She laughs a little too wildly. “No, it is Jessamy Garon now, is it not? Just as I am Denya Garon.”
