Dawn

Saharashastra strode through the halls of the palace, taking steps that kept him in the sunlight to avoid the lingering winter air. His calculations placed the warm air from the west arriving in another two weeks, while the academy masters claimed it would be any day now.

It was always any day now. When spring would come, when the quarantine would end. Always a day away.

He tightened his cloak, adjusting the fur and trim away from his neck.

It itched, tickling at inopportune moments and occasionally, small strands would delicately float before him long enough for a single inhalation to send him into sneezing fits.

He paused on his way to the throne room at a hurried call for his attention. The maid, the new one who served his wife, trotted down the hall, hands stretching towards him with a small folded note sealed in crimson wax.

‘To my dearest Saha’: written in the delicate cursive script he’d come to recognise intimately.

“Tell Jinai I’ll meet her after court,” he said. “In her garden.” She loved the gardens, and the few moments spent away from her troops would find her watering roses or lounging behind bushes.

The maid bowed once more and turned her head to one side, listening. Waiting.

Saharashastra sighed. “And tell her I love her.”

The maid squeaked, a faint redness blooming on her cheeks before scurrying back towards his rooms.

He traced the elegant script on the note and glanced out of a nearby window. There was time; he could read the note. His hands brushed across the nickname. His fingers twitched. Instead of breaking the seal, he placed the note inside his coat, in the small pocket he used to carry papers and reports.

Even Jinai used his nickname within six weeks of their marriage.

He breathed deeply and ducked through a side passage, startling a few birds that had built a nest above a window. He muttered a word of power, and the drifting feathers floated out of the window. His fingers twirled as the magic ran through his body, and he placed his hands behind his back. The sunlight streaming through the window danced off the walls and the ripples of his power. The birds circled the window twice before settling back into their nest as he turned to leave. Saharashastra smiled at the uneven birdsong that trailed in his wake.

In the courtyard below, guards were rushing back and forth. Some fool must have broken the pulley at the gate again. It would need to be replaced.

It took a moment to turn through the passages and come before the great arched doorway that led to the rear entrance of the throne room. It was installed by his grandfather: an escape route at the heart of the palace.

The guards at the door were uniformed in the strongest armour his family could afford, emblazoned with their crest and the glowing tattoos that signified their rank glistening under their left eye. They bowed when he arrived, hands on heart, and Saharashastra commented on the weather with a quick clap on one of the guard’s shoulders, before stepping through the door. As he did on every occasion, Saharashastra tapped the door frame, just under the small crack he’d created as a child. He recalled the raging electricity that had coursed through his veins, still lingering in the crack, and he clenched his fist.

There was an engineered dullness to the entryway. To stop hesitation, his father said. Never linger behind the throne.

Today, Saharashastra paced behind the throne, behind the purple-tinted curtains that hadn’t been changed since his grandfather wrested this land from the previous royal family. He looked at his darkened skin, tanned whether he lived under the sun or not.

The masters told him it was the blessing of the goddess and affectionately called him Shasa: the brilliant jewel.

The children named him Saha.

He chuckled, even then, at the age of five, he knew which name would remain for his life.

“Humour, Saha? Today?” His father’s steady voice filled the entryway. The man could have worked as a bard, had claimed he would have if he wasn’t a member of the royal family.

“I’m remembering when I dug through the library. When you didn’t explain why my friends laughed.”

Saha, they called him, the broken raven of myth, the trickster. Born under a broken sky, when the twin suns vanished for a full day, Saharashastra had been blessed by the Goddess of Magic, with a light so bright it had been a beacon at the castle for assassins and charlatans.

His father had dealt with the assassins, blade in hand and spells bursting from his fingers, while his mother feted the charlatans. Nobles and priests of the Thousand, the thousand gods, came to beg for a glimpse of the babe of magic, the kingdom’s shining pride.

“Did you need explanation?” His father chuckled. “In the library doing research to understand a nickname.” He shook his head, then winced as the steel crown tilted and almost fell off.

“Wasted effort,” Saha muttered. He turned his eyes away, refusing to meet his father’s soft smile. The smile that let lies pass.

“Any news for me?” His father straightened his back, a dull click from his lower back the only sign of his age.

Saha brushed his fingers against the curtain, along the plain trim and gathered his thoughts.

“Winter won’t leave us for another two weeks.” Saha sighed.

“The masters have been saying it will leave us any day now,” his father said.

“Of course. However, we should send orders to the granaries, especially in the East, to consolidate stock and conserve.”

“The quarantine has pulled much of our stocks. The merchants are beginning to raise prices.”

“As they should.” Saha faced his father. “We can’t afford to keep prices down.”

“The people will revolt.” His father reached up to adjust the crown. His hands pressed at his temples, rubbing the soft pads welded to the crown. It was another example of his grandfather’s odd behaviour, converting a helmet into a crown and then embedding the pads to make massaging his head easier.

“Not yet,” Saha declared with a confidence his cold hands betrayed. “They fear the east. More than they fear hunger.”

His father stopped massaging his temples. “Do we still not know the origin?”

“Uncertain. It came from across the border, beyond the Ring of Fire. That much is certain, but the scouts that managed to return took weeks to recover, but they’re free of Firerash and found nothing in those dead lands.”

“No cure. No cure.” His father muttered. He touched the hilt of his sword. “What news of the enforcement line?”

Saha hesitated and muttered the communication spell he’d kept at his side since the first sighting of Firerash. It wove through the castle, a streak in his mind’s eye as it raced to the pylon embedded in the central tower, the tallest structure in the capital. The magic briefly wound through the dense spellwork engraved in the pylon, waiting for the pulse that sent it streaking into the east, amplified so it crossed the distance in the blink of an eye to meet—nothing.

“The pylon at the enforcement line is silent. As is the one in the city,” he whispered. Saha raised his hands before his father could speak. “I don’t know. The Thousand themselves are quiet, refusing to answer their priests.”

His father snorted. “Never there when you need them.”

“There when you don’t,” Saha finished the saying, a soft smile breaking the gloom building around them. Only for a moment, though. “Father. Your majesty. It’s strange, but we have to be patient. Exposing more people; crossing the line. It will not end well.”

His father grunted, adjusting his sword and glanced at the entryway. Faint sunlight poured through the small window set above the door. Too small for someone to pass through, which meant it was too small for enough light to shine through as well. Saha had wanted to change it, but his father had refused without explanation.

He always looked at the window before holding court. He would look and exude the demand for silence, the pressure of a master swordsman cutting through the space, making him just that little bit—not here.

Saha closed his eyes and thought about the letter.

His wife.

Jinai had that same presence when she wanted silence. In his father it created distance, with his wife it hurt.

His hand brushed against the letter.

It would have nothing inside. Jinai sealed empty letters as demands. Demands for his time when she felt he wasn’t paying enough attention, or was lost in his work.

With a plague in the east, a lacklustre harvest this year, and Imperial tolls rising half a point, work could not be left aside.

His parents needed him.

Saha hated silence, though.

“It will not be pleasant. The court session,” Saha said. His father hummed under his breath, but refused to step out of his quiet. “Father. Your majesty. Have you reviewed my proposal?”

His father twitched, eyes opening into tight slits, bleeding presence like the soft whisper of assassin’s darts slicing through the air.

“I have.”

When he didn’t speak further, Saha turned away. Firerash was horrific, and they needed contingencies. Harsh contingencies to protect the kingdom.

Saha opened his mouth, but froze. It could be discussed later. If the situations deteriorated. Instead, he closed his eyes and let magic run through him, filling his veins alongside the beating of his heart. Each pulse strengthened his body, brought him one step closer to becoming a master mage.

It didn’t take long before his father’s voice cut through the air, heavy, yet soft. An unsheathed blade.

“Come. Court awaits.” His father strode through the curtains and Saha quickly followed, ducking through the purple and brushing it aside with his hands. Saha stood with the curtain draped over one arm and blinked at the throne glistening on its pedestal. Three steps inlaid with the metal of his ancestors armour and weapons were crafted delicately and burnished daily, glistening in the soft sunlight that angled through the high windows of the court room. Before his father’s coronation, the windows were much lower, low enough for magic or explosive devices to tear into the court. His grandfather’s administration had almost been gutted, and it took years for his father to train the talent that stood anxiously in the hall.

They tried to hide it, but Saha had known most of them since his childhood, had grown at their side, studied under them. Sweat covered faces though they were wrapped in heavy coats and bulky furs.

“Speak. Tell me news of the Kingdom.” His father boomed before he even sat.

“Grain prices are stable.” An administrator began and the court launched into a debate on the stability of prices in the west and trade coming from the north. The south was blessed with rain, enough to sate the harvest. It would be a bumper crop. Money was flowing in. The minister of finance froze while paging through his ledgers. He could speak of the taxes and tolls flowing into the nations coffers.

“And the outflow to the east?” Saha interrupted, before the man could dodge the problem. As they all did. Magic coursed through his veins, or as close to his veins as the power could travel. It kept him calm, the same soothing sense of confidence from his childhood.

From his birth.

The courtiers shuffled, and eyes turned to look at the ceiling or the floor. Cloaks were tightened, and the soft murmur that filled any room with more than ten people vanished.

Bitterness. It coated Saha’s tongue. Wound its way down his throat until it clenched his heart. It was hot. Breathing became harder. These were his people. The nation’s administrators.

“You won’t discuss this? You refuse to even think about the city we wiped from the map? Look! Look East! Have the Thousand taken your tongues?”

“Enough,” his father barked. He fixed Saha with a glare, and for the first time in months, Saha stared back. No one should hide when Saha had ordered the city closed.

“It’s not enough. We cannot hide. The enforcement line is silent. If this court refuses to face the truth, I’ll go somewhere else. By your leave, Father.”

Saha didn’t say anything else. He didn’t wait for permission. He turned to leave.

“Saha…” his father raised a hand, a flicker in the corner of Saha’s eye.

He’d made Jinai wait for this.

“Report! A courier from the east.” A guard dashed into the courtroom. Her eyes wide, breath laboured, and puffs of steam escaping her lips. She must have run across the palace.

“What happened?” Saha returned to his father’s side and looked down at the guard. There was a lingering otherness clinging to her coat.

“I…Your Highness, it would be better for you to meet the courier.” The guard refused to look at him. No. She refused to look at anyone. Saha’s breath caught. What had happened?

“Bring the courier in.” His father ordered, the throne creaking under his pale knuckles.

They didn’t have to wait long, but it was enough for a choking pressure to fill the court. The courtiers still refused to look east. Refused to even look at the door.

The courier stumbled through the door and staggered to a halt. A young woman, flowing hair covering her face and a sword strapped tight to her waist. The sword was strange, not standard issue. It carried a hint of magic. The courier’s hands jerked up in salute. Almost as if she’d forgotten how to use her body. Saha summoned magic to his eyes and rubbed them when he saw the warping swirling around the woman.

“Report,” his father barked, hand on the hilt of his sword. Other courtiers were also reaching for weapons. This woman was…filling the room.

“A transcendent,” the courier collapsed to her knees, pale face twitching and eyes rolling. Saha raised a hand, and threads of magic wove around her, sealing the woman in place and digging into her body. No fever, no red of Firerash.

“The plague is dead.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Dead. Dead. Dead. The plague is dead! A transcendent. General Nazran.” Her voice cracked with each phrase, and something swelled inside her. Saha leaned forward. She was there, but not there.

No. Something was with her. She’d carried something here, something from the East.

That warping wasn’t hers; it was coming through her.

“Step back!” the king shouted, his blade out and streams of force descending on the courier.

“It was glorious. Magnificent. A transcendent is born! His weapon. His blade. His sword!” She was almost screaming.

His father’s strikes dissolved around the courier.

She stood, eyes carrying something, a presence Saha couldn’t read, couldn’t understand.

The whistling of a thousand dead duels and the blood of innumerable innocents filled the court. The death of something that should not have life tore at the very fabric of what should be. She looked to the East; wherever her gaze passed, courtiers shielded their eyes, swordsmen drew their blades, and mages summoned wards.

Saha couldn’t look at her; his eyes felt like they would be—

“Cut.”

He whispered.

She turned to him. Eyes ablaze. He could see now.

A sword hung in her right eye. A rift in her left.

“In the Holy One’s name. The plague is dead!” She raised her hands and collapsed. Shivering on the cold floor.

No one dared to approach.