“Lady Serymn!” Jont sounded flustered and alarmed and excited all at once. “O-of course.” She let go of me, and another hand took mine.
“We’ve been expecting you,” the woman said. “There’s a private dining room this way. I’ll warn you if there are steps.”
“All right,” I said, grateful. Jont had not done this, and I’d stubbed my toe twice already. As we walked, I pondered this new enigma.
Lady Serymn, Jont had called her. Not a godling, certainly, not among these godling haters. A noblewoman, then. Yet her name was Amn, one of those tongue-tangling combinations of consonants they so favored; the Amn had no nobility, except—But, no, that was impossible.
We passed through a wide doorway into a smaller, quieter space, and suddenly I had new things to distract me, namely the scent of food. Roasted fowl, shellfish of some kind, greens and garlic, wine sauce, other scents that I could not identify. Rich people’s food. When Serymn guided me to the table where this feast lay, I belatedly realized there were others already seated around it. I’d been so fascinated with the food that I’d barely noticed them.
I sat among these strangers, before their luxurious feast, and tried not to show my nervousness.
A servant came near and began preparing my plate. “Would you like duck, Lady Oree?”
“Yes,” I said politely, and then registered the title. “But it’s just Oree. Not ‘Lady’ anything.”
“You undervalue yourself,” said Serymn. She sat to my right, perpendicular to me. There were at least seven others around the table; I could hear them murmuring to each other. The table was either rectangular or oval-shaped, and Serymn sat at its head. Someone else sat at the other end, across from her.
“It is appropriate for us to call you Lady,” Serymn said. “Please allow us to show you that courtesy.”
“But I’m not,” I said, confused. “There isn’t a drop of noble blood in me. Nimaro doesn’t have a noble family; they were wiped out with the Maroland.”
“I suppose that’s as good an opening as any to explain why we’ve brought you here,” Serymn said. “Since I’m certain you’ve wondered.”
“You might say so,” I said, annoyed. “Hado…” I hesitated. “Master Hado told me a little, but not enough.”
There were a few chuckles from my companions, including two low, male voices from the far end of the table. I recognized one of them and flushed: Hado.
Serymn sounded amused as well. “What we honor is not your wealth or status, Lady Oree, but your lineage.”
“My lineage is like the rest of me—common,” I snapped. “My father was a carpenter; my mother grew and sold medicinal herbs. Their parents were farmers. There’s nobody fancier than a smuggler in my entire family tree.”
“Allow me to explain.” She paused to take a sip of wine, leaning forward, and as she did, I caught a glimmer from her direction. I turned to quickly peer at it, but whatever it was had been obscured somehow.
“How curious,” said another of my table companions. “Most of the time she seems like an ordinary blind woman, not orienting her face toward anything in particular, but just now she seemed to see you, Serymn.”
I kicked myself. It probably would’ve done no good to conceal my ability, but I still hated giving them information inadvertently.
“Yes,” said Serymn. “Dateh did mention that she seems to have some perception where magic is concerned.” She did something, and suddenly I got a clear look at what I’d glimpsed. It was a small, solid circle of golden, glowing magic. No—the circle was not solid at all. In spite of myself, I leaned closer, narrowing my eyes. The circle consisted of dozens upon dozens of tiny, closely written sigils of the gods’ spiky language. Godwords. Sentences of them, a whole treatise’s worth, spiraling and overlapping each other so densely that from a distance the circle looked solid.
Then I understood, and drew back in shock.
Serymn moved again, letting her hair fall back into place, I realized by the way the sigil-circle vanished. Yes, it would be on her forehead.
That can’t be. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t believe it. But I had seen it with my own two magic eyes.
I licked my suddenly dry lips, folded my shaking hands in my lap, and mustered all my courage to speak. “What is an Arameri fullblood doing with some little heretic cult, Lady Serymn?”
The laughter that broke out around the table was not the reaction I’d been expecting. When it died down—I sat through it, uneasily silent—Serymn said in a voice that still rippled with amusement, “Please, Lady Oree, do eat. There’s no reason we can’t have a good conversation and enjoy a fine meal, is there?”
So I ate a few bites. Then I wiped my mouth using my best manners and sat up, making a point of waiting politely for an answer to my question.
Serymn uttered a soft sigh and wiped her own mouth. “Very well. I’m with this ‘little heretic cult,’ as you put it, because I have a goal to accomplish, and being here aids that purpose. But I should point out that the New Lights are neither little, nor heretical, nor a cult.”
“I was given to understand,” I said slowly, “that any form of worship other than that sanctioned by the Order was heretical.”
“Untrue, Lady Oree. By the law of the Bright—the law as set down by my family—only the worship of gods other than Itempas is heretical. The form in which we choose to worship is irrelevant. It’s true that the Order would prefer that the two concepts—obedience to the Bright Lord, obedience to the Order—be synonymous.” There was another soft roll of chuckles from our table companions. “But to put it bluntly, the Order is a mortal authority, not a godly one. We of the Lights merely recognize the distinction.”
“So you think the form of worship you’ve chosen is better than that of the Order?”
“We do. Our organization’s beliefs are fundamentally similar to those of the Order of Itempas—indeed, many of our members are former Order priests. But there are some significant differences.”
“Such as?”
“Do you really want to get into a doctrinal discussion right now, Lady Oree?” Serymn asked. “You’ll be introduced to our philosophy over the next few days, like any new initiate. I thought your questions would be more basic.”
They were. Still, I felt instinctively that the key to understanding the whole heaping pile of fanatics lay in understanding this woman. This Arameri. The fullbloods were the highest members of a family so devoted to order that they ranked and sorted themselves by how closely they could trace their lineage back to First Priestess Shahar. They were the power brokers, the decision makers—and sometimes, through the might of their god-slaves, the annihilators of nations.
Yet that had been before ten years ago, that strange and terrible day when the World Tree had grown and the godlings returned. There had always been rumors, but I knew the truth now, from Shiny’s own lips. The Arameri’s slaves had broken free; the Nightlord and the Gray Lady had overthrown Bright Itempas. The Arameri, though far from powerless, had lost their greatest weapons and their patron in one stunning blow.
What happened when people who’d once possessed absolute power suddenly lost it?
“All right,” I said carefully. “Basic questions. Why are you here, and why am I?”
“How much do you know of what happened ten years ago, Lady Oree?”