“All’s well, though?” Lehrer asked, his voice lower now that they were alone.
Geder shrugged. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. There’s so much happening, and the distances are so wide. Even using cunning men instead of birds, I feel like I’m working puppets that are working puppets.”
“Ah,” Lehrer said. “Well. Yes. I’d… I’d give you some words of wisdom, but you have more experience running kingdoms than I do.”
“I had word from Elassae. What used to be Elassae. You know the Timzinae in Kiaria got loose?”
“I’d heard,” his father said.
“Fallon Broot’s gone out to fight them, but they keep fading up into the hills. Won’t come down for an honest battle. And the gates at Kiaria are closed, so there are at least a few still in there. I’m afraid…” Geder’s throat became unaccountably thick. He coughed to clear it. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to burn Suddapal. It’s not what I want, but now that Jorey’s taken Porte Oliva and we’ve been welcomed into Newport, it’s not as though we won’t have any ports on the Inner Sea.”
“Ah, that’s good. That’s good.”
“It’s just that I’d have kept it. If I could. Suddapal, I mean. And the slaves probably won’t take it well.”
“War’s a terrible thing,” Lehrer said, and lapsed into silence for a long moment. One of the servant girls passed by with fresh cups of wine and a silver bowl of fresh bread, butter, and honey. Geder broke off a crust and dipped it into the honey. When his father spoke again, his voice was thin and distant. “I did the best I could by you. I know I wasn’t the father you’d have hoped for. But after your mother died, and running Rivenhalm… I did what I could.”
“What do you mean?” Geder said. “You were wonderful. Look how it turned out. I’m Lord Regent. I’m running the whole kingdom.”
“I suppose that’s what I mean,” Lehrer said, with a smile. “I’d have spared you that, if I could. Over a certain fairly low level, power’s not worth the price of it. Least I’ve never thought so.”
“It’s only for a few years more,” Geder said. “Aster will make a fine king.”
“And may he produce a dozen little princes with whoever he takes as a queen, and save all of us from having to be regent, eh? Truth?”
“True enough, Papa,” Geder said.
The evening went on an hour more, then a little longer. When his father rose to leave, Geder went with him, walking out into the wide night air. Lanterns flickered, spilling little pools of light around the doorway where the carriage waited, a little thing with cracked doors and the colors of Rivenhalm. Geder watched his father ride off over the cobbles, disappearing into the darkness. He wished he’d been able to talk about Cithrin with him. He wanted to talk to somebody, but Basrahip was gone and Aster wouldn’t have understood. His father was the only man he knew who had loved a woman completely and then lost her. And even then, death wasn’t betrayal. It was only as near as Geder knew. And even that… there was no way to begin that subject.
Papa, I was wondering how long I should expect to hurt when I think of her. Does that go on forever? I still think of her body at night. I hate her and I love her both. Is that normal? Is this how things are supposed to be?
How could anyone talk about something like that to their own father? Geder coughed out a small laugh. His own carriage drew up, grand and solid and shining black and gold as if it were a piece of the city itself. He let the footman open the way and help him up. The hooves of his private guard clattered, surrounding him, and the carriage lurched forward, moving into the night. He sat at the window, looking out. They passed the flattened and empty space that had been Lord Bannien’s compound before he and Dawson Kalliam and a handful of others had risen up. Not so far away, there was the gate where he and Jorey Kalliam had brought the army into the streets of Camnipol for the first time in memory to fight against the Feldin Maas’s mercenary showfighters and save King Simeon and Aster from the plots of Asterilhold. Past that, the hole where he had hidden with Cithrin.
Everyone, he supposed, had some private version of the city, made up of the streets and rooms and windows that they knew best. Violence made the landmarks of his personal city. Perhaps even of his world. The wheels of his carriage rattled against the streets, and then changed their sound as they passed over the Silver Bridge. The Division yawned below him, candles and lanterns on both rims defining the void by their absence. He had a moment of inexplicable fear, certain that the bridge would give way, that he would fall into the vast emptiness at the city’s heart. At the far end of the bridge, his carriage turned again and the Kingspire came briefly into sight. The great banner of the goddess flowed from the temple, the darkness turning the red to black. The pale circle at the center caught the moonlight, and the eightfold sigil itself was like a shattered eye looking out over the city, the kingdom, the world.
When the carriage pulled to and Geder let the servants clear the way, he felt at once that something was terribly wrong. The formality of the footman, the way the grooms would not meet his eye, something. It could as well have been a scent on the wind. Without knowing what it was, Geder knew that it was.
The master of the household, an old Firstblood man with hair like snow on black water, waited in the great entrance, his throat tight and his chin high. Geder walked to him with a deepening sense of dread.
“Lord Regent,” the servant said.
“What’s happened?”
“It is nothing… serious, Lord Palliako. Boys suffer worse all the time, but—”
“Boys? What do you mean, boys?” Geder snapped. And then, “Where’s Aster?”
He was on the triangular dueling grounds at the side of the spire, looking out over the Division. It struck Geder how much the boy had grown and changed in the years since his father had died. The war years. Aster stood nearly as tall as Geder now. His arms and legs were thin, but his jaw was no longer the jaw of a little boy. Not a man’s yet, but reaching for it. Geder felt a pang of anxiety at how few years remained before Aster would take the Severed Throne and the empire, and how terribly much there was to be done so that Geder could present him with a world at peace. But that was all for another time. A different night.
He saw Aster’s shoulders tighten at the sound of his approaching footsteps. He looked like a religious icon of anger and shame. Geder stopped.
“How bad is it?” he asked.
Aster turned. Even in the moonlight, the swelling of his left eye was obvious, as was the darkness of the flesh surrounding it. Geder groaned and came forward.
“Who was it?”
“Myrin Shoat,” Aster said, his voice sharp with anger.
“The tall one you’re always sparring with?”
Aster’s gaze was fastened on the ground and wouldn’t rise. His fists pressed his thighs.
“Was it,” Geder said, fumbling for words. “Was it by accident?”
Aster’s jaw clenched and released and clenched again. He shook his head once and went still. Geder sighed. He lowered himself down to sit cross-legged on the dry ground. Aster didn’t move. Geder patted the earth beside him, his hand coming away pale with dust.
“Come. Sit. I’ll look ridiculous if I’m the only one doing it.”
“Dirty,” Aster said.
“They’ll wash it. It’s what they do. Sit with me.”
For a moment, he didn’t think the boy would. He thought Aster would stand there, towering over him, or walk off. Geder wasn’t sure what he’d do if that happened. But four long breaths later, Aster folded his legs and sat down. The lanterns of the servants and guards glimmered from the spire but didn’t approach. Aster’s gaze didn’t rise, but simply fixed on a patch of ground a little closer by.