It was a deeply unpleasant day in Ciradyl’s throne room. Despite the high ceilings, the many-columned hall felt grim and oppressive. Cold drafts seeped through the palace at its seams, frosting over the window panes and pushing at the heavy velvet drapes. Though it was mid-afternoon, the sky was darkened by smog from the city’s factories.
Catherine shifted on her chair, which sat in the intersection of the long twin shadows cast by her parents’ thrones. The furniture was grand—adorned with solid gold and encrusted with gems—but singularly uncomfortable. She tilted her head up and to the side, a motion so slight it would go unnoticed by all but the most scrutinous eyes.
Above her, her parents sat like statues, their faces deeply lined with age. Her father, who had once been a broad man, hunched over at a slight angle with his bottom lip ajar, his crown askew on his balding head. Her mom sat with her legs crossed under the heavy skirt of her dress, her bony collarbones protruding from the bodice.
All three were as still as if posing for a portrait, though it would have been an imperfect one—Rosalind, Catherine’s five-year-old half-sister, never attended family gatherings. She had been a product of the king and a handmaid before his health had failed, and she had never been debuted into the public eye for fear that the royal family’s reputation would be furthered soiled. In fact, she didn’t even live in Ciradyl, but in Draycott, an agricultural city-state to the south, with her governess.
Catherine tapped the arm of her chair, and a servant quickly emerged from against the wall. He bowed low, presenting her with a crystal glass. “Water, Your Majesty?”
Catherine raised the glass to her lip, taking a small sip. She had picked at the skin of her lips in anticipation of today’s meeting, and now her saliva tasted slightly of blood.
A knock sounded at the entrance of the throne room. The king gave a nod, and the servants pulled open the grand doors. A tall, thin figure stepped onto the silken rug, illuminated by the flickering lamplight. Measuredly, he began the walk toward the thrones, his long, cream-colored robes dragging behind him. Two aids followed a half-dozen steps behind. Around his neck hung stoles of silver and burgundy, and over his heart he wore a large brooch with a set of two wings.
When he reached the final column supporting the throne room, he bowed low beneath the rulers. “Thank you for granting me an audience, Your Majesties.”
The king grunted, and Catherine held back a look of worry, wondering to what extent he was actually aware of his surroundings. By his side, her mother stayed silent, her pale and skeletal fingers white gripping her skirt like talons.
After a beat of silence, Catherine raised her voice; she had long since mastered the art of speaking when her father could not. “Good afternoon, Bishop Matthias. For what reason did you request a meeting today?”
He nodded at her with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Forgive me, Young Majesty, but as it is the Holy Hour, would you not like to break bread in the name of the Divine Goddess?”
Catherine’s stomach turned, and she looked back at him with a displeased expression. His words were as cunning as they were disrespectful: he had dismissed her question, called her ‘young majesty’ when she had passed twenty-five years of age, and suggested that they dine as equals might. In the royal family’s prime, such statements would have been enough to have the man sent away in exile. But now that the public favor lay with the church, refusing his request would imply that she was unwilling to pay her respects to the Goddess.
“As you say,” her mother spoke in a controlled voice, perhaps afraid that her daughter would rebel. She turned toward the majordomo, who stood closest to the thrones. “See to it that the dining room is set and that we are provided with refreshments.”
He nodded once, disappearing through a side door, and a butler approached the bishop and his entourage. “This way, please, Your Lordship. The royal family will follow shortly.”
Bishop Matthias bowed once more before following the butler to the dining room. As the servants began to help the royals from their seats, Catherine exchanged a dark look with her mother. Too quickly, their hold on Ciradyl was slipping between their fingers.
***
Ember narrowed her eyes as someone jostled up against her shoulder, giving them a sharp look. “Sorry,” the bovine said, falling into line behind her.
Naz tugged Ember closer to her, looking concerned. “We’re almost there.”
Ember exhaled through her nose, crossing her hands over her chest. Even before she was diagnosed with the affliction, she had abhorred loud and crowded places, and at the moment, the registration office was both. Students were crammed into every corner of the small wooden building, chattering animatedly about the coming semester, a stark contrast from the quiet winter break.
The registrar's secretary, a lemur, was meeting with students at the back of the room. He sat at a stool behind a giant puffball mushroom—his desk—slurping at what Ember guessed was a highly caffeinated beverage. His spectacles were askew on his nose, and the fur along his long, striped tail was pointing in all directions at once. His assistant, a furry mammal, sported dark circles under his eyes.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“I guess this is what we get for waiting until the second-to-last day,” Carn said, leaning against the wall. “Maybe I should have come back sooner.”
Ember shrugged. Despite his words, it was clear that the fox’s extended stay in the city had been good for him—his face was no longer lined with stress, and he had grown into his injuries from early October. In fact, his eyepatch and the missing chunk in his ear now added to his characteristic charm. “Yeah, right. You seemed happy enough when you and Charlie arrived his morning,” she teased.
Carn blushed. “Maybe.”
Since it was hard to hear each other over the bustling office, the friends fell into silence as they waited. The line crawled forward at a snail’s pace, and every time a student asked the secretary a common-sense question, Ember inched closer to pulling her hair out. It didn’t help that each time the door flew open to accommodate another group, it let in a cold draft.
Then, finally, it was Ember’s turn to speak with the secretary. “Good morning,” she said, handing him her student card.
“You, too,” he said, somehow managing to stay polite despite the bedlam. “Your classes?”
She unfolded a scrap of parchment, reading out the list she’d prepared. “Biology Two, History of Mendel, Trigonometry, and Practical Combat on Irregular Terrain, please.”
The assistant scribbled down the list as the lemur peered at her with bright orange eyes. “I remember you—the first-semester valedictorian. Keep up the good work.” After riffling around for a moment in the mushroom desk, he reached across the counter, handing her the syllabi for each class.
She blushed, muttering a thanks and slipping off to the side as she waited for her friends to sign up for their classes. The moment they’d finished, she beelined toward the door, relieved to be free of the stifling crowd.
A cold blast of air collided with Ember as she stepped outside. So far, early January was proving to be even colder than December, and winter clothes had to be worn even at midday. She shivered, pulling on a pair of leather gloves and thanking the heavens that she didn’t live in one of the northern city-states.
“Why don’t we go check out our textbooks?” Naz said. “I’d like to start the reading for my sociology class before school starts.”
“Sure thing,” Carn said, and Ember nodded in agreement. Since she wouldn’t be allowed to participate in training for the next several weeks, it would give her a way to occupy herself.
As they walked together, the three soon fell into a comfortable conversation. It had been a long time since Ember had caught up with Carn, and she found herself telling him all the details about her fight and her father’s letter that she had skipped over when they had reunited that morning.
“I don’t understand,” Carn said as she recounted the part about the church’s increasing influence. “I thought that Ciradyl was a monarchy.”
Ember looked to Naz, whose major was human relations, knowing that she could provide a better explanation. “Ciradyl isn’t like Bayport,” the pisces said, referring to Carn’s hometown. “Bayport is a merchant city—a plutocracy, really—but Ciradyl is a theocratic monarchy. In the last couple of decades, the Holy Order has controlled much of the law-making, while the monarchy has become more symbolic.”
“That’s right,” Ember agreed. “The citizens of Ciradyl are deeply superstitious, and they trust the church to protect them from demons and outsiders.”
“That doesn’t bode well for us,” Carn commented. “So, what now? I doubt that you’ll heed your father’s request to forget about him.”
Ember sighed. It was a question that she had spent the majority of the previous day contemplating. Since she had spoken with Orthus two months before, she had single-mindedly pursued a fight with the harpy eagle in order to contact her father. Now, her path forward was not as clear.
She looked down at her arms, which were stained with hematomas the color of bile. “I’m still worried, of course, but it was a great relief to learn that my father is unharmed. For now, I need to bide my time and recover.” She clenched her gloved hand. “I’ll wait for an opportunity, and when I’m strong enough, I’ll bring him here.”
“We’ll help you when that time comes,” Naz said, touching her gently on the shoulder, and Carn echoed the sentiment.
The conversation was interrupted by a hoard of voices, and Ember looked up to see that they had reached the library, the centerpiece of the campus. Even after five months, It was an unmatched sight: the tall, tower-like building wound high into the sky, supported by the trunks of three ancient trees.
Students—some accompanied by their parents—rushed along the main path, their hands piled high with books and their long cloaks scraping against the half-frozen forest floor. Some held their syllabi in front of them as if deciphering an ancient document, and others carried materials for specialty classes: jars of dark blood, taxidermied animals, and weapons that looked like they could decapitate a man in one swing.
Ember let out a silent groan. During her first semester, she had avoided the mad rush when the secretary, taking pity on her, had had someone deliver her books to the unaffiliated dorm.
The three friends joined the line to enter the library, and it wasn’t long before they were caught up in the throng passing through the doors.
The inside was even busier than the outside. When they stepped into the atrium, Ember tilted her head up, looking all the way to the ceiling. Along the walkways, Linnaeans of all species were filling their knapsacks with books and scrolls. They hurried along the narrow staircases and ladders, sometimes striding atop the banister or jumping between stories until a member of staff reprimanded them. Others huddled around the fireplaces, laboring over their lists of materials.
Sunlight streamed through the windows, bouncing off of gold leaf inscriptions. Hundreds of thousands of books lined the many shelves, sorted by author and subject. The variety was astounding: there were pamphlets only a couple of pages long and tomes too long to lift; leather-bound volumes and papyrus scrolls; books from Mendel and from the mainland; ancient texts and brand-new releases. It was a scholar’s dream.
Ember shook her head, the corner of her mouth quirking up despite herself, and lowered her eyes to the syllabus at the top of her stack. “All right,” she said, “First up, Fundamentals of Trigonometry by Person Burton.”