Fresh acrimony in the highest hall today! The topic? Who to appoint as the new ambassador to Waves.
I wouldn’t bother you folks with that…except a third of the Conclave voted not to appoint an ambassador!
Look, nobody expects everybody to like Waves. I don’t even like Waves that much. Have you ever seen half-shell traffic?!
But no ambassador means no representative down south. About as effective as tossing your House title in protest. Things just keep going without you.
You’d think this would be self-evident, right?
Like trying to get a toddler to eat his peas here…
Spring 20
Dribbling ink from her Conclave finery, Alisandra Mishkan entered the loft with a sodden cardboard box under one arm.
“Valkyrie! Towels if you would please!”
The girl peeked her head out of her room, blinked several times, and rushed to help.
“Did you pick a fight with a giant squid?!”
“Yes,” Alisandra answered, setting the dripping box into the sink. “Stirred from the depths, though I have yet to find what drove it forth. It was a pitiful sight; the creatures cannot survive at sea level. It seemed kinder to end its misery, but I hit its ink bladder.”
The angel stepped onto a towel and started peeling off bits of silk.
“Stains begone on the grand Lady’s command!” Valkyrie sang, shoving the rags around with her toes.
“I sense the errant Osh is full of energy today. A dull tenure her post, but she must endure a little longer.”
The girl scowled. “I’m staying out of trouble.”
Though the loft still echoed of…
Service and sacrifice
Alisandra and Valkyrie blanched together.
More or less, the girl mentally amended her previous statement.
The worst of the stains now turning the towels black, Alisandra pulled loose the last of her ruined dress. She dumped it on top of the towels with a mutter about expenses. Then, shrugging, she eyed Valkyrie.
“Staying out of trouble? That must be a novel experience.”
“I’ve picked up some hobbies,” the girl coughed, taking note of fancy noble underwear.
“So I see,” the angel agreed, nodding towards the table. Stepping back to the sink, she extricated a massive, clunky radio from its protective wrappings. Carrying it to the central table, she tapped one of the Novian models with her free hand. “This is a good lock.”
“Haven’t managed that one yet,” Valkyrie admitted.
Nudging the mess aside, Alisandra set the radio down. Then, wiping her hands, she spotted a familiar guitar by the couch.
“That was my father’s.”
“Should…should I put it back?”
Alisandra stared through it, lost in her memories. “…no. He would want it to be played. Treat it with care, please.”
Valkyrie nodded. Suddenly the girl found herself hyperaware of her wet hair from her bath, her rumpled nightgown, and the oil-stains on her fingertips.
“I am glad you have found hobbies. If you would, I will explain this latest package.”
The Archangel quickly explained the basic principles behind an encrypted radio. To start, the signal was in truth no quieter than a normal radio. It simply transmitted across multiple bands in a preset…
Valkyrie’s eyes glassed over.
Rolling her eyes, Alisandra dropped the explanation and settled for instructions on its use. Then, to be sure, she requested, “Repeat the instructions for me if you would.”
Valkyrie recited easily.
“Please demonstrate tuning,” the angel asked next.
As the girl leaned to her work, Alisandra slipped behind her and quietly picked up her father’s diary from a couch cushion. She stepped carefully to her study, opened it with a touch, and deposited the diary inside.
“Think it was like this…” Valkyrie muttered.
The angel glanced at the locks on the table, mostly conquered, and took an extra moment to whisper a stronger ward across the study door. Just in case.
In the den, the radio crackled to life. Valkyrie clapped her hands and spoke into the mic. “Testing. Testing. Anyone? This is…hm…This is Dancer! Anyone around?”
Alisandra reappeared, now armed with her next set of clothing. “Evening is best. Usually just before dark local time. That is your best chance of an answer.”
Will you answer? Valkyrie wondered, flushing. “O-of course!”
“Excellent. Is aught else required?”
Valkyrie flashed back to Oliver’s farce the day before. Souring, she mulled how to broach the subject.
She’ll want to know why Oliver grilled me.
But if she talks to Oliver first, he’ll tattle like a little church boy!
But she’s smarter than Oliver…
And prettier, and nobler, and softer…
“If you pout any harder, I will put you to bed,” Alisandra warned.
Oh, she wouldn’t dare!
…right?
How would that even work? I’d just get out as soon as she left…
Unless Alisandra noticed the handcuffs.
Focus! the girl chided herself. Redirect! Valkyrie blurted out, “Oliver spilled the beans. What is this about a public announcement?!”
“That explains your agitation above and beyond the stink of Sebastian’s lectures.”
“That damn church doesn’t deserve any kind of apology!”
“Forms are important,” the angel stated firmly.
“What a load of…” Valkyrie muttered into her shoulder.
Alisandra reached out and caught Valkyrie’s chin between thumb and forefinger.
Her skin warm; her nails smooth; her touch faintly vibrating with the echo of a thunderstorm…
“Look at me,” Alisandra commanded, tugging up the girl’s chin until their eyes met.
Staring into the angel’s dark eyes, Valkyrie felt her body heating like a lizard sunning on a stone.
“I need you to endure a little while longer. After this Spring, we will discuss your future in earnest.”
And how your talents might serve the wider world than Mel
“Do you understand?”
Heart hammering, Valkyrie reluctantly nodded.
Releasing the girl’s chin, Alisandra smiled. “Good girl.”
The Archangel departed, but her words echoed down Valkyrie’s spine for hours afterwards.
Good girl
Good girl
Good girl
***
Late in the night, Alisandra departed the meeting of her alliance with a curse. Stomping from the Conclave, her heels rang on the golden steps, and intermittent rain sizzled against her halo. She waved away offers from chaperones looking to see a Lady home, her thoughts tangled on the skein of debt and patronage that held her alliance together.
Barely.
“Dear Lady, you must be careful! There are thieves out at night!” called a particularly persistent chaperone.
“The thief I fear is walks in the light of day, wearing a lapel,” she replied, ducking his outstretched hand.
The man blinked, missing the point, and turned to his fellows to mutter.
“No wonder she has yet to marry.”
“Not right for a woman of her age to stroll alone.”
“Not right for the country, either. One of these days…”
She left them behind.
We scarce clear quorum most days. Obstruction becomes easy with such a small margin. The Conclave grinds to a halt, and we have no reprieve in sight.
Too few nobles. The usual alliances and conspiracies, once one voting block among many, became too great a proportion.
We require new blood.
Which required the votes be released to new Houses.
Alisandra might dream, but the power to vest new Houses lay strictly in the crown itself. As Regency to the Crown, the Conclave could reach for this power, but that would be a moment of great peril.
We must create new Houses and see them seated in a moment – before the rotted remnants rush to seize the other prerogatives of power.
A move that would reshape Ruhum in an instant…or destroy it.
She contemplated such drastic measures more often as the country sank deeper into its mire.
Yet again my thoughts return to the Holy Receivership.
A wellspring of votes held captive like a princess.
The church must be forced to fulfill its role. Else, eventually, some deacon will begin to salivate for the treasure near at hand.
Or the Conclave would devolve to three men with pistols in an empty room as she had feared fifteen years ago.
Alisandra stepped off the quiet boulevard and into the tight alleys of offices. Half of these former House offices were empty, but their rents remained astronomical. Mel was a city of land-Lords, and each demanded their cut.
The empty lots by another name, she thought. Though such vacancy alleviates attention on my own affairs.
Easy to identify the spies sent to tail her; they were the only men on her street!
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
She unlocked the door to her own two-floor flat and slipped inside.
Given the hour, it was empty. Papers and packages littered a room of long desks, proof of her industrious clerks at work. Such reports, figures, rumor, hearsay, blackmail, and scandal became the raw munitions for her Conclave speeches.
One might think the Conclave would recognize the danger posed by indolence! Then again, a surprising number of Lords indulge the fantasy of magic: a knife that only stabs one’s enemies.
Alone in the dark, she mulled their surprise when the inevitable arrived.
Her thoughts threatened to darken even further, and she forced herself to attend to the inbox.
Soon she found a letter from the esteemed Father Lucas, leader of the Psalms and her most valued ally within the clergy. It lay at the bottom of the inbox, already three days old.
Hells, this should have been brought to my attention immediately!
But she had not stepped foot in this office since Spring 16, and then only briefly. Spring devolved into a blur of crises: monsters, Iris, dancing girls, diplomats, patrols, Conclaves, briefings…
There was no undoing the past. Alisandra settled into her office recliner to read it now.
Lady Mishkan,
I hope this day finds you well. Your latest donations have been received with surprise and gratitude. I know that you have been the target of many scurrilous efforts, yet your generosity remains a wellspring of comfort.
Please find enclosed missives from the young students who now master their letters in your name. For each, a new world is opened. For each, hope beyond their ash-crowned fields.
If you would, I might linger a moment on the sight of those fields. Ruhum has been the bread basket of prosperity since the time of Kings, but our faithful mountains now rumble uneasily. Our farmers open greyed curtains to regard soil poisoned of life. Long did we curse the terrible storms of the Spring wind; only with its passing do we understand its purpose. Nothing now stands between the ash and our farms.
The crops strain; one day, soon enough, they will fail.
Please understand that I have no wish to stir a panic. I state only facts, born witness by my own stained hands.
The folk have no appetite for this cold reality. They counsel themselves, “Even should such a day come that the land fails, I should not live to see it. I will return to Aure’s bosom long before such worries!”
Truly, I wish I could join them in such surrender.
Yet I dream of forests crumbling to desert. All the living creatures grown gaunt and thin; their very bones bleached of vigor until they turn to dust. An approaching storm that hollows the world itself.
Is this madness? I know you will understand that it is not.
Reckoning our current climate, I have heeded your father’s august counsel of years past and stilled my temerarious tongue in its bed. To you alone I entrust these portents, for it is my heart’s conceit that you will know how to steer through this storm.
This may seem like rambling, but I feel I must set the stage for bitter tidings. Truthfully, my fingers shake with the shame of it…but an old man must recognize both triumphs and defeats in faith and equanimity.
I once boasted I would rather be a reformer than a deacon. Alas, that boast now rings true. Lady Mishkan, I arrived for sermon this past day to find a rather odious youth at the pulpit in my stead.
The youth’s name is Conray, and his only achievements have been the perversion of the Catechisms to suit the whims of his superiors. You would recognize the venomous cadence of his exhortations as words shared by men of precious little humility the world over.
Unfortunately, Conray himself is of little import. As you may suspect, and as confirmed by what allies remain to me among the deacons, Conray answers in both letter and spirit to Angela Cecille.
Our holy church is at war with itself. A war of its very spirit!
Deacons; Inquisition; Penitents.
Others among my Psalms, men of moderation and contemplation, report fates akin to my own. It seems there is no room for our counsel. Walls have begun to rise across what once was open forum.
Were this a mere factional dispute, I would hang my weary head and hold my quill. Yet when I look to these factions, I fear the worst. The deacons wallow in their station; the Inquisition prowls the night for more to consume like a Jungle beast; and the Penitents…
I do not know what the Penitents plan, but my dreams grow worse after every meeting with their kin.
Forgive me. I fill pages with supposition. For my own part, I have been granted a formal sinecure, retirement in all but name, in the hamlet of Harrowsgrove. There I might enjoy the dubious honor of being the youngest man in the village, their youth having perished in Lumia. Knowing the condition of the ash, I will of course stock a supply of tinctures and attend to my health.
Doubtless you would bid me to fight. Certainly I recognize the ignominy of my dismissal! Yet I knew the risks when I raised the Psalms, and I stand by the words we have spoken.
Fire must needs serve to warm every hearth, from the lowest to the highest, welcoming every immigrant and scoundrel on our isle, if we are to rise above the tragedy of our generation.
If we are to defeat the Wyrm by rising above his shadow.
Such frank words are dangerous in this time of sniffing hounds, but my grieving breast invites the danger. Ah, that this fate were a man I might strike down!
How we have gone astray! We sought to elevate Aure by forbidding his name; we sought to reaffirm our faith! We opened the doctrine to review, secure in the notion that righteousness would guide us.
How we left the door unguarded! For who shall declare what is holy and what is heresy?
That man might hold all Ruhum in his hand and call it the will of God.
Reflecting on my tenure, I struggle with bitterness. Was I more than a fashion statement? Did I reform hearts, or was my revolution only the pretensions of a king’s jester?
Forgive the ruminations of a forgotten priest. Lady Mishkan, after Lumia, you sought unity and peace; in such you did your father’s memory great honor. Now, a generation later, we see the rise of men and women for whom the Wyrm was the defining tragedy of their youth. That shadow lays heavy over them to this day.
Please, I beg you, once again be our guiding Light.
Alisandra squeezed her eyes shut against ruined plans.
Against the bitter recognition of her own part in this ruination – for it was her Blade that had severed that wind.
Without Father Lucas and his network of Psalmists, her alliance lost virtually all influence within the church.
She took the extent of her allies and knew herself outnumbered.
“Harrowsgrove!” the angel swore to the night. “There to choke on ash and regret! Father Lucas, you fool, what chains bind you?”
Only the collar around his neck.
She drew up a letter and began to write, praying that she would find some word to ignite his spirit. Every scratch of her pen rasped with late night doubts, her platitudes a thin wheedling instead of a call to arms.
Lucas has always been steadfast in his passions. That stubbornness made him a valued ally. Now it turns him towards this foolish resignation with equal gusto!
She needed his bridge into the cloistered world!
Who remains to heed a plea for the Holy Receivership? Our efforts dashed upon the rocks!
All those votes, neatly tucked under a gold phelonion, to be disbursed to the dog with the most enthusiastic tail.
Or, whispered her nightmares. Or to the deacons themselves…
Their Regency had been built to control war between the Houses; it offered no protection when the arbiter assumed the throne instead!
In the starved Conclave, even a handful of defectors by omission would be enough to seal the coup.
“Victory unless every House stands united?” She growled, rattling the windows. “Easy pickings!”
Her fingers twitched, and her halo throbbed against a headache. Here sat a Power and a Principality, her arms wrapped behind her back by ribbon like one of Mirielle’s playtimes!
Mirielle enjoyed that faux surrender; shall I play the same?
Alisandra, awoken angel, twice-Bloomed, she who knew the taste of stars.
She could so easily…
The Archangel flinched from those thoughts. From dominion.
“I walk my father’s path,” she reminded herself in the dark. “I step with care.”
I must take the offensive. Split these factions while they are young.
The deacons she could attack through the purse.
The Penitents she could scare with public scrutiny.
Which left the most difficult for last.
It is time I face Angela directly.
First, she would extend the olive branch.
Then, when she spits in our face? whispered her doubts.
Then the Archangel would mount the field of battle, confident that she had begun with the offer of peace.
Finishing her letter to Lucas, she left it upon her secretary’s desk.
Then she stepped out for a quick patrol before the dawn, half-hoping for some black-scaled beast to cross her path.
Some spark of excitement before she began the dull business of rebuilding what Lucas had just discarded out of hand.
***
Deep in the night, Valkyrie couldn’t sleep.
Why couldn’t she sleep?
She had finally beaten the first Novian model! Feeling brave, she had then probed Alisandra’s study.
Her tools could not find the shear line on that august lock. Her fingers kept slipping!
Why couldn’t she sleep?
She had fiddled with the guitar, growing increasingly frustrated by its refusal to yield to her plucking. She had received the mail, including a new letter from her mother, and ignored it. She had attacked the restocked kitchen and made a late-night feast for herself.
This was a life of pure leisure, so why couldn’t she relax?!
Hoping to still her restless heart, she pulled the bedding from her mattress and built a new fort on the couch.
There, exhausted and jittery, wishing Alisandra would stop by again, she turned on the encrypted radio.
“Thiiiiis is Dancer,” she sang into the receiving, pretending she was a lounge singer, “crooning live in the dark of the night.”
Of course, no one responded.
She flopped down, sighed, and sang for her empty loft.
Six-fold towers gonna crumble and fall
Portly little priests gonna tumble and fall
When they see what I can do
What I can do
Gold-spun dancer against the dark
Preachers pounding sand to kill the waves
Bully pulpit groaning beneath their weight
They’d brand me for what I sing
They’d brand you too
Dancers against the dark
Ash falling faster now
Wyrm wings stretching wider now
Shadows gather faster now
For one gold-spun dancer against the dark
Just one gold-spun dancer
Lost in the dark
The clouds outside swirled like a cloak over the world.
Malkuth still and distant like the first patter of midnight rain.
Eyes unfocused, soul adrift…
It is a good song
Yearning, young, True
Valkyrie jerked upright, rubbing at her face. “What?!”
The radio answered in a young woman’s voice. “I said it’s a good song.”
Shaking her head, Valkyrie reddened. “Wait, you were listening?!”
“You were singing!” the voice defended.
“W-well, this is a private line!”
“Yeah, my private line!”
Taken aback, the girl frowned. “Do…you know Alisandra?”
“She’s my big sister!” the voice countered.
Which means this girl is…
“The Maiden,” Valkyrie breathed.
Esmerelda Azure-touched on the other end of the radio squirmed. “Is that a problem?”
“No, not at all! We’ve met!”
Admittedly, Valkyrie had been in elementary and botched her signature routine on purpose to spite her mother.
Esmie laughed ruefully. “I don’t remember. Sorry, Dancer. I meet a lot of people.”
“I bet!”
They fell silent, the radio crackling with the residuals of the masking signal.
“I…I like healing them,” Esmie confessed. “It’s what Mother gave me. It’s what no one else can do.”
This is the least that I can do
“I just wish the line wasn’t so long! No matter how many patients I see, there are always more! And my attendants keep scheduling follow-ups for Iris when there are maimed men outside!”
Bet its big bucks to schedule a last-minute with the Maiden, Valkyrie thought. “Can’t you tell them no? You’re divine!”
“They just get scheduled again,” Esmie sighed. “There’s one list they let my sister see and one they actually use.”
“Tell Alisandra! They’ll sing a different tune!”
“I’m on my fourth set in six years,” the Maiden admitted.
Valkyrie stopped in her tracks.
To remove a bad man and have another come along. That’s just bad luck. But four times in a row?!
Did every set begin with honest intentions – until the gold started to whisper of homes up-shell?
“…sorry.”
“What about you, Dancer? Why’d big sis give you a radio?”
“To keep in touch.” Valkyrie diplomatically omitted that she had hoped for the angel to answer…
“Because…?”
“I summoned a demon,” the girl hummed, poorly suppressing her pride.
“Mirielle?” the Maiden asked without missing a beat. “Was she nice? I never met her.”
“Come on, at least pretend you’re shocked!” Valkyrie flopped against the pillows, annoyed. How come everyone I meet lately is already in-the-know?! Completely crushing the fun.
Esmie snickered. “Ali is giving me lessons. Well, in Winter, when things are quiet. It can’t be Thea – nobody knows where she fell. It can’t be Mother – I know where she is! So that leaves Mirielle.”
Valkyrie perked. “The Stormmother? You–”
“N-nevermind!” the other girl stammered. “I’m not supposed to talk about it. The Work isn’t complete, and if he hears…”
They both knew who.
“He’s coming back, isn’t he?” Valkyrie breathed.
“Angels always do,” Esmie sighed. “That’s why Ali…”
The radio carried her echo, complete with pops and sizzles.
That’s why she carries war in her heart
Valkyrie squirmed. “I’m sorry. Isn’t it late there? I shouldn’t drag the conversation down.”
“No, its fine!” Esmie hurriedly laughed. “I don’t think I’ve talked to another girl my age in three seasons! I’m divine. All I get is tutors and patients and priestesses till I want to scream. Sometimes I do. They just clean up whatever I break. Do you know how awful that feels? Like you’re not even real…”
Hells. Sounds awful…
“In that case…” Valkyrie bounced upright, pulling the guitar from its resting place beside the couch. She plucked a chord. “What do you wanna talk about?”
“You play the guitar?” Esmie asked.
“H-here and there,” Valkyrie evaded. “Does Alisandra like guitar?”
“She learned in one of those northern finishing schools. I think she resents the lessons; she’s a contralto and finishing schools are all about high and soft. Have you ever heard Ruhum hymns? All the women’s parts are so demure you have to hold your breath!”
Contralto. Another funny word. Valkyrie wondered why she noticed such things these days. Like stray threads in the fabric, poking out from their ordered place…
“Yeah, I’ve heard a few,” the girl drawled. She plucked the guitar again. “So she doesn’t really like guitar…”
“I didn’t say that!” Esmie huffed. “I don’t think she hates the instrument itself. I’ve seen her strum a few times when it’s just the two of us…”
“I’d let her strum my guitar,” Valkyrie muttered to herself.
Then she clapped her hands over her mouth, flushing hot. Even for a joke, too far!
Heart hammering in her chest as she heard Katherine’s voice.
If the girl is particularly comely, she might be chosen as an offering to their god!
I’m not like that!
Thankfully, Esmie missed that comment through the static. “…and I wish she could hear herself like I hear her, you know? I wish I could actually help.”
“Maybe we could put on a performance for her?” Something where Alisandra would have eyes only for them.
Only for her.
“We both get plenty of performances,” the Maiden sighed. Then she yawned, jaw cracking. “Whenever I bring something like this up, she just tells me to be good a little longer.”
“No kidding, right? Of course I’m a good girl!”
Esmie snickered. “Yeah, right. I bet you’ve never been in trouble in your life, Dancer!”
“Not once!”
The Maiden yawned again. “The sun’s about to come up. My brand is going to itch all day…”
I’m the one keeping her up.
Suddenly, Esmie asked, “When’s your next show?”
Valkyrie coughed. “Excuse me?”
“I’m looking forward to some more late-night hits, Dancer. Don’t be a stranger!” With a snicker, Esmie fell silent.
Ditched, Valkyrie flopped back into her blanket fortress. “But I’ve only got the one song!”
She ran over their conversation again, prodding at the edges.
Of course, the Maiden would know where the Stormmother is. Does that mean Alisandra knows too? I wish she’d let me in on it…
Sounded like Esmie had plenty of difficulties down south, too. Valkyrie had never worried too much about priestess politics; never considered the money to be made controlling access to the divine.
A revolving door of attendants, each wave corrupted by an inexorable tide. Just because of what they have access to…
There were uncomfortable parallels to her own…
As the placid clouds swirled, she fought a quiet notion.
“Of course I’m a good girl,” she muttered to herself.
Never took a thing that didn’t deserve the taking.
Then why did she feel so….so….burdened?
Who are we to decide what deserves the taking?
Plagued by nebulous doubts, Valkyrie blew hair out of her face and squeezed a pillow between her legs.
“…aren’t I?”