Page 124 of Besieger
It had been theComteagain who ordered Mihaela to go and pay homage to theBasilissaand theSultana,immortal mistresses who bore no love for the other covens, nor for their blood kin.
Mihaela envisioned theSultanaas Silvio’s equal, if not his superior. Vampires avoided mentioning her name; Scarlett, the All Mother, spoke of her with fragile fondness. A woman whose face no one had ever seen. Yet neither Mihaela nor Astra was curious as to what theSultanalooked like. Perhaps she was beautiful, forever frozen in the youthful form the Blood had found her in. Or she was hideous, deformed, burned by the scorching sun of the desert. Or unremarkable, a woman among many. It mattered not. What interested Mihaela was that this woman existed and that she was older than Silvio, older than thePatrikiaand theBasilissa. A vampire like the All Father himself.
The older the vampire, the greater their knowledge, the more ancient the tomes in their libraries. At least Mihaela hoped the sultanate had libraries. The archives in Athens had been full of incense burners, altars, and cats.
TheComtehad given Mihaela a gift by distorting her mind and memories, but he had also made her distrust the fragments he had allowed her to keep. Astra had no choice but to return and accompany Mihaela on these royal visits. She was Mihaela’s guide, like Virgil leading Dante into Hell. The analogy left a bitter taste in her mouth, but she smiled nonetheless.
The journey to Antalya had been a tedious one. Scarlett’s letter had granted them passage, but they had yet to be granted an audience with theSultana. Astra was good at discerningdesires and vices, but the many servants and guards of the sultanate offered her nothing. Were she to remain in this land, she would starve.
“We should leave here,” Astra said through her clenched teeth, as she and Mihaela stalked the corridors of the Imperial Saray. “She will not see you.”
Mihaela snorted, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.
“I am not here for theSultana. I am here for her library. She has archivists and scholars, I have seen them.”
Astra had also seen them: the wise men and the books. She had tried to keep track of the vast court of the palace until she gave up. She had never seen so many attendants, tailors, gardeners, launderers, cupbearers, concubines, servants and guards. It was impossible to distinguish the immortals from the mortals. None spoke a language either of them understood, none met their gaze or heeded their questions. Mihaela and Astra were granted leave to explore the Saray, and that was all.
“My dear, even if you are admitted to her library, how will you read the scrolls, the clay tablets? You do not know the language,” Astra pleaded with Mihaela.
They had walked into a gallery. Its walls and ceilings were covered in cerulean blue and gold paint, a script ran along the borders of flowers and symmetrical figures. Mihaela had squinted at them, coming to the same conclusion as Astra—she could not read it. And the obligingComtewas not there either,to teach her the language, or offer a translation.
“I’ll teach myself.” Mihaela declared, still squinting at the Arabic script.
“You barely had the patience to learn basic Greek,” Astra reminded her charge. “Now you want to learn Turkic.”
“You’d be surprised how many Bulgarian expressions and words are actually Turkish,” Mihaela replied, throwing Astra a sideways glance and walked the length of the hall. She was scribbling in a small notebook, flipping to earlier pages to add letters and numbers in little boxes.
Her notes resembled a poorly drawn map. Astra recognised the configuration of the corridors and staircases they had taken to reach this part of the palace.
“Ah, yes. Colloquialisms and names of produce will definitely prove useful if you are allowed access to theSultana’spantry.”
But Mihaela was not listening to her. She had stopped at the entryway where a servant bowed and gestured for them to follow.
Please, escort us out of this maze, Astra thought, chewing on the inside of her cheek. Scarlett had warned Mihaela that once she entered theSultana’s domain, she would not be permitted to leave of her own choosing. No matter how much Astra pleaded, no matter how neglected they were in this palace, Mihaela never once expressed a wish to leave. Whatever compelled her to stay had no hold over on Astra. She had walked out of the city walls, she had tasted the sun’s scorching embrace, yet she could not leave. She could not abandon Mihaela, anymore than Virgil could abandon Dante.
The servant led them through another series of corridors decorated with geometric mosaics and painted wood, and into what appeared to be a wide courtyard. Astra heard the fountains before seeing them amid the lush greenery of palm trees and oleander. She spotted painted clay pots with paperflower and olive trees. Wrought-iron lamps illuminated the pathway, their steps muffled by the beautiful Persian carpets. White pillars were erected in different parts of the garden. They bore no ornaments or statues, and each stood beneath what appeared to be a skylight.
The servant stopped abruptly and gestured towards a pavilion overlooking a great swimming pool. In the far end, Astra saw a pillar in the centre of the shallow pool, but this one bore a sculpture of some kind. It resembled a body coiled around the pillar, its arms raised skywards, as if in worship or supplication, and like the many others it too stood beneath a skylight.
A woman was seated at the edge of the pool, reclining amid the many colourful pillows, a lamp with incense burned at her side. She was dressed in cream-coloured silks, her trousers andchemise were embroidered with gold thread and rubies, and her slippers were delicate and pointed. A veil obscured her face and hair.
“My child,” theSultanaspoke and her voice was as luscious and ageless as the garden. “We meet at last. It has been years since you graced us with your presence, and yet I have not offered my condolences. The All Father was your sire, was he not?”
Mihaela had meant to bow, in imitation of the servant who had greeted and guided them there, but these words made her stop. She cast Astra a worried glance.
Years?Astra frowned, chewing on her lip.The All Father had been dead for no more than a day—twodays at best—when we left Berlin and set out on this pilgrimage.As a demon,Astra had always enjoyed the prerogative of being able to read the minds of humans, especially once she discovered that vampires could not read her own thoughts. She had never found a fault in this demonic gift, until she had come to theSultana’s court. She would gladly relinquish her title as Prince of Hell if it allowed Mihaela to be able to read Astra’s mind at this very moment and see the looming threat.We need to leave. We need to leave now!
“Your Grace,” Mihaela was choosing her words carefully. “The All Father has been dead for—”
“For a little over three years, yes. I am aware,” theSultanacut her off, raising her hand.
“Years?” Astra repeated. She was too shocked to care or wait for leave to speak.
The journey from Athens to Antalya had been tedious and slow. It had taken them a good few days to reach the city, and then a few more days were spent roaming the palace, waiting for theSultanato call them. The waiting stretched the hours, and rendered the nights endless. Still, it had not felt like years.
A couple of weeks.Months, maybe.Certainly notyears, Astra thought, recalling how time had passed in these halls, like sand, while she and Mihaela had been left on their own devices, nightafter night, after night. She could not fathom having haunted this placefor years.
TheSultanaextended her hand and opened her palm. The pages of the All Mother’s letter fell like leaves on the pillows and a light breeze picked them up, turned them so that Astra could see the familiar handwriting—the mark of the Berlin Coven. It was the same kind of letter that Scarlett had written to theBasilissa, and which Mihaela had delivered to the mistress in Athens decades before Ingenuar’s death.
“Tell me, child, how is it that the All Father is dead, and yet has summoned me to the Coven?”
The mistress pointed to a tray. A red envelope lay folded, its wax seal cut neatly with a knife. The same seal a letter would have carried when issued from the All Father to his Regents.
