Page 91 of The Moon Blessed King
They reach the line of awaiting soldiers, and the centre rider strides his horse forward. His armour is glittering and bright, a dark cloak latched to his shoulders. He removes his helmet. Cat’s hands tremble at his sides. ‘Nured.’ He identifies the man who has always led Gillage’s guard, his voice barely audible to himself let alone the people around him. Elician freezes in place, muscles tensing enough that his veins pulse visibly against his skin.
‘Reaper Alest,’ Nured jeers. ‘Come to be returned to your cell?’
‘No,’ Cat responds. Better, but still too quiet. He clears his throat, forces himself to breathe. ‘No. I – I invoke a trial of the gods and challenge my brother, Gillage of Alelune, for the right to reign,’ Cat says. His words sound strained even to his own ears. He tries as hard as he can to not look down, to not curl up and pull away, to not reach for his wrists as a phantom pressure seizes them tight.Hold still. Do as they say. Don’t utter a word.His memories whisper to him. His hand closes around the blue stone at his neck, and he clings to the comfort it provides.
Nured laughs at him, and it sounds like the precursor to fire and ash pressed against his face. It sounds like the harbinger of whips coming in the dark, of clubs and knives anddo you want to see something new?It’s the sound that comes before hisses of warning and despair and promises that the others are there, they see what is happening, that he is not alone. But he feels alone. He always feels so alone.
‘You have already been warned – our king will accept no challenges fromthe dead.’
‘He will today,’ Partho says at Cat’s back.
‘Captain. Emerged from the Blue Lands at long last, have you? Just to watch this boy die?’
‘That is for the gods to determine,’ Partho responds, bold and strong and without any hint of amusement. ‘The challenge has been issued, and so this trial must be held.’ Nured snarls, prepared to argue, but Partho grins a savage grin, and his hand lowers to his own sword. ‘Unless you wish to defy the gods right here in our most holy city?’
‘Andyou, General Leferge? You speak for this pretender?’
‘I speak for no one but the army,’ she replies. ‘And the army wishes to speak with the ruler of Alelune. For that, I will wait until the end of the challenge so I may lay my grievances at the appropriate monarch’s feet.’ Then she places a hand on Leonde’s shoulder. ‘Madame Leonde wishes to serve as witness for the people to ensure the proceedings are done justly, and I have accepted her request as acting commander of the Alelunen army. We have all heard the challenge be issued, and it is now King Gillage’s sacred duty to respond.’
Nured is not prepared for such a thing. He gnashes his teeth, but his eyes flick to the army waiting for an excuse to march. Then, he turns back to the palace. ‘By sacred right then…come,’ Nured orders. He snaps his fingers and the line of soldiers break. They are meant to follow. Cat slips his fingers into Elician’s palm.
‘Don’t leave me,’ he begs, knowing full well that neither has a choice in the matter. Not now, not after coming so far.
‘I’m here,’ Elician says. ‘I’m here, but I swear to both gods, if he so much as puts afingeron you, or if youlosethis, I’m going to kill him before he can do anything else.’
‘How?’ Cat asks, voice trembling.
‘I’m sure if I thought about it hard enough, I could give him a stroke. It’sjusta little more blood in the brain,’ Elician hisses. Cat blinks, and he stares at Elician, feet moving without consciousthought. He doesn’t notice the city, the people, the horses or even Nured.
Just a little more blood in the brain.
Just a little more life.
Just like the plague. For the more life there is, the more death comes. And death…inevitably leads back to life. It has to – it must. It is water and earth and wind and a god standing over it all. His eyes lift towards the sky, towards the fractured shades of red and gold and blue, the sun and the moon both occupying the sky for a brief moment in time. One a gentle reflection of the other.
Cat trips over his feet when they reach a long set of stairs. Elician hauls him up and they keep walking. They walk without stopping, faster and faster until they come to a room that Cat has never been allowed in, a room that is designed expressly for this purpose.
The stories that preceded their army’s approach to the city would have told Gillage to prepare. And so he has.
The Proving Ground for challenges to the throne is beautiful. White alabaster towers reach like trees up to the sky. They split and splinter at the top, arching this way and that, each bough connected by gossamer threads. Just beyond them lie the stars. It takes Cat only a moment, but when he shifts his weight just so, he can see how the threads form figures along the stars. They connect dots to form constellations of glimmering heroes and mythos that he read about in Marina’s book or heard about from the tongues of the people he walked amongst to get here. And each thread shimmers with possibility, with promise.
There is another door at the other end of the room. It opens, and Gillage strides in. He is dressed in perfect robes of glittering silver and blue. ‘So, you’ve come to die,’ Gillage announces. He sounds like Nured. There is an emotion in Cat’s chest, nameless but present. It hurts, aching in a way that Cat does not quite understand. Who else has ever cared for his brother save a man who can only provide cruelty to others?
His brother stands with the regalia of a king, his feet shoulder-width apart. But his crown is too large for his head, and it needs to sit tilted to stay firmly on his skull. He is barely fourteen and has not yet taken the shape of a man. He looks no different now than he did when he set Reapers on fire in the cells below for fun.
‘You arestilla child,’ Cat murmurs aloud, startled by the thought even as he gives it air. Gillage’s nostrils flare. ‘You are a king…but you never actually grew up, did you?’
‘You’re going todie,’ Gillage seethes. He glares and grinds his teeth together, but he doesn’t do more than that. Perhaps Cat was wrong. Perhaps he has matured.
It doesn’t matter.
There are no temple guardians here to enforce good behaviour. There is no one to offer rights or to explain procedures. Gillage’s honour guard, Nured included, waits at the bottom of the stairs leading to the Proving Ground, standing in a tightly packed bunch as if some invisible line keeps them from encroaching upon Cat’s side of the room. Cat only has four followers, though. One a figment from the past, just barely remembered. One a general who owes true loyalty only to a country that may never accept Cat as king. One a woman who saw a child once and believed in him enough to defy tradition. And the last, who holds his hand tight and sure, who would be heartbroken if here in the end Cat abandons him like he has always feared his lovers would. ‘I’ll come back,’ Cat promises.
‘I know,’ Elician confirms. Their hands part, and Cat turns towards the final set of stairs. The final journey. He swallows hard and walks alone. He and Elician have already said everything that needs to be said to each other, and Cat cannot explain what will happen now. He cannot prepare him. Equally, Elician cannot help Cat from this point further. He can only watch, and wait, and bear witness to the Proving.
Cat takes the first step towards the dais. Gillage huffs angrily and stalks up faster. He takes the stairs two at a time, impatient andunyielding. He has no intention of being shown up, either in speed or punctuality. ‘Monsters last,’ he hisses as Cat takes his place at Gillage’s side.
Cat barely hears the words. Before them is a statue of the goddess. She is holding the moon in her hands, and it glows now with reflected light from the night sky up above. Mirrors guide the light down, dozens of them placed at every angle to ensure that even as the real moon travels across the sky, this statue stays illuminated always. It is almost a mirror to the Temple of Life in Soleb – and the ever-turning statue of a god who always has his eyes on the sun. At her feet is a shape, half hidden amongst the growing plants and leaves meant to form the earth. It reminds him, strangely, of a nightcat, but the more he stares at it, the more the shapes and lines disappear, as if they were never there at all.
