Page 92 of The Moon Blessed King
‘Honourable Goddess,’ Gillage calls out, more deferential than Cat has ever heard him, ‘we call upon you in need of advice and wise counsel.’ Gillage puffs up his chest. The crown slips a little but does not quite fall. ‘I am King of Alelune and this challenger seeks my throne. Upon whom do you bestow your grace?’
His voice echoes in the room. It bounces off pillars and statues and constellations made of gossamer that shimmer in redirected moonlight. Cat keeps his eyes on the statue’s face. He is still not prepared when it moves.
The head turns a little, just enough to angle its gaze down to the ground and not up at the stars. The eyes of the statue stare straight at Gillage and Cat standing side by side. It didn’t even make a sound. Cat almost wishes it had. He wonders what stone would sound like as it rotates andbends, but there is nothing.
When the voice comes, it doesn’t use the statue’s lips. Perhaps it doesn’t need to, since it’s not truly the statue that has power. And yet, Cat cannot help looking up at its pale eyes. ‘Who am I?’ the statue asks.
‘You’re the Night Mother,’ Gillage announces swiftly, as if worriedCat will answer first. ‘You’re the Moon, and Death, and the end of everything.’
And he is right, Cat knows. He has given her all the correct epithets. He has drafted the correct response for her introduction with all requisite pomp and circumstance. But it is not what she is looking for. ‘You’re Life,’ Cat murmurs. He doesn’t need to shout. He doesn’t need to let his voice carry down to all his followers so they can applaud his great brilliance. It’s not for them to hear. It’s not even for Gillage to hear. Even so, Cat meets the statue’s eyes and whispers, ‘You’re me.’
The statue smiles, and white light fills the room. It coats Cat’s vision, blinding him from his brother, the Proving Ground and every quilted figure in the sky. The light burns hot and painful, but Cat forces his eyes to stay open. He doesn’t want to miss anything. He doesn’t want to forget.
The light doesn’t become easier to tolerate, but it shifts and becomes fractal. Rainbow fragments skitter from one side of the room to the other. Light envelops Cat like a physical shroud. It touches his skin, sheathing him in its power, holding him steady in the face of its nature.
‘Tell me a story, Little King,’ the voice asks him.
‘Life was born to a great barren nothingness,’ Cat says. His words are quiet at first, unused to narration. He swallows and presses on, reciting a tale he knows by heart, drafted by his own hand and modified from a story the rest of the world knows. ‘Life emerged, shapeless and undefined, and found the nothing sad. Life longed to fill its spaces, and so Life began to create. First came the ground that became known as Earth. It was hard and firm and designed with all the colours Life could imagine. Then Life made Water to explore everything that Earth had to offer. And when Water explored too much, and reached too far, Life became Death so that Water could go back to the beginning and try again.’
‘And what is death?’ the voice beseeches. ‘What are you?’
‘Death is life,’ Cat says. ‘I am life. I am alive, and I give things life. All things must die, because to die is to make life, and all life is sacred. I am Water and I am Earth, I am Life and I am Death. I am learning, and I am exploring, and I am creating new paths. There is no Life without Death; there is no Death without Life. You are and always have been the same. I am you, and you are me, and we live and we die for that is what it means toexist.’
The light burns brighter. His eyes stream tears that flow like creeks down his face. The rainbow fragments grow more vivid. The heat on his skin holds him tight, constricting flesh and muscle and bone.
‘Tell me your name,’ the voice demands.
Cat’s hands are shaking. His throat constricts. He cannot breathe. He gasps, trying to find air, but the air does not come. He is drowning, water surrounding him like a fever dream from long ago. He knows it isn’t real. He knows that he is standing in the Proving Ground and there is no water, there is no voice telling him that he will be fine. There is no current that promises him a path forward if he only just dares to believe. There is no stepfather waiting for him to die, no watery grip at his wrist pulling him down. There is no ethereal voice whispering in his childish ear, asking,Do you want to be a good king?
There is no baffled response from an innocent child who doesn’t understand the bargain he’s making.Yes.
There is also no going back. For even if the water from his memories is not truly there, the feeling that courses through him is still the same. He drowned, years ago. He died and he became something new. He closes his eyes to the light, allowing himself one final moment before responding to the voice. He breathes in, and he breathes out. He brings his hands to his chest, feeling the heat that is all but scalding his skin in the surging waves of imaginary water.
He creates an image of himself, an image that he has fostered for years. It is a small boy, a broken thing that has been beaten and battered for so very long but who stood up each time he was pusheddown and who dared to look in the face of a god and demand to be heard. He holds that beloved image close, then he extends his hands and lets the image go. He lets it travel the space between himself and the future before him.
He opens his eyes, and he speaks.
‘My name is Alest, son of Alenée, born of Earth and remade in Water, King of Alelune and Prince Consort of Soleb.’
And the god of life and death speaks back: ‘Yes, you are.’
The light snaps out in a wink. The statue stands still and perfect before him. Its gaze is back on the sky, looking up at a moon and stars that glisten and twinkle high above. Out in the wilds of space, the sun is shining on the moon. After all, the moon’s light is and always has been the sun’s, a reflection of a soul desperate to touch all the things it loves.
There is a scream behind him, shrill and filled with horror. Alest turns on his heel. He sees his brother first, bloodied and broken and shattered into pieces on the ground at his side. His brother is dead. How long was he ensnared in his vision? A knife lies in Gillage’s hand, still gripped tight in his fist, as if he had tried to stab something and been stopped, as if his body had been torn asunder and lay frozen in a bloody rictus, punished for sins past and sins yet to come.
Alest looks further, down towards Nured and all those who have been loyal to Gillage. All who are still standing there, now staring at him in stunned awe.
‘Release the Reapers from their cells.’
It is Alest’s first order as king.
A woman at the back of the group all but runs out of the room. She is shouting for someone to go down to the cells. The rest of the entourage is silent. Partho, though, Partho is grinning wildly, madly. ‘My king,’ he calls out as he falls to one knee. He bows in this position, arms at his side in perfect subjugation. Leferge is second to kneel, barely seconds behind Partho and no less perfect in her form.
Leonde hurries to follow, and after her, all those in Gillage’s entourage do the same. One after another they kneel. They stare at Cat, eyes wide and filled with an adulation he has never once seen on their faces. They never looked at Gillage like this. They never looked at his mother like this. They stare at him like he is something they cannot comprehend but don’t dare to defy. It is one thing to know that the royal line has been chosen by a god, it is another to watch that god bestow her favour and to name him, truly, her moon-blessed king.
Only one man remains standing. Elician climbs the steps. He bows, low and formal, but his fingers are twitching and there’s tension in his neck. ‘You are still my husband,’ Alest reminds him.
Elician rises just a little, just enough to tilt his head back and look at Alest with an all-too-relieved expression bordering on the desperate. ‘And you are still my king,’ Elician reminds him in turn. ‘For here, I amyourconsort, beloved.’
