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« What is the meaning of this ? »
The doors shriek on their hinges. The cold lashes through the blood. A shudder courses through the crypt's entrails as Sisters drop their instruments —scalpels, spreaders, bowls—and the clatter and the din and the upheaval under the vaults pierce the ears.
Only one person remains still, lying upon the bier set on the altar. He wears nothing but the golden beads woven in his hair. His wounds are not yet cleansed. The plates of his armor, piled in a corner, seem to tremble in the firelight.
“How dare you begin the ceremony so soon?” roars the High Cleric. Her wrath reverberates against the stone, like a heartbeat echoing inside a ribcage. She has seen straw and wood laid down for the pyre, waiting near the steps until the Sisters had finished their office, as though eager for the flames to reduce them to ashes. Her voice is still hoarse, for it has been only a few minutes since a servant roused her from sleep in the dead of night. Yet it is more than enough to make the Sisters quake:
“It has been but hours. Have you lost your senses? Must I remind you that the seven dusks must pass before the fire ascension ? How dare you commit such blasphemy? Have you no respect for the Sources? For—”
Her voice cracks when she looks at him. His eyes are closed as if he were sleeping. The candles nearly make his dark skin shimmer. He looks more at peace than he has in years.
Only one Sister manages to recover:
“Forgive us, Mother. But… we are under orders.”
“Not from me.”
“B-but, it was lord—”
The name sticks in her throat, and when at last something crawls out, the result sounds like a plea: “T-the High M-mage commanded it. H-he said we… we must proceed without delay, that there was no time to… that it was a matter of dire necessity, that other kingdoms might also be… be targeted…”
A sound almost like laughter escapes Opeli: “And you obeyed him?”
The Sister’s eyes dart to another’s, like a cry for help. In reply, brown, blue, and green alike lift to Opeli’s gaze, then bury themselves in the cold slabs beneath. The High Cleric does not need long to read them. It clutches their throats, pours from their eyes, bends their shoulders.
“He threatened you, didn’t he?”
He had likely not even needed to. Opeli suddenly longs for torment to return upon the king’s features—for annoyance, anger, even pain, anything but this peace that only he now enjoys. The High Mage may have a thousand reasons to be feared, but he would never have dared threaten the clergy if His Majesty had been there to hold him in check.
How could he have done such a thing?
“I command you,” she says, her tone steadier now, “to put an end to this and perform the rite due to the dead.”
The Sisters stare at one another as though they could not believe what they had heard.
“Do not fear.” Her hands close around the Sister’s, sheltering them in an embrace she hopes is comforting. “No harm will come to you.”
“But, Mother,” stammers a wavering voice. “He had already tolled the… the knell, sent heralds throughout the city, and— and dispatched couriers across the whole realm when he ordered us to prepare the Ascension of Fire. Th-the news of the procession is already spread, he proclaimed it would take place…”
She breathes in through her veil:
“…this very night.”
Of course. From the Sister’s quake, the weary sigh that slips from Opeli has been enough to drain her touch of all the comfort it might have offered.
To force war upon a people denied even the time to mourn is madness. To grant the others seven more days to ready their arms and fall upon them is folly.
Opeli looks to the crown resting on a chair. Its Uneven Towers rise with their gold leaf in the candlelight. Yet for all their shine, they have no high walls, no moat, no drawbridge. They stand defenseless. Unlike the king. He had died in his armor. He had known what was to come. And he had remained.
Opeli exhales. “In that case, continue.”
Then to each her linens, soaps, brushes, lancets, sutures, jars of resin, salt and oils, whose fragrance is less appeasing than usual. Harrow is there; saintity is faint.
“What’s this smell ?”
The Sisters exchange glances.
“A blend of orange, olive, argan…”
“…”
“It is what His Majesty used for his hair.”
Opeli glares at the gaping cupboard, the crystal flasks empty. The delivery is not due for three days.
The white phantoms grow denser. Soon, the darkness of the vaults is filled with the clinking of blades, with soft rubbings. The pillars shaping the crypt are more massive than the graceful arches that rise and coil in the chapel above. The stone is eroded, the paintings flaked. Even the carvings are stripped bare: straight lines, right angles, interlaced diamonds. Opeli understands why they had asked, despite their fear, to carry His Majesty’s body down here. This place is old. Protective. Safe.
The Sisters manage to care for the body with the devotion proper to their office. Opeli, arms crossed against the cold, keeps watch over their midwifery of death. The grease on the king’s skin carries the wavering shimmer of tallow, as though light itself dissolved there. Since the body—how could he?—will not be embalmed and preserved for the Seven Dusks, it will not be dried in salt, nor perfumed with dammar. True, for the pyre to wholly safeguard him, it must be treated…
Yet it is not enough.
“Sister Elgarine of sincere repentance, Sister Rodiane of the lost garden,” says Opeli. “On your knees. Let us take each other’s hands and recite the prayers.”
They glance at one another.
“I know he told you that time is short,” Opeli continues softly, setting her gaze upon each of them. “But he must learn that this lower world is not as hurried as he is. His Majesty shall not leave this earth without the prayers—all the prayers—for the repose of his soul. I forbid it. And we, Sisters, we alone can bear this task. We owe him that. We owe it to all.”
They sigh in relief, just as Opeli had hoped.
They take turns. Only Opeli remains prostrate. Sister Rodiane has lent her own cowl to cover her head; she no longer knows for how long. Her body aches everywhere. The prayers flow from her mouth in an unbroken stream, like a balm. Even the stone itself seems seized by a soothing breath. In her hands, the comfort of palms joined. In her lungs, the air takes time to renew itself. And in her chest, the beating of her heart slows and slows.
When Opeli tries to rise, a Sister catches her to keep her from falling. She rolls her head in circles and bends and straightens her legs to bring blood back to her limbs.
So at least Harrow has been washed down to the pearls in his hair. He reeks of orange, but the darkness keeps vigil over him. His armour has been returned to him, rubbed down with cloths. The breastplate gleams as best it can. It is not suitable; it's battered, scratched, pierced by the magical weapons of Elves. But the holes are hidden beneath his gloved hands, folded upon his chest. Between them rests the pommel of his sword. Harrow had trained almost daily. It is sharpened, keener than Opeli has ever seen it. The steel glitters, ready to sing.
It bears no trace of blood.
“Has it been cleaned?” Opeli asks.
“No, Mother.”
Opeli gestures toward a glass of water, which a Sister immediately places in her hands. She drains it in one draft, then several more, nearly choking. She cannot tell whether it is to quench her thirst or to conceal the nausea that must have ravaged her features. And Harrow’s, so, so serene…
How dared he?
She sets the glass down violently, and the chime rings.
“Our task is finished,” she says, wiping her mouth on her sleeve — a most improper gesture, but fortunately none of the Sisters seems to notice. They gaze upon their king’s face for the last time. “We may, my Sisters, now…”
She does not finish the sentence. The doors shriek once again.
Opeli straightens, fists clenched. She looks at the Sisters and sees nothing but taut shoulders, pallid faces, wide eyes barely daring to meet each other’s. Like candle flames caught in a draft. The actual candles surrounding the king’s body have gone out, too. Sources, it is enough for him to step into a room to undo all her work in an instant!
She studies the shadow lengthening, lengthening through the drifting smoke, hesitating to face it and furious at her own hesitation. But as the metallic step draws nearer, the Sisters huddle closer to one another, and every gaze clings to her. She nods. She is their beacon. He is the storm.
His strides make each stone quiver, like thunder within a cloud. His cane strikes the ground, every blow a reproach. Yet whatever fault he may choose to debate -their slowness, their quibbling, the fact that the preparation took place at the bottom of the crypt instead of in the nave of the church or in the king’s private chapel, forcing the body to be carried down far too many stairs and thus wasting time -Opeli shall stand in his way. The shadow looms, swallowing and engulfing each Sister, one after another. It devours the king -until Opeli steps in front of him, and the shadow claims her instead.
He's limping. Moreso than usual. A poorly closed suture on his brow, eyes hollow like open wounds, hair falling over his face. Opeli sees it at once; since the queen’s death, he had not been in such a state. With a tilt of his chin, he signals the Sisters to move aside. Sister of the lost garden (she has tied a rag around her head as a veil) looks first to her, and she nods. They step back.
Viren faces her.
He smells of sulfur. His sulfur, his magic.
Mage though he is, strong though he may be, towering above them all, glaring down at her -she barely reaches his shoulders, and though her own battered body protests, she shall not move. And he knows it. He does not try to push her aside, not with his chin, not otherwise.
“You haven’t slept,” she says. “You should go get some rest.”
The mocking sound that shakes the mage’s shoulders is hoarse, like stone collapsing. And the stone of the crypt repeats it slavishly:
“I could say the same of you.”
“Prayer is my daily lot. Combat is clearly not yours.”
His mouth twists, but no “Is it ? » escapes it.
“The procession will soon begin,” says Opeli, unsure whether her tone holds too much or too little compassion. “You should pause, if only for a moment. Otherwise, you will never make it to the Valley.”
Viren’s eyes fall upon her hand, resting on black velvet and a too long arm. Opeli winces -what is my hand doing here? At that mere contact, memories spark and coil up her arm like old wounds; before she can decide whether to leave it there or pull it away, it is too late:
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
He has taken her hand. Almost carefully, as though the gesture might awaken something forgotten.
He used to tell her that. He always meant it.
Beneath Opeli’s skin, dizziness seeps in like ashes still warm. He cannot be thinking of the same thing she is. Of the last time they found themselves alone with death between them—but had such a fragile shadow ever truly lived? Let it not be so, Sources, have mercy. The thought gnaws at her, coils around her throat, hammers in her chest, makes the memories strewn across the stone of her womb tremble, jagged shards too sharp for either of them to gather, like a thread stretched across the edge of an abyss, ready to snap; and the echoes within her quiver, quiver, quiver…
She pushes it away -pushes away that hand.
Viren’s pale eyes, cut from thunder, flint, or steel, eyes of a dog abandoned by the roadside, reflect the plates of armour as they widen for a fleeting second. Not now… not now.
He sighs. Opeli gestures for the Sisters to leave. She cannot suppress a shiver when, with a snap of his fingers, the mage rekindles the candles.
They stand there, the two of them, watching it, breathing it, before the dead body in the stone belly.
Viren’s voice breaks the silence:
“How could he…?”
In this crypt filled with echoes, Opeli is not surprised to hear her own thoughts aloud:
"His Majesty may have abandoned his own salvation,” she murmurs, “but it's not reason enough for us to do the same.”
A grimace distorts Viren’s features as he shakes his head. Opeli fixes her gaze on him, searching for a cutting reply. He wears that disillusioned look, as if hesitating to confess the tooth fairy doesn't really exist:
“You said it yourself. He abandoned. Praying for his rest won’t change anything.”
“Mind your words.”
Viren falls silent. Opeli draws a breath :
“His Majesty… made a painful choice. He bore burdens that even you could not comprehend.”
Viren’s staff begins to tremble, his body seized by long spasms. She thinks it's a sob. It's a chuckle. She glares, lying through her teeth:
“If you are finished, there are prayers still to be spoken.”
He steadies, looks her up and down:
“Praying for the salvation of a soul that usurped the sacred prerogative of deciding its own fate? I do not recognize you.”
“He did not…”
Opeli swallows her words. The peace on the king’s face she can't ignore:
“He did not flee. He faced divine justice. In the admission of own's own faults lies the potential pardon of the Sources.”
“He fled. He squandered every sacrifice made for him and this kingdom, simply because they suddenly offended his noble sight, and left me to pick up the pieces. As I always have.”
What a boor, she thinks. He left us to pick up the pieces. As we always have.
“You are not the center of the world, Viren.”
He shrugs. Still, Opeli swallows her pride and steps aside -against her better judgment, to let him approach: he, the dark mage, the profaner, the sulfur. Should he dare call their work shoddy, she would throw him out on the spot.
This time, at least, he has a body left to grieve. She sees his faded eyes trace from beads to spurs, passing like a farewell to a brother-in-arms. Then he turns away and lets fall:
“Good work. Burn it.”
Opeli, stunned, watches him limp towards the door. She ought to be relieved at his departure, at the resumption of the rite; he is nearly out of sight when she hears her own voice trembling with indignation:
“It? This body is the host of the nation, sanctified by anointing. But this corpse -this is nothing but the result of your sins.”
He halts, turns back slowly. Yes, look upon that body in this stone womb!
“You ignored him. You convinced... you forced him, again and again, to soil his hands,” she states, “so do not wonder that he sought to wash them.”
“My fault? My…” Indignation dies in his throat. Then he shakes his head, bile rising sharp in his voice: “Well, that’s rich.”
Opeli straightens. The distance between them melts away with every word.
“Have you the faintest idea of all I attempted to pull him out? Do you blame me that honor neither feeds nor saves? That one cannot turn a waterwheel with holy water alone? Do you not see that I bore his burden? That I carried him, held him up, against storm and tide? That I... Never mind - ”
“Held him up? He’s lying there -”
His eyes have locked hers. Despite herself she feels her footing slip, her hands searching the altar for support. Lightning crashes upon her -he is close, too close, she shuts her eyes:
“So yes. I may have eventually failed to save him from himself, but don’t you dare accuse me of his martyrdom; do not come to me as some outraged widow; it is precisely because people like me consent to sacrifice certain values that noble people like you, like him, can drape themselves in white principles and gleaming armor!”
The last word falls; Opeli flinches.
When she opens her eyes, Viren’s features blur. He steps back, another step, then looks away, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“To borrow your poor metaphors…” says Opeli, straightening, “a waterwheel does not turn with blood either. Your sacrifices are too costly, everyone knows it -m… he first of all.”
Viren glances at her sideways, then ignores her to pour himself a glass of water. She watches him drink, her eyes tracing the contractions of his throat, hoping without knowing what for; then takes back the empty cup as he resumes his tirade:
“What went through his head ? Did he think evil would vanish with him, or some such nonsense? He saw what had to be done. But instead of accepting the tangible, real benefits, he preferred to die. He thought only of himself and his heroic sword. His departure eases nothing, corrects nothing of the problems and dysfunctions he leaves behind. If anything, it worsens them.”
Problems. Dysfunctions. He spoke coldly, like a man sworn to numbers. His lips tremble, still shaken by a tic.
“You are wrong,” whispers Opeli. “He no longer wished to add to the suffering, to those endless compromises. Dying was not fleeing -it was acknowledging he could no longer bear the weight. He thought life could no longer offer him redemption. He made a choice… as moral as he thought.”
“Elegant way of saying he left me once more t-”
“He left us to clean up after him.”
“… If you say so.”
His lips press tight, almost a sneer. She sighs:
“It is not for you to decide. Nor for me. May the Primal Sources judge him with equity.”
“Evading… like him.”
“Pardon? I…?”
She regains herself, steps forward now in turn, closing the space between them. She will not let him have the last word. Not this time:
“If he sought to atone for his sins alone, it was precisely so that no one else would carry their weight.”
The hissing of the candles, like a murmur, serves as the amen concluding her defense. Viren looks at her, as silent as the body before them.
A draft stirs, the light flickers.
“You know he put my son in the front line against the assassins?”
The shadows have taken hold of the hollows in Viren’s cheeks. They have always carved edges sharp as blades —blades that Opeli’s fingers had never yet cut themselves on. Still, she is caught off-guard. Soren may be captain of the royal guard, a thunderbolt with a sword in hand, but he is not even twenty.
“I…” She swallows. “I did not know.”
“Now you do.”
Opeli realizes she has stopped looking at the king. She has seen wounded on her way here, in the yard, on the walls, but didn't take a closer look. Viren catches her, anticipating her question with an eyeroll:
“No. Thankfully not. I checked for him.”
His voice clipped, eyes smoldering with bitterness. Thus explains his manner, Opeli thinks, but in no way excuses it.
“What of our losses?”
“Twenty-one. You must admit it takes a certain… steadiness from His Majesty of Expiation.”
He spat the last word like venom.
“Steadiness, you say?” Opeli retorts. “I would remind you that you never hesitated to -”
“Yes, because it was necessary.”
“Ha! Necessary…”
A heartbeat. A long sideways glance, which she holds. He does not blink.
“For the best. Yes.”
Another echo in the stone belly. As reasonable as ever. A sickly shiver runs through her.
“But those soldiers?” he presses. “What need was there to risk their lives for a king who had already renounced? My own son! Soren. Was this justice? A punishment of some sort? Harrow refused to dismiss him or any of them. He let him face death, but for what? For honor? For glory? For pride? So yes, High Cleric, at the risk of repeating myself: burn it.”
The acid spraying from his grave voice cuts Opeli’s breath. Their quarrels had always punctuated the High Council sessions. But such scorn, such bad faith -this was worse than anything Harrow had ever heard. And here they were again, squabbling over his remains, disputing him like carrion!
“Viren, has it ever crossed your mind that you are not the only reasoning being in this world?”
“Oh, I am always open to suggestions. But if they are absurd, I set them aside. That is all.”
“It is not a suggestion, it is a fact. Harrow sought only a semblance of peace after…”
“…after all those mawkish confessional fancies, that indulgence in martyrdom with which his head was filled! Unless, of course, I picked the wrong word; let’s see, which one is it? Grace, pardon, expiation, redemption, absolution, and the like? By all means, preach! I shall do as always: listen to your theories, reject them one by one, and keep only mine. Simpler that way.”
“When did I claim His Majesty was perfect? ”Opeli snaps, struggling now to keep her composure before this man who seems to know nothing of dignity. “He made a painful choice. I won't call it courage, but at least it's conscience." She ignores Viren's scoff :"Even if it did not bring peace to all —for believe me, I hold it against him, he ought to have done absolutely anything else more constructive than ... whatever this... display is: yet at least he bore the responsibilities that were his!”
“So he truly deserved all this incense? No… To die, to reap all the praise, the scent of sanctity -that was the easy way out.” Viren makes a sharp gesture, as though sweeping the thought aside. “That is not how the world works. Leaving solved nothing. The war is still here. The kingdom is still in danger. What remains for all those who were denied the right to leave, Opeli?”
So that is it, she realises, as he gestures vaguely toward the king’s body: “Besides… saving what still can, or at least still wants, to be saved.”
It is not the crown he envies. It is the pyre, and all that incense. He does not want to be king. He wants to be the king.
So this time, it is she who takes his hands. They freeze at once, turning to ice : “No one is asking you to carry it all alone, Viren.”
Against her fingertips, the pulse of a vein. Opeli draws a deep breath. The air has grown heavier. At that single touch, the crackle of memories flares again, snaking up her arm, setting it alight from top to bottom like quicksilver, swelling, circling, reverberating.
He tries to pull his hands away. She grips them tighter. Their breaths rise from the same hollow.
That emptiness he had opened with the firmness he reserves for decisions that leave no choice. A void heavy with the scent of sulfur, of blood that had run down her legs and left only absence. Her body remembered almost no pain; he had seen to that. The rest was hers to carry. A warm, shifting weight she hopes she could never have borne; so instead she bore the void itself, bears it still, hidden under her habit and her hood, a wound that never properly closed.
The crypt breathes. The shadow has a mineral density, a weight that settles on the nape and in the loins. Their voices echo as if in an inverted nave underground, diluting words until they seem almost alien to the one who speaks them. The candles exhale thin tongues of light, each flicker like a warning. Around them, the stone keeps, compact, the accumulation of past offices; one could almost feel the remanence of a chant, slowed until time itself is abolished.
She longs to scream at him to leave, to quit this place where his mere presence feels like desecration. But she remains, throat knotted, her hands still clasping his. The contact is nearly unbearable, yet neither of them breaks that fragile bond. In the name of what is owed, in the name of what must be done, in the name of all this waste.
“Why…” she stammers at last, her throat fractured by a pain she cannot fully understand -the unfinished phrases, the words that spill despite herself. “You have nothing but contempt for all this soil represents. Why do you not leave?”
Viren tilts his head slightly, his hair disheveled.
“Because I cannot,”, his voice strangled. “I am trapped here, just as you.”
“You dare… say you are trapped? After all you have done, all you have imposed?”
But her voice falters. She suddenly realizes how close he is. Close, so close. He lowers his eyes; he knows exactly why she is on the verge of tears. He lays a finger right there below her eyelid. Hesitant. Unsure. Picking her tear shining on his finger. She can hear herself swallow, she prays that he didn't hear that.
But she feels his hand on her shoulder, and his forehead’s weight leans against hers, as in surrender.
As in sharing.
Sulfur, suffering. Consolation.
Instead of spitting that he is a living blasphemy, always preferring one crime to two graves, she longs to drag him back to the surface. Fingers intertwine, faces draw near, one hand seizes her hip, the other her chin: he pauses, she receives him. He tastes of ashes.
Her fingers slip to his nape, find the sticky blood in the dark strands, then her hood falls, revealing the blondness caught by the trembling light. He remembers her mole below her ear. They say a path carved by erosion becomes a path of desire; for them, it is ravines. Guilt coils, thick, vibrating, pounding against flesh and nerves. The candles hiss in outrage: they cannot begin again, not here, not now, not after all that poured between them. Yet the old gestures resurface, abolishing time, confusing felt with bygone, created with uncreated. It's as the saying goes. Those who are absent are always to blame. Dead but alive, alive yet dead. Dead and yet they all breathe so loudly.
She frames his pallid face, meets his storm-tattered eyes. This one strand falls before them, and she finally brushes it away again. He covers and uncovers her skin, as if trying to understand the molecular composition of forgiveness. Memories surge in embers and sighs, kisses stoking them. Dead body in the stone belly, blood shed, pyre burning. The world trembles. The light spasms, he sweeps the candles to the floor. She clings to him, he lifts her, sets her down on the altar’s stone. Opeli hears her own voice crawl out of her throat:
“And you, Viren, have you nothing to be forgiven for?”
He freezes. His eyes waver. His voice is hoarse, but as sharp as the sword resting on their king’s chest, just behind her :
“No. Nothing.”
She freezes. Unlaces her fingers. Cold reclaims its right. She lifts her eyes to him, and silence falls upon them.
Viren seems about to say more, to step closer still, but stops. He has understood. He steps back. The candles sigh in relief.
Opeli refuses his hand as she climbs down from the altar. She pulls up her hood, raises her head. Viren has picked up his staff and stares at the body. Like a dog left at the roadside.
Exasperated, she heads for the door.
“Do not forget the crown.”
She freezes, her grip tightening on the uneven towers. How could he have seen her conceal it?
The thunder rolls again:
“I will need it.”