He thanked his people and the palace nobles for sharing their hearts and minds, using the proper traditional words that he’d memorized, along with the thousand other phrases he’d had to memorize in the past few months, and then he recessed from the throne room.
He was somewhat proud of himself for not running out of there.
He reached his rooms. Two guards were stationed on either side of the door. One bowed, while the other flung the door open. He gave them more sincere nods—he had far more respect for the men and women who protected his life than the ones who swarmed mosquito-like through his court. Only when he was safely inside, alone, did he allow himself to slump his shoulders, rip off the red scarf and three layers of mourning linen, and slam his fist into one of the many pillows that littered his room.
He didn’t understand why the palace stewards thought an emperor needed so many pillows. He hadn’t needed them when he was an heir. But he did like that they were good for quietly venting every emotion he didn’t allow himself to express outside of these rooms.
He raged at the pillows for a quarter of an hour, until he began to feel silly. It wasn’t as if the pillows had smothered his brother or contributed to his death in any way. Zarin had sickened and died, the way people do, and it wasn’t the fault of anything or anyone. It simply was. Which somehow made it worse.
Dar had no one to blame. No one to hate. Except himself, for being alive while his beloved brother was dead. It should have been me. He was the extra one, the friend and the confidant but never the leader. He’d never wanted this, no matter what the people said when they thought he couldn’t hear them.
“River take them all,” he said.
“Your Excellence?” a guard called through the door. “May we assist you?”
You could stop eavesdropping on me while I’m throwing a private temper tantrum, he thought. But out loud he said, “Thank you, but I’m fine.”
Then he had another thought: “Actually, could you send someone to summon Augur Yorbel? I would like to take solace in the wisdom of his counsel.” And he wanted another update on the search for his brother.
Just because he hated listening to the nobles didn’t mean they weren’t right.
Yorbel had been expecting another summons to the palace. For days, he’d kept his official augur robe ready on a hook by his door, and when he heard the slap of sandals on the stone outside his quarters during the afternoon reflection time, he rose from his meditation, dressed, and donned the chain with the pendant that identified him as one of the esteemed augurs of Becar.
He felt like a soldier putting on his armor, but the arrows in the palace were whispered words and the spears were questions he couldn’t answer.
The walk to the palace was hot, with the midday sun soaking through his linen robe. His shaved head kept him somewhat cool, at least cooler than the nobles with their coiled braids and myriad ornaments who fanned themselves as they lounged about the gardens. He didn’t slow to greet any of them, though he noticed several begin to start toward him. He’d learned from experience that if you walked with purpose, it exponentially increased the odds that you’d reach your destination. Proceed slowly, and people would pounce all over you. So he didn’t pause, despite the heat.
In anxious times, people were especially eager to talk to augurs for both guidance and reassurance. And these are undoubtedly anxious times, he thought. Just this morning, in a corridor that was usually silent for contemplation, he’d heard two of the younger augurs whispering about Ranir, worrying about whether its king would view Becar as weak—a worldly worry normally outside the scope of a young augur’s concerns. He’d heard it all lately: fear of economic collapse, fear of riots, fear of invasion. . . . I believe we can weather these times, if people continue to honor their better selves.
Yorbel was greeted at the entrance and escorted into the blissful cool of the palace. In this wing, the walls had been painted a restful blue, with diamond-flecked stars decorating the ceiling. All the palace windows were constructed to allow a breeze in and keep the sun out, and so the cool shadows seemed to whisper with the breath of the wind.
“How fares our emperor-to-be?” he asked his escort,