Sinner

He said that he had died and yet lived again, and that I would follow a similar path.

He said that he loved me.

Perhaps he lied, but I choose not to think so. To do otherwise would be to submit to despair. His promise, as your life, will keep me through and past my death into my next existence.

“I do not believe it,” Zenith said with all the calmness she could muster. She carefully folded the letter in half and handed it back to Caelum. “Read it. But do not believe it. It is a mistake. A lie.”

Caelum walked slowly over to the fire, standing with his back to the flames as he read through the letter once, then once more, far more slowly.

“I knew some of this,” he said, finally looking up. “I knew that WolfStar came to Niah in the Dome of the Moon. I knew how Niah died. But this … this promise that WolfStar made to Niah … that she would live again … that I did not know.”

“But Mother did know. She knew … all these years! Knew and never told me! Why?”

Is that why Mother did not give me a Star name? Zenith wondered. Because she knew I was Niah reborn?

“Why?” Caelum shrugged helplessly, spreading his hands out. “Zenith, I don’t know. Maybe she felt there was no point telling you until … until WolfStar reappeared. Gods! I don’t know!”

“So she let me find out this way?”

“Zenith.” Caelum came back to sit by her side, his voice gentle. “If there is one thing I have learned from my parents’ lives, and from my own, it is that we are all born with a destiny. My parents were into their third decades before their destinies became clear to them, and –”

“No!” Zenith took the letter from Caelum’s hand and began to turn it over and over in her own. “I will not accept it!”

“– and I have had to accept that my destiny is as StarSon, and my burden is Tencendor.”

“I am Zenith! No-one else!”

“Yes, my dear, yes. But … but it is apparent that you also have Niah’s soul and many of her memories, and –”

“No!” How many times had she shouted that negative tonight, Zenith numbly wondered in a dark recess of her mind, and how many more times would she have to shout it?

“– and,” Caelum continued, speaking over Zenith’s increasing denials, “you still have life. You have all of your own memories and experiences. You must only come to terms with the fact that you also have a set of memories and experiences that stretch back before your birth.”

“No!” Zenith leapt to her feet and began pacing restlessly about the room. What now was truly, truly terrifying was the fact that as she had shouted that “No!” some part of her mind had whispered back, Yes!

She was Niah reborn … born to live out Niah’s yearnings, Niah’s life.

No!

She was Niah, reborn, both mother and daughter to Azhure.

No!

She was Niah reborn, and what that meant was that she no longer had any say in her own life, because her life would now be lived according to Niah’s dictates, Niah’s dreams.

“No!”

She would live her life locked in the arms of Niah’s lover.

“I am not Niah!” she whispered, low and fierce. How could she be?

“Zenith! Listen to me!” Now Caelum was before her, his face was determined, his voice hard. “Zenith, you will have to adjust, but you will be able to –”

“No! No! No!” Zenith wrenched herself from Caelum’s grasp and stumbled across the room. With vicious movements she tore the letter into shreds and threw the pieces into the fire.

“Niah is dead!” Not living in her. Not! Had this misplaced ghost always been hiding in her bodily spaces, waiting for a moment when she could – no! She could not even think it!

“No!” Zenith screamed one last time and fled from the chamber.

Caelum stood in the middle of his chamber, staring after her, trying to make sense of her reaction. It had been a shock, of course … but surely if she calmed down, thought it through, and accepted it, then it would be easier. Perhaps she’d best be left alone for a while. Perhaps all she needed was time.

Then Caelum remembered how WolfStar had kissed RiverStar, and his eyes clouded over. Not RiverStar! No! Better Zenith, better by far. Zenith must learn to accept WolfStar, and WolfStar surely would not harm her if he loved her.

But …

“Leave her alone for a few days, WolfStar,” he said into the empty room, but he spread the words over and through Tencendor with his power, seeking out the Enchanter. “Give her time.”

Somehow he felt, if not saw, WolfStar’s predatory grin.

12 Council of the Five Families (#ulink_4d1a0133-82d1-5c79-8d58-da9e6f90a994)

The Great Hall of Sigholt sat silent, waiting, as the morning sun danced down through the high arched windows set among the massive roof beams. Banners, pennants and standards hung from walls and beams, their fields and borders rippling slightly in the warming air. From the windows the silvery-grey walls fell unfettered for twenty paces, eventually dividing into immense arched columns, behind which shifted the shadowy spaces of the cloisters. The floor was utterly bare, the newly scrubbed and sanded flagstones gleaming almost ivory in this bright light.

In the very centre of the Hall sat a great circular golden oak table. Seven chairs were arranged about it.

About eight paces from this great table, and between it and the empty fireplace, were arranged some three smaller tables, each draped with black cloth and with a dozen chairs behind them.

The notaries were first to enter, their faces solemn with importance, their scarlet robes stiff with self-worth. Behind them came their secretaries – arms bustling with ledgers, accounts, papers, scrolls and the minutiae of a nation’s life – and their scribes, carrying the quills and inkwells of final judgment. Finally there was a brief scuttling of messenger boys, too overcome with the occasion to be anything but round-eyed and obedient.

Once the bureaucracy had arranged themselves at the black-draped tables, the messenger boys waiting behind them amid the columns, the honour guard entered. Three Wing of the Strike Force, unarmed, stood about the walls of the Great Hall, their black uniforms merging with the dimness behind the columns. When they were still, WingRidge led in twenty-five of the Lake Guard, who took a prominent position, standing in a ring ten paces back from the central circular table.

All the Council needed now were the main actors.

Of those, StarSon Caelum entered first. He wore black, as was his custom, but his face was far more careworn than usual. Without fuss he seated himself at the table. And then, in a procedure initiated by Caelum when he first assumed the Throne of the Stars, the heads of the Five Families entered simultaneously, each from a different door. They strode to the central table, their boot heels clicking, arriving to stand behind their chairs as simultaneously as they had entered the hall. All were unarmed, their swords left back in their chambers.

They waited. From the central doors Isfrael emerged.

As one they all turned to Caelum, and bowed.

“I thank you for your attendance here this day,” he said. “Be seated.”

Askam sat on Caelum’s immediate right, Zared his left. FreeFall sat next to Askam, Isfrael next to Zared. Sa’Domai and Yllgaine took the seats immediately opposite Caelum. There was nothing on the table before the men, save their differences.

“My friends,” Caelum said in a voice that, although soft, was so well modulated it carried easily to the men at the table, and to the notaries and secretaries eight paces away. “I bid you welcome to Sigholt for this Council, and I express my regrets that it should be convened so hastily and so soon after our last Council.

“However, as you are all aware, there are matters which need to be discussed and decided among us. Chief among these matters is the issue of the taxes that Prince Askam has been forced to levy on the West. Over the past few weeks Askam has imposed taxation on goods moved by land or water through his territory, as well as on those families deciding to emigrate to the North.”

“‘Forced’ is hardly the word I’d use,” Zared muttered, his grey eyes on Askam.