Grey Sister (Book of the Ancestor 2)

Sera had fallen to her knees, hands at her throat, crimson with the blood pulsing between her fingers. Safira stood behind her, knife held steady, its edge scarlet. Sherzal had shaken off her chain and moved from the rail. Several of her house guards flanked her as she approached her throne.

Glass spat out a bitter, black mess from her mouth, pressing her puckered lips into a grim line. Such an attack had always been a possibility but she had felt that the weight of probability lay with Sherzal throwing herself upon her brother’s mercy. If Crucical had any murderous instincts towards his siblings then they had certainly given him enough past excuses to act upon. Likely this time he would have banished Sherzal to the ice. The ice being the symbolic punishment, the banishment real. From the ice, no doubt burdened with funds, Sherzal would have been able to return to some other country along the Corridor and live a comfortable life in exile. That was how Glass had anticipated events unfolding. However, she had always known that the chance Sherzal would throw caution to the wind and take to violence was a real one.

Sherzal reached her throne and turned in an imperious swirl of white. “My friends, lords of the Sis, I brought you here not just for the pleasure of your company but to make an announcement.”

Sera pitched forward with a clatter and lay still in the spreading pool of her blood. Melkir, ashen-faced, bared his steel and went to stand with the judges, placing himself between them and Safira.

“The moon is falling.” Sherzal stood before her throne, hands moving to underscore her words. “The ice is pressing, closing its jaws upon the empire, squeezing all of us from the lowest peasant on the margins to each of you, my brothers and sisters of the Sis. The same ice advances on the Durns and on the Scithrowl, and on their most distant borders it presses equally on the witch-cults of Barron and the Kingdom of Ald.”

Lord Jotsis stood up from his chair. “Your servant just murdered an Inquisition enforcer! I demand an explanation, not a lesson in geography!”

“My brother cannot save this empire!” Sherzal carried on as if Lord Jotsis were still silent and seated. “His armies can barely contain the Durns. Our coast is washed by the Marn but three miles out it might as well be called the Durnsea.” She gestured east, waving an arm towards the banqueting hall. “When the Scithrowl come they will not be stopped. These mountains have been all of the empire’s strength in the east but they are no longer tall enough to hold back this tide.”

The scattered protests at Sherzal’s assertion rose above a background of worried silence. Word of the Scithrowl numbers had been spreading westward like a plague.

“The moon is falling!” Sherzal raised her arms. “Listen to the words. We say ‘When the moon falls’ and by that saying we mean never . . . but I’ll repeat myself. The moon is falling.” She scanned the room, her stare challenging any dissent. “The moon is falling but it has not fallen yet. It will fly a lifetime more, and another perhaps, but in that time the northern ice will hasten its advance towards the southern.

“What do the Scithrowl want with us, my lords? Why brave the harsh slopes of the Grampains? Why spend their blood here instead of racing across the hills of the Ald?” Sherzal allowed no time for answers. “The Ark can control the moon. She who controls the moon owns the Corridor. Adoma, battle-queen, knows this. She also knows that my brother would break the Ark asunder before he let it fall to those who had destroyed our empire, and rightly so.”

Lord Jotsis, still on his feet, found his voice again. “If the Ark controls the moon why is Crucical not exploiting such a power?”

“How could the moon be used to save us?” Lord Tacsis asked from his seat. If Glass was any judge it was a question posed to allow Sherzal to answer. Lord Tacsis had been alone in his lack of surprise at the unfolding of recent events.

“The Ark can aim the moon,” Sherzal said. “It can make the moon’s focus spend more time in one part of the Corridor, less in another. With such control we could push back the ice from the empire—”

“And the price?” Lord Jotsis demanded.

“Somewhere else the ice would advance more swiftly,” Sherzal replied.

From the muttering behind Lord Jotsis it seemed that many of the Sis didn’t consider this too high a cost.

“Why then does Crucical not use this power?” Lord Tacsis presented Carvon Jotsis’s first point as if it were his own. “The emperors have dwelled in the Ark for centuries.”

Sherzal acknowledged the question with a nod. “The Ark needs to send energy to the moon so that it may flex and turn. To provide sufficient energy four shiphearts are required, and because of an ancient covenant set to ensure unity of purpose between the tribes, they must be the hearts of ships from each of the four tribes. Without these shiphearts the Ark cannot even be opened.”

A ripple of understanding ran through the crowd, followed by confusion.

“There are only three shiphearts in all of the empire.” Lord Glosis, her voice rusty with age and querulous. “And even if you have stolen from the Church you do not own the other two!”

“Strength is built from alliances, Lord Glosis.” Sherzal exposed her shark’s smile. “The strength of the great bow comes from the alliance of different woods, each with their own contribution to make.” She turned to the judges. “I said I would not plead guilty or claim dispensation. But I did not plead innocent. The truth is that I ordered the shipheart taken from Sweet Mercy convent. I state it now, with no shame. Guilty of taking from a handful of nuns, isolated on a lonely rock, something of incalculable benefit to all of the empire. Guilty of putting all our futures before the elitism of the Grey and the Red, and before the selfish abstractions of Holy Witches.” Sherzal walked behind her throne, facing the room over its high back. “The Noi-Guin have a marjal shipheart.”

A muttered discontent rose immediately. Many families among the Sis had lost members to the Noi-Guin. The deaths were often commissioned by other families, most of the remaining casualties were ordered “in-house” as a means of advancing personal prospects within a family.

“If you would see an end to the Noi-Guin,” Sherzal said, “I know of a way that will succeed where hundreds of years and thousands of troops have failed. Bring them into the fold. Let them take their place at the high table as the Noisis and there will be no more Noi-Guin. Let them add their shipheart to our cause.”

“That’s two.” Old Lord Glosis, hunched within her robes despite the heat.

Glass found herself sweating with the crackle and roar from the hearth behind her. She began to unwind her chain though she had no hope of escape.

“Two.” Sherzal held up a pair of fingers. “And Adoma has the last two required.” She raised the remaining fingers on her hand.

“You plan to invade Scithrowl?” A lord at the back barked a laugh.

“I plan an alliance.” Sherzal lowered her hand.

“With the battle-queen!” Carvon Jotsis’s outrage had nowhere left to take him, so he sat down. Others rose to their feet—many of them—cries of “Treachery!” on their lips.

“You would sell us into Scithrowl chains?” Lord Mensis cried.

Shouts of “Heresy!” from the judges’ bench.