In its place was an open atrium. Three levels of wide circular balconies ringed a space that had been reworked with sculptures and potted plants of the sort that needed little care. (At least it wasn’t dusty anymore. The Arameri no longer neglected the underpalace, having realized it could hide secrets.) The atrium lacked the intentionally carefree feel of most Sky architecture, and I could see where the edges of each balcony had been too-hastily molded by the scriveners, leaving themerieaving th uneven and not as smooth as they should have been. Servants had cleaned up the rubble, but signs of the disaster were still there, for one who knew how to see.
I crouched at the edge of one of the balconies, bracing one hand on the thin railing, and touched the rough daystone of the floor. Echoes still reverberated in the stone — not echoes of sound, since those had long since moved on, but echoes of event. I closed my eyes and saw again what the stone had witnessed.
The Nowhere Stair. At the bottom of it, three children holding hands. (I marveled at how small Shahar had been then; already I had grown used to her older shape.) I watched the mortals’ faces change from smiles to alarm, felt the rising rush of wind, saw their hair and clothing begin to whip about as if they’d been caught in a tornado. They screamed as their feet rose from the floor; then they flipped entirely, twisting upside down. Only I did not budge, my feet seemingly rooted to the ground. Only their grip on each other and me held them down.
And the look on my face! In the memory, I stood with mouth slack, eyes distant and confused, brow ever-so-slightly furrowed and head cocked, as if I heard something no one else could, and whatever I heard had obliterated my wits.
Then my body blurred, flesh interspersing with white lines. My mouth opened and the stone beneath my fingertips gave one last microscopic shiver as a concussion of force tore loose from my throat. The Nowhere Stair shattered like glass, as did all the daystone around it and beneath it and above it. What saved the children was that the energy blasted outward in a spherical wave; they fell amid the rubble, bleeding and still, but not much of the rubble landed on them.
And when the dust cleared, I had vanished.
Taking my fingers off the stone, I frowned to myself. Then I said to the mortal who had hovered somewhere behind me, watching for the past ten minutes, “What do you want?”
He came forward, preceded by the familiar mingled scent of books and chemical phials and incense; by that I knew what he was before he ever spoke. “My apologies, Lord Sieh. I did not mean to disturb you.”
I rose, dusting off my hands, and turned to take his measure. An island man of late middle years, with salt-sprinkled red hair and a lined saturnine face that showed a hint of beard stubble. There was a fullblood mark on his brow, but he didn’t look Arameri or even Amn. And fullbloods rarely smelled of hard work. An adoptee, then.
“You the First Scrivener?” I asked.
He nodded, obviously torn between fascination and unease. Finally he offered me an awkward bow — not deep enough to be properly respectful but too deep for the kind of disdain a devout Itempan should have shown. I laughed, remembering Viraine’s cool, nuanced poise, and then sobered as I remembered why Viraine had been so good at things like that.
“Forgive me,” the man said again. “But the servants passed word that you were abroad in the palace, and … I thought … well, it seems natural that you would come to the scene of the crime, so to speak.”
“Mmm.” I slipped my hands intoere hands in my pockets, trying very hard not to feel uneasy in his presence. These were not the old days. He had no power over me. “It’s late, First Scrivener, or early. Don’t you Itempans believe in a full night’s rest before your dawn prayers?”
He blinked; then his surprise faded into amusement. “They do, but I’m not Itempan, Lord Sieh. And I wanted to meet you, which necessitated staying up late, or so my research suggested. You were known to be decidedly nocturnal during your” — his confidence faltered again —“time here.”
I stared at him. “How can you not be Itempan?” All scriveners were Itempan priests. The Order gave anyone with a knack for magic a single choice: join or die.
“About — hmm — fifty years ago? The Litaria petitioned the Nobles’ Consortium for independence from the Order of Itempas. The Litaria is a secular body now. Scriveners may devote themselves to whichever god, or gods, they wish.” He paused, then smiled again. “As long as we serve the Arameri, regardless.”
I looked him up and down, opened my mouth a little to get a better taste of his scent, and was stymied. “So which god do you honor?” He certainly wasn’t one of mine.