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  Evvy scowled. From the very beginning the God-King had treated her as a beloved sister. She had soon lost any shyness she could be expected to feel in his presence. “You always tell me to wait. I’ll have you know I am older than you —”

  “I am the two hundred and ninety-eighth God-King in a straight line of choice from the first God-King,” he replied as he did whenever she brought up their difference in age. “You will have to be as old as —”

  The stone beneath Briar’s feet had begun to shake. He sat hurriedly and pulled at Evvy’s arm. She signaled for the God-King to join them. Everyone outside was sitting as well.

  Briar heard the kind of grinding noise that brought landslides to mind. Looking across the river, he felt his stomach roll. He clapped his hands over his mouth to keep his very good breakfast where it was supposed to be. Stones that had fallen, gravel that had dropped off a cliff, dust that had settled after the skeletons had gone for their walk belonged on the ground. All of these things had no business rising into the air in front of the gap in the cliff. None of them should be entering that gap, nor should any of the boulders on the riverbank or the stones between the water and the cliff be rolling to it and climbing over one another in their eagerness to fill in the hole left by the skeleton statues. Now more stones rattled down the slopes of the mountain that stood behind the cliff. They hesitated only briefly on the edge of the drop, then rolled over. In a maneuver that left Briar feeling as if he had been inhaling strange smokes, the new stones fell not straight down, but in a curve, dropping into the hole where the rocks from below had still left gaps. Now, except for a few openings, the rectangular space that had provided the statues was filled.

  “Who did that?” Evvy cried. “Is that what Dedicate Dokyi meant when he said the mountains would clean up the loose rock?”

  “That is what he meant,” the God-King said, getting to his feet. “And I am glad the work is finished. I don’t like to leave before the cleaning-up is done. There have been accidents in the past.” He went to the edge of the rock slab and held his hands out palm up. Tilting back his head, he opened his mouth. Sounds came out, spoken in something other than the tiyon language that he’d used all morning with Briar and Evvy, the common tongue of the east. These words rolled along the canyon, grating on Briar’s bones. He pulled his tunic over his ears, willing to do nearly anything to make them stop. Evvy rose, her face alight, and listened until the God-King lowered his hands.

  Briar uncovered one ear. Normal sounds were returning to the canyon. He cleared his throat and got up. “What was that about?” he asked the God-King.

  “I was thanking the canyon,” the younger boy replied. “The shamans did it, of course, but the little gods appreciate it when I say something, too.”

  Evvy was slowly coming back to herself, her joy being replaced by her usual liveliness. Dedicate Dokyi found her as they waited for the servants to gather their tent and the cushions. He was a gnarled and sun-wrinkled man in his fifties, with dark eyes buried under heavy lids. His wide-lipped mouth, like his eyes, was framed by laugh lines. His knotted legs and muscled arms showed he was no stranger to hard work and plenty of it. Even his brown dedicate’s habit didn’t soften the hard shape of his body.

  “Nicely done back there earlier, Evvy,” he said, tweaking her nose. “I don’t suppose you could teach me how you made the stones overhead fall backward into the opening?”

  Evvy reached out with her hands, opened and closed them, then shook her head with regret. “I asked them to go that way,” she explained.

  Dokyi looked at Briar. “She asked them. I see them as tools to be set in place along the frame of a spell pattern, and your student treats them as partners in the work.”

  Briar, who asked plants to do things, smiled at the older man. At least Dokyi wasn’t hostile about the way in which Evvy worked, unlike many of the mages they had encountered in their travels.

  A pigeon caught their attention as it swooped to and fro, trying to fly past them into the tent. Briar spotted the small tube bound to one of the bird’s legs and moved Evvy out of the way so the bird could fly to a landing on the God-King’s shoulder.

  Servants rushed to complete the packing of the tent, as if the pigeon were a signal. Dokyi walked over to take the bird so the God-King could undo the ties around the delicate strip of paper. Once he had it, the God-King reached one hand into a pocket and brought out a selection of dried berries and seed. Dokyi took that and fed the bird as the boy read the message.

  “What is it?” Evvy demanded. The silence had stretched too long for her liking.

  Briar gripped one of her ears between his thumb and forefinger, giving that organ a gentle twist that promised to get harder if she did not behave. “Didn’t me and Rosethorn have that little talk with you about ‘affairs of state’ and you sticking your neb where it oughtn’t to go?” he asked in Imperial, the language they had taught Evvy to use. “You don’t go around asking kings about their messages!” The thought of Evvy being so impertinent to Duke Vedris, back home in Emelan, made Briar shiver. Vedris was a good old fellow for the most part, but when he got on his dignity, he could freeze someone’s hair off. And Evvy was more fragile than she acted.

  “It seems that although the Green Pass is not open and we cannot get word to or from Inxia, the great emperor of Yanjing is more than capable of sending messengers through Ice Lion Pass,” the God-King said. The look on his face was quite strange. “This, though my weather mages tell me that Ice Lion will not be open for at least two months. A messenger from the emperor waits in my audience chamber bearing letters for me and for Rosethorn.”

  The imperial messenger was sleek and elegant, dressed in three overlapping silk robes, each heavily embroidered. Briar’s fingers itched for an eastern-style ink brush and a pad of paper sheets, knowing that his foster-sisters would never forgive him if he couldn’t describe imperial fashions and decoration perfectly. He wondered what such plain dressers as Dokyi and Rosethorn made of the messenger’s yellow, green, and black garments, or of the black silk cap with wings that were stiffened to stick out straight on either side of the man’s head. It was impossible to tell from their faces, which were as blank as any stone. Dokyi wore the plain brown habit of the Earth temple here in the east, with the black border of the initiate, or mage. Briar was relieved to see that Rosethorn had cleaned up from her morning’s work with plants. She wore a clean habit in the Earth green of the western Living Circle temple, also with the initiate’s black border. Her short, dark red hair was still wet. Months spent indoors had kept her skin the ivory shade she preferred, while she held summer suns and wrinkles at bay with a large selection of creams she made herself. Her large brown eyes missed nothing, ever. That was why Briar kept Evvy half hidden in back of him now. She ought to have been stone like the rest of the people in the room, but instead he felt her shake with silent giggles. If he had to guess the source of her merriment, it was the messenger’s hat. It did look silly, but Briar could control himself.

  “Rosethorn’s watching,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Do you want to spend another week washing our clothes yourself?”

  That calmed Evvy down. She respected Rosethorn like no one else, not even her first teacher and friend, Briar.

  As if she knew she was being discussed, Rosethorn moved until she stood next to them. Dokyi came with her.

  The Gyongxin guards stood at attention. Two of their number struck a pair of large brass gongs, while one of the rotating number of priests from Gyongxe’s many temples cried, “The God-King is here!”

  Together with some residents of Gyongxe and a handful of other visitors, Rosethorn, Briar, and Evvy bowed low. The boy ruler walked briskly into the room through a side entrance and climbed the steps to the backless pile of cushions that served the God-King as a throne. There he sat, lotus fashion, propping an elbow on one knee, and looked at the Yanjingyi group. As soon as he was settled, his advisers ran up the steps to stand on either side of the thr
one. Dokyi remained with Rosethorn and the two young people, a gesture Briar appreciated.

  The moment they took their places, one of the Yanjingyi group, a barrel-chested man in black silk trimmed with yellow satin, stepped forward. He began to speak in a deep, thundering voice that boomed in the huge throne room. Briar didn’t recognize the language. He glanced back at Evvy, who looked as confused as he felt. Briar didn’t check Rosethorn’s face. He doubted that this was a language she knew, since he actually understood more languages than she did.

  “It’s the language of the imperial court in Yanjing,” Dokyi said in a voice that went no farther than the four of them. “It’s as old as the imperial line, that’s what they say. If they caught anyone not a noble or not of the imperial household speaking it, that person would die the death of ten thousand cuts.”

  Briar looked down so no one could see the face he made. He tried to remember if he’d ever heard of anyone dying for a language before.

  The herald stopped speaking. At the sound of rustling cloth, Briar looked up again. Everyone in the imperial party, led by the chief messenger, had knelt on the floor. Now, in unison, they placed their hands on the floor, leaned down, and touched their heads to the cold tiles. They straightened, then repeated the head-touching exercise seven more times. Finally everyone but the messenger halted, their heads against the floor. The messenger straightened and began to speak to the God-King. He did not stand, and the language he used sounded much like that spoken by the herald.

  Evvy could stand it no longer. Speaking quietly, she told Briar in Chammuri, “Only eight bowings and touchings! They insulted him! They give the emperor nine bowings and touchings!” Chammuri was the language she had spoken when they first met. She was taking a chance on it being unknown to anyone from Yanjing. Traveling messengers might know Imperial, which was spoken over many western lands.

  “Maybe they think they were complimenting him, giving him almost as many as their own master,” Briar murmured in the same language. “Now hush.”

  “Your accent is a delight to the ear, and your facility with words a pleasure to any listener,” the God-King told the messenger in tiyon. “You will forgive me if I ask you to favor us with what I do not doubt is equal mastery of tiyon. My guests, whom you seek, have never been granted the opportunity to study the golden phrases of the imperial speech, nor will they have the years it takes to master it as you have done.” Briar noticed that he said nothing about his own obvious mastery of the Yanjingyi language.

  The messenger bowed first to the God-King, and then, half turning, to Rosethorn. “Forgive this unworthy servant of a great and glorious master,” he said in perfect tiyon. “If offense was given, I offer my life to blot it out.”

  “A bit extreme, don’t you think?” Briar heard Rosethorn murmur to Dokyi. Briar turned his snort of laughter into a cough. By the time he had gotten himself under control the messenger was making a flowery speech in tiyon to the God-King, passing on greetings from the emperor in the east. Briar ignored the fellow, who added half bows and gestures as he talked, to look at Rosethorn. The corner of her naturally red mouth was tucked deeper than usual, a sign that Briar knew meant she was contemptuous of the messenger’s overwrought manners. At least she had not crossed her arms, the signal that trouble was brewing behind her brown eyes.

  Evvy nudged Briar with a bony elbow. She had noticed the tucked corner of Rosethorn’s mouth, too, even if she hadn’t heard her comment.

  The messenger got to his feet as gracefully as a dancer. Once he was upright, he reached into one wide sleeve and produced two scrolls, each bound with gold streamers and secured with what looked like green jade buckles. He touched them both to his forehead, then offered one to the God-King.

  Does he think the God-King is going to run down the steps to get it? Briar wondered.

  If the messenger did, he was disappointed. One of the generals who had been in residence in the palace all winter walked slowly down to the messenger to accept the scroll for the God-King. Only when the general had worked several spells over it without result did he let the boy ruler have the message.

  Once the God-King was reading his scroll, the messenger turned until he faced Dokyi and Rosethorn. “Is this unworthy one correct?” the messenger asked. “Has this one the honor to address the First Dedicate and Dedicate Initiate of the First Temple of the Living Circle, and Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn of Winding Circle temple?”

  “I am Dokyi,” the older man said without bowing. “This is Rosethorn.”

  The messenger bowed slightly and offered the other scroll. “Then I am honored to present my master’s invitation to Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn and her companions,” he said. His dark eyes flicked over Briar and Evvy. He bowed, very slightly, but there was still respect in his voice as he said in tiyon, “Am I mistaken? Have I also the honor to stand before Nanshur Briar Moss and his student, Evumeimei Dingzai?” Nanshur was the tiyon word for mage.

  Briar was impressed in spite of himself. Few adults gave him his proper title, refusing to believe that someone his age had achieved a mage’s certification and power. He returned the bow and nudged Evvy with his foot until she did the same. Since he had been at the courts of royalty and the houses of nobles enough by now to navigate their mazes of manners, Briar said politely in tiyon, “May I have the blessing of one’s own name, so that I may thank one’s ancestors for the pleasure of a son with such grace and perception?”

  “I can’t believe you just said that,” Evvy muttered.

  Briar burned to give her a proper scolding. Instead he kept his face pleasant and watched the messenger. If the man heard Evvy, he showed no sign of it, but bowed a little more deeply to Briar. Were the movements all measured out for him? It made Briar wonder if he had a measuring stick at home, and if he practiced bowing to each particular notch on it so he would know just how far to bow to a lord, or a mage, or someone who had paid him a compliment.

  “Forgive this humble messenger, gracious nanshur, but when this humble servant of the emperor, great is his name, Son of all the Gods, Master of Lions, speaks in the voice of so great and puissant a master, his own pathetic name and being is obliterated. Only the name of the mighty Emperor Weishu Maorin Guangong Zhian, sixth of the Long Dynasty, remains.” The courier cocked his head slightly, his black eyes glittering with more than a little touch of mischief.

  “And if we wanted to ask how was the weather in the passes, would we say, ‘Excuse me, you?’” Evvy wanted to know. “How could the emperor in his distant palace know the weather in the mountains?”

  Briar wouldn’t call the swift look that the courier shot Evvy a glare. Distaste, perhaps. The man found a smile — a tiny one — to plaster on his face. That was what he offered to Evvy. “But it was the Eagle of the Heavens, the Leveler of Mountains, who arranged our easy journey through the Ice Lion Pass,” he said coolly. “Such is his eagerness to meet Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn, Nanshur Briar Moss, and even the student of such acclaimed magic workers that our dread master banished the storms and split the snows in Ice Lion Pass to allow this unworthy messenger to bring the gracious imperial invitation to you.”

  Rosethorn finally looked up from the scroll, her brown eyes shining. “It — this is amazing.” She looked at Dokyi, first, then the God-King. “I had told you that our plans were to travel through Yanjing with a Trader caravan when the passes cleared, then sail home from Hanjian. Our hope — my hope, and Briar’s — was to visit as many gardens and gardeners along the way. I never thought … I didn’t expect …” She took a breath and let it out. “Briar, the emperor has invited us to visit the Winter Palace in Dohan. He is offering to show us his gardens there himself.”

  “You are also invited to be guests, all three of you, at the celebration of the Son of the Gods’ fiftieth birthday,” the messenger said. “It is the rarest of honors. There will be lords of Yanjing who will be gnashing their teeth with vexation that they have not been included.”

  “The gardens at the i
mperial palace in Dohan,” Rosethorn whispered, running her fingers over the raised gold letters on the scroll of invitation. Her perfectly arched eyebrows snapped together in a worried frown. To the God-King she said, “Will you be offended if we leave soon? Because you’ve been so good to us, and I really don’t want to offend you.”

  Briar looked at the God-King. Did he dare say no, given his concerns of that morning? He had not sounded as if he looked forward to any kind of conflict with the great emperor of Yanjing.

  The God-King smiled at Rosethorn. “Keep you from the most famous gardens in our part of the world? I would not be so cruel. You have given us four glorious months of your company. I am only sorry to lose you as I would have been if you had left us according to your original plan, in six weeks.” To the messenger he said, “I do hope you will let them have two days to pack and let us say our farewells.”

  The messenger faced the God-King, knelt once more, and touched his forehead to the floor. Those who had come with him had not budged from their positions in all that time. “My glorious master has ordered his humble servant to give all obedience to the God-King of Gyongxe,” he replied.

  “I suppose that means yes,” Briar heard Rosethorn murmur to Dokyi now that the messenger wasn’t looking at her.

  Briar let a sigh of relief escape him. She was her usual mocking, hardheaded self. It was understandable that she would be excited by the chance to see the emperor’s famous, personal, gardens, but after the God-King’s remarks and all of the rumors and stories about the emperor that Briar had heard over the last four months, Briar wanted Rosethorn at her most hardheaded. With Rosethorn and Evvy both to look after, Briar wanted all of the good sense he could find, buy, or steal.

  OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF DOHAN

  WINTER CAPITAL OF THE YANJING EMPIRE

  FIVE WEEKS LATER, THE SECOND WEEK OF SEED MOON