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By the time Cala awoke it was already over. Edrehasivar VII had abdicated, and Varenechibel V’s reign had begun. He witnessed the paperwork, signed in Edrehasivar’s own hand. All proper, all according to rights. Of the emperor emeritus there was no sign. He had made haste, the Lord Chancellor explained, in his eagerness to be free of the weight of duty.
Cala was no fool. The Edrehasivar he knew, half-tongue though he may have been, would never have abandoned his empire—or his nohecharei—without a farewell.
The knowledge almost came as a relief. It would be one thing if he had been caught unawares when the coup came, knowing it was his own failure that had doomed his emperor, unable to defend the throne with his life like Hanevis Athmaza. The oath he had sworn months ago had been the difficult part—difficult for him, and even more difficult for Edrehasivar to accept. The rest would be simple.
But he could not be at ease, not completely. Because if the coup had not come on his guard, it had come on Dazhis’. Whatever feelings of inadequacy he had been spared, Dazhis bore instead.
Cala exchanged a glance with Deret. The soldier would return to the custody of the Untheileneise Guard, just as Cala would to the Athmaz’are. Would they be reunited at the corners of Edrehasivar’s grave? If the Chancellor was still propagating this “abdication” nonsense, they might have to wait months, years, before a body was returned to the Untheileneise'meire.
Thy soul will find rest with Dazhis’, he told himself. However long thy ashes must wait.
Deret gave a nod in acknowledgement. “We found your ways strange, at first, but we bear you no ill will. It was an honor to serve with you.”
Cala bowed. “Likewise.”
He wished he could have said as much to Edrehasivar. He remembered how soberly he’d heeded the Adremaza’s warning, and how scrupulously he’d striven to act accordingly, trying to live up to the prestige expected of a nohecharis. How Edrehasivar had frozen when Cala had said they could not be friends. How small that all seemed now that the man was dead, or at best on his way to a monastery.
He and Dazhis had known, when they were chosen, that one or the other would be on duty at all times. They would have no privacy, no time together. But they had not hesitated. They shared everything else in life; what greater pride than to share this, too? If he could understand that kind of love, strange as it might seem to another, he could have understood whatever it was Edrehasivar needed.
Cala took Usharsu’s Ladder step by step, as he had done so many times before. That was the thing about ladders: if you were going to fall off, it was safer to do so early. And there was never room for two people to walk exactly side by side. Yet he would not have traded anything for the view from the top.
It sustained him, to know Dazhis would be there at the last. The same revethahal would toll for them both. Their blood would mingle together in the Lesser Courtyard. The oaths that they had sworn together, they would fulfill together. No matter whose fault it had been, no matter how long it took for Edrehasivar to join them. There was comfort in that.
The mazei did not seem to be expecting him. There was no sign of where he should seek his shroud, but his former quarters had not yet been refilled—there were not many dachenmazei. So he returned there, carefully took off the blue robe, and folded it neatly. Then he waited.
Hours had flown like minutes with Edrehasivar beneath his gaze, the nohecharei constantly on alert, posed for a threat, even from someone like Archduchess Vedero or Dachensol Habrobar. Alone, minutes crept by like hours. Until Dazhis burst in to see him stark naked.
“What’s toward?” Dazhis asked, blithely.
“What’s toward with thee?” Cala echoed. “Wert thou hurt? Where hast thou been?”
“Hurt? No, I don’t—” Dazhis noticed the robe. “Hast anticipated my arrival dearly!”
“Thinkst thou to mock such a tragedy? Strip thyself! We are no longer worthy to wear the blue.”
Dazhis looked back and forth between the robe and Cala. Then, gently, he stepped over, unfolded it, and held it up before Cala. “Clothe thyself. Thou hast failed in nothing.”
“And thou?” Cala blurted, not moving. “What has happened?”
“Edrehasivar has chosen to abdicate,” said Dazhis. Slowly, like explaining it to a child. “The Adremaza may ask me to serve as Varenechibel’s nohecharis. Thou’rt under no burden. Seest thou? Thou’rt free! We may be—together—day in and day out. More, once another dachenmaza comes along who is ready to be nohecharis.”
“Thou wert there,” Cala pressed. “What happened? To Edrehasivar?”
“Thou knowst. He never had fondness for the throne.”
“Yet he took our oaths. Bitterly, grudgingly, but he did. He would not lay them down so easily.”
“Cala.” Dazhis pushed the robe towards him. “Clothe thyself, or let us speak of things more fit for thy state of undress.”
It was not like Dazhis to be so evasive. Increasingly mad possibilities came to mind, dismissed themselves, until there came one that his best logic could not banish. “Knewest thou?”
“Cala.”
“Thou brought about this catastrophe? Thou wert accomplice?”
“Cala,” Dazhis repeated. “Listen. We are in no disgrace, neither of us! Cease thy prattling.”
Cala’s disgrace, if he understood correctly, was at least the sort that would end with the revethvoran. Dazhis’ ran far deeper. “Why? Why would you betray your oaths?”
“I betrayed nothing. My loyalty is to the throne of the Ethuveraz, which I will serve when Varenechibel fills it. Edrehasivar was soft, uncertain. No elf he.”
“He was a finer elf than thou!”
“I would not have done it had I known thou wouldst be so...so obstinate. Always thou hast been too humble. Contentest thyself with this?” He shook the robe, shabby where Dazhis’ was pristine. “With seeing thy...thy beloved as second nohecharis?”
“I would have yielded thee the role as First, right gladly! Hadst thou only asked—”
“Thinkst thou I wished us both to be nohecharei at all? Condemned to never touching, never sleeping together?”
“I have thought nothing else for nigh-three months! Hast misled me?”
“What could I say, when thou wert so—so—eager! Like a novice in class, always yearning for the dachenmaza to call upon thee!”
“Wert thou not just as eager? Just as avid to serve?” But as he spoke, Cala saw the dismay in Dazhis’ face.
“The oaths I have spoken are as nothing beside the oath I swore to thou in my heart.”
“Do not,” Cala hissed. He knew so many spells to hurl at foes, but nothing to calm the anger that pulsed between him and Dazhis. “Do not claim you did this wickedness for us, or for us, or so that we could be together. If you think as much, you knew us not at all.”
Dazhis dropped the robe. “Pull thyself together. It is unbecoming of a dachenmaza to blubber so.” Then he turned and left.
Whatever the Adremaza tried to do, Cala knew, he would consummate the revethvoran. His oaths, his honor, were what had upheld him. Without them, he would be worse than dead. As bad as Dazhis.
But he would do it alone.