Rien's Rebellion: Kingdom

By C. Z. Edwards

Once upon a time, a nation’s fate depended on an informant.
Once upon a time, a woman knew the law and a man knew war.
Once upon a time, they all lived under a good Monarch’s leadership.

Until he was assassinated.

Galantier’s politics can be vicious, corrupt, and unfair, but not deadly. They’ve got a war they can’t win and dare not lose on their border. Everything depends on a practical, cooperative government, including a smooth succession.

Vohan made that easy. For twenty-five years, he’s been a steady, reasonable monarch and leader. He raised his daughter, Cazerien, to serve Galanteran justice. His nephew, Laarens, leads in the Galanteran army. They will follow him.

Now Vohan is dead, and Galanteran politics have turned bloody. Nothing will ever be the same.

Cazerien believes in the law — not just as her profession, but as a faith and the wisdom that allows her people to thrive. She knows Galantier’s game, and she plays it well. Laarens believes in Cazerien and the arts of war.

Their adversary doesn’t follow their rules.

And someone knows what their adversary must keep secret.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. Z. Edwards
• Release date: Aug 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732710801

C. Z. Edwards

C. Z. is a writer in Boulder, Colorado. She can often be found on Twitter, snarking about fashion, posting kitty pics, and word counts. She is a fan of the Oxford comma, epic fantasy, The West Wing, and cinnamon.

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Maps 

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Incitement: Winter, 1129 — Quin

I never should have come, I should have stayed in the field.

I pulled my collar tighter as I ducked through a torrent of icy rain overflowing the Karsai’s gutters. The Reception Hall felt no warmer than the street, but a marble room the size of a tosca-ball field just can’t be warmed, not without enough fire to blacken every wall in a half-hour.

Worse, there was a line. There’s always a line when you’re impatient. A slow line. I blew on my hands and studied the  bas-reliefs of events and people most Galantierans barely remember.  Could we build this today? Would we bother?

Impressive as the Karsai is, Galantier doesn’t need a cube of marble covering two acres.  A millennium ago, the Founders feared another black rain, but now...

This tenday’s bitter, freezing rain wasn’t mostly ash, but I understood why the Founders commissioned this fortress. I craved shelter, too. I can’t, I won’t do it, but I can’t get out of this alone. Bright god of the sun and holy mother of wisdom , send me somebody who’ll listen.

The reception steward had sent away everyone before me, but me, he eyed dubiously. I bored him, sure as sand and lime make mortar. Worse, I was inconvenient, and Sardan knows, someone like him didn’t like inconvenience. Worst of all, he must deal with me. Another Pronator might be shunted off with an appointment, but the Optimus ’ son had to be heard, no matter how acrid relations between the Razin and the Prava . I could see his boredom turning to resentment, and from there, I’d see petty revenge if I wasn’t careful. Why had I come, today of all days, to see the Monarch? Don’t I know the Razin is a busy man —

Just tell him — This professional skeptic would label me a nutter and hustle me out if I blurted the whole story. I wasn’t sure he wasn’t wrong. It’s about the Reform faction. It’s urgent, His Majesty needs to hear it.

Pronator Tiwendar, I am sorry —

Just tell him. I knew what I looked like — a journeyman engineer, fresh off two years building for the Army. Rough hands, windburnt skin, worn clothing, wild about the eyes. Wet. What wealthy scion of the second-most politically powerful house would be walking in full sun, much less in a killing storm? Only a madman or a crank. Not someone the Razin need hear. People like me are why professional skeptics like him exist. "Would I be here at all if my message wasn’t of the highest urgency?"

He didn’t roll his eyes in my face, but I heard his sigh as he departed and could supply the contempt. I paced the slate floor, unable to settle on a bench. If His Majesty won’t see me, I’ll ask for Laarens.

The Razin’s nephew would listen, though I didn’t want to drag him into this, because I endangered him, too. He needs no more messes, has no more power than me, not when it came to our fathers.

Parent, I amended. Laarens never acknowledged Mathes.

This... this couldn’t happen. What crime can I commit to make the Metropolita detain me for the next two days? Can I run where I won’t get caught? How far can I get in a half-day? I’m in the Karsai — how to get to the private quarters from here? —

I squashed that thought. I’d never find the Razin or the Prazia before some guard caught me. Though that might get me thrown in jail. Last resort, then.

I think I wore a furrow into the floor before the professional skeptic returned.

I didn’t expect the woman beside him, nor the two men trailing her. She stood in the doorway like a wisp of smoke, easily my height, but narrow and almost frail, excepting her expression. I’d only seen her on state occasions, in the finery befitting the Prazia of a kingdom over a thousand years old. Now, in her severe long coat and narrow skirt, with her nearly white hair coiled on the back of her head and spectacles perched on the tip of her nose, Prazia Bellacera descendara Galene looked like a misplaced, impoverished scholar, not the most powerful woman in Galantier. Except the ring of state on her left hand and that expression — command, power, cold calculation. I might have been an arch she was testing to ensure it would stand... and she wasn’t at all certain.

I dropped to one knee as the son of the Teregenitor who led the Loyal Opposition should. My gaze fixed on a cracked grout line in the stone floor. It would need to be relaid in the next few years. Is that a Land Ministry job? There aren’t many with sufficient security privileges. Will I get the assignment? Will I still be alive to do it?

Then I remembered, and dropped the defenses around my mind. Protocol’s never been my strongest attribute. Comes of being raised in the back of beyond and being four generations from nobody.

An invisible finger traced a line down my spine as she read my mind with a subtlety her severity belied. I head a snick I couldn’t interpret until the sigh followed.

Yes, Your Splendor, I am inconvenient. I’m sorry. I thought loudly, echoing it with Evocata . She could either read my thoughts or hear my mental voice, and those around us could not. I couldn’t be other than exasperating and frustrating today, given tomorrow’s ceremony. Please realize I’d not be here were it not vital you hear this.

" Rise, Tiwendar. Bellacera dat Ardenis, Prazia Royal, sounded both weary and interested. Accompany me."

Part One

26 Festivis, 1137, seven days after Midwinter — Laarens

Find them! I roared. "Get the Ingeniae Corps on it. Observers better be pulling puissance within four minutes! I pointed at two runners in the hall outside my office. You, Outriders. They’ll have their directions at the stable. You, summon a security detachment."

My uncle Vohan, Razin of Galantier, was late returning to Northwest Border One, my garrison. Only an hour. That’s half too much. The Monarch of Galantier travels with outriders and three carriages. If one breaks, it’s left behind. If the Razin becomes incapacitated, an outrider on a fast horse proceeds to the destination for assistance.

This progress had run like a well-oiled One-Armed Archer , despite Uncle’s best efforts. He shouldn’t be here at all. My cousin and I wasted a half-year planning this trip as her long-delayed first visit. Then he came instead. Which we should have expected. He’d spent the seventh, eighth and ninth days of this progress at Western Two. This morning’s heliograph report stated he left on time to return north. His security detachment of twenty heavy cavalry and two dozen guards, on fast horses, knew this territory like their own lovers. His ingeniae are their own weapons.  In four annual visits, he had never once been more than a few minutes late.

Most times, people say, oi, he’s an Ingenia , and you think, he knows where to dig a new well, or maybe he’s one of those special lawyers who read minds. Perhaps a weatherwitch who can sometimes build a ward or see what’s beyond a hill without taking a walk. That describes me, not Uncle. Seven hundred years ago, the House of Galene about-faced on Ingeniae in the bloodlines. The witchy, scandalous poor bastards who spent their lives locked in the attic suddenly sold high on the marriage market. Not that blood has much to do with it; prosaic parents produce Ingeniae all the time, and all the best breeding sometimes produces almost incompetent Ingeniae. Like me. My family’s bred for brains and Talent for thirty generations, and Uncle’s the pinnacle. He reads minds like print, which makes him one of the strongest Perceptives in Galantier. He’s an Evocator . He can project his mental voice to another over fifteen milliae. He has a touch of Impathia to read the emotional weather around him. And, like me, he has a hint of Providias .

Precognition. Neither of us are true Prognosticators, but we both have enough to know when a situation is about to slip sideways into dark water. Mine ruffled the hair on the back of my neck.

The man still sitting across my worktable sighed with exasperation. Laarens, relax. His Majesty can be distractible.

Too true. Any other time, I’d agree, but not with this feeling. I turned away from the Northwestern District’s Justiciar Advocate General . Paval and I were discussing the cases on his bench; when we’d needed to light lamps, I’d realized His Majesty had not arrived. Justiciar quan Bruckides, this exceeds your ambit. Please remove yourself before you become aware of sensitive information.

Laarens, he said, his lovely, pointed face growing astonished. He’s my Razin, too — and you —

Go. Now.

Fine. My lover stood and packed his document case with the wounded dignity of a wet cat. He could think I was irrational, but I couldn’t care. The Razin vanished on my watch. Bleeding ancestors, Uncle, you better be intrigued by some two inch tall plant nobody’s ever seen, I muttered to myself.

Security protocol states that when something unexpected happens around the Monarch, the Ascendara is immediately notified. The sun had set. Lynel, I shouted to my equerry, have Communications ready white phosphor and a post rider.

Paval snorted.

My heart thumped as I checked the map.

Uncle left Western Two at dawn. That garrison lay almost sixty milliae due south, but his route would follow the Western Highway along the Paxular border instead of driving straight through the Army’s border zone . He should have covered about eighty milliae today in relative safety, given the entire western border is at war at least half the year. The Western Highway route lay almost eighty milliae from the edge of the disputed zone. Which didn’t mean Uncle hadn’t had a fit of independence and changed plans. It also didn’t mean Spagnian raiders hadn’t gotten through. We can’t watch every inch of our border. Maybe a few Spagnian scouts broke the forward line. Uncle had above forty well armed, well trained warriors with him. A raiding party couldn’t harm him.

I’m being stupid. Given Uncle’s recent restlessness, and with a force at hand, if raiders attacked, he’d give chase. Delay explained. Uncle wouldn’t send an outrider ahead when he’d want all hands.

Except the outriders are mine. They knew the Razin’s security trumped everything, including his commands. Only Uncle, my cousin and I knew this plan in full. I gave his outriders their orders, and they obey me. They knew that if they deviated from plan, an outrider must ride for the next rendezvous. Uncle can be impetuous, but my outriders must live with me .

General Revinsel? An Ingeniae Corpsman skidded in, the badge on his shoulder bisected; a book and an eye, so a Perceptive and Observer. He looked too young to shave, so fresh from the conversatory and still shocked by thirteen tendays of unit training. Sir, we have a possible.

Where?

About thirty milliae south, off the highway.

Exactly halfway between here and Western Two. If they’d been ambushed, it had been midday. And outside of Uncle’s Evocative range for either garrison. Western Two would send a detachment if I flashed them a phosphor message. But Darensar’s new to the post and he doesn’t know Uncle. His background is engineering, not intelligence or law. Sun’s down, so a phosphor message will be visible out to the disputed zone. Spagna probably doesn’t have these codes, but more text just helps them code-break faster. My detachment rides in a quarter hour; it will take twice that to flash the message through two relay towers, then time to find Darensar and for him to figure out exactly where. Better if it’s us.

If something had happened, that might be a crime scene and we’d need solid information. An engineer wouldn’t help. I’m not the lawyer my cousin is, but I’ve got the basics.

Lynel, I shouted, I’m headed south. Wake sune Vandahl, tell him I’ll be back around dawn. My second would take the night shift in a couple hours, but out here, we never break the chain of command. That’s when the seventy-seven Hells open.

I better inform Cazerien. I coded a message, pocketed my codebook and dropped the message on my way to the stable. The Communications officer frowned at the column of numbers, much harder to transmit than words, but impossible to break without the book. He started climbing to the mirror platform to send it himself.

The stabler who brought out my Bravura had a fresh bruise on the back of his hand, so the damned nag had bitten again. I checked my escort. Twenty cavalry, half swordsmen, half archers. Three Ingeniae Corps, including one of a pair of powerful Evocators who can speak to each other over about fifty milliae. The other would remain here at the helio-tower as a relay. And Paval. His steady gaze told me he would happily waste time arguing about his presence, because he knew I knew I’d need him. I rolled my eyes at him, frowned and nodded once. Then we rode.

27 Festivis, 1137 — Cazerien

I hate this dream.

It wasn’t the nightmare; I only get that one after I read my security reports. No, this was one of a series. Not strictly frightening, just disquieting because they’re so bleeding frequent.

This was the dance dream, and in it, I’m enjoying dancing — which tells me it is fantasy because I hate dancing — with my chestnut haired Pronator. The dream is mostly memory; we revolve down the Presentation Hall. I look into his face, meeting his direct, dark blue eyes. We talk, sometimes about my work, though always my work now rather than what it was when the memory was formed. Sometimes we talk about his, though rationally, I know my mind merely fills in the script; I don’t know much of what he did. Engineering, or maybe architecture. Firewatch platforms, I think. He always smells of sandalwood, sage, and a sweetness for which I have no name, but sometimes there’s smoke, or pine sap or sulphur, too. His coat always appears to be fine, smooth indigo worsted, but that’s not always what my hand on his shoulder feels. I’ve touched as little as a single layer of fine, worn linen over wiry, solid shoulders, or several layers of wooly knitted tunic, or wet waxed canvas.

I want to wake, but can’t. This dream is better than the other two in the series. At least I don’t wake from this one with my body in full rebellion, aching for what I cannot have and feeling like my mouth is bruised from kisses I never received.

Part of me castigates myself for not governing my mind better. After eight years, the man himself must be dead, and we spoke for all of ten minutes. That my mind has embroidered this for so long must be a sign of incipient madness.

Do you know where the private library is? my sixteen year old dream-self says. I know where the dream will take me tonight. Now, I must wake. Better to be awake half the night than spend tomorrow with my nerves jangling.

Yes, Rien, he says. I know that’s wrong. He always called me Ascendency.

Cazerien, he says again. I pull away from him, trying to understand what has turned this well-worn script improvisational.

Rye-en, he says, but his voice is feminine, urgent, irritated. Cazerien Alzandra Lyria descendara Galene, wake up now.

My Elevation ball vanished and I opened my eyes to a single lamp on my desk. Avah, wrapped in a bedrobe and her hair hanging over her shoulder, stood over me. I fumbled for my pocket clock on the bedside table and squinted at the hands. Third hour of the morning. I didn’t get home until tenth hour of the night and didn’t fall asleep until nearly midnight. It’s not sixth, yet, I said, "and we needn’t be at Privy Council until seventh, and not to Morning Audience until eighth, and not to my bench until ninth. Why are you waking me?"

Oi, I didn’t ask for it, either, my assistant said. I was quite comfortable in a well-warmed bed with a lovely body, despite this freezing barn of a museum, but someone left orders not to be disturbed. Who would that be? Oi, right, you.

Right, I groused. My orders don’t apply to you, but they really should. I’m awake. What?

Message, and if it wasn’t coded into gibberish, I’d have dealt with it.

I growled low in the back of my throat and flung myself out of bed. The two cats nestled where my feet had been wriggled out from under the blankets and gave me hurt looks at being disturbed. Who’s your tumble? I thought Norden went home to Palisar. I pulled my bedrobe on as my feet ached from the