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As I write this, it is the first day of the new season, the first day of the new year. The moon is full, and the priests and priestesses assure us that the Goddess is pleased. All omens are good. However, our beloved Empress Cyn has become what the charitable call volatile, and I call downright unhinged.
On this day, I have just returned from being summoned to court. I was summarily ordered to raise the war wards around the Reach, to make our borders impregnable against the hordes that are poised to invade.
At this time of writing, we are not at war with anyone.
There are no hordes.
I consider trying to explain this to our Empress in the vain hope that she will rise out of the fog of madness and heed me, but then one of her toadies oozed forward. This man is of the breed that seems to exist only to worm his way into a position of power, and abuse whatever power he gains.
I quote his words here, verbatim.
“The Prince of Xythicz has offered our Empress the gravest of insults, and this cannot go unanswered. Our armies are mobilising, and we must prepare for retaliation.”
Please don’t waste your time looking for Xythicz on a map. It does not exist in the reality that we dwell in. It exists only in the fevered mind of the Empress. There was no insult, apart from our preparing for war when there was none.
And the dripping head of the now former Chancellor suspended from the ramparts of her tower suggests that truth is not welcome here under her rule. And as I value my head where it is, I bowed and told her that as she commanded, I would obey.
After all, who is to know whether the wards are actually raised or not?
My initial idea to raise the wards in name only failed before it could even begin. As is tradition, I have picked from the ranks of the apprentices several to study directly under myself. Against tradition, one of these barely has any power, refuses to study, and should have been on the point of being dismissed from the Tower. However, she is the granddaughter of the Empress, and is second in line for the throne.
It is well known that the ritual to raise the wards needs at least two to conduct it. Considering her personality, Calla would take it as an insult if I were not to choose her as my assistant. And I believe that she has absorbed enough of the teaching that we have tried to push into her head that she could tell if the ritual was faked or not.
Here, I must confess that my feelings for Calla are not entirely proper. I am her master, and she is my student, and there my affection should end. But I find myself watching her when she cannot see me, studying her movements, admiring her beauty. In the darkest night, when I lie awake, I wonder what it would be like to touch her, skin to skin. I wonder what it was take to remove the haughty look from her face, and make her beg and plead. And if she, sly and cunning as she is, knew any hint of my feelings for her, then she would surely use them against me, to advance herself forward in the ranks of the apprentices, as she believes is her due.
Once I realised that a ritual had to be performed, and that Calla would insist on taking part...I was troubled. I have sworn myself to the advancement of magic, to the protection of the people of the Reach. To use a ritual, to use my power for my own personal gain seemed utterly alien to me, and yet I could not shake the idea from my head. To have Calla at my mercy, to do with what I chose...that was temptation.
Ironically, it was Calla herself who put the idea in my head. She was holding court in the library, laughing and chatting with her coterie. Of course, the news had spread, that the Reach would shortly go to war, but the young students did not seem to understand the gravity of what was happening.
Calla was animated, her eyes flashing as she discussed how she would have responded if she were Empress. She was utterly glorious in her arrogance.
If she were Empress.
Could it be that easy?
As you know, my successor, the answer was yes. It could be that easy. I am the High Sorceress for a reason. To craft a ritual to release Cyn to the mercy of the Goddess, before she could destroy us all was easily within my power. To craft a ritual to raise the wards of our borders, so that our inner turmoil could not be influenced from outside was straightforward. It was harder to plant subtle seeds in Cerise, so that she would deem herself unfit for the throne, and pass it to her daughter, but I was still successful.
Calla.
In this, she could be either my greatest ally, or the thorn in my side. And so, after all that I had done to ensure the safety of the Reach, doing this one last little thing to save it was of no consequence. It was merely a bonus that in saving the Reach, I pleased myself.
I am High Sorceress no longer.
Instead I am Empress-Consort. Bonded in blood and bone, by the grace of the Goddess to Empress Calla. The runes painted in our mingled blood served their purpose, binding us tighter together than mere words. She still believes that it was an accident, that the magic we created demanded a price.
I will not tell her otherwise.
The Reach will endure.