Firian Rising

3. Kiria

3

Kiria

This was the night to try again.

A small painting crashed off the wall. “Shhhh!” Kiria hissed. It was probably Atty’s fault; he was clumsier than his brother Jori even though he was two years older.

The three of them crouched low, hurrying through the wide corridors. Living in Brithnem’s palace, Mon Párinath, had its advantages. They didn’t need to see the grand sculptures and potted trees to know which way to turn next. Since Kiria lived on the opposite side from the Calthwaite brothers, in the royal wings that fanned back into the gardens toward the sea, they had met in the front section of the palace. In her excitement, Kiria had jogged the entire way from her chamber near her mother, the Second Keeper, all the way to the Main, where important official meetings took place during the day.

All they could see was darkness but they knew that they were approaching the huge doors. No one stood guard, as they had last week after reports that people were sneaking into the grand hall—running around, creating disturbances. Atty reached up and cracked the carved door open enough to admit the three of them.

Not so much as a lantern shone around the Main tonight.

“Jori? Did you bring a match?” Kiria whispered.

“Of course I did,” he replied, and a bright light struck up and underlit his face. He went over to the nearest round lantern hanging from the wall. He wasn’t tall enough to light the wick inside and the match burned close to his fingers. “Atty! Take it!” he said, reaching up.

“Here. Strike me another one,” said his brother.

Jori shook out the first one and there was a moment of blackness before he fumbled and lit a second. Gingerly, Atty took the match and lit the lantern. It was still too dark to see most of the room, so he lit one more.

Now they could dimly see the entire space. Banners, light blue and deep purple, hung like clouds from the ceiling, each one marked with a laird flower, the symbol of peace. Where the wall met the high ceilings, verses from the Sacred Scroll had been etched into the stone. Kiria’s mother said the words were there to remind them of their devotion to God. Three large carved thrones, one for each monarch, stood side by side on a raised platform in front of them.

Smooth stone tiles, the pattern broken by a large circular mosaic in the center, stretched across to a crowd of chairs. Set in the floor, the mosaic depicted Shane and Mari Calthwaite at the center and their four children in four quadrants around them. Three of the children began the lines of Keepers, but the fourth son died and was called the Father of the Lost Line. Kiria’s favorite had always been her ancestor Maril, the only woman. She was depicted in blue and white, holding a knife and a sprig of lavender.

She knew that Atty and Jori preferred their own Line, the Third, which still carried the Calthwaite name. Only the Second Line, passed on from daughter to daughter, kept Maril’s married name: Arioc. Calthwaite for the men, Arioc for the women.

Statues of four war heroes, including Shane and Mari, towered twelve feet high in their respective corners. In the light of the flickering lanterns, the figures appeared to smile and wink at the intruders.

Kiria ran over to the raised chairs and sat in the middle one, where her mother usually sat. Her feet barely touched the floor. “What do you think?” she asked grandly as she laid her arms on the armrests.

“Wait!” Atty cried as he jumped up and sat on her left. They both gazed imperiously down at Jori, who stood alone in the middle of the floor.

“That’s not fair,” he said.

“Well, you can’t be Keeper!” said Atty. As the second-born, Jori wasn’t in line for any of the three thrones.

“You wouldn’t like it anyway,” said Kiria, looking out over the group of smaller chairs facing them. That’s where the advisors sit. And there is the place for the Keepers’ families… “This is weird.”

Atty nodded solemnly.

Jori huffed and strode over to the place where the First Keeper, Cúron, sat. “I’ll sit here,” he said.

“You can’t sit there.” Atty leaned over to see around Kiria. “Even if I died or something and you had to be a Keeper, you’d sit in this seat.”

“I’ll sit where I like.”

Kiria kicked at the floor with her feet. “Kader will sit there before you do, Jori,” she told him. Kader was Cúron’s two-year-old son, the heir to the first throne, just as she and Atty were heirs to the second and third.

Jori rested his chin on his fist and sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Keepers do boring things anyway. People say they do exciting stuff, but Dad does boring things all the time. Lucky you, Atael.”

“It’s not that boring,” Atty said. “Dad’s been all the way out to the Pillars of Awel before. And he went to visit the Tanyuin Academy once, remember?”

“Oh yeah.” A dreamy look stole over Jori’s face. “I want to go to the Academy.”

Kiria wasn’t so sure she’d want to visit. Her mother said that the Tanyu protected the Kingdom, but they acted as though they were out for themselves, like a tiny kingdom of their own. Remembering the strong, stern men that came to the palace maybe once a year unsettled her. They didn’t seem very nice. They looked like they were ready to hurt everybody who disagreed with them. Even though they were a little… terrifying, she liked watching them. It was like watching the large desert cats she had seen in the royal zoo when she visited the large neighboring kingdom of Charäkhnem a few years before.

Once, Jori dared her to stick her foot out and see if she could make a Tanyu trip. She tried it but he only adjusted his pace to step over her. He hadn’t even glanced down.

“Why does every boy want to go to the Academy?” she asked. “We have the Amiran Academy right here.”

They both looked shocked. “Are you serious?” Jori asked, sounding scandalized.

“Tanyu,” said Atty. “They’re amazing.”

“They’re really mean,” she said.

“No, they’re not!” Jori cried, leaping to his feet. “It’s just that they can do all kinds of things that normal people can’t. They’re the best warriors in the world…”

Kiria stood up too. “I know people who don’t like Tanyu—”

“They’re jealous,” said Atty, as though he was explaining something extremely simple. “They wish they were Tanyu too.”

“Yeah,” Jori agreed. “But they’re stuck doing boring stuff and memorizing all of the Sacred Scroll.”

“That’s important for the Kingdom,” Kiria protested, but they would hear none of it.

“Girls just don’t understand,” said Jori, knowing that that would bait her.

“What do you mean we don’t understand?” she cried. “There are girls at the Academy!”

“How do you know?”

“Our advisor’s sister goes there! And I heard she’s better than a lot of the boys.”

“Mm hm,” said Jori. “Sure she is.” He grinned evilly at her.

She narrowed her eyes. “Be quiet!” she hissed, leaping at him to cover his mouth. Jori stumbled backward.

Atty jumped up from the throne, offering to pin Jori’s arms to his sides so Kiria could close his mouth. Jori couldn’t beat both of them together. The scuffle afterward left all three of them on the floor, laughing.

Then they went back to exploring the huge forbidden room with the thrill of knowing that as long as they weren’t too loud, they could stay up until their servants awoke at daybreak and no one would know.

Kiria smirked as she watched Atty, Jori, and their father through the window. The boys struggled to keep their whole bodies from drooping. Even from here, their eyes looked saggy with sleep as they trudged alongside their father and a handful of servants. They always missed their father when he traveled, so it surprised her that they had forgotten about their early morning hunting trip.

Their father Aylmor, the tallest man in the group, sported a trimmed brown beard and dark brown traveling cloak pinned with the royal insignia. He stopped on the path for a moment and turned to Atty, who—now that she noticed—carried nothing but the bow and quiver slung over his back. His father bent down kindly and handed him one of the rabbits he carried. Jori already held two by the feet, and stood a little straighter.

They wound their way up the path, past the curved walls of the Amiran Academy. She imagined her tutor was studying in one of the rooms, as usual. Everyone in the domed Amiran Academy acted much friendlier than they did in the Tanyuin one. At least the Amir weren’t all about fighting.

Two servants opened the palace doors for the Third Keeper’s family, where she stood waiting.

“Welcome back!” said a booming voice behind her.

Kiria whirled around to see Cúron, the oldest of the three Keepers, looking particularly regal in long purple and blue robes. What’s the special occasion?

He spread his arms. “A successful trip, Aylmor?”

Kiria glanced at Atty. The boys’ father nodded, slinging his bow off his shoulder and handing it to the nearest servant. “Yes, we all managed to make a few kills.”

“I’m glad your boys are growing up so well. I’ll let the kitchen know to prepare rabbit tonight.” He cast a smile at the boys, but as he turned back to their father, his tone turned businesslike. “Aylmor, the ambassador from Charäkhnem has just arrived. He is still settling in, but you had better get ready.”

The Charäkhni ambassador? That sounded important. “Should I tell my mother?” Kiria asked, ready to run down the hall.

Cúron smiled down at her. “If she wants to come, she certainly may.”

Kiria knit her brows. Something about his tone didn’t sit right with her. Shouldn’t her mother be at the meeting? She ruled the Western Kingdom just as much as he did. Why did he make it sound as though she didn’t need to come?

“I’ll tell her,” Kiria said, running off down the wide hallway.

Her parents’ room was all the way at the end of the huge palace wing. Not stopping to catch her breath, she knocked on the door, ignoring the two guards.

Her father answered the door, looking concerned. He and Aylmor had become friends in the army and they shared the same style of clipped beard, not like Cúron’s longer gray one. He had the intense eyes of a general, deep-set and focused, even though he didn’t campaign very often any more. He looked at eye level first, and then down at her. “Kiria, what’s wrong?”

“Where’s Mother?”

“Right here,” came a softer voice from inside the room. “Is everything all right?”

“The ambassador from Charäkhnem has just arrived!” Kiria cried, projecting her voice past her father, hoping her mother would hear.

“Not so loud, honey,” Father said. “Sometimes these things are secrets.”

“She should be at the meeting.”

Finally, Mother came to the door. “Hello, Kiria,” she said kindly, soothingly.

Her mother’s dress was all wrong for an official meeting. It was an everyday dress, Brithnem blue but made of rougher material. She ought to be wearing something flowing and gauzy, maybe with jewels… And where was her crown? “You should get ready to see the ambassador,” Kiria said, and then realized that she had forgotten to greet either of her parents. “Hello.”

“I’m sure Aylmor can handle that meeting,” she replied, perfectly calm. “Is he back from his hunting trip?”

“But Cúron will be there, too,” Kiria insisted.

“He likes to know what’s going on.”

“You should know, too.”

“Kiria,” Mom said, tampering down her enthusiasm with a word, “having three Keepers wouldn’t work if we didn’t trust each other. I trust the two of them. I’m sure they’ll tell me if they come to an important agreement.”

Kiria pursed her lips.

“You have to trust me. It’ll be fine.” Her mother smiled.

She tried, but she couldn’t smile back.