Page 38 of Beyond the Shadowed Earth

Niren flicked her eyes to Eda’s hair.

“Whatever Your Imperial Majesty wishes.” Her voice sounded as washed out as she looked.

Eda jerked up from the stool and went over to Niren, grabbing her arm and hauling her into Eda’s private sitting room. Tea was waiting on a low table, steam curling up from glass and metal cups accompanied by pots of honey and a heaping plate of candied dates. Eda pushed Niren into one chair and sat down across from her in the other.

“I’m tired of this,” Eda snapped. “I refuse to apologize for not letting you die. Talk to me. Please, Niren.”

Niren looked at her, reallylookedat her, and Eda was taken aback by her pity. “I know you mean well, Eda. But when the gods call me again, don’t pull me back. I will be perfectly fine.”

Something clawed its way up Eda’s throat, and she found herself fighting tears. “But what about me?Iwon’t be all right.”

Niren smiled. “You’ve never needed me, not really. You have your Empire, and soon your husband. I’m just a crutch, Eda. A remnant of your childhood that you wanted to dress up to atone for some imagined sin.”

“But—”

“Eda.” Niren grasped Eda’s arm. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. But you have to let me go. You have an Empire to run. I have the gods to serve.”

“So serve in the temple. Be a priestess for the Empire.”

“The gods don’t want temples. They never did. They want truth. They want sincerity.”

Eda’s whole body sagged. “I don’t know how to give that to them.”

Niren pulled her into a brief, tight hug. “Then perhaps that’s what you should be searching for.”

And then Niren slipped from the room, leaving Eda alone with tea that was no longer steaming. She felt hollow and broken and cold. She knew Niren was right, and she didn’t want her to be.

She canceled the rest of her appointments for the day and rode out to the temple site. It really was nearly finished now, the last roof tiles being fitted into place, the interior carvings and furnishings being brought in.

The temple was beautiful, but it didn’t fill Eda’s emptiness. She shut her eyes in the scorching wind, and sent a plea up to the gods.Is this really not what you wanted?

The wind spat dust into her face. She wondered if that was their answer.

Chapter Sixteen

“EDA?”

She looked up from her writing desk to find Niren standing in the doorway, her blue-green silk trousers pooling around her ankles, her dark hair for once combed neat and straight. She was hugging a cloth-wrapped, rectangular object against her chest. Lantern light cast haunted shadows on Niren’s thin face.

It was late, past midnight—Eda had been caught up in her work, reviewing tax reports from her Barons. She laid down her pen, ink dripping black on her paper. “Niren, are you well?”

Her friend paced toward her, and without a word laid the rectangular object in Eda’s lap.

Eda unfolded the cloth to reveal a heavy book. It had gold-edged pages and a red leather cover stamped with the three Stars and the one Tree.

“A wedding present,” said Niren. “I was going to save it for your wedding day, but I wanted you to have it now.”

Eda opened the book, and a page she recognized stared out at her: a petitioner, kneeling before the god Tuer, his throne a mountain, his crown made of stars. She looked at Niren with a troubled frown. “The manuscript you were copying?”

Niren knelt beside Eda’s chair, her fingers brushing lightly over the book. “It’s the original. The library has my copy. It’s filled with the old stories we both love so much. I thought you should have it.”

Eda swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Niren, you can’t give me this.”

Niren smiled. “Not even an Empress should turn away the heartfelt offering of her closest friend.”

Eda bowed her head, humbled. “Then we are still friends?”

“Though death and time should drive a wedge between us, we will always be friends.”

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