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A staggered formation of Garon soldiers stands in the first rank to protect the household Behind them, with the best view, the lords and ladies of the palace asseather the lesser relatives, officials, and officers The highest-ranking servants and Challenger-level adversaries stand in the fourth rank, and we Novice and fledgling adversaries and the lower servants are crammed at the back with the worst view
Kalliarkos stands between Lord Gargaron and an elderly wo an elaborately tasseled hat I catch glis sway each ties , I try to think of how Ae the situation "Why do Patrons wear those ridiculous hats?"
Gira snorts
A servant in the fourth rank hisses displeasure, so we shut up
Pipes, bells, and a chorus of singers announce the arrival of the king and queen at the head of the funeral procession The royal banners glide into view, carried by officials wearing robes embroidered with blood-thorn roses, white death-flower, and skeletal falls of bone-vine A hooded sea-phoenix perches quiescent in a cage, its folded wings glittering When the royal carriage rolls past without king or queen in it, I hear a murmur of spiteful satisfaction Not even Prince Nikonos has come to honor the dead man People will discuss this dreadful insult for on passes, devoid of the earlands of painted masks that would usually drape the flatbed with its open coffin A lord’s burial casket should be gilded with gold flakes and studded with jewels Ottonor’s coffin is huht lines, and handprints to depict the three gods and their attributes of fecundity, martial prowess, and justice
Lord Ottonor does not lie in the coffin yet, of course Dressed in formal parade wear embroidered with the three-horned bull of Clan Tonor, his corpse lurches forward one aard step at a time The priests have bound his self, his shadow, and his name into his body, where his heart still resides With the mystical power held by the priests, they have motived his flesh with a fresh spark of life taken out of another creature and fixed into his and princes and lords walk to their tombs this way
His expression is a peaceful mask, face ith the paraffin that has been rubbed over his skin to preserve it Only the jerkingparts of his soul, as if he fears to approach the judge who rules the afterlife
Four priests attend him, one at each of the cardinal directions Each holds a ribbon attached to the silver chain at his waist
His male relatives follow Heads bowed, they pace in sha the onlookers
Father’s decision to join Lord Gargaron’s household no longer seems quite so heartless and ambitious Now it seems more like prudence and desperation What would have happened to us had Father’s fortunes tumbled into the pit with Ottonor’s clan?
The crohispering conversations quiet
The oracle comes
In the empire of old Saro, a dead emperor was accompanied into his toed in the chamber so as to serve hiht into the toiven poison In her death throes the priests could read a prognostication of the next e Kliatemnos the First died, his devoted wife, known as the Silent Orchid, refused to condemn another wohters walked with the king into the toood to say about a nity the priests allowed her and her daughters and the oracle who acco: walled up in a torow up in separate cells in the te only to the priestesses who pass them food and water and the priests who instruct theods This procession is the only occasion an oracle will ever have to glimpse the sky and the sea and the city and the faces of people
The curtained wagon passes in silence No one wants theirs to be the last voice heard by an oracle on her way to her toment of your five souls--a taste of your heart or a thread of your shadow or a sliver of your self or, worst yet, thethe tombs forever
The silenceall overreverberates like a clap of thunder The curtains sway I hold my breath for fear the oracle will catch the spark ofand steal it