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Cynara's army breached the city walls of Charn at dawn on the Day of Ashes.
Jadis woke to a still-dark sky, nerves aflame with the backlash of snapped and tattered spells, and struck the bell at her bedside with a shaking hand. Her night attendant swept forward, a darker swath of black in the shadowed room, and began to sink into a genuflection.
Jadis clamped her hand on the woman's shoulder and let the backlash pour from her own body into the waiting receptacle.
The attendant fell in a twitching, moaning heap. Jadis took a minute to gather her breath, then swung herself upright and set her heel on the slave's throat until the noises and motion ceased.
She had never expected the warded circle around Charn to last, which was why she had ordered one of her court magicians (a cousin of some distant degree, far lesser in power though clever with loopholes) to hold the main focus. It was nonetheless aggravating that Cynara had undermined her efforts this soon.
She wondered, idly, whether the court magician's heart had stopped before she burnt to ash. Spell backlash was a woefully understudied field -- too many of her ancestors had held unfortunate scruples over the necessary experiments.
"Slave, to me," she called as she removed her foot from the wreckage on her floor.
The commotion faintly audible in her outer chambers suggested that various ministers and officers were swarming like ants in need of direction, but Jadis refused to be hurried despite her untimely awakening. She clicked her fingers at the first attendant to peer through her bedchamber doors. "Light the lamps, remove the mess, and prepare my breakfast," she ordered. The woman bobbed down and up like a wing-clipped bird and set the clockwork of Jadis's bath and dress and meal into motion.
The sun was halfway up the sky before Jadis wiped honey from her lips and declared she would hear reports. She did not bother to rise from her dining chair, but merely dabbed her fingers in a dish of rosewater and allowed a trio of slaves to replace her emptied dishes with one of the lesser rods of imperium, this one made of ebony bound with silver runes that never tarnished.
The delay had given her people time to arrange themselves into a semblance of order, and so only two entered rather than a panicked mob. The general was tall and dark, head neatly shaven and the weighted hem of his uniform coat swinging just above the tops of his scuffed boots. Jadis noted a stain on one toe -- the reddish-brown color might be clay, or might be dried blood. The minister was shorter, wrinkled and soft around the middle, with iron-gray hair wound into an elaborate coil and fixed in place with silver pins. Her chain of office clinked softly as she walked, though Jadis knew from experience that the noise was a courtesy to announce her presence; few in Charn failed to learn the virtue of silent steps.
She cared nothing for their names, but she thought this general was one of the faction who had pushed for a preemptive counterattack before Cynara had settled into the siege. The minister she had studied more closely -- the woman managed the empire's shipping and ports, had gathered fantastical wealth through slow embezzlement of tariffs, and supported Jadis out of purely self-interested calculation rather than any sense of loyalty.
The general and minister both bowed -- the abbreviated version Jadis had permitted due to the war, rather than the full genuflection -- and waited for her to allow them to speak.
"How goes the siege?" she asked, and pointed the ebon rod at the general to request his report.
"The rebels broke through the Gate of Silk shortly after the magical protections fell, Most Glorious Queen," he said. "We fell back to Renava's Canal and are holding firm, but your accursed sister has sent a secondary force to the wall between the Gate of Cedar and the Gate of Sighs, where the earthquake that marked your honored father's passing made a breach that was inadequately repaired." His eyes flicked right toward the minister at those words, a brief break in his composure signaling some resentment Jadis did not care enough to decode. "We expect she will create a gap and open a second front by evening."
The general paused, then bowed a second time. "Most Glorious Queen, your army regrets to inform you that we cannot hold the city without aid. With the utmost respect and reluctance, we recommend that you withdraw to Tarnith on the coast and from there take ship to the southern provinces to regroup and recruit new soldiers."
Jadis raised one eyebrow and drew one finger along the rod of office to make the runes glow white (a useless bit of magic, but one that those without power often found impressive). Then she turned her attention toward the minister. "What news do you bring?"
"We have supplies to withstand a siege of three months," the woman said with her habitual calm. "Additionally, the river is still in our hands, thanks to your accursed sister's unpopularity among the navy; we can readily accept both additional food and reinforcements, should your generals find the wherewithal to raise any. Alternatively, we can prepare the royal barge for a voyage to Tarnith at your pleasure."
Jadis nodded. Then she turned aside and beckoned her lead attendant, who hurried over to kneel at her feet. She bent and whispered a series of instructions, then waved the woman away.
She sipped thoughtfully from the goblet of watered, honeyed wine and watched the minister and general for several minutes. Neither remained completely still -- a luxury of the freeborn; no slave would dare any distracting movement, no matter how small -- but neither cracked with impatience or fear.
Good.
"I have heard your words and considered them well," Jadis said at last. "We will not retreat. No enemy has taken Charn in all the years of the empire, and Cynara will not be the first. She has mocked the gods by making war during the Days of Remembrance, and while we must compound the insult by shedding blood in return, remember that the fault is hers and the stain falls on her cause, not ours."
The general clearly restrained himself from protest, while the minister maintained her outward calm.
"As Queen of Charn, descended in direct line from Lilith, I will observe the rites of the Day of Ashes on the grand terrace for all the city to see," Jadis continued. "Ensure I am not interrupted."
She set the rod on the lacquered and inlaid dining table with a click, and turned away in dismissal as she rose.
In olden days, Jadis reflected as her attendants removed her robes of office and dressed her anew in a simpler gown that echoed a priestess's garb, the kings and queens of Charn had paused their war-making on the Days of Remembrance. On some occasions they had gone so far as to make unconditional peace if their battles dragged on past the appointed times and into the gods' territory.
One thing Jadis and Cynara still agreed upon was that such scruples were wasteful nonsense. Victory went to the one most willing to be ruthless, most willing to wring the final drop of blood from the world. Yielding a tactical advantage to spend three days locked in rituals of grief and false humility, repenting in hope of some higher power's mercy -- and repenting of what? Jadis was queen; all her actions were therefore righteous and justified -- was purest folly.
Nonetheless, Jadis ordered a brazier and a box of powdered incense carried out to the grand terrace at the palace's main gate, from which marble steps descended like a great waterfall to the courtyards below. Irksome though it was to admit weakness, she had often found the observance of ritual grounding in a time of upheaval. Additionally, a show of confidence and piety could make useful theater -- indeed, such theater was once reason her position at court was strong enough that Cynara had been forced to flee Charn after their father's tragic demise. Cynara might direct her soldiers personally, but Jadis was secure enough in her authority that she could afford an hour's distraction now and then while she communed, ostensibly, with the gods and the shades of her ancestors.
There were no shades, of course. The dead went to the sunless lands and troubled the living no more. As for the gods, any sly, grasping spirits that might once have ruled over this world had long since been locked away by Lilith's children, and those powers had in turn been displaced by the royal family's own might.
Only whispers and echoes remained -- and one Word, which belonged to Jadis now.
No one limited Jadis but Cynara, and no matter the outcome of the battle, Jadis would claim victory over her sister one way or another. The two methods were much the same in the end.
As one slave lit the brazier and another settled the incense onto a delicately carved table carried out for that purpose, the general with the stained boots approached once again.
When she motioned him to speak, he said, "Most Gracious Queen, the officers of your army have conferred, and, while we know that the wisdom and strength of Lilith's line are beyond us, we wished to humbly request that you observe the Day of Ashes from a more defensible location."
Jadis laughed. "Shall I not trust in the strength of my ancestors' walls, my people's swords, and my own Magic? No. I will honor our dead in full view of our enemies, and let them know I remain uncowed by their attack."
She dismissed the general from her thoughts again. If he appeared before her a third time this day with ill tidings and advice to withdraw, she might dismiss him from the world of the living.
Her servants, whatever their rank and vocation, were all fools. Jadis was perfectly aware that she lacked the soldiers and magicians to hold the city against Cynara. But she refused to relinquish the heart of the empire to her sister. She who held Charn held the presumption of rightful rule, and Jadis, born younger by bare minutes, could not afford to surrender that symbolic advantage.
Furthermore, spears and swords were far from her greatest weapons.
The Deplorable Word slithered through her mind, a sinuous twist of sounds, gestures, and naked, burning will. Jadis let the first syllable linger unvoiced on her lips, tasting the ashy sting of power, and smiled.
To speak the Word without certain preparations would render it worse than useless -- would either kill the speaker alone, or kill her along with the rest of the world. How fortunate, then, that the rites of remembrance could easily double as the necessary purifications and declaration of focus.
"On this first day of remembrance, the Day of Ashes, we remember the honored dead who have set foot onto the final road all souls must follow," Jadis proclaimed. "Breath is the beginning of life, and we return to air as we burn, leaving only ash and memory behind."
She threw the first pinch of incense onto the coals.
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The Atabor River glowed malevolently under the afternoon sun, stained crimson with blood and half choked with corpses -- citizens, soldiers, and slaves all alike in death. One of Cynara's more enterprising commanders had begun organizing squadrons to haul the bodies ashore, and others to add them to the makeshift barricades around the city plazas they had wrested from Jadis's control.
Cynara's advance had halted for several hours after her right flank crossed Renava's Canal and her left flank breached the wall at the old earthquake scar, her commanders confused and separated in the maze of streets. That was the damnable trouble with provincials -- their greater health and battle experience (for the rich of the cities paid others to serve for them, and the dregs went to the auctions rather than the legions) were not always enough to overcome the intimate knowledge of chokepoints and blind corners held by those born and raised in this chaotic warren.
When she won, Cynara might raze the city and salt the remains. Better to start anew than to spend years dealing with the magical traps Jadis must have honeycombed through the streets, to say nothing of their freight of stinking flesh.
The traditionalists would howl, but their protests were worth less than the breath used to make them. Let Jadis court nobles and generals and priests, shortsighted fools whose jaws clamped around their privileges and coins like an alligator with its prey. Everyone knew that once an alligator's teeth snapped shut, a child could stop them from reopening, thus leaving the great beast helpless to defend itself or attack anyone else. Power was about numbers, and the sheer mass of farmers, artisans, merchants, miners, and even former slaves was worth far more than the handful of lucky or talented lineages that had risen on her ancestors' favor.
"I hate this city," Cynara said in an idle tone as she sat on a camp chair in the shade of a wall that had once belonged to a house but now stood alone amidst rubble. She dunked a scrap of what might have been an embroidered tablecloth into a bucket and continued scrubbing blood from the blade of her sword. "It's a pity we can't ignore it and leave my sister here to rot behind the walls while we take and hold everything outside them."
"Ah, but everyone knows you won't truly be queen until you sit on Lilith's throne," Agneya said with an answering show of teeth. "Begging your royal pardon, of course."
Cynara smiled at the commander of her bodyguards. "No offense taken, no pardon needed. Still, it's true that symbols are important. We had to break the peace of the gods to stave off disaster, but I doubt we'll advance much further today. Better to consolidate our gains and set up some altars and fires for the rites."
She measured the tiny release of tension in Agneya's shoulders, as well as two of the guards on watch at the edge of her temporary shelter, and marked a tally point on a mental tablet. Agneya might put on a nearly seamless show of worldly disdain for ritual and custom, but in her bones she was still a sailor's child, raised to fear and respect any powers that might offer safety in a storm. It was a fair bet that many in the army felt the same.
"Might as well start organizing evening mess while we're at it," she added, dropping the rag and fishing oil and whetstone from her pack. "I could swallow an elephant whole."
"I'll restrict my ambitions to a horse, Imperator," Agneya said. "You rest here -- I'll kick this lot into shape." She knocked her gauntlet against her chest plate, then strode off into the baking sun.
"We could make the altar from corpses," one of the guards muttered from the side of his mouth, likely not intending Cynara to overhear. "Honor the dead by burning their own bodies -- not like they need them anymore. Nice and efficient."
"Don't be disgusting," the other guard said, scorn dripping from her voice.
There was a long pause, filled only with the slow scrape of Cynara's whetstone along the edge of her sword and the first guard's awkward shifting from foot to foot.
"Pyres are more useful as barricades than altar flames," the second guard finally added, and the first guard disguised his laugh as a cough.
"An excellent point," Cynara said, and smiled as both guards hastily snapped to attention. "Remind me to have someone take care of that come nightfall."
"Yes, Imperator," the guards chorused, and fell into position one step behind her on her left and right as she stood from her creaking canvas chair and peered across the organized chaos of the plaza.
Charn was a city built on its own bones (as most cities were, assuming they survived past the first century), but that was generally a phrase used as metaphor rather than a literal description. Now buildings had cracked open under the force of rams, missiles, flames, and spells, and the gaping pits of their foundations revealed mosaics and paintings long since buried and forgotten, as well as a small ossuary filled with what looked to be femurs and pelvises arranged into interlocking patterns. Presumably the other bones belonging to those long dead souls were arranged into similar patterns elsewhere under the city.
Cynara strode toward the lip of the ossuary, guards at her heels. A small squadron of veteran soldiers left off their work hauling corpses and marched over to act as additional protection. Cynara tapped the heel of her hand to her heart in acknowledgment, and gestured for the soldiers to test the stability of the ground with their spears. Everything seemed stable, so she dusted some chunks of plaster off a fallen stone and sat.
Any piece of ground could be a throne so long as you had people around to advertise your importance. Even the great throne of Lilith was only a fancy chair polished by generations of reverence. It was the stories people told, the symbols they wrapped around themselves like nets and slipped like iron hooks into their hearts, that truly mattered. Once she knew the symbols a person held dear, she could tug those strings to make them dance any steps she wished. Persuasions was much more efficient than naked threats, and much less likely to create knives aimed at her back from her own ranks.
A pity Jadis had never understood that other people were real. Even ants had their own needs and wants, and while a single ant was beneath notice, a million ants could become a powerful swarm. Giving a dozen grains of sugar each to a million ants won their undying loyalty and cost Cynara scarcely a thing.
"Report," she said to the leader of the squadron, and then to the commander who replaced him, and then to the commander who replaced her, until Agneya returned with three generals, a flock of slaves to set up Cynara's command tent, and a bickering priestess and priest to set up a makeshift altar.
Cynara busied herself drawing the current position of her army, the position of Jadis's army, various pockets of civilian resistance, miscellaneous obstacles, and her magicians' best estimate of Jadis's defense spells on a series of maps as her people continued to report. General Drustecan looked pained, as always, to see her working at such a menial task rather than assigning the work to a scribe or a minor officer, but Cynara had always thought best with her hands -- how better to understand the world than to hold and shape its edges and textures between her fingers?
"A night assault won't gain enough ground to pay back the bodies we'd lose," she said as the meeting drew to a close. "Move the trebuchets forward and keep them firing through the night -- no need for my sister and her traitors to sleep peacefully, after all. Keep the barricade fires alight to confuse our exact position and block any counterstrikes. But give our troops a solid eight hours before we force the river crossing at dawn. Unless anyone has a more effective plan?"
"Solid stones in the trebuchets, or shall we break out some of the pitchblende agglomerates?" General Tormith asked.
"Pitchblende! An excellent thought," Cynara said. "Yes, let's send some accursed fire across the river overnight to prepare the way."
"As you command, Imperator," General Tormith rasped, and the other two generals followed suit.
Cynara tapped the heel of her hand to her chest and turned toward the priest and priestess, who had finished setting up a row of three braziers in front of the torn ossuary and its freight of ancient bones. They were still arguing, now apparently over whether it was morally acceptable to appropriate incense from a city temple since their own supplies were unlikely to last beyond a hundred supplicants, or whether a pinch of dust or a drop of a supplicant's blood would work just as well in the eyes of the gods.
Pointless nonsense. The gods were like Jadis, seeing nothing outside themselves, and the dead were beyond all caring. Rituals were for the living, and could be reshaped in whatever way created the desired effect.
"Did Lilith have incense when she first paid honor to the dead in flames?" Cynara asked, interrupting the argument. "The words she passed down to us say, 'We return to air as we burn, leaving only ash and memory behind.' Any dust in Charn on this day is more than half ash -- how better to remember the dead than with their own remains?"
She crouched and scraped a handful of grit from the cobbled stones, then turned to face her army and tug their hooks and strings once more. "Today is the first day of remembrance, the Day of Ashes!" she said, using a tiny trick of magic Jadis had taught her to project her voice over the plaza and beyond, until she heard the echoes of her words return from the city walls and the soldiers fell into restive silence to listen. "Today we remember the honored dead who have set foot on the road to the sunless lands. Their bodies are empty, their souls departed, but their memory remains. The effect of their actions remains. No one is truly dead while their memory is still spoken. No one is truly lost while their legacy continues."
She raised her hand, dust sifting down through her fingers to mix with the smoke from the braziers. "Today we honor our dead. They died for a great cause, to uproot the usurper from her unearned throne and bring justice to all the lands!" Pause. An approving rattle of spears against shields.
"We fight so their memory, their legacy, shall not perish!"
Another pause, another rattle, now beginning to mix with scattered shouts and the stamp of feet against stone.
"We fight to uphold their honor. We fight for Charn!"
A roar shook the city like the sea crashing against an upwelling of molten rock -- mindless, inexorable, and the harbinger of terrible, glorious change.
Cynara bared her teeth and cast her handful of dust into the fire.