Arms cheered. He appreciated a good warrior saga, Grain’s sagas especially. Shadow warriors preferred cunning to spilling blood. Money squirmed at an Anawanama tale about a veson. Books and Bones blinked and yawned. He and high priest Ernold pretended to be bored. Water tinkered with a tiny wind-wheel contraption: a circle of reed paddles on a stick. Hot air from a candle made it spin.

“You’re still worrying, Djola.” Azizi rubbed his eyes. “Over Kyrie? You brought her back before, you’ll do it again.”

“Zst!” Djola cursed. “I only masquerade as a master of the impossible.”

Azizi nodded. “Sometimes illusion is a good solution.”

Sky windows above the Council chamber shifted to the blue-violet of Samina’s eyes, the sun a threat of pink at the edges. The endless night had passed. The roast smelled rank. Rats shat in the gravy. Chief cook Lilot shooed the creatures away, laid out a fresh meal, and lingered in the shadows spying for Queen Urzula. She kept Azizi’s wife well-informed. Bleary masters dropped their heads into honey cakes and cream. Not even Arms was hungry. Djola ate for the coming battle. Losing Kyrie need not mean defeat.

Azizi quashed a tremor in his hand. He chewed bark that dulled pain and held fever in check. He was the age his father had been when assassins struck. His father, mother, older brother, and sisters died sweating blood and spewing their guts right in front of him. Djola reached Azizi with an antidote just in time. Djola foiled countless assassination attempts before finally talking ruthless warriors to the peace fire. From a boy of sixteen, Azizi saw every shadow as danger, every kiss as poison. Yet he gathered the best masters from across the Empire and listened to Council before taking action. Azizi never desired power but was proclaimed supreme ruler of the Arkhysian Empire at nineteen.

For twenty years he worked to make one map of many people. He’d been cautious and neither cruel nor foolish. He outlawed slavery and transgressor huts in the capital. Southern barbarians, Green Elders, pirates from the floating cities, and even wild northern tribes were welcomed. Azizi opened the library to the poor, to women too, if they could read. He worked for order and peace, and took every raid, betrayal, and massacre to heart. Each new wasteland or dead water zone had him vomiting in the night. He loved the Empire, its people, fields, and creatures, its forests, rivers, and mountains too.

“Morning. Time is short.” Azizi glared at them. “I need plans to stop poison desert. Why else call Council? I can agonize alone.” He was ready to listen.

Djola scratched the whisper of beard on his cheeks. He shook his bones and stretched achy muscles. “A wild elephant was in the back court last night, at sunset,” he said.

Azizi squinted at him. “I thought the wild ones were long dead.”