It was strange that Ormo had asked Syrina to meet him in his suite instead of his Hall, and it pricked at her thoughts as she crossed the broad courtyard toward the Palace where the fifteen towers of the Syndicate crowded together like a bundle of blunt, loosely bound spears. The northern sky was thick with winter fire dancing angrily against the glow of the Eye, whose purple and red gibbous loomed to the south and gobbled any starlight that might have otherwise competed with the flickering green and yellow in the north. The fire splashed against the high marble and obsidian walls while the dull luminescence of the Eye drained the world of all detail, reducing the dry fountains and pacing guards to vague, two-dimensional shapes. The dull hum of the naphtha generators resonated beneath the flagstones under her bare feet and combined with the deep, mournful groan of a steamship whistle rolling across Eheene from the south harbor.
The cold was intense. The mercenaries manning the priceless iron gates and the tops of the walls were layered in hound skins and silk underclothes, but Syrina could still see them shivering in the dim conflagration of light. She was naked, the cold a faint nuisance in the back of her mind. No one was looking her way, and if they did they wouldn’t see more than a tick of motion across the marble flagstones that their eyes wouldn’t be able to follow.
She was covered with fine black tattoos that swirled and spiraled, seeming almost to move, coming together and branching again in nearly infinite complexity, like a fingerprint. From the top of her hairless head to the bottoms of her feet, over her lips and under her nails. Just her eyes, large and green, guarded by black lashes, could be clearly seen. The same minute manipulation of her muscles that kept the cold at bay blended her tattoos into the surroundings, until even to herself she was barely a shadow.
The Palace doors, like the larger gates to the compound behind her, were emblazoned with the Spiral of Skalkaad, but instead of etched steel the doors were black burnished brass. The three white arms of the Spiral were of opal, the three black ones set with tiny black pearls.
Syrina forced eye contact with the black and silver clad Seneschal posted at the doors until he noticed her and stepped aside with a hasty, nervous bow.
The hallway stretched beyond the foyer, built from blocks of obsidian. Every twenty paces there was a short stairway of white marble leading up to the next tier. The hall was lined with iron doors marked with spirals, but otherwise unlabeled. Above each portal was a large, marble hand, palm upward, holding a hissing yellow flame. Syrina had no idea what lay behind any of the doors except for the second-to-last one on the left, and that’s where she went.
Her knock against the heavy metal sounded dull, like banging on a stone wall, but a few seconds later it swung silently inward. The Seneschal that greeted her with a wordless, slight bow didn’t lead her into the study where she’d met Ormo the few other times he’d summoned her to his private quarters, though she could see the light from the fireplace glinting on the half-open bronze door that lead there. Instead, the little man led her further into the chambers, to the spiral stair that led to the top of Ormo’s tower.
The Seneschal left her there and wordlessly disappeared back into the palace. The stairway was broad, the steps shallow. There was no guardrail. Each stair was again cut from alternating obsidian and white marble. In the center a massive brass brazier was sunk into the floor, burning with yellow and green flame fed by pipes that ran all the way to the naphtha cisterns buried deep below the city. There was no other source of light, but the brazier flickered and glowed against the polished walls all the way to the top, where Syrina could faintly make out a mosaic of the Skalkaad Spiral set into the ceiling.
The cold didn’t particularly bother her, but the warmth from the brazier was pleasant. She took her time mounting the stairs and hesitated a moment at the top to bask in the faint, rising heat.
“Kalis Syrina,” Ormo said when she finally stepped out onto the terrace. He waved off her bow and opened his arms, folding her into his robes for a brief, warm embrace. She returned the hug, suddenly glad they were meeting in his private chambers, where Ormo preferred forgoing with the usual formality he upheld when he sat on his dais.
She stepped back when he released her, taking in the details of her surroundings. Twenty years of training and nine more as Ormo’s Kalis, but this was the first time she’d been here. A half-dome of marble arced over and behind her, robbing the view of both the fourteen other palace towers and the winter fire in the north. The ubiquitous Eye loomed high over the southern horizon, washing the steepled marble rooftops of Eheene in electric, amethyst light under the green flicker of the aurora. Beyond the city she could make black plain of the Sea of Skalkaad. The bows of the ships gleamed as they came into port, slaves to the tides. The harsh glow of their beacons illuminated the thin, frozen mist that had settled on the harbor, but the water itself seemed to swallow their light. The wind came in short, icy gusts.
Ormo was wrapped in thick robes of blue and white, though the colors blended under the Eye into varying shades of violet. Beneath his hood Syrina could barely make out the black and white geometry of his painted face. His breath froze when he exhaled, and the vapors fell like a dying bird and vanished in the shadows cast by his bulk. He was round, and the shortest of the Fifteen, but Syrina still didn’t quite come up to his chin.
“You have always served me well,” he rumbled. She tried to make out his expression, but it was impossible under the hood and the paint.
“I know there have been Kalis who have served their masters better than I have.” She shrugged and wondered why she suddenly felt uneasy.
“You’re young yet. Your thirtieth year. I hope to have you for another hundred or more. That is, in fact, the reason I summoned you up here.”
Syrina couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so she waited. She thought she could discern a smile from the shadows under his hood. Anxiousness and excitement vied for control of her stomach.
Ormo put his thumb and little finger in his mouth and let out a high, warbling whistle. A second later a white and silver owl with wings flecked in black swooped from behind the half-dome and floated silently down to perch on his shoulder. It settled comfortably and blinked at Syrina with round, curious eyes. It stood nearly twice as large as Ormo’s hooded head, and tufts of dark feathers stood from its crown, curving inward like horns or pointed, black ears.
She couldn’t think of anything to say to that either.
“His name is Triglav. A good name; a god ancient even to the Ancestors. A god of war. Appropriate, maybe. Especially if you were to take him as your pet.”
Syrina blinked. She’d never heard of a Kalis receiving a gift before, much less a pet, and she said as much, but even as she spoke she felt a pang of something unfamiliar when she looked at the owl. She realized inexplicably that she liked it.
“That’s true,” Ormo answered her. Now she was sure she could hear a smile in his voice. “Take him, then, as an exception to tradition, in exchange for your future loyalty.”
“You have my loyalty already, Ma’is, now and always.” But an alien sense of mistrust seeded her gut. Ormo didn’t do anything without a reason.
He gave a slight shake of his arm and Triglav floated over to Syrina’s shoulder and stayed there, gently grasping her naked skin with black, needle-sharp talons. She felt the tug of affection again, stronger this time, and it leaned over to press its head briefly against hers. She guessed it liked her, too.
“Of that, I have no doubt,” he said.
She couldn’t argue, so she asked, “And how do you think this bird is going to help me?”
Ormo let out a deep chuckle and reached out a plump, gloved hand to gently pat her cheek. “It’s a clever creature, and well trained. Just as you are. I have faith that you will find many uses for him in the years to come.”
“Of course,” Syrina said without hesitation, pushing aside the hundred questions that were buzzing around her head. “So, what would you have me do, Ma’is?”
“Only what I would always have you do, Kalis. Now, here is a name…”