Page 137 of Heir

Aiz was unsurprised when Triarch Hiwa, Tiral’s father, stepped over the head, appearing only mildly perturbed.

“We thank you for freeing us from the farce that my son inflicted on us with the support”—he glared at High Cleric Dovan, on her knees and regarding Aiz with awe—“of these so-called clerics. You will be rewarded.”

Div prowled behind Hiwa, hand on her nose as if to ward off a foul stench.

“He plans to kill you and the clerics,” Div said. “Already he has made a pact with the others. End him, Aiz. Before his poison spreads.”

A rush of power filled Aiz, cool and sweet. She did not use it. As awful as the Triarchs were, they understood the running of Kegar and its armies. After hearing Quil speak of all he had to learn, Aiz knew the Triarchs would be useful.

“Tiral manipulated the Nine Sacred Tales for his own gain,” she told the Triarchs. “He burned the cloister, murdered Snipe children, and imprisoned and tortured our clerics.” Aiz nodded to High Cleric Dovan, who bowed her head. “They supported him out of fear. That doesn’t make them weak. It makes Tiral evil.”

“Yes, yes,” Triarch Oona said. “He was a fool and a cheat, but it was the clerics who—”

“You are no better!” Aiz’s anger exploded. “You cast away Snipes and Sparrows alike as if we were nothing but dirt.”

A roar of agreement from the crowd.

“You’re supposed to lead us. Care for us. But you don’t. It’s the clerics who protect us. There are so many who would have nothing if not for the cloisters.”

Aiz wrapped the wind around the necks of the Triarchs. They all reached for their own windsmithing immediately, but Aiz yanked it away.

“No more.” Aiz’s voice trembled. “I am the Tel Ilessi, and thus I declare that we are all children of the evening star. We are all beloved to Mother Div. No Kegari shall suffer more than another simply because of where they were born.”

The Triarchs’ silence was strategic. They would eventually plot against her. But she and Div could tackle that. If the Triarchs knelt, so would the rest of the highborns.

She transformed the wind into fists and turned them on the Triarchs’ backs. Oona gasped, resisting; Hiwa paled. But then Triarch Ghaz dropped to his knees, bowing his curly head. The rest followed, and Aiz didn’t have to exert her will upon the clerics or the pilots, on the people in the airfield, or those who, hearing that something momentous was occurring, now streamed from the streets of the city to watch.

By tens and hundreds and thousands, her people knelt.

A familiar and beloved voice spoke up from among the pilots. Cero stood, hand on his heart. He thumped his chest three times. “Tel Ilessi!” he shouted. “Tel Ilessi!”

A second voice rang from the crowd, its strength belying the frail body that carried it. Sister Noa. “Tel Ilessi! Tel Ilessi!”

Another voice took up the chant and another until it was a roar that shivered the dais.

“Tel Ilessi! Tel Ilessi! Tel Ilessi!”

Tears spilled down Aiz’s cheeks as she looked out at their faces. She would not let them remain on this treacherous, lifeless spit of land. She would not let them starve here. They would find a way to their true home. Aiz would get them the Loha to do so.

They would need bigger Sails. Better ones. Cero was brilliant enough to engineer them. Aiz would reach a hand to the Empire for aid, and if they didn’t reach back, she would force them to give her Loha with her newfound power.

Div had brought her people here a millennium ago. Now their Tel Ilessi would take them home.

“Gather the clerics,” Aiz said to Dovan. “I would speak to them. And you—” She turned to the Triarchs. “Call up the leaders of the Hawk clans. I wish them to know the future I see. Are there any Ankanese in the city? Any seers?”

Triarch Ghaz was the quickest to nod. “Ambassador Danil and his retinue.”

“Tell the ambassador that the true Tel Ilessi wishes to speak with Dolbra.” Aiz thought of everything the woman had told her, the earnestness of her narrow face as she spoke. “We will need outside allies in this effort, and she has aided me once before. I believe she will again.”

“Tel Ilessi?”

Noa’s voice was so timid that Aiz almost didn’t recognize it. But when she turned, her dear friend was making her slow way up the dais stairs, Olnas at her side.

Aiz enveloped them both in a hug, breathing in the familiar wet-wool scent of them.

“I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again,” she whispered. “I feared—”

“Our little Aiz, the Tel Ilessi!” Olnas wept freely, as if witnessing a miracle. “How, child? How did this—”

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