AND WHEN THEY SEEK TO OPPRESS YOU, AND TRY TO DESTROY YOU, RISE AND RISE AGAIN, LIKE THE PHOENIX FROM THE ASHES UNTIL THE LAMBS HAVE BECOME LIONS AND THE RULE OF DARKNESS IS NO MORE
They come, the desolate, the resolute, the aching—
Many are like ghosts. Some wear the impassioned eyes of the wronged.
He listens the wind as it whispers through the streets, and feels a bead of sweat slick its way down his neck.
Orestes hopes it will reveal something to him; some great and terrible wisdom, but when he is struck with no new profoundness or resonance, he only continues to wait. Orestes wishes, with poignant ferocity, he could hear the sea—oh yes, he wishes that his old mother would whisper to him wisdom that he has forgotten in his moment, colt-legged and nervous before his new people. He wants to ask, oh, mother, will they love me?
And even thinking it he knows she is laughing. No, she would say, in the only way the sea does: with vicious currents, flotsam, a myriad of dark hunting creatures. No, but they need you. It would have been enough to hear; it would have been enough to feel the salt and water against his flesh and feel, utterly, as if he were not alone. Solis is not the same guardian. Solis is only a sigil in the sky, beading sweat on Orestes’ flanks, filling him with bright, burning magic. Solis is the way the desert breaths out, and breaths out, but does not share words.
In his aloneness, Orestes feels vast.
He feels endless.
And their words, their judgement, it means
nothing.
Yet.
Yet.
It means everything.
They are his people, and he does not deserve them. His mind’s eye is full of a flaming lion, a gods’ voice resounding through an empty citadel. He thinks of a white stallion wearing a crown of ridged, jagged gold wire on an angry black beach, rearing—and where the crown touches him he bleeds, and burns, and stares through the streaming blood. There are warriors dancing around him, painted silver and gold and bright crimson. In Orestes’s memory, it is a dance. In his memory, the gleaming wire-threaded ropes are almost beautiful. Orestes thinks of his father; a priest, but not a Prince, and how his devotion had been the devotion of a man that was flesh and blood, a man that wanted, a man that believed he could overcome. A man who sacrificed more than Orestes could.
Orestes thinks of his father.
Orestes thinks of his father, as a man he had never been, because always the gods had chosen him, always the gods had whispered sweet nothings in his ears and told him the end of things. Always, he had known, he could not save them.
In that, and in that alone, the silence of the desert is a blessing. His peoples’ voices are loud; they resound in the empty, deathless air. He thinks of eternity. He thinks of forever. He thinks—yes he thinks—I don’t know the end of this story.
Orestes greets each and every one of them with an affirmative nod of his head; and he listens to their words, their promises, their warnings, their judgements. He receives them without a word. Instead, Orestes bears it quietly, resolutely. Many remain nameless. Many smouldering eyes raise to meet his own; and in them he sees distrust, foreboding, the somber expressions of those accustomed to bearing pain. They believe the desert will have its way with him, and he does not blame them. He begins, “Thank you all for answering the summons. It is always a choice.”
If Orestes were another kind of man, their contempt would have angered him. If he were another kind of man, he would have paused a moment to wonder if perhaps the people provoked the tyrant. Orestes is not that kind of man. And so he smiles sadly at Elif’s warning and to her and her alone, he says: “Bold words for a woman who only claims citizenship. I do not doubt you, Elif of Erdogan, but I am disappointed to hear you have no ambition to pursue a position in the court beyond somber threats. Yours is the type of passion that could make a change in a changeless kingdom.” He feels the wisdom of her words echoed in the silences of others, and he thinks, it is true, all your tyrants are dead. Yet who had risen? Who would rise?
“For those of you who have not spoken, there will be a time and a place. The citadel’s doors are open to all the citizens; and if today is not the day for you to share your thoughts, there will be another day, and another.” I am here to earn everything I have been given. Orestes does not say that. He only continues, “For those of you who have risen… I hope we can work together to build a stronger kingdom.” Orestes steps forward. His eyes seek out Jahin’s, with a child’s earnestness. In him, he sees a young man ignited by the wrongs of the past; a young man capable of change. “Jahin, son of Davke. I would be honoured to serve our court alongside you as my Regent. I can think of no one better to humble my foreign origins, then someone born wild in the desert, with a clear love of country and cause. Thank you. And Baphomet…” Orestes eyes become alight mischief. “You are as bold a newcomer as myself, and I admire it. I can think of nothing better than for you to serve as our Champion of Community; there is a distinct need for new blood in Solterra, and someone must ignite that fire in others… we are in need of many Champions.”
Then, there is Aghavni. He had noticed her when she first arrived, with the same nobility and elegance he had found so striking in the Denoctian marketplace. And those eyes. He had not noticed until now they belonged so thoroughly in the desert, if only to give contrast to the barrenness of sand and heat.
Orestes thinks of her in the darkness of Denocte, with the smell of rain and magic in the air. He smiles, and it is the same boyish smile he had offered in another setting.
You have been honest with us…
Had he not?
Was he not also a man?
We will talk.
“You ask to become an Emissary, and an Emissary you shall be, Aghavni, Sol the Fourth, House of Hajakha. Solterran born. Denoctian raised.” It is a breathless number of titles and he wonders, if he had not just named them, some Regent or Champion would not have warned him against such a decision. She is old blood. She has a claim to the throne. Orestes is no fool. He learned enough of Solterran history from Ra and Tut to recognise the title; to understand she is money, royalty, dynastic. Perhaps he is a fool for believing in the best of her; in hoping that she does not share her relatives poor rulership. “There would be no more valuable Emissary to have, than one with alliances to our historic enemies; than one who knows the Old Blood of Solterra. Unconventional though it may be.”
What would the sea say, he wonders. But he cannot dwell. He steps forward, and forward still. Orestes is nothing among them but a man; he is glowing and sun-gold and the warmth of summer. There is a brilliant white stallion with bull horns, and a gleaming net of gemstones. Besides him stands a lion, and Orestes has rarely seen something so beautiful as the two beings side by side. He smiles, perhaps even wider than before, because Yes, the people care. Yes. They are rising.
“El Toro.” Orestes tests the name on his tongue. It is reverent. “You will become our Champion of Battle then,” Orestes pauses, for a moment. But there is something too right about it. “The White Knight of Solterra.” Perhaps it is his love for romantics; for nuances. He lingers a little on that title, too, before moving on to assess the group.
They are a myriad of colours; of backgrounds; of people. It is not as it had been among the water horses, where one of them practically streamed into the other. It is not as among them, where thoughts were nearly symbiotic. There is dissent, and a hunger for something more that is nearly tangible. “I know I am not what you expected, or perhaps even wanted.” But I can be what you need. He clears his throat. “Either way, I intend to do everything in my power to earn—“ he does not know how to finish the sentence. What I have been given? What I have been chosen for?
Orestes does not. He clears his throat. “Citizens, Solterra will become a better kingdom than it has ever been. Those of you who have chosen to rise… please, follow me.”
That is when he turns; he shows them his back, and spends just a moment to look at the memorial. There is something starkly missing and after a long moment he realises—fire. An undying torch. Now, is not the time. But it waivers in the back of his mind for a moment, before he begins the long and quiet walk back toward the citadel.
But now, he is not alone.
