Part II — The Tongues of Men
Summary:
Saviik leaves the safety of the estate and begins to study the Empire itself. He learns how people use words as weapons and how silence can still command.
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The first time he rode through the Imperial City alone, it was barely dawn.
Mist still lay in the low streets, threading itself between the columns like torn cloth. The horses' hooves sounded dull against the cobbles, the echo swallowed by fog and the distant chime of a temple bell marking the sixth hour.
House Veyne's messenger crest was enough to open the gates. Guards nodded, expressionless, their armor beaded with dew. Inside, the city smelled of wet stone, woodsmoke, and the faint iron tang of coin. Market tents were only beginning to rise; canvas snapped lazily in the breeze.
Saviik dismounted at the outer plaza where the marble turned to polished slate. He had expected noise, but the city in morning was a whispering thing, alive yet cautious. The Dome of White-Gold loomed ahead, its spire ghosted by mist, the way a candle might appear through glass. He stopped to look up; the light around its peak caught in the fog, forming a halo that shifted with every breath of wind.
"Don't stare too long," said a voice at his shoulder.
Lady Ylva, cloaked in gray, stepped from the carriage behind him. "The first lesson in politics: never look impressed."
He inclined his head. "Even by an empire?"
"Especially by an empire."
She gestured him toward the Council Hall. Inside, the air cooled at once. The floor was a mirror of black stone veined with silver; every sound doubled itself, as if the chamber wished to record each misstep. Rows of minor advisors clustered around tables stacked with parchment. The smell of ink was strong enough to taste.
At the central dais, a young legate was arguing with a Colovian noble—something about grain tariffs and river patrols. Their voices overlapped until they blurred into noise.
Ylva leaned close. "Watch their hands," she murmured. "Truth hides there."
The legate's fist clenched on the table edge. The noble's fingers tapped in neat intervals. The rhythm told Saviik who was desperate and who was merely angry.
Without warning, Ylva called across the hall, her tone mild but carrying. "My lords, perhaps you will allow the boy to propose a compromise."
Every head turned. The silence was complete enough to hear the scratch of a quill freezing mid-stroke.
Saviik stepped forward because hesitation was worse than error. "If the tariffs are halved," he said evenly, "the grain still moves, the river still feeds the forts, and both of you can claim generosity without losing coin."
A pause. The noble blinked; the legate looked as if he'd been handed a riddle that solved itself. Then someone at the far end laughed softly. "Wisdom from a ward," he said. "Perhaps we should all keep children in our councils."
Laughter followed—polite, careful, not cruel. The meeting resumed with less venom.
As they left the hall, Ylva said, "You defused them."
"I only repeated what they wanted to hear," he replied.
"That's what defusing is," she said. "You used their own air to put out the fire."
Outside, the city had warmed. Vendors were shouting now, hawking bread and citrus and tiny glass charms shaped like dragons. The crowd moved like a river, changing color every few steps. Xala waited near the steps with both horses; she had come despite Ylva's protests.
"How did the council go?" she asked.
"They argued. Then they agreed," Saviik said.
"Because of you?"
He shrugged. "Because they were tired."
She grinned. "That's practically diplomacy."
They rode back through the streets together. The noise followed them: hammer on anvil, gulls, the rise and fall of voices. To Saviik it all sounded like language before it had decided on meaning.
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Later that week, in Ylva's study, he found her polishing a small brass mirror. She motioned him closer.
"Every power has its tongue," she said. "The legion's tongue is steel. The court's is charm. And the Empire's—" she held up the mirror, "—is reflection. It convinces you that what you see is yourself."
He looked into the polished surface. The boy who stared back was handsome now, composed, distant. For a moment he wondered whether the mirror belonged to him or to the Empire that had taught him to stand so still.
"Remember this," she said, lowering it. "The moment your reflection smiles before you do, leave the room."
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That night, he found Xala on the terrace. She was practicing Illusion spells—small bursts of light shaped into birds that flew a few paces and vanished. The air smelled faintly of jasmine and the oil she used on her bowstring.
He watched the little conjured birds scatter like sparks. "You're improving."
"I'm pretending to," she said. "The tutor says Illusion is about control. I prefer the part where it fails."
He smiled. "There's honesty in failure."
"And beauty," she said, releasing another. "It never lasts long enough to be boring."
A faint breeze lifted from the lake. One of her conjured birds caught the wind, rising higher than it should have, fading only when it reached the edge of moonlight.
They both watched it go.
"Do you ever think about leaving?" she asked quietly.
"Every day."
"And?"
"I'm not ready to return yet."
"Then don't," she said. "The north isn't going anywhere."
He turned toward the lake. The moon's reflection trembled on its surface, and for a heartbeat it looked like the eye of some sleeping god. "Neither am I," he said.
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