I hope you weren't looking to me to be the voice of reason. I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret. -- Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

Death stared. And stared. And stared some more. Finally she found her voice. "What."

Kilan didn't look discouraged by her flat tone and incredulous expression. "Father said years ago that the only reason he allowed some people onto the xiuhon[1] was because he didn't want to find out what they might do if he couldn't keep an eye on them. Well, the same principal applies here. One of the High Council is retiring and I'll have to appoint a replacement. So I'll appoint Gialma, and he won't be able to do anything without me knowing!"

Death felt the beginnings of a headache. At this very minute Gialma was on his way to plot Kilan's overthrow, and here Kilan wanted to put him on the High Council. What next? She shook her head and set about trying to sort out this muddle. "Kilan. It's usually the Chief Counsellor who chooses potential candidates for the replacement. The ruler has only to make the final selection. And there is no way in Hell that Dilves will ever consider Gialma!"

A frown appeared on Kilan's face at the mention of Dilves. "But I can still tell her who I want on the Council, and she'll have to obey my orders." He almost smiled triumphantly. "The look on her face alone will be worth the headaches my cousin will cause."

Well, at least he knew that putting Gialma on the High Council would be nothing but trouble. She considered telling him what Gialma was currently doing. Was it worth inciting Fate's wrath over this?

Yes. Yes, it was.

"You might be interested to know where your cousin is now," she said with an air of nonchalance. "He's on his way to Istogu."

Kilan raised an eyebrow. "He'll have an uncomfortable time if he manages to offend Princess Ixerthi, but I don't see what that has to do with me."

Death sent a quick prayer to anything that might be listening. Don't let Fate hear this! "He's going there to meet a Malishese princess."

She expected shock, or anger, or even disbelief. She didn't expect Kilan to go so absolutely still that one might have thought him an unusually life-like statue.

"What Malishese princess?" he asked quietly.

Most people were at their most frightening when angrily yelling and aggressively gesticulating. Kilan was most frightening when he looked perfectly calm to a casual observer, and spoke in a level, unemotional tone. If asked to explain why he became so unnerving then, Death would have been unsure of how to reply. But she suspected that it was because in those moments he reminded her far too much of herself. It was too much like seeing her own temper reflected in him.

And he was still waiting for an answer, she realised with chagrin.

"Her name is Khayasi Fìdmawa. Since her marriage she has been known as Jalakanavu kiqra'med Nalginton[2]. She's the wife of Prince Nalginton."

Kilan nodded slowly. His face still showed no emotion. Death, in spite of how well she knew him, found that she couldn't tell what he was thinking. "And is he plotting another murder with her?"

"No. I don't know what exactly they're plotting, but it will be some way to overthrow you and have Gialma made Emperor."

Kilan was always fairly pale, especially since becoming Emperor. Now all the colour had drained from his face until he looked like one of the priestesses of Tenyidha[3]. But it wasn't the sort of pallour that came from being frightened. It was the paleness of barely-restrained fury.

Death looked at him and thought of the madness in the blood that ran in his veins, and the potential chaos he could cause if he wished. And she realised, with a fury even greater than Kilan's, that Fate had already known she would tell him this. And She had planned for it all along.

There was a saying among some mortals she had recently visited. "Run from destiny, and you will find it waiting for you." The same was true of Fate.

"Well," Kilan said with an attempt at cheerfulness, "then it's all the more important to keep an eye on Gialma, isn't it?"

He managed a forced smile. But there was something dark and terrible lurking in his eyes. Death knew it only too well. She had seen it thousands of times before. In her reflection.

~~~~

After that far-from-pleasant conversation, Death returned to her realm in search of some peace. Clearly Fate wanted to make today as unpleasant as possible for her. Reincarnation was waiting in her throne room when she arrived.

Death suppressed the urge to flee to the other side of the universe. A visit from Reincarnation never boded well.

"How... nice to see you." She greeted her daughter-in-law with a forced smile. "Why are you here?"

Reincarnation grinned at her as if they were old friends meeting for a cup of tea. Unlike Death and the Reapers, who never wore anything but black, she was decidedly more brightly-coloured than anything normally seen in Death's throne room. Her once-brownish skin was patterned with electric blue and vibrant purple swirls that, on a second look, turned out to be scales like a snake's. Her wings were like a butterfly's, instead of resembling a bird's like Death's did, and they were bright yellows, oranges and pinks. Her eyes changed colour every other second, which made meeting her gaze a disorientating experience. Her once-black hair was now pure white -- and it glowed. Her clothes were a brilliant shade of orange.

All in all, she was a more garish spectacle than had been seen in the Land of the Dead for many years. Not even Pestilence's odder appearances had been as headache-inducing.

"I want to talk to you," Reincarnation said.

Death was so busy trying to wrap her mind around the fact that so many colours could be found on one short woman than she didn't realise her daughter-in-law had spoken at all.

"What?" she said, craning her neck to look down at Reincarnation.

Many years ago Death had decided that her default appearance should be unusually tall. All the better to intimidate souls who might otherwise be troublesome, was her reasoning. As a result she towered over almost everyone, even her husbands and children. This was both a blessing and a curse. It was -- usually -- amusing to be much taller than Kilan. It was just plain annoying to be much taller than Reincarnation.

Her daughter-in-law, damn her, was neither intimidated nor annoyed by the height difference.

"I've come to borrow Ranoryin for... oh, about seventy years or so."

Part of Death silently cheered at this news. Finally! She would be rid of Ranoryin for a while! But suspicion overruled that part. "Why do you want her?"

"To reincarnate her, of course!" Reincarnation looked at Death as if she was very stupid.

Death felt the beginnings of a headache. "I mean," she said patiently, "why do you want Ranoryin? Why not someone less likely to try to stab me when I go to collect her soul again[4]?"

"Because Fate and I have chosen Ranoryin."

Of course Fate had a hand in this. She was responsible for everything that caused trouble for other personifications. Death didn't know why she was surprised at her superior's antics any more.

"And where do you plan to reincarnate her?" she asked wearily.

Reincarnation grinned. "Glad you asked!"

~~~~

Gialma paid the expected courtesy visit to Princess Ixerthi, who was far from overjoyed to meet him, then left his servants to prepare his hotel room. He wandered aimlessly through the wide hallways of the hotel, lined with marble pillars and with curious coloured stones on the floor, and out into the street beyond.

Inside the hotel it had been bright and airy and relatively peaceful. The only sounds were the distant murmur of voices. The general noise of a large city, though audible, was muffled as if coming from a great distance. The streets of Chaldwari, on the other hand, were loud and crowded and full of smoke.

There were no shops of the sort he was used to seeing in the cities of his home province. Instead there were stalls made of brightly-coloured curtains draped over a metal framework. Open fires sat outside many of these stalls. Everywhere people were pushing past him, or stopping abruptly to examine something in one of the stalls, or leading animals through the crowd. Gaunt, mangy dogs snarled at each other near the butchers' stalls. Beggars, ranging in age from old women of over ninety to little children of barely two, cried out for money in a nearly incomprehensible dialect.

Strange smells -- smoke, freshly-cooked meat, perfume, shoe polish, and other things he couldn't identify -- filled the air. Gialma found that every breath caught in his throat and left him coughing violently. He dived down a less-busy side-street to get his breath, and to recover from the shock of the city.

At last he felt like he could breathe without choking.

How do the people who live here manage to survive without dying of lung disease? he wondered.

From where he was standing Gialma could see out onto the market-street while remaining sheltered from the worst of the crowds. He took advantage of this to study his surroundings.

The dialect spoken in Istogu bore little resemblance to standard Carannish. It was closer to a head-on, high-speed collision between Carannish and Malishese, with influences from the languages spoken by the nomadic tribes who lived there. Gialma could barely understand a single word among the cacophony of shouts from shoppers, shop owners, beggars, and everyone else.

The clothes the people wore were made of a curious fabric he had never seen before. It seemed to be a rough, heavy sort of fabric. The clothes made from it were usually a dull brown or grey colour, but he saw some people in outfits dyed brilliant yellows and reds. Nor was the material of their clothes the only curious thing about the city's fashions. None of the outfits bore any resemblance to the long, flowing, richly-decorated robes commonly seen in other parts of Carann. Instead they were heavy tunics over heavy trousers, with heavier cloaks draped over the weaver's shoulders.

Gialma felt uncomfortably as if he had been dropped into a completely foreign country. How could this noisy, chaotic place possibly be part of the same empire as his peaceful, orderly homeland?

The appearances of the city's people were as extraordinary as their garments. Some of them had the dark skin of the Malishese combined with the slanted eyes of the Carannish. Some looked fully Malishese, and others looked fully Carannish. Still others looked like neither race, but had pale skin, wide eyes and red or yellow hair.

But most startling of all was the obvious poverty. All the stalls were small, and the goods they sold were meagre. All the people, even those who weren't beggars, were gaunt and haggard-looking. The animals led to and fro were so thin their ribs were visible through their fur.

The only creatures that seemed well-fed were the rats. They were everywhere, scurrying around the people and snatching crumbs that fell on the ground. No one reacted to their presence with horror or revulsion. Gialma got a horrible fright when an enormous black-furred rat ran right past him, an inch from his foot.

He shuddered and began to make his way back to the hotel. If this trip to the marketplace had taught him anything, it was that Tinuviel was utterly neglecting the empire's provinces. Someone else would have to do something.

Chapter Footnotes:

[1] xiuhon = A sort of local parliament, something like a district council, which deals with matters specific to its province.

[2] Once married, a Malishese woman loses her own surname and becomes known as "kiqra'med (wife of) [her husband's name]".

[3] priestesses of Tenyidha = Tenyidha is the goddess of snow in the Carannish religion. For religious ceremonies in her honour, her priestesses put white make-up all over their faces.

[4] stab me when I go to collect her soul again = Ranoryin did indeed try to stab Death when she died the first time. This is explained in more detail in the bonus chapter The Undiscovered Country.