State of Sorrow (Untitled #1)(10)

She didn’t know what to do, how to be, around this stranger she called “Father”, so she’d kept her eyes on the body of the woman who’d been both parents to her. Movement had caught her eye, and she’d looked up to see Harun reaching into a pocket of his robe, pulling out a small ivory pipe, the bowl already packed with something. She watched as he lit it and sucked the mouthpiece greedily, finally exhaling a cloud of smoke that instantly caused a familiar pain to bloom across Sorrow’s forehead.

“It’s Lamentia. It’ll help,” Harun had said, tears welling in his eyes as he held the pipe out to her.

“What does it do?” Sorrow watched her father’s pupils widen, then contract. “What is Lamentia?”

“It’ll help you grieve,” he said.

Fear twisted her innards. “Where did you get it?”

Harun had brought the pipe to his lips again, and smoke whispered out of his mouth, drifting towards her.

Sorrow had backed away from him, clutching her head. “I don’t want it.”

“You need it.” The tears spilled down his cheeks. “We all need it. Or we’ll forget to miss them.” He’d reached out towards his daughter with trembling, stained fingers.

Sorrow had fled straight to Charon, the only adult left she trusted. And he confessed he already knew, and that he and her grandmother had been working to keep Harun’s use of it contained. But the insidious grip of Lamentia had tightened on the chancellor, despite Charon and the dowager’s efforts to halt it.

And now one of the senators, a man who sat on the Jedenvat council, had taken the pipe Harun must have offered. Fear inched an icy path down Sorrow’s spine, obliterating the incessant warmth of the palace, as she realized if he had, then others might follow. And sooner or later, the secret would be out. Balthasar moaned as a trickle of blood leaked from his nose, and Sorrow’s rage spiked, burning away her revulsion.

Sleeve still covering her nose and mouth, she passed the incapacitated councillor and headed towards her father’s private suite. When she saw the guards on the door, she beckoned one of them to follow, leading him back to Balthasar.

“Take him to the cells to sober up. Give him food, water, make him comfortable – not too comfortable,” she amended. “He’s not to leave until I, or Lord Day, say so.”

The guard nodded, and bent to lift the prone man, but Balthasar was too far gone to stand, let alone walk. The guard looked at Sorrow, gave a shrug, and hauled the young senator over his shoulder. Sorrow watched him go, waiting until he was out of sight, before she turned back towards Harun’s private rooms, dread squatting like a toad inside her stomach. What state would she find Harun in this time?

Her foot nudged something and she looked down. Balthasar’s pipe had fallen to the floor and Sorrow picked it up, examining it. It was beautifully crafted, a mermaid curved around the stem and shank, holding the bowl in her arms, peering coquettishly over the top, back towards the lip. An antique, she realized, something from the days past when artists could create beautiful things for the sake of it. And look what Balthasar had used it for…

She dropped it to the floor and stood on it, grinding it under her heel and leaving the pieces on the floor, as she strode towards her father’s quarters.

The remaining guard opened the door for her, and she entered the inner sanctum of the chancellor of Rhannon.

The chancellor was alone, prostrate in front of a candle-strewn altar, sprawled beneath a large portrait of a boy with impossibly curled hair curving against tawny cheeks, brown eyes staring soulfully out, a birthmark on the left-hand side of his neck shaped like a moon. Her mother had been born with a mark too, though Sorrow hadn’t known it until Charon had told her. In the few portraits that existed of her, the first lady’s neck had been covered, as the fashions of the time dictated. As they had remained. Sorrow pulled at her own high collar, before approaching Harun.

“Father,” she said softly, kneeling beside him. “I’m here, Father.”

The chancellor looked up slowly, dazed, his eyes raking over her. His pupils were pinprick small, and his nose … his nose was red, and weeping clear fluid. Lamentia frosted his thick beard. Her stomach dropped as understanding knocked her back two full paces. He wasn’t smoking it any more. He was inhaling it.

“You stupid, stupid… Father!” Sorrow barked.

At the sound of her voice, his eyes came momentarily into focus, and he looked past her into the room.

“Mael’s gone,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Sorrow’s hands became fists at her sides.

“My son. My heir. Mael. Born and died on the same date. What unkindness is that, to be so exact? How can we bear it?”

Sorrow shook her head and reached for her father’s arm, roughly lifting him and half dragging, half guiding him to a chair by the bed. She poured him a glass of water and held it to his lips. “My boy,” he murmured, pushing the glass away.

“Drink,” Sorrow barked at him.

“I have no desire. Everything tastes of ash. How can I drink, or eat, when my only son is dead?”

Sorrow’s mouth tightened. It wasn’t grief killing the chancellor’s appetite. “Mael wouldn’t want you to starve for him.” She tried to soften her voice.

“What would you know of Mael’s wants?” The chancellor’s glassy eyes were sharp briefly, blazing at her. Then they filmed over with fresh tears and he began to weep once more.