Jainan stepped back to let the three of them pass. He ought to feel relief, but he only felt the cold prickle at his back and a distant dread of the ceremony itself. He had no room to indulge those sentiments.
He waited a moment to pace after them, keeping his distance from the gathering crowd of attendees. He couldn’t face condolences. As he drew nearer to the front gates, he could see a view down the hill toward the city of Arlusk and a queue of flyers approaching the palace, waiting to disgorge their guests. The low dome of the palace shrine rose up to his right. The press had been allowed up to the doors: half a dozen aerial cameras circled around the marble dome, snapping pictures of the attendees. There was no way to avoid them. Jainan made sure his expression was neutral.
Inside the shrine, the smell of resin hung starkly in the air under the high stone rotunda. The space under the dome was at least free of aerial cameras. The spectators milled around to fill up the seats that circled the edge of the shrine; a uniform gleam came from the rows of decorated military officers, broken up by civilians in sober, light-colored clothes.
A line of seats was reserved for the twelve treaty representatives. The Eisafan representative was expansive as usual in a flurry of extravagant bronze-and-cream capes, with her royal partner beside her and a gaggle of staff standing behind. Her hair was woven through two heavy flint rings—an ostentatiously Galactic way of showing her gender. The delegates from Rtul and Tan-Sashn had chosen to dress in Iskat mourning grays like Jainan; they looked grave and impassive. Sefala’s seats were both occupied by Iskaners. The Kaani representative had not even made an appearance. Jainan felt a distant admiration for their ability to find a different niche Kaani malaise every time they were disinclined to attend something.
Someone tapped his elbow. “Your Grace?”
Jainan pulled his arm away and stepped back. It was a young man, tall and skeletal, dressed in a Thean-style tunic. Jainan took a moment to realize the white and navy was a set of colors he knew: the clan style of the Esvereni. This must be the new Thean Ambassador.
“Count Jainan of Feria,” the Ambassador said, and waited for Jainan’s nod of confirmation. “My name is Suleri nal Ittana of the Esvereni. I was hoping to catch you here.”
Jainan bowed. He and Taam were supposed to be above politics, but surely nobody could complain if he greeted the ambassador from his own home planet. “Your Excellency. Congratulations on your appointment.”
The Ambassador gave him a dispassionate smile and said, “Thank you. To tell the truth, Your Grace, I was beginning to worry about you. I’ve invited you to the embassy several times over the last few days. You haven’t responded.”
Jainan took a short breath. It had taken a long time for Iskat to accept the appointment of a new ambassador, precisely because the last one had tried to interfere excessively in palace affairs. Inviting Jainan to the embassy before he even married his next Iskat partner made it look like Thea intended to start that all over again. This Esvereni should have been briefed, but then, the Esvereni had never been known for their tact and political restraint—Jainan caught the old pattern of thought and squashed it. Thean clan biases had no relevance on Iskat. “I apologize. I have been busy with religious duties.”
The smile thinned. “I’m sorry to hear you’re so busy, Your Grace. Unfortunately, since the Resolution is here for the treaty ceremonies, I have more to ask of you. I need to know you’ll at least take part in the remnants handover. No one on my staff is authorized to interact with the Auditor.”
Jainan hesitated, feeling the horribly familiar loss of a thread that had slipped out of his grip. There were several Resolution ceremonies before the treaty was renewed, he knew. One of them saw each planet hand over all the xeno remnants they had found over the last twenty years, uncovered from space junk nets and dig sites and terraforming refuse. Thea had found some minor shards that must be given up to the Resolution. Jainan would play his part, of course, but his new partner had to agree. He stepped aside to let a party of civil servants take their seats. “Yes, though I’m still awaiting the schedule—”
“Of course,” Ambassador Suleri said. “I couldn’t ask you to do anything without Iskat’s approval.”
Jainan shut his eyes for a brief moment and felt a flare of something uncharitable. A new, inexperienced ambassador from a rival clan was yet another problem to navigate, another chaotic factor in the equation. Suleri did not know how easy it would be to ruin the balance of relations. “I will send you my schedule as soon as humanly possible,” Jainan said. “I promise. The wedding is tomorrow. I will know by then.”
He saw something taken aback about Suleri’s expression at tomorrow, but Jainan was too tired to read it. Suleri cleared his expression and bowed. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll expect a message.”
Jainan turned away feeling like he had just crossed a floor rigged with explosives. He took his seat with moments to spare before the ceremony started.
As a row of priests filed in, the Eisafan representative leaned over. “Your new ambassador seems to have had some difficulty getting an invitation,” she murmured under the next set of chanting. “My staff had to help him. Are you having any trouble?”
Jainan stared straight ahead. “The invitations were sent out late,” he said. Taam had generally handled the other treaty representatives. Jainan could feel it even now, in the way the Eisafan representative looked at the empty chair beside him before she addressed him. “Thank you for your assistance.”
“Our pleasure,” she said, and sat back. Eisafan was the model planet of the Empire: richer and more populous every year, integrated with Iskat at every level. Eisafan would not have had a problem getting its ambassador invited to any event.
Jainan forced himself to pay attention to the rest of the ritual. The one-month Mourning was a formal Iskat ceremony, the style of it dictated by Taam’s sect. He had technically followed a different sect from Jainan, but in truth Taam had only joined one because the army expected it, and neither he nor Jainan had paid much attention to ceremony outside of the high holidays.
Jainan breathed out as the chants curled upward. This was the sixth funeral ceremony in a month. He barely remembered the details of the previous ones—they blurred into one long row of priests and grave-faced soldiers, watching while Jainan struggled to remember his part in rituals he’d never attended before.
He was at least used to that by now. He stood when one of the priests beckoned him and walked steadily up to the circle of offering tables, which were crowded with gray-framed pictures of Taam. The rotunda was quiet. The press wasn’t allowed in until the end.
Jainan lit a coil of waxed rope set into a resin pot, and a thin plume of smoke rose, adding to the haze in the dome. He should feel something, but instead he was numb; the numbness had a chill and a weight like a pool of icy water. He stood with the burning taper in his hand and watched the wisp of woodsmoke spiral upward. In front of him, a priest whispered a formula Jainan was not properly allowed to hear. Taam’s face looked back at him from every angle—flat, lifeless, nothing like Jainan had known him—but the soaring space above was empty and calm.