Chapter 17: The Sea Court

The wedding hall on the Sunset Cloud Sea had never held so many people.

Two hundred gods sat in tiers on the cloud, with sunset coming up through the floor in rose and copper.

The altar flame stood in its bronze bowl in the middle of the dais, small and gold.

I walked in on Phlegon's arm.

He didn't use a cane.

He walked slowly, but he walked, and I felt every head turn to watch him do it.

Along the front wall, in a single row, stood the forty courtiers who had been in the Hall of Gowns.

None of them met my eyes.

My father sat in the high seat with his white-gold beard combed.

He did not smile at me.

"Bring her in," he said.

Two guards brought Myrrha through the side door.

She wore a plain grey dress with no sash.

Her wrists were bound in a thin band of sun-gold that rang when she moved.

She looked at the tiers, then at the altar, then at me.

Her face went soft and wet in a heartbeat.

"Helia," she said. "Please. I don't know what they've told you. I was so frightened."

Nobody moved.

I waited for the crying to work, and I watched it fail across two hundred faces one at a time.

"Read the charges," my father said.

A herald unrolled a long scroll and read four charges.

The last one was the sun-chamber, and it took him a long time to read.

"Who speaks to the forgery?" my father asked.

Lampos stood up from the third row and said it again, in a clear, steady voice, without once looking at the floor.

"Who speaks to the vault?"

The sentry from the sun-chamber came in between two guards with his hands tied.

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