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“Do you feel the magic of the claiming?”
He nodded. “It feels welcoming. It feels like I’m home. Like safety.”
“Good.”
Erra had told me that it was supposed to feel like that. The Shar was an ugly beast, but it affected the members of my family in different ways, and children experienced it the least. For them, being in their parent’s territory brought feelings of safety and content. They knew they were protected.
It would be another decade or so before Conlan might want his own territory. Or he might never claim one. Erra hadn’t until she’d settled at her current base in California, and even then, she’d only claimed the immediate area around it.
When Erra and Julie had left Atlanta, my aunt had gone as far west as she could while staying on the same continent. She was giving me a lot of room. My father and she thought not in years but in centuries. They expected me to claim territory and grow it. Fortunately for everyone, I was a champion when it came to failing parental expectations.
“Come with me,” I told Conlan.
He followed me along the top of the wall toward the gates. Two men waited by the stairs leading up to the wall, Jushur and Rimush, wearing identical green and gray garments, a kind of tactical uniform on the crossroads of modern military and ancient assassin. They each carried two curved swords, one on each hip, and bows on their backs.
They looked up at me. I nodded, and the father and son came up the stairs.
I pointed to a spot slightly behind me and to my left. “Stand here.”
Conlan moved to it.
I raised my hands, dropped the magical cloak that obscured my power, and let the flow of magic fill me. It surged through me, through every cell, through bone, muscle, and skin, like a light beam entering a prism, and then it poured out of me in a golden light. I had become a glowing beacon.
On the street everything stopped. People stared at me, some in awe, others in alarm. Luther, my friend at Biohazard, had put it best. Magic was wild and unpredictable, and humans, who always had trouble with chaos, searched for ways to understand and codify it. They tricked themselves into thinking that some things were impossible because it made them feel safe. Without my cloak, I was that impossible thing. The very idea that a person with that much magic could exist shattered the established illusion of safety. Some found it exhilarating, others feared it, and some sought its protection through service. I was a great and scary beast, and it was warm and safe under my wings.
Jushur took a knee.
“Jushur, son of Kizzura, the first of the Eyes and Ears, the Fourth Blade of Shinar, declare your intent.”
Jushur spoke, pronouncing each word with deliberate exactness, as if carving it into stone.
“I swear upon my honor and my soul to pledge my life to you, my queen. I swear to protect and honor you in victory and in defeat, in times of famine and in times of plenty, and even if the entire world turns its hand against you, I will serve as your shield. I shall place your life above my own and speak nothing but the truth to you. My blade, my mind, and my soul are yours.”
He'd modified the oath. The bit about not lying was ad-libbed.
“Do you swear that you are free to make this oath? That no other has a claim on your loyalty?”
“I do.”
“I accept your oath. I shall protect and honor you in victory and in defeat, in times of famine and in times of plenty. I will never forsake you for my own gain. I will care for you until the moment you pass from this world. I will defend you as I defend my own life, and your deeds in the service of our common cause shall be recorded and made known so our descendants may honor and celebrate your life. I shall treat you not as my servant but as my valued friend, who stands at my side. My oath to you shall be true until the end of my days.”
Jushur’s eyebrows rose. I also went with a nonstandard oath because if I accepted someone’s allegiance, I’d do it on my own terms. There would be no queen and servants. There would be a brotherhood of equals, or as close to equals as they would allow themselves to be.
“Do you accept my pledge, Jushur, son of Kizzura?”
“I do,” Jushur answered. “With all my heart.”
I reached out. The golden flood of magic bathed Jushur. The oath was symbolically sealed.
He continued to kneel.
“You don’t need my permission to rise,” I murmured.
“This might take some getting used to,” he murmured back. He got up and stepped back.
“Rimush, son of Jushur, the ninth of the Eyes and Ears, the Seventh Blade of Shinar, declare your intent.”
