“The sooner we are out of Dahomey, the better,” Maia said determinedly.
“Was it the poisonous serpents, the flesh-eating ticks, or the endless gnats that most charmed you about this fair kingdom?” Jon Tayt said with a crooked smile. “Ach, I do miss Pry-Ree at times.”
She felt a whisper in her mind, a dark warning. You will all die because of this place. This is the land where death was born.
“Your face clouded over just now,” Jon Tayt said, his expression changing to one of concern. “What is it?”
She could not tell him about the whispers from the Medium. It had been a few days since she had last heard one. They seemed to come to her more frequently when danger was near. They warned her of it in advance, which was one of the reasons she had come to trust them. She had learned from studying the chancellor’s tome that the whisperings were often subtle and disguised as her own thoughts. Experience had taught her it was true.
“Just a memory,” she lied, patting his meaty shoulder fondly. “I was almost the queen of this realm, you know.”
He looked at her, surprised. “How so?”
“I was very young when the Mark was born, and my father negotiated a marriage alliance between our kingdoms. I started learning Dahomeyjan when I was two. I have always loved learning different languages. The marriage alliance was rejected long before I was banished. But I have never forgotten that my first husband was going to be the Mark.”
“You know the history of the Mark’s Family, do you not?” Jon Tayt said.
Maia smiled and walked back to Preslee, stroking her soft neck and wishing, against all hope, that somehow she could keep her. It was a foolish thought. The whim of the spoiled princess she had once been.
“It is a famous story, Jon Tayt. Yes, I know it.”
The kishion walked up. “I do not. Tell me.”
Maia was not surprised. The kishion were trained in fighting and murder, not history. She wiped the hair from her eyes and faced him, gripping the saddle pommel and preparing to mount.
“When the mastons left these shores before the Scourge, one of my ancestors, Lia Demont, made a prophecy of sorts about the Earl of Dieyre. She cursed him to survive the Scourge. She said that he would be the last man left in this land, and that he would live to see her words fulfilled. He was a noble from Comoros who fought in the civil wars that followed the Scourge, but he was also invested with a rank in Dahomey. He eventually married, though he always searched for Lia’s sister-in-law, Marciana Price, the one woman he truly loved. She had fled the shores with the mastons. Dieyre ultimately married a noblewoman from Dahomey, the Queen Dowager’s younger sister, thus inheriting even more lands in Dahomey. Because of his prowess on the battlefield, he continued to gain rank in both realms and eventually overthrew the King of Dahomey. Then he overthrew Comoros. One by one, the kingdoms fell, and Dieyre proclaimed himself emperor of all seven kingdoms.”
They both stared at her, listening to her words. As she spoke, she could almost hear the clash of blades. There were screams far distant, as if the very ground had gorged itself on too much blood. Maia shuddered, feeling sick.
“Say on,” Jon Tayt asked, his voice thick.
“The Scourge was raging by then, destroying the people with a terrible plague. Yet still Dieyre fought. He was driven from his throne three times, and three times he returned with an army to reclaim it. It is believed that the final battle happened in Dahomey; it is said there was a mass slaughter that only he survived. He was nearly disfigured with scars and fainted from the loss of blood. Yet he survived, the last man, just as Lia had predicted he would. He wandered the kingdoms, searching in vain for another living soul. There were none. All had either perished by the sword or by the Scourge.”
A feeling of blackness swelled in her heart. It was a terrible story. One that had always afflicted her. What would it have been like, she had wondered, to be the last man on earth? To see the fulfillment of a maston prophecy that had proved unavoidable? She cringed at the memory, feeling sympathy for the lonely creature he must have been.
Maia swung up into the saddle, feeling the black history taint her mood. She stared down at the kishion and Jon Tayt. Both looked back at her with grave expressions, clearly wondering if there was more. There was.
“You see, Emperor Dieyre—as he called himself—was the last man . . . until the Naestors came. They first discovered the ruins of Comoros and Pry-Ree. They sent ship after ship, investigating the ruined kingdoms. These were longboats, not the large sailing ships that the mastons left on. Eventually, they found Dieyre, ruling in the ruins of a desolate castle in Hautland. He was old by then. He lived among them for only nine months before he died. It was he who taught them to read the tomes they plundered. Some were maston tomes that had been secreted away. Some were tomes from the Dochte Mandar. In a way, the Naestors blended the two, learning how to control the Medium in proper ways through use of the kystrels. The Dochte Mandar among us now are not the same as the ones who lived during the days of the Scourging, though they kept the name.”