This is the first chapter of the upcoming novel Nadir. As with any work in progress, this is subject to change—though this snippet has undergone the most revision and expansion of any part of the story.

Chapter 1

The gods are the statues, and the statues are the gods. They themselves inhabit their physical bodies just as you or I, only theirs are made of Godstone where ours are made of flesh.
— From I Have Seen Their Faces by Dilan of Wellus, Seran Loremaster

Prince Avander stood on the ramparts, resting one foot on the space between the merlons...

Prince Avander stood on the ramparts, resting one foot on the space between the merlons. The midmorning sun warmed his back and shoulders and a cool spring breeze whipped his cloak about him. It was as fine a day as a man could ask for, but it could not touch the roil within his chest. He felt that he had turned to ice and his heart had become a burning coal, hissing and spitting steam, threatening to burst him open.

“What terms do they offer?” He said without turning. His voice sounded thin and hollow to him, as if heard from a great distance.

“None yet.”

“Don’t lie to me, Sion.”

“I… No terms worth hearing, at least.”

Avander did not turn to face his counselor. He stayed at the rampart and looked out over the remains of his kingdom, what little was left. It seemed to go no further than the very walls he stood upon. The lazy, rolling green hills, once speckled with purple and yellow wildflowers, had been trampled beneath the feet of the besieging army.

“They have Hilde. Do you see her?”

It was in that grassy meadow where they had played as children, just on the cusp of adulthood. She had snatched away his silver brooch and he had chased her. When he finally caught her, she had thrown her arms around him and they had both tumbled through the flowers. The sunlight gleaming through streams of her golden hair, her green eyes smiling down at him like luminous jewels, the perfume of the wildflowers that they had crushed in their fall... She had told him that they were betrothed, asked if he knew what that meant, and then she had kissed him.

It was on that same green where the enemy had chained her to a post. One of their leaders was there now, a slender woman wearing a golden headdress. She was speaking to Hilde, gloating perhaps. Jutting into the sky beside them stood three pikes, each topped with a severed head. Two of them had belonged to kings: Avander’s father, King of Cenrithia, and Hilde’s father, King of Talla. The third head belonged to The Champion, divine Chosen of Cenric...

How could such a fate befall them? And where were their armies? The first sign of trouble had been silence. No desperate messengers begging for reinforcements. No wounded soldiers hobbling in on lame horses. Not even a Seran envoy demanding an audience.

No, the Seran army itself had simply arrived in force. His father’s sunken, misty eyes stared at nothing, his flesh was gray and sallow, beard crusted with dried blood, and his slack jaw hung open in a lopsided grimace. The Serans had beheaded not just those three mighty warriors, but in so doing had decapitated two entire nations. Avander knew with a cold certainty that his own head would join the three on the pikes before he ever got a chance to learn how in the Outer Darkness such a thing had happened. He swallowed hard against the lump of stone in his throat.

“Yes, Your Highness. I see her.”

Avander thought he detected a new weight to the way his counselor spoke that title, “Your Highness”. Of course. Avander supposed he was not merely a prince anymore after all. The role of king had fallen to him the moment that the Serans had placed his father's head on that pike. He had but to take up the crown, speak the words, and ascend to the throne. If he did, he would likely have the shortest reign in all of Cenrithian history, crowned one day and slain in battle the next, or starved to death over a period of weeks and months. He could think of no path that would stop the crown from slipping away into ignominy, or prevent Cenric’s sanctum from falling into Seran hands.

Hilde knelt against the wooden post, her cream-colored dress stained and muddy, her eyes concealed behind a blindfold. Avander couldn’t bear to see her like this, but he also couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. It was a small mercy that, blindfolded, she did not have to look upon the face of her father. She turned her own face skyward as if searching for something. She was looking for the sun, Avander thought, trying to get a glimpse of something — anything — through the fibers of her blindfold. Those brilliant green eyes were hidden, but Avander still remembered them. The strength left his legs and he had to steady himself against the merlon when the realization struck him. He would never marry her. They would never again walk arm in arm through Talla’s gardens, or gallop their horses through the Cenrithian meadows. She would never bear his children, he would never fill their table. They would not grow old together. Those precious sunlit memories and brilliant, hopeful futures turned to ashes on his tongue.

“I command you to tell me the Seran terms, whatever they may be.” His voice was almost a whisper.

“It’s… total surrender, My Lord. Open the gates and let them march in. In exchange they will spare the lives of the citizenry.”

“And what of the nobility, Sion? What of you?”

“That’s all they said, My Lord. I presume our exclusion from the terms was not an accident.”

Avander opened his mouth to answer, but Counselor Sion barged ahead.

“My Lord, I have spoken to Captain Aram and the Magnuson Guard. We have sworn to fight to the last drop of blood.” His words came quicker, and with a conviction that was uncharacteristic for the typically bland and impassive servant. Avander heard the scrape of the man’s boot as he took a step forward. “I will take up the sword myself, Your Highness.”

Prince Avander, heir apparent, let his hand fall to the engraved pommel of his sword and turned to face his counselor. In all his eighteen years, Avander had never heard the man speak with such conviction, nor seen his face so stricken. The curled ends of the man’s thin gray moustache trembled, his shaven scalp flushed bright crimson. The image came unbidden to Avander’s mind:

The wiry old man stands in a line with Captain Aram and the last dozen guardsmen, his white servant’s tabard tied at the waist over a rusty chainmail shirt. He holds his borrowed longsword before him like a talisman, its tip quivering each time the battering ram thunders into the sanctum doors. The ornate ebony panels burst apart in a shower of splinters and whirring crossbow bolts, and the howling Serans pour over the defenders like a flood.

Avander turned his back to Sion and clenched his fist around the handle of his sword, its leather grip creaking in his fingers. He closed his eyes, feeling the breeze ruffle his hair. “No.”

“No, My Lord?” Avander heard Sion take a step back.

“You,” Avander swallowed hard, a futile attempt to clear the ashen taste from his mouth. “You must go to them.”

“Go to them? What am I to say?”

“Tell them you want to make a deal.”

“A deal? What...” Sion stammered, then Avander heard a sharp intake of breath. Sion must have realized what was coming.

“Tell the Serans that you will open the gates for them.”

“My Lord, you can’t-...”

“Tell them that Prince Avander stubbornly refuses all terms and demands resistance till the last, however you and the other members of the household are not so blind. You will personally deliver the Prince and the city into their hands and in exchange you and the other courtiers will have the choice to walk free with the citizenry or maintain your positions under Seran rule.”

“Avander, please.” Avander felt the old man’s thin fingers grip his arm just above the elbow. “Don’t do this. Cenric will preserve us.”

Avander whirled, flinging his counselor’s hand away. “Look!” He threw his arm out towards the gathered army. “Did Cenric preserve my father? His own Champion?”

Jessup stood watch by the stairs, arms crossed, mail gleaming in the sun. The retainer was like a favorite cloak — unnoticed until you realized just how cold you were without it. Now, though, he stood with his arms folded, his face a thundercloud. He looked away when Avander turned.

Deep wells of tears glittered in Counselor Sion’s eyes. “If you never heed my counsel again, My Lord, I beg you… We must stand! Cenric will reward our valor.”

Avander shook his fist. At the Serans, at Sion, or Cenric? He didn’t know. “Never were there two more valorous men than King Raik and Grimald, and look how he rewarded them.” The words tasted like poison.

Sion said nothing, merely stood there, lip quivering.

Avander’s fist fell to his side. “I wish you were right, Sion. I fear the hour is too late, but… I will go to Cenric and beg for his favor. One last time. Otherwise…” A cold resolve washed over him like he’d been plunged under an icy pool. “Go to the Serans and bring them to me in Cenric’s Sanctum. He has until they arrive to answer.” Avander poured every ounce of heat from that hissing, spitting coal into his voice as he glared down at his servant.

“This I command.”