hands of the emperor by victoria goddard

“And a statement of something I have never quite dared say in its full simplicity before, which is that I love you.”īefore Cliopher could say anything-before Cliopher could do anything-Fitzroy tugged off his signet ring and placed it on the palm of Cliopher’s hand.Ĭliopher looked at his fanoa. “But first: Kip Mdang, I would like you to have this, as a token of my esteem, a promise of my affection, an affirmation of my readiness to follow your star wherever you wander with it, an acknowledgement of my willingness to raise an island for you whenever you need one, and…” Fitzroy took a deep breath. “And I danced the fire across the Wide Seas when I sailed down the river of time in a ship of my own hands’ shaping.” He gestured down, though the old burns on the sides of his feet, where he had brushed up against the coals, were hidden by his Solaaran-style sandals. “I learned the steps on Loaloa from the direction of the tanà, my great-uncle Tovo. No one was listening to him but the vendor. Cliopher had been expecting to haggle over price, not his identity.

These were the questions out of the Lays of the Wide Seas. His third answer came, as a result, much more quietly. My island is Loaloa.” He paused a moment, before the desire for it to be true overcame the fear that he overreached himself in the claim. “I am Cliopher Mdang of Tahivoa in Gorjo City. It took him a moment to pull up the traditional answers.

The questions shocked him through to the core. “What is your name, what is your island, and what is your dance?” “The vendor looked at him through narrow eyes.

Hands of the emperor by victoria goddard