Mortal Suns by Tanith Lee

I was reprimanded. Which helped me, for it made me worse.
    Probably I should have been, after my start, a timid child. In some ways, I was. But I was forever darting out of cover. I was forever angry, sitting in my golden chair, beating my legs that had no feet against the lion-claws, until my calves were bruised and I cried.
    It was Iwho wanted ghost stories, and then lay rigid through half the night. Oddly, I was never afraid of Crow Claw. If she had come then, I think I would have debated with her quite boldly on her state.
    Then again, with certain adults I was stricken almost silent. A crushing rebuke made me shake, made me sick to my stomach, as did the dread of things not reckoned by others onerous—for example, the excitement of going to the temple, where I should see my beauteous male kin—before all those excursions, I vomited, until I was given a little wine, which would steady me. Even so, I would have died rather than miss the trip.
    I had, too, unreasonable fears, or so they were called. Of a spot behind a particular pillar, where they must always leave a light. Of the sound cats made outside, fighting at midnight to honor Phaidix. Or a certain innocent food or drink. Yet—thunderstorms I loved.
    Snow, however, made me melancholy, which was not so surprising. The bedcovers, shutters, and drapes of the palace had not yet blotted up the icy times at Koi.
    What can I say of her then, this child?
    She was a child. As Crow Claw forewarned her, now she is old; she thinks herself one still.
    After Klyton had met my eyes with his in the Sun Temple, when I was seven, the world about me altered.
    I did not seek Ermias, who was, apparently, my necessary foe. Nor could I talk to Kelbalba, who had gone away to her father’s house in the hills.
    Instead I discussed my life with the turtle.
    “If you go
that
way after your ball, then it will be.”
    The turtle went the way I desired.
    It was settled. I must work hard upon myself.
    Not knowing that, only in Artepta, Charchis sometimes, here and there, now and then, but seldom, did brothers wed their sisters, I had decided that, when I was of the proper age, I would marry the unnamed boy-man who had looked at me. It was not I thought myself worthy of him—how could I be. Besides he was a symbol—I see it now—of something unknown, dangerous and alluring as the edge of a cliff. But I had been carefully tutored. There were gods. Their blood ran in my family.
They
would assist me.
    I wove newstories, about him. I made him songs, not knowing this was improper. He was the Sun as a youth, going out to hunt the Sunburned mountainsides. He lay sleeping in the shade, and the Daystar smiled upon him, and flowers grew into his hair to garland him.
    Luckily, so solitary, wishing often to be private, I did not sing these songs in the presence of any but slaves. They were ciphers any way. Yet, when Ermias came, I fell simply to humming the tune.
    “Twang, twang,” said Ermias. “What discords. What a dunce you are, Calistra.”
    I put down the harp. My hands were cold.
    Ermias seemed fatter by the day. How she hated it. There was a pouch under her chin, and a cushion at her waist. Despite her duties, she was infrequently, to my delight, in the apartment. Her lovers were liars, and she knew.

3
    The year that Calistra was eight, and Sun Prince Klyton thirteen, war broke in Sirma. It was a matter of tribute to the Great Sun, which was refused. Conceivably they expected to be let off, having heard tales. But Farmer Glardor put down his pruning hook, and hefted his sword. With a thousand cavalry, many hundred foot, some siege engines and catapults, the troops marched south in bronze fall weather. Sirma was little. It would be a short campaign. Perhaps a farmer knew, weeds and tares must not be let come up, even in the onion patch.
    “He swaggers too much. He doesn’t need to. He’s a prince. If Glardor stepped aside, it would be him. What does he need to show?”
    Amdysos was