Shadow Pavilion by Liz Williams

Heaven of thousands of years ago, not anymore.”
    â€œDoes Heaven know that?”
    Mhara sipped tea. “I don’t know. It will have to take it on board at some point. I’m up against a tradition like a juggernaut and I’m not going to be the one that gives in.”
    â€œNo,” Robin agreed. “I don’t suppose you will.” For the first time, she turned her head and looked at him. Robin thought, Mhara knew, that she had a very ordinary face: typical of the region, rather thin, with straight black brows, a long mouth. Mhara did not agree; it was not that he considered her beautiful, as that he did not really care. In Heaven, one was surrounded by the exquisite, a continual parade of glorious beauty that, after a while, became rather boring. He found Robin’s neither-plain-nor-pretty features restful, after all that extraordinariness. Moreover death, and a more settled situation, had smoothed out the habitual lines and frowns of worry that she had worn when Mhara first encountered her, down in the laboratories of Jhai Tserai’s corporation, and had lent a serenity to her face that made it more restful yet. Mhara enjoyed looking at her and did so now.
    â€œThe question of a political marriage will come up,” Mhara said. “My mother will make sure of it—I’m certain she has half a dozen candidates in mind from various other Heavens. Angelic powers, devas, houris. It doesn’t matter, Robin. Things have changed. Heaven is as subject to the march of time as anywhere else, we’re a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century now, and I’m not subject to my mother’s rule. This is a terrible thing to say but I don’t even have much respect for her—she saw what my father was becoming and she didn’t do anything to stop it.”
    â€œWell, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” Robin said. “It won’t do much good for me to talk to your mother, but I suppose I can try if I have to.”
    â€œThere is,” Mhara remarked, “absolutely no point in winding her up.”
    Robin patted him on the shoulder. “Sometimes, going out with you is really surprisingly normal. You don’t even look very Emperor-esque, if that’s any comfort.”
    â€œUnfortunately, I am starting to feel some of its burdens.” Mhara put the tea bowl down. Talk of his coronation had just reminded him of something. “Have you heard from Chen or Inari lately?”
    â€œI saw them at the weekend. They brought those—” Robin pointed toward a spray of elegant white orchids in a vase “—I forgot to tell you. Coronation present.”
    â€œWas Inari’s badger with them?”
    Robin frowned, remembering. “I think so. Yes, it was. It went for a root in the flowerbed while we were having tea. I know it’s sentient but I can’t help thinking of it as a sort of dog. Or a teakettle, obviously.”
    â€œBut you haven’t seen or spoken to them since then?”
    â€œNo. Why?”
    â€œI think,” said Mhara, opening the door, “I’d better have a quick word with the detective inspector.”
    It was, he discovered, a beautiful evening. For once, the air above the sprawl of Singapore Three was clear, fading down into an intensity of sunset green. There was a brief flash of gold from the horizon, along the line of the sea, and Mhara felt the benediction of the sun as it slipped out of sight. He had a sudden, dizzying vision of it as a distant star, the little zip and flicker of the world as it orbited. Then it was gone and the lights of the city lay before him, peaceful in this liminal time of twilight in spite of the faint roar of traffic.
    The temple, until so recently no more than a ruined shell, stood on a slight rise in an outlying suburb, backed by the wall of hills that rose in the north of the city. The view was pleasant from here; there were trees, and