“Exactly. I want to draw them out. Give them purpose!”
“Let’s talk about it. But later. I don’t want to be rude,” Peitar said, turning toward the visitors. “This is Atan from Sartor, and here’s Hibern from . . . where is it, exactly?”
General attention switched from Atan to Hibern so quickly that only Atan saw Derek’s reaction to her name—the crimped upper lip of contempt, and narrow-eyed mistrust.
Mistrust?
Derek’s expression smoothed when Hibern said, “I’m from Marloven Hess, but I live in Roth Drael, where I’m prenticed to the mage Erai-Yanya.”
Derek leaned against a chair, and began asking Hibern about Roth Drael—where was it, how many people, she lived alone with the mage, really?—and from there, questions about the study of magic, who got chosen, if there were ability tests like some guilds gave potential prentices.
The talk shifted from magic to the history of magic. The Siamis enchantment. Travel. The hour sped by, the conversation so quick and full of laughter that Atan wondered if anyone else noticed that Derek controlled it, and that he was excluding her. He behaved as if she were not even in the room, talking so fast that no one else seemed aware.
A chill branched down her nerves as the idea formed: Derek had done it on purpose. He’d kept Lilah waiting, and Hibern and Peitar talking, in order to cut Atan out of the conversation.
Surely she was misreading him—she felt like Tsauderei’s hermit student again, whose early friendships were all people in books. This was the hero of the revolution, the admired Derek Diamagan, who could do no wrong in Lilah and Peitar’s eyes. There was no reason for him to be rude.
But then Derek touched Lilah on the shoulder and said, “How about we go and talk to some of the orphans, see what they think of the idea?” and then to Hibern, “Do return again. I want to hear more about magic in the north.” Atan felt certain her exclusion had been deliberate.
Had the others noticed? Hibern and Peitar were deep in discussion about the two magic schools. Obviously they’d noticed nothing amiss. Atan reflected wryly on what Tsauderei had once said about how people are sure to notice what impacts precious self, but not so quick to detect slights to others.
“We’d better go,” Atan said, and took Hibern’s transfer token from her hand.
Hibern broke off. “Already?”
But Atan didn’t answer. She was whispering an alteration to the transfer spell on the transfer tokens.
“Come again when you can,” Peitar said to them both, but now that she was leaving, he let his gaze linger on Atan.
Atan didn’t see that gaze. She handed Hibern her token, and Hibern braced for the wrench of transfer to Eidervaen. But instead, she felt a mere jolt, no worse than missing a step. She blinked, disoriented, until she recognized the round cottage belonging to Tsauderei, and breathed in the colder, thinner air of the mountain heights.
Tsauderei was there in his chair, a lap desk loaded with books and papers. He looked up, bushy brows lifted.
Atan said, “I know this is rude and sudden, but it’ll be short. I really, really need your advice.” And she summarized the conversation, then said to Hibern, whose expression had rounded in surprise, “Did you notice that? How Derek completely ignored me?”
“No, he didn’t,” Hibern began, then halted. Thought back. “Well, we were talking about history, magic, and the north . . .” Her expression changed. “All the questions were directed to me.” She blushed.
Atan said, “No, don’t apologize, or feel badly. Peitar didn’t notice, either, and he is usually the most sensitive and discerning of people. I think Derek Diamagan cut me out deliberately.”
Tsauderei said, “Of course he did.”
Hibern rocked back a step, and Atan let out her breath in a sigh. “Why? What have I done?”
“Nothing. It’s what you haven’t done, which is to earn your place. No, no.” The mage raised his gnarled hands, and pointed his quill at Atan. “Save your breath. Who in the world knows better who you are, how you learned, and what you’ve done? What’s more, Derek Diamagan knows, too. He’s heard the story about the freeing of Sartor from Lilah, but in his eyes that doesn’t alter the error you made in being born a Landis.”
Hibern exclaimed, “But . . . weren’t Lilah and Peitar related to a territorial prince? If that isn’t royalty, it’s the next thing to it!”
“It’s nobility, but in any case, Derek makes an exception for them. And he argues with them, his first point usually being, You nobles cannot begin to understand,” Tsauderei said. “Peitar depends on Derek to argue the position of the commoner.”
“Derek speaks for all commoners, and yet he resents a king presuming to do the same?” Atan retorted.
Tsauderei chuckled.
Atan flushed. “I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t return a hatred he obviously holds for me though I’ve done him no wrong, because then I’m lowering myself to his standard.”
Tsauderei gave a gust of laughter, then wiped his eyes. “I’m glad you came to me first,” he said, the laughter fading.
Atan let out her breath again, trying consciously to dismiss her anger. How much of politics came down to personal antipathies, really? “Don’t worry. I’m not going to declare war against Sarendan. Even if I could get such a stupid thing past the high council and the three circles.”
Tsauderei leaned forward, completely serious now. “Derek is Peitar’s most trusted friend and advisor.”
“I know that,” Atan said, and winced at how petulant she sounded. She made an effort. “I’ve heard wonderful things about him ever since I first met Peitar and Lilah. And I know he’s done a great deal of good—”
“Spare me,” Tsauderei said, waving the quill to and fro. “You don’t have time for dither. Your people are no doubt looking all over for you—”
“Oh, I’m aware,” Atan said, irritated all over again. “To dress the doll for another function at which I will make empty gestures and count steps to and fro, and measure the depth of their bows.”
Tsauderei said, “You can sulk later. Right now, you’d better let me finish, since you came here to hear what I have to say.”
Atan flushed. “I’m sorry.”
Tsauderei went on. “I suspect that you were right that Derek deliberately ignored you. And you’re equally aware that you cannot say a word against Derek before Lilah or Peitar.”
Atan said, “Of course not.”
Tsauderei went on in a milder tone, “I know you won’t say anything, and you won’t do anything foolish, but this much I know about human nature: within ten years, maybe even sooner, I strongly suspect Derek Diamagan is going to lead another revolution. This time against his ‘brother’ and friend Peitar Selenna, and oh, it will be for the best of reasons, but it will kill Peitar. Whether or not they put a sword through him, he will never recover from the betrayal.”
Atan shivered.
Tsauderei finished inexorably, “And if that does happen—I repeat, I truly hope I’m wrong—but if it does happen, then all the other nations will look to Sartor for clues on how to react. You’re going to need to think through how you’re going to respond.”
This is why I stay away from politics, Hibern thought, and when Atan had taken a sober leave of them both, and vanished, she transferred back to Roth Drael.
After she recovered and sat tiredly down at her desk, she remembered the alliance, which she had completely forgotten to ask Peitar about.
Next time, she told herself, though she wondered if it was worth the effort. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
But she’d promised Clair.
* * *
—
Four days later, Hibern woke up to tiny sounds. Not the sounds of the forest, but the clink of a spoon on ceramic, the rustle of papers, the thud of a trunk closing.
Erai-Yanya was bac
k.
Hibern whirled out of bed and pulled on her robe. She padded barefoot through the archway into the study, and there was her tutor, hair falling down, dressed in an unfamiliar robe rumpled from long wear.
Hibern said, “You’re so brown!”
“Hah!” Erai-Yanya exclaimed. “That’s because I was on our sister-world, Geth-deles. Got back last night, after you went to bed.”
Hibern stared in astonishment. Though the oldest history books seemed to indicate that shifting between the worlds circling the sun Erhal had been much more common before the Fall of Ancient Sartor, nowadays it took serious magic to transfer between them.
Erai-Yanya said, “It’s much warmer there, or at least, where I spent most of my time. Norsunder seems to be stirring there, though what they could want in a world full of floating islands is impossible to guess. I trust it’ll turn out to be rumors, but . . .” She shook her head. “Enough of that, until I learn more. I’ll have to go back. I hope, I hope, for a short time, until we prove the worries are nothing. This I can tell you: it was dreadfully hot and humid.” She spread her fingers and ran them through her hair, tangling it even more. “So! Tell me what you’ve done, and what you’ve learned . . .”
Chapter Eight
Bereth Ferian
EARLY summer on the Sartoran half of the world was early winter in the north.
Liere listened to the crackle and crunch of her footsteps on ice as she walked the whisper-silent avenue of birch that bordered this wing of Bereth Ferian’s marble palace. It was so pretty, the way the bare white limbs stretched up, the branches weaving together, blurred slightly by tiny round nubs that would soon be buds. From a distance the marble palace, seen through the branches, reminded Liere of her grandmother’s white silk lace work.
Arthur had told her that back in the bad old days, when everyone leagued together to keep the Venn from overrunning the entire north, the various kingdoms in the alliance were in a silent sort of competition. Each was to contribute to the building of a headquarters that eventually became this enormous palace, one of the most beautiful in the world.
She could attest to that, after flashing from city to city in those awful days when she had to break the Siamis enchantment by visiting leaders, one by one, to disenchant them, and through them, their citizenry. This really was one of the most beautiful palaces, all that luminous marble, the acorn carvings around the windows, the way the tapestries all seemed to form doors into another place, one of past majesty and magic. Even candle sconces were made of gold in the central public areas, and polished brass above, in orderly knotwork shapes that incorporated the unlikeliest elements—vines, blossoms, wheat, and more acorns—but for some reason they drew and kept the eye.
She wished she understood art. Stamping her feet to kill the sense of pins and needles in her toes, she wished she understood people better. Maybe Erai-Yanya was right, and she wasn’t going to understand until she lifted the Child Spell and grew up. But the very thought of that made her want to run and hide in the deepest hole she could find.
No, she simply had to learn on her own.
She stamped up the avenue. It wasn’t fun to crash the thin ice layer, or to make footprints anymore. She was getting cold in spite of her mittens and scarf and knitted hat pulled down to her eyebrows. Her nose hurt, her fingers hurt, and she tried not to worry about Senrid, from whom there had been silence ever since he’d sent her home in the middle of the night a few weeks before.
All she knew was, there had been trouble in that academy. He’d been white-lipped with anger that night, too upset and angry to remember his mind-shield. So she’d seen what he’d seen: a host of seniors at Senrid’s academy fighting, with knives, in a courtyard.
She hadn’t understood anything she saw, except that it looked like a war to her—and she’d felt Senrid’s sharp fear that civil war would break out if these expertly trained seniors started killing each other.
She’d shut him out, let him give her a transfer token back to Bereth Ferian, and after that, silence.
She tried to understand, but couldn’t, how somebody, anybody would want to be a king. She longed to run and hide every time they wanted her to preside as Queen in Bereth Ferian, and nobody expected her to pass the smallest law, much less prevent civil war.
“But they expect me to get rid of Siamis, if he comes back,” she said to the air, and watched her breath cloud.
Saying his name out loud felt like uttering obscenities. She waved her hand through the already-dispersed cloud of steam as if she could wave the words from having been spoken, and broke into a run to leave them behind.
She found Arthur in the small room they used for mealtimes during the winter. The warmth tingled not unpleasantly on her nose and toes and fingers as she shed the scarf, mittens, hat, and heavy coat.
Arthur sat hunched over an old tome, his feet wound around the legs of his stool, his shoulder blades poking at his shirt as he put his finger on the page and looked up. He had a blue ink-smear on his cheek where he’d scraped his pen when sticking it behind his ear, and brown ink smudged his fingers. She couldn’t explain why she liked these smudges any more than she could explain the appeal of art, but they made her smile.
“Warm corn muffins and tartberry jam?” he asked.
Liere grabbed a muffin, tossing it from hand to hand when she discovered it was still hot. As she reached for a knife to cut it and smother both halves with jam, Arthur said, “Hibern made her visit at the school. She stopped by here to talk to you, but you were outside, so she asked me to ask you when you are going to Marloven Hess next.”
“I don’t know,” Liere said. “You remember, I came back because of some kind of trouble. I don’t know if it’s over.”
Arthur sat back. “That place sounds terrible. You really prefer it to here?”
Liere knew that when she wasn’t listening in the mental realm, she was not a good judge of character, but the hurt in Arthur’s expression was plain to see. “It’s not Marloven Hess I go to,” she reminded him. “I don’t see much of it. It’s Senrid. He’s like my brothers, only better, because my real brothers thought I was stupid. Well, one did. And the nice one didn’t live with us.”
Arthur wondered if that was why he was failing with Liere. He’d never had any brothers or sisters to practice on.
“And there are a few Marlovens I like very much,” she added, thinking of Fenis Senelac, under whose exacting tutelage Liere’s sporadic riding lessons progressed slowly but surely.
But Marloven Hess, like Bereth Ferian, was a place to visit. It wasn’t home. Home still brought images of South End, yet Liere never wanted to go back. Maybe the word ‘home’ was at fault. It wasn’t truly a thing word so much as a feeling word. She hated emotions. They were so useless. ‘Home’ was definitely an emotion word. She should never think it or use it.
Arthur perceived her tensing up, and understood with a kind of sick certainty that despite all his efforts, it was clear that Liere was never going to love Bereth Ferian. That’s what his mother had said, and she was right.
He couldn’t understand it, but he did understand that to pressure Liere with his own sense of failure or fault was unfair. So he pointed at the book. “This fellow is really funny. The translation is Sartoran. Do you want me to read some of it to you?”
“Who’s the writer?”
“A long-ago southern king, writing to his descendants. It’s called Take Heed, My Heirs, and I’ve been laughing all morning.”
Liere had no interest whatsoever in old kings. “I need to practice Ancient Sartoran,” she said. “I’m having such trouble understanding a book, and all it’s about is farming.”
“Ancient Sartoran, that reminds me. Hibern says that the Queen of Sartor seems to want to meet both you and Senrid.”
Liere jerked her shoulders up to her ears. “I dunno when I’ll go there next.”
Arthur did not understand Liere at all, but she was one of his responsibilities. Hoping to ward off one of those awkward silences during which she’d sit there fighting some inward battle while chewing her cuticles bloody, he pretended she’d shown interest in his book, and translated a couple of the funnier incidents from the early years of Prince Valdon’s life. His reward was a grin, then a chuckle, and pretty soon she was laughing, and begged him to read more.
* * *
Chwahirsland to Marloven Hess
Jilo blinked. He stared into the empty closet in horror. The air rippled slowly, the stone walls appearing to be a day’s journey away, the floor a thousand paces below. He blinked and they closed in on top of him. Jilo struggled for breath, his heart squeezing in his chest.
The enemy-book in his hands seemed to pull him forward, forward, toward the abyss he could barely sense . . .
He lunged backward, and stared down at the object leached of dimension, of its essential bookness. He blinked at the rough-cut papers pressed between stiffened canvas, stitched on the outside by blackweave . . .
His head began floating off his shoulders. The tiniest dart of alarm brought his attention back long enough for him to glance at the stranger’s hand lying on the square thing whose purpose he no longer recognized, gray nails . . .
Gray nails.
He knew that was important. He shut his eyes.
Breathed.
Each simple action required concentration, and appalling effort.
Frightened, he clutched convulsively at the token that thumped against his ribs at every move. Heat flashed through him, shocking him thoroughly awake long enough to clutch the book to him and stumble backward through the door. He shambled down the hall, though his limbs had come unhinged, and his feet had turned to blocks of stone.
When he got outside, he leaned against the rough wall, drenched in sweat as he labored to breathe. Waves of black rolled across his vision, punctured by pinpoints of light. Slowly the darting fireflies brightened, and gathered more brethren from the darkness. Did they form into twia? He should count, see if they darted in eights . . .
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