by Melanie Rawn
“Give me a minute.” Sweat pearled her brow and upper lip. She wiped it away, grimacing. “Damn Elomar! He said this would stop once I was past my tenth week. And that was six weeks ago!”
“Are you going to throw up again?” Cailet asked warily, ready to help her to a sink.
“No. I haven’t eaten anything all day, there’s nothing to throw up. Oh, don’t you start! I get enough cosseting from Col and Tarise!”
“Well, you should be cosseted,” Cailet told her firmly. “And once we get you back to Roseguard, you will be. You’ll be living in my house, remember, while the Residence is being finished, so you won’t have any choice.”
“Just what I always wanted—to be waited on hand and foot all fifteen hours of the day!”
“But you grew up that way, you should be used to all the luxuries.”
Sarra laughed. “Caisha, ‘luxury’ is an evening alone with my husband!”
She smiled to acknowledge the truth of it, then said, “No, I meant all the things you had at Roseguard. All the wealth, and elegant living. Things like that. We live pretty well at Ryka Court, but it doesn’t belong to us. Do you miss having beautiful things of your own?”
“I’m too amazed that we are living to worry about the way we live. But once we get Roseguard rebuilt, and finish decorating your house—”
“I still can’t believe you did that for me,” Cailet said shyly. “A whole house of my own. . . .”
“I wish you’d let me give you more. But you’ll love having a place that belongs to you. You’re right, I do miss that. Roseguard was so lovely. . . .”
“And Ambrai.”
Sarra was quiet for a moment. “I loved the Octagon Court. It was my home. But I wasn’t First Daughter, so it never would’ve belonged to me, and I knew it. Now it belongs to Elin Alvassy—and that suits me fine.”
“Ostinhold’s the only home I ever knew. I miss it, but it was never any part of it mine.”
“When I think of what you should have had—it’s not fair,” Sarra said. “You grew up in that dust pit, while I had everything.”
“Except your Name. But it doesn’t matter. We both turned out to be the right bait in the end.” When her sister looked startled, she arched a brow. “Hadn’t you guessed? We were meant to come to their attention, draw them out, push them into making a mistake. It just didn’t turn out the way Gorsha planned.” She shrugged and lay back down, staring at the wooden ceiling timbers. “Nothing ever turns out the way it’s planned.”
Sarra said nothing for a moment, then murmured, “I’m sorry we couldn’t find another place for you, Cai. Falundir’s cottage would’ve been so perfect.”
“Another place for me to hide?”
“I’ve never heard you sound so bitter.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.”
“Too much. And perhaps not enough.”
Cailet turned her head to stare. “You’ve been playing politics too long. You’re talking in two directions at once.”
“And you’ve been sulking too long. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You shut yourself up in here whenever you think you can get away with it.”
Cailet rolled to her feet. “Why don’t you leave me alone? Why can’t anybody just leave me alone?”
“Because you’re the only Mage Captal we’ve got, and like it or not, that means you have power and responsibilities and—”
“I don’t want them.”
“Too bad.” Sarra folded her arms over the curve of her belly and glared. “What if you’d grown up in Ambrai? Would you have told Mother and Lady Allynis to leave you alone?”
“No, I would’ve told Father! At least he loved me!” She swung away from the shock on her sister’s face. “Mother didn’t want me, she wouldn’t even look at me when I was born! But Father gave his life for me. He’d understand that I hate being on display and I hate having power and responsibility and all I want is to be left alone!”
Sarra rose slowly to her feet. “You didn’t know him at all. Everything you say you hate, he loved and wanted more of. That’s why he betrayed us.”
“He didn’t betray me.”
“Maybe not at the last,” she conceded. “But everything you hope to accomplish, everything you believe in—”
“Everything I was told to believe. Don’t you see that what Gorsha did to me is as manipulative as if he’d been a Lord of Malerris? He Made me Captal—you and he decided for me, without ever asking what I wanted!”
“There was no one else,” Sarra said quietly.
“No one you’d accept—or who could be more useful to you!”
Sarra’s complexion changed again, this time to a pinched pallor of anger. “Don’t you understand? Even now, after all this time?”
Cailet calmed herself and tried to explain, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean it the way it sounds. It’s just—Sarra, I don’t understand how it all happened. I can’t see the purpose of it. You, me, Glenin, the way it all came together—or came apart, I’m not even sure which—sometimes I catch a glimpse, but it’s gone before I can make sense of it. And I have to know.”
“You can’t just accept it, and go on?”
“That’s the whole point! What do I do now? Don’t say I can do what I want—that’s an option I don’t have and never will.”
“But you can choose any path you want!”
“As long as it provides more Mage Guardians to take the places of all those who died. Thousands of them, Sara. Thousands.” She circled the bed to take her sister’s hands. “I envy you so much. You’re so sure of yourself. What you want to do and what you ought to do are pretty much the same. It’s the way you’re put together inside. But what am I? I’ve never been just Cailet, just myself—not even when I was little. All those Wards set against my magic—”
She stopped, knowing she could talk until next Midwinter Moon and not make herself clear. Collan would understand. He, too, had been Warded; he, too, wondered what facets of himself had been lost or changed or imposed on him by those Wards. But Collan had lived longer with himself as he was; he’d be thirty-two (or thereabouts; he had no idea what his true Birthingday was) on the first day of the new year, and he had long since become used to himself, comfortable with what he had become—Wards or no Wards. Cailet suddenly wanted to be his age, to have the first of adulthood behind her with all its difficult searchings and failures and new definitions of who she was.
“You’re so sure of yourself,” she repeated softly.
“Don’t you believe it, little sister,” Sarra retorted.
“But I have to believe it. Otherwise I’ve got nothing to work toward.”
Black eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you see me as—”
Cailet smiled at Sarra’s astonishment, then gave a sigh and a shrug. “Well, who else should I look up to? Glenin?”
“If you have to have an example before you, you could’ve chosen a much better one than me, Caisha.”
“I don’t think so. But do you see what I’m talking about? I know I have to find other Mageborns and replenish the Guardians, but what about me? What happens in my life? Can I even have a life, apart from being Mage Captal?”
Again Sarra was quiet for a time—a new aspect of her, this thoughtful silence, perhaps a result of the inward-turning of a pregnant woman, but more likely a sign of growing maturity. Slowly, she said, “As an Ambrai, your life would have been Ambrai. Firstborn, Secondborn, Thirdborn, we all would have had special duties. You and I could have chosen for ourselves more than Glenin, of course, but—” She shook her head, golden hair gleaming in the sun through tall windows. “Ambrai is lost to us. It belongs to Elin now. So you’d think we’d be free to make our own lives as we wished. We can’t. I fight for every hour I spend with my husband. I plot and scheme for every moment I can escape my duties.”
So she did understand, at least part of it. Clasping the small,
cool hands, Cailet said, “Sarra, doesn’t it make you feel used?”
“No. Useful. You look at it as a curse. I see it as a gift. How many people are allowed to accomplish even a portion of what we have?”
“Gifts don’t come with price tags attached,” Cailet reminded her.
“I’m willing to pay.”
Her proud determination sent a shudder through Cailet. “You’ve paid all your life, Sasha. I haven’t. I don’t know if I want to.”
Sarra frowned. “If you’re not willing, then your life will be a bitter one.”
“How can it ever be my life?”
Lips thin with exasperation, Sarra broke away and turned for the door. “I was right—you haven’t thought nearly enough. When you have, let me know. Hide in here and sulk. It won’t do you any good. The world’s still out there—and, as you say, nothing ever turns out the way we plan.”
2
RYKA Court seemed more populous than ever—or perhaps Cailet was simply growing more intolerant of crowds. Every hall and corridor and chamber was stuffed with members of the Council and the Assembly, with Ministers of this-that-and-the-other, with administrators and aides and assistants—and at least six functionaries attendant upon each.
Cailet’s three rooms—reception salon, cozy office, and bedchamber-with-a-view—were a sanctuary of sorts. But Sarra was right, she couldn’t stay in them all the time. Whenever she emerged, whether as Mage Captal for a meeting or social event, or as a citizen of Lenfell with private business of her own, all her movements were fodder for the gossips. And they said the most absurd things.
“Why did I buy toys for the baby at this shop instead of that one?” she fumed to Collan one afternoon. She’d invaded Sarra’s rooms by a side entry after seeing a knot of people in the hall outside her own door. “What’s the deep inner significance of my choosing to have lunch at this tavern instead of that? What secrets am I hiding when I’m silent during a conference?”
“Well, you could always tell them the truth.” He poured another cider for her and brandy for himself. “You found a cute stuffed animal, you like the beer, and you were quiet because the conference was boring you senseless.”
“They’d never believe me. Everything I do has some ulterior motive, some mystical meaning.” She accepted the cider and flopped onto a sofa. “I’m the Captal, and there’s amazement enough for them. They haven’t had one around for twenty years. But not only am I the Captal, I defeated Anniyas single-handed without breaking a sweat, magically speaking. I must be omnipotent, invincible, able to move mountains and change rivers in their courses—”
Collan pulled an aggrieved face. “I was there, too—with Anniyas, I mean, though I can’t vouch for the other stuff. Don’t I even get mentioned?”
“Stop laughing at me!” But she had to grin back at him. He was good for her, this Minstrel-turned-Blooded Lady’s Lord. “They’d rather believe all those stupid speculations, no matter how ridiculous.”
He gave a cynical snort. “Of such lies are legends made, kitten. You might as well sit back and enjoy it.”
“I don’t want to be a legend. What they’re saying about me has nothing to do with me.”
Collan yawned elaborately. “You think the majority of people who get songs written about them would recognize themselves in the lyrics?”
She stared at him with genuine alarm. “Col, you wouldn’t—”
“Oh, not me. I’m a lowly Minstrel, not a true Bard. And Falundir doesn’t have time right now. He’s in the middle of his opera—don’t worry, it’s not about you,” he added, laughing again at her panic. “No, it’ll be those eloquent heralds of popular culture, those masterminds of melody, those paragons of poetry—the barroom balladeers, in case you didn’t recognize the colorful descriptives—who’ll render your spectacular tale in song.”
Cailet tucked her bare feet under her, scrunching into a corner of the couch. The level of liquor in the bottle probably had a direct connection to his eloquence. “How drunk are you at this hour of the afternoon?”
“Not very. Look, Cai, people believe what makes them comfortable believing. If you don’t give them what they want, they’ll make it up.” He paused to admire the honeyed glow of sunlight through the brandy. “I’m supposed to have millions stashed in banks all over North Lenfell. And because I’m a husband with control of my own money, I’m a target for every fool’s pet scheme.” He snorted. “Yesterday it was an iron mine in Kenrokeshir. Iron? In Kenrokeshir? How stupid do they think I am?”
“Stupid enough to marry someone even stupider,” Sarra said, plodding into the room. She lowered herself into a chair as if more than her pregnancy weighed her down. “Congratulate me. I just managed to insult one third of the Assembly, annoy another third, and the only reason the remaining third isn’t insulted or annoyed is because they’re at the horse races. No, I don’t want to discuss it. I’ll only get furious all over again, and I’m too tired. Somebody talk about something pleasant.”
“If you ask me, it’s talking that’s the problem around here,” Collan said—and flung a pillow at Cailet.
Unprepared, she took it right in the face. Retaliation was obligatory; she hadn’t grown up in the rambunctious Ostin household for nothing. Soon there was a full-scale war going between herself and Collan, while Sarra pretended to cower in her chair, laughing herself completely out of breath.
“Waster, you’re history!” Collan roared from behind his chair, lobbing more pillows.
“Lute-plucking scum!” Cailet yelled back. Feathers began to fly, most of them in Col’s direction, which she considered only right and proper.
“No fair!” he cried, as indignant as any eight-year-old, and sneezed. “Magic’s against the rules!”
Not bothering to correct his impression, Cailet launched another pillow. “Rules?” she scoffed. “In a pillow fight?”
That was how Tarise found them: the Mage Captal and Lord Rosvenir battering each other while the Councillor for Sheve lay in her chair giggling helplessly, all three of them adrift in feathers. For a moment Tarise looked sorely tempted to join in, then grimaced with regret and announced the arrival of Irien Dombur.
“Oh, send him away,” Sarra said, plucking feathers from her clothes.
“Urgent business,” Tarise replied apologetically. “About as far as I can send him is your reception room. Here, let me help you get cleaned up.”
“He wants to see all of us?”
“He does. Sorry.”
Ten minutes later Cailet accompanied Sarra into the reception chamber, Collan a polite pace behind them. She felt his fingers hurriedly remove a few last feathers from her hair and repressed an inappropriate giggle. From Sarra’s expression, no one would have guessed that only a few moments ago she’d been crowing with laughter. Yes, a Rosvenir was definitely good medicine for whatever ailed an Ambrai. Collan’s calculated insanity seemed to have restored Sarra; she looked alert and relaxed, though mirth sparkled still in her black eyes.
Murmured greetings were exchanged, Col did his duty by serving drinks, and Irien Dombur made small talk about the dreadful rainy weather for the required length of time before stating his purpose in coming here.
“Simply put, there are rooms in Ryka Court we can’t get into. All of them belong—or I should say used to belong—to former First Councillor Anniyas.”
“Terrific,” Collan muttered.
“Comparisons of the architectural renderings with the physical reality do not match. And these places are Warded, as confirmed by your own Mage Guardian, Captal.”
“You expected them not to be?” Col asked; even though Dombur was a Councillor, Collan could get away with being rude to him man-to-man, and took advantage of it every chance he got.
“Of course not.” The Councillor favored him with a sharp glance from the piercing sapphire-colored eyes typical of the Dombur Name. “Anniyas lived in those rooms. Naturally they wo
uld be Warded.” Addressing Cailet again, Dombur went on, “We know several things about the Wards. They repel any attempt to cancel them or even to determine their exact nature. Brute force is unavailing against walls we know to be those of secret chambers—and of course we have no intention of destroying them or what they might contain.”
“They weren’t set by amateurs, in other words,” Cailet commented. She knew about the Wards; Viko Garvedian had told her several days ago there was something odd about Anniyas’s chambers. Though there’d been time to investigate, she hadn’t. Anything to do with Anniyas meant thinking of that night in the Octagon Court. To Irien Dombur she said, “They were set by someone who knew what she was doing.”
“Precisely, Captal.” He hesitated, then shrugged heavy shoulders as if he might as well get the difficult part over with. “There are also . . . sensations encountered in their proximity.”
“Fear, dread, and the occasional stomach ache?” Viko had told her that, too.
Dombur didn’t bother to conceal surprise. “Correct again. Has the Captal already investigated?”
Cailet’s turn to shrug. “Wards of that type are not uncommon, when one wishes something to go unnoticed.”
“And that’s exactly the case!” he exclaimed, abruptly human in his astonishment. “I and every other member of the old Council guested in Anniyas’s suite a dozen times on social occasions, and not once did any of us feel anything! It was only when your Mage—one of the Garvedians, I believe—began to investigate that the Wards seemed to alter in subtle ways, so that once alerted to them, even someone not Mageborn could feel them. I tell you freely, Captal, it was the most amazing thing.”
“The touch of magic triggered them, in other words,” Cailet said, nodding.
That’s the way, Caisha, always make them think you know more than you really do.
Shut up, Gorsha.
“Where exactly are they placed?” Sarra asked—ever practical.
“One on a closet door. One seemingly in the middle of her dressing room, with the nearest wall ten feet away.”