by Melanie Rawn
The world may turn its face away,
The Saints abandon, the Wraiths draw near,
But no fear or grief can ever claim me
No cruel words or looks can shame me
For you are by my side
Thanks be to all Saints that Josselin didn’t try to engage her in conversation, disguising his voice or assuming an accent. But if he was who she suspected he might be, he could use magic to deceive—and, truly told, she felt a diminutive tingle of magic in the night air, possibly coming from him, possibly not.
You, and only you, dear love,
You, for whom I’m more than me
You, whose arms and lips I covet,
You, my first and best beloved
You are by my side
At length the waltz was over. Tradition demanded that the woman ask her mysterious partner for another dance immediately thereafter, but Cailet smiled beneath her mask and gestured that she was tired, and thus escaped a second dance with Josselin. She slid between couples and jumped down from the circular platform, not bothering with the steps, and headed for a refreshment table. Sipping at a cup of wine, she caught sight of Joss’s tall, hawk-masked form moving toward the side door of St. Lirance’s. What business he could have inside the shrine was unknown; probably he didn’t want people to see that his chosen partner had refused him that second dance. No, ridiculous; it couldn’t possibly matter to him what people here thought. Doubtless Joss had asked her to dance as a subterfuge, and had now sneaked off to be with the real object of his intentions tonight. Yes, that must be it.
But she was rather annoyed, for the portion of the festivities for which Mage Hall was responsible had arrived, and Joss, who was very good with Mage Globes, had promised to help. Cailet, alert for the conductor’s signal, collected Granon and Rennon Bekke, Imilial Gorrst, several other Warrior and Scholar Mages, and a few enthusiastic Prentices around her. Cymbals suddenly crashed, taking Cailet by surprise, but Imi was ready. She sent a Mage Globe soaring into the night sky, all flashing with green-gold sparks, and then exploded it in midair. The other Mages and Prentices followed suit, giving Heathering a “fireworks” show more spectacular (and much safer) than any other on Lenfell.
People gasped and applauded and marveled, especially at the set-piece Granon and Rennon had been working on for weeks: ten Battle Globes, each a different shade of red, that expanded from pinpricks to the size of small houses, circling each other for a full minute as they grew before slamming together in a brilliant collision. Cailet clapped her hands and laughed as the whole of Heathering was illuminated—and caught her breath when she saw, over by the corner of St. Lirance’s, a slender, golden-haired girl tiptoeing to kiss a tall young man, their masks of sunburst and hawk lying forgotten at their feet.
Cailet turned away to prepare her own contribution to the display—a dazzling rush of silver-white light that would seem to stretch from the Ladymoon to her little companion and then all the way down to the tower of St. Lirance’s. But in the last glow of the Bekkes’ flourish, she also saw another tall young man striding southward across the fields, taking the short route home to Mage Hall.
And somehow what she had planned to do with her magic turned out very differently. What appeared, entirely without her volition, was a very good imitation of the Wraiths as she had last seen them, shimmering rainbow curtains drifting sublimely through the northern sky.
Someone blurted in startlement; a few children began to cry. Cailet damped down her magic and with guilt-spurred swiftness did what she’d intended to do in the first place. The ribbons of silver light swept across the black sky and white stars, flinging the Wraithlike veils from sight, and everyone was so caught up in the wonder of it that the bizarre presentation of a moment earlier was almost forgotten.
Granon and Imi stood on either side of her when it was over, frowning their concern. “Where the hell did that come from?” Imi demanded in a low voice.
“I don’t know.” Cailet shrugged them off. “I’m just tired, I suppose. I hope nobody was too upset.”
“Actually,” Granon said, “it was quite beautiful—if you didn’t know what it was supposed to be.”
Hiding a wince, Cailet nodded and walked away from them. She tugged off her owl mask and wiped the sweat from her face, cursing her carelessness and her magic that had not obeyed her.
Perhaps it wasn’t your magic at all.
Not now, Gorsha, she said wearily.
I’m serious. What’s going on here?
I don’t know. I’m tired. Leave me alone.
I must rely on your senses, and if you don’t test the wind for magic, then I can’t interpret it for you. It’s my duty as First Sword—
She ignored him. It wasn’t easy, with him nattering away in her head like this about strange things occurring tonight and where had those Wraiths come from and had they been real or something dredged up from her own mind. But she eventually succeeded in bricking him up behind the wall he’d taught her to build so long ago, and heard his voice no more.
As Fourteenth approached and couples glided off into the night for private unmaskings, the dancing circle was populated now mostly by married couples stealing one last waltz before taking their sleepy children home to bed. Cailet saw Mikel, unmasked now, bow to a pair of local girls and turn for the road home, Taigan beside him and looking deeply thoughtful. Briefly she wondered where Jored had disappeared to, then shrugged. After paying her respects to the mayor and a few other dignitaries—none of whom dared ask about the weird vision preceding her silvery magic—she gathered energy to Fold the road back to Mage Hall.
She didn’t enter through the main gate, but instead circled around to the east and climbed the wall, careful of the thorns on Josselin’s roses. A long, slow hike took her up to the pakkas’ meadow. Stars were flung out above her, shining with unrivaled brilliance now that the Ladymoon had set. She followed the stream uphill into the forest, and lit no Mage Globe to guide her through the darkness. She knew the way through the dense wood by the Wards she had placed here years ago. Knowing what to expect from her own spells, the Working usually made her smile: Itchy Ankle, Dropped My Knife, Thirsty, Look That Way, Somebody Watching. So many days spent here observing Prentices learn to recognize and resist Wards. . . . But she wasn’t smiling tonight as she turned left at this Ward and right at another. She relaxed only when she reached the deepest forest, where the spring that was the creek’s source bubbled from a rocky cairn into a small, moss-rimmed pool.
Starlight shone down from the break in the heavy trees, glinted off the water. Cailet sat on a broad, flat stone and propped her elbows on her knees, gazing at the deception in the pond. The stars overhead were fixed, absolute; the mirror-dance of their reflections was a lie. But a beautiful one—as beautiful as Josselin Mikleine’s face, as the graceful curve of Jored Karellos’s back as he bent to receive Taigan’s kiss.
Which one? Which?
Her lips quirked in a bitter smile as she remembered the question of her owl-mask: Who?
Cailet had been waiting a long while now for Josselin to complete his training and come to her for the ritual that would make him a Mage Guardian. But the teachers reported that he could more often be found tending his roses or tinkering with various bits of machinery around Mage Hall. He was, truly told, dawdling. Cailet couldn’t understand that. Time and again she’d witnessed—instigated—the supreme moment in a young life when everything, everything, came together in one radiant burst of comprehension. There had been no such moment for her, but she treasured each shared experience of it with her new-made Mages.
Josselin resisted. And when Cailet had approached him on the subject, he was evasive.
“I’m in no rush, Captal. Besides, if I needed a ceremony to feel myself a Mage Guardian, I’d be a pretty poor imitation of one, wouldn’t I?”
“That’s an excuse, not a reason. What are you afraid of?”
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“I’m not afraid.” But the moonstone-gray eyes had avoided her, and Cailet knew he was lying. “I know what happens, Captal—you may think nobody’s ever talked about it, but there’ve been rumors. Ritual combat until the Prentice tries to use magic against you—really use it, in earnest, trying to win. I’m not interested in winning. It doesn’t matter to me. If that makes me less than a Mage Guardian, then I’m sorry. But I won’t fight you, and that’s all there is to it.”
Did the rumors also say that during this time, the essence of a Prentice’s magic altered subtly, becoming its truest self, and in that profound instant this signature was imparted to Cailet for all time? Did Josselin fear he would not be able to keep his Malerrisi magic hidden from her any longer, and reveal himself as Glenin’s son?
Now, Jored . . . he was a little slower than most Prentices, and had to work harder at the craft of magic, but so did Taigan. As for their budding relationship—Cailet’s skin crawled as she considered Glenin’s dynastic plans for the Ambrais. Was Jored nothing more than what he said he was, and therefore innocent in his attachment to Taigan? Or was he Glenin’s son, and pretending to be slow so that he had more time to make his own cousin fall in love with him?
Cailet had looked into Jored’s eyes, and into Josselin’s, and never seen anything reminiscent of Glenin. Or Auvry Feiran. Or Avira Anniyas.
Which meant exactly nothing.
She was aware of Gorsha’s angry, insistent voice calling to her from behind the bastion she’d raised. All she lacked at this point was an argument with him. She was perfectly capable of shredding her nerves herself, thank you very much, and had no need of him to—
Cailet!
Not Gorsha. One of the others—Alin?
Cailet, you’re in danger!
Danger—? Alin, what—
Shut up and get out of here! Get back to Mage Hall—NOW!
And all at once the darkness was more than that of the night around her. It was a thing of air thickening in her lungs and thoughts freezing in her brain and blood congealing in her heart and she was running before she even knew she was running. Her hands ached for her sword, Gorsha’s sword, and she could feel the length of steel shuddering faraway in her chambers with the power of her need. She crashed through the forest, not hearing the birds cry out in fear, not hearing the pakkas flutter their wings and gallop from their sleeping dens to the meadow, not hearing her own ragged breathing or the pounding of her boots on grass and rocky soil.
What she heard was the repeated explosion of Mage Globes—almost like the ones she and the others had fashioned tonight as fireworks. Almost. These cracked with lethal magic, detonating with horrible regularity and, as she topped a rise and could see Mage Hall, with blasts of furious crimson light.
The refectory, the living quarters, the classrooms, the stables—all were collapsing in bursts of magical fire, orange and gold and scarlet and white, all the colors of real flames. Mages and Prentices stumbled from the buildings, ran for their lives, were flung forward with the force of more explosions that tore bricks from mortar and hurled the fragments into living bodies that lurched and fell and lived no more.
This is Malerrisi work, she heard Gorsha say.
And from Lusath Adennos, This is how it must have been in The Waste War. Saints forgive us, this is how we must have fought back then.
Alin was silent. But Tamos Wolvar, master of Mage Globes as no other before or since, quietly presented a range of spells and Wardings and other, more esoteric Workings for Cailet’s use with a calm, These may be of some use to you, child.
It was a strange thing, really. She didn’t want the magic. Part of her knew it was hopeless. Most of her simply and profoundly wanted that sword. It knew her, understood her. No person living did—and no one dead, either. The sword was an extension of herself, of her will, of her need to destroy those who were destroying her life’s work. As she bolted down the hill and leaped the rose-strewn wall she wanted nothing more in this world than to kill.
But there was no one to kill.
No attackers. No invaders. No army of Malerrisi or even mere soldiers.
Just magic.
One man’s magic. One tall, beautiful, gray-eyed young man’s magic.
He appeared before her, both of him, cloaked in black and reeking of smoke. One of him was carrying Imilial Gorrst’s ruined body. The other was supporting Mikel, who bled from a wounded shoulder. Behind them came Taigan, and half a dozen other Mages and Prentices, and behind them limped a few more. So few. So few.
Cailet exchanged a single glance with her sister’s daughter, who nodded and began snapping orders as imperiously as Sarra ever had. Cailet ran on, making for the gate to the sunken courtyard. The stenches of death and smoke stung her eyes and nostrils. The cries of the dying were louder in her ears than the continuing explosions. The great oak tree was ablaze, its branches not a canopy of cooling shade but of fire that rained down on the flagstones. Beneath the tree sprawled Granon, a gaping hole in his chest. Cailet sprinted to him, falling to her knees as embers fell all around. Shielding him with her body, she began to work her hands under his powerful shoulders to haul him to safety. He frowned at sight of her.
“Shut up,” she told him fiercely. She didn’t want to hear any damned dutiful noises about protecting the Captal, giving his life for hers—
A smile tugged a corner of his mouth. “Dear fool,” he whispered. Compassion and affection shone in his eyes, and, for just an instant, a sweetly tender love. And then he died.
She stared down at his burn-scarred face in disbelief. “Gransha?” And the name was so close to the name of another Warrior Mage who loved her that for a moment it was as if they were both dead beneath her hands.
No, dearest. I’m still here. And I believe his Wraith will see you safe before he leaves you. Come, love, you must go now. There’s nothing you can do here.
He sounded so sad. So resigned.
She was resigned to nothing. She wanted that sword. His sword. Her sword.
There was a crash from the great Hall upstairs. She felt it deep in her guts, like her own death. All of it was gone, everything she’d spent her adult life creating, gone forever in a flood of fire. She took the stairs three at a time, glancing once toward the living quarters. The breezeway was a tunnel of flame. Those who had slept in the rooms beyond, believing themselves safe—how many were dead? Her Mages, teachers who’d given everything of themselves to educate young Mageborns, the elderly who had earned rest and ease; those not Mageborn, wed to magic, bearing and fathering children of magic—sweet Saints, the children—
She stumbled, and grasped for the railing with one hand to steady herself. She couldn’t bear it. What he had done, he would pay for with his life. Slowly. One cut at a time from that sword, one thin ribbon of blood for every death he’d caused—
Cailet ran the length of the balcony, where vines blossomed now with fire. She kicked open the door to her quarters, screaming for Marra and Aidan. Untouched, everything in the three rooms that were her only home was utterly untouched. Couches and sideboard in the sitting room—shelves of Mage Globes in her office—bed and wardrobe and the big green-velvet chair Sarra and Collan had sent last Birthingday—all of it untouched. But that would follow; the sword was here, and Glenin’s son would not relinquish it to the fires.
Then she saw past the things, and saw Marra. She was on her knees beside Cailet’s bed, and in her arms she cradled her husband’s dark head, and when she looked up there were streaks of moisture gleaming on her soot-stained cheeks.
Aidan was dead.
For this, too, he would pay.
The sword. Where was the sword? Without it, she could not kill the one who had done this. Whichever one he was.
But how silly of her. She would simply kill both of him and have done with it once and for all. Should’ve done it long before now. Stupid not to. Where was that damned sword?
&
nbsp; 14
IN theory, Mikel knew what he was doing. His father had not neglected his basic education, and there’d been plenty of girls at Roseguard more than willing to further it if he so chose. He hadn’t chosen, and at almost eighteen his knowledge was still theoretical—if thorough in all practical details.
What he didn’t know was what Lirenza Mettyn was doing. Or why her mouth should taste sweeter and headier than the wine he’d drunk tonight. Or why the pressure of her body against his while they danced had driven every thought from his head except the urgent need to get her alone. Or why, now that they were alone, all he could think was that theory was all very well, but in practice he was too sadly lacking to deserve her attentions.
He sent up a silent prayer to St. Maidil, whose feast day this was, for he qualified in both her patronages; he hoped to become a new lover, and he was certainly a fool. If only Renza didn’t laugh at him—
But she was laughing, low in her throat, as she coaxed him up the ladder to the hayloft. Barns and stables—if not overpopulated by their smelly rightful residents—came fondly recommended in Fa’s reminiscences. So Mikel willingly went along with Lirenza’s suggestion.
But now she was laughing. Mikel gulped, then relaxed as he saw the soft excitement in her eyes. He’d seen the same teasing sparkle when his mother looked at his father, and suddenly seemed to hear Fa’s amused voice: “Enjoy it, boy—and never make love without it!”
So Mikel smiled, and enjoyed it, and when he and Lirenza were both naked in the silvery moonglow through the skylight, they spent a few moments admiring each other’s strong young bodies. She was small and delicately curved, and her skin was as soft as a cloud beneath his fingertips. When she pushed him gently down onto the straw he simply couldn’t lie there passively as a well-mannered man must, but reached for her because he couldn’t stand not to touch her. Though she was only a year older than he, she knew what she wanted; but though neither of them had said a word about love, she also had tenderness enough for him to discover what he liked. Before long they were both laughing with the delight of what they discovered in each other.