by Melanie Rawn
“Future?” Sarra exclaimed. This time Cailet grinned at her. “You’re all crazy! My children used to be fairly rational—what have you done to them, Cailet?”
Josselin leaned a hip against the low retaining wall. “I always thought the Mage Guardians should have a really imposing sort of headquarters again. And as sanctuaries go, this one looks pretty secure.”
“No one in her right mind would choose a place like this to live in—especially this place!” Sarra cried.
“Exactly,” said Cailet.
Sarra glared at her sister. She couldn’t live here, where Collan had been a slave. She wouldn’t do it. Cailet couldn’t ask it of her. “I thought you hated The Waste! You couldn’t wait to get away twenty years ago, and every time you came back to visit you couldn’t leave fast enough! And now here you are again—by choice!”
“Truly told, it makes you wonder,” Cailet mused.
“About your sanity—yes!” She narrowed her eyes at the endless steps and thick walls of gray granite and acid-scarred blue-tiled roof. She hated it. She had never seen it before and had hoped never to see it in her life—and now Cailet was proposing that they live here.
She could feel all of them watching her—Taigan’s and Dessa’s eyes, different but equally intense shades of green; Mikel’s as pure a blue as his father’s; Josselin’s calm gray (surely too calm, considering only two days ago he’d learned who he truly was—perhaps he simply didn’t believe it yet). The dark, thoughtful gazes of Lusira and Elomar and Telo (standing near his newfound grandson and looking as if he couldn’t quite believe it either); Ollia Bekke’s bright turquoise eyes that frankly assessed both Sarra and Scraller’s Fief; the other Mages, Sirron Bekke and Sevy Banian and four more whose names she’d probably heard but didn’t remember, who didn’t look directly at her but instead cast little glances of speculation or apprehension that annoyed her unbearably.
How could she possibly live in this hideous place?
But there was nowhere else, and she knew it.
Turning her glare on the group as a whole, she said briskly, “Well? What are you all standing around for? If you’re so determined to stay, then get busy. Mikel, organize the other men and get our supplies up these damned steps. Telo, find us someplace at least passably livable—a working hearth will do, and a clean floor. Elomar, you and Lusira and Dessa set up a room for your medicines. We’re going to have everything from sore backs to smashed thumbs in the next few days—if we don’t sneeze ourselves to death from the dust first.”
She saw a quick smile flash from Telomir to Cailet, the message clear: That’s our Sarra back again! She chose to ignore it.
Passionately glad to have something to do, she had everyone installed in reasonable comfort by dusk. After Scraller’s death, departing slaves had cleaned the place out of anything portable; in the twenty years since, scavengers had taken whatever was left that wasn’t nailed down, and plenty of things that were. But nothing short of two teams of Clydies could have moved the huge cast-iron ovens, so at least there was both warmth and a place to cook their provisions. Sarra hoped that when other Mages began arriving they’d have the sense to bring along something to eat. Preferably fruit, vegetables, and grain; there was game aplenty for the hunting, but woman did not live on galazhi steak alone.
Tarise surely would bring provisions when she finally got here; dear, practical Tarise. But what would Rillan do without any horses to tend? Perhaps Riena Maurgen would let them buy a few Dapplebacks. . . .
And so her thoughts ran, until almost without her knowing it she soon didn’t think of anything but what the hell they were going to do to make this awful place habitable. Until bedrooms could be found, cleaned, and furnished, she ordered their bedrolls arranged in the kitchen. Collan had spent part of his childhood—no. Don’t think about that. The treadmill that turned the machinery of the cooking spit was long gone, probably in some other gigantic kitchen or broken up for scrap metal. But every time she glanced at the hearth, she could almost see a redheaded four-year-old slave.
Glad as she was for the work, she was gladder still to have something to occupy her mind. She hadn’t thought about much at all these last two days. Truly told, she remembered little about them. She went where she was told, walked while Mages Folded paths, stood still for Cailet to take her through Ladders—she had no idea how many—ate when food was put before her, slept when a bed presented itself. Any thought would lead her to Collan, so she dared not think at all. She didn’t trust herself.
Worse, she no longer knew who she was.
Councillor for Sheve, Lady of Roseguard—gone. No more would she help to direct the fate of the government she had done so much to build. No more would her words command instant respect. No more would she guide her adopted city and Shir to prosperity and justice. The woman who had done all those things was gone.
She had been a woman husbanded; now she was a widow. There were times when she’d catch sight of Mikel from a distance, and the coppery curls would make her heart lurch—it was all a mistake, Collan wasn’t dead, he would come back to her. But he was gone. She wondered if it would have been any easier to accept had she seen his body, seen him die. Because she had not, for her he still lived—until those piercing moments when she remembered he was dead.
This wasn’t the ending she’d had in mind—if she’d ever even thought about ending at all. She looked forward down empty, bitter years, seeing herself grow old without him.
She was yet a mother, but her children were grown and didn’t need her. There’d been so little time with them; always her duties and responsibilities and endless work had taken her from her children. She saw now that she had lived as if she had a thousand years in which to do everything, be everything, without pausing to savor along the way.
She had done so much, all of it using one title or another, one identity or another—Councillor, Lady of Roseguard, a woman husbanded, a mother—all of them honest enough, but ultimately based on a lie. Now all titles and identities were gone, and the Name she bore for the first time in thirty-eight years would become synonymous with treachery. She had lost everything because of that Name, the only thing that truly belonged to her in the end.
The Name, and the heritage of magic.
She was a Mageborn Ambrai. And that was all she was. Her gift lay dormant and unused within her, Warded and then denied and now, finally, the only thing she had. The only thing she was.
She looked around at the people in Scraller’s kitchen—seated on the floor, on the sink counters, on the massive butcher’s table that, like the ovens, was simply too heavy to move. Of them, she was the only one without any knowledge whatsoever of magic.
Well, she told herself, now Telomir would have a companion in his title of Oldest Living Prentice Mage.
2
“IT’LL feel more like Mage Hall when the rest get here, I suppose,” Mikel remarked as Josselin handed him another blanket. They’d found a suite of rooms in an upstairs hallway that Mikel thought his mother would like—once it had real furniture and the plumbing worked again. Tall windows in every chamber gave views of rugged mountains. The only drawback was that some of the glass was broken, as was the case in most of the keep. Glazing was high on Sarra’s list of things-to-be-done, but stretched cloth would keep out the wind until then.
For the moment, the two young men were building Sarra a bed out of empty crates and thick blankets. Now that she was behaving more like herself, Mikel knew she’d want some privacy. He hadn’t seen her cry once since that initial outburst two nights ago; she had been stony-faced and silent ever since. When she did weep again, he didn’t want her to have to search through the whole of Scraller’s Fief for a place to be alone.
Joss shook out another blanket, bandaged hands making him clumsy. “Taguare Veliaz should have some useful advice about this place—he lived here for a while, didn’t he?”
“Until Lady Agatine bought him, freed
him, and made him her sons’ tutor.” Fa could have told them all about Scraller’s Fief, too. Fa—no, please— Quickly, for something to say, he asked, “How long do you think it’ll take to get everybody here?”
“Depends on who decides to come. Lady Elin said they’ll stick it out at Ambrai—there’ll be other Mages in lesser positions who’ll denounce the Captal and be allowed to stay where they are.”
“Under Malerrisi supervision.”
“There’s that, yes. I suspect plenty will come here after they’ve had a taste of what it’s like to be watched all the time.”
“How many will mean it when they forswear themselves?” Mikel asked bitterly.
“A few.” Joss shrugged. “It’ll be interesting.”
“And then some. And all over Lenfell. I don’t think Glenin understood what she was really doing with that run on all those banks. I hope Vellerin Dombur does get blamed for it—between them, they damned near wrecked the whole economy.”
The Ambrais had traveled one end of Lenfell to the other in the past two days—a tactic meant to confuse and confound those searching for them—and at every Ladder they’d heard the same thing: banks were failing, cash was being hoarded, and prices were going up and down and up again. Added to the panic Glenin had created were rumors created by the panic. Crop failures, forest fires that destroyed valuable timber, outbreaks of disease among cattle and sheep and galazhi, loss of Dindenshir’s entire fishing fleet in a storm, a freeze blighting Gierkenshir’s citrus groves—Mikel didn’t know what to believe, and neither did anyone else. People unsure of what their money was worth were wary of spending it—except to buy up all the basic necessities, which meant stores and warehouses were running short, which only added credence to the hearsay reports of disasters. Every Web was selling off its nonessential holdings—or trying to; prices had plummeted on properties that a week ago would have brought twice and thrice what was offered for them now. Contributing to the confusion were reliable reports of a new vein of gold struck on Liwellan lands in South Lenfell—and any time more of a scarce commodity was discovered, the value of that commodity went down.
Fa will be up all night in his office with his steward and factor over this, Mikel thought, then bit his lip. Am I ever going to stop thinking of him as still being alive?
Joss was watching him, and he realized he hadn’t said anything for several minutes. That was a good thing about Joss: he pretty much let you be quiet if you wanted to be, and waited until you were ready to talk.
“I’ve never been poor,” Mikel said with a shrug. “That should be interesting, too.”
“It’s not,” Joss said flatly.
Embarrassed, Mikel finished smoothing the blankets on the makeshift bed. “She’s used to better, but this is better than the floor.”
“Exactly the right attitude,” Josselin approved. Then, after a brief hesitation: “I never got the chance to tell you how sorry I am about your father.”
Mikel nodded once, uncomfortably.
“And Lirenza Mettyn. I know you cared for her.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, one fist closing around her bracelet of gray agates and yellow topazes. There’d been no one of the Mettyn Name at Ryka Court to give it to. Maybe that was for the best. He couldn’t have found words to explain anyway. And he wanted a reminder—not of her (forgetting was impossible), or the pleasure they’d given each other (“Whatever you do, Mishka, don’t swipe a souvenir token—a lot of men do, but it’s impossibly vulgar!”). He deserved to be reminded that he hadn’t grieved her as she deserved. Before Fa’s death, he hadn’t known how to grieve.
“I didn’t love her,” he said abruptly. “I should have, but I didn’t. We did it—”
“Mikel. ‘Doing it’ is what happens in a bower. Trust me, I know. She may not’ve been the love of your life, but you did love her. You’re not the type to be with a woman unless—”
“I’ll never get the chance to find out if I really did love her. She’s dead.”
“And you’re alive, and you think you could have saved her? Think, Mikel. Jored didn’t want to kill you—from what I’ve heard, your room and Taigan’s weren’t even touched. Lirenza had a better chance being with you than with any man at Mage Hall.”
“But we weren’t in my room. We—we were in the hayloft.” He hadn’t told anyone that. Not even Fa. He’d been too ashamed. “I think—I know—if I’d held her differently—the glass would’ve hit me—and—”
“That’s enough,” Josselin said firmly. “It was an accident. A tragedy that wasn’t your fault—unless your real mother was Elinar Longsight, who knows the future.”
“I suppose,” he said with a shrug. Some of the guilt drained off—which paradoxically made the grief all the worse. He rebelled for a moment, then realized it was more like what he felt when he thought of Fa—not nearly so intense, not nearly so terrible, but a grief that was somehow cleaner. Sorrow for Lirenza, not for himself and his shame.
“Come on,” Joss said, interrupting Mikel’s puzzled thoughts. “We still have the Captal’s room to do.”
They gathered up extra blankets and Cailet’s black fur cloak, going down the hall to the staircase. Spiders and even less savory inhabitants scuttled out of their way.
“Cats,” said Joss. “We need a whole family of cats.” He stopped at the landing, looking surprised. “I had a cat when I was little. Feathers—silly name for a cat with a mane like a lion’s. I haven’t thought about him in years. He was the only thing I ever took with me to a new family . . . I never had anything else. Not a single thing that belonged to my real family.”
“Saints and Wraiths! I forgot!” Mikel dug in the pocket that didn’t hold Lirenza’s bracelet. Into Josselin’s white-swathed hands he poured three items of jewelry: an identification disk, a gold-and-amethyst pendant earring, and a wristlet of gold with chips of dark green jade carved into flowers.
Joss looked at them blankly. “What—?”
“My father kept them for years—ever since your father died.” He explained how, right after the Rising, Col-Ian had hired people to search for the children of Sela Trayos and Verald Jescarin: a little girl of four named Tamsa and an infant boy, name unknown. Eventually it was reported that Tamsa died of a fever in some village near Maidil’s Mirror.
“But no trace of you was ever found,” he concluded. “I guess Fa kept hoping that one day he’d see somebody who looked like his friend—they were friends, even though they didn’t know each other very long. I wish he could know you’re alive.”
Joss cradled the mementos in his bandaged palms. “Did—did your father ever say much about my parents?”
“A little. I’ll be glad to tell you everything I know.”
“I’ve heard some of it from Domni—I mean, my grandfather—” He broke off, shaking his head. “Do you know how bizarre it is to have family you never even—but of course you do, I’m being an idiot.”
Mikel grinned ruefully. “I probably can’t add much to what Telo says. But whatever I can remember is yours. Though you’ve already seen your father’s heart and soul, in a way. He created Roseguard Grounds.”
Josselin awkwardly pocketed the jewelry and glanced around the dim, heavy-vaulted stairwell. “I don’t think I’ll be following in his footsteps. Can’t grow roses in The Waste.”
“I’ve never seen a place that needed roses more than these do—not even that awful wall! And we’ll have to have a greenhouse to grow food. You can probably sneak in some flowers.”
“I’ll give it a try. That was always the one dung that even brought me close to resigning myself to Mirya Witte—the gardens at their house in Pinderon are famous!”
That reminded Mikel of something. “That letter,” he said suddenly. “From her?”
“Letter?”
“The one that got mixed up with Jored’s that time.”
As they continued up a flight of stairs, J
oss said, “You saw that? You don’t miss much.”
“Only if it’s shoved under my nose.”
“It was from Mirya’s Advocate in Roseguard, telling me she was about to start proceedings for breach of contract and to recover the money she spent on my ‘education.’ I was ashamed—especially when Jored saw it—”
“And his letter? Did you see anything?”
“That’s what was so odd. The frank on it was Roseguard, just like mine.”
“Mirya was Glenin’s creature,” he mused. “I heard Mother say that Glenin probably got her information about Teggie and me from Mirya, the time she tried to kidnap us.”
“Jored’s letter could’ve been the message telling him when to destroy Mage Hall.”
“Written in the most innocuous possible terms, I’m sure, in case someone got hold of it by accident—the way you nearly did. He didn’t dare Ward it after he received it, in case someone sensed it—probably burned it that night, in fact.”
“Nobody ever suspected him,” Joss said, shouldering aside a door half off its hinges. The room they entered was the antechamber of another suite, this one with windows (only a few panes missing) that overlooked the vastness of The Waste.
“The Captal did,” Mikel said, and regretted it at once. She’d suspected Josselin, too. “Does any of the landscape look familiar? You spent a few years in The Waste, didn’t you?”
“If one reads the broadsheets, I lived in every corner of it,” he replied dryly.
Mikel nodded. “All those interviews with people who said they knew or fostered you—they probably won’t be so eager to claim the acquaintance now.”
“And they confused my background so completely that it’s no wonder nobody knew what to think. If I had been the traitor, that would’ve worked in my favor.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you ever tell your whole story?”
“What could it matter to anyone but me?” Joss went into the bedchamber. Mikel followed. “If I’d given all the details, it would’ve been seen as a play for sympathy. Poor orphaned Nameless child, passed from family to family—not knowing who he was or where he came from or anything at all about himself—”