The Ruins of Ambrai

by Melanie Rawn

  Strong arms lifted her. She wanted to tell Taig not to bother, she was already floating. All he need do was nudge her where she was supposed to go and she’d drift like a cloud in a moon-dark sky. A nice dark, soft and sleepy like a fine wool blanket, all the more comfy for being wrapped in Taig’s warm embrace. Cailet roamed the gentle dark for a time, wondering vaguely if Alin was in this one, too. She hoped so; it was a good dark, the first in her life that didn’t frighten her.

  Alin?

  But she didn’t find him.

  3

  Eleven very long days later, Ostinhold kept a quiet St. Kiy’s. Lenna and Tevis took the younger children and a horde of cousins to Longriding to visit Senison relations; of the immediate family, only Lilen and Taig remained at the Hold. And Alin.

  Cailet, hands and arm healing nicely though still achy, was at her window gazing moodily down at the courtyard. Range hands and servants milled about, drinking from casks of last year’s vintage as usual, but the rollicking good humor of Harvest was muted. Everyone was worried about Alin.

  No one was allowed to see him but his mother and brother. The Scholar Mage kept to his own chamber after a single visit to Cailet the day after her accident. Glaring, he said only, “It’s her fault,” to Lilen, and departed in an angry whirl of black and gray and silver.

  Cailet shrank back into the pillows. “M-my fault?”

  “Nonsense,” Lilen said, recovering from shock at the Mage Guardian’s words. “You had nothing to do with what happened to Alin. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s only trying to shift blame to you. Pay him no mind.”

  “But what did happen? I heard Alin cry out, and that’s why I lost my balance. Why didn’t anybody else hear?”

  Lilen stroked her bandaged hands. “Dearest, that’s a question only another Mage can answer—a better one than that idiot. Be patient. Someone’s coming who can tell us what happened and put everything to rights.”

  Clinging to Lilen’s hand, soothed as always by the scent of lemon grass that surrounded the only mother she’d ever known, Cailet asked, “Can this Mage help Alin?”

  “I’ve never met the problem Gorynel Desse couldn’t solve.”

  Cailet’s eyes went round as soup bowls. Gorynel Desse! She’d read about him in one of the books Lady Lilen wasn’t supposed to own, and heard his name whispered ever since she could remember. Listed Mage at eighteen, Warrior at twenty, First Sword—Commander of the Captal’s Warders—at thirty. Staunchest opponent of First Councillor Anniyas, the most learned—and most dangerous—Warrior Mage Guardian in Lenfell’s history, rumored dead these ten years . . . but he was alive, and coming to Ostinhold!

  Her excitement died abruptly. Alin must be badly in need, to make the great Mage risk the journey. Cailet said nothing of this, however; it was in Lilen’s eyes that she already knew it.

  Now, watching the hold’s desultory attempts to celebrate the Saint’s day, Cailet fretted anew at how long it was taking Gorynel Desse to arrive. Surely there must be a Ladder or two still functioning—despite the Council’s published certainties that all had been discovered and set ablaze. Even if compelled to travel by ordinary means, surely he ought to have come by now. Irien had told Cailet this morning that Alin was resting comfortably, but the circles of strain beneath the physician’s blue eyes told another tale.

  “Great Saints, child, close that window before you catch cold!”

  Cailet turned quickly, bumping her splinted arm against the casement. She completely forgot to feel the pain—for something tingled in her mind, like the prickle of a blood-starved limb. It was in the same place as the pain had been, right behind her eyes, but this was nothing like pain at all.

  Standing in the center of her small bedroom, dressed in an astonishing rag of a cloak, was a white-haired, green-eyed, black-skinned old man. He dragged the chair from her desk, settled himself, and waved her closer.

  “Come, come, sit here by me,” he invited. “And do shut the window. It’s chill for autumn in The Waste. Well? What are you waiting for? Let me get a look at you, girl.”

  Eyes the color of wine-bottle glass sparkled cheerful curiosity from below great tufted brows. She’d seen those eyes before, she knew she had—the memory skittered like a clever mouse from a clumsy cat, escaping before she could catch it. Rising from the window seat, Cailet took a few wary steps toward him.

  “Shy, eh?”

  She took another step—just one, she would have sworn it—and the tickle in her head seemed to dance. When it faded, she was standing right smack in front of the old man.

  “How’d you do that?” Cailet blurted.

  “One of my many talents. I’m told you have one or two, yourself. Staring with your jaw wide open seems to be primary among them right now. My dear friend Lilen has neglected your manners.”

  “Sorry,” she responded reflexively. “I’m Cailet Rille. Are you—?” Somehow she couldn’t manage the rest.

  “Gorynel Desse? Yes, I have that honor—or that affliction, depending on how you look at it.” He smiled. “And your look now says that you don’t think a Mage should let himself be seen so shabby. Well, that’s the ‘affliction’ part.”

  “Sorry,” she said again.

  “No matter.” He patted the bed nearby. “Sit down, Domna. To answer the question foremost in your mind, Alin will be quite all right.”

  “Then you helped him! Thank you!”

  “It’s an appropriate day for the work. St. Kiy the Forgetful. Learn to appreciate the ironies in life, Domna.”

  She understood none of this—indeed, barely heard it. Relief that Alin was safe had been immediately followed by suspicion. “How’d you know I was thinking about Alin? Did you—”

  “—read your thoughts? Certainly not. No Mageborn can, so remember that if anyone ever tries to tell you differently.”

  She hesitated, then told him what she’d told no one else. “But I did—sort of, anyway, with Geria and then Taig.”

  “Did you hear the words they were thinking?”

  “N-no,” she said slowly. “But I knew what they felt.”

  “There, you see? You read their faces, Domna Cailet, the way I just read yours. People can be just like books. Reading them is a talent anyone can learn—and it’s a good thing you’ve already started.”

  “But—it hurt. They were fire and ice, and—”

  “Hmm. No need to ask who was what. Sit, Cailet. We’re going to have a talk about reading people’s faces.”

  She sat at the foot of her bed, tucking her feet under her. “Why?”

  All at once he looked very sad. “You’ll need your wits, child, because your magic won’t be available to you for a long time yet.”

  She could not have heard him correctly. Her magic?

  “Forgive me, Cailet,” he murmured, and took her left hand, and caught her gaze with his shining eyes. She tried with all her might, but could not look away. “If I’d done my work properly when you were born, this wouldn’t be necessary now. I should have guessed how powerful your magic would be.”

  Magic!

  Cailet struggled in a frenzy of fear. She remembered this feeling, those green eyes looking deep into hers, the empty hollow that had opened in her worse than thirst or starvation or loneliness. It loomed now, the dark that had first frightened her mere days after her birth. Into it he would fling every glimmer of all the fire she knew was in her—the magic—

  “We can’t let them find you, little one,” whispered Gorynel Desse. “You must be ordinary for a while longer. One day, I promise you, you’ll not only touch that fire, you’ll tame it. But I have to do this, Cailet. Forgive me.”

  No! She could only just sense the burning glow inside, he couldn’t hide it away from her again—

  But he did, and she did not find it again for many years. By then it was almost too late.

  4

  “How will Taig get h
ome?”

  Lady Lilen’s sigh was lost in the rattle of the carriage. The one sent by the Witte Blood to take them from the ship to Pinderon had been a marvel of comfort (even if it did look like a yellow-striped tomato on wheels). This one was so badly sprung that every cobble jounced their bones. It was a sign of disapproval that Lilen had harbored, however unknowingly, a Minstrel who turned out to be so heinous a villain. Only one good thing about the whole mess: Lilen wouldn’t have to think up a reason to refuse the Witte’s offer of Dalion to husband Lenna. After last night’s disaster, with Justices and Guards and the Pinderon Watch and half hell breaking loose, the offer would never be made. Geria would be furious.

  “I don’t know that Taig will be coming home for quite some time, Cai. We may have to get used to missing him, the way we miss Alin.”

  Cailet rebelled at the unfairness. Alin had chosen; Taig had been chased. Thus far the younger brother’s association with the Rising was secret—but the elder, no matter how much fast talking Lilen did, would be suspect from now on.

  She wedged herself into a corner of the seat, bracing against bumps, and chewed a thumbnail. It wasn’t fair, any of it. First she’d lost Alin—not that she blamed him for packing up and leaving last year, what with Geria nagging for a betrothal. Lira Vedde was years older than Alin, and so mad to have him that she’d argued her mother into offering the price of Alin’s share of the Ostin Dower for the privilege. It was his duty, Geria kept saying, to use his charming golden looks to bring those charming golden double-eagles into the family coffers. She simply refused to acknowledge that Alin would never marry anyone—except in the unlikely event that Valirion Maurgen turned female. The two of them, seventeen and eighteen respectively, were off on their own now. Cailet knew that however they were living, they were happy with each other.

  But how would Taig live? Alone, hunted, safe only when he found other agents of the Rising, never knowing where he would be from one day to the next. . . . Cailet’s heart was with Taig Ostin, and the prospect of life without even hope of glimpsing him made her feel like an empty husk.

  If not for that Minstrel and his stupid song—it was all his fault. And that blonde girl in the sickening pink dress, too. Cailet didn’t trust her, no matter what Taig had said. At not quite thirteen, she was not yet old enough to realize that she would instinctively distrust anybody that beautiful who had been found alone with Taig Ostin.

  Cailet voiced her complaints about the Minstrel—but not about the girl—to Lilen, who shook her head. “No, dearest. If there’s blame, it falls on Anniyas. Everything traces back to her ambition. Even her hatred of Mageborns, which has caused so much grief, is a tool of her need for power.”

  “I don’t understand. What d’you do with power once you get it?”

  “If the power is vast enough, you can change the world as you wish.”

  Cailet thought about that for a time. The world was about to be changed, and it was said the Council was doing it as a wedding present. “Then it’s the First Councillor and not Glenin Feiran who wants to do away with the Tiers?”

  Lilen peered at her in the gloomy carriage. “Why do you say that?”

  “Follows,” she shrugged. “After all, Lady Glenin’s just like the rest of Ryka and the Council and everybody—she does what Anniyas says. Everybody except the Mage Guardians and the Rising.”

  “You’ve been listening again where you shouldn’t.” The rutted cliff road jounced Lilen to one side. Righting herself, she continued, “I know you don’t say these things to anyone but Taig and me. But I can’t help feeling it would be better if you didn’t say them at all.”

  “Not even to you anymore?”

  Lilen toyed absently with the fringe of her beaded purse. “Cai . . . I believe the Council has ears even at Ostinhold.”

  She caught her breath. “Who?”

  “I don’t know. How can anyone know?” She parted the yellow curtain to see how close they might be to the docks. “Times are dangerous. We must be careful. And that means we must also be silent.”

  Silence would be no real hardship. With Taig gone, there’d be no one to talk to. Lenna, Tevis, and Miram would soon be back at school in Longriding; Alin was with Val Maurgen somewhere; Terrill and Lindren were nice enough, but. . . . Of the hundreds of other Ostins at Ostinhold, there wasn’t anyone she could confide in. Loneliness hollowed her insides. She wrapped her arms around the hurt and closed her eyes.

  The voyage back to The Waste did nothing to lighten anyone’s mood. Day after day the ship wallowed in a windless calm, the cabins too stuffy for sleeping even in the depths of night. Finally back at Ostinhold, Lilen closeted herself with her stewards for days on end. Cailet sat in the schoolroom with the other children, did her chores, reread her favorite books, and rode out alone as often as she could sneak a horse past the grooms. But with Alin and Taig both gone for good, Ostinhold was a sorrowful place, as empty as the place Cailet’s heart used to be.

  Her restlessness of the past year grew worse. Her studies suffered, and so did anyone who got within range when she was in a particularly irritable mood. Generally a cheerful child, she definitely had a temper. Drygrass passed, and Wildfire, and the terrific heat of The Waste set everyone on edge.

  And then, the last day of Wolfkill, an acid storm blew in out of season. All Ostinhold was shuttered inside for three solid days while corrosive grit battered the walls and storm fittings. Cailet prowled from room to room, unable to settle, unable to sleep more than an hour or two at night. On the third morning of the tempest, she woke at Half-Fourth with a dull ache in her belly. Suspecting its cause, she curled around herself and listened to the growling storm outside, sullenly contemplating this pivotal event in her life.

  As was done for all the girls at Ostinhold, Lilen would give a party to celebrate. A banquet, dancing, congratulations, gifts—and Geria complaining of the expense. “It’s not as if she’s family. Besides, Rille is only a Third Tier Name. No one will be interested in even preliminary negotiations. In fact, I don’t see how we’ll ever husband her!”

  Cailet smiled grimly at the image of First Daughter’s face if she knew that the only man Cailet wanted was Geria’s own brother. But Taig was gone. There would be no flowers from him, no congratulations, no first dance in his arms as a young woman instead of a little girl. She’d dreamed of it all her life, it seemed, imagination painting her pretty and grown-up and worth dancing with . . . and now it would never come true.

  She rose at Fifth, bathed, and steeled herself for the obligatory visit to inform Lady Lilen. Keeping her first Wise Blood secret was out of the question. The maids would know the instant they collected the washing; the householder would know when pads disappeared off-schedule from the bathroom. Besides, Cailet was supposed to be happy and proud. Other girls were. Staring at her reflection in her bedroom mirror—a face all broad cheekbones and wide mouth and black eyes, a face that couldn’t remotely be called pretty—all she felt was depressed.

  Resigned, she made her way to Lilen’s private chambers. Just as Cailet was afraid of the dark, Lilen feared acid storms; she spent them locked in her rooms, not wishing anyone to see her tremble at the slightest change in the wind. She was convinced that the roof tiles would be eaten away, the stinging rain would flood down, and everyone at Ostinhold would be seared to bare skeletons. Miram told Cailet once that Lilen’s childhood nurse had used such tales to terrify her into obedience; when her mother, Lady Taigrel, found out, she was so furious she’d actually sold the man to Scraller.

  To Cailet’s surprise, Lilen’s antechamber door was open. She crept in, supposing a maid had brought breakfast in hopes the Lady would eat. The bedroom door also stood slightly ajar. Cailet was shocked into absolute stillness when she heard voices. Lilen had a visitor, and the topic of discussion was Cailet.

  5

  “. . . child anymore. Her Wise Blood will come soon—and you know the effect that has. My poor Margit had
a terrible time.”

  “The Wards I set for Cailet—”

  “—you had to reset. Gorsha, you’ve always said she’ll be the strongest of them all. We’ve hoped for it. I’ve watched her the last year, and what Margit suffered is ten times worse in Cailet.”

  “That bad? You were right to send for me, then.”

  “Will you Ward her again?”

  “I must. She’s too young yet.”

  “Every time you do makes for greater danger. If her magic suddenly breaks through, it might turn Wild. It’s happened before.”

  “Not to Cailet. I’ll be careful.”

  “You’d better.”

  “It isn’t easy, is it? This changeling in your midst.”

  “Easy? No. But I love her as if she were my own. I’ve tried so hard—but she hates The Waste, Gorsha. I can’t blame her. She was meant for Ambrai. This place starves her soul.”

  “She can hardly miss what she’s never known.”

  “Saints, men can be stupid. My great-aunt Lindren never had children, but she ached for them all the same. Cailet aches, too—for green hills, forest, rivers, everything that’s truest in her blood. I keep her safe, but I can’t give her what she truly needs. And the rest of it, you’ve kept from her.”

  “If I’d let her have her magic, they would have found her—and that would have been the end of her. Or worse.”

  “Like Glenin?”

  “A calculated risk, letting Auvry take her. An unexplained talent like his rarely breeds true. Who could know that all three of his girls would turn up Mageborn? I think he reinforced the Ostin gift, through their grandfather.”

  “Why do you think I married a Senison?”

  “Because you adored him, of course.”

  “That goes without saying, and you know it. The point is that in marrying Tiva, I hoped to breed magic out of my children. I was right to worry. Look what happened—my poor Margit, and little Alin—”