by Melanie Rawn
“Meaning?”
“What do you think?” she asked impatiently. “The one admirable thing I’ve found about the Malerrisi amid everything I now know about them is that by and large they’re disciplined. I don’t plan to use the Mages or steal their magic or any other damned thing. I’m trying to save their lives. But it’s their choice, Elomar. If they’re in, they’re in. If they choose otherwise, they have my best wishes for continued survival.”
“It’s yours that concerns us.”
“You’ll just have to trust me. Elo, you of all people understand what I am. You watched it happen. If you can’t believe in Cailet, surely you can believe in at least one of the others. You knew Alin. You knew Tamos Wolvar. Captal Adennos was your cousin. As for Gorsha—you can’t say you don’t trust him!”
“It is you I trust,” he said quietly, and she had to turn her head away. It echoed what Taig had said. He had trusted her. And died.
Elomar and Riddon Slegin had taken the corpse of the Fifth Lord and thrown it in the river. Cailet hoped it washed up someday on the shore below Malerris Castle—though she would have enjoyed rending it into a great many small pieces with her own bare hands.
Taig would burn tonight. Lusira had told her that in private, acting almost as if Taig had been Cailet’s husband and she was now a widow. Cailet wondered what people had been saying. She supposed she was public property now, gossip fodder, and it would only get worse with time.
The moonlight was direct now, lighting the walls of the Octagon Court. The turquoise edging the audience chamber retreated into shadow. She tilted her head back to stare at the sky. Even after she won—she would not allow herself to consider loss—people would go on dying, perhaps for weeks before word reached Neele and Domburr Castle and Isodir and all those twenty-two towns and uncounted villages where people were busily slaughtering each other.
Ladders could probably get Mages to most places fairly soon. But who was to say that they would be believed—or that Anniyas’s fall would even matter? Most people knew little about Anniyas and cared even less. She did not directly touch their daily lives. But the local minions of the Council did, and were dying for it: Guards, Justices, Advocates, deputies of all the ministries and bureaucracies that webbed Lenfell almost as extensively as the Ostin Blood.
Cailet shut her eyes. As hard as she tried to think of other things, it all kept coming back to Taig. Lady Lilen had lost three children now, starting with Margit, who’d been Mageborn, dead years ago in an accident that was no accident. Then gentle, fierce Alin. Now Taig.
Soldiers of the Ryka Legion were marching to Combel, or perhaps Longriding. Or perhaps both. Ostinhold was very near Longriding. First Daughter Geria would be in a frenzy. Cailet wondered if her scratches had healed yet.
She also wondered about the infant boy. Elomar told her that Sela Trayos would have died in the birthing no matter what happened. Ladder or no Ladder, magic or no magic, she simply had been worn out by worry and grief and pain. But the baby might have been damaged. When this was over, Cailet would have to find him and discover what harm she’d done. No, it wouldn’t show up until his magic did. Time enough then to apologize for almost having stolen it before he was even born.
Magic tingled at the edges of her senses now. She blinked and realized the sky was dark—night had long since fallen. It might be as late as Fourteenth or thereabouts, and she could feel the Ladymoon readying herself for an appearance, like a beautiful woman at her dressing table. Cool, remote, compellingly powerful, and so silent.
Cailet should be getting ready, too. Not that there was anything to be done. She’d sent her Summons on wings of white fire. Anniyas would be here. Was here, if the quiver of magic was any indication.
How odd to feel so calm. So ready.
“Gorsha,” she murmured as she got to her feet, “I’ll need you.”
Here, Captal. All of us.
In the silence she heard footsteps—
—and felt every kind of pretentious idiot, for eventually it was Sarra who strode calmly into the Hall, saying in the most everyday voice imaginable: “Oh, here you are!”
“You were looking for me?” Not just an idiot, but an imbecile.
Sarra stepped around a scattering of shards on the black tiles. “No, actually I’ve been searching all Ambrai for someone else who’ll fit these, just like the princess with the silver coif.” She pushed a pile of clothes into Cailet’s arms. “Get dressed. A Captal doesn’t meet a Malerrisi in the remains of a Council Guard uniform.”
“Sarra, I don’t want you here.”
“Too bad. The others cobbled these together for you. Telo is handy with a needle, he altered them to fit—more or less. If you hadn’t been so damned silent and forbidding earlier, they would’ve given these to you then and you could’ve said a proper thanks.” She reached into a pocket and came up with two small silver objects. “Gavirin Bekke started it off by giving Telo his Candle for you. The Sparrow is Imilial Gorrst’s.”
As Cailet stroked the material of the tunic, from the folds of the shirt slithered a length of shiny gray silk. She caught it before it hit the floor.
Sarra was picking at the clasp of the Sparrow with her fingernails. “The sash ought to be cloth-of-silver, of course, but Miram’s scarf was the closest they could come to it. Well? What are you waiting for? Put it on so I can fasten the collar pins.”
She took off her white Council Guard shirt. The breeze was chilly on her bare breasts. “Then will you go?”
“Not until I have Collan back safe.”
Damn Sarra’s instincts. Damn her Warded magic that allowed her to feel things without being able to do anything about them.
“I can’t protect you.” Cailet thrust her arms into black sleeves. The shirt was raw silk, dull and soft, with a texture nearly that of thin suede. “I don’t have power enough or magic enough to protect us and him, too.”
“Never mind about that. Just take me with you to Ryka Court.”
So her instincts weren’t infallible after all. Which did Cailet precisely no good at all. If going to Ryka Court had still been her aim, she could simply have walked into the Ladder and left Sarra behind. But Anniyas would be coming here, to the Octagon Court, and for all Cailet knew she’d already arrived.
“Go. Please.” Pulling the tunic over her head, she buttoned it at either side, hipbones to upper ribs.
“Don’t forget the sword.”
“I won’t be needing it.”
“Of course you will. Put it on.”
“No.” Miram’s pale gray scarf wrapped twice around her waist, six inches of fringe hanging to mid-thigh.
“Then I’ll carry it for you.” One dimple flashed in a mocking little smile. “Just like the brave knight and her faithful squire.”
“Damn it, Sarra, this isn’t a bedtime story or a Bardic ballad!”
“But you know very well someone will write one someday. If we’re lucky, it’ll sound much better than it lived.” She bent to heft the sword. “Good thing we’re both stronger than we look. This thing must weigh fifteen pounds.”
Cursing under her breath, Cailet watched Sarra buckle Gorsha’s belt around her hips. “Sarra, leave! I’m begging you!”
Shaking her head, she approached with the two pins in hand. The Sparrow went on the right collar-point, the Candle on the left. “An Ambrai never begs,” she said as she worked. “Nor does a Captal. I’m coming with you, and that’s the end of it. You need me.” Black eyes glittered almost feverishly in a pallid face, but the hand that reached to smooth Cailet’s hair was absolutely steady.
She batted the caress away. “You’re a Mageborn who can’t work magic. You’re a liability. I can’t protect you. I can’t do what I must if I’m worrying about you.”
“You don’t have to worry about me or protect me. They can’t sense me. They won’t even know I’m there. That makes me an asset, not a liability.” S
he picked up Gorsha’s black cloak. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wear this. It’s night where we’re going.”
Cailet grabbed her sister’s shoulders and shook her. “We’re not going anywhere! Anniyas is coming here! I used the Bequest to find her and I Summoned her! She’s coming with the moonrise—here, Sarra, to Ambrai!”
Sarra broke her hold, tossed her hair from her eyes, and smiled. Smiled. “So much the better. No one alive knows the Octagon Court better than I.”
“Don’t you understand? She’s coming for me!”
“And you’ll let her find you.” She nodded slowly, no longer smiling. “Do what you must. I’ll see to Collan. She’ll bring him with her, you know.”
“And if she does? You’re nothing to Anniyas—but you’re everything to me. She’ll use you and Col against me—”
“Do you think I can stand by and do nothing? Especially when it’s you and Collan? He means even less to her than I do. It’s you she wants. The Captal. You’re right, I’m a Mageborn without magic, and I’ll curse Gorynel Desse until I die for the Wards that make me no use to you that way. But I can watch for a chance to get Collan free.”
“Sarra—”
“And then it’ll be just you and Anniyas. Believe me, Cailet, I’d stop you if I could. But I can’t. So let me do this one thing that I can do.”
Serenity was gone. Resignation took its place—a very different feeling, and one she didn’t like. “I hope stupidity doesn’t run in the family,” Cailet muttered, and Sarra smiled again.
“No, just possessiveness. You’re mine, and Collan’s mine. We Ambrais defend what’s ours.”
“The way Lady Allynis did?” Cailet asked bleakly, gesturing to the ruin around them. “To the death, if necessary?”
“The way Glenin will,” Sarra replied somberly. “It’s not Anniyas who’s the real danger, Cai.”
Cailet made herself shrug. “One Malerrisi at a time. All right, find a place to hide. Wait as long as you have to for your best chance. She won’t kill him while she can still bargain with him, or hurt me with him.” She regretted the flinch in her sister’s eyes, but continued adamantly, “Whatever happens, don’t interfere. When you have Col, get out of here as fast as you can. Promise, Sarra, or I swear I’ll spell you to sleep right here and now.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Try me.”
After a moment, Sarra nodded. “I promise.”
Cailet checked the sword at Sarra’s hip, making sure it would pull smoothly free of the scabbard, and felt a subtle tingling of magic on her fingertips. One day she’d have to get Collan to sing her every ballad he knew about the Fifty Swords. St. Caitiri was rumored to have made them in consultation with St. Delilah—and, some said, Steen Swordsworn—
Sarra grabbed her arm as a horrible keening echoed through the Octagon Court, one long shriek piercing enough to shiver the glass on the floor.
“Cailet—?” Sarra whispered. “It sounds like—”
Like a madwoman, like a mortally wounded animal, like a Wraithenbeast.
Cailet glanced up at the sky. Deepest starlit black, Ladymoon ascending but not yet in sight. But she knew who it must be.
Anniyas.
The screams ended. The sisters stared at each other, too stunned even to breathe.
“MAGE CAPTAL!” cried a woman’s voice, shredded with grief. “I HAVE THE MINSTREL! SHOW YOURSELF, OR HE DIES!”
Cailet touched Sarra’s cheek, murmuring, “Miryenne protect you,” before she ran the length of the audience chamber. In the corridor she slowed, calming breath and heartbeat and magic as best she could. She was Mage Captal. She would meet the Malerrisi with outward calm and inward power.
And after she had dealt with Anniyas, she would deal with Glenin. Now. Tonight. She knew it, not the way Sarra knew things by instinct, but the way Mage knew Malerrisi.
And perhaps the way Blood knew Blood.
33
The air was thick and vile, making him want to spit out its taste. He shoved Anniyas aside, gaze darting wildly. Whiteness—cold snowy marble closing in on him—for a sickening instant he thought he was back in the white box. But these walls curved. It was a cylinder he stood in, eight feet wide and stretching up, up, all the way to the clear night sky.
He turned. Blood stained the bright white walls. Sprawled on the floor nearly at his feet was what used to be a man. The heart still beat weakly, pumping red liquid to parts no longer attached.
He backed away. Out. He wanted out. Now.
He stumbled over Anniyas, who had collapsed on the floor, gasping, clutching at her bruised throat. He figured he had about a minute before she caught her breath and discovered her son, another minute or two while she reacted. In that time he could be long gone—if only his legs would work. The sore on his foot throbbed hotly, toes crammed together in the red leather boots, and for all the use that leg was to him he might have lost it at mid-thigh, like the man on the floor. Hobbling from the whiteness, he found himself in a broad, smoke-stained hall just as Anniyas began to scream.
Eight corridors met here. The cylinder was the well of a double staircase. Damn—she got us to Ambrai after all. Which way should he go to escape her? He could hear nothing but her savage grief, see nothing but vast expanses of marble and burned debris and soot. The stairs—? But the palace was gigantic, and while he could probably hide in its rooms and halls for days, he wanted out. He chose a direction at random and started limping.
He’d gone only ten steps before his foot seemed to catch on fire. A groan strangled him, his knees buckled, and behind him Anniyas shouted her challenge to the Mage Captal.
He’d failed. He hadn’t kept her from coming to Ambrai, and he was still in her spellbound clutches, and he couldn’t even cry warning. He went down hard on the floor, feeble hands unable to break his fall. The madness the white box had been unable to accomplish, despair and failure nearly did.
“Mage Captal! Come to me now or he dies!”
He smelled her, smelled the blood of her son. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Could only grovel on his useless hands and bruised knees like a child. His head hung and it took everything he had to raise it and watch for the blonde girl, the Captal, whose name he couldn’t remember. Watch her come here, come for him, come to die.
Rage ignited his blood with futile strength. The spell was too powerful; his muscles trembled with need, but he couldn’t move. He heard Anniyas’s short breaths, his own panting gasps. Then footsteps, calm and unhurried. Yet beneath the other sounds, Minstrel’s hearing gave him the quick whisper of other feet, bare and nearly silent on the cold marble.
“Mage Captal!”
“Here,” said a quiet, proud voice.
From the corner of his eye he glimpsed a tall, slim girl with a cap of shining white-blonde hair, clad in black with silvery silk around her narrow waist. He knew her. But he didn’t know her name.
“Free him,” she commanded.
Anniyas walked by, shaking her head. “You do it. Prove that you’re Captal.”
“And while I’m busy unraveling your spell, you’ll weave another over me? I don’t think so, First Councillor.”
“First Lord,” Anniyas corrected coldly.
A brow quivered. She nodded. “Of course. I should have guessed long ago.”
Anniyas gave a snort of amusement. “How long is ‘long ago’ to someone your age, girl? A year or two?”
“You will address me as Captal. And you of all people should know that a Captal’s remembrances extend far beyond her own lifetime. Don’t yours?”
He scarcely noticed the mockery. An exquisite coolness began to seep through him—no, not exactly through, like wine in his blood, but across his skin beneath the ugly clothes—a second skin between the angry heat of Anniyas’s Ward and the impotent fury of his own straining muscles.
“My heritage as First Lord surpasses your own, Captal,�
� said Anniyas, matching the scorn. “Where you rule a few Mages—how many now, twenty?—I rule all Lenfell.”
“Ah. And how are things in Neele, First Lord? Domburr Castle? Renig?”
Slowly, subtly, the clean coolness spread, soothing his hurts. He felt Anniyas’s magic like a suffocating cloak that he could now throw off anytime he pleased. Beneath, the Captal’s spell slid as soft as garments of silk.
“Those places should have taken their lesson from Ambrai long ago. This morning an example was made of Ostinhold.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I? You won’t live long enough to find out one way or the other. Talking of lies and Ostins, I understand Taig tried to pass himself off as Captal. Did the late unlamented Fifth Lord chastise him properly before you killed him?”
“You’re misinformed. Doriaz was his own executioner.” She hesitated. “And Taig’s,” she added softly, sorrowfully.
Taig? Dead? Ah, poor kitten. . . . He raised his head and tried to catch the girl’s eye. She paid him no attention. Once more he heard the nearly inaudible murmur of bare feet on marble, and shifted his body under the heat of the Ward. No more pain, not even in his foot. But his hands, his fingers . . . useless still, braced flat on the floor and not even feeling it.
“Doriaz always did enjoy a good murder,” Anniyas remarked. “I hope his own was the best he ever committed.” A fat sphere like a dying red sun coalesced at her left elbow. Its bloody glow was instantly countered by a matching sphere, this one purest white shot through with silvered rainbows. “We can be civilized or barbaric about this, Captal. Strict rules of magic, or anything goes. Myself, I prefer the latter. I haven’t used my magic in years—not even in secret. The last time I killed with it was . . . oh, yes. That fool of a Grand Duke of Domburron. I’d forgotten how much I missed it. But no one will know about me until only Malerrisi exist in this world, and I lead them against the Wraithenbeasts.”
So she was right about that, he thought, not sure who “she” was.
“I will lead them,” Anniyas went on. “Not that toad of a First Lord squatting on his ass at Malerris Castle.”