by Melanie Rawn
“I know you’re here, Glenin.”
She whirled. A girl’s voice, light and calm, echoed through deserted moonlit corridors with an easy authority that astonished her.
“Must you be guided, or is your magic strong enough to find me?”
Had there been any mockery in the words, she would have shouted back in defiance. But it was a simple question, and she decided to answer it just as simply. She walked with unerring steps to the Hall and swung open heavy oaken doors only slightly charred by long-ago fires.
Light poured through the empty ceiling, white rivers of it banked by empty stone traceries. The girl stood in Glenin’s place at the top of the Hall, fair hair and silvery sash gleaming. At two hundred feet, Glenin could not see her face clearly. She paced forward, thin shoes crunching bits of fallen windows.
Blonde hair shifted and shimmered with her nod. “You found me.”
“And your handiwork,” Glenin replied.
“Not mine.” She hesitated. “I regret the death of your husband.”
“I’m sure you will.” Halting halfway across the room, she ordered, “Come down from there. This place is mine by right of inheritance. Only Ambrais stand where you’re standing now.”
The girl smiled slightly, but said nothing. And didn’t move.
“I told you to—”
“I heard you.”
She lit a Mage Globe: opalescent as her smoke-pearl earrings, though paler and tinged with green. The color pleased her. Reddish hues would mean anger barely controlled; blues were the shades of intense emotion. Green meant power.
No sphere answered her unspoken challenge.
“I’m unWarded,” the girl said. “I’m not afraid of you, Glenin.”
“Don’t you know who I am?”
“Yes. I know. But I should introduce myself,” she said quite seriously. “We almost met once. Glenin Ambrai—”
“Feiran.”
“Ambrai. First Daughter of Maichen.”
“Feiran,” she said again, “First Daughter of Auvry.”
A slight sigh. “Is that truly how you name yourself in your deepest heart? Don’t you remember who you were when you lived here?”
“Is there some point to this?” Glenin asked impatiently.
“Not that you’re willing to see—not yet, anyhow. My name is Cailet.”
“Are you slaveborn, then, to have no family Name?”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“No more than I believe you’re the new Captal.”
“Anniyas asked for proof, too.”
“Which you’ll now claim you provided by killing her.”
“No. She was her own death. Glenin, please listen to me. I don’t want the same to happen to you.”
Taking another step, Glenin cried out softly and bent as if a shard pierced her shoe. In that moment she sent the thinnest stab of magic at the girl, and had the satisfaction of hearing her gasp. Wards coalesced, too late to deflect the probe entirely, yet strong and subtle enough to transform its original crippling strength into relative harmlessness.
Impressed in spite of herself, Glenin quickly absorbed the backlash and sorted its meanings as Golonet Doriaz had taught her. What she gleaned came not in words, but in emotions—a thing she’d never encountered before. This Cailet might have a control of her thoughts and her magic uncommon in someone twice her age, but her feelings were close to the surface and as vulnerable as any adolescent girl’s. Even as Glenin cataloged emotions and the images attached to them, she began to alter her strategy in light of new information.
Grief: Taig Ostin sprawled on the stairs, dying.
Joy: Sarra Liwellan and—the Minstrel? Holy Saints, what a pairing!
Loss: a whole gallery of dead; Glenin recognized only Gorynel Desse.
Pity: for Anniyas? And Garon? And—Glenin herself?
Fear: Ostinhold.
Pain—
Glenin caught her breath. “How do you know my mother’s face?”
The girl backed up a pace. “Your mother?” she said, and her voice shook slightly with her rapid heartbeats.
“She was dead before you were born—but you hold her face in your mind—” She advanced, careless of the splintered black floor. “Who are you?”
“Mage Captal.”
“Tell me your Name!”
Nearer now—and all at once the black eyes in a slender face crowned by cropped gold hair belonged to another face, one of heart-catching beauty and terrible pride. Beauty had been lost to sharper angles, longer bones; pride remained. She knew this face, last seen over eighteen years ago.
Glenin struggled to breathe. “You can’t be an Ambrai!”
The girl—Cailet—Mage Captal—said quietly, “I am our mother’s daughter. I have as much right here as you do.”
Glenin stopped twenty feet from her. Then—she didn’t die here, the way Father said she did. He lied—no, he couldn’t have lied—but if she survived—
“Sarra!”
36
“Sarra,” Cailet confirmed.
“How?” Glenin cried. “I saw Sarra more than once—I never—”
“Wards. Gorynel Desse. But I had none set on me.” She shrugged. “Not the same type, anyway.”
“Impossible. You can’t be—”
“I am. Perhaps I wanted you to know. Don’t you see, Glenin, it changes everything.” Doesn’t it?
“It changes nothing!”
“It’s why we’re here, why this had to happen! You and Sarra and I—Glenin, think what we could be together! Mage and Malerrisi, working for Lenfell, not against each other, with Sarra to show us where and how we’re needed—she knows those things, she’s brilliant—with her to help us, we could—”
Glenin laughed aloud. Cailet flinched. But the words kept tumbling out, without order or caution, with only a desperate need to make her understand.
“Listen to me, Glenin, please! What we could be, we three together—all the power Lenfell needs—the kind of power you’ve been taught to want, it’s what killed Anniyas! Wraiths came, people she’d used, whose souls she’d killed long before their bodies died—”
“Oh, dear. Next you’re going to tell me she shuddered in terror before them, and dread of their vengeance—what, stopped her heart? Believe me, little sister, she didn’t have one.”
“She called one of them by name. She called out ‘Garon’ and died.”
A brow arched in genuine surprise. “So he came for her, too? Well, well.”
“Glenin! Don’t you understand? What you want to be will kill you!”
“We all die eventually.”
Cailet stepped down to the black floor, boot heels echoing. Had Glenin been barefoot, they would have been of a height. “Do you want to wait for ‘eventually’ while every Malerrisi with pretensions to power sharpens her magic like a knife to stick in your back? It doesn’t have to be that way! You and Sarra and I together—”
“—will form a happy little family of Mageborns, and right all the wrongs in the world?”
She barely heard the jeering voice. She understood Gorsha now. The vague intimations of schemes within schemes came clear. Yes! she wanted to tell Glenin. We three, Mageborn Ambrais, we could heal the magic—with me leading the Mages and you the Malerrisi, it would all be over and there’d be no more threat of war or Wraithenbeasts or anything to harm Lenfell ever again!
“Do you expect me to experience a revelation? Grovel before you with the shame of my mistakes, and beg you to make a proper little Mage Guardian of me?” Glenin smiled kindly. “Little sister, you know nothing about real power.”
“You could do so much—”
“I intend to. And so will you. You’re right about one thing—knowing who you and Sarra are changes my plans.”
“H-how do you mean?”
“You’re very young—almost e
ighteen, I take it? The Ambrai women have few children, as a rule, but if we take very good care of you we’ll probably get at least two out of you. And the same from Sarra.”
Horrified, Cailet retreated. Glenin calmly mounted the step and turned. They watched each other across the black tiled floor patterned in octagons, the Blood Sigil of the Name that had birthed them.
“There, that’s better. Mind your manners, Cailet. Even a Captal bows to the First Daughter of her Name.”
Gorsha, you were wrong.
Are you giving up so soon?
Look at her, damn you! She’s theirs, she’ll never—
“Well?” Glenin prompted. “Ambrai to Ambrai, little sister.”
Woodenly, without hope, Cailet replied, “You said your Name is Feiran.”
“I could call myself anything I liked, and the Octagon Court would still be mine.” She pushed her cloak over one shoulder, thin white silk tunic rippling in the night breeze. “I’ll let your and Sarra’s brats have Grandmother’s holy Name, how’s that for graciousness? By the way, how is Sarra? Delirious with joy at having her Minstrel back, and dreaming of Miramili’s Bells? Well, probably not. The Saintly Virgin must save herself for a loftier bed—though not exactly the way she always planned it. I wish I could tell her she’ll be missing something truly extraordinary by missing Collan Rosvenir, but honesty compels me to admit that he wasn’t much.”
“He never touched you!”
“Can you be sure? And how would you know anything about it, anyway? Or did Taig Ostin fulfill your girlish dreams before he died?”
“You—” She choked back the rest.
“Ah. I thought not.”
“You can’t hurt me, Glenin, not with Collan or Sarra or Taig.” But she set her Wards in stone all the same.
“Pain doesn’t particularly interest me. At best, it’s only a corollary of fear. Besides, I wouldn’t damage you now, dear, you’re far too valuable.”
“You can’t frighten me, either.”
“Truly told?”
The Mage Globe glistened, greenish light smearing the floor and the shadows and Glenin’s beautiful smiling face. It grew, expanding from fist-size to a six-foot sphere. Cailet felt tiny lances of magic spring from it, hurled against her Wards. Pinpricks. But her skin began to crawl as if the points had pierced through to her body—for within the Globe shadows took on human form.
Collan, hands bound by white silk to a silver pole, long body writhing in agony.
Sarra, wrists and ankles bound by white silk, swollen body writhing in childbirth.
Herself, unbound, naked body writhing in ecstasy under some faceless man who thrust into her again and again and again—
Revulsion welled like acid in her throat.
“Hmm,” Glenin said musingly. “Perhaps a few variations—”
Collan, gelded, his tongue cut out, his fingers sliced open, every bone shattered. Cailet held the bloody knife.
Sarra, repeatedly raped. Cailet stood watching, smiling as her breasts were fondled by a man standing behind her.
He looked like Taig.
Gorsha! Help me!
Silence.
Glenin was smiling. “So. That’s where it starts. I should’ve guessed. You’re very young.”
Memories and knowledge, spells and Wards, all those things were of their bequeathing—but her feelings were her own. And they betrayed her. The starry sky throbbed with the power of her hate and the silver moonlight receded into green shadows, chased there by terror. A hollow opened and was filled, only to empty again and overflow again. Over and over the images and the feelings poured into her and drained away until she began to fear the hollowness more than she feared the horror of what she saw and what she felt and what she did.
At length, she was left empty just long enough to make her crave to be filled. Then slender, elegant fingers of magic began to fondle her mind.
37
“Glenin! What are you doing to her?”
“Stay out of this, Father. I won’t kill her. She’s far too valuable. But I will break her, the way you should’ve broken Rosvenir.”
Respite. An end. Until it began again.
“Not her, Glenin. Not your own sister!”
“So. You heard it all—or enough, anyway. This old place does echo.”
Blind. Mute. Spasms skittering through every muscle. Pain. Pleasure?
“I won’t allow you to do this. It’s wrong.”
“You must’ve seen Anniyas, too—and what’s left of poor Garon. Don’t look at me that way, Father. I’m not insane. They’re dead, and we’re alive—and the Mage Captal is mine.”
Pain/pleasure—was there any difference?
“She’s an Ambrai. Your own Blood! You can’t break her and then use her—”
“I’ll do as I please with her, and Sarra, too!”
Pleasure was gone. She wanted it never to come back, never. Pain lingered. This she welcomed, knowing it was sick, clutching it anyway, filling her emptiness and desolation with the fire-flashes along every nerve.
“No! I won’t let you destroy a life of my making!”
“But I’m the one you love—I’m the one you took with you—it could’ve been Sarra, but you chose me! I’m a Feiran, I’m more yours than I ever was Mother’s, you’ve said it yourself—”
Still blind. Magic groped out in the dark. She recognized him. In the landscape of the black mirror and gray sky she’d sensed his magic, tasted the chill bitterness she would always call Malerrisi in her mind. But . . . different now. She felt him looking down at her from his great height, at a great distance. Her father. His daughter.
“I do love you, Glenin. And because I love you, I can’t let you do this to your own sister. I came to warn you—”
“Against what? Using the magic you gave me, doing what I was meant to do? Admit it, Father, you’d spare her only for your own pride! You sired a Mage Captal! You, the one they wouldn’t even let into the Academy for fear of Wild Magic! And what a vengeance on Allynis Ambrai, for scorning you as her First Daughter’s husband, father of her granddaughters!”
His magical image was overlaid with a subtle mist now. It hovered between them, and wispy tendrils of magic reached for her, and she opened her eyes.
“Go back to Malerris Castle, Glenin. Become First Lord, if that’s your wish. But leave Cailet here.”
“I want them both—but I really only need one of them. Don’t make me do it, Father. Don’t make me kill her.”
Cailet pushed her hands against the cold tiled floor. Levered herself to her knees. Huddled there, vision hazed with sparks of gold and silver and blue and green. It was as if she saw now with both her physical eyes and her magical sight. The Wraith—for Wraith it surely must be—drifted in front of Auvry Feiran. Could Glenin not see it? No, she watched with her eyes, not her magic.
“You don’t know what’s happening in Ryka. The Legion is anywhere from Neele to The Waste. Most of the Council Guards are gone as well. Tonight almost all the government was in a single room. Flera Firennos, Granon Isidir, and Irien Dombur replaced the servants and Guards with their own people. After you left, they sealed the Malachite Hall and declared the Rising.”
“That doddering old lackwit? Think up a better story, Father!”
“Glenin, listen! I Warded myself and escaped here, where I knew you’d be, to warn you. They’re frantic to find Anniyas. And you. Your Ladder will take you to Seinshir. Use it, quickly!”
“You’re lying!”
The Wraith poised protectively between Glenin and their father, taking on the vague shape of someone wearing a black cloak.
“On the love I bore your mother, I swear it’s true.”
“If anyone’s with the Rising, it’s you—Prentice Mage!”
“You can think that of me after. Glenin, if I were with the Rising, I’d tell you to go back to Ryka Court! Not even you
could withstand so many Mages, so many spells!”
“Mages? What do you mean?”
Tall, black cloak, wink of silver at the collar—Gorsha? But he’d left her. Failed her. Or she had failed him. She was too tired to understand anymore. She was empty again, this time of magic.
“The Mages awaiting trial will be set free, and at least one will know how to use the Ladder. They all felt the Captal’s Summons. Glensha, you must believe me! The Rising saw their best chance tonight and prepared for it—”
“And now all I can do is run away to Malerris Castle? I won’t leave without Cailet and Sarra!”
“They’re your sisters, not breeding stock!”
Sarra . . . Collan . . . images . . . the gaping hollow filled. . . . Pleasure? Pain?
Glenin took something from under her cloak, gripped it in both hands, then flung it onto the floor. It opened into a circle of velvet all crusted with complex embroidery, large enough for two people to stand close together.
“Cailet’s coming with me,” Glenin said. “Find Sarra, and take her to the Traitor’s Ladder at the Academy.”
Auvry Feiran advanced one pace. The Wraith moved with him. “No.”
“Do it! Prove to me that you’re not still a Mage somewhere deep inside! Prove that you love me best!”
“No.”
Glenin choked and her Mage Globe flared crimson and blue and dark seething purple. “You lied—my whole life, you lied—you took me with you instead of Sarra—but you would’ve chosen her if you’d known about her! Magic enough to become Mage Captal! Greatest jewel of your begetting! What a First Lord she would’ve made!”
“You’re wrong, Glensha.”
“Liar! She’s the one you want—go on, look at her cowering there on the floor! But I swear to you that she’s as dead as if she’d never been born!”
He lunged through the Wraith. Power lashed from the Globe in scarlet bursts that dazzled Cailet’s eyes and magic.
“Your precious daughter the Captal will mother no Mageborns! Tell Sarra that my son and I will be waiting for hers!”
His Wards swelled like a blood blister, then collapsed. Cailet screamed, seeing Taig again, seeing him fall mortally wounded in her defense—