Shattered Dance

by Caitlin Brennan

  “He will,” Briana said.

  Pain, Kerrec had told Valeria the one and only time he would speak of what Gothard had done to him, eventually reached a point at which it was no longer pain at all. Then it became something appallingly like pleasure.

  This was not pleasure. This was her heart in shards, and every fragment small and hard and cold, like the voice with which she spoke. “You really did, then. You asked me first.”

  Briana’s eyes were steady. There was no telling what she felt—whether it was pleasure or pain or nothing at all. “Would you rather I hadn’t?”

  “No.” That was true. Coldness was turning to clarity. In many ways Valeria wished it would not, but she had no power over the permutations of pain.

  “Do you also understand,” Briana asked levelly, “why we can’t just order him to marry you?”

  “Of course I understand,” Valeria said. If her tone was somewhat sharp, she hardly thought she could be faulted for it. “He can’t marry me for this. Even if I could let myself be used as a broodmare, I’m not a noblewoman. For this you need the most impeccably well-bred female you can find.”

  For the first time Briana’s façade cracked. Valeria did not want or need to see what was beneath. Bad enough she had to feel it for herself.

  “I wish we didn’t have to do this,” Briana said. “I wish there were a way to do it without causing anyone pain.”

  “There is no such way,” Valeria said, “nor is there any choice. You can’t show even a moment’s weakness, or the one who did this to you will win the war.”

  Briana folded Valeria’s hand in hers. Valeria stiffened and tried to pull away, but Briana would not let go. “He’ll still love you,” Briana said. “He’ll still be yours. These state marriages are business arrangements. There’s nothing in them of the heart.”

  “And she? Can she have her lover, too, if she has one?”

  Briana did not trouble to answer that. Of course the royal lady, whoever she was, would not share the same privilege. Kerrec’s heirs had to be incontestably his.

  “She’s the one I pity,” Valeria said.

  “You don’t need to,” said Briana. “She gets royal rank, royal heirs and great honor and privilege for her family. That’s more than she might otherwise have hoped for.”

  “That’s why I pity her,” said Valeria.

  Briana’s grip on her hand had loosened. She slipped it free. She would have given a great deal not to say what she said next, but she had to say it. In the end, no matter what it did to her, she knew it was the right thing. “You’d better call him in now. It may take a few days to talk him into it.”

  “A few hours, I hope,” Briana said, but she did not try to keep Valeria with her. Maybe she was as glad to see Valeria go as Valeria was to escape.

  Valeria made it as far as the passage to Riders’ Hall before she had to stop and press her burning forehead to the cold stone of the wall. Her hands were shaking so hard she folded her arms and pressed her fists to her sides. That only made the whole of her shake.

  There should be tears somewhere, but she could not seem to find them. She had tried rage, but it was not enough. Hating Briana was a useless exercise. Better to hate the son of the One who had made this inevitable.

  Hope kept trying to ambush her. Kerrec might well refuse. He had defied everything he was to answer the Mountain’s Call. In the end he had made peace with his father, but Artorius had not gone as far as Briana was about to. Kerrec could decide that nothing was worth the price his sister asked of him.

  Valeria shook her aching head. Kerrec could be a complete idiot, but before all else except the gods, he loved his empire. He would see as clearly as Valeria that Briana was right.

  He had to do this. There was no other useful choice.

  Valeria made herself stand upright and walk. She had to stop more than once to indulge a fit of shaking, but in the end she found her way to Riders’ Hall.

  She could not face her bare and lonely room tonight. She went to the stable instead. The stallions offered no commentary—and no objection, either.

  She curled in the straw at Sabata’s feet. There the dam broke and the tears came flooding. She had no choice but to cry herself out.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Young Bellinus was a thoroughly exasperating object. Once he had recovered from his fit of the horrors, he regained the full measure of his arrogance. Four days of cooling his heels in an empty guardroom with no one to talk to and only servants’ food to eat had done nothing to soften it.

  He was determined to be a martyr to his cause. Kerrec did not intend to give him that. The god he worshipped would have him in the end, but first he would live to see the full extent of what he had done.

  The moment of revelation was far away yet. On this bright, hot morning that should have seen Kerrec and the rest of the riders deep in preparation for the coronation Dance, Kerrec had the boy brought to Riders’ Hall. The morning exercises were over and the riders were resting. Kerrec would have liked to join them, but he could not put this off any longer.

  Bellinus did not appear to know where he was. Once Gunnar and Cato had delivered him to the library with its shelves and chests of books, he sat on the bench on which they had deposited him, arms tightly folded, and demanded to know why his chains were made of magic rather than steel.

  Kerrec let that go unanswered. “Tell us where the priest is.”

  Bellinus pressed his lips together.

  “If you won’t tell us willingly,” Kerrec said, “there’s more to the spell on you than a simple binding. We’ll be careful not to kill you, though we may not be quite as careful to keep your allies from discovering who betrayed them.”

  “He doesn’t know,” Gunnar said. “He’s all bluster and stupidity. While we waste time with him, the real powers are getting away.”

  “That may be,” said Kerrec, “but this fool and his allies are what we have. One of them will crack. Then, gods willing, we’ll track down their master and do to him as he deserves.”

  Bellinus’ breath hissed. “Allies? You’ve got the others? But—”

  Kerrec was careful not to leap on the opening and risk slamming it shut. Above all he was careful not to mention that those of Bellinus’ allies who were still alive were also still unconscious.

  He arched a brow at Gunnar. “What do you think? Young Mardius, perhaps? He has a delicate constitution and very little courage.”

  Gunnar shrugged. “We won’t get anything out of this one, that’s clear. Even if he knew anything, it wouldn’t be enough to be useful.”

  “They can’t all be idiots,” Kerrec said.

  “It takes an idiot to fall for the nonsense they’ve been spouting at us,” Gunnar said. “Don’t they understand that if they court oblivion, it won’t just be the rest of the world that goes? They’ll go, too—and not peacefully, either. I don’t think they realize that their precious new religion is a cult of pain.”

  “They do seem averse to bodily discomfort,” Kerrec observed. “And yet, as weak and ridiculous as they are, I doubt they’re more than foot soldiers. The commanders are wise enough to stay out of sight.”

  “What are you thinking?” said Gunnar. “Their fathers? Elder brothers?”

  “This is the eldest of his particular lot,” Kerrec said. “His father is a loyal son of Aurelia. Uncle, maybe. Or—”

  “Stop it!” cried Bellinus. “Just stop it! Leave my family alone. I’m the only one. The rest of them are as dull and loyal as you could ever want.”

  “Who, then?” Kerrec asked. “Who brought you into this?”

  “My cousin,” Bellinus said. “Corinius. His father has a holding near Mallia.”

  Kerrec frowned. Bellinus flinched. Kerrec had not meant to alarm him, but it might prove useful. He deepened the frown and fixed the boy with a cold stare. “Where is he now?”

  “He’s dead,” Bellinus said with visible satisfaction. “He went east last summer in the middle of the war. He and h
is allies were going to fight for the One. They all died.”

  “All of them?”

  Bellinus’ eyes flickered. “Every one,” he said. “You must know that. You were there. They say you killed them.”

  “I played a part in it,” Kerrec conceded. “Very well, then. Who leads you now?”

  “Corinius,” said Bellinus.

  Kerrec resisted the urge to seize him by the throat and choke the truth out of him. “A dead man? You’ve been practicing necromancy?”

  “Everything is possible for the One,” Bellinus said. “You won’t find him. He passes like mist and shadow. No mortal power can touch him.”

  Kerrec smiled. “Not all our power is mortal,” he said.

  He exchanged glances with Gunnar. The big man nodded just visibly. Cato came in from the door, took Bellinus in hand and carried him off to meditate on his sins.

  When he was gone, Gunnar sat on the bench the boy had vacated and stretched out his long legs. “Do you believe him?”

  “I know there is a priest of the One in this city,” Kerrec said, “and I know he speaks with an Aurelian accent. Do I believe he’s a dead man walking? That, I’d want to see before I pass judgment.”

  “It’s said all priests of that cult have to die in order to come into their powers,” said Gunnar. He would know. His own people had come into the empire long ago, fleeing that same cult. “If this one really is an imperial noble, he may be a worse enemy than any of us needs.”

  “We already know he is,” Kerrec said. “We’ll call on the orders of mages to help us find him. The sooner he’s caught and disposed of, the safer we’ll all be.”

  “You think he’s alone, then? That lot runs in packs.”

  “First we have to find him,” Kerrec said, “and anyone who may be abetting him. Gods willing, they’ll lead us to the rest.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Gunnar said. “You have more than enough to do holding it all together.”

  Kerrec opened his mouth to deny that, but he found he could not. The reins had fallen into his hands. He had taken them without even thinking of what it would mean.

  When he was Called to the Mountain and his father declared him dead to his rank and lineage, he had thought that was the end of it. He belonged to the riders. He could not go back to what he had been before.

  He had been an innocent. In spite of law and custom and ancient tradition, he had been drawn back into the web of imperial duty. He was acting like a prince, giving orders and disposing troops as if he had never left the palace.

  If he was wise, he would get up now and go back to his duties as a rider and leave the rest to his sister’s servants. They were perfectly capable of finishing what he had begun.

  He should do that. He had seized control because he could not help himself, then kept it because no one tried to take it from him. It was time to let go.

  He was about to say as much to Gunnar when Briana’s messenger paused in the doorway. The imperial livery seemed unnaturally bright, its crimson and gold dazzling in the slant of sunlight through the open window. Then the boy moved, shifting into shadow.

  Kerrec was no seer, but any mage of patterns could see where some of them led. He did not want to see these. There was inevitability there, and a decision that he had never expected or wanted to make.

  He could still retreat to the Mountain. He had that choice. He came within a breath of doing it, but when he met Gunnar’s eyes, he saw the knowledge there and the acceptance. Gunnar knew what this meant—better and sooner than Kerrec.

  He answered his sister’s summons. There was nothing else, in the end, that he could do.

  Briana was sitting up. Her hair was combed and braided and her face was lightly painted. It took a keen eye to see the pallor beneath.

  She was pushing herself too hard. Kerrec said as much.

  She brushed it off. “I need something of you,” she said. “You can refuse—I’ll give you the right. But I hope you don’t.”

  Kerrec’s heart was still. The patterns he had seen around her messenger were even clearer here. Everything he had done since he came to the city had in some way fostered them.

  He was a First Rider. He believed in destiny. He knew how to shape it through the Dance of the stallions.

  There was no Dance for this. It was a human pattern made of human law. And yet the future of Aurelia depended on it.

  He knew what Briana would say before she said it. He spared her the pain by saying it himself. “You’re asking me to make a dynastic marriage—to give you heirs.”

  She went limp. Kerrec sprang to her side, but she was still conscious. She pushed him away. “Stop fussing. I’m convalescent, not dying. The only part of me that’s gone is the part that makes children. I can live without it—perfectly well, it seems. Except for one thing.”

  “For which you need me.”

  “For which no one else is better suited.”

  “I see that,” he said. Now that he was facing it, he was remarkably calm. “You’ve spoken to Valeria, haven’t you?”

  She nodded. Her eyes offered no apology. “She understands.”

  “I’m sure she does,” Kerrec said.

  “Try not to hate me too much,” said Briana.

  “I don’t hate you,” he said.

  “Will you do it?”

  There was the question. His stomach felt distinctly ill.

  When he was a child before the Call, he had expected this. It was his duty. His father and the council would find a woman of suitable breeding, wit and fertility. He might be given a choice among several candidates, but he would have to choose one of them. Once that choice was made, he would abide by it, no matter how he came to feel about the woman he had chosen.

  Even if he hated her, he would remain bound to her. That was the law. She would bear his children and administer his estates and sit beside him on the throne.

  Then came the Call and it was all changed. He gave himself to the Mountain and the gods, and in time to a headstrong and startlingly beautiful young woman who happened to be a horse mage of extraordinary power. He had never meant to fall in love with her, but once it was done, he could not bring himself to regret it.

  He had come through agony and loss to great joy. Now he was asked to put that joy aside, to go back to the old way and the old custom that he had left behind.

  The gods were not kind. They did as they saw fit, with no care for the human heart.

  He looked up from his reverie. Briana was waiting, cultivating patience. “You had to talk to Valeria first,” he said. “So do I. I can’t make this decision without her.”

  “I understand,” Briana said, “but make it quickly.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said, “in the morning.”

  “Tonight,” said Briana.

  She was as merciless as a god. He spread his hands and sighed. “Tonight,” he said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kerrec found Valeria in the riding court. All three of her stallions were saddled and in motion, and mounted on each was a familiar young man. The brothers Maurus and Darius and their cousin Vincentius had come for their morning instruction.

  They had been studying with Quintus the stableman since the year before and were both eager and apprehensive to show what they had learned. Kerrec could hardly pull Valeria away from them without wounding their feelings.

  He could not run and hide, either, once they had seen him. He had to walk out onto the sun-warmed sand, greet them with the courtesy they deserved and survive that hour and the hour after that.

  To add to the delights of the ordeal, two of them were Bellinus’ brothers. They were all careful not to mention that. They were equally careful not to speak of the message Maurus had sent, or of what had come of it.

  All that care made Kerrec’s head ache. That made him even less cheerful than he had been to begin with.

  No one expected him to smile, at least. The last these boys had known of him, he had been as dour as a rider could be—and that was g
rim indeed.

  Valeria could recognize the difference. But she was trapped as he was by tact and politeness. The three boys made a wall between them, and their instruction managed to consume the rest of the morning.

  By noon it was too hot even in the more sheltered of the two riding courts for anyone to ride. The boys left a little hastily, and not only because of the heat. Maurus had not met Kerrec’s eye once all morning, and Darius had had a tightness in him that even Marina’s supple movement could not loosen.

  It was a day for avoidance. Before Kerrec could confront Valeria, Master Nikos called him away. It was time, his message said, that all the riders knew what had happened and why.

  It was true they had to know. There would be no coronation Dance this season, but they could still ride the Midsummer Dance before they returned to the Mountain. There was also the matter of the school that Kerrec had meant to found—whether it was still either safe or advisable to do such a thing.

  Of that he had no doubt. He faced his brothers gathered together in the dining hall and said, “We have to carry on. If we pull back, we risk losing everything.”

  “But you are vulnerable,” Gunnar said. “While you live away from the Mountain, you won’t have the protections that keep the rest of us safe. Yes, you can raise your own wards and they’ll be strong, but will they be strong enough? What if the empress wasn’t the only target? If the pattern holds, you’ll be next.”

  “I expect I will be,” Kerrec said. “If the rest of you want to leave, I’ll understand and forgive it. But I am staying.”

  “We’ll stay,” Second Rider Gavron said without hesitation. The rest nodded, even those who were supposed to return to the school after the Dance.

  Kerrec had not always been proud of his fellow riders. They had treated Valeria abominably when she first came to the Mountain, and they had not been particularly perceptive when Kerrec was so badly wounded in spirit that he nearly destroyed them all.