This horror was bought with blood and pain. It made her think of the priests’ circles among the clans, but swollen and twisted out of all measure.
The tribes knew how to worship the One. Whoever was doing it here neither knew nor cared.
The Lady could have withstood that assault, but Valeria could not find her anywhere. The orders of mages were defenseless against it. Their magic could not touch it without being unmade.
Gods knew, Valeria was living proof of that. She shielded herself as best she could and rode through the silent streets. Doors were locked and windows shuttered, markets empty and taverns dark.
Where there was life at all, it was furtive and fearful, slipping through the shadows from doorway to doorway. The sight of a rider with two white horses only deepened their fear.
The wrongness of that wrenched at her heart. She urged Sabata to quicken his pace. The sooner she was in Riders’ Hall, the sooner she could rest.
She refused to think of what would happen if Riders’ Hall was deserted—if the Riders had followed the Lady back to the Mountain. They would not do that. Now more than ever, this city and this empire needed them.
As little good as it will do them, a voice whispered in her mind. It sounded horribly like Gothard’s.
She refused to think of him. He did not deserve to be thought of. He had helped her escape, but that meant no more than that he saw better advantage in her absence than her presence.
She was pathetically glad to see the wall of Riders’ Hall on the far side of the temple square. It was low, nondescript and not particularly forbidding. Its gate was shut but not barred.
She dismounted just inside and led Sabata and Marina into the stallions’ stable. They were all still here—Petra, Alta, Flora, Alea, Benedicta and the rest. They greeted her with muffled snorts and the odd whicker, calling to her stallions as the brothers they were.
What she felt in them most of all was relief and a sense of imminence. Now, they seemed to say, whatever they had been waiting for could begin.
Matters in Aurelia had gone from bad to worse in the fortnight since Oda appeared in the school. Every mage in the city labored day and night to hold the world together, but it persisted in unraveling. The riders had gone so far as to ride small Dances in their schooling exercises in hopes that the patterns would hold and the world’s fabric mend itself.
So far they had only briefly succeeded. As soon as a Dance was over, the rot in the heart came back.
Gunnar had proposed just this morning that they Dance day and night, hour by hour, in shifts like a roster of guards. He was not dismissed out of hand as he would have been only days before. It was action, even if it would drain them dry. Kerrec was no longer alone in yearning to do something, anything, against the forces that were eating the city alive.
That was the worst of it. No one knew what to do. The slaughter of nobles had stopped after three nines had died—twenty-seven scions of wealthy and powerful families, thoroughly and excruciatingly dead. Not long after that, the city’s heart had begun to crumble.
The long Dance would begin in the morning, unless someone could find another solution before then. They had already tried to find the Lady. Her stall had been empty for days. She was not in the palace. As far as anyone knew, just when Aurelia needed her most, she had gone back to the divine seclusion of the Mountain.
It was hopeless for any mortal to comprehend the Ladies. The white gods were bad enough.
Kerrec could not help but think that she had something to do with the malaise in the city. She had not, gods forbid, either caused or condoned the blood or the terror, but she must know how to end it.
There was no spell to summon a Lady. No one had ever dared. Kerrec was halfway tempted to stand in the middle of a riding court and howl until she listened.
That could be a very long time. He paced his study, where a fire was lit against the chill.
A tottering pile of books nearly overwhelmed the worktable. He had found nothing useful in them. All any of them said of the Unmaking was that a mage must never under any circumstances either read or perform its spells. There were nine of them, and each brought a greater degree of dissolution. The ninth was the last, the end of all things.
Kerrec wanted to ask who knew this, how he had discovered it and what had become of him. But there was no one to ask. The orders had banned all such study. Even the locked room of the palace library, where the blackest of black books were kept under heavy guard, had no books of Unmaking.
Kerrec had authority to scour the empire for whatever he needed. But there was no time. The mages thought that the attack would come at or just before the coronation Dance, which was a fortnight and more away.
Kerrec would have liked to believe it, but his bones knew they did not have a fortnight. If they were lucky, they had a handful of days.
Briana would be crowned—for certain this time—at the first full moon of autumn, which happened to fall on the day when sun and moon shared the sky equally. That was a high and holy day in the empire.
But their enemies were not imperial mages. They worshipped another power. That power was strongest not at the moon’s full but in its dark.
Tomorrow was the dark of the moon.
Kerrec shook himself. He was dreaming or deluded. The enemy had always attacked during or shortly before a great rite. He needed the rite to draw power. Then from that power he wrought destruction.
What if he had found another source of strength?
Great gods, had the Lady gone over to the enemy?
Impossible. Even the priests of the One could not corrupt a being who stood above gods.
Kerrec could not allow himself to doubt that. Whatever was coming, it was something or someone else.
He paused by the fire. The flames wove patterns that he did not try to read. He had had enough of them for the moment. He only wanted to rest his eyes and bask in the warmth.
The door opened behind him. He spoke without turning. “What, time for dinner already?”
“I don’t think so,” said a voice he had prayed every morning and every night to hear again.
He whipped about. Valeria stood in the doorway, ragged and mud-spattered and worn thin. She looked as if she had ridden hard and far on light rations, but her voice was clear and her eyes were steady.
He had no memory of crossing the room. He gripped her shoulders, shaking her until her teeth rattled. “You! Damn you! Where in all the gods’ name have you been? I’ve been out of my mind with worry.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I thought it would be better if I went away.”
“It was not.”
She shook her head. Her eyes were shadowed. “I wish…” She did not finish the thought.
He paid it no mind. His hands had stopped wanting to shake her. They passed over her body instead. “Gods, you’re skin and bone. Have you been remembering to eat at all? Come to the kitchen. We’ll get you fed.”
She blinked at him. “You’re fussing like an old grandmother,” she said.
“Can you blame me?”
She shrugged. She must be dizzy with hunger and exhaustion, but she insisted on walking down to the kitchen and seating herself in a corner by the hearth.
The cooks fed her newly baked bread and a bowl of stewed mutton. They clucked and fussed even more than Kerrec had.
She bent her head over the bowl and inhaled the fragrant steam. “Gods, I’ve missed these spices,” she said.
“Eat,” said Kerrec. He stood over her while she did it, sharpening his glare whenever she threatened to slacken.
Only after she had eaten every bite and cleaned the bowl with the last of the bread and eaten that, too, would he relax his vigilance. The master cook himself brought her a tisane of herbs and honey, for her to sip slowly while it was hot. She wrapped her hands around the cup as if she welcomed the warmth.
Her eyelids were drooping. Kerrec caught the cup before it slid from her fingers and lifted her all too easily.
She had always been slender, but what weight she had had been solid, supple and strong. Too much of that was gone.
“Send for a Healer,” he said to the cooks, not caring which one obeyed. In the event, half a dozen of them sprang for the door, where they settled quickly who would go and who would stay and fret.
The most surprising people loved Valeria. Kerrec’s throat wanted to close.
Foolish thing—the Healer was a precaution, that was all. She was not dying. Nothing was eating her from the inside. He was being a silly old woman, just as she had said.
He carried her back up to his study. The couch there was wider and softer than the bed where he slept, and the room was warm.
As he settled her on the cushions, one of the servants peered around the door. “First Rider?” he asked diffidently. “May we…?”
Kerrec stood back. He was unexpectedly reluctant to let anyone else touch her, but with the clairvoyance of servants, the man had brought four of his subordinates to carry her off to the bath, scrub her, dress her in fresh clothes and wrap her in blankets in front of the fire.
Kerrec stayed with them. He need not have done that, but he never wanted to take his eyes off her again.
She was sound asleep before they finished bathing her. When they laid her on the couch, she sighed and murmured and burrowed into the cushions.
Kerrec glanced at the door. He saw without surprise that Nikos was there, with Gunnar looming behind. The rest of the riders were hovering in the hallway, trying to be inconspicuous.
They moved aside for a Healer whom Kerrec had not met before, a brisk, unsentimental woman who reminded him of Valeria’s mother. “Out!” she said to them all with such authority that they retreated in haste. Her eye caught Kerrec and then Nikos. “You two stay. The rest of you, find something else to do.”
The air seemed less heavy after the riders dispersed. They did not go very far—Kerrec could feel them in the rooms nearby, watching and listening along the threads of the patterns.
The Healer shook her head but let them be. She took her time examining Valeria. Her expression was calm, intent, giving nothing away.
Kerrec kept a tight rein on his temper. If he had been a horse he would have been wild-eyed and shying at shadows.
Nikos, whose discipline was legendary, sat in the chair by the fire with one of the books from Kerrec’s worktable. Kerrec could find something to do on that table, too, but he could not stand to be that far away from Valeria. He pulled the stool as close as he dared, then perched on it and waited.
At long last the Healer raised her head and drew a breath. “There’s nothing wrong with her,” she said, “but too much riding and not enough food or sleep. Let her sleep, feed her when she wakes, and she’ll be back to herself in a day or two.”
Kerrec could not let go the tension in his middle. “With all respect, madam, does it truly take so long to find nothing?”
She seemed unoffended. “If you’re thorough, rider, it does.”
“Tell me what made you pause.”
Her brows drew together. No mage liked to be challenged, and Healers were especially prickly when it came to their art. But Kerrec had faced more terrible powers than this without flinching.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Her defenses are unusually strong, and she has a spell of obscurity on her—to make it easier to escape the enemy, I’m sure. Some of what I might have done, the spell prevented. Still, I managed to do enough. Her recovery may be slower, but she will recover.”
The Healer seemed content. Kerrec wished he could be.
Valeria could be a deeply secret and reticent person, but her magic had always had a clarity to it, a brightness that was missing from it now. It was dull and blunted, like a fine blade gone to rust.
He was not cruel enough to wake her and ask who or what had done this to her. She was exhausted, that was all. When she woke, the brightness would come back.
Chapter Forty-Four
Valeria’s dreams were all of endless night. And yet she was not afraid. That part of her was lost somewhere between Dun Mor and Aurelia, between Euan Rohe and Kerrec.
She opened her eyes on a familiar ceiling. When she turned her head, she saw an even more familiar face.
Kerrec had fallen asleep in the chair by the fire. The sight of him made her want to burst into tears.
Part of her wept for Euan Rohe. That part was mad and foolish, but he did deserve that much of her. He had loved her and meant to use her well.
Kerrec had never used her. When he could or even should have, he had done everything possible to keep from doing it.
He could be difficult. His reserve clashed with hers at times and flung them both apart. But they always came back to one another. They always would.
She would have to tell him what she had done. All of it—and he would not be happy to hear it. It might drive them apart again.
She hoped not, considering what he had been doing while she shared Euan Rohe’s bed. Kerrec was prickly and proud and incurably arrogant, but he was seldom unfair.
Gods, she loved him. A surge of wildness rushed into her, a crazy delight. It came out of nowhere, filling her until she was like to burst.
She was perfectly rational. She was aware that the city was in terrible straits—worse than it knew—and that she teetered on the edge of the abyss. The Unmaking was closer than it had ever been. Even in the battle at Oxos Ford when the emperor died, it had not been so near or so strong.
That had been a great working of the tribes, aimed and focused with skill and careful intent. This was a far less coherent thing. Whoever had wrought it did not care what it destroyed.
As if in response to that barely controlled working, the storm had broken. Wind howled outside the walls. Rain lashed the windows so hard the shutters rattled.
It was still warm in the room though the fire was nearly dead. Valeria got up, wrapping the blanket around her, and stirred the embers back to life.
As she laid a log on the newborn flames, she felt Kerrec behind her. He was awake, watching.
She finished what she was doing and turned. He scowled at her. She laughed and sprang into his lap.
His arms closed around her before he could have thought about it. She flung hers around his neck. Her head was spinning, which only made her laugh the harder.
His scowl deepened. “What have you been into? The wine?”
“Not a thing,” she said. She leaned back, the better to see his face. “I’m here. I’m alive. You’re beautiful.”
“You’re drunk on something.”
“Joy.” She kissed him. At first he would not respond, but she persevered until the swift heat rose in him.
His lady wife and her royal lover faded from memory. There were only the two of them as there had always been.
She pulled him down by the fire. He was more than ready—to his own visible surprise. That only made her laugh the more.
He stopped fighting, though he still would not smile. Poor troubled thing. She made love to him in every way she knew and some she had just discovered.
He caught a little of her joy. He was glad to have her back—a deep gladness that sang inside her. It even, somewhat, drove out the fear.
Everyone was so very afraid. They should learn to laugh as she did. There was nothing to fear. The night was beautiful. Oblivion was sweet.
Kerrec would not understand. She gave him what she had to give and made him as happy as he could be.
They dozed for a while, lulled by the crackle of the flames. Valeria hated to get up, but although the sky was still dark, the sun had risen. The day had begun.
She kissed Kerrec awake. “I have to see Briana,” she said. “Will you go with me?”
“Now?” he asked drowsily. “Can it wait? It’s high court today. She won’t be free until evening. You should rest in any case. Later in the day, we’ll send a message. I’m sure she’ll—”
“I would like to go now,” she said. “Is it a gre
at spectacle, this high court?”
“I suppose,” he said. “The ladies wage a war of dressmakers. The lords aren’t much better. There are speeches, which are interminable, and dancing, which is terribly stiff and old-fashioned. And then there is a state dinner, where everyone practices excruciating manners.”
“When I was growing up in Imbria, we told stories about such things. I’d like to see it, to know whether the stories were true.”
He shook his head, but the first hint of a smile touched the corner of his mouth. It vanished quickly. “What do you have to say to my sister? Is it a warning? Is there a new war coming?”
“There are things she needs to know,” Valeria said. “I think she should know them as soon as possible.”
He sat up. His face had gone somber. “Gods, yes. I’d forgotten—it’s the dark of the moon. All the patterns—the omens—Are you sure you’re fit to go out? The Healer said—”
“Grandmother,” she said, laughing to take the sting out of it, “I’ve never felt better. Come with me and hover if you must, but I will go. Only tell me first. Dress uniform? Or—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Dress uniform,” she said. “I don’t suppose you remember where mine is.”
“The servants will,” Kerrec said. She heard the hint of a sigh in his voice.
That sigh was a surrender. She kissed him and danced away, aiming toward the bath.
Kerrec had never seen Valeria so lively. His first thought, that she had drunk a little too much wine, came back to nibble at the edge of his mind. But there was no sign of either wine or drug in her, and no spell that had not been there before.
It seemed there was a giddy girl inside her after all. He let her play servant in the bath—with a little more teasing than strictly necessary—and helped her dress in the uniform that one of the servants had brought. It was stiff with newness and, in spite of how thin she had become, rather tight. She had gained curves since she was measured for it.
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