Shadow in the Empire of Light

by Jane Routley

  I shut my mouth on the seething cauldron of anger inside. I could have sulked and smoked like lots of the gentry did after they failed the crystal test. Instead, I’d pulled myself together, learned how to use a mundane weapon—the crossbow—and went back to running my mother’s estate. Thanks to my hard work, the place was paying its own way for the first time in years. What was that if not useful? In three days’ time, I’d have to face Impi across a desk while he went through our accounts, carping all the way. How was I going to do that without shouting at him over the way he had treated Bright?

  Lord Igniate (known to those of us who have the dubious privilege of being related to him as Great Uncle Nate) wafted past us on his floating chair, rumoured to contain a chamber pot so that My Lord didn’t have to leave his chair while gaming. Lady Splendance’s daughters, Ladies Blazeann (who always wore red) and Lumina (who always wore purple), sailed past us in a swish of silk with their noses in the air and a murmured a perfunctory “Blessings” each. Lord Illuminus passed by with a grunt. But my dear Lucient came at me with open arms and a cry of “Blessings, darling Shine.”

  I was about to throw myself into those arms, when I was seized from behind and wrapped in a huge bear hug.

  “Shine, my dear little cousin,” cried Scintillant, pulling me off balance (how apt) and giving me a big kiss. “You get more gorgeous every year. Blessings, Blessings, my pretty one.”

  How had such a dour pointy woman as Auntie Flara produced such a cheerfully raunchy son as Scintillant? Judging from his body shaper, tight black breeches and bulging codpiece, Scintillant was still a ride rat. Why, oh, why did he have to be so pretty? And so lovely in bed? Why, oh, why did my heart always flutter so when he was around? I had to face up to the fact that I was no one special to him and that was it. Finished. Over. Never again.

  But if I was too unfriendly, it would have encouraged him. He loved a challenge, did Scintillant. So I hugged him back. He was extremely athletic, broad shoulders, slim hips, all the trimmings, and his arms felt lovely and strong. He always smelt delicious too.

  “Oh, you luscious thing!” he cried. “How are you?”

  “Scintillant!” called a stern voice from above. “Could you please come up here?”

  Cousin Lumina was standing at the top of the stairs, frowning.

  “And Lucient,” she continued, “Mother wants a pipe packed.”

  “Oops,” muttered Scintillant, frowning comically. “Noble cousin calls, darling.” He patted my cheek and leapt away up the stairs. “Yes, yes, cousin dear!” He smiled into Lumina’s glare and gave her a firm kiss on the cheek. “I remember perfectly what you said, but I don’t care what people say. She is luscious.”

  He gave me a quick wink as he slid his arm through hers and pulled her behind him into the house. Lumina shot me a scowl over her shoulder as she went. I turned away quickly to hide the stupid grin on my face. Ladybless, I was pathetic. Lucient was gone and I hadn’t even hugged him.

  A man standing at the bottom of the stairs smiled at me warmly, the light of admiration in his eyes. The smile, coming on top of my meeting with Scintillant, confused me, and I looked away. When I glanced back, the man was walking away towards the servant’s door. He was a mundane dressed in the dark, sleek clothes of a secretary, which showed off his lean figure. I wondered if I might have a chance for some fun there, and remembered the ghost in my room.

  Auntie Eff was hard at work greeting the retainer mages, nobles of new or impoverished lineages who made up Auntie Splendance’s retinue. It was my tedious duty to help her. The new ones gazed at me curiously while they mouthed the ritual politenesses.

  “That’s the one they call Ghostie. You know, Aurora’s mistake,” I heard one tell another as she nodded at me. “Otherwise, just another mundane.”

  Heard that before too.

  After that came a handful of gentry, mundane members of the Imperial Family like us. They lead happy lives, drifting round the Family House in Elayison, helping out in the archives or the wardrobes, or as secretary companions or nursery stewards—a life I was as entitled to as they were, but had never been lucky enough to have. And never would, probably. Instead I would be spending my life out here being a country bumpkin.

  “That’s the third of Lord Impi’s kin I’ve seen today,” muttered Eff in my ear as the last one filed past. “Sod is filling our house with his sister’s children.”

  I was only half listening. Melancholy was tugging at my edges. Aurora’s Mistake. Why wasn’t I a mage? Why was I motherless? If only I could leave Willow-in-the-Mist. If only I didn’t have to see the family twice a year.

  The sleek shape of Katti appeared at the top of the stairs. She sat down and curled her tail elegantly around her hind legs.

  Too many stupid people making annoying noise, she thought at me.

  You could say that again. She must have felt my mood, for as I passed, she stood up and pushed her head into my hand. Comfort flowed out of her.

  You are mine, her thoughts said. Do you need to be anything more?

  What would I do without her?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  USUALLY, THE BOTTOM of the Eyrie was a cheerless stone hall, with the echoing vault of the tower rising above it like a giant chimney. But when the family visited and it was put to its proper use, we unpacked all the furnishings and it was filled with low couches, rich carpets, cushions and tables. The tapestries were hung back on the walls and the space became warm and comfortable… but very loud. The wooden stairs and balconies leading to the rooms on every level of the tower echoed with the thumps and shouts of servants carrying luggage up to the rooms above, and of retainers using magic to levitate the bigger articles up to the appropriate floors. The hum of people in the hall below was already rising to a roar as everyone tried to hear each other above the din.

  The family, at the eye of the storm, had flopped onto the brocade-covered couches in the centre of the hall. Our servants were already moving among them handing out wine and teacups and little meatballs on sticks. I checked with Thomas that all was well with the accommodation, and that Tane the Blessing cook hadn’t gone home in a huff. As far as I was concerned the family could starve, but it was Eff they’d take it out on and she’d borne enough.

  “Sweetie,” said a voice in my ear as Thomas turned away. And there was Auntie Four and Cousin Two with Great Uncle Five, all the mundane members of our family who usually came along at Blessing time. In a large traditional family like the Lucheyarts, the same first names got used again and again. To prevent confusion, the mundanes were simply known by the place they came in birth order.

  Cousin Two was Auntie Splen’s daughter—Lumina and Blazeann’s sister—and acted as a kind of secretary to her mother. She was skinny and beaky but a keen follower of fashion, and had dyed her hair white, which looked odd against her dark skin but very striking. She told me it was ghost fashion—all the rage in Elayison. Auntie Four, who was Eff’s favourite sister and her main source of family gossip, enveloped me in a warm lavender and wintergreen hug, and gave me a bag of sweets. As usual Great Uncle Five offered to take me newt hunting. He had retired from active service, but he came for the natural history opportunities. Their fussing and exclaiming soothed my wounded soul. The most powerful members of the family were pig rats, but there were some nice ones, too, and it was a pleasure to see them. I let myself drift along with their chatter.

  Unfortunately, that meant that when they fluttered away to check on their sleeping arrangements, I found myself standing, completely exposed to criticism, in among the family’s couches.

  Auntie Splendance was sitting back taking deep appreciative draws from a long thin smoke pipe, while Lucient packed another one. Blazeann was scanning the manservants, pleating a cloth of gold flower in her hand. She already had three daughters, but the Imperial family could never have enough. To win the gamble of breeding girl-children with magical powers, you had to have a lot of entries in the pool.

  Lord Impavidus, who wa
s standing surveying the scene with an offensively proprietary air, raised his hands and clapped. A silken canopy spread out from the landing above us, floating over to the opposite landing to be tied to the banisters by waiting servants. That was new—and what a good idea! Suddenly it was much quieter in the hall.

  “This place is a dump!” Lumina’s voice rang out loudly in the sudden quietness. I felt my jaw clenching.

  Eff, scooting past, gave me a grin and a wink and turned to Lumina—who already had a huge plate of dainties on her lap—and solicitously inquired if she had enough to eat and drink.

  “Oh, yes, Lady Lumina,” added Impi, “watch your weight. You know how inclined you are to porkiness.” All quite needlessly, since Lumina was obsessively careful of her weight. The maids told me she often threw up her meals.

  Lumina flushed and threw the plate of dainties onto an occasional table. His second snide remark for the Blessing period; we were off and racing. I headed for the door before Impi could start picking on me.

  A hand caught mine. Lucient smiled up at me from his couch and pulled me down beside him.

  “Sweetheart, I’ve brought you some lovely travel stories. Come and hear about them.” He had a tendency to tell me the whole contents of whatever book he was reading in mind-numbing detail, but he did read some interesting books.

  Lucient’s valet leaned over and held a lighted taper over my cousin’s long elegant smoke pipe. Lucient took a long appreciative pull. In the last couple of years he seemed to have become as big a smoke rat as his mother.

  “Ah, just the thing! Now I’ve brought you one about the pagan tribes of Omorod and a lovely one about the archaeology of Parratee. The city was first settled over two thousand years ago, would you believe? Will you take a draw?”

  I took a draw from the offered pipe. A hot unfamiliar taste filled my mouth and I coughed.

  Lucient thumped me on the back. I seized the glass of water which the ever-capable valet presented.

  “Sweetheart, so sorry. I should have thought. It’s the new dreamsmoke the ghosts have introduced. The most marvellous dreams, but it’s so strong and burns so hot. You need to take little pulls. Or a lot of people use a water pipe. What’s that? Are we to have no peace?”

  With a creak, the huge iron doors of the Eyrie had swung open again.

  “Shine! Shine!” cried Auntie Eff, rushing towards them. “Someone else is arriving. Oh, Lady, first one extra mage and now another. Thomas, quickly! Make up another couple of rooms. No, I don’t know where we’re going to put another mage! It looks like one of Flara’s lineage. Ah, yes! Lady Chatoyant. And she has Lady Glisten with her. Oh, no, that’s two!”

  I was taking such great pleasure in whispering to Thomas that he should move Impi’s noble nephews into the stable with the mundane menservants to make room that way, that I took a while to notice how Lucient was tugging my arm.

  “Shine, stay with me. Please!” he hissed.

  “I have to go and greet her.”

  Lucient pulled me back.

  “Shine’s staying with me, Auntie Eff.”

  I shrugged at Eff, who had more important things to worry about and flustered away.

  “Let her go,” purred Lumina. “I’ll protect you from Toy.”

  “Even I’m not smoked up enough to believe that, darling sis,” scowled Lucient.

  Lumina flicked his cheek, a playful gesture on the surface but hard enough to make him wince. As she flounced away, I hissed, “What’s going on? Are you getting me into trouble?”

  “No, no, Toy never notices gentry. Me, on the other hand, she claims to be absolutely smitten with. I can’t shake her off.”

  He didn’t seem her sort. Chatoyant was active and busy. Lucient was... not. He caught my raised eyebrow and didn’t take it as an insult.

  “I don’t think she really wants me, but she knows I’m in line to be the next Avunculus. Bloody Flara’s get; they’re all so ambitious.”

  “But if you take Toy’s keys, she’ll do all the work of being Blazeann’s Avunculus. Could be an easy life for you, Lucient,” I said.

  “Easy life! The woman’s a fiend. She wants me to give up dreamsmoke. And the theatre. And she wants sex all the time. She believes in only mating with mages.” He shuddered. “Can we pretend to be having an affair, please? Where’s your flower? Quick, pin it on me.”

  “I haven’t got one,” I giggled; the smoke must be going to my head. “No one’s going to look at me.”

  “Oh, poor little Shiney,” cooed Lucient, grabbing my cheeks and wobbling them just as Scintillant and Illuminus’s sister, Lady Chatoyant, sailed into the room in a swirl of green silks. She was tall and thin and looked like a hawk. An attractive hawk, of course. All mages were as attractive as money could make them. She shot me the sort of look that would melt glass. Oh, Lady, what had I let myself in for? She was followed by a tall magnificent mage with masses of grey hair.

  “Hmmm, Great Aunt Glisten. I wonder what she wants,” murmured Lucient, enfolding me in a warm smoky embrace and rubbing his head against mine. Suddenly he stopped and hissed in my ear, “That prick. Blazeann has told on Mother. That’s why Glisten’s here.”

  “What?”

  “There was an unfortunate incident at Plains-of-gold. Cursed Blazeann, she’s so frothing to be Matriarch, she must have sent to the Council and complained that Mother’s unfit. Prick, prick, prick.”

  Another teacup tornado among the mages. The distinctly cold undercurrent in the greeting Splendance and Impavidus gave the new arrivals seemed to support Lucient’s story. The moment she dropped Lady Glisten’s hand, Lady Splendance rose and announced that it was time to dress for dinner. The crystal in her forehead lit up and she floated upwards, passing through the gap between the silken canopy and the staircase full of scampering servants towards her room at the top of the tower. This was the signal for the rest of the visitors to follow, which gave our household the chance to clear all the divans to the side of the room and bring out the long trestle tables for the meal.

  “Come on up to my room and have some fun, sweetheart,” said Lucient, as loudly as possible. He put his arm round my waist and his forehead crystal shone as we rose into the air together.

  I adore flying.

  The new dreamsmoke must have been strong. It took me several attempts to remember that I wanted to ask Lucient the details of what happened at Plainsofgold.

  “Oh, nothing very terrible,” he whispered in my ear. “Mother hasn’t quite got the hang of this new dreamsmoke’s strength. Had some in the night, was still completely smoked in the morning. Could have happened to anyone. And anyway, Blazeann covered up, and the mundanes never noticed.”

  “Auntie Splendance smoked dreamsmoke the night before a Blessing?” I hissed. I didn’t share Lucient’s relaxed attitude to the Blessing ceremony.

  “Oh, don’t be such a prude. There’s no rule against smoking before the Blessing. And Mother’s not used to sobriety. She gets horribly depressed. Sweetheart, a little frolic?” he added loudly, as we floated past Toy. “Give us an appetite.”

  He peppered my cheek and neck with kisses.

  From the look Toy gave us, I suspected she wasn’t fooled.

  “Lucient, no offence but I hope you don’t seriously want to do anything,” I whispered as we floated over the fifth floor balcony rail and in through the doorway.

  “Oh, no! Heavens, sweet thing, I mean, pardon me, I love you madly of course, but as a friend only. Anything more—”

  “It’d feel like incest, wouldn’t it?” I whispered.

  “Indeed,” he said. “I wish everyone was as sensible as you.”

  LUCIENT’S ROOM HAD already been decorated with his own linen, carpets and wall hangings, and a little maid called Sharlee had his dreamsmoke bowl all mixed and ready for him. That ghost dreamsmoke was strong. I didn’t have any more, but Lucient did, and the smoke in the room seemed to scramble my brain completely.

  I lay on Lucient’s bed and giggled. Lucien
t’s maid bounced up and down beside me, making the springs creak suggestively while Lucient read bits from his favourite books to me. Time passed without my noticing it. Lucient’s valet, Busy, found a pretty little cloth rose for me to pin to Lucient and dressed me in a set of Lucient’s dinner robes, which added to the fiction that we’d been ‘treading the Blessing path’ together. The sleeves of the robe were quickly folded and sewn back so that I could eat without trailing them into my food. Such lovely fussing.

  Somehow, I found myself seated back at the dinner table with no clear memory of how I had got there. Busy had told Thomas to ensure I sat next to Lucient, and on my other side was Great-Uncle Igniate. At least he was an easy dinner companion, belching and rumbling happily away about his main obsessions—food and gambling. Since Blessing food was all meaty baby-making food, the fare could be lean for those avoiding fertility. But dear Hilly seemed to have made all my favourite vegetarian nibbles this year and brought them to my side herself. I started having the sort of good time a person is supposed to have during the Blessing festival.

  There was no sign of Scintillant, so I couldn’t torment myself by counting the flowers pinned to his robe. Best of all, Impi was picking on Cousin Illuminus, who apparently had joined the party yesterday without any warning, “expecting poor Marm Effulgentia to accommodate your whims with typical thoughtlessness. And after all the disappointments she’s had to suffer.”

  Impi’s further inevitable snide remarks about Bright cleared my head. The meal also helped. By the time we rose from the table and drifted into the drawing room for smoke and liqueurs, I’d remembered how much I hated the people who controlled my life.

  Toy was no real danger to Lucient tonight—the women mages of the family spent the Blessing nights in chastity and prayer in order to preserve their powers—so I was able to slip away without his protesting. But as I was scurrying back to my room to check on the ghost, Thomas caught my arm.

  “Bright’s in trouble,” he hissed.