Raised voices in the outer chamber were her only warning.
Lord Voren swept into the room with Essily trailing a pace behind, protesting as her old commander stormed to a place in front of her desk. Voren’s old military uniform had been traded for an immaculately tailored coat and breeches in patterned green and gold, his spectacles tucked away as he brandished a rolled-up paper in his hand.
“What is the meaning of this, High Commander?” Voren snapped. He slapped his newspaper on her desk.
“Apologies, sir, I’ve told him you were—” Essily said.
“Let it be, Captain,” she said. Voren’s eyes smoldered with a heat she’d rarely seen, glowering over his newspaper as though it were a warrant for his—or her—arrest. “Give us the room.”
“Sir,” Essily said, backing away.
“Well, d’Arrent?” Voren said. “What do you expect me to make of this?”
“You’ll have to excuse me, sir,” she said as Essily retreated and closed the door, leaving her and Voren alone. “I haven’t had time to read this week’s papers.”
“An invasion!” Voren said. “They’re reporting you’ve given orders to the Second and Third Corps to march southward, with supply wagons already dispatched to follow down the trade roads. Either you mean to resecure the Gand holdings or you’re aiming for Thellan, and there are equal measures of speculation on both sides in the presses.”
She cursed. “Why should the enemy bother with scouts, when the papers will print our fucking movements for him?”
“It’s true, then. Koryu burn it, you ordered this without consulting me? This is reckless and stupid, d’Arrent, even for you. Do you have any inkling of the state of the citizenry, with the bloody Great Barrier vanishing and you doing not nearly enough to convince them you take the issue as seriously as they do?”
“I’ve ordered Royens’s corps to remain in the north, and the whole purpose of the tribal alliance was to leverage Ilek’Hannat’s visions to—”
“The tribes. Yes, there’s another thorn you’ve wedged in my foot. High Commander, do you understand that the people of this Republic are terrified, and your response is to broker a peace with the very people the barrier was meant to protect them against?”
She felt her own anger rising to match his. It was past time to make the connection to de Montaigne’s aide. She didn’t have time for this sort of second-guessing.
“The barrier was built to protect us from the beasts, not the tribes,” she said. “The natives have power of their own, power we can leverage to keep us safe. I’ll not discard a tool for the sake of fear and superstition, newspapermen be damned for their fearmongering.”
A quiet fell between them. Her position relative to Voren had never been made explicit; he had been her mentor, and she his protégé, but command of the army was hers, for all his work in the political sphere.
“Now, sir,” she continued. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to wait.”
“What could be more important than this, d’Arrent?” Voren said. “This is the political future of our Republic. No less than your—and my—positions are at stake here.”
“Confirming Ilek’Hannat’s vision,” she said. “A field operation in the south, to confirm Paendurion—the man behind the enemy’s golden eyes—is in command of the Thellan armies in the New World.”
Voren pulled back as though she’d struck him.
“Wait,” he said after a moment. “Ilek’Hannat … the tribesfolk’s leader?”
“Their shaman,” she said. “He saw it, and I ordered the army to move. If the information is accurate, we have a chance to surprise Paendurion, to turn the campaign before it begins.”
Voren sat on one of her cushioned chairs, the tension finally slipping from his shoulders.
“You’ll have to excuse me, sir,” she said. “It will take only a moment.”
He nodded, and she closed her eyes, shifting her vision to the leylines.
Need shone like a beacon as soon as she did. A glowing light, far to the south. Hopefully no more than a sign she was late.
The tether snapped into place, and her senses shifted back into blazing heat.
“Ah, aquí está él,” one of de Montaigne’s soldiers said—Renauld, the one who spoke fluent Thellan.
The quiet of the trees had been replaced by the bustle of an infantry encampment, and this time she was mounted, along with the other five members of de Montaigne’s company. The colonel herself was on the horse beside her, while Renauld had the lead, opposite four Thellan soldiers standing in front of a row of orderly white tents. Dozens of soldiers were in view behind them, and some few had begun to take notice of their exchange. The general’s flag de Montaigne had procured flew over their rearward horse, though the Thellan soldiers seemed to be aloof, eyeing Renauld and the rest of them with suspicion—until they turned eyes to her at Renauld’s direction.
“Mis Dioses,” one of the Thellan soldiers said, making it halfway between a curse and a prayer.
The rest snapped to salute at once, all sign of sloth dispelled, and a ripple ran through the encampment, words passed in haste from one tent to the next.
“Tenemos órdenes de su comandante,” Renauld said.
“Sí,” the lead Thellan soldier said. “Sí, por supuesto.”
De Montaigne met her eyes with a knowing look as the Thellan soldiers rushed to admit them into the camp, any pretense of suspicion vanished as they were led into the sea of tents.
It was already enough. They recognized the golden light in her vessel’s eyes. They thought she was Paendurion, which confirmed it. He was in command.
She gave de Montaigne a hard look in return. The next hours would decide whether the colonel and her soldiers survived the ruse, but that was down to their skill at playing their chosen roles. Better if her vessel took over from here.
She held Need another moment, long enough for a few more Thellan soldiers to see and confirm her suspicions. Then she released it, and returned to her desk.
Voren had calmed, but stared at her as intently as he had when raging over his unfurled newspaper.
“They recognized the golden light,” she said. “Paendurion has the command.”
“Gods save us all,” Voren said.
“Just as well I ordered the bulk of the army southward.”
Voren gave a bitter laugh. “You don’t make this easy, d’Arrent.”
“Sir, I’ve done what I’ve known to be right.”
“Best pray the press doesn’t make the connection between your visit to the tribes and the order to start another war. Fuel to an already burning fire, if they do.”
“Damn them all, sir. I have no interest in the bleating of a council full of fools. I’m taking action to keep us safe, and if you’ll pardon me, sir, I’ve been proved right today. I won’t shy away from my duty for the sake of popularity, or favorable pamphlets among tradesmen too frightened to pick up a musket.”
“All right,” Voren said. “All right. Damn it, but we can see this through. The enemy—Paendurion—won’t be content with a few islands and marshlands in the south; he’ll be marshalling his power in the Old World, like as not aiming to pin you here. But there is time, if only just. I’ll leave the military campaign in your hands, of course, but we must begin laying plans to consolidate a Thellan conquest into the new Gand holdings, if we’re to establish and maintain control.”
“Sir?” Strange to hear him reverse his anger so quickly, though she could never fault her old commander for being slow to accept the new realities of a battlefield.
“Proceed with your attack, High Commander. I will sell this to the Assembly. But you mustn’t leave me out again. The next months are as crucial to your place as any waters we have navigated so far.”
“We have a chance, here, sir. He won’t be expecting so much of our strength in the south. We can win, and unite all the colonies, if we do.”
“Politics for another day, High Commander,” Voren said. “Just s
ee to the victory, and leave the diplomacy to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
He rose, and they exchanged a salute. Odd, to see him do it in civilian clothes, but a small relief to see him leave the room, though he’d left his unfurled newspaper behind on her table. A reminder that the political sphere was always there, looming over her affairs. But for now, the way was clear for her to proceed.
She returned to her desk, leaving the newspapers there as a reminder of Voren’s work. Maps, ledgers, logistics, dispositions, and Need: The rest fell to her.
31
SARINE
Wilderness
Erhapi Land
Anati crawled forward on the branch, shaking loose leaves as she made way toward a ripe, purple fruit.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I never saw Zi eat. I assumed he couldn’t.”
Her kaas reached the prize, and darted another look toward her, full of curiosity.
It looks right, Anati thought to her. Will it hurt me?
“It’s a plum. I can’t imagine it will poison you, but then, I don’t know what your kind will find edible.”
Anati clamped her tiny jaws into the plum, rending a gash through the skin, and immediately spat it out, raining pieces of fruit from the tree into the undergrowth.
It is foul!
Sarine laughed and plucked a low-hanging plum for herself, taking a bite and relishing the juices as they ran sweet on her tongue. “We can sample all manner of fruits when we get back to the city. But if you’re anything like Zi, I expect you’ll prefer bar fights and public tribunals to anything that grows on a tree.”
A bar fight. Is that … red?
Again she smiled. Anati seemed to know nothing of the world, whereas Zi had come to her fully formed. Maybe a bar fight was red—or somehow tied to Red, as Zi had understood it. Dust-ups and fisticuffs certainly seemed to produce Body on the leylines, and those were red motes; it stood to reason the kaas might see things in a similar vein.
Thinking of Zi still hurt, though the pain had dulled, since the springs. She wouldn’t think of him as having died; she’d spoken to him, seen him move, watched the rest of the kaas give way for him as though he were a conquering hero come home. But now he was beyond her reach. Whatever the strange consciousness that had taken hold of her had done to shift their senses to the kaas’ world, she couldn’t find a way to replicate it. And teaching Anati had been a joy unto itself.
A knot of anger rose in her stomach, and an image passed through her thoughts: Axerian’s face. The anger wanted to direct itself toward him, paired with frustration and need. The emotions were strong, but not hers. She felt them through pinpricks on her skin, the same as she might feel an arm after lying on it too long.
Anati draped herself from the branch overhead, coiling her tail tight enough to hang her body in the air. Strange; she’d never seen Zi do that.
She’s pushing again, Anati thought.
Sarine nodded. The anger rose harder, a storm of needles, but she fought it down. She wasn’t angry. She was content. Acherre’s mission had been to prevent assassinations in New Sarresant, and Ka’Inari had sworn only to go with her. Now, without Zi’s sickness driving her, there was no need to keep pursuing Axerian halfway across the continent. Better for them all to turn back, and go home. She focused on that, to quell her emotions. Her uncle would be overjoyed to see her. They would embrace and he would lecture her on the virtue of love: third virtue of the Veil, second parable, “duty to family is born of the deepest bond, higher than blood or honor.”
The rage subsided. Calm returned. Breath came hard, as though she’d been running through the trees, but it was hers, slow and steady.
She keeps doing that, Anati thought. I wish she would stop.
“Who is she?” Sarine asked. “I still don’t understand any of this.”
Anati let go with her tail, dropping to the ground with a rustle of dry leaves. She skittered toward Sarine’s foot and climbed it, coming to perch on her shoulder as quickly as Zi might have vanished and rematerialized there. It startled her, but the kaas affected not to notice, keeping her hind legs steady on her shoulder while the rest of her loomed into Sarine’s view, hovering mere inches in front of her face.
She is you, Anati thought to her. Her eyes were amethysts, the color of the plums, and her kaas seemed taken with a deadly seriousness, planting her two forelegs on the sides of Sarine’s face.
“Anati, what are you doing?”
You must know this. She is you.
She fought the urge to pull away. Instead she took another calming breath—no easy feat, with a kaas perched to loom across her face—and moved to sit cross-legged on the leaves.
“Can I have you rest on my arm? It isn’t comfortable to speak with you when you’re so close.”
Oh. All right. Sorry.
As quickly as she’d darted up Sarine’s side, Anati retracted herself, skittering down to take a place in her lap, coiled in a tight loop but still with her head raised, intent as she had been before.
“Now what did you mean, ‘she is me’? These surges of emotion, these memories, they aren’t mine. I remember, after Zi …” She swallowed. “… I remember someone else taking control of me. The emotions are hers, right?”
No. You’re her. Like the Soul of the World, split in two halves between light and shadow, she used a trick to keep your souls apart, but now you’re back together. She’s stronger, but I like you. My father liked you. You’ll do better than she did.
“Sarine!” Acherre’s voice rang through the trees.
“Here,” she called back, then rose, brushing dust and leaves with one hand while she cradled Anati in the other. “We need to speak more on this,” she said to Anati. “Who is she? She called herself the Veil, just before you quieted her. She can’t mean—?”
Yes. The Veil. The Goddess. You are her.
Anati said it as though it were the plainest fact, like stating the tree’s bark was brown, its leaves green. Her kaas seemed content to coil around her forearm, just as Zi had done, lowering her head to rest against her skin. Numbness washed through her. She wanted more, and wanted none of it at the same time. What was she supposed to think, a kaas telling her she was something other than the girl who had grown up on the streets of the Maw, who learned to sketch by stealing charcoals and paper until she realized the shopkeep knew she was doing it and was letting her get away with her thieving? She was Sarine, not anything or anyone else.
Acherre led her horse through the brush, dry leaves cracking under its hooves. “Where is the shaman? We’ve got riders coming from the west, straight on to our position.”
“He’s nearby; the smoke, the fire. He went to commune with his spirits.”
“Good.” Acherre paused, looking at her again. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m … I’m fine.” She heard the numbness in her own voice, but Acherre seemed to be content to let it pass.
“Lead on, then. Those are tribesmen coming our way. They know we’re here, and if they’re half as prickly as the eastern tribes they’ll be none too pleased to see us.”
A chant hummed through the trees as they drew near; two voices at least, a low harmony and a haunting echo above it.
“Ka’Inari,” she called ahead. It felt as though she were walking in on him bathing, or attending to other personal needs. “Apologies, but Acherre has sighted riders. We need to move.”
“To move, or at least to be ready for it,” Acherre added, though she still hadn’t managed to learn enough of the Sinari tongue to speak it to Ka’Inari directly. A consequence of her being ready to translate whatever was said, and a blessing from the Gods that whatever else Anati needed to be shown, she still seemed to possess Zi’s gift for language.
The chanting ceased, but in a slow fade that seemed to linger in her ears. She came to a place where the brush grew thick enough to block her vision, and tingles on her skin sufficed as barrier to any impulse to push through. It was wrong to go fart
her; the surety of it hung in the air. Even Acherre seemed suddenly content to halt, and the horses lingered behind, skittish as they approached the brush.
“Ka’Inari,” she called again. “I’m sorry, but we have to go.”
“The Erhapi,” Ka’Inari finally replied. “Those are the riders you saw.” He emerged from the brush a moment later, a pack slung over his shoulder, but with red rings around his eyes and white paint on his face.
She looked down. It was wrong for her to see him like this; he hadn’t said anything to bar her following, only picked up his materials and distanced himself from the camp. He’d done it a handful of times, though it had never been needful to intrude prior to his being finished, before.
Did the vision spirits see where Axerian went?
Anati had made herself heard by all three, somehow Sarine knew it, though she couldn’t have said how she knew. Her kaas hadn’t vanished either, though Anati was certainly capable of it, and instead chose to be visible to them all, her head perked with interest as Ka’Inari appeared.
The shaman gave her and Anati a rueful look. “Such things are sacred.”
No, they aren’t. The vision spirits will tell you if you ask.
Color rose in her cheeks. “Anati!” she whispered. At the same moment another well of anger surged through her, accompanied by a sense of agreement, and an image of Axerian’s face.
“Time to speak later of the spirits’ sendings,” Ka’Inari said. “For now the Erhapi have been alerted to our presence on their land. A great ill has befallen their tribe. I can’t say whether they will be enemies; we must decide whether to hear them out.”
He seemed to be looking to her for guidance, but the sensation of rage was still flooding through her veins. Terror accompanied it, blending two more images: one of her going home, meeting her uncle on the steps of the Sacre-Lin, with another of a black sky and a great army, a host of men in strange armor beneath red banners marching toward a city’s gates.
She almost fell, staggering forward as the images raced through her mind.
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