I would, as it turned out, meet him again later, in a very different situation.
But for that year, we all kept our heads down, worked on our dance steps, and tried to ignore everything else that was going on. We did what we needed to survive.
After that first year I left the class, as soon as I was able. I knew that it meant I would never have an opportunity to dance again. I missed the dancing, but it wasn’t worth the price.
* * * *
Tenia wasn’t the leader of the girls at the academy, but she could have been if she wanted. Magic came easily to her. She excelled at everything athletic as well. (She joked with me that if she didn’t have to follow her mother as Empress she would have loved to be a general.) The other girls wanted to follow Tenia’s lead, and not only because they knew that someday the Empress would take back her name and turn the job over to her daughter.
Tenia just didn’t have much interest in schoolgirl politics and intrigues. Maybe it was her personality, or maybe it was because when you’re preparing to take over as leader of a great empire, schoolgirl squabbles don’t seem all that important. I don’t think the other girls understood that. And they definitely didn’t understand why Tenia’s best friend was me: a quiet, studious girl who kept to herself and said little, except to Tenia.
I think Tenia and I both helped each other. At the academy we really became close friends, not just the inseparable playmates whom our parents approved of that we had been at the palace. At the academy we had other choices, and became closer friends. I helped Tenia study, served as her adviser and confidante, and learned to keep both my secrets and hers. Outside of classes, I didn’t talk to others much, but I watched everything, and told Tenia all that I saw. For her part, Tenia helped me get through my struggles with magical theory and sheltered me socially. We also played a lot of talisman games together, and socialized with the other girls as much as Tenia thought appropriate.
“I’m going to have to tell some of them who to marry,” she reminded me. “I need to know something about them, even the ones I don’t like. And I need you to know enough about them to advise me. You’re my chancellor, remember?”
“How could I ever forget?”
We were sitting on her oversized bed talking about marriage. She was promising me a good one, to someone I would like. “Well, I mean, of course you’ll like him once the engagement is settled and the engagement tokens have been created, but I mean someone you would like anyway even if there wasn’t any magic involved.”
I told her I hadn’t ever given much thought to marriage. It was true, too. I just hadn’t been around a lot of families since my mother’s death. My father took me to state occasions when it was called for, but otherwise, I had spent my childhood in the company of governesses and sometimes friends. The only family I had really gotten to know in the last few years had been Mala’s parents, and of course that had ended badly. Abstractly, I knew that channelers married as the Empress dictated for reasons of state. I always figured I would deal with that when the time came. Hopefully the memories that came with the engagement token included some instructions on what marriage and family life were like when wars and death didn’t intervene.
“You don’t need to think about it. That’s my mother’s job.”
I sat up a little straighter “So your mother really picks everyone who’s going to get married? How does she ever have time to do anything else?”
“Well, technically she picks everyone. But really other people do a lot of the picking, especially in the countryside. There are a lot of people needing marriages whom she doesn’t really know or care about, and that’s what local bureaucrats are for. And probably some people never get picked, and just stay unmarried. But anyone from a good family, or any channeler or war hero, my mother decides on personally. She puts an incredible amount of time into thinking about who to put together—it’s funny, almost like a little girl playing with dolls, except she’s the Empress. But my mother really likes deciding who will match up well, and how she can make the kingdom stronger. It’s like a big talisman game.” Tenia smiled thinking about it, maybe anticipating when the decisions would be hers.
“What about people who love each other?” I asked. “Doesn’t who they love have anything to do with how they’re matched up?” My words came out as almost a wail, and I wasn’t sure why. I thought back to Mala’s story about her mother and the man she’d loved before she had been engaged to her father.
Tenia gave me a strange look, like get it together. “Of course love matters. But really making sure people love each other is up to channelers like us. Haven’t you been paying any attention to Lehnire’s lectures?”
“I’ve been paying attention, I just don’t understand them. It’s all pretty abstract, measuring strength of memories and evocativity scoring. I’m not sure what a lot of it means.”
“It’s how you make someone love the person they’re supposed to marry, silly. It’s how you make sure marriages work the way they’re supposed to. If a channeler gets it wrong and a marriage starts to fail, my mother gets furious, so you’re going to need to learn to get it right.” I must have had a grim expression on my face because Tenia gave me a silly smile. “Oh, don’t worry about it. You’ll be great. Why do you think you’re going to be my chancellor? You read people better than I do, even. You’ll be perfect at making marriages work.”
“I suppose,” I said weakly. I couldn’t let go of the conversation. “But it feels like love should be important. My father really loved my mother.”
“Of course he did,” answered Tenia patiently. “He hardly had much choice about it, if the engagement token was well done. And if the channeler assigned to it didn’t want to spend the next few years using her magic to unplug clogged sewer pipes, she would have made sure it was well done.”
Tenia could look at things unemotionally, the way my father did. Maybe that’s why I admired her so much. I was as smart as anyone at the academy, but sometimes I couldn’t control my emotions the way a channeler needed to.
* * * *
“What happened to Rhenne?” I asked Tenia. The small redheaded girl in the next room kept to herself even more than I did, usually buried in studying that almost made me feel lazy. She had joined us in a few talisman games on rainy afternoons or study days, but she always seemed preoccupied and anxious to get back to her studies.
Now her room stood empty, the bed neatly made up but all personal touches gone.
“She didn’t make it,” Tenia said. “They’re cutting down the class size. They always cull a certain number. She couldn’t handle the magic, so she’ll be transferred to a different academy. I’m sure she’ll make a good bureaucrat somewhere.”
I felt myself flush. “But she was better than me! Does that mean—”
“It doesn’t mean anything.” Tenia smiled. “My mother knows you’re struggling a little, but I’ve told her you’re going to be fine. She’s not going to transfer you, and you’ll learn the magic. We just need to keep working at it. Which you have been. You’ll get it.”
I hadn’t realized that Tenia’s long letters to her mother contained reports on our performances, but I suppose it made sense. She wasn’t just here to learn magic like the rest of us: She was here to learn to be a future Empress.
And I supposed I was here to learn to be a future chancellor, though that always felt more like a fancy that Tenia would outgrow than like a real promise. She would need someone more like my father than like me, I knew. But until that time, I could still give her good advice.
I felt more than a little guilty about Rhenne losing her place at the academy while I kept mine. But I wanted to be here and Tenia wanted me here and she genuinely seemed to think I would learn the magic.
“Come on,” said Tenia. “If you’re worried, let’s work on your magic some more. The talisman game will wait.”
“Thank you,” I said. I knew how much she loved talisman games as a way to relax. Instead, I sat on the bed in front of h
er, tried to empty my mind, and focused on the first of the finding exercises, to draw on the threads of magic that student channelers could use for practice.
I picked up the thread on the third try. That was better than I used to do, but most girls here could do it in one. I didn’t have the blue streaks distracting me here, at least. Whatever they were, they seemed related to the old magic: common enough in the palace and other structures that dated back to the Holy War but nonexistent in newer buildings.
“Relax,” Tenia said. I could feel her hands massaging my shoulders. “Does that relax you?”
It distracted me a little, but I didn’t want her to stop. I focused harder on the magic so she would think her hands helped me relax.
It never really went beyond backrubs and close friendship and long talks about our futures together. At the time I was so sheltered and had so many trust issues that I was only dimly aware that going further was a possibility, even though all of us had private rooms in a mostly unchaperoned hall: I had to be in serious denial not to realize some of what went on. And Tenia never pushed, although I’m pretty sure I would have done whatever she asked.
But I think it was wanting her to touch me, however innocently I conceived it, that finally motivated me to learn to channel magic. I would never be a great channeler, I knew. But by the end of our stay at the Empress’s Academy, I was pretty sure I would be a competent one. I was proud of that, even if I suspected my father wouldn’t be.
Chapter 7
Ketya
Traveling to the Drowned City: Three days before the Loss
We took special cable-carriages back to the palace from the Empress’s Academy, the outsides freshly painted in the academy colors. Tenia had her own carriage; it had a large, central compartment with a couch and a sitting table, and bowls of yellowfruit and red-brown fawn nuts still warm from boiling, and spiced meat pastries, and sweetmeats on the sidebar. She’d invited me, as her best friend, to ride with her.
The rest of the graduating class rode a few minutes ahead of us. They shared a large two-compartment carriage with two chaperones sent by the academy, though what sort of trouble they expected us to get into on the cable-carriage I had no idea. The faculty hadn’t much cared how we behaved at the academy, as long as we attended classes and learned quickly enough, but once we left the glittering campus they expected us to look and act the part of earnest, newly graduated channelers.
“They’re going to hate me for not riding with the rest of the group,” I said to Tenia, but I was glad to be riding with her.
“They hate you anyway,” said Tenia, “and none of them will dare show it as long as your father is chancellor. Besides”—she smiled, her blond ringlets catching the light—“you have powerful friends.”
We spent the ride eating too many sweetmeats and playing marathon games of four soldiers with her beautiful talisman deck, whose golden case exactly replicated the case in which Ananya’s actual copy of the Talisman of Truce was stored. I liked to watch the scenery go by when Tenia dozed; but she’d traveled a lot more than I had and wanted to talk or play talisman games, both of which had been severely restricted by the intensifying workload during our last year at the academy. My own talisman deck had been confiscated by Dulcet the unpleasant dance instructor and never returned—I knew better than to go to his office and ask for it back, which was what he’d hoped for when he took it—but of course no one would touch anything belonging to Tenia, so we just used her deck in the infrequent moments when we had enough time for a game.
“Do you think your father and my mother will be waiting for us at the platform?” Tenia asked when we saw the towers of the Drowned City approaching.
“They probably forgot we’re coming back,” I said, giggling. Over the last few months, when I’d finally been able to finish the compulsory magic exams with relative (for me, at least) ease, I’d found myself more relaxed. I finally felt like I belonged at the school, not just like I had taken the place of someone more qualified because of my family connections. Which I had, of course. More than one friend of Rhenne and the other girls who had been dismissed had let me know as much—though never in Tenia’s presence.
“My mother will remember,” said Tenia. “The whole royal family is going to be there in the Presentation Chamber to celebrate when I become a channeler. It’s the first time the entire family has been together in the same room in all the years since the talisman was first accepted. It was your father’s idea to bring them all to the palace as a special celebration—my mother loves it. She sent me a long letter about how he managed to get everyone here. Some of the stories were pretty unbelievable.”
I wonder if I’ll get any celebration? I thought, then realized I was being incredibly unfair to my father. What is it about leaving the academy and going back to my father that makes me start acting like a little kid again? Besides, did I even want a celebration? Tenia and my father thrived on being in the middle of things but my happiest moments had been quiet ones, that no one but me remembered much afterward.
* * * *
While we didn’t see the Empress waiting for Tenia on the platform, several royal cousins stood waving as the cable-carriage approached. We had a chance to take a long look, while we waited for the lead carriage with the other graduates to unload before we could approach the platform.
Tenia practically squealed: “That’s my Aunt Marta! And my cousins from the Silver Coast! I haven’t seen them since I was twelve! And my Aunt Harenne! Oh wait—”
She suddenly went a little white. The cable-carriage had begun its final descent to the platform.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Aunt Harenne hates talisman games, and she really hates this deck. She saw it once and said the case was ‘an ugly reminder of an uglier time.’” Her voice dropped an octave in imitation of her aunt. “She’ll have fits if she sees it and I can’t hide it in these clothes.”
She thrust the golden case at me. “Here, you take it. I’ve seen you hide things. You can give it back to me after the ceremony. Or the next time you see me when I’m not surrounded by aunts.”
I smiled, trying not to feel wistful at my father’s absence. After all, Tenia’s mother was too busy to be at the platform, too. “Of course,” I said. I liked using Mala’s trick to make things disappear. I had gotten good at it, and had tried to show Tenia, but she hadn’t been interested. “Empresses have other ways of making things disappear,” she had said. But apparently not from their aunts.
The case disappeared into the small of my back, where it sat snugly between my shirt and overtunic, all but invisible. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it safe.”
“Thanks. Hopefully we’ll have time for a few games after the celebrations, before you get sent on your first assignment.”
“Oh that’s right!” My hand went to my mouth. “I might not see you for—”
“Stop,” said Tenia. Her hand covered mine, shushing me. “You’re my chancellor. I’ll make sure you’re always close to me. Don’t start worrying on me.”
She leaned forward and kissed me on each cheek as her hand held mine, pulled it against her. Her mouth brushed my lips softly. And then the cable-carriage shuddered to a stop. We both pulled away suddenly as if shocked. I could hear cousins and well wishers boiling outside like frothing surf about to flow into our sandcastle.
“After the ceremony”—Tenia waved and blew a kiss back at me as the door opened—“we’ll talk then. I’ll ask my mother to let us celebrate with a trip together before your first assignment. Just the two of us. You’ve always wanted to spend time in the mountains, right?” Then the surge of cousins and baggage porters flowed all around us, filling the carriage and sweeping Tenia away with the undertow. When the tide receded, I found myself alone in the carriage, all my baggage and Tenia’s cousins gone.
Looking around first to make sure nothing had been missed, I stepped out of the carriage. Reflexively I touched my back to make sure Tenia’s golden talisman case remained
secure and hidden. Not much of a thief you’d be, giving away your hiding place like that, I thought, but I stood alone on the platform. I paused at the edge of the stairs and slowly twisted around in a circle, taking in the Drowned City skyline and the towers that had been my home for so many years, the salt-smell of the ocean as the breeze came from the seaport side of the city.
I didn’t know how long I’d be here, but it felt nice to be returning someplace comfortable and familiar, with new skills. I’m a channeler, I thought to myself. I really did it. I’m a channeler in the service of the Empress. Even in my thoughts, I had to correct myself. Or at least I will be in a few hours.
Taking a last deep breath of the salt breeze from the solitude of the platform, I started down the stairs toward the palace. It was time to find my father.
Ketya
The Drowned City: The day before the Loss
At the Empress’s Academy it was easy to forget Ananya was at war. Situated far from any fighting, the academy focused on theoretical and everyday uses of magic, on gaining control and precision rather than on specific techniques. Although many of the girls I had studied with would soon be assigned to military service, they would train on the big war engines with their engineering units. I knew in theory what it took to work a thrower or a lightning bear, but to actually use one effectively I would need to learn to coordinate with the engineers who aimed and loaded the engines, and also learn to control the precise amount of force used. It took a lot more teamwork than moving a cable-carriage or powering irrigation rigs on a farm.
At the palace, however, no one could forget the war. Partly because the palace itself bore the scars of so much fighting, but also because soldiers seemed to be everywhere: directing traffic, keeping factions of the royal family who didn’t get along with each other discreetly separated, guarding pantries and works of art and entrances to areas where people needed to be left alone to get work done. At the academy we’d had a lot of freedom to explore, and as children at the palace we’d found ways to make ourselves invisible to adults. But being an adult in the palace meant having to stop and explain yourself frequently, especially if you’d been away at school for several years. The guards appeared festive rather than martial, with glittering uniforms and light ceremonial blades that looked more like dance props than weapons. But even wearing the festive uniforms the Empress (or my father, who planned for her) had decreed for the occasion, the guards seemed scrupulous in making certain that I really had a reason to be in the heart of the palace’s administrative wing.
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