Rule

by Rowenna Miller

  My place was with Galitha. My place was fighting for a better country, a better world for my neighbors and my friends and thousands of people I didn’t know.

  Kyshi started as the door opened, darted up my shoulder, and settled against my neck. “Alba.” I acknowledged her as she entered.

  “The Fenians are quite amenable to our terms,” she said. “Ah, I do like having a freshly inked contract in hand.”

  “It’s done!” I sat upright, dislodging Kyshi, who protested with a profane squirrel screech and his claws in my hair.

  “Cannon barrels. Three-, six-, and twelve-pound guns. In the proportions Sianh recommended.” Alba smiled. “And of course we will oversee the process for at least a portion of the run on-site at the Fenian foundry.”

  “Of course,” I said. I chewed my lip.

  “We’ll finish talks with the mill owners and the ship builders and then—Fen!” She grinned. “You look less than pleased.”

  “I’m just tired,” I lied. “And I admit, I’m a bit nervous about Fen.” That, at least, was the truth.

  “Fen is dull and they’ll ignore you like they ignore anyone who isn’t in the process of paying them or bilking them.” She shrugged. “Fenians.”

  “But the law.”

  “‘But the law!’” Alba mimicked my hesitation with a good-natured laugh. “What, you’re going to hang out a shingle, ‘Charms Cast for Cheap’?” Kyshi trailed down my arm and settled in my lap again, serving Alba a stern look for the volume of her voice.

  “No. I wasn’t. But if anyone found out…” I let my fingers tremble on Kyshi’s soft coat. The Fenian penalties for even illusions, simple trickster’s street magic, included transportation to their cliff colonies, desolate places scoured half-dead by the northern winds. And actual crimes of attempted magical practices—execution, all of them. Galatine gossip pages sometimes carried stories of Fenian women—always women—tried for buying or selling clay tablets, sentenced to drowning in the deep blue waters off Fen’s rocky shores.

  “No one will find out. Remember, they don’t have any idea you can even cast a charm without your needle and thread. And we’ll keep it that way. You’re quite confident in your methods once we reach Fen, correct? The looms will be set up for our orders and running swift as a sleigh on new snow, just as soon as money has been exchanged.”

  “Yes,” I said. It had taken little practice to embed the charm in lengths of cloth.

  “And you can be… subtle?”

  “Of course I can.” To prove my point, I pulled a stream of light from the ether and sent it into the blanket, spreading it thin and sinking it into the fibers, all without more than a twitch of my fingers. “See?”

  “Yes,” Alba said with a slowly growing smile, “I do. And you believe that doing so while the looms are running—”

  “It will be fully integrated into the cloth. Woven into warp and weft, not just burrowed into it like a stain.”

  “Good, good. And the cannons—”

  “I don’t know what to do with the cannons.” I shook my head. There was no way to predict what charmed or cursed iron guns would do. “I think it’s best if we do nothing. If I charm them, they might protect our men but also fire ineffectually on the enemy. If I curse them, they might blow up and kill our own crews.”

  “It seems such a waste.” Alba sighed. “Are you quite sure that even the shot couldn’t be cursed?”

  “It might foul the whole gun,” I said.

  “Too bad. But you see, there’s nothing to worry over. You’ve everything quite well in hand.”

  “It’s only… I didn’t expect to be threatened in Isildi, either.”

  Alba laughed. “I assure you that the Fenians are not the Serafans. They aren’t hiding anything, and you’re bringing them significant investments. And in Fen, nothing speaks louder than gold.” She caught my free hand in hers. “Trust me. The Fenians are a strange people, to be sure, but not indecipherable.”

  3

  THE LONG DINING HALL OF THE HOUSE OF THE GOLDEN SPHERE was always cramped at the dinner hour, the simple tables and benches lined with novices and initiates and full-fledged sisters. I had expected the house of a religious order, and a Kvys one at that, to be a quiet place, but aside from morning and evening prayers and daily services in the basilica there was nearly always laughter and chatter echoing through the halls and gardens. It served to remind me, constantly, that I was an outsider here, speaking too little Kvys to converse easily.

  I took my trencher of bean soup and a wedge of bread, flecked at the top with yellow cheese. The sisters may have taken an oath of simplicity, but that couldn’t be confused with poverty here. Small indulgences like good cheese, wine, and rich desserts weren’t uncommon. The sisters were expected to work for their keep, however, all contributing to the gardening that filled the larders and the cleaning that kept the pale, spare buildings shining.

  Tonight Tantia doled out baked apples stuffed with spiced nuts; it was her turn in the kitchen, and even hours of study with me didn’t excuse her from that duty. She smiled and gave me an extra-large apple. It smelled like the roasted chestnuts laden with mace and clove that street vendors hawked in the fall and winter in Galitha City.

  I sighed, my appetite not matching the size of my dessert. Did Theodor have enough to eat, or had the Royalist navy blockaded the southern ports and cut off supplies? Was Kristos safe, or had he been injured or captured in a skirmish? I stared at the caramelized juices pooling around my apple, an ache no food could fill spreading in my stomach.

  “Tantia likes you better than me,” Alba complained, sitting next to me. Her apple was half the size of mine.

  “You can have mine,” I offered, and Alba swapped our fruits. “Shouldn’t you be entertaining Fenians?”

  “They left already—you didn’t see them leave? No, that’s right, you were cleaning the library.”

  “It hardly needs it, barely a speck of dust in all those shelves.”

  “Books are treasures, we take good care of ours.” Alba savored a spoonful of the soup, and I wordlessly ate some of mine. The broth was rich with smoked ham hocks. “Of course I had hoped that you would spend some more time there with Altasvet to dig into the old volumes of the order’s history. There might be something there that—”

  “There isn’t,” I replied, short. We’d been over this. The logbooks, the diaries, the transcribed prayers—none of it included pragmatic applications for Kvys casting. The construction of the basilica, which was imbued with layers of charm magic, had not even been described beyond a few notes on the timing and the costs of materials.

  Alba sighed. “We must use our time here wisely,” she said tersely.

  “I am.” I stared at the shreds of smoked pork on my spoon and forced a few more bites. I couldn’t make myself sick worrying. The war in Galitha felt so far away, but it needed me. “The best use of our time,” I added, “is elsewhere.”

  “In good time,” Alba said. “The Fenian contracts are complete, and soon—”

  “Soon!” I nearly shouted, drawing eyes from nearby nuns. I swallowed hard and shoved my trencher away. “They need us,” I whispered. “They could be dying. Waiting. It’s been weeks. Months, now, since we left West Serafe.”

  “I understand that this is difficult,” Alba said. “But the business of negotiation is delicate. I can’t simply barge into a Fenian factory and make demands.”

  “I can’t just sit here any longer!”

  “You can,” Alba said evenly, “and unless you’d like to set off by yourself, you will.” Perhaps she expected more argument, but I stood and left. I walked toward the basilica, candles already winking through the windows as the sisters set up the space for evening prayer service. Alba didn’t understand. She couldn’t. This was a gamble for her, too, of course, but no one she loved was waging war hundreds of miles away. Her betrothed wasn’t risking death. Alba had her order, her sister nuns, but she was not, from what I could tell, bound in the kind of clos
e kinships I had. If she loved, it was silently and secretly.

  But she strategized and planned for the advancement of the Golden Sphere and, I allowed, protected her order. To the extent that I served that goal, she protected me, too.

  I entered the basilica by the main door. The long aisle opened in front of me, benches of pale wood almost shimmering under candlelight. I didn’t have to attend all of the services here the way the sisters did; novices were only required to attend morning prayers and the weekly services, as well as the long services on Glorious Holy Days, which peppered the Kvys calendar heavily. Still, I liked the quiet here, and I liked the order of the service, the way it moved in such a carefully orchestrated rhythm that it appeared organic, the way it repeated and circled. It reminded me in some ways of my sewing, of the peace that can come from familiarity and repetition.

  There was far less ornamentation here than in the Galatine cathedral in Fountain Square. Instead, the beauty was in the purity of the arches, the gentle curve of the beams, the orderly, symmetrical windows. It was perfect with the same pale tranquility as fresh-fallen snow. I felt that I might mar it, somehow, as I found an empty bench in the back. All was still and silent.

  Until the sisters began to sing.

  In the music archive of the great West Serafan university, Corvin had told me about the choral music of the Kvys orders. Even so, the intricate, haunting beauty of the harmonies had stolen my breath the first time I came to evening services. I was in awe of the precision of the voices, strands of sound like thread weaving over and under one another. If I closed my eyes, I could lose myself as the music filled the basilica. I had no idea what the words meant, but it didn’t matter, because I could feel the depth of the meaning.

  If the Order of the Golden Sphere had ever cast using music, they had not retained any of that practice, even by accident. The magic of the choir was something else entirely, the magic I had experienced when Marguerite played her harp in Viola’s salon. Even if war tore my country apart, beauty still existed. It always had. I clung to the belief that it always would.

  The choir finished their piece with a resonant chord. Sastra Altasvet sat beside me as the cantor, a reedy sister with wiry red hair sneaking out from under her veil, began to lead the prayers.

  “You look for answers in many places, eh, Sastra-kint?” Altasvet was the primary caretaker of the library. Her Galatine grammar was nearly perfect, but her pronunciation was difficult to understand; she had spent far more time with Galatine books than Galatine people. It was probably fair to guess that she had spent more time with books than with people of any sort.

  “I do, Sastra,” I answered honestly.

  “There are most probably better answers here than in any library,” she said. “Our books, even our best books, are imperfect reflections of the Creator.”

  I smiled politely. I quickly found myself in over my head in theological conversations with the sisters, our language barriers aside. Galatine worship focused on the Sacred Natures, Pellians on their ancestors, and I had not been a strict adherent of either faith. The concept of a vague and distant Creator was strange to me.

  “There are very few places we have not looked in the library,” she said quietly. “I am afraid any hint of magic may have been removed years—centuries—ago.”

  “It is not the sort of thing your leaders wish to hold on to,” I acknowledged.

  “No, nor many of our people. It is a dangerous business, Sastra-kint.” She sighed.

  “Indeed it is.” Alba stood behind us. I started, but she maintained an expression like ironed linen. “I do not like to interrupt your meditation on the Divine Creator, Sastra-kint Sophie, but I must ask that you come with me. A carriage has arrived with visitors.”

  4

  “WE WERE NOT ANTICIPATING GUESTS TODAY,” ALBA SAID AS WE left the basilica and skirted the courtyard of the convent. She didn’t intend it, but a faint tremor of fear slipped into her voice. We had plenty to hide. “That’s the device of Nater-set Kierk painted on the carriage door. Of the Order of the Lead Scale—humorless fellows, all of them. Tashdi,” she cursed. Nearby, a novice’s eyes widened. “Get some berries from the larder,” she instructed her in Kvys. “Tell Sastra Dyrka to make a berry pudding, it’s Nater-set Kierk’s favorite.”

  The novice meekly scurried off, no doubt effectively led to believe that any concern was over the reception of the high brother, given Alba’s focus on the pudding.

  “Berry pudding?” I said with half a smile.

  “It’s one of Dyrka’s specialties—ah, and you learned the word for pudding. Very good,” Alba teased. Then she straightened and sighed, smoothing the precise box pleats of her pale linen overdress. “Kierk is a pompous ass, and most of the order doesn’t think much of him, but he is on the Church Assembly Council for Spiritual Discipline.” Her mouth puckered as though she’d bitten down on an unripe berry. “That’s code for investigations of blasphemy. Blasphemy of the theological, the liturgical, and the practical, of which casting is of course included.”

  “You said yourself that it would be impossible to keep my presence here a secret.”

  “Yes, but your presence here is not against any rule. Any person can seek sanctuary in our order, and that is protected under Kvys law. Just as any person can seek medical intervention with the Order of the Holy Well or orphans are always welcomed at the Order of the Blessed Dove.”

  “So he’s checking in on me,” I surmised.

  “Possible. Possible he’s just making his rounds. Or possible he’s somehow found out that I’ve made contacts in Fen and wants to inquire more.” She shrugged. “Or he knows it’s berry season and remembers Dyrka’s pudding. He’s got a sweet tooth like a deprived child.”

  Alba insisted I accompany her to greet Nater-set Kierk. There was, we both agreed, no purpose in trying to evade him if he was indeed here to investigate my presence. The less we behaved as though we had something to hide, the less he might assume that we did.

  Kierk already waited beside his heavy coach, his dark robes of fine gray wool picking up stray leaves from the cobblestones.

  “Sastra-set Alba.” The tall Kvys bowed slightly, from the waist, though he did not take his eyes off Alba. She did not bow; as high sister in her own house, she didn’t have to. And she chose not to, not for the high brother of the Order of the Lead Scale, elevated by the priesthood’s assembly far beyond merely managing a house of his order.

  “Nater-set Kierk.” She greeted him with open, outstretched palms, which she swiftly folded together lest he actually decide to embrace her. I made myself small against the shadows of the courtyard arbor. She continued in Kvys, and I made out inside and refreshments and pudding.

  He shook his head with grave authority and a torrent of Kvys. Alba raised her eyebrows slightly, in controlled surprise, but didn’t give anything else away. My palms, meanwhile, grew damp as I clutched my simple gray wool skirt, and my heart echoed hollow in my chest. What could he want? Was he, even now, scanning for my face among the Kvys sisters? I couldn’t hide here; my sun-touched skin and dark hair stood out among these women with complexions of moonlight and birchwood and flax.

  Alba beckoned him inside, leaving me in the courtyard with the rest of the order who had assembled to greet the high brother. My relief lasted only a few minutes before a novice in cream wool dashed into the courtyard to fetch me.

  My throat clenched closed, but I forced myself to remain calm. If Alba felt I was truly threatened, I reasoned, she would have sent the girl to tell me to run.

  I collected myself and joined the two in Alba’s private study, a loft bathed in late setting sunlight over the communal reading room of the library. Four chairs sat in a circle. I sat next to Alba, leaving a space between Kierk and me.

  “In the Galatine, yes?” Kierk’s courtesy was rote and unsympathetic.

  “Please,” I replied, composure buttered thin over raw nerves.

  Kierk spoke to me, though he barely met my eyes. “
It is no secret, miss, that you are a purveyor of sacrilege.” Alba’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “Such practices are, I have no doubt you are aware, forbidden here.”

  He waited for me to reply. I didn’t deign to answer. Alba nodded, ever so slightly—let him spool out his speech without any admissions, suggestions, or evidence from us.

  He sighed. Gold rings on his middle and smallest fingers glinted; one held a ruby the size of my thumbnail. “Forbidden, and yet you are given safe refuge here. Why, Sastra-set?” He turned abruptly to Alba.

  “The rules of our order are clear, and the law does not interfere with sacred rules.”

  “Ah. Yes. But I did not ask if she had invoked sanctuary here. I asked why.” He glanced at me. “Perhaps how is the more apt in Galatine—how is it that she came to seek sanctuary here?”

  “I made Sophie’s acquaintance in West Serafe, at the summit,” Alba answered deliberately. “When the civil war broke out in Galitha, she was stranded without a safe place to return, and so I—”

  “Her, without a place?” He tutted softly. “The betrothed of the Rebel Prince, the sister of the Midwinter Quill?” I had a feeling these nicknames were common in Kvyset; spoken in Galatine, they made those closest to me sound like characters in an old legend.

  “It was not so simple to return,” I replied quietly. Kierk looked at me, surprised that I finally spoke. Surprised, or feigning interest well. “We feared capture if we returned.”

  “Yet your betrothed and your brother did return,” he pressed.

  “And were nearly captured,” I retorted. “We decided—it was better that I wait somewhere safe.”

  “So you sought sanctuary here, where you no doubt were apprised that your… aberrant practice would not be welcome.”