Shadowborn

by Alison Sinclair

  “Do you think you can—”

  “Me? I think not. But I might be able to give Ishmael what he needs, with the help of my dear people here, and, perhaps, if they will permit me to speak to them, the Lightborn. It is probably safer for bystanders not to be too close. You do understand? ”

  Of course Vladimer understood, having been at the archduke’s breakfast. “If you don’t have the strength,” Vladimer said, intensely, “then I order you to wait on making any move. There is no purpose to your risking yourselves. Fejelis will be in the palace by now. Give him a chance to get through to the high masters.”

  Farquhar gave him his wide smile. “I shall most certainly try. Now please, go downstairs.”

  “But—,” began Lavender di Gautier, hoarsely.

  “Shoo! ” said Farquhar, with matching gestures.

  Vladimer hesitated, his expression an odd mix of annoyance and helplessness. Then he said over his shoulder to the others, “Downstairs. I will explain.” His sonn brushed Telmaine. “Lady Telmaine? ”

  Telmaine shook her head firmly, not trusting her voice. Ishmael needed her, and needed her all the more because the mages, whom he regarded as his own, seemed to have marked him as a danger, if not an enemy. He did not deserve that from them, too. She stood tensely, poised for argument, as Vladimer herded Mycene, the baronette, and their men down the stairs.

  “My dear ones,” Farquhar Broome began, and then stopped and spread his hands helplessly.

  “It’s all right, Father.”

  “It is not all right.” Telmaine sensed the interplay of magic between them, swift and cryptic, excluding her again. But this time, she found herself measuring them, measuring their magic against that inferno she had felt from Ishmael. They could not match him—Farquhar Broome’s manner told him that. But if he destroyed them, it might destroy him. She remembered that dream. A warning?

  Farquhar Broome said, and, with no deference to rank, they spread around the room, found chairs and stools and trunks, and sat, leaving her to perch on a stool with her skirts spread around her.

  he said, He was, she realized, speaking of the Lightborn temple. Was Kadar the archmage? So close to him, she could sense him gathering and shaping his magic, transforming vitality into energy, into a reach across distance, with an assured, delicate touch that wasted not a wisp of vitality. How old is he? she wondered. A hundred years? Two hundred? More?

  He let out a breath and shook his head. he said to Telmaine,

  No one feeling that furnace of magic could make that mistake.

  The thought leaked; Farquhar Broome’s wizened-apple face creased in a smile.

  Telmaine drew a deep breath to settle herself and then whispered,

  The heat. The overwhelming heat. That she knew it was not physical made no difference to what she felt. But within the heat, she could sense his alertness, his listening presence. She concentrated on that.

  No words, no attempt at conversation. Was he shying from injuring her? If only she could have pretended to be unaffected by his magic. She hesitated, but this was Ishmael. He could not be their enemy. He would surely sense how frightened she was for Balthasar, how desperately she wanted this over and him safe—them all safe.

 

  That was not Ishmael. She recoiled quickly, but not quickly enough. Magic split her mind like the husk of a seed, spilling and raking through the kernels within: her encounters with the Shadowborn, with Tammorn, with Vladimer, Fejelis, the archduke, Ishmael. Vaguely she sensed the blaze of Ishmael’s outrage, and even more vaguely, Farquhar Broome’s efforts to reach her. The Shadowborn—it was a woman—said thoughtfully,

  And she felt Shadowborn magic drop over her like a great sheet, and lift.

  Ten

  Fejelis

  “. . . I need you to stay here, help the Darkborn. . . .” Fejelis glanced up from folding the princely mourning jacket around the caul, and found his brother staring at him in dismay. He measured the angle and color of the early-morning light, and stuffed the bundle into his borrowed bag with more urgency and less respect than it deserved. “You know the railway. You can talk to the railway people, get them what they need. You’ve my authority to overturn the day-night orders. . . .” Which he had remembered to scrawl. Celeste was translating it into Darkborn script on one of the clever Darkborn punch machines, still chortling at her own perversity in refusing to believe Fejelis’s claim.

  “But what are you going to do? ” Orlanjis said. “And can’t I come with you?”

  Fejelis forgave him the plaintive tone. “Take my city back. . . . Find a way to get the Temple to see sense and work with the Darkborn mages. . . . Calm things down between Lightborn and Darkborn so the archduke of the Darkborn can see his way to reinforcing Strumheller and Stranhorne, and make sure he understands the need to. . . . Decide what to do after lunch.” His brother did not react to the weak jest. “We simply can’t take you with us, Jis. I need Jovance on her feet at the end of the lift, and I need you to hold together the alliance here.”

  “Why are you trusting me? I’ve only ever been your rival.”

  This was the heart of it, and no less than expected, since they’d been set up as rivals all their lives. Fejelis straightened to face his brother. He hated being hurried in a conversation of this importance, hated having to strip it down to its essence. “. . . Orlanjis, we are fighting for our lives against an enemy that few of us even recognize. I’m trusting you because you’ve seen exactly the same thing as I have, and come to the same conclusions. I’m trusting you because I watched you fight, come under attack, and not break. When we go back to the palace and all the usual problems and politics of a new reign, if I can keep you, I will. . . . You’re not the boy you were even a few days ago.” Nor, he thought, am I. He put his hands on his brother’s shoulders and looked down into his eyes. “If I die doing this, all I ask is that you rule as you believe, not as anyone else tells you. Father didn’t think that a prince’s policy should survive the prince, and I agree. But try to be a good prince, and watch your back. I’ll do my best to avoid leaving you quite as ghastly a mess as we have now, but if I fail, we will need as strong a relationship with the Darkborn—” He caught himself; shook his head. “. . . And here I said I wasn’t going to try to influence you.”

  “That’s not influence,” Jovance interrupted from the door. “That’s the verbal equivalent of sitting in a lather, tearing a piece of paper to bits. You’re not telling him anything he doesn’t already know. He’s your father’s son as well.”

  He gave her a grateful glance at that, then hugged Orlanjis quickly, thankful that when the Darkborn train had left with Lord Vladimer and his mages aboard, no one had suggested that Orlanjis travel with it. But the Lightborn railway workers were bringing in a day train with plans to press on to Stranhorne before sunset, and if Fejelis could not end this today, in the city, Orlanjis would go wi
th them. “I’ll give your regards to Mother, though I’d appreciate it if you sent a message to reassure her I didn’t abandon you in the wilds.”

  Orlanjis watched from the doorway as they went down the steps of the small house and into the carefully tended garden. The perfume of the night-blooming flowers on the trellises lingered in the still morning air, though the flowers themselves were furled. A baffled bee was bumping gently against one as though trying to wake it. With the stillness and the early sunshine, and they being the only people moving in it, the world seemed new made, free of Curse and Shadowborn.

  “Nice pep talk,” Jovance said in a low voice.

  “I’m terrified for him,” Fejelis admitted. “He’s only fourteen.”

  “One thing reassures me,” Jovance said. “I see no sign that he needs to do stupid things to prove his courage.” She looked up at him, her skin warmed by the sunlight. “Nor do you; I don’t think it occurs to you to be afraid.” If she could feel his pulse, if she could touch him, she would know that was wrong. “Where do you want me to put us down? It needs to be somewhere I know, and it’s best to be somewhere outside. I can sense and avoid living things more easily than inanimate objects.”

  “. . . What do you say to the palace gardens, on the plinth of the sundial garden? ”

  Where, on certain ceremonial occasions, the prince would stand, his shadow marking a significant time. She stared at him, her lips parting, and then he remembered that one of those ceremonies was the public announcement of the contract between the prince and his chosen consort, and another, the sealing of the contract itself. His color mounted. “Jovance, I, um . . .”

  She was still laughing when she landed them on the plinth above the sundial garden. The hour was a most unceremonial one, and their shadows tracked across the blue and silver border, outside time. She gasped as the effort of the magic caught up with her, and he got a hand around her back and guided her down to sit on the edge of the platform, all thought of his misstep slipping from his mind. “Sorry,” she said, wanly. “Needed quite a punch to get through the Temple interference. It’s a safe bet they know I’ve arrived.”

  “If they don’t, tell them,” Fejelis said. “I want to get their attention.” He stepped from the platform down onto the ground. “Can you walk? I don’t like us being exposed like this.” He’d had one crossbow bolt through him already in his young reign. No sense inviting another.

  “I’d like to say no,” she remarked, gazing up under her lashes, “just to make you carry me.” She slipped off the plinth onto her feet, and steadied herself with a grip on his arm, delighting him with the casual ease of the gesture. Of all the people he knew, only Tam and his father had ever touched him so easily. “No,” she murmured, and he realized she was aware of his distracted thoughts. “Maybe not a good idea.” Then she lifted her head. “Company, Prince.”

  Good company, he found, turning: Captain Lapaxo at the head of a flying wedge of palace vigilants, with a look on his face that promised a locked safe room for a feckless prince, and a fate worse than death for anyone who would think to harm him. Fejelis towed Jovance several yards down the path to get the flower beds off the line of the charge. He had enough civil wars on his hands without adding one between vigilants and gardeners.

  Lapaxo halted in front of him, scowling. “Well, curse it, your brightness.” Then the captain outraged protocol and endeared himself to Fejelis forever by clapping hands to his prince’s arms and giving him a sharp shake. “Where’d you get to? ”

  “The Borders,” Fejelis said. And could not resist adding, “. . . I’m glad to see you, too, Captain.” He was; he had feared Lapaxo had been murdered to clear the way for Rupertis. He waved away Lapaxo’s apology. “This is Magistra Jovance, who has been good enough to bring me back, and is under verbal contract to me.” Fortunately for princely decorum, she did not respond to any double entendre. She still looked very pale.

  “And Magister Tammorn? ”

  He started along the path, and when Lapaxo did not remonstrate, strode out. Jovance dealt stoically with the pace, following a few steps behind and stumbling only a little. “Whereabouts unknown at present, not by his own volition. What’s been happening here?”

  Lapaxo gave him a terse summary of events: the ultimatum to the Darkborn, the first signs of Darkborn retaliation, and then the arrival of the Darkborn envoy. “I knew about him,” Fejelis said—it had been part of Vladimer’s briefing. “What’s he . . . Never mind. I want to meet him.” Quite aside from the envoy’s political importance, he was curious to meet anyone with that much crazy courage.

  He felt Jovance’s fingertips graze his wrist, as though by chance.

  He managed not to gawk at her. Even Tam had never mind-touched him like that.

  “He reacts well in a crisis,” Lapaxo said, which was high praise from the vigilant. Explaining how the Darkborn emissary had already survived one assassination attempt carried them up the steps and into the vestibule. Servants and staff stared. A couple skittered through various doorways, while others sidled casually out, no doubt to scurry every bit as quickly to various masters. He found himself fighting a manic grin: he was home.

  “Where are they? ” he said.

  He didn’t need to explain who, not to Lapaxo. “Up in the archmage’s suite.”

  “All of them? ” Fejelis said. Either that indicated a shift in the balance of power or a refusal on the part of either his mother or Prasav to award the other the territorial advantage. “Tell them I want them down in the main receiving room, five minutes or sooner: the archmage, the high masters, Prasav, Helenja. The Darkborn envoy, too. Tell the high masters I know where they’ve sent Tammorn”—Jovance’s golden eyes flashed alarm—“and tell Prasav I am not pleased with his suborning Captain Rupertis.”

  “It wasn’t Prasav alone,” Lapaxo said. “It was Shadowborn—I hadn’t come to that yet. And Rupertis is dead.”

  Fejelis swallowed. His headlong pace was making him dizzy, yet he sensed that the only way to prevail here was to move fast. He’d worked hard at training speed and timing into himself on the piste; it was time to apply these lessons outside. “Ten minutes, then. I need a change of clothing.” He needed a bath, too, and several hours’ more sleep, but he could whistle for those, prince or no.

  Jovance touched his arm again, more deliberately, and mind-whispered,

  Lapaxo gave orders; they collected and shed vigilants and servants and staff as they rolled down the corridors. He scanned faces, gauging mood. Jovance’s touch said, He sensed pleasure and pride behind the words, and wished the touch had lingered.

  His chief dresser and two assistants were already waiting in the main receiving room, one assistant with an armful of red fabric and the second with a steaming bowl, a razor, cloths, a towel. A mage vigilant nodded to Lapaxo from behind them: the bowl, towels, and dressers were safe. As the vigilants deployed to their posts at the doors and on the balcony, he dropped the shoulder bag on the dais with a quick “No, I’ll need that” to the servant who would have swept it away, and let the dresser strip him to his underwear and swab him down with the brisk efficiency of a mother cat washing her kitten. He was glad he’d had the chance to shave in the railway house, because having a razor plied at that speed would have tried his nerves. He stepped into trousers and shoes, and stooped for a blouse and to receive a comb through his hair. No time for the ornate styling fashionable at court. Lapaxo stayed at his right shoulder, continuing his report in an increasingly distracted fashion as servants streamed into the hall, inspecting mirrors, dusting lights, straightening pictures, carrying more lights on stands, carrying flowers in transparent bowls, trying to do in five minutes what had taken them several days before his ill-omened coming of age. Fejelis was sure his orders had not included all this, yet it took very little reflection to decide that if he had thought to give these orders, he would ha
ve. Lapaxo, finally pressed beyond endurance, said, “What is this? ”

  Letting his intuition speak for him, Fejelis said, “Defiance.”

  Lapaxo’s look demanded he make sense. “. . . Defiance of disorder,” Fejelis said. “Defiance of change. Defiance of illegitimate authority.” He pulled the wrapped caul from the Darkborn bag, giving the wincing dresser a penitent glance, and unwrapped it with more care and respect than he had rolled it up. He handed the red mourning jacket to the dresser for shaking out and brushing down, and cradled the caul briefly in his hands. A few strands of pale hair were snagged in the wire. His father’s, or his own? The caul was still shaped to his father’s head, but its fit was close enough. By sleight of hand, the dresser produced a mirror and held it at just the right angle with the precision of long practice. Fejelis was braced for the shock of his father’s cauled face looking back at him, as it had the first time he donned the caul, but with a greater shock, he saw only his own. He felt Lapaxo’s hand on his elbow; his eyes must have lost focus for a moment. “When did you last eat? ” muttered the captain.

  “Not that long ago.” Bannocks and cheese before speaking with Vladimer, though he was having difficulty remembering when he’d last eaten a full meal. “Later,” he said, as the door of lesser privilege suddenly opened on a phalanx of vigilants judiciar around a familiar fair woman in red, and a black-haired stranger whose eyes were masked by smoked lenses. “That’s the Darkborn,” Lapaxo said in a low voice. “Name’s Hearne.”

  “Floria’s friend?” Fejelis said, finally remembering where he’d heard the name.

  He tried not to stare, but the Darkborn’s very ordinariness made it difficult. That slim body and narrow, intense face could have belonged to one of the palace’s archivists or librarians, except for the dark glasses and the heavy, unsightly clothing. The Darkborn seemed to be perspiring a little, which Fejelis would have taken for nervousness, except that his posture suggested determination more than nerves. Those thick clothes must be hot—of course, the Darkborn were used to the chill of night. As they approached, he noticed Floria’s gliding step and ceaselessly moving eyes: Floria at her most dangerous. But when her eyes lighted on him, confirming the truth of rumor, they narrowed with glittering satisfaction, and she smiled.