Trin gaped at him. “I did not parade myself to Lock. I was on an errand for the church. For the High Cleric himself.”
She’d said it proudly, which was perhaps foolish given her opponent, but his response was not proud of her. “Oh, I know.” His vitriol was in full color. “Believe me, Trin, I know. The whole city knows that you soiled yourself in the Cleric’s library. You’re the laughingstock of the whole the city, though of course that’s nothing new for you. You’ve been a laughingstock the last fifteen years.” His gaze panned to the column of soldiers, as though he worried that just by standing near her, he was sharing in her poor fortune.
Trin glared at him. “I live my life the way I want, and I have no shame in it.”
He laughed. “Well you should. You’ve ruined yourself, and thanks to your father’s ill-sense, you’ll likely ruin the rest of us, too. So, no. I don’t want you here. I want you as far from here as possible. You’re a blight upon this family and a poison to the reputation of anyone you meet. I’m better off with you away from me.”
Trin was left gaping. So much of it she could not argue. She hadn’t been there for her father. She had neglected her responsibilities. In some ways… she did ruin everyone she met. Then she smiled. “Good,” she said. “Let’s hope that’s true, then I’ll know you’re motivated to send me home. Jem too.”
He didn’t react. She’d hoped for scorn, she’d hoped for a scene. He didn’t make one, he gave a formal nod, then spurred his horse. “You’re a poison, Trin,” he said as he departed. “Do me a favor, and stay away.” If it had come from anyone else, she might have felt bad about it. As it was… well, she felt a little bad.
Gods, she felt bad. What was she going to do about Jem? She felt like crying, partly because of what Taehrn had said, partly for the uncertainty of not knowing if this was Fate’s curse or if this was just Taehrn being his bastard self. They could die here. She and Jem really could die, it wasn’t a game between ex-lovers. They were going off to war. It had to be Fate.
Trin closed her eyes and fought down the anger and the tears. Well, they were in it now. They were in it, and if Taehrn was going to pretend that he had no hand in it, then he sure wasn’t going to do anything to help them. She chewed her lip as she wondered how far he would go. Would Taehrn kill her for the inheritance? Trin didn’t want to believe that, but part of her knew that he might.
She stood by the roadside for several minutes before Jem and the others broke through the crowd and stepped off the bridge. Trin forced a smile, hoping her eyes weren’t as red as she feared. She hadn’t cried, but her eyes were itching like she might. They saw her and started toward her, Bell flashing her a commiserating smile. Jem was still pale, his eyes not on her, but far ahead of her… upon Taehrn, his blooding head bobbing in the distance.
“Things go all right?” Bell asked.
Trin let her anger toward him go. This wasn’t him. It was Taehrn, and it was Fate, and although Bell didn’t believe in the curse, he had still promised to help her.
She looked at Jem as she answered the question. “We’re in this now,” she said. “You okay, Jem?”
Jem pursed his lips. “Ye-yeah.” He stuttered, but he didn’t look at her. He was watching Taehrn, and though his face was pale, there was something else in his eyes. Anger. A whole lot of anger.
Gods, she liked this boy.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Good, you’re up,” Beda said. Null’s head turned to the swinging door. Beda’s black hair was disheveled and her eyes bloodshot. Her guardsmen’s uniform was out of form, looking wrinkled as though she had slept in it, which could not be the case as Beda was far too proud. “Are you prepared to leave?” Beda asked. As always seemed the case, both Null’s and Mycah’s departures had been delayed due to some miscommunication. Today they would both be heading in opposite directions.
“Yes,” Null said. She had just sent for a servant to carry her bags down to the wagons. Still, she had not expected Beda this early; it would be another hour before dawn.
Beda gave her a halfhearted nod. “Mycah has asked for you,” she said. “I will leave you be.” The commander left without another word.
No orders? Null marveled. No demands? By Lock, if she didn’t look so sulky she’d be almost pleasant. Null collected a stack of books she had borrowed from Mycah and left her chambers. She wanted to return them before she and Mycah went their separate ways. She didn’t want her teacher to think her ungrateful, or worse, forgetful. Of course, that was foolishness.
Mycah had been in the palace for almost as long as she, roughly fifteen years, and he was the closest thing to a family that Null had left. A few misplaced books would not change their relationship, not after so many years, but she did not know how long they would be apart and wanted his parting memories of her to be positive ones.
Though she was likely to come back, Null couldn’t help but think of this day as her last in the palace, and those emotions made her think of her first day here. And of her parents. Null remembered very little of her childhood and what she did remember, was not pleasant. She had one solid memory of her early life, and it was of the day her parents had discovered she was a mage and subsequently abandoned her to an orphanage.
Mages weren’t loved in Dekahn, not even by their parents. Although, considering her parents had only given her away rather than stoned her to death as the matron had attempted, Null was one of a lucky few. She speculated that her parents must not have been the smartest of people. Or perhaps they had feared that the matron would not have taken Null in had she known Null was a mage. Either way, Null had been forced to live the same scenario twice: first shock, then horror, and then disgust. For her parents, that disgust had led to abandonment and the stripping away of a name Null no longer remembered. For the matron, it had led to tying Null to a post then handing out rocks to the other children.
But those days were behind her and she didn’t like thinking about them – partly because she hated feeling like she owed Tyvan Dahl anything. Stopping the hail of stones, untying her from that post, and dragging her up to the palace had been the only kindness Tyvan Dahl had ever shown her, and even that had been done grudgingly. That day, she’d thought the spymaster a hero, it hadn’t taken long to realize otherwise.
Her first day in the palace had been miserable. Tyvan hadn’t been happy to receive orders demanding he rescue a mage who would henceforth be living in the palace. To vent his anger, he had stashed her away in a broom closet for most of the day, followed by a ten-minute reprimand on the evils of witchcraft, little of which Null had understood.
“You are nothing,” she remembered Tyvan screaming an inch from her face. “Your only purpose is to serve your king. If you disobey, I will kill you.” The only other part of that day she remembered was the queen barging in and smacking Tyvan on the back of his head. Null had only been seven after all, and had no idea what witchcraft even was, or what it had to do with her. She probably cried a lot that day, but if so, she didn’t remember the tears. She couldn’t imagine that she hadn’t cried, but now the memory held no feelings for her. Despite the horrors of that day, it had been the start of a new life, one she rather enjoyed.
It had been the queen who had given Null her new name. Tyvan had been rubbing the back of his skull, complaining about the pain, when the queen asked, “What is your name, child?”
“I dunno,” Null had said in her small voice.
“You don’t know your name, child?”
“No, ma’am, my parents took it back.”
“And what are their names?” Tepa tried.
“I don’t remember.”
“All right, then where are you from?”
“The orphanage,” she’d said.
“Before that child.”
In answer, Null had simply shrugged.
“Entaras Null,” the queen had mumbled.
Ever since, that had been her name. Null still didn’t understand why, but Tyvan called it a reminder of what she
really was; “the king’s bitch,” he often called her. But even Tyvan’s obnoxious insults didn’t bother Null much. She accepted that she was a mage, and knew that meant she was undesirable – at least to people like Tyvan and the Atheists.
Upon first meeting King Erin, Null had quickly redirected her gratitude from the man who had saved her to the man who had given the order. She’d been Erin’s loyal servant ever since, and she liked to think that she had proved her value to him several times over, no matter what Tyvan said.
But sometimes she grew impatient with the spymaster’s antics, mostly because the man was a fool. Despite Tyvan’s ignorance, Null was not a priest. She didn’t believe in the gods. She didn’t worship them or invoke rituals in their names. She was not a spy for Trel, a summoner of demons, or raiser of the dead. Frankly, she didn’t even believe the last two were possible. Magic was not a self-preserving system. She couldn’t wave her hands and make a river flow upstream for a thousand years. Not unless she could live for a thousand years and do it manually, which was ludicrous. At least, not as far as she knew. Mycah spoke of the magic which protected Dekahn as such a system, but she did not believe him. There had to be a simpler explanation for why the wood did not rot or burn, perhaps some kind of natural magic, but certainly it could not be the work of mankind. If there was a way to make an inanimate object autonomous, she hadn’t discovered it. Or needed it enough.
And that was the thing about magic that people like Tyvan Dahl didn’t understand. It didn’t act on its own, but was rooted in thought. Even mysticism, which was often reactionary, required intent. What the Atheists hated was the Faith and they believed that magic was the will of that Faith – like it was some sort of omniscient being working through every mage. To Null, that didn’t make any sense, but it was impossible to argue with Tyvan and his fanatics, for their beliefs weren’t rooted in thought, they were rooted in emotion.
Indeed, if it weren’t for that sole idea, that magic was the evil will of the Faith, she’d be an Atheist herself. Well, that and the fact that I’m a mage, but if they abandoned that thought they would no longer hate me anyway, so I could be a member of the Atheists.
Truly, she didn’t understand how the Atheists could rationalize these two counteracting beliefs. There are no gods, but magic is evil because it comes from a god? It was because Atheism was their faith and they cared more for the feelings it gave than the ideas behind it. Null was the true Atheist. She understood that magic responded to the will of the mage, not vice versa, and she didn’t believe in the gods either. But fools like Tyvan weren’t fighting against ignorance; they were fighting against a past injustice. They were fighting against Atherahn. Against the Butcher’s Cult. Against Dydal’s Writ. Their crusade was political, not logical.
Turning a corner, she heard the click of beads in the hallway behind her; a sound she was rather fond of. She stopped and waited to greet the queen.
“Null,” Rin Tepa said in greeting. Null fell in step alongside the queen.
“Good morning, my Queen.”
Queen Tepa looked rested and hale. Over one shoulder she carried an open-topped leather case. Mycah called it, ‘the queen’s quiver,’ and that’s exactly what it looked like; a giant quiver. It was the case the queen used to carry the dozen or so scrolls she took with her to all of Null’s lessons. As mages, Null and Mycah were not permitted to meet in private, and many years ago, when Null’s lessons with Mycah began, the queen had graciously offered herself as chaperone. This gesture was one that Null had always appreciated, and not solely because the spymaster had been first to volunteer. Though an Atheist herself, Queen Tepa was reasonable.
“Commander Stills found you?” the queen asked.
“Yes, Queen, we spoke briefly.”
“She is not herself this morning.” Queen Tepa scratched a hand against the edge of her mouth. “Damned face,” she announced. “Itches like the Call. Never get old, Null.”
Null ignored this last comment. The queen was an odd woman. Sometimes her terse manner seemed to war with her desire to keep others up to date on the smallest detail. Unlike most of Lock’s former queens, Tepa was not some consul’s daughter from another province. From what Null knew, Rin Tepa had been born the daughter of an innkeeper, in Dekahn’s market district. At sixteen, she’d been contracted by the previous city manager. By twenty-two she had become the manager, and by twenty-six she was married to the soon to be king, Prince Rickard. Even after they wed, the queen had kept her post. Perhaps it was because of this career that she found it necessary to announce her complaints, desires, and opinions, or perhaps it was her lowly birth, but the queen was blunt without fail.
“No,” Null said. “She did not look well. She has likely been preparing all evening for today’s departure.” Null loved the queen, but Beda’s crisis of belief was her own business, and although she didn’t like the woman, Null wasn’t about to share Beda’s personal information when Beda had not shared it herself.
“Pshah,” the queen balked. Whether the queen was dismissing Null’s explanation, or dissatisfied that Beda would let her work get to her, Null couldn’t tell.
After several seconds of quiet, Null decided to broach the other subject… “Did you get my parcel, Queen?” she asked.
The queen’s jaw shifted into a tight grimace. “Yes, thank you. The box and the book were delivered promptly.”
Null’s breathing felt a little tight. She shouldn’t be nervous, but the shame of a few days past still hadn’t faded. She should have told the queen of the Cleric’s letter immediately. She should have shown her the book the very moment Trin Cavahl had left.
“Did it help in any way?”
The beads of Rin Tepa’s hair clicked together as she turned to look at Null. Her face was hard to discern. She did not look upset, simply displeased. Perhaps frustrated.
“It’s early yet. I’ve not had time to examine it as carefully as I’d have wanted. Did you notice that there are pages missing?”
“Yes, Queen.” Just the memory made Null’s nose crinkle. “They are… wedged in the back cover.”
“No, I found them. I mean… there were several pages torn from the book, but there was still another that I could not find.”
It took Null a moment to calm her breathing enough to respond. “I was very careful, Queen.”
“I don’t doubt it. I am not accusing you. I’m simply curious… they sent the others, so where is that one?”
“Can you be certain that it’s missing?”
“I counted twelve torn edges, yet only eleven pages were in the box. One is missing.”
“I will search my quarters, Queen.”
“Don’t bother, I believe you.”
“Just to be certain,” Null said.
The queen grunted, but didn’t argue. “Could this be what he’s after…”
“Queen?”
“It’s nothing, Null, yet I’m beginning to suspect the book might be more important to the Cleric than I first thought… I compared those missing pages to our own copy. They seemed like a lot of nonsense. Vague and poetic mentions of two gods named Fate and Death, but…” The queen sighed. “I don’t know. It is too coincidental that one page is missing, but from the content I don’t see how it could be important.”
Rin Tepa’s gaze drifted away as they continued toward Mycah’s chambers. She looked deep in thought, so Null held the silence.
Reaching Mycah’s chamber, Null stepped to the door and knocked. The queen barged forward, without waiting for an answer, and pushed it open. Once through the doorway, instead of holding the door ajar, she tossed it, clearly expecting Null to grab it before it closed. The queen strode to her drafting table and dropped her scroll bag beside the chair. Null would have been mortified, but thinking back, she’d never seen the queen knock before entering Mycah’s chambers.
Mycah wandered in from his bedroom, carrying a pile of clothing. “You are already here,” he said. “That is good.”
He didn’t f
ace them as he spoke, but instead, faced his bookshelf, and as he stepped into the room, he was already perusing titles and tossing books onto his pile of clothes. He strolled to an open chest and dropped everything he carried.
“Gods, there is not enough time,” he complained.
The queen snorted as she pulled a scroll from her quiver and pinned its edges to the table. The scroll looked to be a map of the king’s warehouses, and the second one she removed looked like a long list of requisitions and inventories.
Mycah’s sitting room was a mess. Rather than couches and chairs, Mycah had a single long table at the center of the room. He did not expect guests, for he was far worse than a mage in the eyes of the Lockish court – he was an Atherahnian mage – and the citizens of Lock treated him as though he were the Butcher himself. Glass spheres, crystal balls, alembics, books, scrolls, and even rune stones were scattered about Mycah’s table. Though Null had never seen him use any of these items aside from the books, he claimed that these objects were necessary for magical research. Of course, he had never taught her about these objects in any of her lessons. Instead, he relied on words, and very rarely, diagrams. Spells weren’t often a visual thing, more often they were an emotional thing. At least the way Mycah taught magic. But that was because Mycah was a priest of Mystic, and most of what he knew was reliant on the power of emotional necessity.
“Aha!” he shouted, noticing the books Null carried. He came to her and bent over to read the titles, drawing a line beneath the text with a finger. Finding the tome he wanted, he pulled the middle book from Null’s stack and threw it into the chest from across the room.
“You may put the others on the table,” he said.
Null did so then sat on the bench in her usual seat next to the wooden, coal-filled kettle that heated the room.
Mycah scuttled to the far wall and began pulling a painting from its mounting. When he started panting in his effort to remove the nails from the frame, the queen glanced up from her scroll. Mycah had… a certain paranoia about objects falling off his walls, and so all of his paintings were nailed to the wall through the frame – indeed, the large map framed in his bedroom had been so firmly affixed, that Null had never been able to tell where the frame ended and the wall began. He seemed to believe that a painting cracking a frame would be more catastrophic than one of his alembics falling off the table and shattering to bits. Perhaps it was because he never used the alembics, but admired his art. The particular painting he chose was that of Mystic bestowing the Gods’ Right onto her servant Rift, one he entitled: The Anointing.
Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One Page 21