Aethersmith (Book 2)

by J. S. Morin

  “Milady, hold still,” one of the old ladies complained from above as she tilted her head back enough to down a swallow of wine.

  “This will go a lot faster if I have something to occupy myself,” she countered.

  “Aye, maybe for you, your ladyship,” the old woman shot back. Juliana chuckled. She always preferred older servants. Beyond a certain age, they lost that obsequious veneer that got lacquered onto them wherever it was that servants were trained. You could actually talk to them without having them all agree with every inane thing you said: “Yes, milady, the sky is much too blue today.” “Of course, milady, I will bring your morning feast out to the stables.” “Milady, I would be delighted to take your pony to the market to let her pick out her own apples.”

  Juliana paused a moment in her musings. I was a rotten little thing. No wonder Mother wants me to wear this silly hair-thing. I probably deserve it.

  When her hair was finally done, they had her stand to begin assembling her dress around her. The weight and size of her peacock’s crest made her head wobble strangely as she moved. It only felt right when she kept her movements slow and her head steady.

  Aha! Now I see. If I do not keep dignified, the thing will pull my hair. Devious …

  The gown was all white satin, with gold trim and embroidery. It covered from the tops of her breasts clear down to the floor, hugging her slender torso and billowing out like a bell to hide her skinny legs. If she held her arms straight out, she could make a long band of bare flesh from fingertip to fingertip across her collarbone, but that was about all that was left untouched upon her.

  Some young lass (who was probably ten summers her senior and expert in life extension) came and reddened her lips, darkened her eyelids, and brightened the whites of her eyes. Juliana usually took care of her cosmetic magics herself, but the young sorceress was versed in making brides appear stunning even when viewed from half a jouster’s tilt away.

  At last, she stepped into her slippers. They were the plainest part of her wardrobe, chosen for comfort in standing for extended periods rather than looks—the only kindness they had done her all day, by Juliana’s reckoning. The length of her dress would hide them entirely. She had always wanted to wear heeled slippers on her wedding day, but she towered over Iridan as it was, they told her. She had then offered to go barefoot and was met by stern, disapproving looks.

  She sighed. Maybe when married life wears on me, I can see if Brannis could be convinced to take a mistress. The man is not made of stone.

  * * * * * * * *

  Captain Varnus Coldlake cut an impressive figure as he stood guard over the door where Juliana dressed: a hulking mass of muscle wrapped in polished silver armor (which bore real, functional runed steel beneath the surface) and baring a heavy steel greatsword, gleaming as it sat point-first against the black marble floor shot through with veins of green. Hard, ice-blue eyes scanned the corridor in either direction, clearing a path around him that servants and guests alike steered clear of. Though of a mind to wear a beard through the cold season, he was clean-shaven for the wedding, his weathered face finally getting the same view that his shiny, waxed pate normally got after a winter of being entombed in greasy black hair.

  It was a proud day for Varnus. While he was not to be the center of attention, he would be just slightly off-center, in full view of everyone worth knowing in the Empire. His position with House Archon was secure. His low birth limited his options for advancement anyway, but he liked the idea of being known. Juliana had done him quite the favor in naming him oath guardian. It was a ceremonial position to be sure, harkening back to the days when a treaty might ride on the continued virginity of a noble daughter up to the point of her wedding night. The thought was that a trusted knight would guard the honor of a lass of fourteen summers or so, lest anyone overpower and defile her. They had not anticipated in that bygone era that the hereditary sorcerous bloodlines would take up the idea and parade a soldier around with a sorceress of twenty-and-three autumns under the pretense of her needing his protection.

  Still, Varnus honored the tradition, keeping anyone from entering the room. At length, there was a knocking from within, and he took the key from around his neck and unlocked the door. Even with one in six guests being a member of the Imperial Circle, they used a mundane lock and key as tradition would have it.

  Juliana emerged, prettier than he had ever seen her, despite the funny fan thing they had done with her hair. She smiled up at him self-consciously, seeking approval.

  “You look stunning, Lady Juliana,” he offered. There were days when he had trouble keeping her and Soria separate in his head, but today was not one of those. He could not envision Soria wearing such finery (without being in disguise, at the least).

  Varnus sheathed his blade and offered Juliana his arm. It was his honor to escort her to the ceremony while his Archon house guards kept the halls clear as they made their way to the expansive front lawns of the palace.

  He could feel the tension in Juliana as she walked along beside him. She usually had such an ease about her, doing what she wanted, when she wanted. Being paraded about at the center of an event she would much rather have avoided entirely, she was trembling.

  She manages to look happy enough. Most folk wouldn’t know the difference. Hope she can keep the act up all day. That Iridan doesn’t seem like a bad sort. Perhaps he’ll grow on her.

  When they exited the palace doors, they were greeted with a massive cheer from the assembled guests gathered upon the lawn. He handed the bride off to her father, who escorted her down an aisle in the middle of the throng, so that more of the attendees might see her, and brought her back again. Iridan would have already done the same before their arrival, escorted by his mother.

  The mother was a curious woman, Varnus noted. She was petite and looked young enough to have been Iridan’s sister—with him the elder brother, at that. She wore her hair a gaudy green color, unlike the more tasteful blondes and deep blacks that most Kadrin sorceresses preferred, or even the more exotic reddish-gold that Juliana and Lady Ophelia fancied. Her eyes seemed just a bit too large for her face as well. Juliana said she had heard Iridan’s mother was immortal, but had no other information about her. She stood out from the warlock at her side, dressed in a plain white shoulderless gown of humble design. It contrasted with her creamy brown skin, making her look foreign among the fair-skinned native Kadrins. Iridan obviously took after his father’s looks.

  With the pageantry out of the way, the blood-scholars took over. Bookish sorts by nature, they seemed to thrive on being called away from their recordkeeping duties to finalize the marriages their order arranged. Varnus paid scant attention to the names they gave, or the fables they recounted, or the history they invoked. It was dry, meaningless stuff, meant to lend dignity and weight to the art of picking out which two sorcerers got to rut in order to advance the breed. It worked the same with pigs, horses, or hunting dogs. Everyone knew it, but few folk spoke of it in earshot of a Circle member. They knew it too, according to Juliana. The blood-scholars’ words were meant to remind them of their duty, of the upside, of being bred like cattle …

  In the crowd, Varnus noticed Sir Brannis, the brawny knight standing out in both garb and build among his family on the Solaran side of the center aisle. He pitied the poor lad. He’s got the weight of the Empire on him, with the warlock over one shoulder and General Sir Hurald Chadreisson hovering over the other, waiting for him to fail so that he can retake command of the army. Juliana ought to have married him instead. Would have made her happier, anyway. Seemed like an upstanding one, for a Solaran, even before the knights got hold of him. He had barely known Brannis, remembering him more as a boy of fourteen summers who had courted Juliana at the start of their doomed engagement. Protective as Varnus was of Juliana, he approved of the boy; he could be trusted to put himself between her and a sword blow.

  * * * * * * * *

  At length, the meat and gristle of the ceremony began. Wh
ile the earlier pronouncements had been for the guests as much as the couple, the blood-scholar turned his attention solely to Iridan and Juliana. “Iridan Solaran, Warlock of the Imperial Circle, I call on you to make a binding oath. Swear before all present … will you guard Juliana Archon against all harm?”

  “I swear it,” Iridan replied solemnly.

  “Will you place Juliana Archon’s needs before your own?” the blood-scholar asked.

  “I swear it,” Iridan answered.

  “Will you disavow all other claims against your wealth, your lands, and your heart, that Juliana may share equal claim of them?”

  “I swear it,” Iridan replied. His possessions were meager and his heart unclaimed by any other.

  “Will you raise your children under the guidance of the Imperial Circle, strengthening the Empire by joining your blood with hers?” the blood-scholar continued.

  “I swear this as well,” Iridan stated.

  “Then swear your oath to your betrothed and pledge your life to her,” the blood-scholar instructed.

  Iridan turned to face Juliana. His voice caught in his throat for just a moment as their gazes locked. He saw in her eyes a trapped sort of fear that described his own feelings far more eloquently than he could have hoped to with words.

  “I swear, before all gathered here, that I will join my life with yours. I will share your joys and comfort your sorrows. I will father your children and teach them strength and wisdom. I will stand by your side until the day of my death and wait for you beyond.” Iridan managed to get through it all without his voice breaking, but they were the hardest words he had ever spoken. They were oppressively heavy words whose weight he could barely stand to carry. He could only hope that he would live up to them.

  The elderly blood-scholar nodded approvingly. He had no doubt seen more reluctant couples than the two before him and had heard poorer oaths.

  “Juliana Archon, Sorceress of the Sixth Circle, I call on you to make a binding oath. Swear before all present … will you guard Iridan Solaran against all treachery?”

  “I do swear,” Juliana replied, inadvertently slipping up and mixing in the Kheshi vows that Soria had learned.

  Hold it together, Juliana, she told herself. Everyone is watching.

  “Will you place Iridan Solaran’s needs before your own?” the blood-scholar asked.

  “I swear it,” Juliana replied, allowing herself a tiny sigh of relief at getting it right on the second attempt.

  “Will you disavow all other claims against your wealth, your lands, and your heart, that Iridan may share equal claim of them?”

  “I swear it,” she lied.

  “Will you raise your children under the guidance of the Imperial Circle, strengthening the Empire by joining your blood with his?” the blood-scholar continued.

  “I swear this as well,” Juliana agreed.

  “Then swear your oath to your betrothed and pledge your life to him,” the blood-scholar instructed.

  “I swear, before all gathered here, that I will join my life with yours. I will share your joys and comfort your sorrows. I will bear your children and teach them loyalty and compassion. I will stand by your side until the day of my death and wait for you beyond,” Juliana recited.

  Just words. No magic to them at all. They only have the power I allow them to have. They probably should have had Iridan pledge the loyalty part, though.

  “Now, if you will clasp hands …” the blood-scholar requested. They complied, reaching out tentatively for one another. Juliana’s hands were damp with sweat. She noticed his were shaking. “By the authority of the Kadrin Empire and her regent, I declare you wedded. May your union last a hundred springtimes.”

  The crowd waited, hushed and expectant. She knew what was expected of them, and they came together shyly, Juliana bending down to bring her face level with Iridan’s.

  Everyone is watching, she thought. Just do it and be done with it.

  Juliana closed her eyes, and pictured Brannis as their lips met, hearing the eruption of cheering from the crowd as they kissed.

  Their kiss broke off with a start as a trumpeting call blared from high above. Three sailing ships sped through the sky above, circling their wedding guests and playing a fanfare. The gleaming hulls were freshly painted light blue and white, matching the midday sky. Trumpeters lined the railing that faced the crowd, wearing alternating tabards of Solaran yellow and Archon green. The crowd cheered anew at the sight, and Iridan and Juliana were spared the intense focus on them as gazes turned skyward to take in the spectacle.

  A parting gift from the crews of your new airships, Brannis? Juliana mused. You have always known what to do to make me feel better.

  * * * * * * * *

  Varnus had worried that Juliana would “get a bit of Soria in her,” as he called it when she acted without regard for anything but her own interest. To his relief, the ceremony went much as planned. His eyes keep sweeping through the crowd, looking for trouble in the habit of one who had spent most of his life as a personal guard.

  It was his training that perked up his senses as he noticed a flinch in Iridan’s mother. Something had caught her attention, though she showed only the barest hint of distraction. It was enough to set Varnus on edge, to the point where his hand strayed to his sword hilt. The guests’ attention was drawn away from the palace steps, and even the warlock’s attention was on the skies above, when a man appeared out of nowhere behind the warlock.

  Naked but for a loincloth, and covered in painted runes, he carried a wicked-looking runed dagger in one hand, poised close enough to lunge for Warlock Rashan. The assassin’s eyes widened as he made his strike, unprepared for the warlock’s reaction. Rashan spun, catching his assailant by the wrist and twisting, forcing the man to the ground. In the span of a heartbeat, the man was thrashing futilely on the ground, with the warlock’s small, booted foot pressed to his throat.

  Only a few had taken notice of the attack, and Rashan cast a quick illusion over the strange assailant to hide him from the unobservant among the crowd. Brannis's sword hand had not even reached the hilt of Avalanche before all had been rendered safe by the warlock's actions.

  “You are nearly done. Pay this no mind and finish, if you please,” Rashan told the blood-scholar who had been one of the few either close enough or circumspect enough to have noticed the disturbance amid the fanfare.

  Rather than orating on the future that Iridan and Juliana were to be expected to share together, the blood-scholar wisely made a few brief remarks and adjourned everyone to the feast as soon as decorum allowed. The warlock kept his attention on the speaker, allowing his would-be assassin just enough air to breathe to keep him alive.

  It was an awkward end to a wedding, but it was better than Varnus had expected.

  * * * * * * * *

  Rashan threw his attacker to the floor of a small storage room a level below the palace’s main floor, where he had dragged him immediately following the ceremony. The paint from his body had smeared the floors all along the way, leaving blood mixed in as well, as not all of the palace’s floors were polished smooth (and certainly not the stairs to the servants’ levels).

  “So you were sent by the Megrenn, I assume,” Rashan began. “I admit I am impressed at your boldness and your skill at stealth. I did not notice you until it was almost too late.”

  “One demon I was prepared to kill. Two, I was not ready for,” the man confessed. His accent sounded familiar to Rashan, but a hundred winters of exile from the mortal world had muddied dialects in his absence. “I do not know what strange magic stripped my spell from me, but I think it was not your own.”

  “Yes, take pride that you fooled me at least,” Rashan conceded. He looked the dagger over appraisingly. “You were dead the moment you used this thing, you know. It would have sucked your Source dry in an attempt to destroy mine.” Rashan paused a moment, concentrating his attention on a few key runes, then studying his attacker’s Source. “It might have wo
rked, too.”

  “I was glad to die to rid the world of you,” the man proclaimed. “I would have been a hero.”

  “Well, hero, take heart that I have little thought to keep you alive for information. As one warrior to another, if you tell me where you would like your body sent, I will see it returned to your people,” Rashan said.

  Someone is going to pay for this, Rashan thought. And one life is not going to suffice.

  The man studied the warlock’s face, but found it impassive, betraying no insight to the demon’s thoughts. “Truly?” he asked warily.

  “You will be dead before the first course of the wedding feast is over, whether you tell me or not. The only difference is whether I send your body home or feed it to whatever lives down in the sewers these days. I have neither the patience nor the inclination to torture. It is the idle amusement of a sick mind, and no proper pastime for a warlock,” Rashan bluffed.

  Come now, put a name to your homeland for me. I will bring your body to them, of course. I would hate for them all to die confused, with no explanation for my anger at them.

  “Hu’nua. It is a small island in the western half of Gar-Danel,” the man admitted. “Do you know it?”

  “I do.”

  “Thank you, demon. Die well, and soon,” the assassin closed his eyes and resigned himself to his fate.

  * * * * * * * *

  Brannis could not help glancing down the long feast table, to where the bride and groom shared the head. Off in another part of the palace grounds from the ceremony, they supped out of doors in the new springtime air. Fires blazed all about, warring with the stubborn vestiges of a winter too bold to retreat upon its celestial expiration. A fire a few paces behind him was enough to warm Brannis against the worst of the afternoon breezes. He wondered whether his proximity was by good fortune or design. A great many sorcerers feasted that day and all but the least among them could protect themselves against such paltry inconvenience as weather.