by E. C. Blake
Despite all her mistakes, Mara was convinced that following the Lady was absolutely the right thing to do now. She offered the only hope any of them had for the overthrow of the Autarch, and a future for Aygrima free of Masks and tyranny. Without her magic . . . and mine, Mara thought . . . the pitiful forces the Lady had assembled—eighty unMasked Army fighters, fifty sailors, and about two hundred villagers—would be crushed the instant the Autarch turned his full attention to the task. With the Lady’s magic, they just might stand a chance. Without it, they stood none at all.
And so Mara stiffened her spine again and put Hyram’s words behind her . . . though she did not forget them, or the pain they had caused. Not because she hated Hyram for uttering them, but because they were true. The pain was her well-deserved punishment for past mistakes . . . and a spur to drive her to atone for them in the future.
She recognized Catilla’s house, a modest two-story structure just to the left of the village gate, by the burly black-bearded man standing guard at the door: Captain Stamas, one of the unMasked Army’s leaders. She had first met him at a meeting of the captains she had been summoned to in the Secret City months ago. She wondered how many of the other captains who had been at that meeting still lived.
His eyes narrowed. “You,” he almost spat. “What do you want?”
“I’m here to see Keltan,” Mara said. “Hyram said he was meeting with Catilla.”
“So he is. But you are not invited.”
“I think he’d want to see me.”
“He might. But would Catilla?”
Mara glared at Stamas. Stamas stared back. Impasse, Mara thought, but even as she debated rushing the front door and seeing how far Stamas would go to stop her, it opened to reveal Keltan.
His eyes widened. “Mara?”
She nodded, her throat suddenly closed tight. I should have come to see him before now, she thought miserably. He probably hates me.
She heard a voice from inside the house, an old woman’s voice. Catilla. Keltan turned. “Yes, she’s here,” he said. Another murmur. “I will.” Keltan turned back toward Mara, stepped onto the porch beside Stamas, and closed the door firmly behind him.
“She doesn’t want to see me, I’m guessing,” Mara said.
“Not right now,” Keltan said.
“What did she ask you to do?”
Keltan glanced at Stamas, then came down the steps to Mara. “It’s good to see you,” he said. He hesitated. She felt frozen in place. Then finally, tentatively, he reached out and pulled her to him. He felt warm and solid and she suddenly found herself returning the hug, tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” Mara said, her voice muffled by the shoulder of his leather coat. “I don’t know why I didn’t.”
“I do,” Keltan said softly. “It’s what you said. You’ve been with your own kind.”
She stiffened, pulled away. “Keltan, I never should have—”
“It’s all right,” Keltan said. He held her at arm’s length, and smiled a little. “I was hurt when you said it, but I understand. At least I think so.” The smile faded. “You have a Gift I can barely imagine, Mara. And it’s dangerous. I’ve seen what it can do. I’ve felt what it can do. The most important thing you can do is learn to control it. I do understand. Really, I do.” He glanced over his shoulder at Stamas again. “Let’s take a walk,” he said. “We need to talk.”
Mara remembered that low murmur from Catilla, and realized Keltan had never answered her question. “What does Catilla want you to do?” she said.
“Walk with me,” Keltan said firmly, and took her arm. He turned toward the village, but Mara resisted.
“Not there,” she said. “Outside the walls. The Lady is in the village. She told me not to come down here. I disobeyed.”
Keltan’s left eyebrow lifted. “Really? That’s good.”
Mara’s own eyes narrowed. “Why?”
Keltan said nothing, but led her out through the gate again. He didn’t head toward the tents of the unMasked Army, though, instead taking her right, along the base of the wall, where snow drifts still lingered. They crunched along for a moment before he said, “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” Mara said. “But, Keltan, the Lady has taught me so much . . . I can control my magic so much better now.” She told him about her success with the trial the Lady had set her earlier that day, when she had lifted the stone from the table and hurled it out through the window. “Ethelda was wrong, Keltan. I can use my Gift safely. Thanks to this,” she touched the amulet at her neck, “I can use it without turning into a monster. I can—”
“Are you sure about that?” Keltan said softly.
“What? Of course I am. Arilla is proof that it’s possible.”
“Is she?” Keltan stopped, pulled her closer to the stones of the wall. “Mara, you haven’t been in the village this past month,” he said in a low voice. “I have. There’s something wrong with these people. Not all the time. But every now and then, some of them, at least, are like . . . like Axell, my best friend who was Masked before me. Like your friend . . . what was her name?”
“Sala?” Mara said.
Keltan nodded. “Sala. Remember how you told me she’d changed? There’s something not quite right with the villagers. Some . . . spark . . . missing. Stolen from them.”
“But there are no Masks here,” Mara said. “I don’t—”
“You told me,” Keltan said, “that the Autarch has the same Gift as the Lady. As you. He can see, and use, all kinds of magic. He can draw magic to him. But he’s not as strong as the Lady. As strong as you. He needs the Masks in order to pull magic from those around him—the ones on his Child Guard, and the new Masks, the ones made in the past couple of years, the ones that started failing more often, especially on the Gifted. But the Lady . . . the Lady doesn’t need Masks in order to draw magic from people. What if this ‘Cadre’ of hers is the equivalent of the Autarch’s Child Guard, the ones she draws a lot of magic from when she needs it in a hurry . . . but the rest of the villagers are like the kids wearing the new Masks, the ones the Autarch draws a little bit of magic from all the time, to keep him strong, keep him healthy, keep him young? What if the Lady is doing exactly same thing the Autarch is doing, only without any Masks at all?”
Mara stared at him. “That’s crazy.”
“Is it?” Keltan said. “Why? Because you don’t want to believe it? Because you don’t want to believe me?”
Mara felt anger building in her. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” she said. “You’re jealous of the time I’ve spent with the Lady. You want to turn me against her so I’ll turn to you, like I was some . . . some princess from an old storybook that has to be rescued by the brave prince.”
“You’re being silly,” Keltan snapped. “Mara, listen to me—”
“Silly?” The anger reached the surface. “Is that how you see me? Silly? A silly girl? Too stupid to understand anything? To make her own decisions?”
Keltan took a step back. “Mara, please,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did,” Mara said. She heard again in her mind the murmur of Catilla’s voice from the house by the gate. “That’s what Catilla asked you to do, isn’t it? To try to plant a seed of doubt in me, so I’ll turn to her instead of the Lady.” She pointed back the way they had come, at the gate. “So maybe you should go back and tell her your attempt to drive a wedge between me and the Lady has failed.”
“Mara, I’m not trying to turn you to or away from anyone,” Keltan said urgently. “I’m trying to warn you. To be careful. The Lady isn’t—”
“You’re following Catilla’s orders,” Mara said. “I heard her telling you something. I heard you say, ‘I will.’ She’s using you, Keltan. Using you to get to me, because I’m the one she really wants to use. She wants my p
ower under her command.” Mara poked him in the chest. “But I’m not going to be used anymore by anyone, Keltan. I’m my own mistress. And I have decided—of my own free will—to help the Lady. Together we’re going to destroy the Autarch. We’re going to make him pay for all the deaths. For my father. For Tishka. For Ethelda. For Simona. For all those unMasked children sentenced to the mines. And you can either help us, or you can stay out of my sight.” She poked him again, harder. “Or both.”
She could feel his own anger now, feel it in the magic within him. “You’re wrong, Mara,” he said. “Yes, Catilla asked me to warn you about Arilla. But I would have done it anyway. Because I love you.” His voice turned bitter. “I thought the feeling was mutual.” He pushed past her and strode away toward the tents of the unMasked Army. Just for an instant she was so furious at him that she wanted to reach out and yank on the magic inside him, force him to come back and apologize.
But instead she let him go. And that proves he’s wrong, she thought furiously. I can control this. The Lady has taught me how.
And then she realized what he’d said. I love you. Had he meant it?
She wanted to believe him. A part of her wanted to shout after him, “Of course I love you!” But she said nothing, instead watching him go without speaking, holding her fists clenched at her sides. Because she couldn’t be sure. And the reason she couldn’t be sure was the memory of that murmur from Catilla, telling him to do something . . . something he had agreed to do. Did he really love her, or was he just doing what Catilla had told him to do, trying to turn her from the Lady, trying to return her to Catilla’s control?
Keltan still wants to portray the Lady as a monster—because that’s what Catilla wants. She’s jockeying for power, hoping to seize control of Aygrima herself once Arilla has destroyed the Autarch. She’s hoping to turn me against the Lady. She probably thinks she can outmaneuver me more easily than she can Arilla.
But she’s wrong. She turned and looked south along the village wall, toward the towering peaks of the mountains, still capped with deep snow, which separated them from the Autarchy. Keltan had accomplished the exact opposite of what Catilla wanted. She had her own doubts about the Lady’s methods, but none whatsoever about Arilla’s burning desire to destroy the Autarch: a desire Mara shared with every fiber of her being.
She headed toward the gate. She would return to the palace, and resume her training, and when the time came, she would do what the Lady needed done to allow them to enter Aygrima and throw down its ruler.
Nobody is ever manipulating me again, she thought. I make my own choice.
And I choose the side of the Lady.
SIX
Decision Point
A WEEK LATER Mara and the Lady stood together in a workshop achingly like her father’s, looking down at the plain white Mask Mara had just crafted. It was the fifth in a row she had made successfully. She already knew the skills of decorating the Masks—she had learned that from her father before her failed Masking—and so knew she could make a Mask visually indistinguishable from those made by true Maskmakers. But although the Lady said these would also stand up to the scrutiny of a Watcher, it would be terrifying to trust someone’s life—or her own—to that untested ability. She hoped the Lady’s plan would not require it . . . not that the Lady had told her what her plan was. “Well done,” the Lady said now. “You have made great progress in the few weeks you have been here, Mara. I think we can move as soon as we want.”
“Move?” Mara said.
“Into Aygrima,” the Lady said. “As soon as the passes are cleared, we march south. I will invite Catilla and Chell to dinner this very evening.” She smiled. “Tonight, at long last . . . we make plans to destroy the Autarch.”
Now it was Mara’s turn to smile. “I can’t wait.”
But of course she still had to. Messages needed to be sent to Catilla and Chell, and it was hours until suppertime. Mara spent the time practicing with ordinary magic and with Whiteblaze.
The sun touched the horizon at last, and Mara, accompanied by Whiteblaze, went down to the lift chamber to welcome the arrivals. The Lady would not be there. She had tasked Mara with the chore because, she said, they would be anxious to see her and far less anxious to see the Lady. “I have it on good authority,” Arilla had said, “that I can be intimidating.”
Mara had laughed. “Just a little.”
But the truth was, Mara was the one feeling a little intimidated as she stood by the creaking lift, awaiting the imminent arrival of the delegation from below. She took a deep breath. She wasn’t the frightened and confused girl who had arrived at the Secret City half a year before. She had seen and done terrible things. She had grown in power and, more importantly, in control of that power. She no longer feared she was a monster. She was strong. She was brave. She was . . .
She was breathing way too fast and her heart was racing. Whiteblaze looked up at her and whined, and she put her left hand on his furry head. He made a soft “woof” of contentment, and her heart slowed. She could do this.
With her right hand she pushed aside a strand of hair that had escaped the rather elaborate bun Valia had created that was held in place with jeweled pins. Then she smoothed the front of her blue-gray dress, bound round with a belt of broad silver links, likewise smoothed her expression, and, left hand on Whiteblaze’s head, waited.
Heads appeared. For the first time in weeks, Mara saw the people who had once seemed so central to her life. Accompanied by a guard, they stepped off the still-moving platform into the fortress, just as Mara had weeks earlier.
Catilla, who wore a black cape over a black dress and carried a cane of pale blond wood, saw Mara at once. Her eyes blazed as brightly as ever. She looked far stronger than the last time Mara had seen her, when her body had still been recovering from the ravages of the cancer that Ethelda had Healed. What she didn’t look was any friendlier. Her brows knit together in a ferocious frown.
With her was Edrik, wearing simple brown pants and a red-brown deerskin jacket showing the rabbit fur that lined it at throat and cuff. His face was unreadable as he looked at Mara, though he inclined his head slightly in greeting, after a momentary pause when he first spotted Whiteblaze.
The third individual was Captain March, commander of the two-ship flotilla that had brought Chell and his countrymen to Aygrima. He wore his Korellian naval uniform, though it now had patches on the elbows. He did not acknowledge Mara at all.
Finally, there was Prince Chell, dressed in similar fashion to Edrik. Like Edrik, his eyes widened at the sight of the wolf. They narrowed again as he looked to Mara.
She clasped the black-lodestone amulet at her breast without thinking about it, realized what she had done, and released it again. “Catilla. Edrik. Captain March. Prince Chell.”
“It’s good to see you, Mara,” Chell said. “You look . . . different.” Better, his voice implied. She remembered again what had a good companion he had been on the journey north, how gentle he had been when she had . . .
Don’t think about that, she ordered herself.
“You look the same,” she said, doing her best to squeeze all emotion from her voice. “Please follow me. The Lady is waiting in the Great Hall.”
She led them, Whiteblaze at her side, to the stairs, moving slowly to allow Catilla to keep up. The old woman toiled up the steps one at a time, face set, but made no complaint.
The Great Hall nestled at the very center of the fortress. They entered it by way of a passage at one end separated from the hall itself by an intricately carved wooden screen. Arched over with dark beams carved in the shapes of bears and snow leopards and eagles and wolves, warmed by a central hearth where a giant fire blazed, the smoke rising through a vent high overhead, the hall could not have been more different from the refined rooms of the Autarch’s Palace in Tamita. Even by the standards of the Secret City it looked rather barbaric, an impress
ion heightened by the imposing presence of the Lady. Seated on a high-backed golden chair on the dais at the far end of the hall, wrapped in wolf fur, her hair a silver cloud around her head, tinged blood-red by the light of the fire and the torches lining the walls, she did not look like a great lady of Tamita. Not at all.
And that was even before you took in the five wolves around her feet this evening.
A small table with six chairs, one at each end and two on each side, had been erected at the bottom of the dais. Off to the right, where a door led to the kitchens, servants waited.
Whiteblaze trotted ahead to greet his fellows. Mara followed him. “Lady Arilla,” she said as she reached the dais. “Our guests have arrived.”
“They are welcome,” Arilla said. She got up from the throne-like chair and descended the dais. “Please, be seated and we will dine together.” She indicated the chairs around the table, took her own place at the head, and one by one they all sat down.
Catilla very deliberately took the chair at the far end of the table from the Lady. Mara sat at the Lady’s right hand. Chell sat next to her. Edrik took his place at the right hand of his grandmother, and Captain March sat down opposite Mara.
She didn’t look at Chell, keeping all her attention on the Lady.
“We have much to discuss,” Arilla said. “But we will not discuss it until we have dined.”
“Arilla—” Catilla began icily.
“Not yet, Catilla,” the Lady said firmly. “Dine. Enjoy. And then we will make our plans.”
“Our plans for what, Lady?” said Chell.
“All in good time, Your Highness,” the Lady said. She clapped her hands, and the servants sprang to life, bringing silver plates and goblets and utensils, plates of warm bread and bowls of butter, and flagons of wine. There were no fresh vegetables—even the Lady’s magic couldn’t conjure up those this far north at the tail end of winter—but the roast tubers in cheese sauce, the beef, freshly killed so no spices were needed beyond salt and pepper to make it delectable, and the rich dessert of candied blueberries and nuts, baked in pastry and drenched in cream, were as delicious as Mara had become accustomed to finding her meals over the past two weeks—and as the others evidently had not, since after the first bite or two they mostly ate in silence broken only by sounds of contentment.