I considered it for a moment, then remembered that she was family and that my vision was still dazzled enough from the glare of the sun that I couldn’t make out whether her hands were forming the somatic shape for a spell. “You should probably just tell me why you’re here, Shalla. This much powder starts to itch if I leave it on too long. After about five minutes it starts to really hurt. At that point it’ll have mixed with the oils from my fingers and it’s probably best to fire the spell rather than put the powders back in my holsters.”
She lowered her arms, a flicker of annoyance tightening her lips. “Don’t be such a child. I could stand here for a hundred years and you wouldn’t fire that spell at me. So don’t bother with your lazy anger and your fool’s tongue. It might make you sound clever and menacing to these Daroman halfwits but I know who you are, brother. I know you. So drop the act.” She walked over to the sofa. “Or else surprise me.” She sat down, crossing one leg over the other as she stretched an arm over the back. “Just don’t bore me.”
Shalla was every inch my father’s daughter and the thought of him made my fingers itch. My sister’s complacent smile made me want to prove her wrong. I wanted to fire the spell, to imagine my father’s face, shocked and filled with agony at the news that I had killed his daughter, despite all their conviction that I was too weak to defy them. But the image was hazy because I wasn’t sure that my father loved anyone or anything enough to be hurt by its passing. Part of me didn’t care. But there was another part that remembered all the times Shalla had tried to protect me, even if those occasions did always involve using me as a pawn in one of her schemes. “Why are you here, Shalla?”
“Sha’maat.”
“What?”
“My name, brother. I completed my trials and earned my mage’s name. I am no longer Shalla. Now I am—”
“Sha’maat,” I said, trying the word out on my tongue. Somehow those two syllables felt as if they’d stolen something precious from me. I let the powders fall back into the holsters. “What have you done to Reichis?” The squirrel cat was sniffing around the room now, looking for food.
“Silk magic. A simple spell actually.” A slight theatrical pause as she brushed an imaginary speck of dust from her dress. “For me, anyway.”
“Well, when Reichis comes out of whatever trance you’ve put him in, he’s going to want to kill you, so maybe you should tell me why you’re here.”
She patted the seat next to her on the couch. “Because it’s your birthday, of course. I’ve brought you a present.”
I couldn’t see any signs that she was readying a spell, but while the penalty for one Jan’Tep murdering another is usually death, the penalty for killing a shadowblack typically involves gifts and a three-day feast. I walked over to the bed and sat on the corner a few feet away from her. Her bemused expression made me feel like a stubborn child.
“I was there in the court, you know,” she said.
My spine stiffened and my mind went hurtling back through the past few days, trying to see her face among the crowds of nobles and courtiers. How could I have missed her? The thought that someone from my family could get so close to me without my noticing them chilled me. “When? Today?”
“Today. Yesterday and the day before as well, actually. That was quite the performance you and Ginevra put on.”
“Ginevra?”
“The queen, silly. You should probably take the time to learn her name if you’re going to be of any use to us at all.”
“I can’t think of anything I want less than to be of use to our family, Sha’maat.”
She sighed. “It’s never been about what we want, sweet brother. You are Kellen of the House of Ke and will do wh—”
“My name is Kellen Argos now, sister. It has been for a while. You might as well get used to it.”
“No, brother, I will not,” she said. Her voice had an edge to it. “Besides, Kellen is a child’s name, just as Shalla was for me. It’s long past time you grew up.”
It was my turn to be angry. “I would have happily taken a man’s name, Sha’maat, but our father forgot to persuade the council to offer me one. Perhaps because he was too busy trying to have me killed.”
She rose, gracefully, as if she’d rehearsed it just that way, the way she did everything. She walked over to the bed and placed a hand gently on my cheek. I felt an overpowering desire to put my hand against hers, to feel connected once again to the yellow-haired girl I used to argue with when we were children. She leaned in and whispered, “Let’s not quarrel, brother. Don’t you want to see your present?”
The slight sound of silk fabric shifting made me look up. She pulled a card from inside the top of her gown with a length of string attached to it. The card was a little bigger than those of my Argosi decks. In fact, I’d only ever seen one card that particular size before. “Let me guess. You brought me another of Father’s scrying cards, so he can spout more of his edicts at me?”
“Better than that,” she said, stepping away from me and glancing about the room. “I’ll need a candle. A lantern would be better actually.”
There was an oil lamp on the table next to the bed. I lit it using a few grains of powder and handed it to her. She balanced it on the arm of the sofa, then held the card by the string, dangling it in front of the flame. With her free hand she flicked the card, making it spin. Light from the lamp began to pass through the card itself, casting shadows against the wall.
My sister looked at me. “Would you like to perform the spell?”
“You know I can’t work silk magic.”
She shrugged and made a series of somatic gestures with her right hand before speaking the incantation. I could match every movement and shape and utter the same syllables perfectly, but for me it would produce no result. “Rhea naphan,” she said.
The lamplight flickered as if the flames themselves were dancing. Without Sha’maat having to touch it at all, the card began to float by itself, spinning faster and faster. The shadows on the wall shifted and twitched as if a rough charcoal sketch were being drawn and redrawn faster than the eye could follow. I had expected to see a face, but what appeared instead was a mansion of the Jan’Tep style, bigger than most, as befits a noble family. Though the projection was all in blacks, my mind filled in the copper-coloured roof, red-brown steps and white marble walls. Kath trees swayed, their long strands of thin rope-like branches shifting in the wind, arrow-head leaves like gentle hands beckoning to me. It was a sight I had not seen in over two years.
“Home,” I said, the word barely loud enough to reach my own ears. “You’ve made a scrying card for our home…”
I felt her arms reach around me and hug my chest. “Happy birthday, brother,” she said.
“This… This must have taken months to create. Why?” I wanted to see what was in her expression, but try as I might I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the projection.
“Because I know how much you miss it. Because it’s your birthday and even after all the foolish things you’ve done, I love you.” Her hands released me and I heard her step back to the table. A moment later the flickering shadows stopped and the image disappeared from the wall.
I turned to see her standing before me, holding the card for me to take. It felt warm to the touch. “Now you can see it whenever you want,” she said.
“You know I can’t do the spell, Sha’maat. It’s just a card to me.”
“Then send for me, dear brother, whenever you want to see it again, and I’ll come do the spell for you.”
Of course. Another trick, another game, another tool with which to control me. I went to turn away from her, but the gentleness of my sister’s voice held me back. “Or simply return with me, and have no need for such devices ever again.”
I spun around, searching her face to see if she was mocking me, but her expression was full of earnest longing. “What are you saying to me, Shalla?”
“You have to call me Sha’maat now, brother.” She took a careful step t
owards me, the way you might handle a shy animal about to bolt. “And my name isn’t the only thing that’s changed. You don’t have to be alone any more, brother. You can come home.”
Home.
The word came on me like the blade of an assassin who has struck before you even knew you’d pissed anyone off. It passed through my skin and slipped between my ribs to reach my heart before I could harden myself to it. How could I want something so badly that had never brought me anything but misery and pain?
I looked at my sister again, her green eyes staring back at mine. She could read me so easily, even when we were children. Whatever I was feeling or thinking or planning, she picked up on it. Usually it put me off my game and made me nervous and awkward. But now, because I saw in her face the recognition of how close I was to bending to her will, I realised I could see through her too.
“He sent you here, didn’t he?” I asked.
When she didn’t answer I pressed her again. “Answer me. Did Ke’heops send you here?”
She nodded, her eyes still hopeful. “I would have come regardless, so long as he didn’t forbid it. But yes, Father sent me to you.” She rushed through the words just a little.
“I don’t believe—”
She came to me and put a hand on my chest. “Brother, it is true, I swear. Father is the mage sovereign of our people now, and he says you can come home. You’ll be Jan’Tep again, among your people, welcomed and loved.” Sha’maat hugged me and rested her head against my shoulder, her mouth close to my ear as she whispered, “He’ll give you your name.”
I felt her hands linking around my back, pulling me closer. She was offering me something I had never believed possible so had never dared think I wanted. My name. My mage’s name. Would my father really take me back?
Ancestors, what’s wrong with me? Ke’heops had counter-banded me, denying me any chance at a mage’s future. He’d allowed the council to put a spell warrant on my head. He’d sent my own best friend, Panahsi, to kill me. Now the faint promise of my family’s acceptance was enough to make me this weak?
The love and warmth in Sha’maat’s embrace told me she knew I was more than half hers at that moment. She’d always known me better than I knew myself. But I had always understood our father better than she ever could. “What does he want?” I asked, pushing her gently away.
If there was a trace of sorrow or regret in her eyes, I couldn’t find it. She simply held my gaze evenly, confident as always that, despite the fact that I was two years older, she knew better than I did. “Ke’heops has a mission for you, brother. A few simple duties for you to complete before you return home.”
“Duties?” I almost choked on the words. “Father has duties for me?” I felt betrayed by my own heart that I couldn’t blast a hole in my beloved sister then and there. I even felt angry at Reichis for failing to voice my rage. “Sha’maat, I swear, if you say his name to me again I may just pull powder and surprise you at last.”
She ignored me, as she always did when I threatened her. “Like it or not, brother, he is the mage sovereign of our people and the head of our household. I know how hurt you were by… some of the actions Ke’heops took, but he had no choice.” She reached out a hand and traced a fingertip along the elaborate lines of the shadowblack around my left eye. “None of us had a choice.”
I pulled back. “But now? Now you’ve all decided I’m okay? That I’m not demon-spawned or devil-possessed or whatever other nonsense. Now I’m suddenly Jan’Tep again?”
Sha’maat looked into my eyes. For an instant I thought I saw the yellow-haired girl of our youth again, but she disappeared from view, replaced by the Jan’Tep diplomat, the mage and oh-so faithful daughter. “Those things haven’t changed, brother, how could they? But now… now you have altered your circumstances and we have more pressing matters.”
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. The fact that she could stand here and say these things to me infuriated me almost as much as the fact that I lacked the spine to walk out of the room without asking the obvious question. “What exactly does he think I’m going to do for him?”
Sha’maat nodded, as if we could get down to business. “The situation in Darome is changing, brother. We can no longer afford to sit back and watch our own numbers dwindle away as the child queen consolidates power. We believe there is a weakness in her, something we could use to control her, but we can’t discern it.” She waved her arm at the stone walls of the palace. “These damned Daroman with their iron and stone. Do you know they import it from across the sea? It makes certain forms of magic harder to work here. We had hoped our other agents might have gradually given us the means to control Ginevra, but your arrival has made that more complicated. Brother, you will use your position to gain control over the queen. You’ll put her in a position of weakness and uncover what secrets we can exploit.”
She walked over to the window and gazed out at the fading sun. “Oh, and when the time is right, you’ll execute the Countess Mariadne.”
“What? Why would the Jan’Tep go after her? What has she done?”
“She rejected certain overtures Father made. We cannot afford for her to gain more influence.”
“Then why doesn’t he just assassinate her himself? It’s not as if he doesn’t have the power. When she leaves the palace he could reach out with one spell and extinguish the life from her as easily as you put out the flame of that lamp.”
She shook her head. “You’ve never understood the higher forms of magic properly, brother. There are… costs to such actions. Father’s soul must remain untarnished.”
The hypocrisy of my family’s beliefs never ceases to amaze me. “And what about my soul?”
“Brother, I love you, but your soul already has a claim against it; you know that.”
I flinched at the words. The harsh, simple, almost casual truth of it. I was shadowblack and thus condemned to the eternal blood-red ending that awaits a blackened soul. I couldn’t be saved, so I might as well be useful. I was no different than the horses that pulled the tillers across my family’s fields or the boot-jack they used to remove their shoes.
A part of me expected to hear Reichis snicker at the way I let myself be manipulated, or maybe growl at Sha’maat. But he was rolled in a ball, sleeping in the corner like somebody’s pet. Even though I knew that this thing that happened—whatever it was—wasn’t his fault, I hated him for just a second. Then I hated myself for much longer. Finally I said, “I’m not going to kill off some widow just because she had the good sense to refuse our father.”
“She’s a fool,” Sha’maat said. “His offer was better than she deserved.”
I wanted to hurt her, so I said, “Not everyone has the same degree of desire for our father’s offerings as you do, Sha’maat. Some of us even find them… unseemly.”
She looked at me and in her face I couldn’t find the slightest injury, just a tiny smirk at the corners of her mouth. “And here I thought you said you were incapable of projection spells, brother.”
“Nevertheless, the answer is no.”
She took a deep breath and sighed. “I see you need some time to consider the way of things. I will leave you here with all your illusions intact.”
As she turned towards the door a thought occurred to me. Other agents. She had said they had other agents they’d been using against the queen. “Koresh and Arrasia—were they your creatures, Sha’maat?”
She turned and nodded slightly, but then tilted her head. “Not precisely. Though they were serving our purposes. It’s more accurate to say that they were cooperating with our interests, though they were not, perhaps, entirely aware of them. But you interfered in that.”
There was a question forming in my mind. I looked back at Reichis again and thought about how close he’d come to dying. If she answered the next question with a yes, then every chain of resistance would be gone from me. I would kill my sister here and now. “Did you help them set the langzier on us?”
&nbs
p; “Not exactly.”
My fingers itched to feel the burn of the red and black powders. “It’s a yes or no question.”
“The langzier was never meant for you, brother. Had it been, you would never have survived. Arrasia must have had someone refocus its intent towards you instead of its original target. There are always mages around ready to perform minor magics for the right price. Be assured, brother, it was not I who cast the spell.”
“But you gave them the snake.”
“Months ago and to use at the right moment, for the right purpose. Not for some petty vendetta against you. I informed them that I was withdrawing my support. Immediately.”
So that’s why they’d gotten so desperate, probably hiring the first assassin they could find. Had they been counting on magical help to protect them from me and she’d abandoned them? I wondered if she’d told them that she was my sister. “All these schemes. All these plans you and Father have.” I held the card out to her. “I’ll have nothing to do with them, Shalla.”
“My name is Sha’maat!” The anger in her voice was jarring. Brittle. She stood there a few moments, just breathing, before she said, “You have to get used to saying it, brother. You have to…” Her voice trailed off. She walked back to me and then wrapped her hands around mine, closing my fingers on the card. She kissed it lightly, and then me. “You will do as your mage sovereign commands, though it may take you a little while to accept it. You’ll do so because you’re Jan’Tep, no matter how foolishly you prance about with your Argosi pretensions, dressed like a frontier herder in that preposterous hat with its silly superstitious symbols. You’ll learn the queen’s secrets for us and, when the time is right, you’ll kill the countess. Then you’ll come home to our family. To me.”
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