by Amy Raby
“And?” This was the part of the operation that worried Janto most, that Micah might find one or two women willing to betray the others. If he could divide the women, he might regain his power over them.
“Linna was one of them he tried. He pulled her aside, asked her who set up that business the other night. She blinked at him, innocent-like, and said, ‘What business?’ He wouldn’t explain what he meant—couldn’t come out with it. He’d go at the subject sideways, and she’d sidle away.”
“Did anyone, uh, tack?”
She shook her head. “We agreed that if anyone did, we’d spit in her oatmeal every day, and worse.”
Janto feared for Sirali, since if Micah did convince someone to name the instigator, that person, not knowing much about Janto, would name her. But Sirali seemed not to fear this prospect. Janto had the impression that Sirali had already been through the worst life had to offer, so something like this didn’t intimidate her much. “Was that the end of it, then?”
“No,” said Sirali. “A few days later, he got cod-proud again and grabbed Mori.”
“Grabbed her! You mean—”
“Right, and I’m not finished,” said Sirali. “A dozen of us rushed him. We didn’t plan it. Didn’t even think about it. It was gods-inspired, like we all had the same thought at once. He let go of Mori’s arm and ran like a field mouse from a grass fire.” She grinned, exposing her crooked teeth. “He’s not touched a one of us since.”
Pleased, Janto held out his hand to Sirali, and they interlocked index fingers in the gesture of shared victory.
• • •
“I have figured something out,” said Rhianne as Janto materialized in her sitting room the next day. “You always arrive at mealtimes. I think you’re using me for food.”
“I’m definitely using you,” said Janto, lifting the cover off her dinner tray. “But not for food. It would help if your doors opened at other times of the day.”
“If you left me a note, I might know when to expect you,” said Rhianne. “Then I could arrange for the door to open at the proper time.”
Janto tasted her potato-and-leek soup. “I prefer surprising you.”
“If you wish to have dinner with me, there’s a price to pay,” said Rhianne.
He looked at her, eyebrows raised, with the spoon still in his hand.
“You will tell me something about yourself.”
“Tell you what?”
“I told you about my background, how Florian stole me away from my real parents, how Lucien and I were the terrors of the palace because we were the backup children, of interest only as future marriage prospects. But I know almost nothing about you.”
“I’m a shroud mage. I speak five languages. I climbed lorim cliffs as a boy—”
Rhianne shook her head. “I mean your family. It’s obvious you’re nobility. I want to know about the people close to you.”
Janto drizzled oil onto a slice of bread. “How much do you know about Mosari politics and history?”
“Almost nothing.”
“And the royal family?”
“There’s a king and a queen. Two princes.”
“Mosari nobility, what do you know of them?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t want to lie to you,” said Janto. “I can’t tell you my zo name or the names of my family members, because if I did that, I’d be putting people in danger—”
“Your zo name?”
“You don’t know what that is?” He shook his head. “You’re supposed to govern my people alongside Augustan, and you know nothing about Mosar.”
“My uncle doesn’t believe in educating women, at least not about politics and other countries. That’s why I recruited you to teach me the Mosari language myself.”
“Well, when a Mosari mage soulcasts, if he does it successfully, he is given a new name. Like Ral-Vaddis—that’s a zo name. If you have a zo name, then you’re part of our zo caste. It means you’re a mage.”
“Is Janto a zo name?”
“No. I have one, but I don’t use it here,” said Janto. “Too dangerous.”
“Make up names for your family members. I don’t care,” said Rhianne. “Just tell me about them. What are they like? Are your parents still alive?”
“They were alive when I left Mosar.”
“Do you like them? Hate them? Why do I have to drag details out of you? You’d think I was performing an interrogation.”
“Of course I like them,” said Janto. “They’re good people.” When she glared at him, he added, “My younger brother and I were competitive. We’d try to seduce the same women.”
“Oh?” She felt a little jealous of those unknown women. “Who usually won?”
“My brother.” Janto placed a cheese slice atop a pear slice and ate them together. “He’s taller. Handsomer.”
“Those women were fools,” said Rhianne.
“Naturally,” said Janto. “Look, I’ll tell you a story that might actually mean something to you. I went through my magical training with one of my same-age cousins. I’ll call him Bel. Are you familiar with the root called jovo?”
“I’ve heard the name before, but I don’t know anything about it.”
“It doesn’t grow here. Only on Mosar. We warn our children not to chew it, but some do anyway. It has an effect like wine but more powerful. It fogs the mind and produces euphoria. If you chew it once, you feel compelled to chew it again and again. Over time it rots your teeth, and I think it must rot your insides too, because jovo addicts die young. Bel and I went through magical training together, and we became friends. He was, at the time, chewing jovo, but he was discreet about it, and I never caught on. He soulcast into a cliff bear, which made him a stoneshaper.” Janto stopped to take another bite of pear.
“We parted ways because our training diverged, but we stayed in touch. He became an accomplished stoneshaper, but his jovo chewing caught up with him. He was disciplined repeatedly for not showing up to work and for shoddy or unsafe workmanship. Finally he was brought before my father, an authority within our family.
“My father believed that the only way to induce Bel to behave more honorably was to remove him from the island of Mosar—get him away from jovo entirely. He wanted to send Bel to sea as a sailor in the Mosari Navy. After a year or two of no access to jovo, he might safely return to stoneshaping.”
“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Rhianne said.
“I thought so too. But Bel was horrified at the prospect of going to sea where his magic would be useless and he’d have to perform hard labor and be separated from his friends. He implored me to speak to my father and change his mind. He had learned his lesson, he said, and would never chew jovo again, if only I would spare him this fate. I liked Bel, and I believed him, and we were chronically short of stoneshapers. We needed several for a building project at Silverside Mountain. So I persuaded my father to find a spot for Bel at Silverside.” Now he paused to take a sip of wine, as if bracing himself.
“Several sagespans later, there was a cave-in at Silverside, in which we lost not only Bel but a dozen other mages. In the investigations that followed, we learned that Bel had been disciplined several times at Silverside for showing up under the influence of jovo and that his inappropriate thinning of a key structural pillar had caused the collapse.”
“Janto, I’m so sorry,” said Rhianne. “You sound like you feel that accident was your fault. But you couldn’t have known your cousin would lie about the jovo again.”
“I should have known,” said Janto. “In hindsight, it seems obvious. Addicts always have problems giving it up. My father’s solution was the right one. At the time, I thought it was harsh, but those two years on a ship might have saved Bel’s life. They would certainly have saved the lives of the other mages. The compassion I showed Bel did him no favors
.”
“I cannot fault you,” said Rhianne. “It was the wrong decision, but you made it for the right reason. There is altogether too little compassion in this world.”
“You possess it in abundance to give me that much credit,” said Janto. “I have thought long and hard about Silverside and that collapsed cavern. Compassion must be tempered by judgment.”
“Of course,” said Rhianne. “But if good judgment were easy, we’d make the right decisions every time, wouldn’t we?”
“I suppose we would,” said Janto.
“Here’s what I think,” said Rhianne. “I think you should pull up all the jovo root on Mosar and burn it.”
He shook his head. “If only it were that easy. But for now, I have another question. Have I met your requirements, Princess, and told you something of substance about my family? Have I earned the right to share your dinner?”
“I don’t know why you bother to ask, since you ate half of it while we were talking even after you had the gall to say you weren’t using me for food. If not food, what are you using me for?” Rhianne sent him a look of mock perplexity. She knew already what his answer would be.
Janto grinned, and his eyes twinkled. “Come over here and find out.”
• • •
It was past dark when Janto left the palace and went searching for one of his bolt-holes to spend the night in. A stable was a good choice, sometimes a supply shed. Anywhere reasonably warm where he could throw a shroud over himself and be certain no one would trip over him. It was a harsh reality check, trading the silk sheets of an imperial princess’s bed for a chilly dirt floor. He shivered just thinking about it.
As he turned the corner, he noticed to the south, away in the harbor of Riat, a soundless yellow light exploding in the air. Janto blinked as the afterimages danced before his eyelids. That was a pyrotechnic signal!
He broke into a run, heading for a nearby hill where he might have a better view. Pyrotechnic signalers were rare and valued. They were not used lightly, and they transmitted only news of great importance.
From the higher vantage point at the top of the hill, he saw that the yellow starburst had been not a lone pyrotechnic shout but merely the highest in elevation of a flurry of pyrotechnic communications cascading across the harbor. Bright and numerous, they cast the harbor in an otherworldly light. He could see the harbor was full of ships. Some were in the process of anchoring. Others were moving in, signaling frantically, their brown canvas sails round and fat with wind. It was a scene of eerie beauty, yet it sent Janto’s heart plummeting to the pit of his stomach.
Is that the Kjallan fleet, su-kali? asked Sashi from his shoulder.
It is, said Janto. There were only two possible things the fleet’s return could mean. One was that his people had beaten the Kjallans off and they’d come limping home. But Janto didn’t see how that could have happened. Why entertain false hope? The other possibility was the only one that made any sense.
Mosar had fallen.
20
At sunrise, a blast of trumpets summoned the people of Riat to the harbor. The horns played a brief fanfare in a six-beat rhythm. Deep, brassy cornus joined in, followed by snare drums and tympani. Color exploded overhead as the pyrotechnic mages added their visual accompaniment.
Janto, who’d spent a sleepless night observing the fleet and its communications with the Imperial Palace, dropped his shroud, emerged from the dockside warehouse where he’d taken cover, and joined the crowd of civilians watching the spectacle. With so many people around, no one would take notice of him.
The Kjallan pyrotechnics were among the most skilled he’d seen. Any pyro could pull shapes and colors out of the spirit world, but sculpting them into recognizable forms like people and animals required talent. Above the crowd, they had summoned and shaped a brace of cavalry horses. Trumpets sounded the charge, and the illusionary horses reared and galloped forward. The horses faded, and in their place appeared ocean waves. A cadence of drums beat the waves’ undulating rhythm, driving to a crescendo until a ship’s bowsprit crashed through them.
The airborne images began to float away from the harbor and toward the city proper. Janto hurried after them, pushing his way through the crowd toward the parade he knew lay at the center of the throng.
Breaking through the massed civilians, he saw the marching soldiers, a troop of infantry in tight formation wielding orange flags. Behind them plodded draft horses with docked tails and feathered hooves, each hauling a supply cart loaded high with who knew what, probably stolen treasures from Mosar. Tarps covered the bounty. Next marched a cadre of drummers, keeping time with a rolling beat. Along the tail of the procession, Janto saw more soldiers, horses, cannons, and supplies. The pyrotechnics and their images were ahead.
He withdrew into the cover of the crowd and pushed his way through until he spotted the pyrotechnic mages. They gesticulated with agile fingers, their brows furrowed with concentration as they called their complex creations from the Rift.
“There he is!” cried a man from the crowd. “The legatus!”
Janto whipped his head to where the man was pointing. Four men in officer’s uniforms rode in a quadrille, their horses’ paces nearly synchronized. Ahead of them rode four more, and leading them was a single officer, lightly armored, astride a dark bay warhorse frothing at the bit. Janto recognized the rider easily enough: Augustan Ceres. The legatus had come for Rhianne. For Janto’s woman.
Janto stared at the man with such furious hatred, he half expected the back of Augustan’s neck to burst into flames. The legatus turned and scanned the crowd, but his expression was mild, and his gaze passed over Janto without interest. Two men walked on either side of Augustan—servants, by the look of them. Each carried a wooden box. Gifts, Janto decided, for Rhianne or the emperor. More treasures stolen from Mosar, which Augustan would use to secure his theft of Janto’s throne and his princess.
Kill him, suggested Sashi, if he takes what is yours.
Rhianne was never mine, said Janto.
You have mated with her, said Sashi matter-of-factly. If another man steals your mate, kill him.
He is a war mage. Impossible to kill, said Janto. Even were it otherwise, love and marriage are not simple when it comes to my kind.
Your kind makes things too complicated, Sashi scolded.
Janto frowned. His familiar had a point.
• • •
Rhianne awoke to the news she had been dreading. Augustan was victorious. Mosar had been conquered. The war was over, and her fiancé was at this very moment marching to the Imperial Palace from the city of Riat to celebrate his victory and claim his bride, who, unfortunately, was her.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Janto. Did he know? How was he taking the news? He seemed to be all alone on Kjall. He would have no one to confide in or seek comfort from as he confronted this new reality. And he could not come to her. It was not possible. She prayed he would not attempt it, not with Augustan in the palace and so many people in and out of her rooms.
Janto was strong. She prayed he would survive this blow and see the necessity of escaping as a refugee to Sardos or Inya. With his language skills, he could start a new life there. No future remained for him on Mosar, and he would never have a future in Kjall.
Today she had her own horrors to face. Augustan had come for her, and her days of relative freedom had come to an end. Her husband-to-be would not dally at the Imperial Palace. He had a vassal state to stabilize and govern. Florian had not discussed details of the wedding, but she knew that under the circumstances, it would be rushed. She would be wedded and bedded and shipped off to Mosar in less than a week. She must say good-bye to all the people she loved: Morgan, Marcella, even Lucien. She would not be able to say good-bye to Janto.
Her lady’s maid slipped into the room. “Your Imperial Highness, shall we get you dressed? Our signalers rep
ort that the legatus is at the base of the hill.”
• • •
Janto, concealed within the crowd, followed the procession as it wound its way through the city of Riat. When the parade reached the city gates, a line of guards blocked the civilians and prevented them from following. The soldiers, led by Augustan, filtered through the gates and continued up the hill to the Imperial Palace. Janto, determined to learn what had happened on Mosar, donned his shroud and slipped in among the soldiers as they passed by the guards.
The soldiers marched uphill through switchback after switchback until they crested the peak and the whole of the Imperial Palace came into view. Though they still had some distance to cover, what remained was an easy march on a flat, paved road, shaded by ancient oaks. As they approached, the front gates of the palace were flung wide in welcome. Did the emperor intend to host the entire retinue?
Uniformed officials just inside the gates directed traffic, sending Augustan and the other officers in one direction, the rank and file in another. The smell of roasting meat wafted down the hallway, and Janto guessed that a banquet awaited the hungry soldiers. He hungered for information rather than food, so he followed the officers.
The officers filed into a high-ceilinged, white marble audience hall. Two rows of gray pillars flanked a central aisle. At the far end of the hall stood a raised platform, also gray, upon which three figures awaited them, one dressed in orange, one in blue, and one in white.
Such arrogance, thought Janto, to wear the colors of the gods.
But he did not have to look twice to recognize the figure in white as Rhianne. She stood on the left, and the young man on the right, in blue, was Lucien, the Imperial Heir. The man in the middle, wearing a broad, glittering loros over a shimmersilk orange syrtos, had to be Emperor Florian.
The emperor was tall and imposing, middle-aged and showing it, but Janto had envisioned a nastier, more vicious-looking man. Did cruelty show? Janto believed it often did, especially in the later years, when the lines of one’s face began to tell the tale of one’s life. Florian appeared stern and resolute, more a hard man than a cruel one. It puzzled him.