by E. J. Beaton
Something growled outside—a faint rumble that sounded near, and that Lysande hoped was only the wind. She tried to reassure herself that Chidney was at the ready.
Talk began, winding through topics as a stream winds through a wood, never pausing long enough to pool; trying not to focus too obviously on Litany testing the food, nor on the thought of the bear that was supposedly pursuing them, Lysande listened to the discussion.
“Six months left until the wedding, and everything paid for. A shower of doves every week with new details. Honestly,” the noblewoman beside Jale said. “All the fortune falls to my brother.”
“The fortune of being shackled to a ram for life, Élérie?” Jale returned.
“You are betrothed, then, Your Highness?” Lysande asked.
“To the heir of Bastillón, Princess Ferago. You can thank your Iron Queen for that,” Jale replied gloomily. “She bargained me off as soon as I took the throne. Everyone wants Lyria—we’ve got the delta, troves of the most famous art, and the bank. Not that my uncle Vigarot put up much protest . . . I’m sure it was just a coincidence he got a fat gift of gold and two hundred mules into the bargain.”
Dante frowned. He was watching Jale closely, and in his regard Lysande observed something of the intensity that Jale had displayed when he looked at Dante in the Great Hall—like a thirst that could not easily be quenched. Looking away at last, Dante picked up a bottle and held it above the table.
“Wet Crowns,” he said.
All the city-rulers raised their goblets.
The game, Lysande learned, involved drinking a goblet of wine for each year you had been on the throne, along with one for each elemental you had caught. Lysande did not like that idea, but she had no chance to stop it. Soon they were crying “Down! Down! Down!” as the Councillors threw back the goblets. Cassia plied Lysande with enough Pyrrhan red that despite her lack of experience, she matched the others’ pace; the vintage was sweet on her tongue, but the richness of the grapes weighed her head down, and she soon regretted her participation.
Dante was not following the latest round, she saw, and was looking down at his goblet. Something in his eyes gave her the impression that his attention had traveled beyond the game.
She had her own concerns, aside from the wine. She had searched her mind for an answer as to why Litany might possess a comprehensive knowledge of poisons, and could find none that set her at ease.
The final course arrived—slices of date bread accompanied by dollops of cream that Cassia’s cook had somehow transported on the ride—and wine was replaced with song. When the last chorus had been howled, Dante suggested that they turn to the ordering of the armies. “We need to consider our borders if the White Queen . . .”
The clink of spoons against plates echoed for a few seconds. No one seemed willing to make eye contact, nor attempt to thaw the chill that three words had caused.
“Let’s have one night without maps and stratagems,” Cassia said.
“A toast to the Council of Elira!” Jale proposed, waving his goblet.
“Elira!” they all cried, and drank.
Another growl sounded outside—this time louder and less easy to brush away. Lysande muttered her concern to Cassia and the Irriqi nodded. It was not that her senses were heightened from scale, she told herself; Sarelin would have checked her surrounds, here, too.
“The puzzle realm,” Luca said, when they had put down their goblets. “Where jungle and desert and ice are to be found within the same borders. The puzzle of many pieces—the tapestry of many colors—where five cities keep their customs, but share a common crown.”
“Well put. I had no idea you had a knack for poetry,” Jale said, flashing a smile.
“Prince Fontaine is quoting,” Lysande said, taking another piece of date bread. “From the second volume of the Silver Songs: Cicera’s speech about the Unification of Elira.”
Yet another growl sounded in the distance. Lysande glanced at the tent wall. She noticed Cassia whispering a few words to her advisor, who rose and hurried out. Catching Cassia’s eye, Lysande mouthed the word check, and Cassia nodded.
“Very good, Councillor Prior. And do you know why the speech is so famous?”
“Because it is the first written work to define what Elira stands for,” she said, meeting Luca’s stare. “In Royam, the newer race holds power over the ancient one, and in Bastillón, those with silver hair oppress those with gold; but in Elira, all are equal, the poet Cicera argues. That is why the founders chose the motto diversity is our strength.”
“There’s eloquence in those old poems,” Cassia said, nodding.
“Sarelin Brey thought so.” Luca was still looking over his chalice at Lysande, not relaxing his grip on the cup. “She loved referring to the Silver Songs when it suited her, to make herself sound like Queen Illora. What an idol. No wonder she got you to translate the Silver Songs, Councillor Prior. A copy in every household, so that everyone could understand the allusions to the Conquest’s brave leader.”
“I should hardly credit Queen Illora with the Silver Songs. Organizing the great Surge, to take advantage of the elementals’ truce? Undoubtedly. But poetry?” Lysande said. “No one really knows who authored the Silver Songs.”
“Our late queen was very good at spreading those poems about, though.” Luca’s smile was as cutting as his stare. “So long as they colored history in her particular palette.”
“And you think it was unwise to circulate our finest art to the populace without a fee, for the betterment of their education?” Lysande heard her own voice growing louder.
“I think it was very wise. Control people with a sword, and they resent you. Control them with a song, and they plead for more.”
“It sounds as if you find the Silver Songs distasteful, Prince Fontaine.” Cassia raised her goblet. “Perhaps the ‘Tale of the Drunken Soldier’ is more in your style.”
The others laughed, but Luca did not join them. He was not smirking now. “I merely point out that if we are the puzzle realm, we leave out one piece of the puzzle whenever we write poems of glory.”
“You think we should glorify the elementals?” Dante said. “And shall we let them walk freely in the streets, burning houses and flooding whole towns, too? See their cairns piled on every slope, threatening murder? It’s enough that Councillor Prior has stopped killing them in Axium. I suppose you’d like to loose them on the villagers, Prince Fontaine.”
Lysande’s shoulders tensed. Charice’s face swam in her mind, her friend clutching the chimera drawing to her chest, on the day Lysande had first seen it. Then she pictured the treatise on the concealment of magical powers that she had found nestled among Charice’s books. Anyone who knew the history between them would say that she had failed Charice.
She heard Sarelin speaking of elementals, the steel whipping in her voice. And she remembered the way that Sarelin had described the rebels’ flames sweeping through lines of guards, leaving charred bodies behind, the day she had made her last stand. Yet it was not as simple as choosing to honor Sarelin or to help Charice.
If you wanted to arrive at your own view, you had to stand above others and look beyond their heads, to take in the horizon from a new height. You had to choose that precise level for yourself and decide what you wished to see.
I made the right choice about the executions, she told herself. No woman was born a rebel: she had to stand on her own platform and choose to become one.
Cassia’s advisor slipped back through the tent flaps. The woman wore a relaxed expression as she shook her head. The Irriqi shot a look at Lysande and leaned over. “No dangers. None that Pyrrhan guards can spot, anyway. We check every tree.”
Lysande tried to let herself accept a modicum of good news, but the fact that she alone had seen the rider nagged at her. Should she walk out, now, find Chidney, and scour the whole camp? She wanted
to check for herself; and yet she knew that it was imperative to remain in the tent, for whatever drinking games and arguments might yet come, if she truly wanted to be considered one of the Council.
“Thank you,” she whispered to Cassia. The Irriqi did not speak, but her nod was slow enough that it might have been a smile.
Across the table, Luca’s eyes flashed. “If you’re asking whether I think every magical woman is a White Queen in the making and every elemental man is some budding tyrant, determined to destroy us—then no, Dalgëreth, I do not. The captains had to die, and the White Queen had to be brought down. But what of the other elementals? The ones hiding across the realm, the ordinary people? You can hardly blame them for resenting us, when we chop their heads off or lock them up for the crime of existing. The way I see it, they have been extraordinarily lenient. Do you not think they could raze our cities if they wanted to? That they could not burn our palaces to the ground in minutes, and make a new empire of their own?”
“The way you see it,” Dante said, scowling at Luca. “Rhime has a weakness for unnatural things.”
“Come, now,” Jale said, laying a hand on his arm, “let’s all cool our heads with a Triumphal-era red.”
Dante was muttering something about Rhime and illegal books on elementals, but at Jale’s touch he fell silent. After a moment, he patted Jale on the shoulder, uncorked a bottle of the wine, and poured himself a goblet. The conversation began to flow more freely—like the Triumphal red—and when she had judged that Dante was more engrossed in Jale’s company than in quarreling with others, Lysande moved to sit beside Luca. He did not shift away.
Reaching to his collar, he loosened the button and removed the jewel, pushing the fabric down a few inches. The act exposed more of his neck.
Had it been a coincidence? He was looking at her, and again there was the sense of an invitation, delicate and barely manifest. She struggled to determine if it was a deliberate gesture, or her imagination, daring herself to glance at the bare skin.
“Jails are being built as we speak,” she said, quietly. “Comfortable jails, while I consider new ideas. But none so radical as yours.”
He did not reply. Lysande looked down, then quickly met his gaze again. “Sarelin said that if elementals were allowed freedom, they would use it to rule over the rest of us.” The argument rang hollow even as she voiced it.
“Then Sarelin Brey knew as little of elementals as she did of tact.” Luca looked closely at her. “Oh, I don’t deny our late queen had her talents. She could swing a sword and fling a good dagger, everyone knows, but she missed the opportunity to reach out to elementals after the White War. Easier to keep lopping off heads. Never mind distinguishing between those who supported the White Queen and those who didn’t. No, Prior, prejudice and fear have dictated the law. And where prejudice rules, the crown weakens.”
Somewhere in her mind, Lysande knew that there was some truth in his point, but she was so angry at the way he had spoken of Sarelin that she could feel heat running through her neck to her cheeks. This should have been the time to talk of the plight of magical people and to discuss the state of the poor, and perhaps even, in some roundabout way, to bring up Charice.
“You should pay more attention to the gift I sent you, Fontaine,” she snapped. “The flower of manners.”
“Very clever, yes. But I believe you have exhausted that metaphor.”
“The gift will only be exhausted when you take a lesson from it.”
He dipped his head, a shift from argumentative to something else, visible to only her. “And are you to be my instructor?”
She was prevented from responding when Élérie Chamboise leaned forward and vomited into the middle of the table. It caused such a commotion that by the time the mess had been cleared, everyone had quite forgotten about the near-argument. The sky looked black by the time they returned to their tents, Luca departing alone and Dante escorting Jale away. Lysande insisted that Litany go to her own bed—the questions brimming within her about her attendant’s knowledge of poisons would have to wait until she was more alert, and Chidney was hovering, waiting for the right moment to take Litany off her hands, claiming in a rather too-concerned tone that there was an issue with her tent and she would need Litany’s advice. Yet Lysande had no sooner turned away than she found Derset holding a dove for her. The advisors’ further claims of a Bastillonian attack at sea did not calm her mind. She sent Derset away, too. Pacing by the light of the candle inside her tent, she felt the hilts of her daggers in her belt.
She prepared some scale, taking out one and a half spoonfuls again and heating it over a candle. It was not a risk to drink more than the usual amount. Surely not. It was a necessary measure, even if her stomach crackled and fizzed; even if her whole gut seemed to writhe and her heartbeat knocked so furiously that she had to sit down for a moment. The night-quartz could stay wrapped inside the chest, as it was supposed to be.
The scent of dew, faint and fragrant, reached her in waves. Breathing it in, she located the specific moment that she had smelled it: on her first ride in Axium Forest, with Sarelin, when the queen had sent her riding-party back to tail them from a distance, so that they could be alone together, their horses keeping neck-and-neck amongst the ferns. The dew had enfolded them with its sweetness. The whole forest had seemed to welcome them, that day.
Of course, this was a memory, an echo of that day drifting up from a vial. You could not stretch time and bend it back to you, no matter what mixture you poured down your throat.
She downed the remainder of the contents in a single swallow.
At last, the distress melted from her, yet she knew that the golden feeling would not last forever, and that itself brought another kind of disquiet, one which must lie for now beneath the glow of the room. Guilt over the squandering of her wage, and over the abuse of her body, which Sarelin had taken care to protect—that would waste the precious effects of the scale. Avoidance was better. Always.
It was useful, as it had always been, to draw out the barbs that stuck in her; to forget the way the staff all looked at her in the dining hall, the rapidity with which the silverbloods declined to see her as soon as Sarelin had left a room, and the silence that spread through a corridor when she entered it, pervading every inch of chambers and stairwells. In the face of everyday life, a certain blue mixture could be relied upon, no matter what after-effects transpired. She held the jar up and watched the flakes of chimera scale for a moment, tipping them from side to side so that they slipped between the shadow and the light.
Once her head grew heavier, she undressed and put on the first night-shirt and thin trousers she could find. She stared at her dagger-belt for a few moments, then took two blades out and tucked them under each side of her pillow, positioning them so that they would not pierce through the feathers. Copying Sarelin’s precaution seemed both a tribute and a necessity.
She was beginning to doubt that the cloaked figure would turn up, but it was precisely when you were doubting that you needed daggers. That was what she had written in An Ideal Queen. Queen Jebel had been repaid for her trust in safe passage by waking to find her lover and entourage slaughtered—and Lysande had never forgotten that story, with its descriptions of severed torsos and congealed blood.
She climbed into bed and opened a book. The candle flickered but never guttered out, and she found herself yawning and stretching as she plowed through the newly circulated Astratto Formulas, the tome propped on her thighs. Somewhere after the eighteenth equation, she slipped into a dream of an ancient peak . . . she was climbing onto the chimera Oblitara’s back, soaring up into the air. The eastern countryside flew past below, farms and manor houses, mounds of olives on platters in the shops at Ferizia, squares of vineyards at Spelato, and the deep green lumps of the Emeralds. The colors danced before her again, a palette of heat and light. There was a figure moving among them, following her, always out of
reach.
She woke to a pressure on her mouth.
“I haven’t come to hurt you,” a man growled, “but if you squirm, Councillor, I might change my mind.”
The hand clamped over her lips was tight enough to muffle her shout. Above her, a man stood, clad in the same hooded cloak as the rider who had darted between the trees. It was obvious at once why he had hidden his face—scars criss-crossed his countenance, and his cheek was calcified in patches and smooth in others, so that the skin wore its history.
Lysande’s right leg twitched. She fought the impulse to kick.
“Good.” The man gave her a mirthless smile. “They told me you were a bright one. Now get dressed, Councillor.”
He removed his hand from her mouth and stepped back. They looked at each other. The man lifted his sword-hilt a few inches above the sheath.
She weighed whether she could notify her guards before he stabbed her, and examining the odds, decided that they did not fall in her favor. Moving as fast as her trembling fingers would allow, she pulled on a shirt, trousers, and jacket while the roar of an animal sounded in the distance, and she wondered how far away the creature was. Her captor walked to the tent flaps and stood in the entrance, silhouetted against the candlelight. If he was concerned by the sight of her fastening her daggers into her belt, he gave no sign.
“You have no right,” she whispered.
“Someone wants to speak to you.”
“If I come quietly, do I have your word that I won’t be killed?”
He shrugged off his hood, exposing the whole map of upraised skin, slowly, very slowly, as if he knew what effect it would have. “For whatever you think it’s worth,” he said.
Lysande laced up her boots. A sound rang out across the camp—a guttural roar, like an animal about to devour its prey, much closer now. She had not imagined it this time. Her hand flew to her belt.
The man drew his sword. They stared at each other again, and Lysande knew as she took in his face that attempting a dagger-throw at this juncture would do no good.