by E. J. Beaton
The woman’s companions sprinted, looking back every few seconds. As Three sent another blast through the desert, the horses galloped on and grains swirled, settling in a wall and blocking the fight from view. Cries of frustration sounded across the ship. The thought stuck in Lysande’s mind that there was no one else to take charge of her people.
She looked around the deck, surveying the people on board. A few guards nursed burned arms or fingers; Lord Malsante held a boot that had been seared through the sole, and Chidney had taken a spike of wood to the arm, but no one looked to be dead. She drew a breath and issued a stream of orders to the Axiumites nearest her: find the physician, take the injured below, clean up the blood, check their position with the helmswoman.
She seemed to be running on something raw. Her mind called out for blue flakes.
“Praise Fortituda. You’re not hurt,” Derset said, beside her.
“I owe you my thanks, my lord. If you hadn’t grabbed me, I might not be here.”
“I hardly deserve thanks for doing what any servant of the crown should do.” The warmth tinging his words exceeded the bounds of the statement. They faced each other. Lysande moved a fraction closer to him, laying a hand on his arm, and he glanced quickly around. “I must warn you . . . but no . . . may we speak in your quarters at Lyria, instead?”
She nodded and stepped back, a little too slow to create a distance between them.
Raden and Chidney came to report on the state of the ship, but after seeing Litany’s concerned look, Lysande allowed her attendant a moment alone with Chidney. When the pair had finished their awkward half-embrace, she drew Litany aside. “I supposed you learned how to scale masts in Axium Palace, too?”
“Who do you think cleans the walls of the staff tower? They get grimy.” Litany leaned in to whisper. “I recognized her among them. The sharp-faced woman.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I only caught a glimpse before she took her fight behind a dune, but there was no mistaking; it was the woman you were speaking to by the Flavantine; all cheekbones.”
Charice would have been amused to be called “all cheekbones,” Lysande thought, suppressing a laugh of disbelief. When you see me next, do not be too angry, Charice had said. No wonder she had not explained who she was meeting.
“Could you be certain as to which side of the fight she was on?” Lysande said.
“Not at first. I climbed into the rigging so I could be sure. She was helping those who defended us, the white-haired man and his group. They attacked in formation, together.”
Of course, Lysande should feel pleased. Knowing that did not stop frustration from creeping through her. If this was not being dangled in Severelle’s middle space, between visibility and nothingness, then what was it? The worst part was that she could not say that she had had no warning, for Charice never truly let you all the way in—you came right up to the latched doors of her heart, and you waited on the threshold, listening to the occasional sounds from within, hoping.
“I suppose they were the White Queen’s people,” Jale said, stopping beside her.
“I’m not sure, Your Highness,” Raden said. “Looked like two groups, to me. Forgive me for stretching Queen Illora’s Precept, but the first group of elementals threw fire at us, and the second lot . . .”
“Defended us.” Luca joined them. “Don’t let Axiumite manners hold you back, captain. You may as well say what we’re all thinking. That little incident would seem to shatter the notion that all elementals are scheming to destroy the crown.” He turned to Lysande, who was holding back her thoughts on the attack with great effort. “You’ve sprung a leak, Prior. Shall we find you a bandage, or would you like to keep painting the deck?”
Lysande looked down and saw that her wrist was bleeding. A piece of wood had cut her, somehow, without her realizing. She was about to signal to Litany, but Luca clicked his fingers at one of his guards. “Let me.”
The bandage arrived, and he drew out the tiny slivers of wood that had lodged in her skin. Winding the cloth around her wrist until it quenched the bleeding, covering even the smallest parts of the wound, he worked, his gaze focused entirely on her wrist. When he looked up again at last, pleasure melded with something indecipherable in his countenance.
Most of the boat was crammed up by the rail, staring at the wall of sand, yet Lysande knew that they would not find what they were searching for. If Three had blocked off the fight, there would be no more glimpses; she felt certain of that. In her mind, she still saw the sand-horses champing.
After the last wounded guard’s hand had been shaken, Lysande rejoined her Axiumites. Her gaze sweeping the vista, she searched for a glimpse of white hair or a cloak, yet there was nothing except miles and miles of golden grains, tapering into the distance until the mirage met the sky.
* * *
• • •
The first port in Lyrian territory swarmed with traders, thanks to its position as a gateway to three towns—Bref, Villechaud, and Cléchefort. While Cassia and Dante haggled with the merchants, Jale suggested a trip through the desert to the tiny township of Bref.
Lysande took Litany, Chidney, and a few guards and joined the party. Despite the obedience of the desert mule she was given, she found herself missing the whinnying and stubbornness of her piebald mare. The road meandered on, and Bref arose from the sand in ten rings of shining stone, the sun glancing off the walls of the town. Lysande and Jale led their party through the fort-like buildings, until the attention of a trail of agog citizens forced them to speed up and duck into the largest building.
“This is the thing to see in Bref,” Jale said, waving around the front room. “Those gold-fingered Coûteuse sisters set up the Raffiné Gallery from their personal fund.”
Paintings hung on every side, some as large as those in the prayer-house she had visited in Rhime. Jale whirled her through the hall and pointed out pictures of bejeweled rulers and scenes of Lyrian warriors piercing opponents who wore brown capes, a distinctly Valderran garment. The picture in the far-right corner caught Lysande’s eye.
A scene from the White War, it showed the Mud Field covered with soldiers and a familiar figure in armor, brandishing a dagger, and Lysande had to smile—for Sarelin would never have removed her helmet in battle, making herself a target. The queen’s black hair streamed around her face, and her lips were parted, as if giving a battle cry. It was not hard to spot the homage to the last charge, dots resembling crimson embers dancing around Sarelin’s face, a detail from a day that should have dried and set by now but was always being repainted on the canvas of her imagination. Somehow, this defiant Sarelin seemed more real to her than any of the posed portraits in Axium Palace.
Despite everything I’ve questioned about you, I feed on the times we laughed, she thought. The nights we swapped stories of nimble deer and even more nimble men. Your smile, spreading, the first morning I managed to hit a target. The black flames leaping into your eyes when you mounted your horse and wheeled it round . . . when you boomed out a command to the hunters. Your arm linked in mine as we walked across to a dead stag.
Jale demonstrated a sudden interest in a portrait on the left wall and left her in as much privacy as she could enjoy with more than twenty guards milling about, and she quietly told the painted Sarelin everything that had happened since her death, leaving out only her abuse of chimera scale.
“You’d say I must step into your boots. But you were a masterpiece; not a mold. I think that means I must lead my own way. It’s like one of those paradoxes of the early philosophers, isn’t it?” She breathed in, regarding Sarelin. “Emulating you, by not emulating you. There’s more I can do.” And where there is need, there is opportunity: Perfault had written that. “Elementals . . . the poor . . . they’re just people, Sarelin. That’s what I find written in my mind, when the ink dries. They can turn on you, but they can shout your name, too. L
oud and clear with a single voice.” Lines cracked her brow. “Not just a damned plugged-ear idealist, now, am I?”
When they left the gallery, Jale helped her back up onto her mule and they set off again, the animals plodding, swatting clouds of flies with their tails. It occurred to Lysande, as they moved through the desert, that Jale might have invited her to this gallery to see the portrait of Sarelin; when she caught him darting a glance at her, she was sure of it. She searched for a topic to break the silence. “Do you take a personal interest in art, Your Highness? Or do commissions and selections become a chore?”
“Anything but a chore. You don’t know how jealous I was when you got the Painter’s Suite in Castle Sapere.” Jale sighed. “Vitelongelo’s a true master. That balance of color he manages. What I’d give to look at the Maturation as I was sitting in the bath . . .”
He was soon rhapsodizing about the Maturation, praising the frescoes and comparing them with the Lyrian works, and Lysande’s thoughts had skipped to images in shining paint when one remark brought them back.
“But of course, the real subject is magic.”
“Magic?” She gripped her reins tightly. “If I’d known the Maturation was about elementals, I’d have . . .”
“Studied it, probably.” Jale flashed white teeth. “It’s a secret, of course, unless you’ve had the facts passed on to you. My mother drummed it into me once a year. ‘Elementals aren’t born with their powers, Jale. Pay attention, Jale, and stop plucking that damned harp. First the brain, then the blood and the tissue: their bodies change and they go through a painful transformation, which is called a maturation.’” He looked at her and, seeing that she looked more puzzled than amused, repeated, “A maturation.”
“I’ve never heard such a thing.” It certainly hadn’t been in any book in Sarelin’s library. But then, had she not copied out Queen Illora’s Precept herself, stating that all discussion of magic—from the White Queen’s survival to the kinds of elemental forces—was banned? Should she not know, better than anyone, how much knowledge had been hidden?
“Some of them are young when they mature,” Jale said. “But some of them are almost twenty-five. Wish I could remember all of what Mother used to bang on about.”
Charice was scarcely ten years old. But then, Charice had always hinted that the incident with the sunsnake was a surprise—that her power had erupted early.
She wondered if Sarelin had known about maturation. If there had been another secret the queen had kept from her scholar, for so many years.
Again, her thoughts touched upon Mea Tacitus working in Sarelin’s chambers.
“Mother liked to lecture me about it, in case I ever had to deal with elementals. When they’ve matured, they can move one of the elements or use their powers of the mind, she said. Of course, talking about this is banned by law, you know. But we’re not discussing magic, are we? We’re just appreciating art.”
“The most captivating of subjects.” Lysande smiled. “I wonder where the references to the transformation are, though. My knowledge of art is grounded in the Axiumite school. You must be an expert, I imagine, growing up in a palace.”
“It’s all in the triangles, you see.” Jale made the shape of a triangle with his fingers, and Lysande remembered the golden symbols on the women and men’s bodies, shining in the creamy paint. “They represent the different stages of magical maturation. One on the forehead, to show the head pains; the second shows pains in the throat; and lastly, one over the chest, for the pains in the lungs.” Jale waved a hand airily. “Mother seemed to think it was useful to know this stuff. Used to pour goblets of cherry-brew while she lectured me—it’s a wonder I remember any of it. They’re supposed to be cowering in caves and sneaking around in the mountains, she’d say, but they’re not all hiding—you never know when you might run into an elemental.”
Lysande feigned illness from the heat and dropped to the back of the mule-train. As thoughts chased each other through her head, she felt muscles tightening in her jaw. It was impossible to avoid checking off the symptoms in her mind: head, throat, lungs. A ruthlessly clear list.
When they arrived at the ship, she thanked Jale and made her way below. “Did you pack my books in the mahogany chest?” she asked Litany, once they were in her chamber.
“Of course.” Litany’s gaze skipped across her face.
“I need the book on the White War—the one I was reading last night.” She hoped that the desperation did not show in her voice.
“The one from the Academy? That old collection of military accounts?”
“The same.”
When the spattered tome was in her hands, she flicked through chapter after chapter, thumbing the pages rapidly until she found the passage: a description of a capture from the White War. She read through it twice.
To check that the prisoner was indeed magical, the most honorable Prince Marcio Sovrano performed a test devised by the researchers in his Academy. He bade Captain Feronna of the second legion cut the prisoner’s arm. A sample of blood was taken, and the captain poured it onto a silver plate.
When, after a minute’s passing, the silver turned black, there was much rejoicing in the camp: for it was declared that the prisoner must be an elemental captain, as proven by the Academy’s esteemed science. The guards sang the “Serpent’s Triumph” and toasted to His Highness, and Captain Feronna gave her soldiers a ration of wine.
Lysande snapped the book shut. “Would you stand outside the door, Litany?”
Her fingers slid a dagger from her belt as the door closed. She hunted through the jewelry box on the floor, pulling out a silver bracelet and placing it flat on the table. Trembling, she held out her left hand.
It was hard to keep still, but she knew that she would need more than a nick on the finger. She sank the tip of the dagger into her flesh. The steel bit into her palm, and she made sure the blade was wet before conveying it to the bracelet.
The minute she waited seemed more like ten. The hand on her timepiece inched around. When at last it had completed its rotation, she gazed at the bracelet, watching.
Nothing. The blood was red—the same color as when it spurted from her finger. Had she really been so mad as to think that those pains could be something so dramatic, and to transpose Jale’s words onto a mere human sickness? Had she fallen victim to delusions in the aftermath of a violent attack, like the paranoia Montefizzi described in her manual? Had she succumbed to utter mental disintegration as the result of an excess of scale?
She was about to turn away when she saw the dark tinge spreading across the silver.
She was not conscious of dropping the dagger. It clattered on the floor, and she felt pain slice through her chest, but could not bring herself to move.
Black. The silver had turned black.
She breathed out, and a hundred daggers sprouted in her lungs.
Eleven
The fragrance in the palanquin cloistered her in notes of starberry and anise, yet not with such a power that she could stop peering out, studying the people along the ceremonial lane and taking in the parasols that stretched five feet above their heads. Groups of Lyrians pointed at the procession, smiling and talking, their gauzy trousers falling to their ankles. Beyond the curtains, the sun beat down, and the crowds and the sugar-palm trees seemed to shimmer brighter than any painting she had seen; it could have been a scene from the Silver Songs, if not for the pain in her chest.
The stabbing had been coming and going, coming and going. Now, it was definitely coming. A bubble of panic was rising inside her, swelling with each jolt of the palanquin. Jale had said that the maturation was a painful process, but there was a gap left by the failure to define painful—a gap of sensory knowledge that her body was beginning to fill. She felt another jab in her chest and pictured her legs giving way, in front of all these people. It was too easy to imagine the change of blood
and tissue contorting her body on the way to the desert palace—the guards running their swords through an elemental—the rending of gristle and the shattering of crisp bone.
“Are you well enough for this, my lady?” Derset must have seen her clutch the corner of a cushion.
“It is only the heat, my lord. This torpor is foreign to me.”
A smell of spice and incense wafted from the street, and a dryness weighed down the air, pressing upon her shoulders. How could Jale be so sprightly and full of cheer, she wondered, being raised in a place like this? Most of the Lyrians seemed happier to see their prince than their guests, running up to Jale’s palanquin and throwing handfuls of rose petals, which perfumed the air with a nectarous scent. Coins showered into the lane, thrown by a group of elders dressed in golden robes. Lysande glimpsed one of the many sandstone façades behind them, a building whose gilt letters proclaimed b.o.l.
The Bank of Lyria. The biggest monetary institution in the Three Lands. Lysande recalled reading about the bribery they had carried out during Ariane Chamboise’s reign. Established in the forty-first year of the calendar—the only place in the south to store your money safely, provided you can afford a rate that changes every seventh moon. She tried to think about the bank; tried to focus her mind on something other than her pain and fear.
Just as the cymbals and brass stopped around them, their palanquin lurched to a halt, and an attendant held the curtains open. They climbed out onto a flight of steps.
They had passed through the wall that encircled Rayonnant Palace, and they seemed to be facing a sea of gold—gold columns, holding up a gold-plated roof, and the gilded arches of a reception hall waited before them, in front of which another band was playing “Flowers of Old Lyria,” the tassels on their caps gleaming with gold thread. While Lysande tried to adjust to the glare, a man with a pearl-and-gold chain dangling over his doublet walked out to the top of the steps. She could spot the resemblance at once—the fine bones, limpid blue eyes, and elegant bearing—but while this man shared Jale’s looks, his smile offered none of the same warmth.