“I admit,” Vladimer said, “I am not certain.” His voice was bleak. “My concern was with invasion, and if it is that, and the Borders defenses have been overrun, then conventional forces are unlikely to fare better. You represent as unconventional a force as I could conceive of.”
“You mean us to fight,” Phoebe Broome said, somberly.
“I am aware, from what Ishmael has said of you, and from what you have said of yourself, that the idea is distasteful to you.” She shook her head a little, as though at an oversimplification, but did not argue with him. “But magic is at the core of this, and magic is your province, Magistra Broome. Your province, and your calling, I believe.”
“Yes.”
“I do not know that you will receive any tangible reward for your service.”
She sighed. “It does not matter. From what Ishmael said, from what you have said, and what we know, we have to help. Some of us will come. Some of us will stay. Will you trust us to divide our party as we think fit?”
“Yes,” Vladimer said quietly. “We shall have to wait for our train, but I might as well begin by telling you what I know.”
He did not sonn after Phoebe Broome’s departing figure, but sat for a moment bracing his aching right arm with his left, before lifting his head. “So, another journey, Lady Telmaine?”
One to redemption or death, she thought, for both of them. She matched her tone to his. “I am ready, Lord Vladimer.”
About the Author
ALISON SINCLAIR is the author of the science fiction novels Legacies, Blueheart, and Cavalcade (which was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke award), and the fantasy Darkborn, the first in the Darkborn trilogy. Darkborn began with a meditation on the light-dark motif as it is used in fantasy, met up with years of eclectic reading and cities remembered and imagined, and took flight in directions almost as unexpected to the writer as to the characters. Alison Sinclair presently lives in Montréal, where she is working on the final novel in the trilogy, Shadowborn.
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