“He might come back, you know. I heard they’ll be a week or more in Moehn.”
“Perhaps.” Eolyn paced the room and fingered the jewel around her neck, a finely woven net of silver encrusted with crystal and hung on a long chain. It was a gift given her long ago by the Mage King. “But then he’ll return to the City with his queen, and I’ll stay here with my coven and this life I’ve come to love. It’ll be a year or two or more before we’re brought together again, and then if anything happens at all, it will be just another moment, one night...”
She stopped and looked at her friend, dark eyes haunted with regret. “What have I done, Adiana? I turned away the man I love, and for what? I keep telling myself there were so many reasons. They all seemed so important at the time, but now I can’t recall any of them. Not a one.”
“You refused him because you are one of the few women in the kingdom with the wisdom and courage to say ‘no’ to a king. You’re a maga, Eolyn. You’re not meant to walk in the shadow of any man. Did you not see the Queen when they arrived in Moehn? She’s pretty enough, but drawn tight around the edges, with those stiff shoulders and that peaked face and tense eyes. Not even twenty, and already she’s growing old. Is that the life you wanted for yourself? To follow him like a well-dressed mouse, your worth measured by the sons you bear?”
“Akmael would have never—”
“It doesn’t matter what he would have done. It’s the nature of nobility. Even he can’t change that.” Adiana nodded at the tea. “You’d better drink that before it gets cold. I don’t want to spend what’s left of my morning mixing potions.”
Eolyn stared at the cup and shook her head.
Foreboding crept into Adiana’s heart. “Oh, no. No, no, no! Don’t you dare even consider it.”
“I can’t drink this, Adiana. The thought of rejecting his seed is repulsive to me.”
Adiana threw up her hands. “Why? You’ve used this potion a hundred times, when you were with the King after your brother’s defeat, and prior to that, with your lover Tahmir—”
“It doesn’t matter. It was right then. It feels wrong now.” Eolyn rested one hand protectively over her abdomen, as if a child of the Mage King had already taken root there.
With a loud groan, Adiana pulled her friend to a stool and sat down in front of her. “Eolyn, let me tell you something about nobility, speaking as a dear friend who has watched those vipers from the time she was very young.
“They are just like merchants, only worse. Convinced the Gods have given them license to do whatever they please to whomever they please. If a child of the King should grow in your womb, all the nobles of the realm will set their eyes upon Moehn, to see what meat they can take from this situation, what marrow they can suck from its bones.”
“No one need know who the father is.”
“How will they not know? The King himself will claim this child. It’s not as if you’re some village wench in whom he has taken a passing fancy. You are a High Maga, the only one left in the kingdom. You are also his first love, and everyone knows it, though no one speaks of it.”
Eolyn bit her lip and glanced away, fingers tight around the silver pendant. “I must have some part of him, Adiana, something that can stay with me, someone I can love and protect. I would not ask for anything from him. Nothing. You know that.”
Adiana extricated Eolyn’s fingers from the jewel and held the maga’s hands in hers, tone gentle yet resolute. “But the King would ask much of you. He might let a daughter stay here, grow up among us, and learn the ways of the magas like any other student. But if you have a son, the Mage King will claim him, because that child will have sprung from the womb of a maga, and this is the one thing his insipid Princess of Roenfyn cannot give him.
“Before your son has seen five summers, they will take him to the City, where they will teach him the sordid ways of princes and kings. And the Queen and all her offspring, and all those loyal to them, will hate your son, and wish him dead, and see it done before he is old enough to understand his own power. This is what you ask for, Eolyn, when you refuse that cup. Love the Mage King if you must, be his maga and his mistress, but do not bear his children, for it will only destroy you with grief.”
Eolyn withdrew from Adiana and pressed her palm against her forehead. Curls cascaded over her face like a cloud of fire. Her shoulders heaved under the burden of unspoken thoughts.
After a long period of contemplation, she straightened. Her eyes were damp, her lips set in a firm line. She stood and retrieved the cup from the table, then cradled it in her hands and studied its depths.
“Leave me, Adiana,” she said. “I must do this alone.”
Adiana hesitated, but decided not to force the issue any further. She embraced her friend and departed, closing the door quietly behind her.
Outside, the sun was spreading its rosy light over summer-green hills. But a shadow masked the horizon, and the wind carried a haunting chill. Adiana inhaled the fresh air, only to have her senses stung by the sudden, unpleasant smell of blood and ash.
She shivered and pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
Renate will be in the kitchen by now.
The thought of her friend, busy preparing the morning meal, warmed Adiana’s mood.
I will go help her. Perhaps we should have some wine with breakfast, too.
Chapter Four
Conquest
Mechnes despised ceremony. Throughout his life, he had invented all manner of strategies to avoid it, except for a brief period when he came of age, and certain rites of pleasure captured his attention. Even that grew wearisome, the invigorating smell of blood, incense, and sex proving insufficient compensation for tedious hours spent in prayer and song.
What was the point of chanting and sacrificing to the gods, when Mechnes could order a lamb slaughtered and enjoy the meat on his own table? And why all that fuss around taking a woman if with a single word, Mechnes could have a servant or a slave—indeed, several when it pleased him—delivered to his own bedchambers?
No, the Syrnte prince had no use for ceremony. Not when there were battles to be fought and cities to be won. Not when so many appetites demanded to be satisfied, and he had been granted but one short life to indulge them.
So when Joturi-Nur surrendered his worn-out body to the world of the dead, Mechnes considered simply burning the old man outside the city gates, along with his witless son Abartamor. Yet the Syrnte prince knew his family well and understood he was unique in his intolerance of ceremonial excess. So he held his tongue and ground his teeth, hiding impatience behind a façade of respect.
The funeral procession lasted two interminable days along the sun-parched road to Urq’Namahan, a silent city of royal mausoleums on the southeast flank of the Paramen Mountains. At its head rode the sarcophagus of Mechnes’s father, Joturi-Nur, encrusted with precious stones and born on the shoulders of a dozen slaves whose muscled torsos glistened in the luminous heat. Still others carried Joturi’s three dead wives, the first in a sarcophagus inlaid with gold, the second with silver, the third with bronze.
Mechnes could have raised a thousand armored horsemen and paid them a year’s wages using the gems and metals they were about to commit to a dank hole in the indolent earth.
As for the virgin Naptari, she was the greatest tragedy of all, in her casket of turtlewood and lapis lazuli. An attractive girl with a budding figure, slaughtered before she could discover the power of her own appeal. Had not the last virgin of Joturi-Nur been under such heavy guard—and the consequences of violating the prohibition so grim—Mechnes would have taken it upon himself to unleash her womanhood before her untimely death. A beautiful woman should not be wasted on worms.
Mechnes glanced up at his niece Rishona, who sat in a sparkling howdah on the back of an armored elephant. He and his brothers flanked the San’iloman on horseback. Their families and households trailed behind in a long snaking column that stretched back toward Ech’Naláhm.
The new queen wore voluminous robes of red and gold. A mask hid her lovely face. On her lap lay her grandfather’s sword encased in its jeweled scabbard. Mechnes could feel the current of Rishona’s new-found power, like a river of molten rock flowing off the elephant’s back, indomitable and all-consuming. He wondered whether his brothers perceived this as well, whether it aroused them as it did him.
The first time Mechnes’s had laid eyes on Rishona, she was a squalling babe rescued from the murderous wild lands of Moisehén. Orphans of his slain sister, Tamara, she and her brother Tahmir were entrusted to a much younger Mechnes by Joturi-Nur, to be raised by the prince’s new wife Salome.
Within a year of the adoption, Salome’s womb bore its own fruit. She promptly abandoned her charges, giving Rishona and Tahmir little more than food, shelter, and an occasional moment of distracted attention.
Rishona became an unruly child, running free through Mechnes’s household and making herself seen in places where girls were generally not allowed. The Syrnte prince did not concern himself with the situation. It was Salome’s task to tame the girl, and if she failed, it would fall to Rishona’s future husband to discipline her.
During her sixth year, Rishona took to appearing in the east atrium where the men gathered to practice weaponry. She watched them without pause. Her hair fell in ebony ringlets against rounded cheeks; her lower lip protruded in a frown of concentration. After they finished, she would follow Mechnes toward the baths, running to keep up with his long stride. She tugged on his cloak and begged to learn how to use the sword.
Every morning he laughed and sent her away.
The next day, she returned with her petition.
This game continued for about a month, Rishona pleading and Mechnes refusing, until one day his amusement provoked her tears. Without warning, Rishona sank against the pale stone wall, weeping as if the world were about to come to an end.
Moved by his niece’s distress, Mechnes knelt beside her and explained in very clear terms why she had no need for weaponry. She was a girl after all, and a princess besides, and therefore destined to have many armed men at her disposal—not the least of whom would be her husband. They would fight and die for her.
Rishona’s sobs only intensified.
“But you must teach me!” she insisted. “The Ones Who Speak told me so! It must be you, or I will never—”
She had stopped, wide-eyed, and clapped her hands over her mouth.
A chill had settled in Mechnes’s heart. It was heresy, the worst possible crime, for a child to claim she could hear the Ones Who Speak. The Syrnte were not granted the gift of visions until the age of thirteen, when those chosen were cleansed of all shadows by the hot breath of Saefira. Children who lied about such things were removed from this life and sacrificed to the hungry goddess, Mikata, that she might teach them obedience in the world beyond.
Rishona knew this, and she watched her uncle in terror.
“That’s not what I meant,” she whispered. “It wasn’t them at all.”
Mechnes took his niece’s small hands, noting they were icy cold. “Tell me what they said, Rishona. I promise I will not reveal your secret to anyone.”
She swallowed, eyes wary yet expressing a need for his complicity and protection. It was the first time, he remembered now, that the sweet curve of her face had touched his heart. “They said I am going to avenge my mother and my father, and that I will be queen of two kingdoms. But none of it will come to pass if you do not teach me.”
Rishona was an undisciplined child, but she was not prone to lying. Mechnes heard the conviction in her voice, and understood she spoke the truth. That same day, he took her back to the atrium and put a wooden sword in her hand.
For seven years he taught her, until one morning during her thirteenth summer, after Mechnes had returned from a campaign in the east. He noticed the blossoming of Rishona’s figure, the heady scent of her sweat, the way she flushed during her lessons when he stood close.
Giving rest to their sword play, Mechnes sent Rishona with his servants to be bathed and perfumed. Afterwards they delivered her to his chambers, where he taught her the ways of a man with a woman.
Joturi-Nur’s funeral procession drew to a halt, interrupting some of Mechnes’s more pleasant memories, much to his annoyance.
The priest and his attendants waited in flowing white robes on the steps of a new tomb. On either side of the entrance, smoky flames of the grassland herb mara’luni rose from large copper plates sustained on stone pedestals.
After droning through a lengthy incantation, the balding priest summoned Joturi-Nur to his final resting place. The old man’s sarcophagus was carried up the steep steps, followed by his faithful wives and the hapless virgin Naptari. Then servants chosen to accompany them were brought forward. All the members of Joturi-Nur’s eternal household disappeared into the dark hole of the crypt.
Time dragged on. A relentless sun drifted overhead. Sweat trickled down Mechnes back and dampened his silk robe. His thoughts wandered again, this time to Moisehén.
He pictured the map of the kingdom in his mind: the Wastes of Faernvort in the northwest, the citadel of the King’s City, the wealthy province of Selkynsen with the newly acquired Port of Linfeln in the south. On the eastern frontier were Selen and Moehn, along with the mountains and forests that gave texture to their landscape. Layered over this image of ink upon parchment were the countless minute details Rishona had shared with him, the location of small ravines and minor passes, places where the open plains were studded with quiet woodlands, hamlets, and small towns the scribes had not bothered to draw.
Three years ago, Mechnes had looked upon that rich land from across the wide expanse of the Furma River, having arrived on the western border of Moisehén to deliver Rishona’s ransom. His caravan had skirted the Paramen Mountains and traversed Antaria. They had hired ships to carry them over the Sea of Rabeln, and gained entry to the primitive realm of Roenfyn. Even now the taste of the Mage King’s territory lingered upon Mechnes’s tongue: fertile fields and dense forests, iron hills and precious stones, constant rivers of earth-bound magic.
A kingdom that begs for conquest.
At last the priest emerged from the tomb and ordered the door sealed. He gave a long ululating cry, both arms raised toward Rishona. Steps were positioned next to the elephant, and Mechnes’s niece descended from her perch. With elegant strides, she approached the tomb of her grandfather, shoulders set and head held high.
The priest received Rishona, removed her mask, and presented her to the people. As she raised the scimitar of the San’iloman with both hands, a great roar rose from all assembled, evoking a smile of satisfaction from Mechnes. Joturi-Nur was dead, but the San’iloman lived among them. A woman, no less. A warrior princess of his making.
They stayed the night in Urq’Namahan. The camps of different houses spread in a flickering carpet of firelight outside the walls of the dead city. A feast was organized in the temple, attended by Joturi-Nur’s sons and their closest kin. Rishona sat on an ivory throne at the head of the hall, back straight and expression regal, her table laid with flatbread, spiced meats, and fresh fruit. Food and wine flowed in abundance. Musicians hand-picked by Mechnes filled the hall with song and melody. The people ate and drank, engaged in jovial conversation.
When the dancers arrived, lithe girls draped in translucent veils, Mechnes took his cup in hand and strolled restless about the hall, observing the drunken revelry with a keen and sober eye.
Meanara’s surviving offspring, three in all, sat closest to the San’iloman. Gluttonous men, they were now fat and useless with age. As the eldest sons of Joturi-Nur, they could yet stir up unrest over the circumstances of Rishona’s succession. Mechnes gave them a month, at most, before his niece’s poisons found a way into their homes.
The other brothers would be less inclined to oppose her, at least for the moment. The two sons of Joturi’s third wife carried little political weight among the Syrnte. Th
ose born to the Second Wife Lhandra, including Mechnes and Paolus-Nur, respected Rishona, having witnessed her passion for weaponry during the years she trained with Mechnes. She had earned their admiration in a way no other woman could. Though mere admiration, Mechnes knew, was not enough to keep her on the throne.
“Brother.” Paolus-Nur appeared at Mechnes’s side and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Why that scowl upon your face?”
Mechnes grunted and nodded toward a fair-headed man who played the dulcimer. “That new musician is careless. His instrument is not well-tuned, and he strays ahead of the rhythm.”
Paolus-Nur shrugged. “None will notice with the wine we’ve had.”
“I notice.”
“Dismiss him, then.”
“I will. In a most unceremonious fashion.”
Paolus-Nur chuckled. “You never hesitate to dispose of that which you judge useless. It makes me wonder, then, what witchcraft kept you from taking our niece’s head?”
Mechnes did not return Paolus’s questioning gaze but kept a sharp eye on the musicians. “Who is asking?”
“All your brothers.”
“And you?”
“And me.”
“No witchcraft. Joturi-Nur named her, and she defended her claim. Custom demands the blood of but one sibling, and with good reason. Had you cut her down, another might have challenged you, and then another would have challenged him. By the end of it, all Joturi-Nur’s sons would have drowned in their own blood, except me of course.”
He shot a glance at his brother, assessing Paolus-Nur’s stance, the set of his jaw, the placement of his hand on the hilt of his knife. “Indeed, now that I reflect on the matter, perhaps it would have served me better to rid myself of the whole brood at once.”
Paolus threw his head back in laughter. He was three years Mechnes’s senior, but looked the younger when one compared his lean figure to Mechnes’s stocky build and battle-worn face. “You did not answer my question, brother. You could have challenged her yourself, and none would have opposed you. Why did you not spill her blood?”
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