The Defiant Heir

by Melissa Caruso

  “That’s not even including the civilian losses,” my mother added grimly. “There are towns and villages all along the border that might be wiped out entirely. The land for miles could be buried in ash, the rivers choked with it. Countless homes destroyed, people killed, families displaced and starving. A large enough eruption could endanger nearby cities with populations in the tens of thousands, like Ardence.”

  “And then Vaskandar would sweep in behind,” the Marquise of Palova concluded, “like an army of demons from the gates of the Nine Hells. We’d stand no chance of holding them back. The whole north of the Empire would fall, giving them a clear route down the River Arden to the Serene City itself.”

  I swallowed. “So we need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “I want you to examine the circle during your visit to Callamorne,” the doge said. “You’ve studied this book, you’re a scholar of magical theory, and you know Prince Ruven. You’re the best chance we have to unravel this design. I want to know whether it’s truly the volcano enchantment, how likely it is to work, how immediate the threat is, how we can stop it—anything and everything you can tell us.”

  I nodded, feeling vaguely queasy at the thought of a man as unscrupulous and impulsive as Prince Ruven with access to that kind of power. “Can I bring an artificer, to help me counteract whatever I find?” I asked.

  “Naturally.” The doge waved his assent. “We need to send artificers to the border to reinforce our magical defenses anyway. Take whoever you need.”

  The Council was giving me more backing than I would have expected. And they were taking me seriously, as well. When I had faced the Council of Nine in this room last year, I’d been glared at for speaking; whether it was what I’d accomplished in Ardence, my increasing involvement in my mother’s duties since, or my coup of sorts with Kathe, they seemed to accept my voice as one worth listening to.

  Unease mingled with my surge of pride. If no one listened to you, no one remembered when you were wrong. The more power you had, the more terrible the consequences of your mistakes.

  The doge leaned across the table, fixing me with his gleaming eyes. “We have one more purpose in sending you to Callamorne. A military purpose.” He tapped the Callamornish capital, which lay near the foot of the Witchwall Mountains, not far from the Serene Empire’s northern border. “Your Falcon will accompany you. You will remain in reserve in Durantain until we have a better idea where Vaskandar will strike first and hardest. Then you’ll move to defend the most critical pass with balefire.”

  I’d known this was coming. It was a good plan, and the best way we could help in the war. But I couldn’t look forward to unleashing Zaira’s fire on hundreds or thousands of people—even enemy soldiers—with anything but dread.

  “Very well,” I said, trying to sound businesslike and confident instead of afraid.

  “This mission may prove dangerous. The attacks on Falcons have occurred when they were traveling.” The doge’s tone grew stern. “Neither you nor your Falcon are expendable. We will be sending a full military escort with you. You must take no chances with your safety or your warlock’s. Do you understand?”

  “Of course.” My cheeks heated. One adventure in Ardence and my reputation seemed to have changed from retiring bookworm to reckless thrill-seeker.

  The doge gave me a slow, assessing nod. “Good. I see no reason to delay, then. You’ll leave tomorrow. And may all the Nine Graces go with you.”

  Chapter Nine

  I had my oarsman row me to the Mews at once, to tell Zaira the news in person. I couldn’t help but notice the increased activity at the Mews docks, with larger naval vessels tied up alongside the sleek cutters the Falconers normally favored, and soldiers hustling up and down the planks to load provisions. The Serene Empire was deploying her Falcons for war. Dread settled over me with the growing shadows of sunset.

  I found Zaira in the cavernous mess hall, having just finished dinner; Scoundrel was curled up at her feet, and I passed Terika leaving on my way in. She gave me a broad, triumphant grin, and my heart panged with the news I couldn’t yet tell her.

  But Zaira accepted our new assignment with a shrug, barely pausing in her scratching of Scoundrel’s ear.

  “Be nice to get out of this chicken coop for a while. I’ve never seen Callamorne. Who else are you bringing?”

  I pulled out the notes I’d made and spread them on the table between us. It was empty, aside from the two of us, though a murmur rose up to the arching ceiling of the mess hall from the half a hundred Falcons and Falconers still lingering over their plates. “Well, I need a skilled artificer to help me examine the circle, so I thought I’d take Istrella.”

  Zaira gave me a knowing look. “Mmm. And I’m sure the fact that her brother will have to come along as her Falconer has nothing to do with it.”

  My face heated. “Actually, she has exactly the right sort of mind to come up with innovative solutions for unexpected artifice problems.” Never mind that I’d feel much better on this volatile mission with Marcello’s stable, steady presence at my side. “I’m thinking we’ll also bring Terika.”

  Zaira straightened. “Terika! Why?”

  “Well, she’s from Callamorne, and she might like to visit her family. And we want a skilled alchemist at hand to concoct cures for any venoms, poisons, or plagues the Witch Lords might employ against the Empire.” Zaira’s skeptical stare demanded the truth, so I added in a low voice, “And she knows how to make my elixir. My mother wanted me to have an alchemist along who could do it, in case something happened to my supply.”

  Zaira grunted. “Can’t blame her, after last time.” Scoundrel nosed her hand insistently, and she went back to scratching his head. “Aren’t you worried about bringing Istrella and Terika into a country that’s about to be invaded? They’re not exactly fearsome warriors.”

  “Neither am I.” I folded up my notes and tucked them away. “I did consider it, especially given that their names are on that list of targets. But we’ll have a sizable escort of soldiers, and they shouldn’t need to go anywhere near the border.”

  “Unlike us.” Zaira’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “If war breaks out, they’re going to put us right in the thick of it.”

  “Most likely.” My stomach fluttered at the thought. “If Vaskandar attacks, you could have to unleash your fire on hundreds or thousands of soldiers. Are you …” I swallowed. There was no good way to ask this. “Is that all right?”

  Zaira raised an eyebrow. “You’re asking me if roasting hundreds of people alive is all right?”

  I grimaced. “Not really. More whether you’re all right.”

  “I’m always all right. If something will make me miserable, I don’t do it.”

  This was no more than half true, but I nodded anyway. “I just wanted to … Well, I didn’t think you’d done anything like that before.”

  Zaira snorted. “The empire would damned well have noticed if I’d murdered a small army. So no, I haven’t. And no, I don’t really know what it’ll be like, or whether I’ll bounce up afterward all chipper and ready for cakes and tea. So you can stop asking me about it, before I twist your tongue off to stop you from talking.”

  I couldn’t help lifting my fingers to protect my mouth. “Sorry.”

  Scoundrel nudged at Zaira again, and she hunched down to fondle his ears with both hands. He closed his eyes in ecstasy.

  “If you must know,” she said after a moment, still staring at Scoundrel, “I’m actually glad to have the chance to let loose this Hell of fire inside me to protect something for a change.” She sent a fierce glance sideways at me. “So stop trying to make me feel bad about it.”

  I put my other hand over my mouth as well, and nodded.

  The problem with Raverran books on Vaskandar, I reflected, weighing Imoden’s Rise of the Witch Lords in one hand against Lavier’s Chronicle of Vaskandran Expansion in the other, was that they were written by Raverran historians. I rather doubted the authors
had ever set foot in Vaskandar. Most of these books had been published immediately after the Three Years’ War and focused almost entirely on military history; they traced Vaskandar’s expansion from a small clutch of territories in the north as they swallowed up forest clans and petty kingdoms, raising a new Witch Lord over each, and culminated in Vaskandar’s wars with the Serene Empire. The few details they contained about Vaskandar itself were hearsay and folklore, full of contradictions and omissions.

  I laid them both in my trunk anyway. Kathe had told me, before saying good-bye at our picnic, that Callamorne was on his way back to Let, and he might see me there; I wanted to come to our next meeting armed with more knowledge.

  I ran a finger along a line of spines on my shelf, their leather bindings warm and smooth like the touch of old friends’ hands. I added Principles of Vivomancy and Origins of Magic to the trunk, and then somehow wound up lying on my stomach on my silk-curtained bed, with Orsenne’s History of Eruvia spread open to the early Vaskandar chapter, just for a quick overview.

  A familiar rap on my door startled me into slamming the book shut; by the time I’d sat up on the edge of my bed, my mother had swept into the room.

  “Are you done packing, Amalia? Your boat leaves for the Mews to collect Zaira in half an hour.” Her gaze took in my trunk full of books. “I am asking rhetorically, of course.”

  “Almost, Mamma,” I lied.

  Her eyebrow was insufficiently impressed to lift more than a hair’s width. “I’ll have Rica see to your clothes. But make certain you bring plenty of elixir, and pack it in multiple places this time.”

  “Of course, Mamma.” I pulled a one-dose vial halfway out of my inner coat pocket, to show her that I could, in fact, learn from near-death experiences. “I’ve got more in my satchel as well, so I can take it with me on excursions, just in case.”

  “Good.” She came and sat down on the bed beside me, her face serious. “Be careful on the road. I’m hoping there’s been no time for news of your trip to leak to the Vaskandran spy in the Mews, but only fools make assumptions.”

  I straightened, remembering what I’d been burning to ask her earlier today. “Speaking of fools and the traitor in the Mews, what is Lord Caulin up to?”

  “He’s no fool,” my mother said sternly. “Whatever else you may think of him, don’t make that mistake.”

  “You know what I mean.” I waved an irritated hand. “Why did the doge send him to interfere with the Falcons?”

  My mother regarded me a long time in silence. Finally, she said quietly, “Most likely, because of you.”

  I stared at her, wondering if she was joking. But there was no humor in her piercing dark eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I know the doge better than almost anyone. And if Niro loves one thing, it’s control.” She turned her gaze to the window, where the clear morning light set the warm-hued façade of the palace opposite to glowing. “He is well aware that the Falcons are the keystone of the Serene Empire’s power. And what do you think it looks to him as if you are doing?”

  “You mean, with my Falcon reform act?”

  “Not just your law. Your acquisition of the Empire’s only fire warlock. Your cultivation of key officers in the Mews.”

  “I didn’t acquire Zaira.” Warmth flooded up my neck. “And I’m not cultivating anyone.”

  My mother did not dignify my protests with a response. “Even if your law comes to nothing, it’s a shrewd move to earn the loyalty of the Falcons.”

  “That’s not why I’m doing it!” I protested. “I just want to give them a choice.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” She turned her gaze back to mine, raising an eyebrow. “He can’t afford to lose the Falcons to you. Especially not now, with Vaskandar at the border. So he’s asserting control over them.”

  “He’s using the murders to play political games?” I couldn’t keep the outrage from my voice.

  “I’m certain that catching the traitor and preventing more murders are his chief priorities.” La Contessa waved away my ethical concerns. “But Niro da Morante is a man after my own heart in this at least: he rarely does anything for only one reason. Why not catch the informant and consolidate his political power?”

  “But Caulin is going about this in the wrong way!” I bunched the lace of my cuffs in frustration. “He’s not going to catch the traitor by harassing Falcons.”

  “I don’t trust Caulin’s investigation either, frankly.” My mother’s eyes narrowed. “He’s the one pushing the doge to tighten his grip on the Falcons; he’s hardly coming at this from a neutral perspective. This could all be part of his play for the Council seat.”

  “He’s putting himself forward for Baron Leodra’s old seat on the Council of Nine, then?” That might explain some things.

  “He stands a good chance of winning it, too, more’s the pity.” My mother shook her head. “He’s competent, and I respect the work he does for the Empire. But he lacks the vision to lead it. He’s too focused on his own ploys and machinations and not on the larger picture. And he sees you as a threat.”

  I glanced down at my own hands, soft and unskilled, worrying at my cuffs. “I don’t feel very threatening.”

  My mother raised an eyebrow. “Two months ago, no one in Raverra thought of you as anything more than a marriage prospect. You hid in this palace and fiddled about with books and artifice projects, and you were barely politically aware enough to know who the doge was. But after what you pulled off in Ardence, thwarting experienced schemers and installing your own hand-picked new duke, everyone is paying attention. And now that you’ve stepped out on the political stage, your first act is to try to pass a law that rewrites one of the key provisions of the Serene Accords, tampering with the very foundation of the Empire.”

  “I wouldn’t say it rewrites the Serene Accords. Appends to them, maybe.”

  “Suffice to say there are few who’d have the gall to introduce such a measure. But you can do it, because you’re only eighteen.” A spark of something that could have been admiration entered my mother’s voice—or more likely, bemusement at my foolishness. “If the law fails, they’ll shrug it off as youthful idealism, and there’ll be no permanent damage to your career. If it passes, though …” Her lips curved in a wry smile. “If it passes, everyone will consider you brilliant and dangerous. We have a limited window of time remaining to ensure they’re not wrong.”

  “I don’t feel brilliant and dangerous,” I muttered.

  “The Lady of Thorns thinks you’re dangerous.” Her tone went hard. “She put your name on that list.”

  I caught her hand, suddenly excited. “Mamma, I’ve been thinking about that.” An idea had come to me late last night, as I lay awake dwelling on thoughts of war and courtship, volcanoes and murders. “I think all this Vaskandran interest in me must have to do with the Witch Lord blood in the Callamornish royal line.”

  It was no secret; royalty quickly ran out of sufficiently high-ranked marriage prospects, so half the great families in Eruvia had a splash of Vaskandran royal ancestry somewhere, and that meant Witch Lords. Border states like Callamorne had more than a splash. My father’s father had been of royal Vaskandran blood, well connected enough that his marriage to my grandmother put a stop to an ongoing invasion of Callamorne. If there was some political significance to his line, that might be enough to explain both my name on the assassin’s list and Kathe’s secret intentions.

  “I suspect you’re right.” My mother tucked a loose lock of hair behind my ear, studying my face. “Wars and weddings twine Vaskandar and Callamorne together, in a long and personal history. You are part of that history, and it will give you diplomatic advantages on this mission that I never possessed. But it also exposes you to dangers I never faced.”

  I hugged my book to my chest. “Did you ever meet my grandfather’s family?”

  “No, and neither did your father, so far as I know. But I believe your grandfather was a Witch Lord’s son.” La Contessa frown
ed. “There are bound to be enmities and alliances that he left behind him, beyond the Witchwall Mountains.”

  “But now Vaskandar is dragging them across the mountains into Callamorne.” I sighed. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

  My mother’s mouth crooked toward a smile. “I’m not certain I believe you. But I have high hopes you’ll be clever, which is better.”

  She embraced me, then, holding me in a circle of warmth and delicate perfume. I closed my eyes, wishing for a moment that I were small again, and would spend this trip doing nothing more important than running up and down the stairs in the royal castle in Durantain with my cousins.

  “Clever it is, then,” I whispered.

  For the first few days of our journey by coach to Callamorne, we traversed the endless green-gold fields at the heart of the Serene Empire, past red-roofed villas girdled with flowers and lonely lines of cypress trees. As we approached Callamorne, the flat land wrinkled into gentle folds and rolls; the shallow valleys and hollows collected mist in the mornings, and the high places held on to the lingering golden light at sunset.

  Terika stared hungrily out the window of the coach, gazing over the heads of our mounted military escort for the first sign of the shadowy hills of her homeland on the horizon.

  “Wait till you see,” she told Zaira cheerfully. “The hills in Callamorne are much bigger than the rolling little bumps you get here in the central Empire, rugged and covered in lovely woods. And soon we’ll get snow, and the fields and meadows will turn sparkling white, all the way to the mountains.”

  Lienne, Terika’s Falconer, shivered. “Yes, and cold to freeze your blood, with icy footing. I prefer Raverran sunshine and a cup of mulled wine, thank you.”

  Zaira shrugged. “I’m there to wait around until it’s time to set things on fire. If it makes you happy, I can look at some muddy hills in the meantime.”