He had been proud of her.
She had known that, but to read it in such stark black and white terms – that had touched her more than she had expected. Would Halfdan have approved of what she had done since his death? Would he have approved of her marriage to Kylon? Caina hoped so.
The letter made Caina think of her days as a Ghost nightfighter. In many ways, her life had been less complicated then. She had been angrier, and unhappy most of the time, but things had been simpler. Halfdan and Theodosia had told her what to do, and she had done it. Granted, she had saved Malarae from Maglarion and Rasadda from Kalastus, but she hadn’t felt the heavy weight of decisions that changed the course of nations. She hadn’t carried a valikon and a pyrikon.
Her responsibilities had been lighter.
And as for the rest of the letter, about her mother’s six sisters…
Caina didn’t know how she felt about that. The idea of a family was strange. Her parents had both died when she was eleven years old, and she had known since then that she would never have children. Caina had been an orphan for so long, had known she would remain childless for so long, that the knowledge had become part of her. She had been alone in the world and had come to terms with that.
And now…
She glanced at Seb, who was flirting with Ilona. Both seemed charmed with the other, and Ilona was able to match Seb’s frequent rhetorical flourishes with her own. Caina respected Seb, even liked him. She had assumed that her mother’s family would be a coven of mad sorceresses, and that certainly seemed true of Talmania and Rania and Selene. But what if there were more men and women like Seb? People she could like and respect, maybe even come to love?
The thought was so large she could not wrap her mind around it.
Caina looked at Kylon and felt a wave of warmth go through her. She might have found her mother’s family, for good and for evil, but he was her family now. The thought of facing someone like Talmania Scorneus or Rania Scorneus did not seem so daunting with him at her side.
They talked for a while longer, laying out their plans for the next day. Given the large amount of equipment and tools and costumes the theater company used, they traveled with a dozen large wagons. Moving them anywhere, especially on the substandard roads of Ulkaar, was a major challenge. Caina found that she missed the Imperial Highways of the Empire. Even Istarinmul’s roads had been better than Ulkaar’s, simply because it had rained so infrequently that the dirt had been packed down into something harder than granite.
“Truth be told, it’s something of a relief you came along,” said Theodosia. “With reveniri wandering through the city and the countryside, I was worried about making the journey to Risiviri. The reveniri prefer to attack isolated targets, but if they gather into a large enough group…”
“Then they’ll regret it if they do,” said Kylon.
Theodosia smiled. “Lord Kylon, your candor is refreshing.” Her smile faded. “Speaking of that, you do intend to bring poor Teodor with us?”
Caina glanced to the side. Sophia had settled Teodor in a chair near the hearth, and the old man was dozing. Sleep eased the bewilderment on his face. Sophia sat at the edge of the bench, eating dinner and keeping an eye on Teodor.
“Yes,” said Caina. “I don’t know what else to do with him.”
“Lady Libavya’s sanitarium has a good reputation,” said Theodosia.
“Aye,” said Seb, “but he panicked and refused to go inside. It was the strongest reaction we have seen from him yet. Normally I would suggest leaving him with one of the Temples here, but if High Brother Basarab is corrupt…well, that might not be wise.”
“I am not sure,” said Ilona, frowning, “but now that I have thought about it, I think I recognize him.”
“You do?” said Caina.
Ilona nodded. “I remember seeing him in Risiviri about a year ago. He was wearing the armor of a witchfinder of the Temple, and he was with a group of other witchfinders, escorting a young woman in the robe of a magus of the Magisterium. The Voivode Gregor might turn a blind eye to the Temnoti cults, but the Boyar Mircea does not, and the witchfinders are busy ferreting them out.”
Caina frowned. “So what is he doing here?”
“That is a good question,” said Ilona. “Until he recovers his wits and his memories, he cannot tell us.”
The conversation turned back to the details of the journey, and the door to the street opened several times as the locals came into the Szlacht’s Sword for an evening drink. Caina’s eyes flicked over each of them in turn, wondering if they were agents of the Umbarians or the Temnoti, but for the most part, they looked like bored bargemen and dockworkers. A group of three women came through the door and waited near the hearth, and to judge from their makeup and tight dresses, they were prostitutes.
“I thought you said this was a reputable inn,” said Kylon in a dry voice.
“Well,” said Theodosia with a shrug. “As reputable as anything in the New City. And old Laskar keeps an orderly house. If you spend thirty years pulling an oar on a barge, it turns out you’re quite good at cracking a cudgel on the head of troublemakers.”
“Lord Sebastian,” said Ilona with a smile. “Will you hire comfort before you retire for the night?”
Seb gave her a flat look, and Ilona’s smile faltered.
“I…I didn’t mean…” started Ilona, her poise cracked for just a moment.
Seb sighed. “It is all right. Some topics are simply a sore matter, that is all.” He rose and offered her a crooked smile. “Before my character can be impugned further, I think I shall retire. Good night.”
He left the table and climbed the stairs to the guest rooms on the second floor.
“Comfort?” said Sophia. She looked puzzled.
“Caina,” said Theodosia. “You need to explain some things to this girl.”
“Like you did when I was her age?” said Caina. Come to think of it, that was a terrible idea. Theodosia had urged Caina to find a lover several times, which Caina was certain was a bad idea for Sophia. She was far too young for that kind of thing, and she was going to Iramis to train as a loremaster, which meant she would have little time for distractions for a few years.
It was a terrible idea…but Theodosia had been right about Caina, hadn’t she?
She looked at Kylon again, and once more that deep wave of affection rolled through her.
He was her family now.
“I think we should follow Lord Sebastian’s excellent example,” said Caina, taking Kylon’s hand so he would sense her emotions, “and retire for the night.”
Kylon blinked at her and then smiled. “Yes.”
“I am not totally naïve,” said Sophia. “I know those women are…” She turned red. “Prostitutes. It seems a dreadful way to live.”
“It is,” said Ilona.
“I am glad Lady Caina is taking me to Iramis,” said Sophia. “I feared what I might have to do to survive when I fled Kostiv.”
“Well,” said Caina, getting to her feet. “In a few weeks, we’ll be out of Ulkaar, and you’ll be studying as a new initiate at the Towers of Lore in Iramis. Good night. Don’t let Theodosia keep you up too late.”
“Fear not, dear girl,” said Theodosia. “We’ll have your liegewoman to bed at a reasonable hour.”
Caina led Kylon up the stairs, to the balcony, and then through the door to their room. She had stayed in better rooms, but then she had also stayed in much worse. There was a bed against the wall, and it looked clean, and a desk and a pair of chairs. The room also had its own hearth, the Divine be praised, and warmth radiated from the coals within it. Caina walked to the bed, and Kylon closed and locked the door behind them.
They looked at each other.
“How are you?” said Kylon.
Caina smiled. “Come here, and I’ll show you.”
He did. The bed proved sturdy enough for the task at hand.
After, Caina sighed and rested her head against Kylon’s shoulder, warm and
content. Between the blankets, the hearth, and the heat of his body, this was the warmest she had been since they had left Kostiv.
“I think I shall sleep well after that,” said Caina.
Kylon laughed. “Yes, as if walking all day through the cold was not tiring enough.” He paused. “It was a strange day.”
“Aye,” murmured Caina. “It was good to see Theodosia again, though I am sorry about Niklos. I only met him a few times, but he was a good man. And that letter…” She worked through her thoughts. “I was glad to read it, but I wish he had told me about my mother’s family sooner.”
“Do you?” said Kylon.
Caina considered. “Maybe. But perhaps he was right. I was angrier when I was younger. If I had found out my mother had six sisters and all of them were powerful sorceresses…by the Divine, I might not have taken it well. I might even have tried to kill them, at least the ones who were not friendly with the Emperor.”
“And now?” said Kylon.
“I would kill Talmania if the opportunity presented itself,” said Caina, “both for what she did to Theodosia’s son and to Seb’s wife.” But the thought of launching a rage-fueled secret war against Rania and Talmania and Selene unsettled Caina, precisely because it was exactly what she had done against the Brotherhood of Slavers in Istarinmul.
She was tired of wars fought in the shadows. Truth be told, she had been tired of it even before the day of the golden dead. If Corvalis had not been killed in New Kyre, Caina supposed, she would still be living in Malarae, running the House of Kularus and serving as the circlemaster of a Ghost circle centered on the coffee house.
“But you won’t launch a war against the rest of your family,” said Kylon. “What changed?”
She smiled and kissed him. “You did. I want to go back to Iramis, lock the Ring up, make sure Sophia is settled with the loremasters, and then advise Prince Nasser.” She hesitated. “But what do you want?”
“Me?” said Kylon. “Give me an hour or so to rest, and then I’ll show you.”
Caina smiled again. “I’m serious.”
“And I’m not?”
She laughed. “All right. Don’t tell me. I’ll figure it out.”
Kylon snorted. “Yes, you’ll see some dust on my boot and deduce it from that.” He shrugged. “I…never really thought about it before. All my life I’ve been…” He frowned, thinking.
“Reacting,” said Caina.
“Yes, I suppose that’s it,” said Kylon. “When I was younger, I wanted to be a stormdancer, a warrior for the Kyracian people. After that, I wanted to be a good lord and Archon, a good husband for Thalastre, a good father.” Her question must have put him into a contemplative mood. He rarely talked about Thalastre. “Then I wanted revenge, and I didn’t care if I died in the process. After that, there was you. And now…so long as you are safe, I am content.”
Caina hesitated. “Then you don’t…want to go back to New Kyre? To be a Kyracian lord again? Or to have children? I know I can’t.”
“Caina,” said Kylon.
“You must think about it,” said Caina in a quiet voice.
Kylon shrugged. “Maybe we will go back to New Kyre someday. But if we do, it won’t be at the beck and call of the Surge. And children…we could always adopt.”
Caina blinked. “Adopt?
“It’s common for noble Houses in New Kyre,” said Kylon. “And in the Empire, from what I have heard. I fear the world is unlikely to run out of orphans, especially with the civil war between the Emperor and the Order.”
“I…” Caina shrugged. “I don’t know, Kylon. I always wanted a child. But I wanted the child to be my own. Adopting…it would feel like taking care of someone else’s child. I don’t think I could change my mind about that.”
“Maybe,” said Kylon. “But from what I’ve heard, you once wanted to kill every sorcerer in the world, and you just enjoyed the last half an hour in bed with one, so maybe…”
Caina laughed, surprised. “That’s different.”
“Is it?” said Kylon.
“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. Damn it,” said Caina. She sighed and rubbed a hand through her hair. “Once we get back to Iramis, maybe…maybe it is something I should think about.” She started to say something else, and her mouth cracked in a yawn. “Or maybe tomorrow. I’m too tired to think of anything else. You’ve worn me out.”
“It wasn’t the day spent walking?” said Kylon.
Caina grinned. “No, it was definitely you.”
She rested her head against his chest and soon found herself drifting to sleep.
###
And in her sleep, Caina dreamed.
But it was not a normal dream.
She had disturbing dreams on a fairly regular basis. Halfdan had told her that nightmares were the scars of the mind, and given all the horrifying things that Caina had seen, perhaps it would have been more surprising if she didn’t have dark dreams, tangled mishmashes of the dangerous situations she had survived.
But this dream was different, and it was a kind of dream she had experienced before.
The Moroaica had spoken to Caina in her dreams, as had Samnirdamnus, the Knight of Wind and Air. Caina had gotten so exasperated with the experience that she sometimes wished she had a book inside her head, simply so sorcerers and spirits could leave notes rather than troubling her sleep with dreams.
In the dream, Caina stood in the street outside Lady Libavya Jordizi’s sanitarium. The mansions loomed overhead, stark against a sky choked with storm clouds. The Lord’s Castle rose at the end of the street, a crumbling mass of weathered walls and broken towers. In the dream, it looked larger and far more ominous than it did in the waking world. Shadows writhed and flowed within its walls, and green fire shone from the arrow slits and the windows of the towers. The sight put Caina in mind of a hungry predator, like an Anshani lion crouching in the grass and watching an antelope draw nearer.
Or of the way that Razdan Nagrach had stared at Sophia.
She glimpsed things moving through the ruins of the castle. Caina could not get a good look at them, but the creatures put her in mind of the hunched, writhing things that crawled out of dark places to gnaw upon dead flesh. The carrion spirits, perhaps, that inhabited the undead reveniri? Caina held out her right hand, intending to summon her valikon. If the carrion spirits came for her, they would regret it.
Something caught her attention.
Her pyrikon was vibrating.
She looked at her left wrist. Most of her time, she wore the pyrikon in its bracelet form, hidden beneath her sleeve. That concealed it from sight, which kept her from having to answer questions about it. More prosaically, it also meant thieves would not try to snatch it off her wrist, even though the only way to break Caina’s link with the pyrikon was to kill her.
But now the pyrikon was glowing with white light. It no longer looked like ghostsilver, but as if it had been forged from solidified white flame.
Caina turned and saw the spirit of the pyrikon waiting for her.
It had taken the form of a warrior covered from head to toe in plate armor wrought of white light. In its right hand, it carried a two-edged sword of Iramisian design. The pyrikon’s full helm turned to face her, and Caina felt the weight of the spirit’s attention.
It had been a long time since the pyrikon had done this. The spirit of defense within the metal had no need for conversation. Sometimes it was possible to forget that it was a living thing, to imagine that it was a piece of jewelry that happened to change shape as Caina needed. But she need only look at the pyrikon with the vision of the valikarion to be reminded of the truth.
“Liberator,” said the pyrikon, its voice a deep bass rumble.
“Pyrikon,” said Caina. She wondered if spirits of defense had social niceties as humans did. If they did, they were probably incomprehensible to human minds. Still, it rarely hurt to be polite. “I thank you for your service to me. Again and again, I have been forced to rely on you in dange
r, and you have never failed me.”
“My purpose is to defend,” said the pyrikon. “My purpose is to defend the Liberator. The Liberator must be defended.”
“From what?” said Caina.
“Many foes,” said the pyrikon.
Well, it wasn’t wrong.
“Old things awaken,” said pyrikon. “This is an ancient land by the standards of mortals. Many malicious things sleep in the earth. Mortal wielders of arcane force awaken them one by one. The Liberator must be defended. I must warn the Liberator. Therefore, I must show you the foes that awaken.”
“Then show me,” said Caina.
“Behold,” said the pyrikon, and the spirit pointed its glowing sword at the Lord’s Castle.
A half-dozen reveniri lurked in the fallen arch of the castle’s gate, staring at her.
Caina held out her hand and called her valikon to her grasp, the sword assembling itself from shards of silver light. She shifted into one of the stances that Kylon had taught her, preparing to fight, but the reveniri remained motionless.
“One of the foes,” said the pyrikon.
Caina looked at the undead creatures. Like the reveniri they had fought north of Ulkaar, the creatures looked like frozen corpses, still wearing the clothes they had worn in life. Their eyes glowed with a harsh white light, like sunlight striking a frozen lake, and their fingers had twisted into long claws.
Perhaps because of the strange nature of the dream, or perhaps it was the pyrikon’s influence, but Caina saw the twisted shapes of the carrion spirits that inhabited the undead flesh of the reveniri. They looked inhuman and hideous, with no fixed form. One moment they looked like worms crawling through dead flesh. The next they resembled a rat burrowing into a corpse. The instant after that they reminded Caina of a jackal tearing at carrion. The malicious spirits were all those things and more.
“What are they?” said Caina.
“Your foes,” said the pyrikon. “They hunt for you. They hunt for the relic of necromantic power you carry. But they are vermin. My brothers and I fought such wretches for uncounted millennia in the netherworld, and we made them as chaff upon the threshing floor. But something far more dangerous will awaken soon.”
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