by S L Farrell
Already, the furious blaze was licking at the coffin that held Karl’s remains. As Varina watched, the flames slid upward along the sides until the wooden box was obscured by flame and veiled in smoke. “Good-bye, my love,” Varina whispered. “I will always miss you.”
The tears were streaming unashamedly down her face, the fierce heat of the pyre drying them quickly. Someone was hugging her, and she didn’t know if it was Sergei or the Kraljica or Mason.
It didn’t matter. She watched Karl’s remains spiraling upward into eternity.
She stood there until the pyre collapsed, several minutes later, into a heap of ash and coal as dead and as charred as her own self.
Allesandra ca’Vörl
ALLESANDRA WATCHED SERGEI PACE in front of the portrait of Kraljica Marguerite. The portrait’s stern eyes seemed, to Allesandra, to track the Ambassador’s limping progress from side to side. Commandant cu’Ingres didn’t watch at all; his gaze was fixed determinedly on the small fire in the hearth, intended to take the evening chill from the room. A’Téni ca’Paim sat near the table of pastries, with a full plate on her ample lap.
Allesandra had no appetite herself. The carnage she’d seen during the funerary parade had stolen that. Her hands still trembled, remembering. So cowardly, the use of the black sand. Such an awful death . . . There was still a faint ringing in her ears from the blast.
“We can’t permit another incident like this, Kraljica,” Sergei declared as he passed beneath the portrait yet again. “The message this sends to the populace; the message this sends to the Faithful . . . We can’t allow it.”
“There was no téni-magic involved in this,” A’Téni ca’Paim declared sternly. “Morel understands the consequences if he would use the Ilmodo. That’s why he used black sand—though one of his followers probably set off the black sand with a spell as the bier passed over it.”
“That’s exactly the point,” Sergei answered. “He was able to disrupt a solemn ritual of the Holdings without the Ilmodo. Without magic. The use of black sand was a message: that the Faith is useless and weak, that the Holdings can be held hostage by anyone who can create black sand, that the Numetodo are more dangerous than any téni. That’s worse than if he had used the Ilmodo.”
Ca’Paim’s face wrinkled in a moue of disgust. “The Faith is not weak,” she responded primly. “The Faith is stronger than it has been in decades. Archigos Karrol has seen to that.”
Allesandra noticed that ca’Paim pretended not to hear Sergei’s audible sniff of disdain at that statement. “You think that Morel isn’t intelligent enough to understand the symbolism of his actions?” Allesandra asked her. “It seemed clear enough to me. That blasphemous puppet of Cénzi was staring directly at the bier when the black sand exploded. I think Morel would have used the Ilmodo to the same effect—except that he was obeying the laws of Faith. Apologies to you, A’Téni ca’Paim, but the man believes he follows the tenets of the Toustour and the Divolonté far more closely than any of the a’téni and Archigos Karrol.”
“His message may be read differently by different people, Kraljica,” Sergei persisted, “and that’s even more of an issue. Yes, to the Faith he is saying ‘Look, I obeyed your rules even though I find them supremely foolish.’ To the Numetodo, he says ‘I find your beliefs vile and heretical.’ But I think the general populace—who is neither téni nor Numetodo—takes away an entirely different statement. I think some of them might look at what happened and think ‘I can do that. Why, anyone could do that.’ That’s dangerous. That’s not what we want the people to believe, especially those who might have reason to oppose us.”
Ca’Paim bit savagely into a pastry, chewing furiously. Cu’Ingres watched the dance of the flames. “So what would you have me do, Sergei?” Allesandra asked.
“We must find Morel. We must execute him savagely and publicly,” Sergei answered. “Then your answer to his message is: ‘If you try this, you die.’”
“Is that what Varina would tell me to do?” Allesandra asked.
“No,” Sergei admitted. “It’s not. But I’m your adviser, not the A’Morce Numetodo. My loyalty is to you, Kraljica: to Nessantico, and to the Holdings—as it always has been. I tell you what will best serve those loyalties. We need to deal harshly with Nico Morel and his followers.”
“I agree with the Ambassdor entirely,” ca’Paim said. She rose, still holding the plate of pastries. “My people will aid you in that in any way we can. I can begin by questioning those suspected of having Morelli sympathies . . .” She gave the sign of Cénzi, one-handed, to Allesandra and the others. “Do you think Talbot could have someone wrap these up for me, Kraljica?” she asked, holding up the plate. “I hate to see them go to waste . . .”
A’Téni ca’Paim made her exit with a parcel of sweets, and Commandant cu’Ingres accompanied her from the room. Talbot—who had insisted on returning to work despite the cuts and scratches he’d sustained—sent in a trio of servants to clear the tables and take the trays back to the kitchens.
Sergei had made no motion to leave. Allesandra watched him, his attention seemingly on the servants as they went about their tasks, one hand behind his back, the other leaning on a silver-knobbed cane that nearly matched his nose. A stripe of the candle later, the last servant bowed and left the room, closing the door behind her. “What, Sergei?” Allesandra asked then. “I have Erik ca’Vikej arriving for lunch in a half-turn. He wants to discuss how the exiled West Magyarian government might respond to the Morelli issue.”
Sergei turned to her. She saw his eyes close briefly and his lips press together, as if the movement pained him—or as if the mention of ca’Vikej bothered him. “You’re toying with black sand and fire there, Kraljica,” he said. “As Ambassador to the Coalition, I have to caution you against appearing to openly support the man.”
He seemed to swallow something else that he might have said, and she wondered if he realized the other feelings she had for Erik. “As Ambassador to the Coalition, I expect you to support me, however I tell you to do so,” she answered sharply, and he inclined his head; mostly, she suspected, so she could not see his eyes.
“Forgive me, Kraljica—that is, of course, my duty. I will be seeing your son in a few days. But I would like to offer him an olive branch rather than a naked sword.”
Allesandra was already shaking her head before he finished. “You’re becoming predictable, Sergei,” she told him. “And you’re getting soft in your dotage.”
“Then you’ve decided against my proposal to reconcile with him?”
“I appreciate the thought that went into it, Sergei. And your intent.”
“But?”
“I don’t intend to capitulate so my son can take the Sun Throne.”
Tap, tap . . . Sergei took a few shuffling steps toward her. His quilted face was earnest, and she could see the reflection of the hearth’s fire flickering in his polished nose. “You wouldn’t be capitulating, Kraljica, only naming your son as your heir upon your death.”
The laugh she gave was more of a cough. “I fail to see the difference, Sergei. If I name Jan as heir, I lose my power as Kraljica. Everyone will start to look east to Brezno and the Hïrzg with any proclamation I might make, to see if he agrees. The Council of Ca’ here will be more concerned with how their rulings are perceived by Jan than by me. I intend to live a long life yet, Sergei. What did you tell me the other day—that I have decades yet to match Kraljica Marguerite?” She rose from her seat—let him see that our conversation is done. She spoke now distantly and sternly, as if giving an order to Talbot. “Well, I intend to do exactly that. You will support me, or someone else will be my Ambassador.”
She watched his face, though Sergei’s expression rarely betrayed his private thoughts. It did not do so now. He bowed a bit awkwardly and stiffly, but his face was bland and his eyes seemed to hold nothing but respect for her. “I will always serve Nessantico and whomever sits on the Sun Throne,” he said. “Always.”
&nbs
p; She nearly laughed again—so carefully said. “Then tell my son that he toys with black sand and fire, as you said, with his recent border excursions, and that my patience is ebbing. Tell him that I expect them to stop immediately, or that I’ll be forced to respond in kind. Remind him that West Magyaria is his only because I failed to send the full Garde Civile to support Stor ca’Vikej—that’s a mistake I won’t repeat.”
His face showed nothing as Sergei bowed. “As the Kraljica wishes,” he answered.
“Good,” she told him. “I’ll have Talbot draw up a list of demands for your meeting, and my responses to the questions that you’re likely to receive from the Hïrzg.”
The Hïrzg. Not “my son.” Allesandra had a sudden memory of Jan: holding him as an infant, watching him suckle at her breast and the close, intense pleasure of feeling her milk come; his first words; his first staggering steps; the times he’d come to her crying because of some injury or perceived slight and she’d held and comforted him. Where did that change? Why did I let that happen? She sucked in her breath. Sergei was watching her, his rheum-touched eyes on her face. “We’re done,” she told him. “I’ll send Talbot with my instructions.”
“Yes, Kraljica,” he said, and she hated the sympathy he allowed to pass over his face, hated that he had noticed the emptiness inside her, that made her cry sometimes alone at night, that troubled her dreams. He bowed his way out, but she was no longer paying any attention to him. It was Jan she saw, as he was when she had last seen him. She wondered what he was like now, what her great-children might be like, whom she had never hugged or kissed or dandled on her knees. So much you’ve missed. So much you’ve lost. Her vision wavered, the tapestry-lined walls going briefly liquid, and she wondered whether Sergei might be right. Perhaps it was time.
There was a soft knock on the door, and she blinked, wiping at her eyes quickly with her sleeve. “Come,” she said, and Talbot stuck his head in the doorway.
“The Ambassador said you would want me, Kraljica.”
She sniffed. “Yes,” she told him. “Come in, but first have one of the servants bring parchment and ink. And if Vajiki ca’Vikej has arrived, tell him that I will be with him shortly.”
“I was terrified when I heard, worried that you might have been injured . . .”
Erik was pacing back and forth in front of the windows of the apartment. Their lunch steamed on the table untouched. Allesandra watched him from her chair at the table, staring at him: at the worry in his face, at the way the muscles lurched on his bald skull.
It’s real, the concern he has for you. It’s not faked, it’s not based on his own agenda: it’s genuine. She hoped she was right in that. She also realized that she’d made a decision, all unbidden and unasked for. It was wrapped in her own loneliness, in her estrangement from Jan, in the mistake she’d made with Erik’s vatarh, in the intense grief she felt when she was with Varina, in her anger with the Morellis. She hoped her decision was the right one.
“I’m fine, Erik,” she told him. “I was shaken but not injured. The attack wasn’t directed at me.”
He nodded fiercely. “Had you been hurt, I would have gone out myself and found this Nico Morel, and . . .” He stopped, turning away from the windows to look at her. His face and his voice softened. “My apologies, Kraljica. It’s just that I was so worried . . .”
“I’m fine,” she repeated. “And here, while we’re alone, I would prefer you call me Allesandra.”
“Allesandra,” he said, as if tasting the name. He smiled. “Thank you. But don’t underestimate these Morellis. They’re a danger to you, whether you believe it or not. They’re fanatics, and they threaten anyone who doesn’t believe as they believe.”
“Are you a fanatic, Erik?” she asked him gently. She gestured to the chair next to her right.
He sat before he answered. “About West Magyaria, you mean?” His hand cupped his wineglass, shivering the ruby liquid in it. “No, not about that. In politics, I’m more of a pragmatist than my vatarh. I believe that West Magyaria would be better off as part of the Holdings. I believe that I would be a good Gyula, if Cénzi desires that to happen. I’m willing to work as hard as I need to make that happen, but I also know that sometimes sacrifices and compromises must be made to accomplish things, and that sometimes the best result isn’t the one you would like to see. So, no, I’m not a fanatic but a realist.” He lifted the glass and set it down again. “That’s not to say that there aren’t things that I care deeply about or that I’m not a passionate man, Kralji—” A breath. “Allesandra. When I come to love something, or someone . . .”
His hand left the glass and lay on the linen tablecloth. She reached out her own hand and put it on top of his. She heard him draw in his breath. His lovely pale eyes held her own gaze, unblinking, almost as if in challenge. His fingers opened, then laced with hers.
“I am passionate,” she told him softly. “Nessantico and the Holdings are my passion. And I am also dangerous because of that. So this . . .” She pressed his fingers lightly. “.. . would not be a decision to make lightly. Or, if you prefer, we can eat the dinner that’s set here for us.”
He nodded. He lifted his hand, still holding hers, to his mouth, and kissed the back of her hand. His breath was warm on her skin, the touch of his lips soft and exciting. “Are you hungry, Allesandra?” he asked.
This is what you want . . . This is why you asked him here today . . . “I am,” she answered. She rose from her chair, still holding his hand.
She led him away.
Niente
THE WATERS OF MUNEREO BAY swarmed with ships anchored together so densely that it seemed a person might walk entirely across the great bay without getting wet. Their sails were furled and lashed on their masts, and they huddled together under a low sky with the clouds racing west. Fleeting shafts of dusty sunlight pierced the clouds and slid over the bay, sparkling on the distant waves and the bound white cloth on their masts.
Niente had never in his life seen so many ships gathered in one place, had only once before seen so many warriors of the Tehuantin gathered together.
He heard a gasp from his side as his son Atl came alongside him. “By Axat’s left tit,” he breathed, the profanity loud in the chill morning air, “that is something new in the world.”
“It certainly is,” Niente told the young man. He blinked, trying unsuccessfully to clear his blurred vision—even his remaining eye’s sight was beginning to fail. They were standing on a hill outside the city walls, not far from the main road down to the harbor. The road was thick with soldiers, marching down to the boats. The few hundred nahualli, the spellcasters that would be accompanying the invasion force, were gathered in their own group a little farther down the hill, just off the road. They would be among the last to board the ships, just before Tecuhtli Citlali and his High Warriors.
Behind Niente and Atl, the thick walls of Munereo were still pockmarked and stained by the vestiges of the battle that had raged here a decade and a half ago, when the Holdings forces had been defeated by the army of Tecuhtli Zolin, Citlali’s predecessor. Niente had been here for that battle, had seen the black sand roar and the stones fly, had helped to sacrifice the defeated Easterner leaders to Axat. And he had sailed with Tecuhtli Zolin from this very harbor across the sea to the Holdings itself.
So long ago. It felt like another lifetime to Niente.
A lifetime he was now forced to revisit if he wanted to achieve the vision he’d glimpsed in the scrying bowl. How many of these warriors will die for this? How many souls will be sent to the underworld because of what I’m doing? Axat, please tell me that I can do this, that it will be worth the guilt my own soul will have to bear. Help me.
“Taat?”
Niente shook himself from reverie. “What?”
“I thought you said something.”
“No,” he answered. At least I hope not. No one could know this vision. Not yet. “I was clearing my throat; the air this morning is hard on my lungs.”
He gestured out toward the ships and the bay. “Tomorrow, we’ll be sailing toward the sun when it rises.”
“And there will be good winds,” Atl said, and the confidence in his voice made Niente turn to his son, his eyes narrowing.
“You know this?” he asked.
Atl smiled briefly, like the touch of sun through the clouds on the ships below. “Yes,” he answered.
“Atl—” Niente began, and his son lifted a hand.
“Stop, Taat. Here, I’ll finish it for you. ‘Look at me. Look at how Axat has scarred me. Leave the scrying to some other nahualli. Axat is hardest on those to whom She gives Sight.’ I’ve heard it all. Many times.”
“You should look at me,” Niente persisted. He touched his blind, white eye, stroked the sagging muscles of the left side of his face, the ridges of scarred, dead skin: a mask of horror. “Is this what you want to look like?”
Atl’s gaze swept over Niente’s face and departed once more. “That took many years, Taat,” he said. “And the oath of the nahualli binds us to do what Axat asks of us. And your scrying got you that also.” He pointed to the golden band around Niente’s right arm.
“You musn’t do this,” Niente persisted. “Atl, I mean it. When I’m gone, do as you wish, but while I live, while I’m your Taat and the Nahual . . .” He put his hand on Atl’s shoulder. The contrast of their skin startled him: his own was loose, painfully dry, and plowed with uncountable tiny furrows; Atl’s was smooth and bronzed. “Don’t call on Her,” he finished. “That’s my task. My burden.”
“It doesn’t have to be yours alone.”
“Yes, it does,” Niente said, and the words came out more sharply than he’d intended, snapping Atl’s head back as if he’d been slapped. The young man’s eyes were slitted, and he shot a glance of raw fury at Niente for a moment before turning his head slightly to stare deliberately out toward the bay. “Take care of him,” Xaria had told him before they left. “He loves you, he respects you, and he admires you. He wants so much to make you proud of him—and I worry that he’ll do something foolish in the effort . . .”