After the Dragon

by Wendy Palmer

  Lithia was awake and all in pure white, dressed already for the ceremony. She had rings on every finger but was distressed and pacing. ‘I don't know where the crown jewels are,’ she said, when Filipe came in the door. ‘And Mikcul didn't have them either.’ She looked at Yury and the two guards with him. ‘But I see you have bigger issues.'

  'I know where they are. Sit down.'

  'Send your servants away,’ added Trick, remembering Rissun. Lithia obeyed them both.

  When the room was clear, Filipe said, ‘We now have reason to believe Crethen was much more closely allied with Mikcul than I previously thought.'

  So he had taken on board the significance of the jewel in Yury's hair, which Trick had now in his pocket. Crethen, if he kept that crystal to hand, knew Yury had visited Filipe and now knew he had gone to Lithia. Trick wished he had destroyed the garnet earlier. His hand tightened around it now but he let it be. It was too late.

  But Lithia shrugged, smoothing at her dress. ‘We all did what we had to do under Mikcul.'

  Lithia had hidden and gotten Linnet killed. She looked at him as if she knew it.

  Trick said, ‘We think he has ordered murder.'

  Filipe nodded at Yury. ‘We think he had this man kill his own wife.'

  'But why?’ said Lithia, pale-faced and then held up a hand. ‘No one would do such a thing.'

  Mizzle came close and touched Lithia's hand, as Trick had never seen her touch a human. ‘I will ask him, and he must answer me. Will you accept this as proof?'

  Lithia nodded slowly.

  Mizzle crossed to Yury in two fast strides. Seizing his shirt, she caught his eye and held it. Trick felt glamour roll away from her in a wave, and his hand flinched to the scar at his side.

  'Did Lord Crethen have you kill his wife?’ she asked, and Yury nodded furiously, his head bouncing as his eyes never left her face.

  All the breath went out of Lithia and she had to turn away.

  Trick tore himself from Mizzle and sat beside her, reaching for her hand.

  Filipe turned from Mizzle too, shaking his head a little, and the two guards trembled. Yury collapsed to his knees when she let him go, and watched her walk away from him with shining eyes.

  Trick was reminded of Faustus.

  Lithia shook herself. ‘Take him downstairs until I call for him,’ she said to the guards. She turned to Filipe, her fingers convulsing in Trick's hand. ‘Now I must find someone to take Crethen's lands as well as Dalton's.'

  'You don't necessarily have to depose him,’ said Filipe. ‘This will break his power.'

  'I won't have a murderer ruling any part of Livania,’ she said. Then she cried out and dropped Trick's hand.

  'You are not a murderer, Lithia,’ said Filipe. ‘Dalton died because of me and because he was a fool. Never because of you.'

  Mizzle, who was most to blame, said nothing.

  Filipe went on, ‘All your lords will at one time or the other have had someone killed. It is the way of it.'

  Lithia sat looking at her hands and shaking her head as if she could not bear to hear it. Filipe crouched beside her and said, ‘I meant to give you this earlier.’ He pushed it into her hand.

  'What is it?’ She looked down at it, a crystal ball filled with light and glitter that Trick recognised as a Bourchian toy for the children of lords and rich men.

  'A coronation gift.’ Filipe embraced her, sudden and quick, and turned away.

  She was, being Livanian, entranced. ‘Thank you,’ she said, turning it over in her hands as it played its kaleidoscope colours across her face and reflected like the northern lights from the white of her dress.

  Filipe was embarrassed at himself, Trick could see. He coughed and said, ‘The crown jewels.'

  Lithia lifted her face from the crystal ball and looked to him.

  'May I ask your assistance one more time, Mizzle?’ said Filipe.

  Mizzle blinked. ‘What is it?'

  It was nasty of Filipe to demand another task from her. Such tricks were likely to make her refuse point-blank. But he took Lithia's hands and showed Mizzle the rings she wore on her fingers.

  Trick looked on, not understanding, as Mizzle examined the jewellery. ‘Who did this spell?'

  'I don't know,’ Filipe said. ‘The Emperor's supporters had it done after Mikcul killed him.'

  'It is DarkElf magic,’ she said. Trick looked closer and finally saw what they were looking at. Three of the eight rings Lithia wore were in the shape of crowns, one so high it reached to her middle knuckle. That had to be the coronation crown.

  'Jarrett?’ said Filipe. ‘So he was never so loyal to Mikcul as Mikcul himself supposed.'

  Trick doubted that, and something passed across Mizzle's face. She touched the rings and said ‘Zenzou,’ in soft DarkElvish.

  Nothing happened. Mizzle drew back, frowning. That same look crossed her face again and she flicked a glance at Trick.

  'What?’ he asked.

  She shook her head and the troubled expression disappeared. She slipped a hand into her pocket and said the same word again. This time music welled into the air without sound—the same pressure Trick had felt when she had used the stone against Avenir.

  The rings grew slowly, expanding out, sliding from Lithia's fingers, until three crowns rolled on the floor.

  Trick looked at Mizzle, who seemed unperturbed as she watched Lithia and Filipe pick them up. But it had taken the stone to break the spell a DarkElf had laid on them. And if it had been Jarrett—and who else could it have been?—then he, exiled DarkElf, possessed more magic than any male had a right to, to be able to defeat a female.

  Mizzle turned the full force of her silver eyes on Trick. ‘Come to my room.'

  Filipe and Lithia both looked around as if dragged by hooks.

  Mouse drew on his slate, leaning so close to it he got chalk dust all through his dark hair. He looked up when the others did but without the same expression. Trick saw he was sketching Mizzle in chalk. He was not unaffected by the smoke haze of glamour hanging about her and the room, then. He did hover at that age.

  Trick stood and went with her. They passed Crethen's daughter Jollette coming up to Lithia's quarters. Trick barely noticed her and did not return her nod. He did not know what Mizzle wanted, but it could not be what Lithia and Filipe thought. His mind skittered away from that idea. He did not believe it, and hovered at her doorway.

  Her room smelt of feverfew and thyme. She had no guards, no servants. Her section of hallway was deserted.

  Mizzle turned and saw he had not followed her in. Her face was expressionless but her eyes flickered, and he could not but feel embarrassed.

  And still could not follow her into the room.

  Mizzle went over to the table and came back and gave him a jar. ‘For your neck,’ she said, her long fingers coming close to the cut across his throat but not touching him. ‘I would have given you it for your earlier injuries but the herbs had to simmer.'

  He took it, wishing she had not noticed how sore he had been after that attack by the road and wondering if she knew he had gone through her bags looking for her miracle salve.

  And something else occurred to him. ‘Is that why you stayed so long?’ he asked. ‘To make this stuff?'

  Mizzle said, ‘Yes,’ as if that should have been obvious.

  'So you don't care for Lithia at all?'

  She looked him in the eye and said, ‘Love is a human word, Trick.'

  That stung, that she should so repeat his own words back to him. ‘Is there no word for friend in your language?'

  She stunned him again. ‘You tell me.'

  He automatically answered, ‘How would I know?’ He backed up a few steps as he said it.

  A faint smile touched her then, bringing her towards human.

  He got a lump in the pit of his stomach. He said, to turn her if he could, ‘Why did you have to use the stone back there?'

  Her smile went to a frown. ‘It should not have been so.'

>   'Did Jarrett do the spell that shrank the rings in the first place?'

  'I do not know.’ Her gaze went past him down the hallway. ‘If he did—'

  She stopped, shut the door on him, and sent him away in high dudgeon and no little alarm.

  He went back to his quarters. Lithia had to go down to prayer and vigil for all the morning hours and the coronation ceremony itself would not start until that afternoon. He curled on the bed and slept.

  He dreamed of riding Skye towards Carolide, where he and Linnet had made their home. In real life, he had not known the Cult had attacked until he rode in the gates and smelt the smoke and saw the hangman's scaffolding, but in the dream he raced to save her from the Dragon.

  'You're late,’ she whispered. ‘You're late.'

  His servant woke him, amid many apologies, and gave him fresh clothes. He met Faustus and Mouse as he came down the hallway.

  'I hope we leave soon,’ his cousin said. ‘Do you know somebody cut my wallet?'

  'Shocking,’ said Trick.

  Mizzle joined them as they went down the stairs. ‘We are late.'

  Trick felt a shudder go down his spine and controlled it. ‘It's fine.’ They went on into the main hall, smoky and hot with the crowd, and full of voices and music.

  Mizzle baulked at the threshold but went in.

  All the lords were there, and their retainers and lesser peers, and guildsmen of Lsuana, master craftsmen and representatives of the larger Livanian towns, and even a few dignitaries of other nations. This stage of the coronation ceremony was public and pompous. Only later would Lithia face her lords in private council.

  Trick snaffled himself a brandy from the tray of a servant. He rolled the glass between his fingers as he looked around the room to find Filipe.

  He saw Linnet.

  His fingers let go of the glass and only Mizzle's lightening grab stopped it smashing on the floor. He ignored her puzzled glance and Faustus's question, taking a few steps through the crowd towards the flame-red hair, beacon, siren.

  It could not be her and it was. He dreamed of her, and she was here.

  Then the woman turned and he stopped. Not Linnet. The same bright impossible hair, the same eyes. Impossible hope had bloomed in him and it withered away on the instant.

  But she had to be another Saint-Beauve, another sister of Sparrow's. He had never met her but had been vaguely aware one existed. He teetered on the edge of approaching her. But he finally noticed her white robes and realised the truth. This woman who looked so much like Linnet that it twisted a knife in his gut was the First Priestess of the Cult that had killed her. This woman, the shadow of Linnet, sat next to Mikcul in Trick's mind, in a place marked for death.

  By killing her, he'd deliver to Sparrow another dead sister. Abruptly, he could not. Trick walked backwards away from her, bouncing off Faustus and heading for the exit.

  Before he reached them, the great doors swung shut, a fanfare rent though the conversations and background music, and Lithia made her entrance at the top of the grand stairs on the other side of the hall.

  She wore the white dress she had worn that morning, now stained at the knees from her prayers to Livana the Moon-Goddess. The tall coronation crown Mizzle had restored to her rested on her head. By the dictates of legend, if she faltered under the heavy weight of that crown during the hours she had to wear it today, she was no fit ruler for Livania. Legend only, but Trick caught Viga watching avidly as she came down the stairs.

  The priestess waited at the bottom.

  When Lithia reached her, the new Empress curtsied—a gesture of obedience to Livana only that made Trick's stomach curdle. The priestess took her hands, and chanted out a prayer in old Livanian, the words barely recognisable.

  The prayer ended and the priestess began to ask the ritual questions.

  Mizzle handed his glass back to him. ‘You know this female?'

  'I do,’ replied Lithia to the priestess's first question.

  'I thought I did,’ he answered, without looking at Mizzle, hoping to dissuade her. ‘I was mistaken.'

  Filipe edged through the crowd. ‘At least Priestess Zircon is cooperating,’ he said. ‘We must have paid better than Viga.'

  His tone was flippant but Trick knew Filipe would have made damn sure Lithia's offer to the Cult outdid any others. And he almost sagged with relief, because the priestess who had ordered the blitz on the Company had not been named Zircon. ‘What happened to Hesperus?'

  On his other side Mizzle leant forward to listen and Mouse came round closer. Only Faustus seemed to be paying any attention to the ceremony, though he could not possibly understand it.

  'You know the priestesses are supposed to be virgins,’ said Filipe. ‘It turns out she had a ten-year-old son.’ Trick's eyebrows went up and Mouse made a little noise under his breath. Filipe nodded and added, ‘And rumour holds Mikcul was the father.'

  Mouse actually took a step back. He could not have been any more surprised than Trick.

  'No wonder he and the Cult have been hand-in-glove.'

  Mizzle said, ‘Mikcul's son?'

  'The boy went missing when his mother was removed.’ Trick got the meaning behind Filipe's choice of words and did not remotely feel sorry for her. Another name crossed off his list. Only Filipe remained, hastily added and not in seriousness.

  He wished that death and revenge could ease him, that his heart would sing now that Mikcul was dead, that Hesperus was dead. Maybe Filipe would not be so safe then.

  Filipe added to Mizzle's stare, ‘I don't want to give credence to the rumours by looking for him. I don't think he's a threat.'

  Mizzle had to disagree with him. DarkElf tactics dictated the elimination of the remotest possible risk. Perhaps that was where Crethen took his lessons. Of course, if the boy was to hand, Filipe might take his lessons from the DarkElves too.

  The ceremony finished, the Priestess crying out the proclamation. The crowd called back, solemn and thunderous, ‘Tal Lithium! Tal Lithium!'

  The oaths of fealty came then. All the lords bent the knee but it would not mean a thing until after Lithia met with them that evening and bought their loyalty. Trick noticed Rissun walked with Sifley and Zanda as the crowd flowed to the feasting tables. That was a good sign for Lithia. But Ghaun and Viga had their heads together. Crethen kept alone, but glanced round, frowning.

  Trick touched the garnet stone where it nestled in his pocket. Crethen must have the mother crystal with him and was looking for his man.

  Let him look. The next time he saw Yury, the man would be in chains and he would be lucky not to join him.

  'The Bourchian ambassador.’ Filipe looked at the far end of the table, and his fingers flicked—hide—in the Company's shorthand, though he seemed unaware of it. Trick remembered he had done the same unwitting signing when Mizzle had taken Lithia hostage. So the man did have nerves after all. ‘Queen Cerise must have sent him.'

  Mizzle said in Trick's ear, ‘Why the queen and not King Fillip?'

  Trick's hands trembled and he almost dropped his glass again. He shook his head. He had been jumping at shadows all day and stood at the edge of exhaustion to be so alarmed by Mizzle's whisper. He could not imagine what had caused such a response. He said back, ‘King Fillip is her enemy.'

  They ate, Filipe edging his chair back so he was out of the ambassador's line of sight. Trick noticed Mouse doing the same with the Priestess.

  He wished he could hide so easily. At least the feast was not so lavish as at Dalton's palace and over after only four courses.

  As sweetmeats and the hot strong kafa Livanians favoured were being brought round, Lithia stood and bowed to the table and retreated to the council room.

  That was the lords’ cue. They went, and Filipe stood. ‘I've told her she absolutely cannot look to me or you while she's doling out her decisions,’ he said to Trick, which Trick took as invitation to bring Mizzle and Faustus and Mouse after him into the council room. Certainly the servants did not
dissuade them as they went in.

  The council room held a long table, and a huge map of Livania was painted in vibrant green and blue and gilt on the wall opposite the fireplace. A mirror hung on the wall opposite the door. Chairs and couches were positioned around the walls. Lithia took her place at the head of the table, and the lords ranged themselves around it. One chair, Dalton's, was conspicuously empty. Filipe and the rest of them took a seat at the back of the room under the mirror. Crethen shot Trick a particularly cold look.

  Trick could well believe that man had tried to kill him.

  Lithia began, abrupt and without waiting for the servants to finish pouring kafa. ‘I will dispose of Dalton's lands first,’ she said. ‘Crethen—'

  'Your Majesty,’ Rissun interrupted.

  Perhaps he was brave enough to warn her about Crethen while sitting beside him. Lithia overrode him. ‘Crethen, your daughter Jollette shall take Dalton's place.'

  Filipe coughed but the sound was buried under the sudden murmur from the lords. Trick signed—silence—to him, and—trust—as if he knew what game Lithia played.

  'Is this my reward for aiding you?’ Crethen was half up, leaning on fisted hands on the table.

  'No,’ Lithia said. ‘That will come later. Viga, you have a second son, do you not?'

  Viga had been drawing breath. Trick watched him lose it all with that question and bit down on a smile. ‘Yes, Your Majesty.'

  'Do you object to marrying this son to Jollette? Such an alliance would be beneficial.'

  Such an alliance gave Viga access to the rich northern lands. Viga nodded, carefully. Lithia went on, still without looking up from her papers. ‘Such a young couple would need careful guidance from their parents.'

  Viga's eyes lit and Trick could have sworn he was barely refraining from rubbing his hands together. Crethen, however, looked like a storm.

  Trick watched his hand steal into his pocket and then the lord sat upright and looked around the room.

  His crystal said his man was here, and of course he wasn't. Crethen had fair warning that something wasn't right.

  'I would insist they take the name Dalton to ensure continuity and honour my first ally's name,’ said Lithia.

  'Of course, Your Majesty,’ said Viga. Crethen nodded absently.