The Mageborn Traitor--Exiles, Volume 2

by Melanie Rawn

  “The world I would like to live in is one in which everyone fortunate enough to have a secure place in society also has the compassion to assist those less fortunate.”

  Sarra kept her face straight, but she was thinking, Translation: everybody with her own specific pattern in the Great Loom, and those who don’t fit are “assisted” out of it. Vellerin actually thinks she’ll be directing the weaving. She doesn’t know Glenin very well yet.

  “An admirable goal,” said Councillor Eddavar. “And one we must be sure to work toward. But for the present, I believe the Public Aid Fund should stay as it is. Councillors? A voice vote will suffice.”

  They voted, and yet another of Vellerin Dombur’s—and Glenin Feiran’s—proposals was defeated. That made nine in the last two days, some of them critical points of law and governance, others with more philosophical than practical consequences. Vellerin seemed disappointed, but not overly so, confirming Sarra’s opinion that she and Glenin had something in mind that would make all of these presentations, discussions, and votes meaningless.

  The Council adjourned for lunch at a reasonable time—Half-Eighth—and as Sarra consulted with her junior she saw Vasha Maklyn trying to catch her eye. An invitation to lunch was accepted, and they walked through the halls talking idly of Sarra’s children and Vasha’s grandchildren. But once inside the suite—done in a sea-creatures theme as relentless as Cailet’s birdcage—Vasha dismissed her servants so they could talk freely.

  “Y’know,” she said over shrimp casserole and salad, “I heard a story about Vellerin the other day. When she and her cousins were little, they’d play a game in the streets of Domburron. They’d pretend they were beating her up, and leave her sprawled on the pavement. A kind-hearted pedestrian would stop and bend over to help her—and she’d leap up and yell ‘Surprise!’ in her unsuspecting victim’s face.” She paused to sip wine. “These days I keep wondering when she’s going to start playing dead.”

  “And which of us will try to help.”

  “Oh, I think we can count on Mittrian Shelan for that. He’s a credulous little moron, truly told.” She let out a snort of laughter. “Do you know, five years ago when we were overhauling the Web regulations for the millionth time, he actually believed that because I slept with him once I’d vote his way?”

  “So how was he?” Sarra teased.

  “Not worth the bother. Great body, but incapable of using it for anything inventive. Speaking of great bodies, how’s that luscious lug of a Minstrel of yours?”

  “Inventive, Vasha,” Sarra purred. “Very inventive.”

  “You’re merciless,” she groaned.

  “So’s Brishina,” Sarra said frankly. “She lets Vellerin speak her piece—barely—then cuts off debate and takes a vote. None of these proposals will ever get to the Assembly for discussion. And I don’t think that’s wise. It makes the Council look as if we’re ruling Lenfell all by ourselves.”

  “Not to mention it gives the broadsheets the chance to editorialize pompously about free and open debate among the Assembly’s three hundred and twenty-five, instead of our own paltry thirty.” She poured more wine for herself and Sarra, shaking her head. “At least if things got to the Assembly, we’d have more time.”

  “For what?”

  “To see what’s really going on here. Tell me, Sarra, d’you think Brishina’s rushing through things on purpose?”

  She thought that over, sipping a crisp golden shabby—Vasha’s family’s private reserve from its vineyards below Caitiri’s Forge—and at length said, “I’ve heard nothing of any lucrative new deals between their Webs. They trade, of course. We all do with each other to a certain extent. But nothing special is going on. And I’m fairly certain Brishina doesn’t subscribe to the turn-back-the-clock theory. If not for profit or philosophy, why would she do it?”

  “Well, if she’s not working with Dombur, she’s working against her—which is just as dangerous.” Vasha ruminated for a time. “Have your husband’s Minstrelsy nose around a bit.”

  Sarra pasted a blank look onto her face. “My husband’s—?”

  “Oh, please!” Vasha snorted. “My favorite grandson is strutting around Dindenshir this very minute, warbling lewd ballads in disreputable taverns by night and spying for your husband by day!”

  “I didn’t think you knew—and I’m sure Collan will be annoyed that you found out.” Sarra smiled. “And even more annoyed to hear you called it ‘spying.’ How did you learn what Savachel’s up to?”

  “His postage bills to his cousin at Mage Hall are a family scandal.” Her dark eyes gleamed merrily below bristling white brows. “The very least Collan could do is reimburse us.”

  “I’ll discuss it with him!” Sarra laughed. “Speaking of my husband, thank you for lunch but I really must go. I haven’t seen him in two days.”

  “As if when you get him alone you spend the time talking!”

  Sarra laughed. “Normally, no! But when I get back at night from meetings, he’s asleep, and when I leave in the morning for more meetings, he’s still asleep!”

  “Well, go find him while he’s awake, then, and give him a flourish for me. Are you hunting on the eleventh? There’s a little farmhouse not five miles from the proposed route—and the farmer cooperatively vanishes after you contribute an eagle or two to her coffers.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Sarra promised, returning Vasha’s grin.

  Not even Tarise knew where Collan and Cailet and the twins had disappeared to for the day. Feeling lonely and left out, Sarra spent the afternoon going through her mail—mainly letters from Roseguard about the Slegin Web that Col hadn’t had time to deal with yet. But there was one envelope with a return address she didn’t recognize, and on opening it she could scarcely believe what she read.

  The First Daughter of the Liwellan Name was coming to Ryka Court. Sarra, who had never even met another Liwellan, always thought of herself as holding that position. But in fact she was legally beholden to the Cloistered ancient who had decided to come visit.

  Since the Thirty-Eighth Census in 950 the family had thinned from nearly a hundred members to just forty: fifteen adult women (four childless, three whose daughters had died, and eight who had borne only sons), eighteen adult men (eleven married, seven elderly widowers), five unmarried boys (including Mikel), and Sarra and Taigan. Gorynel Desse had chosen that Name because there were so few of them. Of course, that worked in reverse as well: the fewer the members of a Name, the greater probability that they all not only knew each other but were very closely related. The Liwellans, however, were the exception: scattered all over Lenfell, the common ancestor dated all the way back to the Thirty-Second Census in 800. So there was small chance of Sarra’s ever meeting another Liwellan, and even less chance of her status as one of them being questioned; the branches were few and thin. Presumably, at the time of Ambrai’s destruction Desse had also had some sort of secret agreement with the Liwellan First Daughter, distant cousin of the present eighty-year-old who was now coming to visit Sarra. And, after a moment’s thought, Sarra knew why.

  The venerable Lady Alinar had for the last thirty years lived at The Cloister, glad to leave the running of the negligible Liwellan Web to her granddaughter, dead this winter in a carriage accident with her daughters, the last two unmarried girls of the Name. Thus Alinar was coming to Ryka for a look at Taigan, on whom hope of the Liwellans’ survival depended.

  Alinar’s mother had died in 958, taking with her the secret of Sarra’s irregular membership in the family. There had been polite letters congratulating her at her marriage and at Taigan’s birth, acknowledging her yearly contribution to the Dower Fund, and announcing family marriages, births, and deaths—sometimes a year or more after the event, as the Liwellans were not a closely woven Web and communicated with each other only as strictly necessary.

  But now Lady Alinar had left The Cloister and was on her way to Ryka Court, wish
ing to inspect the last Liwellan daughter. Sarra sighed and wondered how soon she could push through legislation to permit transfer of a dying Name to a woman descended from that family through a male of the line. A third or fourth daughter could easily be spared from their mothers’ families to continue their fathers’ Name.

  Sarra had been fighting battles over inheritance laws her whole public life, first addressing the Council twenty years ago when Lady Agatine petitioned to make Sarra her heir. She’d felt guilty then over what she saw as robbery from the Slegin boys, and felt guiltier now over her false status as a Liwellan. And that wasn’t even considering what Taigan would say when she realized she was expected to breed up lots of daughters to replenish the Name. With another sigh, Sarra set Lady Alinar’s letter aside in favor of less troublesome correspondence.

  At Twelfth she was still working, and still alone in her suite. When the wall clock chimed the hour, she stretched, yawned, and decided she’d had enough and wanted some fresh air. After changing into casual trousers and shirt, she wandered the Council Gardens, pausing to admire the sunset. The sky was a hundred different shades of rose, to which a few downy clouds added accents of ruby-red and gold. Sarra sat for a time on a wooden bench, alone with her memories of how astonished Cailet had been when first shown these gardens, so wholly different from the bleak landscape of The Waste. She recalled, too, how much fun it had been introducing her little sister to the civilization and culture that The Waste so thoroughly lacked. Sarra still rebelled at circumstances that had forced an Ambrai, a granddaughter of Lady Allynis, to grow up in a provincial backwater without the education and privileges that would have given her confidence in herself. Operas, concerts, plays, books, restaurants, conversation—with wide-eyed relish Cailet devoured new experiences, as long as Sarra or Collan had been there to guide her through them. Even so, she always escaped as quickly as possible from Ryka Court, her shyness unable to support the attention the Mage Captal always attracted.

  Rising from the bench as dusk deepened, Sarra thought of returning to her suite—the air grew chilly with the evening breeze off the lake—but instead resumed her wandering. After a time she caught sight of a faint glow down by a copse of white poplar trees. A Mage Globe—and to judge by the pure silvery-white of the light, Cailet’s. As Sarra approached, she saw that Cailet was giving Josselin Mikleine a lesson in self-defense. Their audience was Taigan, Mikel, and Jored Karellos; as Sarra neared, Mikel turned and smiled, moving to one side on a stone bench to make room for her.

  She sat, glancing at her daughter and Jored on the opposite bench, and wondered if perhaps Taigan wouldn’t be so hostile after all to the idea of marriage and daughters. Then, with a mental admonishment not to be an interfering mother, she watched the lesson.

  Cailet took Josselin through several basic challenges and responses, using barely glowing Globes that held nothing of real power in them. It was more of a dance than a training session, the spheres glancing off each other, their light muted and mellow. Sarra was pleased to see that Cailet was relaxed and easy in her movements and her magic. Josselin was more tense, and after a time caught his lower lip between his teeth in the effort to concentrate.

  All at once one of his Globes burst in a shower of gold sparks, and he flinched back with a startled exclamation. Cailet’s Globe immediately extinguished, and she folded her arms and shook her head.

  “Stop thinking so hard,” she said. “Listen to your magic, let it anticipate for you.”

  “Yes, Captal,” the young man said, doubt shading his voice.

  “There’s a kind of rhythm to it, like swordskill,” Cailet went on. “But only the greatest are as one with their blades, whereas magic is always an expression of the self.”

  “The colors?” Josselin guessed.

  “Partly. They’re an indication of emotion and intent. That last one of yours was tinged with scarlet, which showed you were getting annoyed—but there was also a flash of muddy green and that meant you were getting tired.”

  Sarra, who had seen neither color, was impressed anew by her little sister.

  “I couldn’t relax into it,” Josselin admitted.

  Cailet shrugged. “If you had, you’d be capable of going on all night.”

  Sarra hid an untimely grin at the thought of the ribald reply Collan would make to that.

  Cailet turned, nodded to Sarra, then looked at each of the three other Prentices in turn. “Well? Who’s next?”

  Mikel sighed, got to his feet, let his cloak drop to the bench, and said, “Everybody stand back. I’m not very good at this yet.”

  “Why do you think the whole copse is Warded?” Cailet asked, smiling.

  Sarra saw in her son’s face that he didn’t know enough to know that Sarra should have paused at the Ward; only family could walk through each other’s spells so easily. She supposed that if anyone asked, Cailet would explain that even as she worked with Josselin, she’d sensed Sarra’s approach and adjusted the Ward accordingly.

  But that led Sarra to wonder how so many people had walked so freely through the Wards around Cailet’s rooms at Mage Hall that horrible night of St. Maidil’s. The Wards were keyed for Marra and Aidan, of course; Taigan and Mikel were family, though they didn’t know it; but what about Josselin and Jored?

  It hit her then, right in the stomach, twisting her in-sides: One of them is family. One of them is Glenin’s son.

  No. Impossible. But her instincts were screaming at her, so fiercely that she felt dizzy, ill, the small glowing spheres conjured by Cailet and Mikel suddenly so bright that her eyes burned.

  One of them is Glenin’s son. My nephew.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed with exquisite care. It didn’t help. Denial was frantic within her mind and heart.

  One of them destroyed Mage Hall. One of them killed all those people.

  She felt a terrible quaking begin deep inside her bones, and locked every muscle taut to prevent a convulsive shiver.

  One of them is courting my daughter.

  She forced her eyelids open, aware that someone was staring at her. Josselin stood by a tree, a bewildered frown shadowing his moonstone-gray eyes. Jored sat beside Taigan, and his eyes were wide open and silvery in the dusk and the glimmer of the Mage Globes.

  And at her breastbone, next to the tiny birthmark (“Where a Saint kissed you to start your heartbeat, Sasha love”), the little Globe Cailet had given her long ago was a shard of ice against her skin. She was in the presence of threatening magic and she didn’t know from whom it came. Despite her efforts, she did shiver, and the chill glass sphere trembled with the pounding of her heart.

  Then there was warmth around her shoulders. Jored had come to her side, and draped his cloak about her. She couldn’t thank him, couldn’t even look up at him. The warning cold at her breast was suddenly gone.

  Him? Or the other? Does Cailet know? Of course she knows, damn her! Why didn’t she say anything?

  “If I knew, I’d kill him.”

  She’s not certain which it is, any more than I am.

  Sarra made herself look at each young man. But as relentless as her instincts had been a few moments ago, now they were silent. And the little glass ornament beneath her shirt was only an ornament, warm now with the warmth of the cloak she clutched around her—certainly not with the warmth of her shivering body.

  Mikel begged off further instruction, claiming that if he tried one more time to increase the size of his Mage Globe without increasing its power, he’d incinerate himself—and, more vitally to the son of Collan Rosvenir, the brand new sleeved longvest Fa had given him. Cailet dismissed her Prentices with a smile and came to sit beside Sarra.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Sarra asked quietly when they were alone. “Which of them is it, Cai? Josselin or Jored?”

  Cailet stared into the blackening distance. “I don’t know.”

  “Which of them betrayed you, killed
all those people—which of them is Glenin’s son?”

  “I don’t know—not for certain, I can’t prove it—”

  “Proof?” Sarra gaped at her sister. “You suspect one of them, you’re sure in your own mind of which, I can see it in your face—and you’re waiting for proof?”

  Cailet leaped to her feet. “And what would you have me do? Would you order Vellerin Dombur assassinated for what you suspect she wants to do? Would you have us all return to the good old days she wants to bring back, when her ancestor had all rivals in the Dombur family killed because she suspected them of disloyalty?”

  “One of those men butchered Mages and Prentices and children—”

  “And one of them didn’t! What if I’m wrong? What if I suspect Jored, when it’s really Josselin? Or Joss, if it turns out to be Jored?”

  Sarra blanched when she heard which name Cailet spoke first. “Jored? Is he—? Cailet, Taigan’s half in love with him—”

  “I don’t know! I told you before—if I did know, I’d kill him!”

  Sarra tugged at the chain around her neck. Drawing the glass sphere from her shirt, she held it up in the darkness and said, “When I realized a little while ago who one of them must be, they both looked at me—and this turned to ice. Then Jored put his cloak around my shoulders, and the cold from this was gone.”

  “Is it him?” Cailet said for her. “Sensing your emotions because you’re his aunt, forming some kind of connection that triggered the Globe—and then severing it? Or was it Josselin, from a distance, feeling that you knew something—and then repressing his magic?”

  “It could be either,” Sarra replied numbly. “It could have happened either way.”

  “And now you see why I’m not sure which of them it is. I feel filthy suspecting either of them, even though I know it has to be one of them. I saw Josselin return early to Mage Hall that night. I didn’t see Jored do the same, and neither did Taigan—but that signifies nothing. They both survived. You’d expect that, of Glenin’s son.” She paced a few short, sharp steps, then spun around. “I taught them, Sarra—they sat with me beneath the oak and listened to me, questioned me, learned from me—and turned what they learned against me.”